5. Juni 1942
| GEO & MIL INFO | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sloviansk | 
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| 6: RegtCdr: LtCol Haarhaus[1], BnChr 1 Bn: Cpt Glaser[2] | ||||
| 8: 1st Panzer Army | ||||
| CinC: ColGen von KleistWP | ||||
With the restoration of our old Donets front line, we have established the basis for the new offensive. However, the preparations for this offensive will still take some time. But just so that we don’t lie around idly, the division has ordered all OA sergeants to a ten-day aspirant officers training course in Slavyansk[3] So tomorrow I will drive into town with the supply lorry. The training course will take place in a barracks where we are also accommodated. We sleep very spartanly on straw bags on the ground. The course covers the usual topics: study of weapons, tactics, leadership and general education. The division leader[4] Püchler is very interested in us, is often present at the lectures and also intervenes in the discussions. In doing so, he is not squeamish. Once he cross-examined an artillery sergeant, becoming terribly rude and almost insulting. He’s a genuine, bloody boorish Bavarian.
After work I go for a walk in Slavyansk. On one of these walks I chat with a black-haired Russian woman who looks very much like a Berlin acquaintance. But she didn’t want me to accompany her up to her house.
Another day, as I pass by, I see two girls standing in a hallway, one of them smoking a cigar. The girls laughed at my astonished face, and so we started talking. I repeatedly visited the cigar smoker at home. She lives with her mother. The father was killed by a Russian shell during the winter fighting around Slavyansk. They buried him in the garden behind the house. The girl is a passionate smoker. She keeps begging me for cigarettes. “Gerbert, za kurritj!”[5]. Since I am a non-smoker, I more often give her my daily ration in the usual exchange procedure. —
One day I meet an old acquaintance from my recruit days in Zerbst. He’s still as small and chubby as he was then, but he’s a very nice guy. We always liked each other. He sits as sergeant and first clerk at the division staff of our Bear Division.
Today, as I stroll through the streets after work, I come across a crowd on a street corner. On approaching, I see a young woman lying dead on the pavement. A few minutes ago, a Russian “nagger”[6] had dropped a bomb on the city. It had exploded here in the street, killing two women and a girl. The air pressure of the explosion had torn off their clothes. The young woman lay almost naked.
Of course, I frequently visited my old neighbours, with whom I had lived during the winter. When I entered the room for the first time, they were happily surprised. We hadn’t seen each other for four months. While I was still sitting in the parlour, the good Matka[7] brought me two meatballs that she had just fried. I ate the meatballs, and today I am angry that I still ate the little bit of meat away from these kindhearted people, because the food situation is bad. May the Lord God reward them.
The 15-year-old daughter almost seems to be in love with me. She is not pretty at all, red-haired and freckled, but she is touchingly nice to me. When I was with them for the last time today, we said goodbye at the little wooden gate that forms the entrance to the house. It is pitch black. It takes a while to say goodbye, and then she stealthily gives me a photo of her and a small lace handkerchief. What a treasure for a little Russian djevuchka[8].
It had become late. When I returned to the barracks, it was pitch dark. One could see absolutely nothing. As I was coming into the barracks yard, I bumped into the guard. I only had my cap on, but the guard was wearing a steel helmet. The result was that when I collided with the edge of the steel helmet, he bashes my eyebrow open. And then he makes another stupid remark. He couldn’t see my rank, after all. I had to go down to the cellar to wash off my blood at the water pipe before I could lie down to sleep. The next morning I show up for duty with a blue bump, which prompts the instructing major to ask who I had been fighting with.
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- ↑ On 1 Feb 1942 Haarhaus received the Knight’s Cross still as a Major and Cdr 1 Bn Inf.Rgt. 477 (source?); LtCol 1 Apr, RgtCdr 6 June. (ToW) or “shortly after the battle” (Benary p. 101). His predecessor Taeglichsbeck was transferred to the leader reserve on 1 June.
- ↑ from June 1942 (Benary p. 210)
- ↑ 05-probably 14.06.1942 (KTB 257. I.D., NARA T-315 Roll 1804 Frame 000903)
- ↑ In the original "div. general"; Püchler only became a major general and division commander in July 1942.
- ↑ Gerbert: Russian doesn’t know an “H”; за курить, to smoke
- ↑ (finnish) nickname of the Polikarpov Po-2 and R-5 biplanes
- ↑ cf. footnote above
- ↑ Девушка, adolescent, miss, maiden