Stephen Fritz - Frontsoldaten

In that moment, so close to death, I was seized by a rush of terror so powerful that I felt my mind was cracking. Trapped by the weight of earth, I began to howl like a madman…. The sense that one has been buried alive is horrible beyond the powers of ordinary language…. At that moment, I suddenly understood the meaning of all the cries and shrieks I had heard on every battlefield. 65

Confronted with such elemental fright, even a combat veteran like Sajer succumbed to the force of sheer terror.

Not only individuals but whole units could be paralyzed by the savage power of an artillery or aerial bombardment. “The incredibly heavy artillery and mortar fire of the enemy is something new for seasoned veterans,” reported the Second Panzer Divsion in Normandy: “The assembly of troops is spotted immediately by enemy reconnaissance aircraft and smashed by bombs and artillery…; and if, nevertheless, the attacking troops go forward, they become involved in such dense artillery and mortar fire that heavy casualties ensue…. During the barrage the effect on the inexperienced men is literally soul-shattering. The best results have been obtained by platoon and section commanders leaping forward and uttering a good old-fashioned yell. We have also revived the practice of bugle calls.” 66Against the stress of artillery or air attack and the sense of helplessness and panic, blaring bugles and bellowing commanders served to boost the Landser ’s spirit, stiffen his courage, and bolster morale—archaic human responses to the frightful destruction of modern battle.

Eventually, of course, many a Landser ’s luck ran out, and he unwillingly contributed to the otherwise impersonal casualty statistics; the longer a man was in combat, the more assuredly would he fall wounded. In this agonizing moment, as metal tore into one’s own flesh and the pain and fear pierced one’s soul, the personal nature of the war—which perhaps up to now meant watching comrades die or coping with individual anxieties, reduced itself to the bare essentials. Seeing a friend die, as Siegfried Knappe admitted, “brought the utter destructiveness of war home,” but being wounded himself meant that “my own mortality became a part of my mind-set from that moment on.” Some Landsers however, displayed a curious detachment when hit. Knappe himself remembered that on being wounded for the first time, he thought, rather ridiculously, “The [enemy] machine gunner was obviously a good shot.” More than a year later in Russia, hit a second time, Knappe’s first reaction was simply, “so I am lucky, …glad to be wounded and out of the fighting, and especially to be out of the horrible Russian winter.” Similarly, Hans Woltersdorf, wounded for the second time, prayed “that if my leg was hit, it would be the left one, which was not of much use to me anyway”; he added laconically, “My prayer was answered.” Wounded and untended, Martin Pöppel reflected, “Left alone like that, you find yourself having stupid thoughts. Should I pray? For Christ’s sake no: I never needed the Lord before, so I’m not going to bother Him now.” Even as the initial shock began to wear off, to be replaced by agonizing pain, a Landser might maintain that sense of disengagement. During his evacuation, listening to the other wounded talk of their experiences, Knappe realized that he was observing them as a scientist might an experiment, that he was hoping “to learn how the human mind tries to cope with the horrors of combat.” 67

Although a Landser might realize rationally that the quicker the evacuation, the better his chances of survival, the actual process of being sent to the rear could itself bring excruciating pain and suffering. “The trip to Vyazma was approximately 120 kilometers,” remembered Knappe of his second medical evacuation. “Nine of us were in the bed of the truck…. Over frozen ground, it was a cold, jolting, painful ride…. By the time I was put aboard an ambulance train…, I already had lice under my bandage, a terrible experience.” A hospital train offered scant improvement. Hans Woltersdorf recalled being among wounded men who were

crowded together like sardines in the cattle car…. There were moans, groans, and whimpers in that car; the smell of pus, urine, stomach and lung wounds, and it was cold. We lay on straw, each of us covered only by a woollen blanket. The train waited for hours on sidings.

After many days a doctor finally came crawling breathlessly into our car. He had long ago given up reacting to the many wishes, pleas, and complaints, indeed listening to them at all, and he concentrated on his task of distinguishing the nearly dead from the still alive, making room for new wounded, and changing dressings only when it was necessary. In my case it was necessary.

“I’m afraid we have no chloroform,” he said. “Grit your teeth.”

Then he tore the whole septic kit and caboodle from my stump in one go…. [I] imagined a leg amputation in the Middle Ages to be something like that.

His left lower leg amputated, Josef Paul endured a variety of modes of torturous transportation in the process of being evacuated back to a hospital in Germany, first being put on an airplane, then loaded onto a medical train that was under constant fighter attack, after which he found himself on a horse-drawn cart, then back on a medical train; all this only to be overtaken, captured by the Russians, and sent to a Soviet prisoner of war camp. 68

Perhaps the greatest agony for the wounded was the fear of being left behind during a retreat, of dying unrecognized, unburied, unfound—or, even if found in time, of the rescue operation being overrun. Claus Hansmann has left a poignant and vivid description of the human workings and emotions involved in a frantic effort to evacuate the fallen. “Where was the cheerful train that we had often imagined, where were the laughing comrades at the windows, the last jokes about the lost horrors of Russia, the common delousing at the border?” he puzzled. “Where was all this? Dark cattle cars in whose straw feverish wounded groaned…. Thoughts gnaw into our innermost being.” As the wounded were literally carried out of harm’s way, Hansmann took note of a “murdered wood: stumps and gnarled roots, cold stalks tower bone pale and murky in the dampness…. As far as the eye can see… only this sinister feeling of oppressiveness…. Here the brutal reality of war seized for the first time a young heart.” 69

Darkness brought no relief from the torment. “Night… where the battle writhes in our blood. It shrieks like a storm in us…. Sleep, startled awake, someone gives us an injection, bandages, tablets, and something to drink…. Full of despair the feelings vacillate in us…. Where the wounds are can be healed, yet these scars will also still desecrate.” With these wounds to his soul fresh and burning, Hansmann continued his feverish ruminations:

Are you awake? Are you dreaming? On the ground there is an enormous shuddering, and… the pain presses in wild waves…. You want to raise your head…. Your head rolls weakly to the side, and your mouth opens, your tongue seeking cool drops on your bearded lips….

Someone carries you on a stretcher…. Slowly distant impressions sink into your consciousness: the crunching of footsteps, voices, the smell of soldier’s coats, the room, which had seemed infinite, narrows. But what are these men saying? This damned fog! If you could only understand these sounds…. That must be Russian they are speaking above you!… You are so cold and clammy, can just raise your head over the edge of the stretcher, then your whole stomach seems to spring up and you are practically nauseous…. Finally you hear, “Well, are you doing better?” Yet you still can’t answer…. Then you’re already asleep again.