On the Line - Leningrad Front, December 1941

Bundesarchiv

Von Lüttwitz was wondering if it was scientifically possible for it to get any colder. There was a small stove in the dugout he shared with his platoon sergeant and the platoon's three runners, which kept the temperature somewhat tolerable. Wrapped in his blanket, he was staring at the small thermometer on the table they had scrounged from a ruined building. He wondered if it still worked as it hadn't moved off of -15° since two days ago. When it had read -20°.

He decided that it was probably better to get up and move around than lie there shivering, so he shed the blanket and pulled on his greatcoat. Time to make the rounds of the squads under his command.

Just as he was moving the tarpaulin they used to keep the weather out aside, Oberschütze Otto Wandesleben bustled in. "Sir!"

"News, Otto?"

Wandesleben, who had just returned from battalion headquarters, did indeed have news. "We're at war with the Americans!"

That news brought von Lüttwitz up short, "The Americans? Why on earth are we at war with the Americans?"

"The Japanese attacked them at some place in the Pacific, so they declared war on the Japanese. Following that, the Führer declared war on the Americans. We have to support our allies, don't we Herr Leutnant?" Wandesleben asked, as if he truly didn't understand what was happening.

Taking his time before answering, von Lüttwitz finally said, "Of course, Otto. I'm sure Berlin knows what they are doing. Stay here, I'm going to inspect our positions."

As he left the dugout, von Lüttwitz had the thought that Berlin had absolutely no idea what it was they were doing. They were fighting England and the Soviet Union, now as if that wasn't enough, they would eventually be facing the industrial power of the United States. Didn't these politicians learn anything from history?

Oberschütze Hermann Dedekind and his assistant gunner Schütze Max Ehman were at their post, a semi-dugout open to the rear, overlooking no man's land. At least the dugout had a roof and the way it was constructed kept most of the wind and precipitation out. But nothing could keep the cold out.

Though they tried to keep all of the machine guns on the line, they had to occasionally take them back into the living area to check that the mechanism was still functioning, the cold did funny things to machinery. Their gun had just been serviced so they were back on the line. Their platoon commander had managed to set up interlocking fields of fire using only three of the platoon's four MG 34s. Not only did this allow the weapons to be kept in shape, it allowed the gunners time out of the cold.

Although each man in the platoon was qualified on the MG 34, those who were assigned as the gunners were reluctant to let the other soldiers use "their" guns.

"You do know that the MG is the property of the Army, not your personal property, right Hermann?" Dedekind's squad leader Unteroffizier Paul Niehaus had remarked one day after Dedekind had been bitching that Emil Schaab and Viktor Adler had gotten the weapon dirty after their stint on the gun.

"Of course, but could you mention to those apes that the MG 34 is a precision piece of machinery, not some old rifle which you can drag through the mud and still have it function. Do those clowns even realize that their lives depend on this gun functioning as it was intended to function?" Dedekind had started to raise his voice as he unloaded his frustrations on Niehaus.

"I'm sure they do Hermann, but I'd be careful about calling Schaab an ape, he is, after all, a very large fellow."

"You know what I mean." Dedekind said, the anger still in his voice.

"That will be enough, Oberschütze Dedekind. Report back to your post."

Knowing he was going to get no further, Dedekind responded automatically, "Jawohl Herr Unteroffizier, zu befehl!"

Though von Lüttwitz tried not to show any favoritism to his old squad, no one in the platoon minded that he would often stop in to see them first when making his rounds. This day was no exception.

"Sepp, are you keeping these wolves well fed?" he greeted his old assistant, Unteroffizier Sepp Wittman, as he stopped by the 2nd Squad's alternate machine gun position. One of the men had once asked why they had multiple locations in which to set up the MG.

"When we're attacking the Russkis, what do we try and kill first?" he had asked the man.

"Well we try to kill their machine gunners, of course, that way ..." von Lüttwitz had been amused, though gratified, when the light had come on in Schütze Eric Lindauer's eyes. "So we move the guns around, making it harder for the Russians to predict where they might be!"

"Give the man a prize," he had joked with Lindauer's squad leader, Unteroffizier Hannes Kohl, "he pays attention. You might live through this yet Bubi.¹"

Von Lüttwitz noted that Wittmann was one of the men on the gun, the other was Schütze Karl Wachsmuth. Wachsmuth was watching the area in front of the gun intently. Von Lüttwitz tapped him on the leg and said, "Anything out there, Karl?"

"Nothing but dead Russians, you can't see them because last night's snow covered their bodies. It gets very eerie out there at night Herr Leutnant, sometimes you see things which may or may not actually be there."

"If you think you see something, Karl, look slightly away from it. Looking directly at something at night will just confuse your brain as it tries to make what you're seeing fit a pattern. Look away and that which was unclear will often become clear." he looked at Wittmann when he was finished.

"Uh, I knew that Sir." Wittmann said.

"But does the rest of your squad?"

"They will soon."

"Another thing, Karl. Your ammunition belt contains regular ball and tracer rounds, correct?"

"Yes Sir, I believe every fifth or sixth round is a tracer."

"Even without tracer ammunition, your muzzle flash is visible at night, correct?"

"Yes Sir." Wachsmuth was starting to wonder where all this was going.

"Say you're here on your post and you hear something out there at night. What do you do?"

Wachsmuth reached for one of the grenades they had on a shelf below the gun, "I throw one of these at where I thought I heard the noise. So I don't give away my position."

Von Lüttwitz nodded, "Only if it's an obvious attack and you can see lots of Russians moving towards you should you engage with your gun. Of course, everyone will be shooting by then and the Russians might be too busy to focus on your gun. But believe me, you are a target."

Wachsmuth nodded and resumed watching no man's land.

Von Lüttwitz patted Wittmann on the shoulder, "Glad I can still teach you a thing or two."

Wittmann grinned as Von Lüttwitz left to visit the other squads. He knew they had a good officer, someone who actually cared about the men he led. They weren't all like that. Perhaps because von Lüttwitz had once been a simple Landser² like the rest of them, he remembered what it was like.

Wittmann noticed that the clouds were starting to break up towards the east. It would be sunset soon, if the night was clear, the temperatures would plummet. It was going to be a long night.

¹ Boy or lad. (German)

² German slang for a low ranking infantry soldier, similar to the U.S. Army's use of the term "grunt" in Vietnam.