A Castle in Wartime by Catherine Bailey

Author:Catherine Bailey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2019-10-28T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

*

To begin with, the Russians encountered fierce German resistance and progress was slow. After the first few days, however, defences started to crumble and the Red Army moved at speed across the frozen ground. The landscape of East Prussia was mainly flat and forested and the approaching thunder of artillery created terrible fear in the isolated towns and villages. Etched into the minds of people living there were images of the atrocities committed at Nemmersdorf in the north-east of the province. The Red Army had briefly occupied the town in October 1944 and, after the Wehrmacht recaptured it, Goebbels sent propaganda units to film the ‘gruesome Bolshevik crimes’. There were reports and images of mutilated dead bodies, of naked women nailed to barn doors, and babies with their ‘heads bashed in’. Dozens of women and young girls had been raped many times over by Red Army soldiers before they were murdered.

Panic at the thought of suffering the same fate as the residents of Nemmersdorf spread like a contagion, compounded by the fact that there were no plans for the evacuation of the civilian population. Claiming that the Wehrmacht would ‘smash any enemy attack’, Nazi authorities considered any talk of evacuation treason. They exhorted East Prussians to defend their province to the last, and threatened punishment to anyone caught fleeing, while simultaneously making preparations for their own departure. The consequence was that the greater part of the civilian population was not evacuated from the towns until the force of the explosions from the Soviet artillery began to shatter the windowpanes in their houses.

By then, they were trapped in towns without water, gas or electricity, waiting for transport that the Nazis promised, but never came. All motorized vehicles had been requisitioned by the retreating Wehrmacht, and the trains had stopped running. Even by East Prussian standards, it was a bitterly cold January, and the prospect of days and nights out in the open, trying to make headway on icy roads, was frightening. Some chose suicide, taking capsules of cyanide readily available in town pharmacies. Others fled to the forests, digging foxholes in the snow, where they hoped to remain undetected by the Russian troops. Most, however, elected to flee by road. Total confusion reigned. ‘Panic grips the people as the cry goes up: “The Russians are close,”’ one woman recalled. ‘Then a man comes by on horseback, shouting in a loud voice: “Save yourselves, you who can. The Russians will be here in half an hour.” We’re overcome by a paralysing fear.’

In the last ten days of January, some 2 million East Prussians fled into the unknown. The forced induction of all men into the Volkssturm meant that the majority of those taking flight were women, children and the elderly. Mothers had to harness horses and load up the family’s belongings, together with food and other provisions necessary to survive the coming days in the open. Seizing whatever transport was available – hay carts, wagons, even prams – they set off along the roads out of their towns and villages.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.