11. Oktober 1944
GEO & MIL INFO | ||||
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Dondangen | ![]() | |||
OKW situation map November 1944 | ![]() | |||
Company officer im Grenadier (Field Training) Regiment 639 or 640 of (Field Training) Division North | ||||
AGN | ||||
GenOb SchörnerWP |
We slept quite well and had breakfast. The battalion leader went to the commander of the field replacement regiment[1] to prepare for our return. He comes back without having achieved anything. They want to keep us here! That’s the third blow this cowardly rascal in Landsberg has dealt me! The regimental commander is referring to an order from OB (General Officer Commanding), Schörner, according to which no soldier may leave the Kurland fortress without special permission. So Schörner is now OB in Courland. He’s following me everywhere, but so the front will stand!
The fact that they want to keep us here doesn’t suit us at all. Some of us already have their transfer orders for another unit. Most of us want to go back to their old unit, which they’ve been with for years. And I’m boiling with rage at the situation I’ve been manoeuvred into and Schörner’s arbitrary behaviour. We urge our battalion leader to protest against this forced recruitment. He does - if you can believe his words - but to no avail. On the first day we had lunch with the regimental commander. Now the food is sent over to our quarters. When we tried to persuade the battalion leader once again to make an advance on the regiment, he brusquely refused, saying that he had already put his foot in it with his repeated presentations. A short time later, while playing cards, he tells us that if he stays here, he will be put in charge of a (rear) signals battalion. It is now clear that he is no longer so burningly interested in our return. It had also leaked out that the division is mainly interested in us company commanders, as there is a great shortage of officers.[2] Our non-commissioned officers and enlisted men had also regained hope and gradually fell silent with their demands to return. That left only us four company commanders, and we decided to take matters into our own hands. So on my own initiative, I went to the relevant office with a company commander and simply asked for our return tickets. The captain on duty put us off again by saying that we would have to wait for the response from the army group to which our case had been submitted. We promised him to come back very soon, and left. Day after day passed. I often went for short walks, wandering alone through bushes and fields, trying to familiarise myself with the new situation. Because I no longer have much hope of returning to Landsberg. And this return in three weeks’ time was the only consolation I could give my grieving wife when I said goodbye. I, too, am depressed because I was unable to adjust to the new situation so quickly, especially as it came about under such unpleasant circumstances. This unexpected compulsion to suddenly have to stay here has thrown me somewhat off balance. If I had said goodbye to Carola in the knowledge that I was now going to Courland and staying there, it would also have been a painful farewell, but one was emotionally attuned to it. But this way it was almost like a shock, exacerbated by the anger that I had ended up here through the intrigue of a shirker. Now we’ve been sitting here for three weeks. And Carola is waiting at home for my return.
Today I visited the divisional chaplain. We had a long chat. He told me how the Russians had pushed through to the Baltic Sea near Memel with a strong wedge, cutting Courland off from East Prussia and the Reich territory.[3] The attempt to break up this clasp has failed.[4] Courland can only be reached via the Baltic Sea. It was declared a fortress.[5] The mood among the troops has dropped somewhat since the pinch-off, but it is not bad. The Landsers are by no means despondent, but at the bottom of their hearts they are probably already reckoning a little with captivity. Recently I passed a farm where two Landsers were unloading hay. I heard one of them say to his comrade: “We won’t see our homeland again.” He said it very loudly, perhaps hoping that I would pick up on the remark and tell him something new about the situation, because as an officer I would certainly know more than the Landsers. An officer’s statements still carried weight. But I didn’t know anything myself. The clergyman thinks in a similar way to the Landser. He calmly concludes his report: “... and if we don’t succeed, we’ll just foot it into captivity!” But there is no fear or fatalism, just healthy realism with a dash of gallows humour. The fact that we didn’t yet feel like we were in a mousetrap was only because the connection across the Baltic Sea was still open, albeit endangered.
A section of heavy artillery is just marching past. We exchange a few words with a sergeant. He is a Berliner and says that they come from the Sworbe peninsula.[6] Sworbe is the southernmost tip of the island of Ösel and the only piece of ground we still hold there. The Russian attacks with bitter fury. Step by step, our front slowly retreats so that the troops can cross over to the mainland in an orderly manner. The heavy cruiser “Prinz Eugen” with its large-calibre guns is an invaluable aid to our troops. It is up to us to determine the pace of the retreat. The front closes ranks, but the losses on both sides are enormous.
