The commencement of the siege coincided with the transfer of most of Army Group North’s armored formations to the central front where they would participate in the final offensive against Moscow. Given a respite at Leningrad, the Russians regrouped their forces and began to organize counterattacks designed to break our grip on the city.
On October 8, the Red Army staged an infantry-supported tank offensive against our position at Uritsk with about 50 armored vehicles, including a number of heavily armored KV-1 and KV-2 tanks which had arrived directly from their factory inside Leningrad. Simultaneously, the enemy staged an amphibious landing about 10 miles to the west of us at Petergof.
By the time the Soviet armored assault reached our frontline, a mile or so from their starting point, German anti-tank guns and infantry had wiped out much of the attacking force. However, several of the massive vehicles successfully penetrated our defenses and advanced into Uritsk along the Uferstrasse (Shoreline Street) that ran between a cliff and the water’s edge on the Gulf of Finland.
Operating as the F.O. in one of the frontline bunkers of our still incomplete defenses, I heard the sound of heavy fighting about a quarter of a mile away. With my habitual curiosity, I sought a position on the cliff from where I could witness the battle play out 50 yards below. Just after reaching my observation point, a battery comprised of two German 88-millimeter Flak guns deployed on the high ground beside me. These 88s could be directed skyward against enemy aircraft or fired level at ground targets, operating like giant rifles.
Seven KV-1s and KV-2s soon lumbered into view with troops on foot following close behind them. These larger tanks were joined by a couple of smaller Czech T-35s. Having reached a point two miles from their frontlines, the greatly diminished Soviet armored formation would advance no further.
As I watched with fascination, the crews manning the 88s quickly scored a hit on the lead tank. Unable to maneuver or to elevate their barrels high enough to hit targets on top of the cliff, the remaining Russian armor was in a helpless and hopeless position. Over the next 20 minutes, the deadly 88s proceeded to pick off one after another of the KV’s and T-35’s trapped on the street below.
Under continual machine-gun fire, the surviving tank crews and infantry attempted to escape back the way they had come, but found their route blocked. In an area just beyond my field of vision, our Pioniers had moved in behind them to detonate large explosives that destroyed the road, preventing their retreat.
In desperation, many of the enemy troops jumped into the water, but few succeeded in making it back to their lines. By the following day, the remaining Soviet forces in the Uritsk and Petergof areas were eliminated. This ill-conceived fiasco had cost the Red Army 35 tanks, 1,369 dead, and 294 prisoners.
Over time, the Russians would increasingly employ large tank formations in their operations. To meet this threat, a German division had a number of options. In the first instance, each regiment possessed an anti-tank company equipped with high velocity artillery pieces. While these companies were usually able to cope with enemy armor, the divisional artillery might also be used in extreme cases.
As the action on the Uferstrasse demonstrated, it was, however, the 88-millimeter anti-aircraft artillery that proved to be the most effective German anti-tank weapon of the war, even though it was typically used only in crisis situations when enemy armor came in mass or had achieved a breakthrough in our lines.
During a quiet interval soon after the tank attack, Staff Sergeant Ehlert led a small group of us from the communications platoon on an excursion to the recently captured tsarist-era palace at Petergof, near where the Red Army had just attempted their amphibious landing. At that time, the palace and the grounds around it still appeared untouched by fighting.
Inside, we strolled down the paneled wood floors through its long elegant halls, now mostly emptied of furnishings. Coming across a piano in one of the rooms, Ehlert pulled up the bench and began to play. Unaware of his talent, we were amazed as beautiful classical music began to echo around us in the chamber. As the afternoon sun streamed into the room through the large windows, it was almost possible for me to imagine the tsar playing the same piano surrounded by his family and court.
At the end of his virtuoso performance, Ehlert opened the piano and found several pages of sheet music deposited inside. After displaying his discovery, he folded a couple of sheets into the pocket of his tunic as a souvenir. Back on the frontlines a short time later, such opulence seemed much farther away than the few miles that separated us.
Having been promoted to the rank of lance corporal (Obergefreiter) on October 1, I was now permanently tasked to serve as our company’s forward observer, which meant increased interaction with the company commander. At the beginning of November, First Lt. Von Kempski, who had earned our respect leading us since Belgium, was promoted to the divisional staff. He was replaced by Second Lt. Münstermann, who had fortunately suffered no lasting ill effects from the artillery barrage at the Plyussa.
