One should not
fight dictators, one should ridicule them.
Bertold Brecht
Chapter 9
The Beginning of the End
King and I went back to our unit, and arrived on January 27, 1944 in Aluksne, Latvia.
In February, while I was on duty at the central wireless receiving station, I left the receiver for no more than one minute to get some cigarettes next door. Captain Herrgot walked in and found the receiver unmanned and chewed me out right on the spot. He said that it was guard duty negligence, and I would have to face disciplinary action.
In the clink with “Mein Kampf”
I was sentenced to five days of solitary confinement with bread and water. Per regulation I could have faced court-martial if I had endangered the security of the troops. As was military custom in those days I was allowed to take one of two books with me, either the Bible, or Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”. Since I had never read “Mein Krampf”, as it was secretly referred to (meaning “my cramp” instead of “my fight”), I opted for that. My opinion had always been that Hitler’s Kampf was my Krampf.
When I got into the cell I counted the number of pages, and divided them by five to determine how many pages of that “Krampf” I had to read every day. The company chief might question me about it, so I had to be careful.
When I came out of confinement I knew for sure that the Austrian paintbrush swinger (Hitler), by underground propaganda often referred to as “Painter Schickelgruber” (the maiden name of his mother), was a psychotic maniac. Hitler was an illegitimate child, who was adopted when his mother married a man by the name of Hitler. His book was the worst trash I had ever read. Thank God nobody questioned me about it.
On February 26, 1944, I was sent out to join Oberleutnant Koiky’s group again, which was at the Army Group Narva in Jöhvi, Estonia. That assignment didn’t last long, and the group moved to the 270th Infantry Division in Mereäre, Estonia. Then we joined the battle group Berlin for the battle around the town of Narva. We moved into a log house village that housed the staff of this battle group, comprised of several divisions.
We set up our communications van inside the circle of buildings, to remotely operate the transmitter for the two-way voice communication with Ju 87 Stukas, which were on their way to bomb a Russian bridgehead across the Narva River.
Instant trouble, just a malfunction away
Gerhard and I heard the aircraft formation approach, and I tried to activate our transmitter. The aircraft couldn’t hear us, but we could hear the aircraft. It took a few minutes to realize that there was something wrong with our transmitter. I climbed on the roof of the van, and held a small neon bulb next to the transmitter antenna. The bulb glowed, indicating the antenna radiated the carrier frequency. That was strange, because the transmitter radiated even though we had not activated the mike button at the end of the remote cable.
I told Gerhard to shut the transmitter off immediately, because our constant transmission disturbed the frequency of the Stukas overhead. Gerhard did that, and was just coming out of the van, when a Russian shell exploded about 20 feet away, right inside the circle of blockhouses. I had heard it coming and like a Pavlovian dog I had ducked between the full gasoline canisters on top of the van. I could hear the shrapnel pieces whistling by. Luck had it that none went through me or the gasoline canisters and I was off that roof in seconds.
I saw Gerhard collapsed and groaning on the ground in front of the van. Alfred, the driver of the van came running and together we carried Gerhard inside the blockhouse. A few more rounds landed nearby, and we all went to the floor. We checked Gerhard’s wound, and could see that a shrapnel piece went sideways through his abdomen. Within 15 minutes an ambulance was there, apparently one of the generals had called them.
I was ordered to take over the van, and I quickly rolled up the coaxial cable we used to remote the transmitter with. After the coaxial cable was disconnected, everything went back to normal. As I examined the cable inch by inch over the 30 foot length, I discovered that a tiny shrapnel piece had embedded itself in the cable. It shorted the cable and activated the transmitter. The short in the cable had the same effect as if the microphone button had been pushed to activate the transmitter.
The constant transmitter output had provided an ideal target for Russian surveillance receivers to pinpoint our transmitter. That they had been able to direct their artillery fire so quickly and precisely surprised us. We never gave the Russians much credit for electronics warfare, but this proved us wrong. I realized that the same thing might have happened during the battle south of Lake Ladoga, when we got plastered by Russian artillery rounds.
On March 27, the group transferred again, to the XLIII Army Corps, located first in Kohtla-Järve, and later in Kahala. Here we moved onto an Estonian family farm. It was almost peaceful.
Woyli and his wife Ursula had a baby, and an attractive niece about 14 years old. Woyli farmed, and we helped him when we had time. In return we got milk and occasionally eggs and a chicken. The van was parked parallel and about two feet away from their house wall, partially camouflaged by big trees in the yard. The weather was getting better and spring was around the corner, but there was still snow on the ground. We were quite a distance from the Army Corps headquarters, got along well with our Estonian hosts, and officer Koiky was stationed far away. We hardly saw him, we did our work and the war seemed far away.
