Bob Carruthers - Into the Gates of Hell - Stug Command '41

As the aircraft touched down and drew to a halt, a figure in a long leather coat got out of the waiting Mercedes and purposefully walked towards it. Despite the fact that he wore no uniform, there was something in the deportment of the man that marked him out as a policeman of some sort. RSHA Kriminalassistent Walter Lehmann advanced purposefully towards the plane. The pilot did not dismount. He tossed Lehmann a document pouch. Without exchanging a single word, Lehmann got back into the car. The driver immediately started the engine and the car sped off on the short journey towards central Berlin and the Gestapo headquarters on Prinz-Albert Strasse.

Dimitri Korsak lay in the ooze of the river bank as he waited for the long summer’s day to end. When darkness came he would have a chance to slip out from his hiding place and begin the long journey eastwards. With the feeling of victory in the air, the German attackers had relaxed their vigilance and it had been relatively straightforward to slip out of the citadel and into the reeds by the river. All he had to do now was stay low and wait. In a few hours’ time the sun would be gone and the short summer night would begin, bringing with it the concealment which would allow him to escape from the grip of events and start the next phase of his life.

All day long, as he lay hidden in the reeds, he had witnessed the dispiriting sight of groups of Soviet soldiers being led out from the fortress then formed into small groups and marched away northwards. Some of these men were terribly wounded. Some reeked of the noxious smell of gangrenous wounds. All were gaunt and emaciated. Their sunken eyes spoke of the torments they had undergone and time and again he heard their plaintive requests for voda ignored. This was the cruellest trick of all, as these dehydrated and broken men were tortured by their desperate need to refresh themselves from the river Mukhavets, which could be seen and smelled, sparkling tantalisingly in the summer sunlight. The river flowed softly by, only yards away from the parched and desperate men who were demented with thirst.

During the course of that long day in hiding he had looked on in horror as scenes of casual brutality were played out before his eyes. Four bodies scattered on the ground near his hiding place bore mute testament to the awful scenes he had witnessed.

Earlier in the day, an ageing cook had tottered by, unsteady on his feet, as he tried desperately to walk along with the group. Korsak remembered him as one of the brave defenders of the citadel who had manned a machine-gun post until the ammunition had been exhausted and a splinter from a German mortar bomb had ripped into his back, tearing his liver and intestines. The man urgently needed surgery, but instead he was being forced to jog along with a group of men. Eventually, he could do no more and had collapsed to the ground and refused to rise.

An order had obviously gone out instructing the men escorting the prisoners to show no mercy and to take immediate retribution if there was the slightest infraction. The German guards had no hesitation in battering his brains out with the butts of their rifles. The cook’s body lay only a few metres from his hiding place and the scent of blood in the warm summer air had soon attracted a swarm of flies. Korsak then watched in horror, struck with morbid fascination, as a raven had descended and begun to feed on the bloody pulp of the luckless man’s brains that had been dashed onto the river bank.

Another man had been shot in the back of the neck when he had fallen to his knees and failed to rise in time to please the guards.

A new group emerged from the gates and, if anything, they were in an even worse condition. A young man was holding a useless arm that was strapped to his side and his face was horribly mutilated. His teeth and jaw were exposed to the elements by a horrible gash caused by a bomb splinter that had carved away the skin and flesh from his face. The youngster was clearly delirious and the pus-ridden wound suggested that, if he did not receive medical care soon, he was unlikely to survive.

The youngster was suffering beyond the limits of human tolerance and the waters of the Mukhavets were obviously too tantalising. Suddenly, the wounded man broke ranks and made a faltering dash for the river. He had not gone more than a few steps when he was felled by the swinging butt of a German rifle. The man fell heavily to the ground, about a metre from Korsak’s hiding place. The young man’s breath could be heard escaping from his tortured body as he thudded to the ground.

Then, to Korsak’s horror, their eyes met and, seeing the shock of white hair, the desperate young man called out to him. “Grandfather! Help me, grandfather!”

Korsak had no time to react. A guard was soon on the young man and a bullet ended his misery. The young man’s blood sprayed onto Korsak, who cowered down into the reeds, but it was hopeless. The guard immediately discovered Korsak and his hiding place.

“What’s this? Come out of there, old man,” barked the guard.

Korsak had no option but to give himself up.

“Fall in with the others.”

Korsak, who was fortunately fluent in the language, was quick to obey.

Then began a living nightmare, as the exhausted prisoners were forced to move at the double along the dusty road. Tortured by thirst, exhausted and suffering from untreated and infected wounds, the men barely had the strength to walk. The dropout rate was high. The instant and brutal response was always the same. A swift bullet to the back of the neck or a rifle butt used as a club to dash out the poor unfortunate’s brain.

As they proceeded along the road to hell, Korsak saw in the distance a long column of vehicles headed towards them. The guards swiftly pushed the prisoners off the road and they stood gasping for breath as the column slowly approached. At the head of the column was a battered half-track. Korsak instantly recognised the commander. It was Hans von Schroif. Korsak averted his face to avoid being recognised, but he needn’t have troubled himself. His white hair and tortured countenance made him unrecognisable when compared to the man, then known as Wilhelm Stenner, who had served alongside von Schroif at KAMA.

Following the half-track was a line of battle scarred Sturmgeschütze. They were loaded down with every type of equipment and supply item. This far behind the lines, the crews were in relaxed mode. Only the drivers were in their positions. Despite the clouds of dust, the others rode along on top of the vehicles, enjoying the hot summer sun.

As the first of the StuGs approached the prisoners, the driver picked out Korsak from the chastened group at the road side.

“Hey, Knispel, it’s your white devil!”

There was no time for Knispel to do more than make a dismissive gesture. “I hope you rot in hell!” was his passing shout as the StuG rumbled past.

The truth was that Korsak was already in hell. Defeated, exhausted, tortured by thirst and suffering pangs of hunger, he and his comrades were driven along dust-choked roads towards some distant prisoner of war camp.

Hans von Schroif and the remainder of the battalion were headed south, towards the railhead. Away to the distant south, the old division waited, and there were new battles to be joined. As the Steppe unfurled itself out in front of him, he could not help but remember the Führer’s words. “The world will hold its breath.” Well, now Germany had exhaled, the might and power of this giant breath rolling across hundreds of miles of Soviet territory, sweeping all before it.

Hans von Schroif drew in a deep breath of sweet early-morning summer air, but at precisely the moment it began to fill his lungs, he was overcome by a sense of foreboding. Had they committed the cardinal sin of underestimating the enemy? What gargantuan tasks lay ahead of them in this huge land? What kind of foe were they preparing to meet?