By mid-October, a frost had already hardened the landscape and it began to snow. At about this same time, we were able to shift out of temporary shelters into our more permanent rear bunkers constructed jointly by the regular troops and our Pioniers. Whereas the bunkers along the front provided us with additional protection and acted as defensive strongpoints, our rear bunkers would serve as our living quarters in Uritsk.
In building our rear bunkers the Pioniers followed a standard method of construction. After digging out waist-deep holes between 10 to 50 square feet in size, they erected log walls and heaped part of the just excavated soil against them. Following the placement of heavy timber beams or tree trunks to serve as a roof, they then covered the top of the bunker with the remaining soil. Despite offering little protection in the event of a direct hit by the Red Army’s heavy artillery, the bunkers offered us a measure of warmth from the freezing temperatures outside.
At Uritsk, my assignment as the F.O. required me to spend perhaps three-quarters of my time in one of the various bunkers located along the front or even out ahead of our infantry’s frontline. In contrast with the rear bunkers, the frontline bunker was little more than a covered ditch with a slot for observation. As the snow grew deeper, we piled it into a wall that ran in front of our line of forward bunkers and trenches in order to conceal our movements from enemy observation.
If it was quiet at the front, I normally made the short trip back to my rear bunker a couple of times a day. Furnished with only a dirt floor and walls, bunks, a table, and a wood-burning stove, the rear bunkers were primitive but made a comfortable dwelling for four to six men. Because the 13th Company’s howitzers were located only a quarter of a mile further back, my friends Schütte and Sauke, who were both now serving in gun crews, were able to reside with me and another comrade in the same bunker. Asserting our veteran status in the company, we posted a sign reading “The Four Old Sacks” over its entrance. Naturally, we tended to spend most of our free time with the half dozen or so other comrades we had known from the Lüneburg barracks.
Especially when there was little fighting, our bunker was a refuge for us to relax, sleep, eat hot meals, play cards, read mail, and write letters. Such a sanctuary gave us an essential escape from the stress of combat and the exhausting vigilance required at the frontline.
In November 1941, just after we had settled into our new bunkers, we began to confront bitterly freezing temperatures of minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. This was far colder than any conditions we had ever experienced in Germany.
In the harsh months that followed, the wounded on both sides sometimes froze to death where they fell before they could be transported back behind the lines for medical care. By my estimation, the cold weather that first winter in Russia was responsible for perhaps a third of the deaths among casualties who might otherwise have survived. Of course, this type of death was even more common in mobile warfare such as that taking place on Army Group Center’s front as it engaged in the Battle of Moscow far to the south of us.
The temperature dropped so low that it actually caused the grease in our weapons to freeze unless we fired them regularly or took measures to protect them from the cold. Other soldiers told me that they witnessed entire steam engines that had been frozen solid down to the grease in their wheels. The weather-related problems in the transportation network intermittently resulted in supply problems that occasionally forced the army to reduce our rations to half a loaf of bread per day. Though only providing enough for us to survive, we knew it was far more than the amount supplied to the cut-off Russian population in Leningrad.
Transportation problems and inadequate planning also led to a four- to six-week delay in the provision of warmer clothing to replace our summer uniforms. As a F.O. operating on the frontline, I needed winter camouflage and was therefore lucky to be one of the first to receive an army-issued white helmet, a white poncho, white coat, and white pants as the most extreme cold arrived.
As the snow grew to a foot in depth, it became much easier to travel by ski than on foot when I crossed the couple of hundred yards between the forward and rear bunkers. More importantly, skis allowed me to move much more swiftly across the open area that was exposed to the fire of Russian snipers.
These sharpshooters had been posted in large numbers among the multi-story buildings at the edge of Leningrad’s suburbs, approximately a mile away from our front line at Uritsk. This situation reflected the Red Army’s effort throughout the war to field larger numbers of better-equipped, well-trained snipers than the Wehrmacht. Our snipers considered the Soviet scoped rifles superior and preferred to use captured Russian weapons rather than the equivalent German rifle. When I once had the opportunity to test one, its precision amazed me.