We were sitting outside one day soaking up the sun when we heard an airplane high overhead. The 8,8 cm flak, which was at a nearby airport, opened fire immediately, which was unusual. We stayed in our folding chairs and watched. The flak failed to shoot him down. The plane disappeared and the scene turned tranquil again. Suddenly I noticed a persistent sound, at an unaccustomed frequency. I told Walter to shut up, and we both listened intensely. I got up with a strange, uneasy feeling. The sound persisted and gradually increased in volume. I walked up to the van entrance, and Walter followed me. The sound was now much louder and the pitch much lower. I recognized now what it was and dove under the van and yelled at Walter to duck too. A split second later we heard the impact of a large piece of metal hitting the ground, where Walter had stood just a second ago. It was a hot and jagged piece of steel torn from the 8,8 flak shells that had been fired at the Russian aircraft. Walter took the piece for a souvenir, and said, “Thanks Hans, you saved my life.”
The next night we heard low level aircraft noise, and a string of heavy explosions moving in our direction. We ran to the doorway with our Estonian hosts. The last of several bombs fell about 100 feet from our van on the other side and shook the whole house. What looked like a twin engine bomber pulled up above us finishing his low level bombing run. Most of the bombs had fallen on the airfield and caused considerable damage. We checked our van and found shrapnel holes in the side that faced the nearest bomb crater.
The beginning of the end?
During the night shifts when I was alone I scanned other frequencies, when not busy on our frequency. I came upon a very strong transmission in Morse code. Encoded messages are in equally long groups, this one wasn’t. The strange call letters were “abc”, followed by the customary string of Vs, and it was machine keyed at a high speed, at least 140 words per minute.
I had one hell of a time following and writing it. I realized it was clear text, but in English. I wrote as fast as I could, but lost words and sentences here and there. When it ended, it was repeated and I filled in most gaps. After working at it for a while, it became clear what it was. A press release about the landings of allied troops in Normandy, France. The date was June 7, 1944!
The next morning I told the men that I had “accidentally” picked up a message and didn’t know what to do with it. When I told them what the message said, it hit like a bomb. Should I tell Oberleutnant Koiky and face a possible court marshal? I couldn’t make up my mind. Then I thought of some bullshit I was going to give him. We had a spare receiver in the van, and I set it up and tuned in the frequency that I had heard the signal on. I wasn’t successful, but after stringing a better antenna, the signal was readable. Now they couldn’t get me for taking the main receiver off the network during my shift.
I then I went on the field telephone and told Koiky that I had heard a clear text message close to our own frequency and what it said. For a moment there was silence at the other end which made me damn nervous, but then Koiky said, “Oh my God, that is the beginning of the end.” I only said, “ Yes, sir.” Koiky passed the information on to the commanding general, who had not heard of any landings. Two hours later it was confirmed over the radio by the German High Command.
On July 19 we left this idyllic location for a new assignment and soon rolled towards an area west of Daugavpils in Latvia. The Russians were trying to cut us off again and to break through to the Baltic Sea.
For the next four to five weeks we changed location every few days, sometimes daily. The Russian’s forward momentum encouraged the partisans to step up their activities too. Our group adhered strictly to the rule that everyone had to knock on the door of the van, wait for the crew on duty to lift the drawn curtains, look out, and identify the person. Inside the van weapons were at the ready.
One day the dumbbell driver opened the door suddenly and found himself looking at the muzzle of my automatic, with my finger on the trigger. That really shook the driver up. Had I been a split second slower in recognizing him, he would have been dead, and that taught everybody a lesson.
At our next stop, again quartered on a farm, the farmer told us that he had evidence of partisan activity in the vicinity of his property. Koiky sent me and two other men out to investigate. That was stupid, because it could have been a setup for an ambush. We went out armed with submachine guns and took the farmer with us, to preclude possible surprises. The farmer led us on a narrow path through a wooded area with heavy underbrush on either side. Suddenly there was noise in the underbrush. “Who’s there?” I hollered, and got no answer, then heard more rustling in the underbrush. I fired a series of shots from my MP38 in that general direction. The answer now came loud and clear, and it sounded “Moooooh”. I had shot a cow hidden in the brush that happened to belong to the farmer walking with us. He had hidden his livestock in the forest, to keep it from being confiscated by the German army. One of my shots went right through the cow’s neck. A damn good aim without actually seeing the target. I was embarrassed because I was so quick on the trigger, but we were all up tight in situations like that. The cow was gushing blood. The farmer took the cow home immediately, and it survived.
