Panzer Commander Part 12

Suddenly a thought struck me.

"General, you can't do this to me. Let e make you a suggestion.

Instead of a year, only six months, and that in Paris, where the army has its school for panzer reconnaissance commanders.

That's where I can best pa.s.s on my experience to future COS.

What do you think of that?" Schmundt couldn't help laughing.

"That's typical of you reconnaissance people, always flexible and ready with novel solutions. I agree." A few days later, I was officially posted from August 1943 to March 1944 to the school in Paris, where I was to report to Colonel von Wechmar, a cousin of my predecessor.

Meanwhile, it was the end of May 1943. The warm spring made the troubled city of Berlin seem somewhat less implacable.

I installed myself in the penthouse. Each evening it had to be blacked out. The little suitcase always stood ready. It contained my most important papers as well as my stock of coffee and cigarettes, which I had organized at the supply depot in Tunis. As soon as the sirens wailed-and that happened almost every day-I hurried with the suitcase to the air raid shelter.

In Berlin's sea of houses' I couldn't stay outside during air raids. The danger of being hit by debris or bomb fragments was too great. Besides, everyone had to comply with the directions of the air raid warden.

The Allies were now dropping more incendiary bombs, which immediately set off great area fires, or if there was a wind, the dreaded fire storms. Naturally, my penthouse was particularly vulnerable, but I accepted the risk.

I, too, now received food stamps, too many to go hungry, too few to eat one's fill. The food was better at the replacement section. The men, after all, had to be made fit for frontline service. In the Mercedes, I shuttled back and forth between the Kurfurstendamm and the barracks. Many of my friends were no longer to be found. Some had fled into the country, others, especially my Jewish and literary friends, had disappeared forever. Those who had not been able to escape abroad had probably been sent to concentration camps.

We frontline soldiers, but also the friends I asked, knew of the existence of the camps (in Berlin, nearby Sachsenhausen was the best known) and in connection with them we knew the term "protective custody." But we had no idea of what took place behind the barbed wire.

At the beginning of June, I was invited to a party given by a Prussian princess, whom I became acquainted with before the war through my friend von Papen. On account, probably, of my "exotic aura" of having come from Africa, but no doubt even more on account of my present of coffee, I was the favored guest.

There I met Dagmar, the daughter of the proprietor of Europe's biggest tree nursery. She was celebrating her twenty-first birthday.

Berlin and Paris, 1943-1944 159 We clicked at once. I invited her for a meal the next day.

There she told me right at the start ("so that you know where you are") that she was cla.s.sified as "one-eighth Jewish" and enjoyed "Aryan rights." Her mother, one of the most elegant women of Berlin, was.,one-quarter Jewish." It was macabre how bureaucratically the "Jewish question" was treated in Germany.

I met Dagmar's parents, both cosmopolitans, ho-like Dagmar-spoke fluent English and French.

We saw each other as often as we could. Dagmar slowly lost her aversion to all things military, which she regarded, along with'party functionaries, as the quintessence of the power of the Third Reich.

I thought of engagement, but also of my resolution not to form a close tie, in the interests of both, before the end of the war.

I did promise, however, to bring her to Paris for the duration of my teaching job. I wanted to get her away from the confinement of Berlin and the danger of air raids, and to know that she was no longer exposed to what were often abusive remarks about her "oneeighth status." At the end of June, I took some leave to visit friends in Hamburg and to see my mother and sister in Flensburg.

My friend, Boos, lived outside Hamburg, not far from Friedrichsruh, where Bismarck lived in his retirement. During the night, before I was to go to Flensburg, Hamburg had its worst air raid of the war. Whole blocks collapsed. Losses among the civilian population were enormous. From Boos's garden, we could see Hamburg on fire. In the early hours of the morning, thousands of refugees arrived in the suburbs on foot, many of them with phosphorous burns. I can still see those poor people today; some had escaped with their bare lives. They were given shelter in emergency reception camps. Now I understood why all the wounded wanted to get back to the front as fast as possible; there they could play an active part in determining events, whereas the civilian population was condemned to pa.s.sivity.

