TWENTY-TWO
FOLLOWING HIS REPATRIATION TO GERMANY, VON Strachwitz underwent a painful period of recovery and rehabilitation in Breslau. His limbs were slow to improve, and horrendous headaches would plague him for years. However, he was not a man to meekly accept his fate. He undertook his rehabilitation with the single-minded focus that was his hallmark. He pushed himself to his limit to get his body functioning again, in order to get out of hospital and return to active duty. Finally he discharged himself while still considered by the doctors to be unfit.
Still on crutches, the Panzer Graf reported to Field Marshal Schorner at his army group headquarters, eager to undertake a combat assignment. The field marshal couldn’t accept him for duty, but von Strachwitz persisted until Schorner relented and offered him a position on his staff. But the Graf would not accept that, insisting on a combat assignment and actually requesting he be given command of a panzer or tank-destroyer unit. Finally Schorner agreed; after all, he had to admire the Graf’s persistence and courage. So von Strachwitz was given a unit called Panzerjäger Brigade Oberschleisen1 (Tank-hunter Brigade Upper Silesia). It was a brand-new formation, as the time necessary to assemble, equip and train the brigade would give the Panzer Graf time to recover from his wounds. He was clearly unfit to walk into an existing formation and go straight into battle.
The brigade consisted of an infantry regiment of three battalions, with some 650 men each, an artillery battalion, with whatever guns could be scraped together, an armour battalion, and signals, engineer, transport and support units. Armour was a problem as tanks were scarce, with full panzer divisions having only 20–30 operational tanks, being often down to four or five. As a result the Graf received turret-less tank hunters, initially 10 Jagdpanzer IVs, with a promise of more armour to come, although he knew would have to scrounge or steal whatever he could. The Jagdpanzers, however, were highly effective tank killers. Their low silhouette made them hard to hit and easy to conceal while their high-velocity 75mm gun was sufficient to destroy a T-34 and even a Josef Stalin heavy tank if they could get in close enough.
His three infantry battalions were a motley crew of eager volunteers, grizzled veterans, callow youths and returning convalescents taken from replacement battalions. The fit, well-trained young men of the 1939 Blitzkrieg were long gone; what now remained were old men, World War I veterans, fanatical Hitler youth or hastily trained and malnourished levies, with a leavening of combat veterans to stiffen the inexperienced majority. A clear example is Günter Kosemorrek, a veteran sent to the Führer Begleit Brigade, part of the Grossdeutschland Panzer Corps, as a replacement:
Back in the days when I was a recruit I would probably have been very proud to wear the narrow black sleeve insignia with the silver inscription “Führer Begleit Brigade Grossdeutschland.” Now the designation Grossdeutschland struck us as more of a joke, not least because this supposedly elite unit is now nothing but a bunch of half-trained Hitler Youth members, re-trained Kriegsmarine [Navy] and Luftwaffe personnel and elderly ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe who can only speak broken German—a dreadful bunch the like of which I have never seen even in 1942 after the flight from Stalingrad.2
Yet for all that, they fought extremely well. Not just for their primary group, as these had been subject to continual change through casualties and transfers. Combat formations underwent 200% to 300% personnel turnover so that the primary group was no longer represented by individuals. It was the division, and regiment, the original combat unit, which nourished, nurtured and guided them throughout the war that held them together as their wartime family. At this point in the war they were basically fighting for the survival of their homeland, but above all it was their disciplined character that kept them fighting, their obedience to their superiors and the regime. Germany had been a militarised society since before World War I. Taught to obey from a young age, they continued to do so to the very end. Severe discipline and draconian punishments for disobedience also played a part. The German Army prided itself on its discipline, and spent a great deal of effort to keep it at a high standard. Also, even at this late stage in the war, sufficient numbers still believed in Hitler and final victory to maintain a fierce resistance. Ultimately the sheer professionalism and obedience of the army kept it fighting to a high standard.
Most, if not all, of von Strachwitz’s men felt privileged to be commanded by the legendary Panzer Graf, a Diamonds wearer, with a reputation for brilliant success. Although not all felt so sanguine, as one grizzled veteran was overheard to remark: “With the Panzer Graf leading us we’ll be for it. They’ll be sending us to all the hot spots.” He wasn’t wrong.