The accuracy of sniper fire meant that the number of killed relative to wounded was much higher than with other weapons. Our helmets protected us pretty well from glancing bullets or shrapnel, but if a bullet hit one squarely it would easily penetrate the steel. Being six feet tall, I soon learned to keep my head down and travel quickly through any area where I might be vulnerable.
While snipers posed a great threat to us, most of our casualties at Uritsk resulted from the enemy’s regular artillery barrages. The Red Army’s artillery was highly accurate and equal to its German counterpart in capability.
Russian machine guns were another danger. They mostly utilized ammunition that exploded on impact, causing a lot of damage. Sometimes their machine-gun position could be a mile away, but it would feel very close when its bullets ripped up everything in the vicinity of one’s position. Unlike artillery shells, you cannot interpret and react to the whistle of a machine gun’s bullet. If you hear the bullet whistling past you, you are safe. If you do not hear it, you are wounded or dead.
Though rarely engaging in close combat at Uritsk, my MP-40 submachine gun always remained at the ready as a precaution. My routine was to check the weapon before setting it aside after reaching our rear bunker.
One evening as I entered the bunker, several of my comrades were standing around. Thinking that my MP-40’s safety was on, I made a perfunctory check of the weapon. Pointing the barrel at the floor, I squeezed the trigger. When a half-dozen rounds noisily spewed out, everyone jumped as if Soviet infiltrators had surprised us. While the episode was amusing, such careless behavior could easily produce casualties. At the front, the Red Army was not the only enemy.
Indeed, everyone feared frostbite and hypothermia as much as Soviet weapons. Skiing between the front and rear bunkers helped minimize my exposure to the subfreezing temperatures, but frostbite still posed a danger. Arriving back at our rear bunker one day, I realized that there was no feeling in my toes. When my boots were off, I discovered that my toes had become white and completely lacked sensation.
Though soldiers had been warned not to treat frostbite with hot water, I thought cold water would be safe to apply. Going outside, I slowly poured cold water over my feet as I massaged my toes. The pain was excruciating, but the blood gradually began to circulate again after about twenty minutes. Many less fortunate soldiers lost toes and fingers to frostbite. It was sobering for me to think that another couple of hours of exposure to the cold could have meant amputation for mine.
Returning from a long period of duty up at the front on another evening soon after the close call with frostbite, I entered the bunker to find my comrades engaged in a festive drinking party. On learning where we were stationed, one of our old comrades from another division had come to see us. Such an occasion was cause for celebration and the “old sacks” had warmly welcomed him with our stock of cognac.
By the time of my arrival an hour or two later, they had already consumed a half dozen shots. Demanding that I catch up, they ordered, “Lübbecke, we had six cognacs. You will have six cognacs and the seventh we’ll drink together.” By the sixth shot, I was already stone drunk. Waking late the next morning, we paid for our temporary escape from the war with aching heads.
When operating as a forward observer, a communications specialist would assist me since my skill with Morse code was limited. He would wire the targeting information to the gun crews located about a mile back from our bunker. When I called out, “Five more!” to indicate a correction of five meters forward or “Ten right!” to shift the aim point ten meters to the right, he would rapidly tap the instructions to the rear.
If we held a particular position for more than a day as at Uritsk, our company would typically establish a field telephone link to our bunker. These field telephone links were as secure as telegraph lines and allowed me to communicate my instructions directly to the gun crews. While also possessing radios, these were rarely employed because of their vulnerability to Russian interception.
When moving into a new position, I would carefully survey the terrain to our front against a map in order to determine the most probable path of a potential Red Army attack. After identifying a likely route of advance, I would request one of our gun crews to fire a single ranging shot at those map coordinates. About 85 percent of the time, the shell would fall where intended. If it did not, the second round would almost always confirm the range.
Following the verification of the coordinates, I would instruct the gun crew to retain that target as Position A in order to allow for a more rapid reaction from our guns if an attack was attempted. Repeating the procedure at other probable routes of advance, we would establish Position B, Position C, etc. At others times I used first names instead of letters to identify a preset target.
Once the process was complete, I could simply call back, “Position A: five rounds, two guns.” Of course, when the enemy fired a single shot, we recognized that the Soviets were establishing their own network of predetermined firing coordinates. Before long, the whole area of No Man’s Land between us became one large pre-targeted kill zone.