The days are terribly boring. I go for a lot of walks, mostly alone, sometimes with comrades. We stroll through the village, visit an anti-aircraft division headquarters[7], observe a tethered balloon that stands like a plump sausage in the blue sky and monitors the north coast. Our battalion leader plays cards all day. Sometimes the days were so boring that even I tried to learn how to play cards.
Today I wrote a long letter to Carola in the orderly room, telling her that we would probably be held here for good. The non-commissioned officers and enlisted men of our march battalion left today after all. They are returning to the Reich.[8] We officers, on the other hand, have been distributed to the battalions of the field replacement regiment “for provisional service”.
I moved into a single room in a one-storey stone house. It’s a very high room with a huge iron stove about two and a half metres high, like the ones that are common in this country. It is built into the wall in such a way that one half of it stands in each of two rooms and thus heats both. The stove is fired from the hallway. A first lieutenant, who is still a company commander despite being 42 years old, lives in the next room. Officers are in short supply. The other comrades are mostly younger officers my age. They are all friendly and likeable comrades, and I like it with them.
Sunday. Confession before the service. As this is a Protestant church, there is no confessional. So the priest sits behind the altar. As I walk around the altar corner, I stop for a split second. There sits a lance corporal in a Wehrmacht uniform, his stole around his neck. So the lieutenant kneels down in front of the lance corporal and confesses. Rank and epaulettes count for so little in front of the LORD!
Full-time clergy only exist from the division upwards. The rest of the clergy mostly serve as medics in the units. What a blessing came from these clerical medical ranks at the dressing stations and in the military hospitals! How much comfort they gave to the wounded, and how many souls of the dying they saved to heaven! I think with concern of the attempts to replace the clergy here with other forces. During the First World War, the military hospitals were not least the hotbeds of revolution, because the soldiers, who due to their wounds were also mentally unstable, were easy to manipulate. And if the nursing staff in the military hospitals are made up of pacifists and conscientious objectors, then the watering down of the will to resist and the fighting morale will take place from here - as in the First World War.
I am already infected by the fixed idea of the presumed hopelessness of the situation up here, because I find myself praying to the Mother of God: “Come to us, the poorest of the poor in the trenches of the encircled fortress of Courland!”
After the service, the company commander invites me to breakfast. Apart from me, two young officers are also present. There is a whole mountain of half-rolls with toppings. It was a nice, harmonious Sunday morning. Tonight is casino night. The regiment returned from deployment shortly before we arrived in Dondangen, so everyone is in high spirits.[9]
Today is shooting duty. The shooting exercises are being held in a meadow. On the way there and back, I deal with some matters that I want to tell Carola about in case I return. Because today there was a rumour from the battalion that we five officers will be sent back to Landsberg after all, perhaps even in the very near future. Everyone knows what to make of such rumours, but the hope that never dies is immediately revived.
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- ↑ probably Field Training Regiment 640
- ↑ the same is said in KTB HGr N dated 20 Oct 1944 p. 332/334
- ↑ on 9 oder 10 Oct off the small harbour Palanga on the border of Memelland (9 Oct acc. to Wikipedia, 10 Oct acc. to Key dates in Palanga history und KTB HGr N dated 10 Oct 1944 p. 190/196, mid October acc. to Haupt 1979 p. 18, who however, on p. 23, dates the “beginning of the enclosure” to the 13th; a permanent separation certainly existed from 14th (situation map “Kurland in Karten” dated 14 Oct 1944)
- ↑ Operation “Geier” acc. to KTB HGr N dated 13–16 Oct 44 (13th/p. 257: directive, 15th/p. 275: odered for 17., 16th/p. 285: deferred to 18th, p. 288: to end of First Battle of Courland)
- ↑ Hitler ordered Courland to be held (KTB HGr N dated 21 Oct 1944 p. 353) which is basically the same. An official declaration as a fortress is not to be found. Generaloberst Schörner uses the term in a message of greetings to Hitler (KTB HGr N dated 31 Dec 1944 p. 344)
- ↑ It must be a misunderstanding. A transfer of troops from Sworbe to the mainland is neither to be found nor conceivable. There were, however, a number of transfers also of heavy howitzers to Sworbe or within Courland. Some of tbhem may have passed through Dondangen.
- ↑ 6th Flak Division
- ↑ On their near sinking, see 1.12.44
- ↑ Field Training Regt 640 had initially been sent to Riga (within the frame of FAD N) and later to 16th Army (KTB HGr N dated 15 Sep 1944 p. 162 and dated 20 Sep 1944 p. 262), their return (after relief by Div. “Nordland” on 22 Sep, cf. KTB HGr N p. 293/p. 301) is not mentioned in the KTB.