Heinrich Gerlach - Breakout at Stalingrad

‘Ah well, you know what they say: “the best-laid plans of mice and men…”,’ replied the lieutenant.

‘And who knows,’ he went on, ‘the chief of staff might not have given his approval anyhow. The way things stand…’

‘Yes, very true!’ mused Breuer. ‘On which subject, what’s going on? What’s the point of this alarm?’

‘I still haven’t heard anything. Maybe it’s just a dummy run. Yesterday evening, all we got was a brief radio message from the Panzer Corps, telling us that as of twelve midnight today, the division’s under the command of the Eleventh Army Corps again.’

‘Strange,’ said the first lieutenant.

‘Coming back to the business about the intelligence officer position, though,’ continued Breuer, ‘I’m really sorry that nothing will come of it now in all likelihood. You know, I often find myself thinking of that glorious summer’s day in your bunker at Gorodishche, when you read us those poems by Hofmannsthal and Rilke.’

Hearing this, the lieutenant’s pale face took on a curious glow. Putting on a wistful smile that was not without a hint of self-parody, he recited:

‘You’re right,’ he went on. ‘It was a lovely day. I’ve just got a new volume of Rilke, as it happens. My fiancée sent it to me: Stories of God . Some of the poems are set in Russia. There’s a wonderful simple piety about them that reminds me of Tolstoy. It’s the kind of book that could make you very fond of the Russians. When we get a moment’s peace again, you should read it.’

‘That’s kind of you,’ said Breuer, happy to have completely forgotten by now his original reason for visiting the communications hut. ‘I know what you mean about Russia, my friend! As a boy I dreamed of the vast, virgin territory of this country. I always thought the only colours that could possibly be in the landscape here would be green and violet. How often back then I’d sit and imagine myself on the banks of the Volga…’

‘What a difference between our dreams and reality,’ replied the lieutenant, sadly. ‘Now we’re seeing the real Russia. And we’d give anything not to.’

Time was when the divisional HQ had had a proper infantry unit attached to it for its protection, which went by the proud name of ‘Staff Company’. The siege of Stalingrad, which didn’t allow for such luxuries, had rung the death knell for this institution. Since then, a rapid-response unit had been formed, comprising various clerks, foragers and orderlies who weren’t wholly ‘indispensable’ and who could therefore be called to arms in an emergency. That emergency had now come to pass for the first time. The unit of around eighty men had taken up position a couple of hundred metres outside the western exit of the village, on both sides of the road to Manoylin. The men, most of whom had only a nodding acquaintance with Prussian military discipline and a general aversion to handling weapons, had cursed long and loud at first about being roused from their night-time slumbers to engage in this stupid exercise, but soon fell silent when Sergeant Major Harras issued them with twenty live rounds per person and told them that the time had now finally come when even the ‘old pen-pushers’ would get a chance to show if they had the slightest element of the real soldier about them.

Captain Fackelmann, who had been a reserve lieutenant in the final months of the First World War and was the proprietor of a furniture shop in Wismar, had found neither the time nor the inclination to indulge in any further war games in the course of his peacetime profession, and so, at the outbreak of the current war, had found himself assigned to the third-class and little-respected class of ‘Officers Available for Deployment’. Extremely relieved that this categorization to some extent officially sanctioned his cluelessness regarding infantry warfare, the captain readily devolved all matters of military service to his ‘Master Sergeant in attendance’. The man who bore this inspired coinage of the Army High Command as his official designation of rank was none other than Sergeant Major Harras. Having left secondary school at seventh grade, he had signed up for a long spell of army service in the hope of becoming an officer. Although the peroxide-blond young man with an impressive athletic physique appeared to fulfil all the requirements to do so, he had twice failed the officers’ exam.

Nobody really knew why. When the war came, he counted on attaining the goal that he had long hankered after by virtue of his service at the front. Yet his attachment to Staff HQ had thwarted that plan too for the time being. All the same, Sergeant Major Harras still endeavoured to do what he could to approximate to his ideal. Accordingly, he sported elegant top boots, a pair of his own trousers with a suede trim and an officer’s peaked cap, from which he’d removed the silver braid. He had also taken to speaking in the clipped, somewhat nasal manner he thought was typical of officers. His constant cry of ‘Right, listen up, everyone!’, which he delivered in an affected drawl, had become something of a catchphrase at Staff HQ, and had earned him the nickname of ‘Lissnup’ among the lower ranks.

Harras now felt that his big moment had come. The opportunity he had long yearned for to distinguish himself through his courage and leadership had finally arrived. And so he appeared decked out in a polished steel helmet, a pair of field glasses, two hand grenades hitched to his belt, and clutching a machine-pistol. In a state of high excitement, he went up and down the rows of men, shining his torch and dispensing last-minute words of advice.

‘Listen up! No one opens fire without an order, right? Sit tight and let the enemy come on to us, till they’re about twenty, thirty metres away, and then give them everything you’ve got! And when they start running, then it’s time to fix bayonets and get after ’em!’

All of a sudden, he stopped dead, his eyes growing wide in astonishment.

‘Where’s your bayonet, you waste of space?’ Lakosch – who up till then had been crouching down, seemingly totally absorbed in tinkering with his machine gun – looked up vacantly and then got slowly to his feet. Looking completely swamped in his oversized greatcoat, with a thick woollen scarf wrapped round his head, he blinked at the sergeant’s torch with the stupidest of looks on his face.

‘I, I…,’ he began, before being overcome by a coughing fit. ‘I, that is to say… it’s in the car, Sergeant, sir!’

‘Oh, right, in the car, is it?’ said Harras, drawing out every word. ‘Of course, you’re one of the lah-di-dah chauffeurs from the motor pool, aren’t you? Well, you sad specimen, you’re in the infantry now, do you hear?’ he suddenly roared at Lakosch. ‘An infantryman – any idea what that means? The infantry is the spearhead of the army! An infantryman without a bayonet – unheard of! Report to me tomorrow morning in the orderlies’ office. You can reckon on three days’ fatigue duties for this!’

He noted the misdemeanour in his dreaded notebook, a reddish-brown calfskin pad he always kept wedged between the breast buttons of his greatcoat, and moved on down the line. Lakosch, sinking back down into the snow, muttered an audible ‘Bonehead!’ and went back to testing the bolt on his machine gun. He was one of the few men in the unit who had done a crash course on this weapon, and so Harras had entrusted him with one of two MG 34 light machine guns issued to the Staff HQ. The ‘second gunner’, who fed in the gun’s ammo belt, was Geibel. He’d only been conscripted ten weeks ago from his shop in Chemnitz and, following eight days of basic training at the relief battalion, he’d been transferred straight to the divisional Staff HQ. Geibel didn’t know one end of a machine gun from the other.