The primary responsibility of a F.O. in a static position is to remain vigilant for any changes in the enemy’s frontline that might indicate an impending attack and to alert the company commander of any developments. If possible, it was also crucial to provide the gun crews with an advance warning to prepare the howitzers for action so that they could respond rapidly to any request for a fire mission.
In relatively active environments like Uritsk, it would typically take about two minutes for the gun crews to ready the guns and deliver a salvo if I was unable to alert them in advance before issuing target coordinates. Where the fighting was more intermittent, gun crews often remained in their bunkers rather than with their guns. In these circumstances, it might take up to four minutes for the crews to man their batteries and deliver the first shell. If the firing had commenced or the crews had received advanced warning, rounds would usually arrive on the target within a half minute or less of my request.
Once the enemy’s attack is under way, the forward observer must simultaneously select the number and types of guns and rounds to employ and precisely orchestrate their firing so as to break up the assault swiftly and efficiently. Though it was very technical in some respects, it was as much an art as a science.
During larger battles, both sides also conducted intense but brief artillery barrages to soften up enemy positions. In contrast to the First World War, where shelling of entrenchments might last for days or weeks, artillery in battles on the Eastern Front fired smaller caliber rounds and expended many fewer shells. Normally, these bombardments lasted for perhaps 20 minutes, though they might occasionally persist for an hour. As long as this pounding continued, a soldier could remain under cover in his trench or bunker.
As soon as the barrage began to roll back toward the rear areas, it was critical to get rapidly into position to defend against the infantry assault that would immediately ensue. Larger enemy attacks put pressure on our front, but we typically pushed them back before they penetrated our lines. In some instances, the Russian assaults reached our frontlines and forced us to retreat, but we usually staged a quick counterattack with the help of reserves and regained the lost ground. Because we generally had good intelligence on Soviet dispositions at Uritsk, the Red Army rarely achieved surprise.
Over this period of stationary warfare in front of Leningrad, the numbers of the German and Russian forces were about equal, though the enemy lacked our training, experience, and leadership. Both sides constantly engaged in numerous smaller reconnaissance missions and larger probing attacks in order to test the other’s defenses as well as to gain intelligence through the capture of prisoners. As the F.O., I remained constantly alert for any Russian attempt to infiltrate small groups of men into our lines for this purpose.
If I observed Red Army troops out in the open, I would immediately inform the rear and try to place a curtain of shells in front of them in order to deter any further advance. Our heavy guns had a great advantage over machine guns in that they possessed the range to take the enemy under fire much farther back. If we had to use our machine guns in such an engagement, it meant that they had gotten too close to our lines.
When German troops staged reconnaissance and probing operations into the Soviet lines, we kept our guns on call in case our men needed covering fire as they retreated. In addition to seeking prisoners and assessing Soviet strength, such missions also helped to draw Russian artillery fire, allowing us to determine their positions. Using a network of listening devices, a special unit would triangulate their location for our artillery to target highly accurate counterbattery fire. It was a deadly game of cat and mouse.
Soon after Christmas, Schütte began to complain to me that he was bored with the monotony of his routine with the gun crew. One subfreezing night, he decided to take action and snuck alone across the snow-covered No Man’s Land that separated us from the enemy. Armed only with his MP-40 submachine gun and a satchel containing a kilo of dynamite, Schütte slipped past the Soviet sentries and crept up to a Red Army bunker. As he heaved the satchel inside, he shouted to the doomed Russians, “Here’s your bread!”
Fighting his own war, he pulled off this crazy feat at least a couple of times. On the second occasion, I even heard the sound of the dynamite’s explosion. What had begun as an unauthorized action soon won the approval of our superiors. On my and their recommendation, Schütte was later awarded one of Germany’s highest military decorations, the Gold Cross.
The critical food shortage in Leningrad that inspired Schütte’s black humor also led to more serious discussions among us. There was real concern that the Russian authorities might decide to send the city’s women and children across the lines to our side. It was not clear what would ensue in such a situation, but everyone agreed that mowing down a crowd of civilians with our weapons was inconceivable. My own inclination was to feed them and then send them further back, once we made certain that the enemy had not exploited such a population transfer to slip military-age males into our rear areas.
