Five Years Front

Michael Hansen

Five Years Front
a soldier's memoirs of the Great War

Für meine Kameraden

1964
Spring
Training

I was drafted into the Feldheer like so many other hopeful young men in the Spring of 1964.
To my 16-year-old self, alone away from home for the first time, the red brick buildings of the Adenauer Kaserne in Hannover might as well have been fairytale castles, brimming with the promise of adventure and glory.
There was no marvelling for long however, for as soon as we stepped off the train, a stocky Unterfeldwebel went to work, ordering us into formation in the courtyard.
"What a pathetic Sauhaufen! You want to be soldiers? If the Kaiser were to see you, he might lose confidence in the whole damn war effort! But not to worry, I will teach you.  Now, Bewegung! In Formation antreten, marsch marsch," and on he went, talking and shouting non-stop, admonishing those who drew his ire and praising those who seemed to know what they were doing with backhanded compliments.
I tried not to draw his attention, getting into position as I was told and doing my best to take in as much as I could without visibly moving my head. There were other formations being assembled across from ours on the other side of the courtyard, and as I heard the train start to move again and leave the base's station, I couldn't help but shiver with excitement at my new life that was about to begin.
When our formation was finally satisfactory to the Unterfeld (who was still complaining about our apparent lack of discipline), we were marched off into one of the red brick buildings of Adenauer, which had seemed so imposing upon arrival but were now revealed to be simply barracks. Sleeping quarters for eight recruits per room on a long hallway, the walls decorated with photographs of war heroes who had gone through basic trainig at Adenauer and schematics of the weapons we would soon be familiarized with.
Set up in the entryway of the barracks were a few tables where we filled out the last of our paperwork, before being given our bedsheets by a bored-looking enlisted man and assigned a room. I remember being disappointed by the lack of ceremony, thinking of the bedsheet-man's nonchalanche almost as an insult. Weren't we the heroes of tomorrow, while he was just an old fart stuck on training duty?
It turned out that I shared my room with Egon, another recruit from Kassel I had met on the train, and six others I had not. We tidied our beds to our best efforts, we packed the belongings we had been allowed to bring into our lockers, and then, lacking orders on what to do, sat around the table that was one of the few pieces of furniture in the room to talk.
While the names of most these first Kameraden escape me now (except for Egon, with whom I would share much more joy and pain, and another dear friend whom I will introduce in a while), I clearly remember the following exchange:
One of the others, a boy from the Elsaß, suddenly got up and announced: "Well, lads, I will go look for the Unterfeld, to ask him about our orders."
We looked at him as if he had just announced that he would take a quick stroll to hell and back. "Are you out of your mind?," another hissed at him, grabbing his arm to prevent him from leaving. "Everyone knows how the NCOs are in basic training. If you go to ask him for something to do, you will have us all cleaning the toilets or worse for our stay here!"
Oh, how innocent we were then, to think that toilet duty could be the worst to befall us, so assured of victory that it wasn't a question for us wether it was reached, only that we would get there as comfortably yet with as much excitement as possible.
The Elsäßer looked at him as if he was crazy, but then relented and sat back down. Not a moment too soon, because the Unterfeld's voice came booming from the hallway as soon as his buttocks touched the chair: "Dritte Kompanie, antreten! In front of your rooms, Marsch!"
We all jumped up, clambering over the chairs and each other as every one wanted to be the first outside. When we were lined up next to our doors on the hallway, recruits standing to attention from the window at the far end of the hallway to the door we entered through, the Unterfeld who had been marching up and down the hallway while we stumbled all around him, trying to get to our places without getting too close to him, closed the pocket watch he had been staring at the whole time and started shouting again.
"That was almost a whole minute to get to your positions! If you are that slow during a combat alarm, you die! Not only you, your whole Zug dies. Do you want to sabotage our war effort? Well, do you?"
A resounding "Nein, Herr Unterfeldwebel" from 160 throats came as the answer. The Unterfeld looked at us if he wasn't sure wether he should believe us or start assembling firing squads, but then he raised his voice again, flipped his watch back open and declared: "Back to your rooms, Jungs, We'll try that again right away."
The next half hour was spent running into and out of our rooms while the Unterfeld and two equally shout-happy Unteroffiziere screamed at us to get moving, stand still, go back to our rooms, marsch marsch. When we had finally reached a time he deemed satisfactory, we were allowed to return to our rooms. We had just sat down at our table again, sweating and complaining to each other about what a Schinder the Unterfeld was, when from the hallway came another shout: "Aaachtung! Stubenappell!"
Groaning, we got up again and took our old and by now familiar positions beside the door, while the Unterfeld and another NCO walked from room to room, inspecting how the recruits quartered there had made their beds, while the last of the trio infernale stood guard on the hallway and kept a watchful eye on us. Infallibly, whenever they entered a room, there followed shouting and the crashing noises of personal belongings being thrown to the floor, before the NCOs and the recruits returned to the hallway. I remember staring at one recruit from the first room to be inspected who looked as if he was close to crying, and I remember the guard dog barking to keep our eyes straight ahead.
I spent the rest of the wait for our turn staring at a framed picture of Werner Hagelow, the hero of Ukraine at the wall opposite of me.
Finally our turn came. The Unterfeld walked past us into our room while we stood at attention like statues. "Eintreten!" came the bellowed order, and we followed him. The Unterfeld and his fellow NCO were already at work, checking every corner for dirt and bringing new disorder to our freshly made beds.
"What's this?" the Unterfeld asked one unlucky roommate, pointing towards a cobweb in a corner near the ceiling. The poor lad looked like he might have been frozen with fear, but finally he managed a reply: "A cobweb, Herr Unterfeldwebel."
This only managed to set the Unterfeld off even more. "Damn right, a cobweb," he shouted so loud that I could've sworn my teeth clattered. "And why is there a cobweb in your room, Schütze?" My companion looked even more shaken by this outburst than the rest of us. Still, he answered something to the effect of the room not having been cleaned properly. This quickly caught him a slap across the face from the Unterfeld.
"Are you saying that your predecessors didn't clean their rooms properly when they left? I don't think so! By the time we were through with them, they were real soldiers, with a sense for order and duty. Not one of them would tolerate such a dereliction in cleanliness. No, recruits," he added, now addressing all of us, "I think that you are the ones to blame. Your civilian laxitude has already begun to seep into the very walls of the building."
While he was speaking, the other NCO had been inspecting our lockers, and now he opened them to reveal their contents to the Unterfeld, whose eyes seemed to almost fall out of his skull.
"Who ordered you to stow your luggage?" He shrieked. "This isn't your appartment back home, you little shits. Here, we do things by the book." He started tearing bags and backpacks from the lockers, throwing them across the room. "These lockers are for your gear and nothing else! Is that understood?"
Eight voices shouting "Ja, Herr Unterfeldwebel!" answered. He turned as if to leave, but then turned around once more. The rage on his face had been replaced with a sort of peaceful calm, and he looked at us and the room as if he saw it for the first time.
"It looks like an artillery firing range in here," he said, no longer the crazed maniac from before, now reminding me more of a kindly teacher. "See to it that this mess is cleaned up by roll call this evening." With that, he was out of the door, his lackey following him.
We spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up our room, cursing and complaining whenever we were sure that there were no training personnel nearby. Stealthy talks with other recruits revealed that the scene we had gotten the honor of participating in in our room had more or less in the same way occured in every room, and this only served to fuel our discontent.
After the evening roll call, during which we were split into training platoons and squads, each of us got issued a can of food from an iron ration as dinner before we were being given Dienstunterbrechung for the day.
While my roommates sat around the table talking to each other, I absentmindedly poked at the contents of my can with my fork and thought about how the day went. It had certainly been what I had expected, but at the same time it hadn't been at all. While I was still trying to wrap my head around this conundrum, Egon sat down beside me.
"Is everything all right?" he asked, genuine concern in his voice. I simply nodded. "I'm just thinking about the day," I explained. "Wondering how it will go on, you know?" Now it was Egon's turn to nod. "Better not to lose any sleep over it," he said, "We will find out soon enough."

