Unlikely Warrior (11 page)

We were sitting in a tiny bunker one hundred meters behind the first lines, which were very thinly occupied. The Russians kept penetrating our lines, often without either their or our noticing. That’s why those of us farther back had to keep a good watch out; otherwise someone could simply have tossed a grenade into the bunker.

Now, since the battalion has been exterminated, my detachment has pulled out. Staff and supplies retreated twenty-five kilometers during the night and I along with them.

Our departure was rather hasty. Ivan hit us with artillery fire as never before, then bombers, tanks in large amounts, and finally masses of infantry. Everyone took to his heels.

The entire supply unit, including fifty vehicles, stormed over a cliff with no cover whatsoever, and the antitank guns were shooting in among us. I really don’t know how I got out of all that. End result: the regiment is dissolved for the time being.

For about eight hours now I’ve been sitting here in absolute peace in a very cozy Russian house. I have washed and shaved, eaten, eaten, eaten, and slept. What happens next, nobody knows. We haven’t a clue. By now I’m considered one of the old-timers, one who has chalked up enough days in short-range fighting and assault to qualify for those medals on the chest. Pretty soon I’m to be promoted to private first class. Ho hum. Twenty-five
Pfennige
more per day.

In my section it’s rumbling pretty well at the moment. Ivan is trying to break through, and he keeps succeeding for a few hundred meters. The 282nd division has already been hit very hard, but I think we’ll be getting replacements pretty soon. In any case, for the moment it is peaceful around me, and that feels good.

A lot seems to be changing in Vienna, with air-raid precautions and so on. Well, I hope it will still be a long time with no bombs in your area. I already know much too well how unpleasant they can be. Bye for now.

Greetings and kisses,
Your Son

Russia, January 29, 1944

Dear Mutti,

Yesterday I was at the first-aid station for a harmless problem with my knee. They gave me an elastic bandage and prescribed four days of rest. It was there I realized how good I have it as a telegraphist. Of all the guys on the train out of Krumau, all that are left are four telegraphists, three telephone operators, and one infantry soldier—and they carried that remaining soldier with a head wound into the first-aid station while I was there. Suddenly I became pretty sick, what with all that blood, plus the realization of how few of us are left.

At any rate, it’s the officers and those in the communications squad who survive the longest here at the front. Add to that some humor and a lucky star, and you’re on top again.

Last night I slept so marvelously on a bed of straw in a warm hut. Who could wish for more? The whole day long we’ve nothing to do but wash, shave, hunt lice, eat. The rest of the time we lie on the big stove and scratch since we all have scabies.

There I dream of those things I remember as wonderful and beautiful. I dream of a splendidly white tablecloth and clean dishes, with a big dumpling and a real goulash, cucumber salad, and the good chance of a pudding with raspberry jam for dessert. To go with all that, a clean glass of clear water and a few colorful flowers on the table.

Here you let a day from back home pass in front of your eyes, one like so many that were taken for granted, and you notice for the first time all the things you used to ignore, but that were so marvelous.

For instance, just to be able to sleep in a bed with a clean blanket and pillow, freshly bathed, all by yourself, without having to bump into somebody else right and left or have his snores blown in your face.

Or, when you get up in the morning, the coffee and milk are possibly already waiting in the kitchen, and you can begin to do something that gives you satisfaction and lets you know you’ve come a little bit further. But not like here, where one doesn’t know why or for what, and when evening comes you can only observe the one feeble result: “I’m still alive.”

The world and its people are so small and meaningless compared to the universe and to the great and beautiful thoughts some people are able to produce. One shouldn’t rack one’s brain over such silly, stupid things as wars and weapons. You only become gloomy, probably melancholy, and it is a strain on the nerves. I think good nerves are the most important thing one needs in this godforsaken country.

You write that you’re getting along so peacefully at home. That makes me very happy. When I know that things are okay at home it makes everything a lot easier. Who knows, maybe I’ll be with you pretty soon. My greetings to the whole gang there in Vienna, and don’t worry.

Many loving kisses, Your Boy

ACCORDING TO HAAS

Since the regiment had been disbanded, we survivors were quartered twenty-five kilometers to the rear while we waited for reinforcements.

I, along with Haas and Baby Schmidt, our seventeen-year-old, six-foot-three-inch giant, shared a house with two guys from the infantry. Altogether about 150 soldiers were housed in the village. It consisted of two long rows of houses lining a muddy street that stretched in a gentle curve across a small valley surrounded by hills.

Those January days were unusually warm. A southerly wind was blowing mild air from the Black Sea, and a light rain had washed away the remaining patches of dirty snow. With a little effort I imagined I could almost smell spring, though I knew it was still at least two months away.

Outside our hut the sun was shining. I saw soldiers sitting on the doorsteps in front of the houses, writing letters, looking for lice, or patching their ragged uniforms. Not a shot could be heard, no rattling of machine guns, not even the usual distant rumble of the artillery. The Russian women in our house were carrying out Haas’s orders: sweeping the floor, keeping the kettle hot, and washing the clothes. All in all, a pleasant scene, both inside and out.