Signals, equipment and transport were equally hard to obtain, along with the fuel to drive the vehicles, so that the brigade was deficient in all three. What they did have in abundance, however, was the panzerfaust [armour fist], a hand-held single-shot anti-tank rocket projectile that could pierce 200mm armour at a range of 60 metres. The close range required for an effective hit was a problem, requiring cool nerves and courage, but at least it gave the infantry an effective weapon, and many soldiers earned multiple tank destruction ribbons using it.
Throughout January, while von Strachwitz was busy establishing his formation at its headquarters at Bod Kudova, the front was crumbling around him. The German Army was in retreat everywhere, despite a brief fling against the Americans in the Ardennes in December. Everywhere the hard-pressed infantry relied on small numbers of tanks from the battered panzer divisions to give them some respite or prevent them from being overrun. These panzer units lurched from one crisis to another, never staying long enough to consolidate a gain before being called elsewhere by urgent appeals for help from another infantry unit. Then they in turn would have to withdraw, as one or both units on their flank collapsed, threatening them with encirclement. This was the role the Panzer Graf’s brigade would play, responding to alarm calls to stop Soviet spearheads, and mounting counterattacks to restore a local situation or front-line position.
The Germans were increasingly using Stalin’s tactics of executing their soldiers for retreating or not pressing an attack vigorously enough. Even a comparatively mild field marshal, the Luftwaffe’s Albert Kesselring, “Smiling Albert” to his men, chided Graf von Strachwitz’s cousin Rudolf-Christoph von Gersdorff for not hanging any cowards or deserters, as he did not see any swinging from the lamp posts on his way to the latter’s headquarters.3
On 12 January the Allies announced the results of their conference at Yalta in the Ukraine. It had serious implications for Graf von Strachwitz: large tracts of German territory were to be given to Poland including Upper Silesia, his home, the area he had fought the Poles for in 1921. The German inhabitants were to be resettled. On the same date, the Russians launched their final major offensive, heralded by a massive drum-fire artillery bombardment calculated to drive the strongest surviving soldier insane. It shattered the German front, with the Russians breaking through over the Vistula.
This led to the hurried completion of Panzerjäger Brigade Oberschleisen’s formation. Every man and gun was needed to contain the Russian onslaught. On 15 January Stuka expert Hans Ulrich Rudel, himself a Silesian, requested the transfer of his unit to Upper Silesia, taking all but one of his squadrons to Udetfeld. On their first day there, they destroyed 11 Soviet tanks, three among buildings, and eight in a convoy along the road, plus several trucks and other vehicles.4
The Russians crossed the old Silesian/Polish border on 19 January so Strachwitz was now defending the sacred soil of Germany. Refugees were streaming along the roads carrying their possessions in carts or carriages or simply trudging disconsolately following those in front. The Wehrmacht estimated that some 3,500,000 German civilians were on the move in the east at this time.5 Tens of thousands were killed by Russian artillery fire or strafing attacks by fighters or bombers, callous attacks which only served to harden German resistance. Refugees were often assisted by French or Allied prisoners of war who had worked for them as farm labourers, and who were equally unwilling to fall into Russian hands. A small detachment of British prisoners actually attached themselves to a Waffen SS Unit of the 33rd SS Volunteer Division just to get away from the Russians. Even more pitiful were the starving, emaciated concentration camp inmates being forced on death marches to prevent their liberation by the Russians.
The Germans fighting desperately to stave off the Soviet and Allied invasions probably did not stop to think that only recently they had been the invaders. In fact many may not have considered such a description appropriate, reasoning that the British and French had declared war on them and the invasion of Russia had been a crusade against communism. Von Strachwitz probably also held this view, quite common as it was among all Germans, especially the officer class, and Strachwitz certainly felt the invasion of Poland was necessary, to end Polish claims to his beloved Silesia.
German hopes were meantime kept alive by promises of miracle weapons that would alter—and win—the war. The Panzer Graf held no such illusions. He fought hard to give his fellow Silesians time to escape. This overriding motivation totally absorbed him, enabling him to tolerate the pain of his wounds. Nonetheless, his adjutant often found him slumped in his vehicle almost prostrate by the severity of his headaches. At the end of January, he found out that his Schloss at Gross-Stein had fallen into Russian hands on the 24th. It was a not an unexpected blow, but still difficult to accept when it happened. Fortunately his family had managed to fly out. His home was plundered and its chapel was destroyed. After the war, the Red Army used it for a time before it was destroyed by fire in 1955.