Of course, Egon had been right. We were woken early the next day by shouting and rapping on our door. We barely had time to get out of bed when the Unteroffizier who had accompained the Unterfeld the day before barged into our room. "Get yourselves dressed and your beds in order," he growled, "Roll call in 5 minutes." With that, he was back the way he came, undoubtedly to repeat the same in the next room.
The roll call came, and, as expected, not everyone managed to get there in time. While the Unteroffizier went back into our block to "motivate" the stragglers, the Unterfeld started the morning sports with us. Seeing how much power and energy this small, stocky man possessed was surreal. When we laid there panting, unable to do one more push-up or other exercise, he was infallibly still going at it, shouting at us all the time.
"Come on, just one more! That's my boy! You there! No stopping until I say so! God, you are a pathetic lot. Come on boys, just one more set." Still, we who had managed to get outside in time were the lucky ones, for while we walked off to take breakfast, the ones the Uffz had needed to whip downstairs were taken to run a few rounds along the base's outer wall. They later joined us in time to receive our equipment from the quartermaster, panting, hungry and with sweat-drenched clothes.
The Quartermaster's realm was another one of the red brick buildings we had already become familiar with, but while the barracks were divided into several rooms and hallways, his seemed to be just one endlessly stretching room in which everything a soldier could dream of seemed to be stored.
In short order, we recieved our personal equipment, which included many mundane things, such as underwear and socks, but also the coveted treasures we had all been looking forward to recieving: Helmets, field-gray parade uniforms and, most important of all, our weapon, the Mauser Automatikkarabiner 59. I was as giddy as a boy on christmas morning when the clerk who was in charge of the weapons handed me the gun, but did my best to conceal it, as to not draw our Unterfeld's wrath. By the way my comrades reacted, I could tell that I wasn't the only one trying to suppress excited glee. Still, for the next hour an idiotic grin returned to our faces whenever we thought the attention of our supervisors elsewhere.
This feeling of excitement wasn't for long, however. During drill training, assembly and disassembly of the gun under all kinds of circumstances, from complete darkness to a simulated gas attack, the gun quickly turned from a promise of adventure and heroism into an universally disliked harbinger of routine and shouting instructors.
Our best efforts never seemed enough for our instructors, and their incessant shouting, kicking and slapping of recruits only served to further agitate us.
But no suffering lasts forever, and so on one sunny morning our company found itself marching out of the gates of the base through the outskirts of the city and into the surrounding countryside for our first combat training bivouac.
We had been taught the basics of infantry combat during our weapons training, and now it was time to put the theory to the test. Promising recruits had been made squad leaders, while our instructors played the role of officers and relayed orders that we were to act on and soldiers from the local Heimatschutz were to play our enemies.
Egon had been made leader of a squad that was made up from the boys from our barrack room, and while we were marching past the smoke-belching chimneys of the ever-working armament factories on the edge of town and into the sun-bathed fields and forests of the surrounding plains, I found myself in high spirits.
Without a doubt, we would impress our instructors just as we would our superiors once we got assigned our Stammeinheiten. I found myself imagining marching not only to a training exercise, but on a great offensive, to finally break the stalemate and send Ivan running from the Reich. How glorious would it be to to break the enemy lines on a day like this, send him on his way with his tail behind his legs? In this moment I felt at peace, completely confident in our impending victory. The war was won already, and it was only a matter of time until the enemy would notice as well.
"Hansen! Abstände einhalten!" The shout from our Unterfeld ripped through my pleasant daydreams and brought me back to the present. I had been so absorbed into my fantasy, that I was almost stepping into the back of the feet of the man in front of me, and so I sheepishly corrected my pace.
"Rührt euch! Ein Lied!" Came another shout, and like one man we started singing the marching song that had been drilled into our heads since the first week of training:

	"In der Ukraine, Sommer Neunundvierzig ... "

