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  “Certain, yes. They are marching off into captivity, it’s on the news from Berlin. They’re playing those Wagner tunes with the announcements, you know, the funeral marches. It’s terrible.”

  I shook him off and went into my compartment. Von Betternich looked up.

  “Stalingrad?”

  I nodded. “Yes, Sir, apparently they’ve surrendered.”

  “Of course they have, what else could they do?”

  I looked at him astonished. “They could have fought on like German soldiers.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Without food, without ammunition, in thirty degrees below zero with no warm clothing, how would they do that?”

  “But Reichsminister Goering assured them that he would keep them supplied by air.”

  He smiled. “Then it would seem that the Reichsminister was not telling them the whole truth, would it not?”

  I thought it wisest not to reply.

  As the train rolled eastwards it started to get very cold, the train was heated but it wasn’t enough to cope with the plummeting temperatures. Even with my greatcoat on and inside the heated compartment I was shivering, I began to understand the kind of problem they had faced in Stalingrad. And in Kharkov, perhaps, the new post where I was taking up my first command. Three times the train had to stop and wait in a siding while westbound trains passed us, all of them carrying casualties, thousands, tens of thousands of casualties, a tidal wave of human misery that had been generated by the Russian steamroller. Von Betternich didn’t look at me once while they rolled past, he didn’t need to. Without seeing a single shot fired, I was getting a firsthand glimpse of the progress of the war on the Russian Front. Finally, the train stopped at a small wayside station that had been converted into a military transit camp, I got off the train and stepped into my first experience of the Russian snows. It was the SD officer’s destination too, I took down his leather case for him. He followed me, treading carefully in the snow with his walking cane. A soldier was waiting for him with a staff car flying the pennants of an SS Gruppenfuhrer, a Major General, von Betternich climbed in and was driven away. I looked around, unsure of where to go. It was chaos everywhere, a squadron of Tiger tanks was parked nearby under clumps of trees. There was a group of tents, that housed the soldiers who guarded the station in the middle of this freezing waste, the poor devils. I was surrounded by a seething mass of soldiers, what the hell was I to do, where was I to go? But as I hunted around in confusion, I heard a voice calling. “Untersturmfuhrer Hoffman, Second Battalion, Deutschland Regiment, where are you, Sir?”

  I looked around to see an SS NCO, an Oberschutze, calling my name.

  “Here, over here,” I waved desperately, trying to make myself seen over the roiling mass of uniformed soldiers. His eyes settled on me and he came over.

  “Oberschutze Karl-Heinz Voss, Sir, I’ve brought you a lift to Regimental Headquarters.”

  There was no salute, no ceremony, he just grabbed my kitbag and walked off at a fast pace, I had to rush to catch up with him. He led the way to a Kubelwagen and threw my kitbag in the back.

  “Jump in, Sir, HQ is about two kilometres away, you’ll need to hold on tight, the track is pretty bumpy.”

  I climbed in and stared at him. He was one of Reichsfuhrer Himmler’s elite troopers, a Waffen SS corporal. He was supposed to be the best of the best, the toughest, the fittest of our German racial elite. He didn’t look it. He was very thin and he looked half-starved. He was also unshaven and wore wire-framed glasses, his hair was long and greasy, unkempt. His uniform tunic was ragged, ripped and repaired in several places and clipped to the windshield of the Kubi was a very non-standard Soviet PPSh submachine gun. I recognised it from basic training, when we were shown a variety of captured enemy weapons. His uniform trousers were also non-standard, made of baggy, black leather tucked into what looked like paratroopers lace-up jump boots. In his belt, he carried no less than two pistols in open holsters, like a cowboy from one of those American films. He was like a creature from that Fritz Lang movie Metropolis. I was about to ask him about his appearance when all hell broke loose. He’d leaned forward to start the engine when a siren started to wail, voices shouted. The Flak cannons on the train started to fire, soldiers were running in fear and confusion, diving for cover, exhaust smoke appeared around the Tiger tanks in the nearby wood as they started their engines.

  “Get out, get out!” Voss shouted. I was reaching for my kitbag when he dragged me out of the jeep and I followed him as he ran for the cover of some nearby heavy balks of railroad timber. As I threw myself down beside him, the first bomb exploded and I heard an aircraft engine revving hard to climb after its bombing run, I looked up and the next aircraft was already banking towards us to make its own attack.