About this time, our intelligence learned that the Red Army was infiltrating dogs across the lines. These poor animals had been strapped with dynamite around their bodies and trained to run under our vehicles. When they did so, the triggering antennas on their backs would bend and detonate the explosive.
Though there were probably few dogs actually armed this way, the army directed us to shoot all dogs as a precautionary measure. Carrying out these orders was especially painful for us, but we obeyed. Over time, war hardens your heart and leads you to do brutal things that you could never have imagined yourself doing in civilian life.
In early 1942, a reporter from a German-language newspaper in Reval in Estonia came up to the frontline to do interviews with the troops. When he asked me if they could take my photograph, I willingly agreed. To my surprise, that picture eventually ended up on the front page of The Revaler Zeitung on April 2, 1942 above the caption, “This is the German soldier who you will find in the trenches, young, agile, and sure of victory.” Though it was amusing to be featured in such heroic terms, the words accurately reflected the high morale that we felt.
At the beginning of March, Army Group North ordered our division to make urgent preparations for redeployment. A couple of nights later, we pulled out of the trenches. Our replacements were a police division composed of police officers who had volunteered for the unit and a Waffen SS division filled with troops from Nordic countries like Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.
Because many of these Scandinavians were tall men, their heads frequently poked above the snow walls in front of our trenches, making them especially easy prey for Soviet marksmen. Before we departed Uritsk, we heard they had suffered perhaps a dozen such casualties in just their first day at the frontline. Following this cruel lesson, they too would respect the Russian snipers.
By the time of our departure from Uritsk, confidence in an early victory had faded. It was already clear that the war in Russia would be a long struggle. Nonetheless, I remained utterly certain of the Soviet Union’s ultimate defeat.
Uritsk was a battle zone largely deserted of inhabitants, but it still retained a small population of about 100 Russian civilians, mostly women and children. These few residents kept their distance, but were not visibly hostile in their behavior. Curious to gain my own impression of the Russian people, I decided to pay a visit to one of these families.
Inside their small, clean home, we somehow managed to communicate in a limited fashion through gestures with our hands and feet. Yet, while the brief encounter perhaps somewhat humanized the Russians for me, their true emotions toward me and the German presence in their land appeared hidden behind a mask of inscrutability.
There was one Russian girl as well as a couple of Soviet POWs who worked in the company kitchen, located back about two miles behind the front. Not surprisingly, the girl became involved in a romantic relationship with one of the German kitchen staff. Military regulations prohibited such fraternization with the enemy, particularly out of concern that they might be spies.
Although this was the only truly romantic liaison of which I had firsthand knowledge, there were other German troops in my regiment who exploited the dire Russian food situation for sexual gratification. Putting a loaf of bread under their arm, these men would head for a certain area a couple of miles behind the front where there were hungry Russian women or girls who would willingly exchange sexual favors for food.
One tale circulated that a particularly heartless soldier had responded to a woman’s request for her “payment” of a loaf by slicing off a couple of pieces for her while retaining the remainder for himself. Most German officers and troops disapproved of such behavior, but I knew of no one who was reprimanded or punished for engaging in this type of act.
What was more difficult to explain was the widespread absence of a strong urge to have sexual relations with women as would be normal among a group of young males. Naturally, the rumor mill provided an answer: our cooks were under secret orders to mix an agent into our food that chemically suppressed our sex drives. While it might make sense for the high command to take such a radical step given the general lack of women at the front, the true explanation for our low libidos remained a mystery.
Generally, our own food supplies in Russia remained constant throughout the war, once the crisis of the first winter had passed. During heavy combat or when on the move, our company’s quartermaster supplied only canned goods like tuna, sardines, herring, or sausage with canned crackers or bread which we kept in our Brotbeutel (food bag) on the side of our belts.
When we were engaged in stationary warfare, troops from the Tross would come forward at night to deliver food and mail up to the bunkers. Typically, they brought an insulated kettle of hot soup from our company field kitchen containing a generous ration of beef or pork and potatoes, or perhaps sausage for dinner.