We finally made camp in a rich green wooded area belonging to the Hannover training area. By now it was midday, and we were all a bit winded from the long march. A few recruits were already taking off their packs and drinking, sitting down, talking and laughing, when our Unterfeldwebel, who had been curiously absent for the last stretch of the march, returned in a jeep driven by a Heimatschutzmann in full battle dress.
"Squad Leaders to me!" he ordered in his characteristically loud way, and soon the ten men who had the questionable privilege of having been chosen for this position crowded around his car, quietly talking to each other and taking notes.
"What do you think they are doing?" the Elsäßer, who sat next to me in the shadow of a scots pine, asked me. "Receiving orders, of course," I replied in the tone of know-it-alls everywhere. Sure enough, shortly afterward Egon shouted for us to now gather around him.
"Alright, guys, here it is. We have been ordered to dig trenches here to secure an assumed supply route. One squad will be split up in the area over there," he indicated the mostly flat area to our front, "at all times. As it is, we have the honor of going first. We will take our posts for three hours, after which we will work on the trenches for another three hours, followed by four hours rest."
Soon, Egon had taken another of our squadmates to scout out positions for our posts, and those of us that remained went over our gear once more. I felt a slight shiver of joyful anticipation. Surely, our instructors wouldn't wait long to send in the first enemy probing attack. I counted my rounds, all blanks of course, and then found myself recounting them. The others seemed to be just as nervous, readjusting their webbing or smoking a quick cigarette.
"Hansen, Schleier, mitkommen!" I had been so absorbed in my gear that I hadn't even heard Egon and his companion return. I quickly scrambled onto my feet and grabbed my gear. "Leave your pack," Egon advised me. "Remember what they told us, only light gear on the alarm post."
Somewhat embarassed, I left my backpack behind and soon found myself bounding from bush to ditch with the others, exposing ourselves as little as possible to the prying eyes we suspected everywhere. Finally, we arrived in a ditch between two fields, hidden from sight by a collection of bushes hanging overhead. Egon crouched down besides us, and ran us through all we needed to know.
"Listen Jungs, here it goes. Last night, the enemy made an airdrop near Celle and we are to contain them here to protect our supply lines until command can get some panzer units here to crush them. You are to stay in the alarmposten until relieved and alert the rest of the company in case of an attack via green flare shot by flaregun. To your left, about one hundred metres from here, by that old signpost, there'll be Graf and Burghardt in their post. To your right, in that bushgroup about eighty metres from your position, will be Gunther and I with the machine gun. Your main field of fire will be between those two trees at 10'o clock, at two hundred metres, and the small stream at 1'o clock, at aboout onehundred and fifty metres.
You are to open fire if you are spotted or the enemy advances within 200m of your post. If you spot enemy movement, I want you to report immediately via radio, or if the radio is unavailable, via a green flare shot up with the SigPi, as if they attacked you. I I'll leave the radio and flaregun with you. You'll be relieved in about three hours. The password is 'Winter? Rhine.' Got all that?"
My head was swimming with the flood of information I had just received, but to my relief Schleier had jutted down the bullet points on a piece of paper and ran them back at Egon, who nodded satisfied. "Make me proud, friends. You'll handle it." He gave us each a comradely slap on the back, and then he was off, to lead the next fireteam to their post.
The Elsäßer and I tried to make our post as comfortable as possible, but soon had to face the fact that this was as good as it would get. The ditch was mostly dried out by the summer sun, but a trickle of stinking rancid water remained at the bottom, and soon we were swarmed by stinging insects that were slavering at such a feast.
Still, we didn't let some mosquitos deter us. We were full of nervous enthusiasm, checking each rustle in the vegetation to our front with our binoculars. Yet each time we were disappointed when it turned out that the wind or a small animal had been responsible.
I looked over to the group of bushes were Egon had told us he had his position. I realized then that he hadn't told us what we were to do if the enemy attacked in force. Were we to remain here, selling our lives as dearly as possible, or was there some kind of signal that we would receive that would tell us to retreat towards the main line?
This lack of information left me no rest, despite the lack of enemy contact so far. My eyes flinched from our front to Egon's position and back, unsure wether I should try to reach him via radio, or if that would draw the anger of our Unterfeld on us or Egon. My hand was already wandering towards the radio, when Schleier spoke.
"Say, Hansen, what battle would you have liked to fight in?" The sudden question succeeded in distracting me, and my hand withdrew again.
"I think I would have liked to fight in Sewastopol," I answered without hesitation. "I mean, who wouldn't want to fight in the largest airborne operation of the war?" My father had often told me how in 1949 they had made that jump and fought tooth and nails all over the Krim for weeks, before finally linking up and taking the black sea port of Sewastopol. It had been a short lived victory, and in the following evacuation by u-boat almost as many paratroopers had been killed as on the day of the landing, but they had managed to make the harbor utterly useless to Ivan before pulling out.
When my father came home after the operation, seeing him scarred and one-armed had driven young me to crying fits.
"Who wouldn't want to fight in the largest airborne operation of the war? Try someone who values his life." Schleier's laugh pulled me back to the present. "Seriously, I bet you only picked Sewastopol because they make us sing that song everyday-"
"My father fought at Sewastopol," I interrupted him, somewhat harsher than intended, "and believe me, he paid the price for Blichner's blunder. Maybe you want to see his picture, to put things into perspective?"
I was already opening my pocket to pull out the family photograph we had made the week before I left for training. Schleier raised his hands apologetically, his eyes wide. "I am sorry, Hansen, I meant no offense." I grunted something I don't remember and turned to face our front again, when he added "But if you allow it, I would like to see the picture."
Turning back, I handed it to him, and watched his expression change from one of careful scepticism to one resembling awe. I didn't need to take a look at the photograph to know what had impressed him so much; I had looked at it almost daily since I came to Hannover. It showed my family at home, Mother in her finest and only dress, my little sisters in their blue school uniforms, and my father and I. While I still wore my best civilian suit, father wore his old paratrooper's uniform, bedecked in a Feldwebel's insignia, the wound badge in gold, the iron crosses first and second class, the Crimean campaign shield visible on his upper sleeve.
Finally, Schleier handed me the photohraph back, and I pocketed it again, careful not to make any dog ears from the corners.
It seemed like he wasn't sure what he should say, so I decided to take that burden from him.
"So what about you, Schleier?" I asked, "What battle would you have liked to fight in?"
"The defense of the east," Schleier said in the tone of one who thinks that he has to convince others of his point. "Keeping Ivan off of German soil, really letting them pay for every metre."
"And you make fun of me for wanting to partake in a Himmelfahrtskommando? Have you read how many of our boys were killed until the front was stabilized?" Despite the harsh subject matter, I couldn't help but chuckle, a fact I today hate myself for.
Schleier gave me a look that spoke of anger and sadness. "But that makes it all the more important," he almost shouted. "If I have to die, I want it to matter! So what if we get wiped out, as long as we fought for a good cause!"
In that moment I had the feeling that I understood Schleier, who I hadn't really talked a lot to in our spare free time, better than anyone. "I understand completely," I told, him raising my hands defensively. "It's how I would want to go as well."
A small grin returned to Schleier's face, and he visibly relaxed. "At least the Eiserne Division bled Ivan dry in the Baltics," he said, "That has got to count for something, right?"
"That has to count for something," I agreed, and that was the moment in which two people who weren't much more than strangers became friends.
There was no attack during our stint in the alarmposten.

