17. Dezember 1943
The Soviets seem to be up to something. Boshidar is under heavy fire. Heavy 17 cm artillery[1] and rocket-launchers cover our little hamlet with a hail of shells. They howl and hiss and shake the earth with series of explosions. The windows clink and rattle, the air pressure sweeps dust and paper through the room, and then splinters and chunks of earth clap down. In between, the 17-cm shells hum in at greater intervals. When they hit the earth, the house shakes and the ground rocks. The explosion is muffled and rips a dark column of earth steeply into the air. They have delay fuses, drill deep into the earth and tear open enormous craters, house after house collapses under the hissing blows of these giants.
I sit in my quarters and wait for now. A new salvo howls in. Stalin organs! Roumroumroumms – broookh - brrrakh. That was close! I rush out of the house. Before the next volley howls in, I want to reach the slit trench that is dug behind the neighbouring house. I run across and stand in front of half a house. You can see right into the living room. The air pressure from a rocket has pushed the wall out and knocked it over. The thick, rock-hard mud wall had fallen with all its force onto the slit trench and crushed the men crouching in it. Some other men were wounded. We carry them into the neighbouring house, where several wounded Red Army soldiers are already lying. They had tried to enter the village during the drum fire. The Bolsheviks are attacking our positions on the heights in front and, according to usual tactics, are covering the village with artillery fire in order to prevent reserves from being brought in. If they only knew that we don’t have any reserves at all!
It crashes and splinters, howls and roars, yowls and hisses, shakes and rattles. Another heavy lump is humming towards me. I slide like a flash into a hole that was once supposed to be a bunker. Four gunners from the IG platoon are already sitting in it. As I plop down on the ground, the entire hole wobbles and sways. It doesn’t collapse thanks to the frost, which has made the walls freeze as hard as stone. I quickly look over the edge and see the narrow, black column shooting up vertically again. Since it is pointless to do anything with this fire, I remain crouched for the time being. Finally, after two hours, the barrage subsides. I climb out of the hole and jump from house to house, always listening for the muffled firing of the 17s or the swelling yelp of the Stalin organ. I want to go to the battalion command post, but first I go back to the wounded whose house I’m passing. I enter the living room. They were all still lying there, covered in lime dust - dead. A rocket salvo had exploded outside, close to the house, ripped through the wall of the house and killed the wounded - Germans and Russians. The last belongings of the dead, wallets, watches, rings, which had previously lain on the table, lay tattered and scattered on the floor.
I run a few houses further to the battalion doctor. The room is full of wounded. He himself is bent over a table on which a soldier is lying. The doctor has been operating throughout the terrible shelling despite the shaking house and the swaying floor. He says it not without quiet pride, and he has reason to do so. As night falls, the Russian ceases fire. The night remains quiet.
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- ↑ The Red Army did not have 17 (or 17.2) cm guns, even if they are mentioned again and again; according to Forum der Wehrmacht, this refers to the 152 mm cannon howitzers M1937 produced in the Perm factory No. 172, the most common guns in artillery preparation, besides the “Stalin organ”, which was indeed also used in the attack described here.