8. Dezember 1943
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| Bozhidar | 
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| Kitaigorodka |
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The positions of the rifle companies stretch for kilometres over the bare heights up here. This range of hills is cut at right angles by a steep-sided valley that loses itself behind the range of hills in a vast, wide plain. Where the valley joins the plain, at the foot of the wide, gently rising slope, lies the small village of Boshidar, consisting of only one row of houses, where the battalion command post is located. In our rear, far back on the horizon of the flat plain, we can see the silhouette of the houses of Kitaigorodka, the headquarters of the regiment.
The row of houses in Boshidar is about three hundred metres long. It is virtually between the village street and a now frozen stream. The farmhouses are on the village road and the gardens behind the houses end at the stream. Only at the northern[1] end of the village are another three houses still standing on the other side of the path.
Just before the village, a small wooden bridge crosses the stream, which comes from the nearby valley cutting.
The commander has occupied a house in the centre of the village as a battalion command post. I am two houses away. The other houses are occupied by the crews of an infantry gun platoon, a 3.7-Pak, some heavy machine guns and mortars of my company. There is also a light howitzer battery just behind the village. So here in the village are heavy weapons, while the rifle companies up on the heights have to make do with their light infantry weapons. Only some of my heavy machine guns give them a little more firepower.
The line of position of the rifle companies consists of a thin line of individual foxholes and machine gun emplacements spaced fifty to a hundred metres apart. The MG positions are usually manned by four men. The foxholes are actually tank cover holes: two metres long, half a metre wide and chest deep. They are manned by two men. It is not possible to densify the emplacements because of the small number of men. But we have long been used to making do with such weak forces.
These positions stretch across the whole wide, bare, snow-covered ridge, over grassy areas or harvested maize and sunflower fields, the stalks of which are still standing in places or have been pressed down by the wind and the Landsers’ boots. This line runs for about three kilometres across the open plateau until it reaches the next village, which also still belongs to our battalion sector. Leutnant von Arnim is there with his company.[2]
The first reports of enemy contact are coming in. The Russian is here. He has moved up and is beginning to scan our new front. From now on I can only do my patrols in the dark. I then walk along the entire stretch of front where my machine gun platoons are deployed, from position to position, from hole to hole. There the poor guys stand in their holes. One stands guard, the other lies down on the ground and sleeps or tries to sleep, as far as the narrowness and cold allow. Many have covered half of the hole with a layer of maize or sunflower stalks and scattered a thin layer of earth on top of that, as much as the stalks could support. The frost then solidified this cover. The off-watch soldier then lay under the part that was covered in this way and closed off with a shelter half curtain. But since the whole hole is only two metres long and the guard is standing in it, the lying soldier still has to draw up his legs. Nevertheless, his felt boots still peek out of the dangling shelter half up to his knees. This is how they live here - and in other similar positions - week after week, two hours on guard duty, two hours “sleeping”, in -20 degree cold and more. In front of them the enemy, above them the frosty sky. During the day they cannot get out of the hole. They are tired and hungry. They stand and freeze, swear and keep silent and fight. Only in the evening after dark do they come out to exercise and warm their stiff limbs. In the evening, the food also arrives, either by vehicles or ration fetchers, and when the latter have to fetch it, it is sometimes already cold. Every now and then someone gets sick, but surprisingly rarely.
The Russians are no better off, but they bear it easier because they are used to the cold. I once watched a Russian guard in his hole from an observation post. The guy sat in his hole for two hours in the biting cold without moving.
Boshidar is under artillery fire.
At the village exit facing the enemy, we now set up a few more positions to protect ourselves from surprises from the valley that cuts through the ridge here. These positions also protect the small wooden bridge that crosses the stream here. For this construction work we have a “slob” company[3] at our disposal, supervised by a Russian-speaking German Leutnant. Whether they are prisoners or civilians I do not know. As I come from the battalion command post in the evening to go to my quarters, the column is standing on the village street. It is bitterly cold. As I walk past the dark, silent ranks, I hear them stomping their feet and slapping their hands together for warmth. An hour later, I pass their work site. Some are digging, others are standing around. They don’t have much desire to work.
Today the Russian attacked our right battalion section with four tanks. In the process, he lost two tanks to Glaskörper (Blendkörper BK 2H). These glass projectiles have the shape and size of an egg shell and are filled with a liquid which, when the glass shell shatters, turns into vapour which causes severe respiratory distress for a short time. If you throw this thing against the tank, the tank sucks the resulting vapour into itself with the fresh air. The crew has no choice but to get out of the tank as quickly as possible. A fantastic weapon! - if you have the courage to tackle the tank.
One of the tanks was about to roll over the trench when a Feldwebel threw a Glaskörper at its turret. The tank stopped on the spot, the crew jumped out and ran away. The other three had rolled on in the meantime and were approaching our village. But then our Pak fired and immobilised the second one. It remained there. The last two lost heart and turned back. In the skirmish, the company only had a few wounded, including the company leader, a Leutnant, who had been shot in the knee.
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- ↑ in the original “eastern”, an explicable confusion because the enemy is generally to the east, but now to the north; after all, Boshidar stretches north-south
- ↑ On 19 Dec it is described as lying to the left, i.e. west. However, according to Benary p. 151, Lyubimovka, which was located there, belonged to the II Battalion section under Captain Schlegtendal. It is still possible that only part of the rather large village belonged to the 9th Company section. Otherwise it could only be Tscherwonyj Lug to the north-east, i.e. to the right.
- ↑ probably the 3rd/Bau-Batl. (K) 161 mentioned in the division’s Order of the Day of 14 January 1944 (KTB XXX. A.K., NARA T-314 Roll 833 Frame 0004870, Benary S. 152). Construction battalions (K) consisted of prisoners of war. The Bau-Bataillon 161 (here without (K)) had been renamed Bau-Pionier-Bataillon 161 in September, although another source quotes from documents the combined designation Bau-Pionier-Bataillon (K) 161. A Bau-Bataillon (K) of this number (without -Pionier-) cannot be found. The frequent renaming was probably simply ignored by the author of the Order of the Day.