It was our turn to rest, and I was sunken into a dreamless sleep after hard hours of work on the trenches, when our enemy decided to make himself known.
Shots rang out from the direction of the Postenkette, and shouting Squadleaders ran past my tent, blowing into whistles and shouting for their men.
A kick hit me in the side, and someone who had stumbled over me cursed, and then I was out of the tent, grabbing my rifle and giving Graf, who I shared the tent with, a hand to pull him out of the mess stumbling soldiers had made out of it.
Once we had our gear in hand, we ran crouched towards the meeting point Egon had made sure to instill into our heads before allowing us to go to bed. Finding it, however was a different matter in the dark and among other, similarily confused recruits.
I had just ducked under a branch that I could have sworn hadn't been there when there had still been light, when a hand grabbed my arm.
"Hansen, Graf, is that you?" When I answered in the affirmative, Egon let go of my arm. "Finally. You two are the last ones. Come on, into the trench." I grabbed Egons belt and Graf mine, so as to not lose each other in the darkness, as we made our way through the underbrush to the section of the trench that had been assigned to our squad.
"Halt! Wer da? Parole?" I recognized Burghardt's voice call out to us. "Winter," Egon replied and when Burghardt answered with "Rhein", we jumped down into the half-finished earthworks. Despite a day of work, the trench at our section was still more a ditch, too flat to stand decently in and without breastworks.
"Alright, spread out. Like I told you, guys, you better not have forgotten everything over a few hours of sleep." On Egon's command, I stumbled through our ditch-trench, trying to find my position. Egon had insisted on giving us an Einweisung like he had done at the Alarmposten before allowing us our rest, and of course we had bitched and moaned about missing valuable sleep and made jokes about people who wanted to make a name for themselves, but now I was forced to acknowledge that Egon had done the right thing.
Reading the landscape in the dark, with sounds of combat from the front and shouted orders from other squads moving into position to our sides and behind us was a challenge, one that might as well have been impossible if we hadn't already been told what to look for.
Finally I found my position, next to Schleier who gave me a nod. "You kept me waiting." "I am moved," I replied, but my witticism suffered under my short breath, and made my friend chuckle nervously. We exchanged no more banter, instead focusing on what was going on to our front. The open field that stretched itself out to our front was shrouded in darkness, except for the areas which were illuminated by flares, which I presumed were shot up by our instructors, and bursts of automatic fire.
I tried to find a somewhat comfortable firing position, almost not daring to take my eye from the sight of my gun. Each burst of movement was followed by frantic staring for any changes in front of us.
"Aufpassen!" Egon's shout made me freeze up and interrupted my pitiful attempts. "The Postenkette is about to be overrun. They are going to fall back by fireteams towards our main line, so watch your fire. Remember, blanks can still do some damage at short ranges."
He had barely gotten the words out, when I saw two figures in a crouched run coming directly towards us and trained my rifle on them. "Schleier," I asked my friend in an odd tone that was neither shout nor whisper, "are those our boys?" "I think so," came the reply, "but I don't know wether the SIDAFS (which is what the reservists playing our enemies were called) have been issued any Russian gear or are using their own stuff."
I mumbled a curse, then shouted "Two unidentified riflemen at twelve o'clock, closing in fast!" At least now it wasn't just our problem anymore. "Hold fire," came a shout back, "that's a fireteam of second squad!" I turned to give the news to Schleier, who shut me up with a nod and a rasped "heard it.", and then I turned back towards the front ready to give our boys some covering fire should any enemies appear behind them.
More fireteams came running downrange towards different sections of our trenchline, while the firing behind them reached a crescendo. Severeal automatiks were out there, all firing wildly, at times drowned out by bursts of what could only have been machine gun fire. Finally, the bursts turned into one long continuos one, and then there was an eerie silence. The last flares glid to the ground, and darkness took the fields back.
"Zuhören, Jungs! I just got a call saying second squad's MG has been overrun while covering their retreat. That means we are a heavy weapon short. Stay sharp, and remember to call out your targets." To say that the news were not exactly encouraging would have been an understatement. Despite the whole situation being an exercise, I felt as if the whole Russian army was about to bear down on our little line of defense. I shot a look over to Schleier, and from the looks of it he felt it too.
"Seems like you are about to get your taste of defensive combat," I recall whispering. Without taking his eye from his rifle's sight, Schleier gave me the finger, but I made out what I thought was a small grin on his face.
Then came another burst of gunfire from our front,and I jerked my head back so quickly that it felt as if I had injured a nerve in my neck. There was wild shouting in our trench, which I finally identified as "In the ditch to our front, twohundred metres!" and almost acting on instinct, I picked up the cry, while at the same time trying to make out anything in the darkness in front of us.
From somewhere I heard Egon on the radio, shouting about illumination, and indeed, a few seconds later new flares flew from the woods besides us and up over the plain. Finally, I made out the enemy, who now, without the cover of darkness to protect him while moving in, started firing wildly towards our position. I tried to pick up a SIDAF in my sights whose fieldcapped head was the only visible part of him as he tried to duck into the ditch, and let loose the first shots I ever aimed at another human being.
The flash blinded me for a second, and when I could make out more than silhouettes again there was no sign of the soldier I had shot at. Despite the knowledge that the whole affair was merely an exercise, there was a feeling of triumph, and I once again started firing at a bush which I thought moved in a suspicious way, when there came several loud bangs accompained by small explosions between us and the enemy. Shouts of "Mortar! Take cover!" came down the line and were picked up by each soldier they passed.
We threw ourselves down on our bellys or backs, clutching our rifles and trying to fit as much of ourselves into our half-dug cover as we could while the sound of the training grenades outside kept going.
Another order came down the line: "Make ready for Sturmabwehrschießen!" I started clawing at my pouches, desperate to get a full magazine into my rifle, when, far to our left, the shooting started again. Shouting and bursts of automatic fire replaced the explosions of the "mortar attack" and rose to a stakkato, and over all the chaos I heard Egon order us back up. With a curse I abandoned my efforts to reload and propped myself back up on one knee.
Before I got the chance to pick up the fight again, however, there came the piercing noise of an NCO's whistle, followed by shouts of "Exercise's over! Übungsende!". All along our line recruits came climbing out of their positions, faces dirty and eyes wide from the adrenaline. I was surprised to see several older men coming from the sides, equipped lightly and quietly joking amongst each other. It dawned on me that it were these men we had been fighting, and for just a moment I found myself wondering just how they had managed to get to us so quickly.
Those thoughts were put aside, however, when our Unterfeldwebel, flanked by two Uffzs on either side, made his way over.
"Alright, men, gather round. Weber, to me." We formed a half circle around the gathered NCOs, while one of the SIDAFs took his place next to the Unterfeld. This Weber fellow was a tall man in what seemed to be his thirties, dressed in an old summer camouflage uniform and wearing only a field cap on his head. He made no effort to remove his cigarette while he took his place, and to our silent astonishment, the Unterfeld seemed to take no offense at this.
"Everyone here? Finally. So, can anyone tell me what happened just now?" The Unterfeldwebel looked from one empty face to the next, while the Unteroffiziere stood there stonefaced and Weber seemed to repress a grin. "You there! What happened here?" The Unterfeldwebel pointed at a recruit who looked as if he was just about to collapse from exhaustion. "We were attacked by the enemy, Herr Unterfeldwebel."
Even through the darkness, the light of Weber's cigarette was enough to see the characteristic look of disbelieving rage on the face of the Unterfeld. "Oh, you were attacked? Is that it? Very good my boy, very good, never give too many details. You never know who might be listening!" He was almost shouting at the end, staring at the recruit with what seemed to be undisguised hatred. "Now, can any of you jokers tell me what happened here in detail? Or did you all sleep through the attack? That might at least explain your piss-poor performance."
I swallowed nervously. Had we really done that badly? Or was this just another tactic to get us to talk? At least now there were some hands rising, and the Unterfeld pointed at another one of us. "You there," he said, "tell me. And pray that it doesn't make the headache your friend gave me any worse."
"There was an alarm, Sir. We manned our positions to defend ourselves until the forward positions had to fall back. We gave covering fire, and then the enemy used mortars. When I looked up again, I was already staring down the barrel of a gun."
My eyes had still not entirely adjusted to the darkness after the hail of flares that illuminated the surroundings just a few minutes ago, but by his voice I recognized the speaker as Roder, the leader of one of the other squads. He sounded a bit shaken, but he didn't avert his eyes from the Unterfeld, despite the latter's stare.
"That's right, Roder," the Unterfeld grumbled, "and do you know why that is? The enemy managed to break into your positions, because the outermost left squad apparently thought it unnecessary to cover their flanks. But that doesn't mean you are the only fuck-ups around here."
He turned and now fixed Egon with his icy stare. "Isn't that right, Schneider?" he asked, addressing Egon by his last name, "if I hadn't stopped the exercise when I did you and your buddies on the right would have been overrun as well. Do you have anything to say about that?"
I saw Egon swallow the lump that he indubitably felt in his throat.
"I think it's just that we weren't prepared for the intensity of the attack, Herr Unterfeldwebel. This is our first combat exercise on company level, and we are still learning how to work together between the squads. I think we weren't prepared for a complex attack involving flanking maneouvers and enemy artillery fire."
There came murmuring from the ranks of the assembled recruits and some shapes were clearly nodding in agreement with what my friend had said. The Unterfeldwebel let his eyes wander over our formation, while Weber stood behind him, back leaned cooly against a tree and a grin on his face, the cigarette a stump between his lips.
"I take it that a lot of you think similar to Schneider here, isn't that right?" There were more murmurs, but now they sounded placatory and several recruits hit by the Unterfeld's gaze lowered their eyes. I am ashamed to admit that I was among them.
Suddenly, from among the chorus of murmurs and shuffling feet, came the voice of an unknown hero: "I just think it was unfair towards us."
Thinking back now, I am almost sure that there must have been a sound, or more likely a sudden absence of sound, as a company worth of recruits held their breath.
However, the outburst we all expected never came. Instead, the Unterfeld declared: "That's right. It was unfair, and you weren't prepared. But do you think a real enemy in the field wouldn't exploit any of your weaknesses? Artillery fire and flanking attacks are among the basics of warfare, and you need to expect the enemy to use them and others at any given time. I am going to be honest with you, Jungs. We didn't expect you to succeed this time, and just as we thought, you have failed. But you learn from failure, and it is better for you to make these experiences here rather than on the frontlines."
Once more there were murmurs, and once more the Unterfeld looked up and down the formation.
"Any questions?" None were asked, and so the Unterfeld ordered us to return to our positions. The squadleaders he called to him for a more indepth discussion, and so our squad minus Egon returned to the half-dug trench were we sat and went over the events of the attack  for ourselves.
"So, was there really nobody who watched our flank?," Burghardt finally asked with the tone of a disappointed parent. We others looked at him like he had gone mad. "I don't recall you looking somewhere other than the front either," Graf replied as he looked the accuser down, "in fact, I am pretty sure you didn't even look in my direction for even a second, and I was right beside you." Burghardt started sputtering some kind of rebuttal, but we weren't in the mood to let him get away so easily. "What?," I asked, feigning surprise, "but I thought you were the one on our outermost position. And now you accuse others of letting your guard down?"
There was a grumbling among my comrades as Burghardt's sputtering continued. It is possible that we would have come to blows that night, agitated and tired as we were, but a voice stopped us before the situation could escalate further.
"Just a little hint, Jungs," came a smoker's voice from behind us, "Don't go killing each other, leave that to the enemy. And if you are quiet, you might even hear him coming to cut your throat." Somehow, the old soldier Weber had managed to sneak up on us, and as we could see as we turned around, now he stood behind our position, hands in his pockets and a new cigarette lit between his lips illuminating an amused grin. "You should really be more careful, Jungs," he added, "The enemy is ruthless."
This somehow seemed to amuse him, because his grin grew wider as he jumped over our trench with a surprising agility and walked off into the night. For a while we stared after him, too shocked by his sudden appearance to continue our argument, watching as the glow of the cigarette grew weaker in the distance and finally disappeared completely.