He did get some good news in January, a promotion to lieutenant general on the 30th. This was the rank for a corps or divisional commander, so commanding a brigade was technically a downgrading, although given his state of health he was lucky to have a command at all. Also, the promotion wasn’t a reflection of his formation command status but of his overall tactical genius in armoured warfare and to his courage. The question of status didn’t overly concern him because he was well aware that a command at divisional level would not allow him any latitude to act independently, as Hitler was micro-managing down to divisional level and sometimes even below. As a lieutenant general he was of equal rank to army corps commanders, and out-ranked most divisional commanders, so would not encounter too many problems from the generals in his area of operation. His reputation and tactical ability also gave him a great deal of latitude, which was helped by the confusion and fast-changing situation, which allowed him greater freedom of movement. He basically slipped through the net in the chain of command for extended periods of time, which suited him perfectly.6
He did however work in close co-operation with Rudel who had moved his squadrons to Klein-Eig, near the Panzer Graf’s home. The Russians rapidly became aware of his presence, and at the first sign of his Stukas the Russian tanks would try to hide, usually in and around buildings. Rudel, reluctant to bomb houses where civilians might be hiding, would call on the Panzer Graf to flush the Soviets out so he could pounce. Equally the Graf would stealthily move up to where the Russians were hiding and his men would blast them, usually with the panzerfaust. Most had become adept at using this weapon, with some earning 10 or more tank destruction badges (although owing to the chaos of those days, many kills were not recorded or badges awarded). Rudel would often decimate a tank convoy enabling von Strachwitz’s small force to move in and mop up the survivors. The two Silesians worked well together as a team, causing the Russians heavy tank losses and providing the battered German infantry with much-needed respites. Rudel, however, was soon called away by Himmler to fight in his command area of operations in Marisch Friedland, East Pomerania.
Von Strachwitz’s brigade continued to strike hard counterblows against the Russians. When checked the Russians would often outflank any stubborn holdouts, forcing them into a retreat. The Panzer Graf was thus often forced to retreat, but not before thrusting into the exposed Soviet flanks, causing at least a momentary halt to their advance. Despite being wracked with pain, and no doubt affected by the devastation of his beloved Silesian homeland, the Graf fought on with focused fury as he continued to move among his troops, urging them on with his seemingly fearless example. His doubts and misgivings he kept to himself.
By the end of January the greater part of Upper Silesia, the industrial heartland of mines, steel mills and armaments factories, had fallen into Soviet hands. With the Ruhr bombed out—and soon to be captured by US forces—Germany had little industrial capacity left to maintain meaningful resistance. The end was only months away. Breslau was surrounded by the Red Army on 13 February and Sagan was taken on the 15th. The Soviet 1st Ukrainian Front commenced its major offensive in Ratibor on 15 March. German territory was constricting at an alarming rate, but its defiant resistance in the east never slackened.
The Graf’s tactics of ambush and rapid surprise attacks were easily carried out on an over-confident and often careless enemy. In the Russians’ immediate rear there was little security because German artillery was chronically short of ammunition and the Luftwaffe was almost non-existent so the endless stream of Russian tanks and vehicles pushing towards the front was virtually unmolested. The Graf’s armoured vehicles and tank-hunting grenadiers gave the Soviets several salutary lessons, but his attacks had very little impact on the flood of armour, men, and vehicles, pouring in. No matter how many Russian tanks or vehicles his men destroyed, the advance only paused briefly before continuing. The enemy was too strong and thick on the ground for the Panzer Graf to remain in his rear for long as he had done in the past, and so he was always beating a quick retreat. Even when retreating, however, he took out Russian troops and gun positions who were feeling secure, even close to or at the front line.