Flensburg, although a naval base, had so far been spared. Our large apartment had been requisitioned for refugees, except for two rooms. My sister had been called up and posted to the commander in Holland. My mother carried on a lively barter-trade with farmers we had known earlier. For valuable objets d'art, which my father had brought back from the Far East, she obtained b.u.t.ter and meat. In this way, she was able to supplement the meager ration from stamps. Being an older woman she was unable to make a contribu 160 PANZER COMMANDER tion to the war effort and thus received no priority cards. Although it pained me, I nevertheless encouraged her to go on bartering, and at the same time promised to send her, from France, anything that might be useful to her.

I admired my mother, who bore with courage not only the death of my stepfather, but also the war service of her three children.

We spent some happy hours together and I tried to comfort her.

The coffee I had brought helped her along in the weeks that followed.

Back in Berlin the days and weeks went by. At the replacement section, I gave talks on my experiences in the different theaters of war to young soldiers who had just been called up.

Dagmar's mother, who didn't have an Aryan ident.i.ty card but was "tolerated" as the wife of a prominent man, had used a trip to friends in Switzerland to get away. To stay longer in Berlin had seemed to her too risky.

With Dagmar and a few friends, I celebrated my thirty-second birthday, for which Baron von Boeselager sent me some bottles of champagne and cognac from my "sunken h.o.a.rd." Would it be my last? At all events, the last at home.

August 1943. Time to go, into a future that was becoming ever more uncertain. Parting from Dagmar was harder than I had expected. "I'll get you to Paris one way or another, you can count on that." With a movement order for myself and the Mercedes, I turned my back on Berlin. My personal belongings from Luedecke's penthouse had been handed over to Dagmar, who stored them at the nursery outside Berlin. Two weeks later the penthouse was destroyed by an incendiary bomb.

After a stop at the Boeselagers' near Bonn, I arrived in Paris and reported to "Bubi" von Wechmar, the commander of the panzer reconnaissance school. Then on to local HQ, to the city commander, General von Boineburg, who, in Russia, had commanded the brigade of grenadiers in our 7th Panzer Division.

"I'm delighted to see you alive and well, my dear Luck. I expect you'd like an apartment near your school at the Invalides?"

"Yes, General, I would. I'd also be glad of a driving permit for my Mercedes, which gave such good service during my months in Russia." I was allotted a wonderful penthouse in the Rue Bixio with a view over the whole of Paris. It belonged to a Swiss businessman who had gone home and put his apartment at the disposal of the Berlin and Paris, 1943-1944 161 military command-including a chamber maid, who lived in. For her it became a memorable time, as I was able to keep her supplied with foodstuffs that were no longer obtainable in Paris.

The first four-week course began. Between courses, there was a week's pause to a.s.sess the previous course. In one of these courses, my friend Franz von Papep turned up, who, till then, had been in action on the eastern front. In another, de Maizi6re, later a general in the Bundeswehr, and Major Waldow, later a commander in my panzer division.

I made contact with J. B. Morel and C16ment Duhour, who were overjoyed to see me again, safe and sound. They had no doubts that the Western Allies would land somewhere in France.

"Hans, you won't hold out. You can't win this war, with two fronts and the overwhelming materiel. Once again, stay here when things come to an end. We'll see that you're not discovered."

"You know I can't do it," I replied. "We've been brought up differently and taken our oath. So I must, if need be, see it through to the bitter end." After I had been in Paris for a few weeks, C16ment came to my apartment in great agitation.

"Hans, the Gestapo have arrested J. B. We don't know where he is. I presume he belongs to the Resistance or that he'd made disparaging remarks about the Germans. You know, of course, that J. B. is a great patriot and was a serving officer in the French army." I promised C16ment to do whatever was possible.

It so happened that a very high Gestapo man lived in the same house as me in the Rue Bixio. We had met a few times in the elevator or on the street and had exchanged a few words with each other. He seemed to see in me the good type of frontline soldier and in some way to admire me.

I decided-albeit reluctantly-to ask for his help, and called on him in his apartment. I had mentioned J. B.'s name, I went on, "Listen, M. Morel fought against me in 1940. He was a brave opponent and is a staunch patriot. I don't believe he would have said anything disparaging about us Germans. He thinks too much of me for that. He may have said that after Stalingrad and North Africa this war is now taking a decisive turn. If so, that's an opinion I can only share. I would be grateful if you could get M. Morel released." This was undoubtedly risky. What I had said would itself be regarded by the n.a.z.is and the Gestapo as "defeatist." Four days later, J. B. turned up in my apartment. He had tears in his eyes.

"Hans, I won't ever forget what you've done." I conveyed my thanks to the Gestapo man with a bottle of cognac.

Meanwhile, I was trying to get Dagmar to Paris. I was told at HQ that this would be simple if she could show that she had a job with a French firm doing work for the German occupation.

Near the Champs Elys6es, I found a firm that was converting trucks to wood-burning (fuel had long since been scarce). They were glad to have Dagmar as an interpreter.

Through the military command, I obtained a residence and work permit for Dagmar and wrote to tell her, full of joy. But my letter crossed with bad news: the Gestapo had picked up her father. He was supposed to have made disparaging remarks about Hitler. I was appalled. This proud and conservative man would never be able to stand it. After my success with the Gestapo in the case of J. B., I had to try to get him out. I received permission from Wechmar, to whom I outlined the situation, to take four days' leave in Berlin between courses.

A week later the chance came. With the necessary movement order and a driver from the school, I drove nonstop the 1,000 kilometers and more from Paris to Berlin. I was equipped with a note from the city commander requesting all service stations of the SS and Gestapo to a.s.sist me as a frontline soldier.

The reunion with Dagmar was overshadowed by events. She loved her father dearly and being "one-eighth Jewish," moreover, she was certainly no supporter of the Third Reich. But she bore her fate with composure. Although she placed little hope in my "mission," she was grateful nonetheless that at least something was being done.

Next morning, we drove in my Mercedes to Sachsenhausen. My uniform (I was still in tropical dress), my decorations, and the note from Boineburg didn't fail to impress. The camp commandant himself came to the guard room. Dagmar was not allowed into the camp. So I took the big parcel of foodstuffs and was conducted to the visiting room. As we went, the commandant a.s.sured me, "We too on the home front are doing our great part for victory." It sounded like a sneer. I refrained from comment; I was, after all, trying to get Dagmar's father out of there.

And then he was brought in, a shadow of his former self, his Berlin and Paris, 1943-1944 163 eyes full of fear. What had those few weeks done to a healthy, upright man?

"How are you?" A superfluous question on my part. "Dagmar is in the guard room. She wasn't allowed in, but sends you a big hug." What could I talk to Dagmar's father about? An SS man was sitting in the comer and could hear every word, and was probably meant to.

"I've brought you a parcel of food, coffee, and cigarettes, which your daughter has packed for you. I have an appointment tomorrow with Kaltenbrunner." (Kaltenbrunner was head of the Gestapo, at any rate, the second most powerful man after Himmler, the head of all SS units and organizations.) "I have a letter of recommendation with me and will press for your immediate release." I could see from his reaction that he had no great hope.

"Thank you for coming here specially from Paris. Give my love to my daughter. I wish you both all the best. May you be very happy-" He got to his feet, for the guard had indicated that our time was up. We shook hands.

"Chin up, I'll get you out of here." A last wave, and with tired steps this upright German left the room.

Next morning, I went to SS head office and was admitted at once to Kaltenbrunner. By rank, he must have been a general.

"I'm delighted to be able to greet a highly decorated officer from the front. Like you on active service, we here on the home front are putting in a superhuman effort to achieve the final victory." The usual blabber; I could hardly bear it any more. But, of course, I wanted something from the man, so I went along with him halfheartedly. I then spoke my request.

"I've been iven just four days' leave. I drove to Berlin through the night and yesterday, visited my prospective father-in-law in Sachsenhausen. He is in a bad way. He doesn't even know why he has been arrested. Believe me, Obergruppenfuehrer (or whatever his SS rank was), my father-in-law is a good Geran and a well-known personality in Berlin. I consider it out of the question that he had brought some kind of guilt upon himself. There must be a mistake." Kaltenbrunner showed sympathy and sent for his adjutant.

"Fetch me the file on Herr -." After a short time the man came back. "All the files on inmates of Sachsenhausen have been transferred to Czechoslovakia. I would have to request it from there."

"I'm sorry, I will have to wait for the file; that could take a little while. But depend on it, I will see that your father-in-law is released. That's the least I can do for such a brave frontline officer." I gave him my military post number and unit, and with a handshake was dismissed. Had I been successful? I didn't know.

Could one trust Kaltenbrunner and the whole Gestapo apparatus?

Had the "transfer" of files been just a trick to get rid of me?

Dagmar was highly skeptical.

"I don't trust these people. They're shameless and inhuman.

Thank you for coming. I'm glad I can join you -in Paris now.

It will help to soften the blow. As it is, there's nothing I can do here for my father." I had to go back to Paris. Dagmar would follow as soon as she had arranged things at home.

Dagmar in Paris: in normal times, the fullfillment of a dream; but the clouds in the sky were dark. I bought her a bicycle, so that she could be independent of public transport, which often didn't run. We enjoyed our days in the penthouse in the Rue Bixio. J. B. and Cl&ment often came to see us, and we were often at C16ment's, at the Cavalier. We spent one evening there with Max Schmeling and Vivianne Romance, a famous actress at the time who was a friend of C16ment. Together with Dagmar, I bought perfume, silk stockings, and supplies, which I sent to my mother, so that she had something to barter.

The winter pa.s.sed and with it my time in Paris. Dagmar and I decided to get engaged. We bought the ring at a well-known jeweler in the Place Vend6me and celebrated the engagement with J. B. Morel and C16ment Duhour. It was overshadowed by the fate of Dagmar's parents. Dagmar had no news of her father. All inquiries at Sachsenhausen remained unanswered. She no longer had much hope of seeing him alive again. Contact with her mother was broken. Her mother had merely informed her that she was leaving Switzerland for America.

I too heard nothing more from Kaltenbrunner.

When I later inquired, through a friend at Fuehrer HQ whether anything stood in the way of permission to marry a girl who was one-eighth Jewish, I received the same sharp disappointment.

The answer was that if Major von Luck had been a reserve officer, there would have been nothing against marriage to a one-eighth Jewess Berlin and Paris, 1943-1944 165 with Aryan rights. As an active officer, however, he cannot be given permission.

This showed a peculiar logic and interpretation of the "racial laws." From a racial point of view, did a reserve officer count for less than one on active service?

At the beginning of March, I was sent to Germany on a short course for regimental commanders. There I was told that I had been posted as a regimental commander to the Panzer Lehr Division, which was led by General Bayerlein, the experienced African campaigner.

I returned to Paris at the beginning of April, to wind up my household. Dagmar was to stay in Paris for as long as possible; I had notified the city commander of her presence. J. B. and C16ment were going to look after her.

"If things get critical, I'll organize transport for you. If I can't, go to the city commander, so that you can travel'to Germany in a supply vehicle." That was our good-bye. Neither of us knew when or in what circ.u.mstances we would see each other again.

Bayerlein's division lay somewhere in Normandy or Brittany. I set out in my Mercedes and decided to go via Rommel's command post at La Roche Guyon, west of Paris, and pay my respects.

General Gause, his chief of staff and faithful general staff officer in Africa, received me.

"Good to see you again, safe and sound. I'm just initiating my successor, General Speidel. Congratulations on your posting to France, where we must reckon on a landing sooner or later." When I asked whether I might see the Field Marshal, Gause's answer was immediate.

"By all means. Rommel is rather depressed because his arguments about how a landing should be met are cutting no ice with Hitler. He will be pleased to see you. Take a little walk with him. It will distract him." Rommel received me with his familiar smile. He looked much better than I remembered from our last meeting.

"I'm glad I can greet you here on the western front. We've got something coming up in the weeks ahead. See that the regiment you are to take over is well motivated and aware of the seriousness of the situation." We strolled through the beautiful park of the chateau as Rommel repeated the prophecy he had made in North Africa.

"I'm against any solution by force. I must convince Hitler that we can no longer win the war, but at most put off the end. As soon as the opportunity arises, I will try to make it clear to him personally, in writing if necessary, that the war will be finally lost if the Allies succeed in setting up a second front here in the West. Every opponent who sets foot on French soil must be thrown back into the sea in the first hours. That can only be done if our panzer divisions are stationed right by the coast, and if enough fighters are in the air which can be thrown against the powerful Allied air forces.

"But Goering has let us down once before in Africa, and at Stalingrad too he failed to keep his promise. I don't believe in the 'thousand fighters' which he means to send here.

"All the best to you, Luck, I'll be visiting your division quite often in the coming weeks.. We must do our duty." I took my leave of Rommeleeply impressed and disturbed.

At the Panzer Lehr Division, I was received at once by General Bayerlein, who greeted me with some "bad" news.

"My dear Luck, I had marked you down as commander of the panzer regiment, but was told a few days ago to send you at once to the reorganized 21st Panzer Division. It seems your commander, Major-General Feuchtinger, has more pull at Fuehrer-HQ. I much regret that I won't be able to have an old African campaigner in my Division." I was far from happy about this decision, but that was the way things were.

No one knew where the 2 1 st Panzer Division lay, so it was back to La Roche Guyon, where I saw Gause again.

"The 2 1 st is just back from its Hungarian expedition; it was sent there because of a suspected uprising in favor of the Russians. It's in the Rennes area, in Brittany, but has just received orders to move to the area around Caen, the capital of Normandy. Please report there to Feuchtinger." It was early May 1944, when I found the division and reported my posting.

"A hearty welcome to you," Feuchtinger greeted me. "Colonel Maempel, commander of Panzer Grenadier Regiment 125, has had to go home for health reasons. I am giving you acting command of his regiment until the official appointment comes through." This division, put together in Brittany in 1943, mainly from experienced units from the Russian theater of war and Berlin and Paris, 1943-1944 167 from Germany, was in many respects an unorthodox panzer division.

General Edgar Feuchtinger, an artilleryman, had no combat experience, and none at all of panzer units. He had become known in Germany as the organizer of the military part of the so-called Reichsparteitage, the national Party rallies, and through that was very familiar with Hitler and his Party apparatus. He had apparently used this "connection" to get me into his division as Colonel Maempel's successor.

Owing to lack of sufficient supplies, the division had mainly French war materiel, which had been found after the French campaign of 1940. This was allowed to be used, with the approval of High Command West, in order to basten its reestablishment. To that end a "Special HQ Paris" had been created, which was responsible for organization, etc. Here Major Becker, a reserve officer.a.nd the owner of a small factory in western Germany, played a decisive part. A highly gifted engineer, with excellent links with armaments industry, and a personal friend of Feuchtinger, he had a free hand to improvise and, with t he French materiel, put some of his own designs into effect.

At the Hotchkiss works near Paris, Becker discovered a vast number of tank cha.s.sis, for which he organized guns and finished armor-plating in Germany in order to create an "a.s.sault-gun" batlalion. In addition, he had rocket-launchers made to his design, which were demonstrated on the Normandy coast in May 1944 to Rommel and a few army commanders and filled even Hitler with enthusiasm when he was told of them. Because of his connections, Becker's battalion also received the latest radio equipment.

At first, we laughed at the monstrous looking a.s.sault-guns, but we soon came to know better. The a.s.sault-gun companies were trained to work closely with the grenadiers, and this was later to prove a decisive aid to our defense forces. Feuchtinger was naturally proud of Becker's achievement and was often at his "Special HQ" in Paris, therefore, so that he could follow up Becker's work. In addition, Feuchtinger was a live and let live person. He was fond of all the good things of life, for which Paris was a natural attraction. Knowing that he had no combat experience or knowledge of tank warfare, Feuchtinger had to delegate most things, that is, leave the execution of orders to us experienced commanders.

Such was the division with which I had to familiarize myself and of which I had to become a part. Panzer Grenadier Regiment 125, 168 PANZER COMMANDER entrusted to my command, consisted mainly of various units that had been in action on the Russian front and young replacements from home: the regimental staff, I Battalion in armored half-track vehicles (SPWS), and II Battalion in trucks.

Feuchtinger put me in the picture concerning the general situation. "Our division is the only one near the coast behind the Atlantic Wall, which, here in Normandy, is not yet fully developed and manned by an inexperienced infantry division. The antic.i.p.ated Allied landing is not expected in Normandy, but rather in the Pas de Calais, the shortest distance between England and the Continent. But Caen, as an important industrial city, is also a key point. That is why it was decided to move a Panzer division here by the Atlantic Wall. All the same, we have to reckon on airborne landings or large-scale commando operations, which would serve as a diversion from the actual landing.

"For that reason, Rommel considers it very important that the division should take up combat positions even in the hinterland.

"Your regiment, in accordance with the orders of Army Group B Rommel), to which the division is directly attached, is stationed northeast of Caen, hence east of the River Otne; the other regiment, 192, north of Caen, west of the Ome. South of Caen are the panzer regiment, the artillery, and the division's other units. For your support, you have two companies of Becker's a.s.sault-gun battalion.

"Our division has strict orders not to intervene in the event of enemy landings until cleared by Army Group B. Rommel wants all units to make themselves familiar with the terrain-also by nightand regular combat exercises to be carried out. I hope, my dear Luck, that you will be happy with us and I wish you lots of luck." In the course of May, Rommel appeared at the division several times, to acquaint himself with its state of training and the morale of the men. On one of his visits, he expressed himself almost prophetically. w "I know the British from France in 1940 and from North Africa.

They will land at the very place where we least expect them. It might be here." To make up for the inadequate fortifications on the coast, Rommel ordered stake-obstacles to be erected on the sh.o.r.e and in the hinterland, what was known as "Rommel's asparagus." In addition, mine fields were laid wherever airborne landings might be expected.

We were somewhat concerned that the civilian population could move about freely. We even had to leave pa.s.sages open in the Berlin and Paris, 1943-1944 169 fields, so that the peasants could go about their business. Evacuation was not considered.

Why should it be? We didn't know, after all, where a landing might take place. Through this, the Resistance, which was certainly active in Normandy, had the chance to let the British know our positions, where our tank and artillery parks were, and the location of the mine fields. And indeed we later found campaign maps on prisoners with precise indications of our po ' sitions.

The weeks went by. For a panzer division, which in the campaigns so far had been accustomed to a war of movement, the inactivity was wearisome and dangerous. Vigilance was easily relaxed, especially after the enjoyment of Calvados and cider, both typical drinks of the region. There was, in addition, the uncertainty as to whether the landing would take place at all in our sector.

I was on the move every day, in order to visit each unit in the regiment, get to know the officers and NCOS and present myself to the individual men to gain their confidence.

At conferences at divisional HQ, I met the other divisional commanders. All of them had combat experience and were highly decorated.

In May 1944, I went once again to Paris. Feuchtinger wanted me to visit "Special HQ Becker," to familiarize myself with the a.s.saultguns and rocket-launchers that he had developed and to talk to Becker about close collaboration with our grenadiers.