We were still shook when Egon returned and sat down on the edge of our trench. "Here's how it is," he explained, "There will be no further attacks this night. The instructors want us to go to sleep and get some rest for tomorrow." We who had been sitting in the trench for the last minutes looked at each other. Each face said the same thing: "I don't believe it". Gunther the machinegunner was the first to voice his opinion. "That's bullshit!" he exclaimed. "I bet that's another trick. They want to test our instincts, that's why they pretend there won't be any attack. They want to see wether we have enough sense to realize that this is still a combat situation. You guys go to sleep if you want to, I'll stay on watch."
"I agree," came Schleier's voice from besides me. "That's exactly what the Unterfeld would do. After what he said back there, and Weber acting like he did just now, I am sure they have something planned." "What was that about that Weber fellow?" Egon asked, and we brought him up to speed. He listened to our explanation, nodding at times. "Let me see what the other squadleaders think," he said, and with that he was gone again, vanished in the dark shrubbery. The rest of us, remotivated by the thought of an imminent new attack, returned to our posts in the trench, weapons at the ready and ears wide open. Every crack of a branch sounded like an enemy unit coming for us, and every sound of wind in the treetops drew nervous glances.
Finally, Egon returned, and had he not answered the password as quickly as he did, he might have caught a blank to the face that night. As it turned out, Weber hadn't pulled his stunt with the other squads, but a good portions of the recruits still shared my comrade's sentiment.
"We have decided to keep half our strength in the line at any given time," Egon explained. "That means sleeping in shifts. Who wants to go first?" No one raised a hand. "I wouldn't mind staying here all night," I caught myself saying, "someone else can take my turn sleeping." "I won't be able to sleep anyway, I'll stay as well," added Graf. Thus it went on, until we had decided that we would all stay in the trench, and those overcome by sleep would be awoken by the others if push came to shove. Our earlier fight was forgotten, we were back to functioning as an unit.
The second night attack never came.

The next day saw us recruits, tired from a night spent staring into the dark, on the offensive against the enemy's landing zone.
This part of the exercise served to train us in the art of fire and maneouver, and more than one half asleep recruit took a fall when his feet got caught in rat holes or on branches.
Our instructors made it a point to treat these clumsy fools as if they were real casualties. It didn't take too long until we found ourselves carrying our "wounded" comrades back towards our campsite, cursing them almost as hard as the instructors, who took devilish delight in shouting at us to go faster and watch were we stepped, goddamnit, the wounded man's life depended on it.
By the time we were on our way back towards our base, we were all drenched in sweat and caked in dirt, but despite it all our spirits were high. There had been no punishments or even as much as angry shouting from our feared Unterfeldwebel for the last few hours, and in light of this we felt as if we had won the war already, and, perhaps even more important, his respect.
Of course, we were disabused of this notion rather quickly once we arrived back on base, but there remained a certain sense of elation that continued throughout the following days and couldn't be broken by even the most inane routine of cleaning our gear and whatever little punishments for perceived slights our instructors dished out.
Our training continued in this manner, with an increasing amount of combat drills that served to introduce us to the basics of modern warfare. "What you learn here is only the foundation, lads. Once you are out there in the field, you'll have to build up on it, or you'll be six feet under in no time," a sympathetic NCO once told us. He was an old soldier and without doubt a veteran who knew what he was talking about, but in the carelessness of youth we dismissed his advice and laughed about it amongst ourselves in our barracks.
Weren't we prepared in a manner this old fart couldn't have imagined when he joined the army? The Russians would certainly run once faced with motivated and fresh troops such as ourselves.
It wasn't until our training ended and we were shipped off to the frontlines that we started to understand what the kindly instructor had been talking about.