They also left us with a small round loaf of brown bread from the large divisional bakery and butter, or occasionally cheese, to eat the following morning. Frequently, the quartermaster also provided us with chocolate. Since real coffee was rare, we ordinarily drank a fairly tasty artificial coffee which we called Mukefuk, made from roasted grain.
Troops rarely went hungry, but our diet quickly grew monotonous. In certain circumstances, the army provided us with additional items that helped break the routine of army food. In the winter, we received a regular ration of a couple of small bottles of vodka to help us keep warm. At Christmas and Easter, they sometimes issued a bottle of cognac that would last for three or four days. Patients recuperating in the rear from injury or illness frequently enjoyed better foods like a roast of beef or pork, a chicken, or boiled sausage.
Even if my closest comrades and I were somehow able to acquire potatoes or meat to supplement our rations, we lacked the means to cook such items. In these instances, we would pass along the potatoes or other foods obtained outside of normal quartermaster channels to our company cooks to prepare.
On a few rare occasions, we were lucky enough to find something to eat that did not require any preparation. Although most Russian houses had burned down, we once discovered a barrel of sour pickled tomatoes in an abandoned home that provided us with a rare treat that lasted for several days.
Once the war became stationary, the issue of sanitation grew increasingly important, so building latrines was one of the first priorities. These Donnerbalken (literally, thunder-beams) were simply wooden planks on which the soldier could sit with holes dug into the ground beneath them.
In certain ways, our position in the outskirts of a city had its advantages in that some of the troops could find more satisfactory shelter. There were even toilets in a few of the three-story wooden buildings in Uritsk that offered a small measure of civilization in the midst of our primitive conditions. However, because the apartments’ plumbing was comprised of narrow square wooden channels inside the walls instead of pipes flushed by water, the sound of the waste tumbling down through the structure was audible to anyone in close proximity every time someone used the toilet on one of the upper floors.
Thinking that it would be a pleasant alternative to our latrines, I once made use of the toilet on a visit to that area of the front. The next day, my groin began to itch terribly, leaving me hardly able to function. Unfortunately, the large number of people sharing the toilet had led to the sharing of multiple diseases, including lice in the groin area. Distinctive from the larger head and body lice, an infestation by these nearly invisible groin lice caused much greater irritation.
Embarrassed that my comrades would think that I had visited one of the local Russian women, I attempted to take care of the problem on my own by shaving the area, but the terrible itching persisted. Unable to bear it any longer, I visited the medic and obtained a special ointment. Its application replaced the itchiness with a painful burning sensation, but eliminated the infestation within about a week.
Personal hygiene remained difficult to maintain and very low by today’s military standards. Occasionally, we would rig a tub or shower or have access to a lake or river in which to bathe. More often, we would just wash with a little water and a bar of soap once a week or so, if we were not in combat. Lacking a toothbrush, I would squirt toothpaste on my finger to clean my teeth perhaps once or twice a week. There was generally only an opportunity to shave with my straight razor every couple of weeks.
Our basic gray-green German uniform consisted of a denim cotton tunic and pants worn over a cotton undershirt and underwear. In the woods or brush, this easily blended with the background environment, but in the open steppe where there was no cover, you could not avoid sticking out like a camel silhouetted against a desert horizon.
Over our socks, we wore tight-fitting leather boots with leather soles. These were known as Knobelbecher, a term suggestive of the cup that is used to shake dice before they are rolled. While both the boots and uniforms were fairly durable, the divisional quartermasters still had to issue new ones to the enlisted men a couple of times per year as the old ones wore out. In 1941, I was issued riding pants made of a thicker fabric as well as a pair of riding boots that were of higher quality. The German Army required officers to purchase their own uniforms, but provided a clothing allowance as part of their pay package that helped to defray the cost. Officers could also receive fresh uniform items as needed in combat.
Generally comfortable in most climate conditions, our basic uniform was completely inadequate in the subfreezing conditions we confronted at Uritsk. Once the quartermaster finally distributed our thickly padded white uniforms a couple of months into the winter of 1941–1942, they only proved to be barely sufficient to keep us warm in the harsh Russian climate.