The group then proceeded to see what evidence of partisan activity we could find. We found a fairly recent cross on what looked like a grave. We could not tell if this was real, or had other meaning.
Another plot bungled
The German westward retreat continued, and things got pretty congested at times, because of the masses of equipment and people that threaded west through a narrow passage around Riga. When my van stopped along a highway near Riga, I heard via radio about the assassination attempt on Hitler. This news spread like wildfire through the troops who were making a fast, and orderly westward retreat out of Estonia. I remember a senior army colonel coming to the open door of my van and asking if the assassination attempt he had heard was true. I said, "Yes", and handed him headphones so he could listen to the radio. He was sitting by the door, while I was sitting in front of the electronic panels with the receivers and transmitters. I was watching his facial expressions, trying to determine how he felt. His face remained expressionless throughout the entire broadcast. Who knows, he could have been an officer who was involved in the plot. I couldn't understand why the assassination was unsuccessful. All these upper echelon guys in the military were totally incompetent. They couldn’t even kill Hitler at point blank range. It was unbelievable.
The Russians had almost broken through to the Baltic Sea west of Riga near Tukkums. A successful breakthrough would have meant encirclement for about half a million (my guess) German soldiers still in Estonia. However the Russians couldn’t hang on to their gains. They were driven back far enough to allow a continuing fast German retreat westward, into Latvia and possibly into Eastern Prussia.
During July the top commander of the German Northern front, General Lindemann, was replaced by General Friessner, who was then replaced by Field Marshal Schörner.
We soon called Schörner the “Polit-Commissar,” for his Russian style leadership. He showed up everywhere, demoting incompetent officers, or even having them executed on the spot. His driver, the saying went, always had two uniforms with him. One with the rank insignia of a corporal, and the other one with the insignia of a master sergeant, because he was constantly demoted and promoted.
Hitler had rounded up all the old professional Army Generals and everyone else who had possibly been involved in the conspiracy and the assassination attempt. We never heard an exact number, but the BBC broadcasts mentioned that several thousand had been rounded up and executed. Many of the well-known Generals, such as Rommel and von Kluge, committed suicide.
On July 24, 1944 the order came to no longer give the military salute, but to give the Nazi salute, and say, “Heil Hitler”, as an expression of loyalty to the Führer.
Ursus ante portas
By the end of July 1944 the Russian troops were approaching the old German border in East Prussia, while the German 16th and 18th Armies were still hanging on to Latvia. Finally about the 7th of August there was a stabilization of the German forces along the entire northern Front. The Russians had made so much headway that they couldn’t supply their frontline troops. They were consolidating their lines, while the Germans were pressing them hard, to keep them out of Lithuania, Latvia and western Estonia.
Then there was more bad news. On the 4th of September Finland ceased military activities against Russia, opening up the Baltic Sea to the Russian navy. In the west the American forces also reached the German border.
In the next few weeks the entire 16th and 18th German armies, about 300,000 men, including my unit, retreated southwest past the city of Riga. The 13th Russian Army of the Leningrad front tried again and again to break through to the Baltic Sea to encircle parts of us. The area around Riga had been fortified, and after the bulk of the German armies had retreated past Riga, heavy rear guard fighting took place there.
Besieged in Courland
On the 10th of October, the Russians finally succeeded in breaking through to the Baltic Sea, but about 150 miles farther west than expected, near the city of Memel. This sealed off the land bridge to Germany for the 16th and 18th Armies. Irony of ironies, we now had moved from the siege of Leningrad to being besieged in Courland, a province of Latvia.
About 300,000 German soldiers were trapped in northern Latvia even though a breakthrough to the west would have been possible. Hitler’s lunatic orders to hold the present position at any price forced Schörner to order a defense in Courland and prepare for a hole-up effort there. If Schörner would have had any guts, he could have overruled Hitler’s order and ordered the Army Group North to continue westward into Eastern Prussia. Hitler wasn’t in any position to prevent that and couldn’t have done anything to stop such a move. The whole eastern front was already in a state of collapse, but Hitler refused to believe it.
SBN 1-89-634-05-0, Printed in U.S.A. Copyright 1999 by Hugelwilhelm Publishing Co. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages.