25. November 1941
| GEO & MIL INFO | ||||
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| Slawjansk | 
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| II./477 corps reserve[1] | ||||
We are pulled out of the positions quite unexpectedly. We are told that we are to take up winter quarters. But perhaps the war situation also requires us to regroup. We are being transferred to Slavjansk.[2]
The city stretches for about twelve kilometres in the Torez Valley and is an average Russian industrial city. Despite its 70,000 inhabitants, it largely still has a village character in its outskirts: Single-storey cottages nestled in gardens. The city centre has multi-storey apartment buildings and administrative buildings, cinemas, paved streets and a large church that stands on a large market square in the city centre. There are also a number of industrial plants and a barracks.[3]
In the city are located two divisional staffs[4] with the associated signal and supply units. Furthermore, several smaller special units, combat troops of the infantry and artillery. The quarters of our battalion are close to the city centre, yet partly already in the area of the wooden houses. The combat platoons and drivers are accommodated by group in one house as far as possible. I myself move into the cottage of a lone man. He is very friendly and enthusiastic about our military successes. He shows me a map on which he has marked our advance and the front line. The small doll’s room I live in is too small for me, though, so I move. My new quarters are a corner house in the same street. To get into the house, you have to go through a wooden door in a plank wall next to the house. Then you walk around the house and enter via a few steps and a covered terrace. It is inhabited by a Russian (really Russian this time) family. The husband and the son, who is about 16 years old, seem to work and are only at home in the evenings. The woman must be about 50 years old, but looks much older. She is small and skinny, but a dear old mother. She looks after the house with her daughter, who is about 15 years old. Now and then I have sat down with the people and tried to have a modest conversation. The topic in such cases is always first of all marital status, age, profession, children and the like. They are quiet people, and especially the good Matka[5] is touchingly concerned about me. Once there was a small company of young people visiting the house. They were probably celebrating a family feast. There was neither food nor drink, for rations were very scarce, but there was dancing. When I happened to show up, a young girl immediately asked me to dance. So I got into this little company and danced with them several times.
I occupy a room in which the son or daughter probably slept before. It has one of the usual iron-frame beds, is very clean and vermin-free. I am very happy here.
I wake up in the middle of the night. Somewhere at the front a machine gun is rattling. It seems very close, for the clear air of the cold winter night carries the sound loud and clear. A little worried, I stay awake until the warmth of the bed and the feeling of security here in the resting position make me fall asleep again. I didn’t know where the front line exactly was. I only know that our front line on the Donets is very thinly manned due to a lack of men. In the defence section of our division, which is about 45 kilometres long, only the villages have been developed into strongpoints. Between them, however, there is only a very patchy row of positions, and in a very unclear terrain at that. And here, as already described, small local skirmishes and fighting took place, which lasted the whole of November and December.
Here in Slavyansk it is still quiet. Our duty is limited to the most necessary activities, cleaning weapons, repairing things and stable duty for the drivers. And, of course, night guards. During the day I go from billet to billet, perform the usual inspections, talk to the men and the Russian residents. Real life in the rear. Nevertheless, the local cinema of the troop welfare is called a front cinema. That’s where we went today. The show is opened by a group of Russian mandolin players who rattle out a few snappy melodies. Then a Russian lady singer sings a few songs, and then the newsreel starts. A Landser appears on the screen with a goose under his arm. But since our Landser are quite starved because of the very poor food situation at the moment, the picture earns the booming jeers of the soldiers.[6]
The supply situation is very difficult: tremendously long supply routes made difficult by partisan raids and hampered by a lot of snow and freezing cold. During the whole month of December our cold rations consisted only of 500 gr of bread and a packet of makhorka every day. This was accompanied by a tube of soft cheese. We were sick and tired of this tube cheese and it earned our division the internal nickname “Cheese Division”.
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- ↑ KTB 257. I.D., NARA T-315 Roll 1804 Frame 000322, s. a. Frame 000196/222/224/167
- ↑ II./477 was corps reserve from 25 Nov 1941 (KTB 257. I.D., NARA T-315 Roll 1804 Frame 000322).
- ↑ This paragraph partly verbatim from Benary p. 70.
- ↑ in fact, XXXXIV. A.K. (KTB 257. I.D. Frame 000216), I.R. 466 (Frame 000224), possibly 295. I.D.
- ↑ Here the author has accidentally used the Polish word for mother, which in Russian means “womb”.
- ↑ Here is a thematically similar newsreel (No. 585 of 20 Nov 1941; from minute 02:25 it is about slaughter cattle and winter fur clothing)