Sven Hassel by SS General

Author:SS General
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-11-19T00:31:29+00:00

The commanding officer of the 71st Infantry Division, General von Hartmann, had given the order for a subterranean village to be constructed near Tsaritsa. The task was entrusted to the 578th Engineers, and they in turn enlisted the help of the two thousand Russian civilians who were held prisoner in that area. They were put to work as slave labor, women and children, old men and idiots, the sick and the dying. Seventy-five percent never survived to see the result of their efforts.

The village was called Hartmannsdorf, and extravagant rumors were rife throughout the whole of the Sixth Army. The general's bunker, it was said, had four rooms and a bath and had been furnished with articles stolen from the museums of Stalingrad. There was a chandelier and a four-poster bed, thick carpets and rugs on the floor, oil paintings and crystal vases and a whole library of precious books. The general's division had been the first to enter Stalingrad, and it was naturally assumed they had laid hands on all the valuables they could find.

In addition, the village was reputed to have its own flour mill and two silos full of grain; a poultry farm with six thousand chickens; a herd of over a thousand cows; stables containing one hundred and thirty-eight thoroughbred horses; a dairy and a bakery.

Certain it was that the general and his staff could be seen most mornings enjoying themselves on horseback in the countryside surrounding Tsaritsa. It was a bewildering sight for the soldiers who made their painful way back into the town from distant battlefields. Men weak with hunger, men gravely wounded, men half dead with typhoid, looked at the well-fed general and his plump and healthy staff and wondered if they were ghosts from the past.

Hartmannsdorf flourished until the middle of January, 1943, but the 71st Infantry Division was wiped out of all practical existence sometime before then. That January, von Hartmann called up the remnants, gathered them together, and marched bravely out of his village to launch a last desperate attack upon the enemy. It had not been the general's idea to make heroes of the remaining few. The orders had come from Berlin.

"We are but pawns," said von Hartmann grandly. "The Fuhrer disposes of us as he will."

10

General's Cakewalk

A portly Russian general, flanked by two sergeants, came toward us bearing a flag of truce. Our orders were to shoot all envoys on sight, but after a second's hesitation, Captain Glaser told us to hold our fire. The Russian general moved closer. He was a big man, over six feet tall, with powerful chest and shoulders, hanging belly and sturdy legs. His face was harsh and furrowed, his small blue eyes pitiless as the Russian winter.

As they approached, one of the sergeants tossed across a white sack. We picked it up gingerly and looked inside. Food!

"A present from the Soviet people," said the general in good German. "I am instructed to offer you terms for a capitulation. The offer to remain

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