Russia, January 31, 1944

Dear Mutti,

Today was a good day. Two of us took off first thing in the morning with a cart and two fiery horses to a shut-down sugar factory that the Pioniere have planned to blow up. It was quite an adventure, crawling over all the pipes, distilling barrels, steam engines, and whatever all that stuff is called, and always taking good care to avoid the explosive charges that were already in place.

When we finally got to the door of the storeroom, we simply blew it open with two hand grenades and there, right in front of us, nothing but sugar and more sugar! And even though we took three hundred kilos, we felt as though we were just sampling with a teaspoon.

But we couldn’t take any more with us, and what should we do with more? The next time we get stuck in the mud we’d just have to throw away everything that is unimportant anyway. This time too we’ll probably eat sweets for two weeks and afterward be dreaming over our bitter coffee about the sugar factory in Mala Vyska.

The sky is blue and the sun is shining down quite pleasantly. I am also in such a good mood today, and I don’t even know why. I have always had my worst time between November and February. Add to that, this year we have the winter war. My good humor is probably the sun’s fault. All the soldiers are so happy, whistling and singing all over the place, and I think I even heard a yodel coming from somewhere. Actually there isn’t any reason for all this. In a few days it’s up to the front again. The replacements are already close by.

Love, Georg

Russia, February 2, 1944

Dear Folks,

I’m laughing myself silly. In our digs there are two women, one forty years old, the other seventy-six. In addition the five of us from the detachment and a sergeant who is visiting. Each of us already speaks a little Russian, but the women no German. The old one is incredibly funny. She talks all day long, and every two minutes crosses herself three times. She calls us all by our family names, which she has picked up from listening to our conversations. She scolds when we go outdoors without our caps and praises our “culture” when we blow our noses in our handkerchiefs instead of on the floor. She drinks our sweet tea (
tshey
) and begs our candies off of us, and she also praises our culture when we wash every day, because the Russians don’t do that.

At any rate, the old gal is dominating us completely. When it gets too loud, one of us gets up and says very formally, “Psst, Germansky culture, pssst,” and then it becomes quiet. I have been laughing so hard that everything hurts. She has to scratch our backs and wash our clothes so there will be
nix partisan
(no lice) in them.

When one of us tries to creep up to her daughter at the stove, the old one yells,
“Arestant, partisan, satana, ne karascho!”
Always a great uproar and lots of fun.

We are always threatening her,
“Madka, Du nix document, Du partisan, Ich Kommandant, bumbum, Du kaputt, ponimaesch?”

And then she crosses herself three times and screams,
“Boche moi, boche moi! Gospodi! O! O!”
and the din continues. And all my bones hurt, but I can’t describe it in a letter.
“Hei, hei,”
she yells between every sentence.
“Hei, hei.”
Oh dear, it’s so much fun, you just can’t imagine, oh! Bye-bye, until next time, kisses,

Your Son

How wonderful it was finally to have enough sugar, even if only for a short while. In my family the story of a certain physical abnormality had been passed on from one generation to the next: we all had two stomachs. The normal one could be filled to bursting with whatever sort of healthy food, while the sweet belly, which was located right beside the first, was still empty.

Especially in the evenings, a member of the family was often heard to announce, “My sweet belly is empty,” whereupon my mother would go out to the kitchen to open up a jar of fruit or concoct a treat out of sugar, butter, egg yolk, and cocoa. My father usually added a few drops of rum to his.

In the past two months at the front I had discovered that regular meals were not something to take for granted. The reasons for this state of affairs were as varied as the official food was monotonous and unreliable: supply problems arose when we were hemmed in by the Russians or when mess trucks were shot up or became stranded in mud. Nevertheless, immense physical strength was necessary for survival, and this required decent rations. It wasn’t long before I began dedicating more and more of my off-duty hours to organizing something to eat.

Being a telegraphist who was also called upon to handle many of the duties of the phone operators had some great advantages. Whenever one or two of us were called out to patch an interrupted phone line, the path often led across territory that was being observed or shot at by the enemy. But many times our search for the broken section also took us near villages or single houses that were unoccupied due to their proximity to the front. If these weren’t in an area where large numbers of soldiers had already been quartered for a long period, we had a good chance of finding something edible. Even if the house seemed empty at first glance, a soldier with the necessary experience could usually discover something worth the effort.

Once again, Haas proved to be an excellent teacher. “When the owners of these houses take off, it’s for certain they can’t take everything along, right? So they hide the rest until the time they can return. You just have to know where the goody goodies are deposited,” he explained on one of our trips.

A synopsis of the “Rules According to Haas” ran something like this: “Chickens are either hidden with corn in the attic or left running around free. If outside, they’re usually difficult to catch. The best thing is simply to shoot them, being careful, of course, to aim for the head.

“Eggs are usually in containers under the grain, flour, or beans, or sometimes, if the amounts are large, buried in the dirt near the house. Meat, marmalade, lard, and items such as carpets or wine are most likely in the cellar, but the door is often barricaded and well concealed under a mountain of sunflower stems or firewood. A little systematic stabbing around with your bayonet will bring them to light in most cases.