Memoir of a German Soldier by Albin Greger

Author:Albin Greger [Greger, Albin]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2016-06-23T04:00:00+00:00

Leaflets

It was a cold night. There was still quite a bit of snow on the ground. The leafless trees stood silent and tall against a starry sky.

I slept in my full uniform which included my warm overcoat and some well worn gloves with holes in the finger tips. In addition, I had wrapped my blanket half around me as tightly as I could. The rest of my company lay scattered around me in similar condition. We were all dog tired when we finally stopped our march from I don’t know where to I don’t know where the evening before. We were too tired to put up tents. The cold woke me up. Slowly the stars disappeared and a gray light crept between the trees.

As I started to move around I noticed hundreds of leaflets on the ground. The Russian planes often dropped such leaflets on us. In them they told us that our fighting was hopeless and the war was lost (as if we didn’t realize that) and therefore we should surrender, bringing this leaflet along. We would be treated well and warm food would be waiting for us. Of course nobody believed that and nobody was eager to fall for it. Nevertheless, I hurried to collect as many of the rather large leaflets as I could before the rest of my company woke up and did the same, because paper -- any kind of paper -- was in short supply. We did get a thin newspaper called “Der Frontsoldadt” (Front soldier) now and then, full of propaganda that nobody believed anymore and nobody read. But paper could be used in many ways: as toilet paper, as cigarette paper, to wrap “wurst” (sausage) in if we got any and didn’t devour it right away, to start a fire, to wrap our feet in before we put our shoes own. This last use was very important to me because my socks had worn very thin and were full of holes. Paper provides very good insulation against the cold - as long as it didn’t get wet.

Soon after sunrise “Kradmelder,” a dispatch rider on a motor bicycle, arrived and brought new marching orders. We had to “saddle up” in a hurry -- that is, to strap on all the gear we were saddled with including a broad leather belt from which hung a bayonet, an entrenching tool in the form of a short sturdy spade, the “Brotbeutel”(bread sack), a metal canteen, a mess kit, two leather ammunition pouches with 15 shells for the rifle in each, and a gas mask in a round tin container. The belt around the waist was supported by a heavy leather braces from our shoulders in the front and in the back. Strapped onto these braces on our back we had the “Sturmgepaeck” consisting of a tent part , a blanket, a towel, shaving set and such.

We had been on the march only a short time when another dispatch rider caught up with us. This time our company commander read us the order right away.

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