At this time the German Eastern Front contained 103 infantry divisions and 32 panzer or panzergrenadier divisions plus various ad-hoc formations or independent brigades like the Graf’s Oberschleisen. On the Western Front, now sitting on Germany’s border, there were 65 infantry and twelve panzer divisions, though four of these were to be sent east. None of the German forces were strong enough to do anything beyond delay the enemy advances. All the divisions were seriously under-strength, mere shadows of the formations that invaded France in 1940 or Russia in 1941. Acknowledging its acute shortage, the German Army reduced its panzer divisions from two to one panzer battalion, and even this had to often be made up to strength with assault guns rather than tanks. The diminished strength of the German forces did not matter to Hitler, who still expected the divisions marked on his maps to perform as fully equipped and supplied divisions, with a full complement of trained troops. He did, in one of his rare frank and honest moments, admit to his Luftwaffe Adjutant von Below, in late December 1944: “I know the war is lost. The enemy superiority is too great.”7 However capitulation was never an option.
Although not as severe as the Germans’ issues, the Russians also had manpower problems. Their enormous losses in the war to date meant that the Russians were pressing into service any male they could get their hands on in the areas formerly occupied by the Germans. In this way countries with no love for Russia, such as Lithuania, which had to provide a whole division for the Red Army and reinforcements for existing units, were pressed into service without any training at all.
Around mid-March von Strachwitz received a visit from Colonel Freiherr von Jugenfeld, on behalf of Army Group Weichsel, which was looking to form more brigades like the Panzer Graf’s. The Colonel sent an extremely favourable report as to Oberschleisen’s organisation and effectiveness. However by this time the brigade was sorely depleted in heavy weaponry, but thanks to von Strachwitz’s inspired leadership its morale was still high. It was not a beaten force seeking only to escape, but one that struck back hard and fast at the enemy. He was then given overall command of several tank-hunting units consisting mainly of men who were armed only with the ubiquitous panzerfaust and who often rode to battle on bicycles in a parody of the former fast-moving armoured battalions. Nevertheless they proved effective, with the Russians learning to have a healthy respect for their deadly ambushes and at least one Knight’s Cross was earned by a young tank-hunter lieutenant.
Von Strachwitz managed to find reinforcements for his units by incorporating stragglers from the retreating flotsam, who were only too glad to find a home and with it a greater chance for survival. Despite this, by 10 April the three battalions of his original brigade were badly depleted and they only had some 60 vehicles of all types remaining. Infantry weapons were still adequate, and they still had several hundred panzerfausts, which allowed them to continue some semblance of an anti-tank role. The panzerfaust and its larger cousin, the panzerschrek, should not be discounted as literally hundreds of Russian and Allied tanks were destroyed by them, especially towards the end of the war. They were particularly effective in urban warfare, where the user could conceal himself in a building or rubble, and fire from very close range. Some 70% of Russian tanks were destroyed in this way in the towns and cities of the east.
At the beginning of April von Strachwitz received the awful news that his youngest son, Hubertus Arthur, Harti for short, a lieutenant in a panzer regiment, had been killed while fighting in Holstein on 25 March. Harti, a gentle, good-looking, slim young man, had previously been seriously wounded, and had had his leg amputated.8 His conscience would not allow him to stay back while Germany was under attack, and when he volunteered to return to active service the army accepted him back. Given his previous wound his father would have had reason to be confident that Harti would survive the war, and he only had his eldest to worry about. So the blow when it came had double the effect.