  “Sturmoviks,” Voss told me. I nodded, understanding that he meant the Ilyushin Il-2 ground-attack aircraft that we’d learned about. The Il-2 was produced by the Soviets in vast quantities, it was certainly the single most common aircraft on the Russian Front, but we’d been told that they were no match for any of our fighters.

  “Where are our aircraft, the Luftwaffe?”

  He laughed. “Tied up somewhere else I expect, Sir. There are just too many of these Sturmoviks and we don’t have enough fighters to deal with them.”

  Another bomb dropped nearby, then a third that hit one of the carriages of the train. Dozens of men were sheltering underneath it and when the sound of the aero engines had died away, I heard their screams distinctly.

  “Corporal, we should go and help those men.”

  “You do that and you’ll die,” he snapped at me as if I was a stupid child. He held onto my tunic but I threw him off to run to help the wounded, just as all three of the Sturmoviks came back in for a strafing pass, bullets hammered all the way along the train and around the station. One of the Flak guns scored a hit and a Soviet aircraft blew up in mid-air, but the others finished their attack, raking the ground with machine gun and cannon fire, then they flew away. I could still hear one or two screams, but they were fainter. They died out completely.

  “I think they’ve gone, we need to get to HQ, Sir.”

  “Yes.”

  I felt like a fool, if I’d run to the train I would have been killed. Voss understood what I was thinking.

  “They do that, Sir, drop the bombs and then come back in to machine gun the rescuers.”

  I got in the Kubi and Voss started up and drove away from the wreckage of the station. We bumped along country lanes, past two Field Police points where we both had to show our papers to grim faced Feldgendarmerie, resplendent in their silver gorgets. Both times we were waved on and soon we arrived at the chaos of SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment Deutschland. It was also the church and monastery of St Basil's, we were outside the town of Korenevo a few kilometres west of Kursk.

  The commanding officer, Standartenfuhrer Werner Brandt had little time for me. His office was just inside the front door of the monastery, I clicked my heels and gave an immaculate salute, ‘Heil Hitler’, as regulations demanded, then stood waiting. He gave me a friendly wave. I’d been told he was thirty-five years old, he looked more like fifty, he was wearing field grey uniform trousers and a camouflage pattern jacket. The reversible kind that could be turned inside out to display the white surface on the outside for winter fighting. On his head he wore a Schiff, the side cap that all ranks of Army and SS troops sometimes wore as a more casual alternative to the regulation headgear. He carried an Erma, the MP38 machine pistol, slung over his chest and half a dozen spare ammunition pouches festooned on his belt. He displayed no visible rank insignia, which I thought strange.

  “We’re not big on formalities here, Hoffman. I’d cut that ‘Heil Hitler’ stuff if I were you, it’s out of favour here, you see.”

  Did he mean the salute, or the Fuhrer? I thought it best not to ask.

  “I’ve sent for your platoon senior NCO, Scharfuhrer Willy Mundt. I’m afraid your unit is detailed to carry out a reconnaissance mi
ssion, we’re mounting a counterattack first thing in the morning and I need your men to do some scouting for us. Don’t worry, Mundt will show you the ropes, can you handle it?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  He nodded. “Good, you jump off at two am. Dismissed.”

  I went to salute, then gave a more conventional army salute. It seemed strange, I had understood that joining SS Deutschland Regiment was an honour, I was to become part of an elite, crack unit of Panzer Grenadiers. I’d had visions of ranks of immaculately turned out troops, weapons, uniforms and equipment all smart and gleaming. Instead, I felt as if I had arrived in a partisans’ camp. The mixture of weapons and clothing was incredible, much of it wouldn’t have been out of place in a Russian unit. Scharfuhrer Willy Mundt nodded a greeting as I went outside, he was standing in the snow chatting to a trooper who glanced at me and then went on talking. Like Voss, he was anything but smartly turned out, an ill-fitting tunic with an old blanket wrapped around his shoulders, trousers patched with pieces of leather and jackboots covered with strips of some kind of animal fur. His face was hard, dark, etched with the experiences of a hard life, or maybe that was just too much time spent fighting on the Eastern Front. His eyes were squinted half-closed as if against the glare of the snow, when he looked at me they appeared to be empty of emotion, empty of soul. All at once I felt irritated, maybe he’d had some hard fighting here but it was time to get a grip on my first command.

