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Chapter 3: Living on Borrowed Time
- The University Press of Kentucky
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Today, as I went over unprotected slopes and came under the fire of a . . .Russian heavy machine gun," wrote Harry Mielert to his wife in April 1943, "I involuntarily had to think about your observation that in war shots are fired in order to lull people. . . .Then I also had to think: the man over there. . .was after my blood and without doubt would have been happy if he had bumped me off." This amazing observation from a Landser who had been at the front for almost two years illustrates that combat is the goal toward which all the activities of an army are directed, yet actual battles often take place less frequently than supposed, and the number of troops on "the sharp end of war" may be only a relatively small proportion of the soldiers in an army.' As incredible as it seems, then, a soldier might occasionally forget the purposes for which he was trained. For the Landser, combat consisted of a thousand small battles, a daily struggle for existence amid terrible confusion, fear, and suffering. Combat meant fighting in small groups, in sinister blackness or in cold, lonely bunkers, in crowded houses from room to room, on windswept steppes against steel monsters, with each unit and each man-confused men with a need for one another-fighting for their lives, longing to escape their fate, leaving a trail of torn, mutilated, and dead flesh in their wake. At the front, the Landser lived in a complex world, one both physically unstable and emotionally chaotic. He might spend much time in the front line as little more than an apprehensive spectator, then suddenly be thrust into the vortex of raging events. His horizon neces- sarily limitedto the small areaimmediately opposite him, he rarely knew much of the larger events of the war. His daily life consisted of alternate bouts of boredom, panic, anger, fear, exultation, bewilderment, sorrow, and perhaps even ~ourage.~ Dreading isolation, he desperately sought community with his fellow soldiers. Above all, he saw himself not as a cog in a grand military machine but as an individual who very much wanted to survive.TheLandser thushad apersonal, if ironic,relationship to combat. He wanted to avoid death yet felt a blow to his pride if kept out of battle. Life seemed fleeting asfate,that elusive and ficklecreature, teased the Landser by juggling eventsjust out of his control. "The time appears to have come. . . .We lie in front of our tents, write letters and worry a bit," Friedrich Grupe recorded in his diary of the last days before the German attack on the Soviet Union: The last quiet night, the night of 21 June. The noise of the motors has subsided. . . .In a wide square the battalion standsbefore its commander. . . .Then he reads the Fiihrer's appeal. .. ."Soldiers of the eastern front, you are about to embark on a difficult and portentous struggle. . . ." The soldiers stand quiet and serious. For many tomorrow will be the baptism of fire; for some, the last passage . . .No one is inclined to talk. Night comes. . . . We dig in and lie in the foxholes. .. . It's almost 2:00 A.M. In little more than an hour hell will break loose. 3:00 A.M. Helmets are put on, hand grenades in the belt, rifles loaded. Everyone stares ahead, nerves outwardly strained. Then the first barrage cracks out behind us! Now the earth rumbles and shakes,before us flashesthe glow of fires. ...The time of the infantryman is here. We race f o r ~ a r d . ~ Although Grupe's accountresonated with suppressed tension even as he tried to maintain a certain matter-of-factness about the whole business, otherLandsers betrayed different emotionson the eveof battle: they noticed that their initial enthusiasm for the great test waned and a sickening sort of apprehension increased. Before the attack on France, Siegfried Knappeobserved that amonghis comrades"spirits [were]quite high . . . although [we] were tired of waiting and eager to move out. If they were afraid of the prospect of combat, I could not detect it. They werejoking and playing around." Still, Knappe admitted, "all the reserve officers we talked to who had experienced trench warfare during the World War were very concerned about what was going to happen." [3.129.211.87] Project MUSE (2024-04-18 00:20 GMT) Living on Borrowed Time 33 Similarly, Wilhelm Priiller recorded in his diary just before the assault on Poland, "We're sitting on our lorries and...