His eldest son, Hyazinth, a successful panzer commander in the 11th Panzer Division, who favoured his father in looks, had also been severely wounded and was still recovering. His convalescence no doubt ensured that he survived the war, but it left him so deeply traumatised that he never fully recovered. The Graf’s daughter, Lisalotte, was safe in Bavaria, much to the Graf’s relief. She had arrived there after a sojourn in Italy where she and 36 other German girls armed with rifles had travelled from Brindisi to Rome through Communist partisan-infested territory, to report for duty. The commander wisely sent them home, much to their disappointment.9
Hitler ultimately took the coward’s way out, and shot himself on 30 April. Göring and Himmler had already betrayed Hitler so Admiral Dönitz was appointed as führer. The Panzer Graf’s reaction to the news of Hitler’s death was not recorded, but would no doubt have been “not before time and it should have happened much earlier,” an opinion shared by many. Hajo Herrmann, an expert bomber pilot with the Knight’s Cross, Oak Leaves and Swords recounted, “Doenitz announced ‘Fuehrer had fallen in Berlin’ The women [Eva Braun’s mother and sister with whom he was staying] wept. I did not weep. The conclusion seemed to me to be inevitable, necessary.”10 On the other hand, Hans Ulrich Rudel noted, “The shock of the news that the Head of State and Supreme Commander of the Reich is dead has a stunning effect on the troops.”11 Helmut Altner, a young conscript defending Berlin, on hearing an order of the day that Hitler had fallen but the fight against Bolshevism would go on, said “I am astonished. No word of peace. Only ‘holding on.”12 Claus Sellier, a newly minted lieutenant, on hearing Hitler’s last testament on the radio: “We were on the threshold of victory, however the German people betrayed me, the German Army refused to fight—officers and soldiers alike betrayed me …” said “I was raging mad. He dared to say that. When twelve million Germans have died. That’s his testament? Did you hear that arrogant lunatic bastard?”13 Georg Grossjohann, who was attending a regimental officers’ course recorded, “The news announced on 30 April that Hitler had been killed during the defence of Berlin was received in different ways by the participants in the course. Astonishingly the numerous SS officers working in this area reacted especially coolly.”14 Perhaps equally astonishing, and perhaps a testament to German confidence in victory, they were still conducting training courses in the final desperate days of the regime. The veterans of the Waffen SS too had become disillusioned with Hitler and the Nazis, as they saw that their many sacrifices had been unappreciated and in vain. Their motives for fighting on were now similar to the army’s, with the extra psychological burden of having been ultimately betrayed by their Führer, for whom they had given their all.
The Panzer Graf was not prepared to go down to Valhalla after a Götterdämmerung-style struggle against the Soviet forces, so with his usual meticulous planning he organised his retreat away from the Russians, towards the Americans. Allocating one battalion as a rearguard, he led the remains of his brigade through to the Sudetenland. It was fortunate that he didn’t stop and surrender in the Sudetenland, as many Germans who surrendered to Americans there were handed over to the Russians. Perhaps the Graf suspected this, as he continued into Bavaria. Here he encountered the Americans where an astonished young lieutenant sitting nonchalantly in his jeep was only too glad to accept the surrender of a highly decorated general. Von Strachwitz was so haggard and drawn that the officer thought he was wounded and inquired whether he needed medical attention. The Graf merely replied “No.” With that he went into American captivity. His war was finally over.
NOTES
1. Some publications show it as a Panzerjagd Brigade. I have adopted the terminology used in Georg Tessin’s work listing all of the Wehrmacht’s formations, which lists a Panzer Jäger Brigade Oberschleisen. There were numerous ad-hoc units, with various, often similar names operating at the end of the war with little or nothing known of them in official records. There was a Knight’s Cross recipient in a Tank Destruction Brigade “Oberschleisen,” but whether this was the Panzer Graf’s brigade or another with the same title is unclear.
2. Günter K. Koschorrek, Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front (Greenhill Books, UK, 2002), p. 299.
3. Baron Rudolf-Christoph von Gersdorff (trans. Anthony Pearsall), Soldier in the Downfall: A Wehrmacht Cavalryman in Russia; Normandy and the Plot to Kill Hitler (Aberjona Press, USA, 2012).
4. Hans Ulrich Rudel (trans. Lynton Hudson), Stuka Pilot (Euphorion, Dublin, 1952).
5. Christopher Duffy, Red Storm on the Reich (Atheneum, NY, 1991).
6. For all these reasons not a great deal is known or recorded as to his activities during the last months of the war. Similarly commanding ad-hoc formations, as he did in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as well as in Upper Silesia also meant little in the way of records and documentation such as war diaries etc which were kept by larger and more established formations. The 16th Panzer Division also lost much of its documentation with the surrender at Stalingrad.
7. Von Below, At Hitler’s Side, p. 223.
8. Günter Fraschka. Knights of the Reich.
9. Ibid.
10. Hajo Herrmann, Eagle’s Wings (Airlife Publishing, UK, 1991).
11. Rudel, Stuka Pilot.
12. Helmut Altner, Berlin Dance of Death (Casemate, PA, 2002).
13. Claus Sellier, Walking Away from the Third Reich—A Teenager in Hitler’s Army (Hell-gate Press, USA, 2006).
14. Georg Grossjohann, Five Years, Four Fronts (Aegis Consulting Group, PA, USA).