With only two uniforms, we laundered our clothes whenever our situation at the front made it possible. Wearing the same clothes and underwear for two or three weeks without changing, soldiers were almost always covered by itchy bites from the ubiquitous body lice, even in the cold of winter. You could feel them and see them crawling around on you. We would strip off our shirts to kill them, but could never rid ourselves of all of them. However, in contrast to the trenches and bunkers during the First World War, we experienced few problems with rats.
In such a stressful environment, it is not surprising that perhaps three quarters of the troops smoked tobacco. Although never smoking cigarettes in my youth, I started soon after the invasion of Russia when the fighting intensified. Because the supply of tobacco in our rations was inadequate to meet the demand, cigarettes became a currency when trading or gambling.
Gambling seemed foolish to me, but I frequently joined the other men in my bunker at night when they played a “thinking” card game called Skat at night. Our games helped keep me mentally alert in case of a Red Army attack. Like smoking, drinking, gambling, or other forms of relaxation, they also simply provided a temporary means of escape from the tension and tedium of war.
Most of the time we entertained ourselves, but the army provided occasional recreational activities for us behind the lines. Perhaps once every six months, we would even be given a day off from frontline duty, depending on the situation. The main center for recreation in the Leningrad area was Krasnogvardeisk. Though the small city was located just 10 or 15 miles south of Uritsk, I visited it only once for about 24 hours.
While the army organized soccer matches or other sporting events in Krasnogvardeisk where teams from different units would compete, many personnel from all services sought out the temporary companionship of females during their leaves. To meet this need, the army did not establish brothels, but it did bring in German women as “entertainment troops.” According to rumor, the Luftwaffe was purported to operate two Junkers transports filled with women from occupied Europe who flew on a regular circuit of its bases to visit the pilots. Not interested in pursuing such liaisons during my visit to Krasnogvardeisk, I instead visited the German cemetery and a local theater presenting comedy routines and musical performances.
While we had lacked radios during our march into Russia, once we took up residence in our bunkers we frequently listened to the soothing Volkskonzert and other music programs on German armed forces radio. Sometimes, we would together sing the popular tunes like “Lili Marlene” or “Erika” that reminded us of home and the girls we had left there. At our rare religious services, we sang songs like “Wir treten zum Beten” (We Gather Together) and “Eine feste Burg is unser Gott” (A Mighty Fortress Is Our God) that provided us with spiritual comfort.
Despite the German Army’s standard-issue belt buckles engraved with the phrase “Gott Mit Uns” (“God with Us”), religion and an inner spiritual faith never played a big part in most German soldiers’ lives during the war. Military chaplains existed at the divisional level, but the troops usually only saw them at infrequent worship services or when they were behind the lines recuperating at a field hospital. Though chaplains sometimes led collective prayers at religious services before big battles, I knew few soldiers who prayed. If faith had played a bigger part in the lives of German soldiers, maybe they would have been more morally conscientious and held life in higher regard.
Despite regulations against it, it was not uncommon for German soldiers to ship looted Russian property such as icons or artifacts back to Germany. Most of the time, however, troops sent back items taken from the battlefield or from captured Red Army troops such as Soviet pistols or decorations. In general, the military authorities closed their eyes to such behavior. In my experience, parcels sent home were not even checked for stolen property.
When a soldier is fighting a thousand miles away from his native soil, mail from home provides a tremendous boost to morale. Because of military censorship, we could not write about our units, where we were, or our battles at the front. At the same time, letters to those back home provided us a momentary release from war’s miseries and gave loved ones relief from their constant anxiety over the soldier’s fate. Mail from my mother or occasionally another family member arrived at the front about three or four times a month.
By early 1942, the exchange of correspondence between Anneliese and I had increased to two or three times a month. Despite her continued engagement to the florist’s son, I felt a growing sense of optimism that I could gradually entice her back to me. While we usually did not discuss her fiancée, she herself had begun expressing doubts about her future with him after becoming aware that he had a drug addiction and other problems. Even though I recognized that she was not yet prepared to break off her relationship with him, the tone of our letters to each other grew steadily more intimate in nature.
Like most soldiers, I read and reread these messages from home and devoted a large portion of my free time to writing letters in reply. In my experience, news from home was one of the most significant factors shaping a soldier’s capacity in combat because it determined his state of mind and morale. Throughout the war, these letters were as important to sustaining our souls as food was to sustaining our bodies.