  “Scharfuhrer, don’t you salute an officer when he approaches?” I said sharply.

  He grinned. “Well, Sir, if that’s what you want, of course.”

  He gave a lazy salute, the trooper stood smiling.

  I returned the salute. “Look, we’ll never beat the Russians without good discipline, it’s important to remember that, the Fuhrer has said so himself.”

  They both roared with laughter.

  “What are you laughing at?”

  “The Fuhrer’s plan to beat the Russians with salutes,” Mundt replied. “Have you ever fought the Russians?” After an insolent pause. “Sir?”

  Perhaps I’d deserved the put down and I felt embarrassed. These were veterans of the Winter War, I was just a newcomer, had yet to fire a shot in anger on the Eastern Front. I should have known better and held back. It was time to retrieve the situation.

  “You’re right, I have not seen any action yet, Scharfuhrer. Believe me, I do know the record of this regiment, I have a lot to learn, I trust that as my platoon NCO you will help me.”

  He nodded, mollified. “If you’re to stay alive you’ll need to learn mighty fast. Beating the Russians is not the first concern, Sir. Staying alive, that’s all you need to concern yourself with on this Front, at least for now. I’ll take you to meet the men, then you’ll need to draw equipment and a weapon from the quartermaster.”

  He picked up my kitbag and led me across the snow-covered ground to the church, my platoon was camped inside, to the side of the main altar. There were ten men apart from Mundt.

  “Ten? Where are the rest, Mundt?”

  “Dead, Sir, for the most part, some were wounded and shipped back to the Reich, I doubt they’ll be back. I’m afraid this is it.”

  I’d expected thirty men at least. Ten! I wondered how many Russians we were facing, but it wasn’t something to dwell on. The men nodded a greeting, none stood up or saluted, they all looked exhausted, ragged, half starved. Were these the elite standard-bearers of the Fuhrer’s shock troops? I could hardly believe it.

  “I’ll introduce you to them individually later, Sir. First, I’ll get you kitted out. The platoon commander’s bed is here.”

  He showed me an alcove separated from the main room by an old blanket.

  “The previous platoon commander?”

  “Dead, Sir. The Soviets were using a Maxim gun when we went in to attack, it took his head off, killed three of the men too, before we got it with a couple of grenades.”

  He put down my kitbag and I took out my steel helmet and put away my cap. Somehow the smart, officer’s cap seemed out of place in this camp of scarecrows. Then we went to the quartermaster, an older SS Scharfuhrer who presided over the unit’s stores.

  “Right, Untersturmfuhrer, you’ll need a weapon, most of the officers and men favour the Erma machine pistol, the CO wouldn’t be seen dead without one. Of course, we’ve got plenty of the Soviet PPSh, if you fancy one of those, but there is a danger you’ll be mistaken for the enemy carrying one of them.”

  “I’ll take the MP38, Scharf.”

  “Good choice. I’ll give you plenty of spare magazines, we’ve had so many casualties that weapons and ammunition are no problem.”

  If he was trying to reassure me, he was failing miserably. He dragged out a reversible camouflage tunic, the SS pattern with an attached hood there was also a pair of trousers to match. I picked up the tunic and noticed a bloodstain on the front, it had been washed but was still visible. Had this been worn by my unfortunate predecessor? If so, it hadn’t done him any good. We went back to the church and I put on the white sided camouflage tunic and trousers. It was cold, bitingly cold and I was glad of the extra clothing. Feeling more like I belonged in this strange place, I went for a walk outside, my boots crunching in the snow. It was early evening and activity had slowed around the camp, most of the soldiers had disappeared inside their shelters.

  Only the sentries were in view, stamping around to keep warm. They eyed me warily as I approached, but none offered salutes. I had no officer’s insignia showing, they were hidden inside the winter camouflage, but perhaps in this dismal place it would have made no difference. Curiously, there was a small encampment off to one side of the HQ area, a group of monks sat around a blazing campfire. I approached one of the sentries.