1964
Summer
The frontline

In early July, our basic training ended. Our Unterfeldwebel, whose constant bellowing and insults had become a kind of cherished background noise, even seemed sad to see us go. "You are as ready as I can get you, Jungs," he told us on our last evening on base, "and I hope that it's enough to see you through your five years. I know that you will do your best to make me proud." After this send-off, he left the little celebration the base commandant had allowed us and wasn't seen again for the rest of the evening. I retired early as well, if only to make sure that I would be fresh and awake for our send-off parade the next day.
Alas, sleep didn't come easily, and not only because of the noise from the hallway and my drunk squadmates stumbling into and out of our room. I found myself writhing around under my sheets, sweating from the heat of summer, yet shivering at the same time. Tomorrow, playtime would be over. We would go directly to the front to reinforce the 272nd Infanteriedivison stationed on the Ostbollwerk's Kaiserstellung. I would have liked some leave to see my family before going off to join my new unit, but we had been told in no unclear terms that this was not an option and we would leave whenever command deemed it fit. I had communicated this to my parents by letter, and they had promised to do their best to see me at the parade.
Still, the thought of possibly going off without having met them for one last time didn't sit right with me.
Early the next morning, we were assembled into formation and looked over by eagle eyed NCOs for the tiniest specks of dust and dirt.
Our baggage had already been brought down to the trainstation and loaded onto the trains we were to board to take us to our new units, leaving us only with our parade uniforms, rifles and helmets, and each of these items was now being inspected as if it might contain the final clue in a murder case. Only once everyone's equipment was judged satisfactory did we finally set out into Hannover's streets.
From our base in the outskirts of the city, we marched past the arms factories and industrial buildings of Herrenhausen. The people going about their business on the street gave us wary looks and quickly hurried on, their reaction to us a far cry from the jubilations we had dreamed of during our training period. Finally, we reached Kronprinzenplatz. As any Hannoveran will tell you, this grey concrete square that covers the former zoo ever since the bombing of the city in 1948 serves as a grim reminder of the cost of the war even on the homefront, so it only felt fitting to have our send-off there.
When we stepped onto the square, we found it already well covered in formations of soldiers from other training units near the city of Hannover itself, as well as stands filled with the mass of people I had expected to greet us in the streets. As we made our entrance, my head remained facing straight ahead, but from the corner of my eyes I kept examining the blurry masses of guests. Could that stringy-haired woman be my mother? The older man in a Fallschirmjäger's uniform next to her my father? Alas, I couldn't make out their faces, and soon we had passed them and took our position in the formation.
All in all, there must have been several thousand recruits from all around Hannover on Kronprinzenplatz that day, and once again I was overcome by a feeling of confidence in our abilities.
Once all units had reached their designated positions, General von Kreier took the stand. The head of military district northwest had come to see us off personally, and now he spoke at length about how he had made it a point to keep informed on the goings-on of our training, and how he was certain that we would be a valuable addition to the war effort that was sure to make our instructors, new units and families proud. Once the general was done, the commandants of our battalions stepped forth to personally praise their recruits. Oberstleutnant Schnee, commading officer of our unit, seemed to basically repeat the things the general had already said.
No wonder, the Oberstleutnant hadn't exactly been involved in our training. In the almost four months I had spent on Adenauer, I had seen him perhaps three times, and only in passing. Annoyed by the inane rambling, I instead focused on the crowd behind him.
There were factory workers who looked as if they had come straight from their shift, still caked in soot, standing side by side with older gentlemen in their finest sunday outfits. There were young women holding bouqets of flowers next to veterans in their old uniforms, and I quickly averted my eyes when I noticed just how many of the latter seemed to be missing a limb or some other part of themselves.
Finally, the dreadfully boring event came to a close. As we performed an about-face and shouldered our weapons before marching off the square with the precision that had been drilled into us these last few months, the sense of nervousness returned. We were now heading for the trainstation, and the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach grew stronger with every step I took. The young women, girls really, handed their bouqets of flowers to passing soldiers as they leaned in for kisses, and I saw Egon, who was a few rows ahead of me, accept a beautiful collection of flowers from a blonde beauty with braided hair. There was a hint of jealousy, and I tried to focus my mind on that in an effort to overplay my nervousness.
To my own surprise, this seemed to work, and as the cheap housing blocks that had been built to house the workers of Hannover's factories alongside the numerous refugees that had come from the east during the late thirties slowly gave way to the older buildings of the city centre, I almost unnoticeably calmed down. The damages of past air attacks were still visible here as well, but similar to the outskirts of town were heavy air defenses protected the factories and military installations, the heavy toll exacted on the enemy bombers by the numerous anti-aircraft guns stationed here to protect the vital railway infrastructure had seemingly convinced the Russian command a while ago that Hannover wasn't worth the effort. Work crews were busy repairing the old damages, and I imagined that this came the closest to peace I would see in a long while.
The crews of a flak battery on the square in front of the train station stood at attention and saluted our officers as we passed them and entered the building.

We descended down a broad stairwell into the trainyard's military terminal. Bored Feldpolizisten looked over our marching orders in the self-assured way of people who know that others have to adjust to their pace, no matter how long they take.
Finally, everyone's papers had been determined to be in order and we were allowed into the terminal's main area.
The little trainyard we'd had on the base and on which I had arrived on my first day seemed comically small compared to the gigantic hall I now found myself in. The ceiling seemed several dozen metres high and the sheer size of it all made me suspect that a good part of the terminal was in fact masked with the hollowed-out facades of buildings neighbouring the trainstation. If I was correct, the deception had worked.
This enourmous space was filled with soldiers of all branches of the Streitkräfte, all under the watchful eyes of the Feldpolizei. Conversations died down whenever one of the military policemen got close to a clump of soldiers, only to get louder once again when he continued on his way.
The whole situation was still very much alien to me, and unlike the more experienced soldiers who smoked in the closed hand and made crude jokes about the hated MPs whenever they were out of earshot, my comrades and I didn't really know what to do with ourselves while our officers went to work out which train would take which unit.
The trains. Without a doubt it were these monsters of steel that commanded the most of our attention during this first contact with the wonders of military transportation. There were at least half a dozen of them spread out over the different platforms in the building, and each one seemed a fortress on rails to me. The carts were massively armored, with windows more resembling firing slits. On top of them, there were Flak guns mounted in case of enemy air attack.
My heart pounded heavily in my chest and I turned to Schleier in the hope that a bit of conversation would help me calm down.
"Can you believe it, Hansen?" He asked as soon as he saw me look over to him. "Today's the day." I just nodded. It seemed like talking to him wouldn't offer any distraction, and I was oddly relieved when the Leutnant who had led our formation returned to assign us our train. The insides of the cart were even more utilitarian than I had imagined. A row of benches along the middle where the passengers sat back to back, facing the outer walls, were the only pieces of furniture in the otherwise bare cart. I sat down inbetween two comrades with whom I hadn't gotten all that acquainted with during training and tried to make out the goings on outside through the firing slit opposite of me. It would be a short journey to the frontline, and I was half-aware of my hands nervously gripping the barrel of my gun, which sat between my legs. I took considerable effort to force myself to stop. What kind of lowlife must I look like to my comrades, I told myself. A nervous wreck before we even left the trainyard? If the Unterfeldwebel could have seen me, he would have chewed me out and then sent me to run a few laps along the base's outer walls. The memory of the stocky man who had done his best to get us into shape for what lay ahead made me smile. His constant abuse had been motivated by his worry for us, I was sure of it now, and I told myself that I wouldn't let him down. Thoughts like these helped me to calm down, even as a jolt went through the train and we picked up speed. Some of my companions greeted our departure with jubilation, but I was still lost in thought and didn't pay them any mind. Through the firing slit, I could make out the city giving way to the open fields of the surrounding rural area.
We were on our way at last.
Barely an hour later, we arrived at our destination. The doors of our cart were thrown open, and shouting NCOs ordered us out. Looking back, we must have been somewhere near Wolfsburg, but I didn't know this then. Guided by the orders of the Unteroffiziere, we retrieved our belongings from the baggage wagon before forming up by squads. A Feldwebel went up and down the line of hastily reassembled Trupps and read out names from a list. "Krenz," He would call, and "Hier, Herr Feldwebel!" someone would answer. Invariably, the Feldwebel would then send the answering soldier and his hangers-on off with one of the waiting Uffz. Finally, our turn came. A shout of "Schneider!" was answered with a a shout of "Hier, Herr Feldwebel!" by Egon, who stood at attention next to me. "Schneider, you and your men are with the third company. Unteroffizier Thaler here will take care of you." A tall Uffz stood at attention when his name was spoken and walked over to us once the Feldwebel continued with his list. We snapped to attention. "Guten Tag, Her Unteroffizier!" Egon's greeting was delivered sharp and loud, the kind of greeting even our good old Unterfeldwebel would have found acceptable, but this Thaler fellow just raised his hand to sloppily and quickly return the salute. "Ohne Meldung," he said. "I know that you Jungs are fresh from basic training, but you'll soon see that this kind of protocol bullshit can be forgotten about as long as you are not dealing with officers." We stared at him in disbelief. Was this perhaps some kind of elaborate prank? A hazing ritual perhaps? "You are the one in charge?" Uffz Thaler asked Egon. "Ja, Herr Unteroffizier." "A simple yes or no is enough. Alright, grab your stuff and follow me, Jungs. Time to get you settled in." Thaler led us behind the small trainstation, were several trucks were gathered. One of them, marked with the insignia of the third company, 27.Schützenregiment, 272.Infanteriedivision, was our destination.
"You can mount up, boys. And you, Schneider, was it? Yes, come with me." While Egon accompanied the Uffz to the driver's cabin, the rest of us did as we were told and heaved our luggage into the back of the truck before clambering up ourselves to take our seats. The back of the truck was open topped, with not even a sheet of canvas to protect passengers from the elements, but at least this allowed us to keep an eye on our surroundings. The parking area was slowly filling up with men as the remaining reinforcements arrived at their designated vehicles. To our astonishment, it seemed as if Thaler hadn't been joking when he told us that we could stow the pleasantries. Most of our new superiors seemed perfectly fine with allowing their charges to talk loudly amongst each other, and I even saw several guys light up cigarettes.
"Well, would you look at that," Burghardt, who had been looking over my shoulder murmured as he leaned back on his bench, "Seems like we're finally in for a good time, eh boys?" Satisfied with the laughter he received, he grinned himself as he pulled a pack of cigarettes from his chest pocket and offered to each of us in turn. "On me, friends. To our old Unterfeld, who drilled us into shape for such an elite unit!" This drew more laughter, and I felt myself relaxing as well. Why had I even been so nervous before? I was surrounded by good friends and we were lead by experienced officers, here to man the biggest defensive network in the world. If the Tsar wanted his men to get their noses bloodied, we would happily comply. With my spirit thus restored, I took a cigarette as well and held it out towards Burghardt who was now busy lighting his gifts.
Truth be told, this was my first time smoking, a fact that quickly became obvious to my comrades. Still, my hacking and coughing only served to further our amusement.
The sound of a bag impacting on the bed of the truck drew our attention to Egon, who had evidently finished whatever little briefing the Uffz had in store for him and now came climbing up to join us in the back. "Ah, come to join us at last," exclaimed Burghardt, who of us all seemed to be in the best mood, and offered Egon an arm to pull himself up. "What's the matter? Won't the Unteroffizier let you ride in the front? That's got to sting. Here, take a smoke to get over your personal tragedy."
However, the joking and laughter quickly died down when Egon refused the offered package of cigarettes and looked from one of us to the other, his face bearing a grim expression.
"I talked with Thaler," he finally started, and we all leaned in closer to hear him better over the laughter and shouting of the surrounding squads and the sounds of engines as the first trucks left the assembly area. "He'll be our new squadleader. Seems he's fresh from the Unteroffizierschule and this'll be his first position of leadership. He also told me that since I was our leader during basic training and know you guys better than him, that he'll be relying on me to be his number two and assist and advise him on how to best utilize you to the best of our possibilities."
"So you'll be our acting Gruppenführer, basically." came from one of the guys. It was an observation as much as a question, and slowly the grins returned to my comrades' faces. People leaned in and shook Egon's hand and gave him friendly slaps to the shoulder, but my friend still seemed caught up in his grim mood. As our truck pulled finally pulled out of the staging ground and onto the road that would take us the last few kilometres towards our destination, he was still staring off into empty space, and I thought that he seemed a fair bit paler than earlier the same day.
The road, it turned out, was far from empty. Our vehicle was just one among the dozens that were moving to and from the frontlines, carrying soldiers, supplies and everything else one needs to wage war. And war was indeed being waged here, the craters of past bombardments and shellings that pockmarked the landscape left no doubt in that matter. But for the moment, it seemed that all was quiet ahead of us. There was no booming of big guns, and the grey sky was free of aircraft. I was almost disappointed. But at least it seemed that my earlier nervousness had been an inappropiate overreaction. If we could move in broad daylight so close to the front, unimpeded by air attack or artillery, the enemy was surely lacking in military acumen.
"Look, friends!" One of my comrades was standing upright, holding onto the cabin of the truck to steady himself as he looked ahead.
We followed his example, either standing up or leaning over the sides of the vehicle to get a good look at what lay ahead of us.
In front of us, only a short distance ahead of us now in fact, were the first outlying bunkers of the Ostbollwerk.
As our truck drove past them, we finally took in the enormity of the fortress the trenches of the 1921 stalemate had become.
Decades of work had turned dugouts into multistoried bunker complexes and machinegun nests into concrete-reinforced firing positions for artillery pieces and anti-aircraft guns. This monstrosity of a defensive line stretched to either of our sides as far as the eye could see, and it didn't take a genius to realize that it stretched several kilometres to our front as well. Beyond that, there would be the no man's land and finally the Russian lines, no doubt just as fortified as our own.
Our truck continued to weave through the traffic while we gawked at the sight that presented itself to us. No one was talking anymore, everyone was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to keep up the banter that had been going on between us ever since we left the assembly area at the little train station.
Finally, our truck took a hard right turn and headed straight for the open maw of a bunker's open gate. The structure seemed as big as one of the enormous appartment blocks that had been erected to house refugees from the east, and as we drove towards it, I couldn't help but feel as if it were a malevolent grey giant, just waiting to devour us as soon as we got close enough.
Of course, what expected us on the other side of the bunker's gate wasn't the inside of a monster's maw, but rather a perfectly normal military motor pool. Vehicles of all kinds lined the walls of the area, from simple trucks and jeeps to armored transports and even a few tanks. Mechanincs and vehicle crews were hard at work, overhauling and reapiring their vehicles. As we drove through the chaos, the whole scene somewhat reminded me of an anthill. We drove past the bustling masses and into the mouth of another tunnel that opened up opposite our entryway and led us down a subterranean roadway. In regualar intervals, we passed crossroads that led to other areas of the enormous defensive complex. The drive continued for about half an hour, until we came to a halt in front of another door. The soldiers standing guard mustered us with the practiced contemptuous stare of the experienced soldier while we climbed down from the truck and gathered our belongings. Once we were done, Thaler gave a knock to the driver's compartment. The truck driver put his vehicle in reverse, and after a turn that must have been anything but complying with regulations, he returned the way we had come, while we entered our new home for the first time.