  “What’s the story there?” I asked him, pointing to the monks.

  “They own this place,” he replied, “or at least they used to. When we took over, they refused to leave, even when the second in command, Sturmbannfuhrer Muller, threatened to have them shot.”

  I nodded and walked on, it was just one more oddity in this strange new world that I had arrived in. Monks in an SS camp! However, no doubt everything would become clearer as I got to know my way around, it was just a matter of time. I walked back to the church, overhead I could hear the droning of aircraft, the sentries looked up nervously but the planes didn’t come near. I went to my billet and Mundt introduced me to the men who were sitting around sharing a bottle of brandy. Sturmmann Josef Beidenberg, Oberschutze Karl-Heinz Voss, the driver who had collected me from the station. Schutze Stefan Bauer and Schutze Dieter Merkel, then I lost track of the names. They seemed friendly enough and there was no standing on ceremony, little if any deferring to me as an officer. We were all Waffen SS, if there was to be any respect it would obviously have to be earned in combat. I remembered we were due to go out at two in the morning to scout the ground prior to the attack, it would be my first test in front of the men, I determined not to mess it up. I went behind the blanket screen and settled down to try and get a little rest, it had been a long and strange journey.

  Someone was shaking me, for a moment I thought I was back at home in Germany, then I sat up and felt the biting cold.

  “It’s time, Sir. We need to go very soon.”

  Scharfuhrer Mundt was staring down at me, he let go of my sleeve and stood up. “There’s a mug of coffee for you and some bread, we’re leaving in ten minutes.”

  I swallowed my embarrassment. I was in command of this platoon yet he was up and awake and I had been sound asleep. I was still fully dressed so I just got up and pushed the blanket aside. The men were clattering around, talking nervously, strapping on their webbing and checking their weapons.

  “I thought you’d like a lie in, Sir, you had a long journey,” Mundt smiled. I checked my watch, it was one thirty in the morning. He didn’t seem to be making a joke. I guess I had enjoyed more sleep than the others before I was woken up, it had indeed been a tiring journey from Germany. I
picked up my MP38 and strapped on my belt with the Walther in the holster. Mundt handed me a white webbing set.

  “For the spare clips, you’ll find them easier to carry.”

  I thanked him and strapped it on. Then he gave me a white pack. “This was Untersturmfuhrer Fieseler’s, he won’t need it now.”

  “Do officers normally carry a pack in this unit?”

  “Yes.”

  He offered no other explanation and I pulled it over my shoulders. Mundt showed me the map.

  “This is our objective, all we need to do is scout out the opposition and get back here and report. If we can bring back a prisoner, so much the better. No heroics, no shooting, ok, Sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’d better lead, just follow me, you’ll be fine.”

  I didn’t feel fine, I felt like a lamb being led to the slaughter. Why the hell was I here? They didn’t need me, I was just a passenger. But I was determined to learn so I kept quiet and followed the lead of the laconic Scharfuhrer. We went out past the sentries, Mundt leading, me behind him, then the rest of ‘my’ platoon. We walked quietly through the snow, no one talked, no one smoked, all I could hear was the crunch of our footsteps in the crisp white crust that covered the ground. We entered a wood and Mundt kept up the pace, only stopping every five minutes or so to listen for sounds of the enemy. Then we came out of the wood and I saw we were at the base of a low rise. Mundt pointed to two of the men and they went swiftly out to the flanks, then we went forward again. We reached the top of the rise, there was no sign of the enemy. Or so I thought. He pointed to a clump of bushes about a hundred metres in front of us. I looked closely, nothing. I looked again and saw a tiny movement, it was the wisp of steam from warm breath meeting cold air. Mundt dropped to the ground and started crawling forward, it was a long, slow crawl. The two flankers were still invisible to me, I just followed his lead and crawled on towards, what? A machine gun nest, an observation post, maybe one or two shivering Soviet riflemen? Or the first in a formation of Soviet T34 tanks? Oh God, no, not on my first mission. We crawled nearer and I heard a muttered conversation, it sounded like Russian. We were within ten metres of the bushes when I saw two shadowy white shapes leap up, one from either side and descend on the enemy. There was the distinct sound of a struggle, a grunt as someone was struck, then silence.