The bunker out of which our company was based turned out to be a veritable fortress on the edge of no man's land in its own right. A hunk of the finest reinforced concrete the Kruppwerke had to offer, it commanded the surrounding landscape. In its underground, sleeping quarters and the other facilities needed to house two hundred soldiers lay protected from any fire the enemy might bring to bear, while above ground, firing positions ensured that any direct assault would be a costly affair for the enemy. We were welcomed to this stronghold by bored officers and less than enthused soldiers who seemed to regard us with an almost hostile indifference.
In the evening, once we had been properly introduced to our new habitat and comrades, we sat together in our barracks room. Thaler was with us. The Uffz had brought beer, and now we drank as we listened to him and Egon plan their cooperation in leading us. The alcohol and the dim light of the tube light sat in the ceiling did their job admirably well, and I soon found myself somewhat tired, but with a not uncomfortable buzz. So far, everything had worked out just fine. Sure, our new unit hadn't exactly been the most welcoming of places, but noone could realistically expect to be welcomed like the second coming on his first day. Surely, in time we would be able to prove our worth to our comrades and earn their respect.
I was awaken from my drunken revery by the sound of our heavy door getting thrown open. On our doorstep stood a figure in full battle dress. "Gas," he shouted, his voice distorted by his own gasmask already on his face, "They are gassing the bunker!"
Just like that, movement returned to our group. My friends from Hannover jumped up from their seats and all but flew towards their lockers to retrieve their gasmasks. I did the same, and could just make out Thaler pulling his own mask from the its container on his hip. I had just pulled my mask over my face and fastened the straps, when suddenly I was thrown to the ground. In a panic, I punched and kicked wildly, trying to get my attacker off me. How had Ivan already gotten in here? Shouldn't there have been an alarm? Shots fired at the very least? No matter, I wouldn't make it any easier for them. My fist made contact with something soft, and I was rewarded with the feeling of something crunching underneath it, accompanied by a yelp of pain. "Scheiße. Helft mir mit dem hier," a muffled voice groaned, and I froze as another one threw himself on top of me and held me down. The voice had spoken German, no mistaking it. Then what were they doing here? They must have been Russian auxiliaries from the occupied territories. I redoubled my efforts to get free, even as a gasmasked face came up in my field of view and nimble fingers started to get to work on my filter. So that's how they had managed to get in here. Infiltrators in the captured uniforms of our own. And now they would simply let me suffocate as the bunker filled with gas. No matter how hard I thrashed my head around, the one sat on top of me continued his work, and I was sure that I could see the spark of joy in the eyes behind the mask as he triumphantly held up my freed filter. Immediately I held my breath. Perhaps if I managed to play dead, they would let go of me and I could at least pull off the mask of one of them or stab one in the back with my pocket knife once they paid no more attention to me. This hope was squashed as well, when another masked figure stepped into view. While the others still held me down, he sat down next to me. I abandoned my plan to play dead to once again struggle against my captors, but to no avail. Strong hands grapped my head and held it in place as the newcomer placed something in the filter's place and poured a liquid into my mask. I coughed and hacked as the liquid flooded my mask, forced to swallow. It was a cool liquid, somewhat bitter but not unpleasantly so.
Beer.
The newcomer stood up and withdrew the now empty bottle from my mask as his accomplices let go of my limbs. I hurriedly sat up and pulled off the mask as fast as I could, still coughing up liquid as I wiped my face with my sleeve. The figure who had set the bottle to my mask stood opposite from and likewise pulled off his own mask.
"Welcome to the third company," said Hauptmann Schwenk as he gave me a hand to pull me to my feet.

We took up our duties the next day despite our headaches. After the hazing ritual had concluded satisfactory to our new comrades, we had spent a good part of the night drinking with our new comrades. Even Hauptmann Schwenk, who had seemed so disinterested when he had officially welcomed us upon our arrival, had taken part in the celebrations in order to get to know his new men and had inadvertantly revealed himself to be an approachable man with a fine sense of humor. "Is it true that you broke Müller's nose?" a Gefreiter asked me as we were eating breakfast in the enourmous mess hall. I shrugged. "Kind of hard to say with everyone wearing masks. But I can tell you, it didn't sound too pretty."
After breakfast, we were partnered with more experienced soldiers who were to show us the ropes when it came to the trenches and fortifications outside of our command bunker. Burghardt and I were placed in the care of a certain Obergefreiter Nilsen.
This Nilsen fellow was a rather short and rotund young man who seemed exceptionally bored by the goings on around him. The first thing he did after the heavy door to the bunker swung shut behind us and we stepped into the trench outside was to light himself a cigarette.
As he took a long drag, he gesticulated towards our surroundings. "Our trenches," he said without enthusiasm, "ain't they great?"
Of course, he didn't mean it. His voice was dripping with irony and his eyes full of disdain for his surroundings, but I felt inclined to agree with him. The walls of the trench were reinforced with concrete and the breastworks rose higher than our heads to protect  the soldiers using the firing slits from enemy fire. The floor wasn't flat, instead the middle of the trench was rose higher than the area closer to the walls to allow enemy grenades to roll into the shaft that ran parallel beneath the walls where they would detonate harmlessly.
I marveled at the sheer scale of it all as we moved through the trenches. It seemed impossible that all this could have been built over years of constant war, with the risk of enemy shelling or attacks ever present, but here we were, right in the middle of a testament to human endurance and determination. This only served to make Nilsen's detachment seem even more odd to me. However, I soon noticed that our guide was not the only one who seemed to be at most vaguely interested in his situation. We passed soldiers that were talking amongst each other on their posts, reading books and newspapers, playing cards or listening to music on battery-powered radios.
"Is it normal that everyone seems so relaxed?" I asked Nilsen, "One could think that there wasn't a war going on at all." Nilsen made a dismissive gesture as we followed him into a rather squat bunker. "Ivan's been rather quiet lately, so the boys don't really know what to do with themselves." He tossed open the heavy metal door that separated the entrance area from the bunker proper and ushered us in. "And good riddance, I say. I can do without catching a bullet in my last two months."
The bunker was even smaller than it had seemed from the outside, thanks to its thick walls. Alongside those, munitions crates were stacked. The long firing slit on the far side of the room had been reinforced with sandbags that left only small holes to peek or fire through. In the middle of the room sat two men next to a table made from a smashed-up crate. Their weapons leaned on the wall behind them and they were currently busying themselves with brewing up something on a field cooking set. They jumped up as they heard us enter and almost stood at attention before they recognized Nilsen. As soon as they realized that there was no officer among us, they instantly relaxed again and slouched back down.
"Nilsen! Showing the new guys the ropes? Come on guys, stay a while, grab a coffee." He dragged two more crates over to the improvised table while his comrade, a man who looked as if he thought that the grooming standard was more suggestion than regulation, pulled out some more cups.
Still somewhat apprehensive, we sat down on the crates and shook the offered hands. "I am Schmidt," said the man who had welcomed us, "and that hairy mess over there is Klock." Klock nodded and mumbled something that might have been an affirmation as he poured us some coffee.
"Welcome to machine gun bunker 63. Starting tomorrow, you might find yourself on duty in here," Nilsen said. Then, towards Schmidt: "Anything interesting happen lately?"
Schmidt shook his head. "Nothing. Not even the smallest patrol or a little sniper activity." "I thought I saw someone move out there a while ago," Klock added, "but it turned out that it was just a rat messing around behind a stump. Looked exactly like Ivan's fucking fur hats." He spat between the crates behind him and went back to stirring his pot.
Now my interest was piqued. "Mind if I take a look?" I asked as I moved towards the firing slit. "Knock yourself out. But don't get shot on your first day," Schmidt told me. Then he went back to talking to Nilsen. I heard Burghardt move up behind me as I slid behind one of the holes left between the sandbags. On the other side, I could make out a pockmarked landscape, dotted with craters of different sizes. Some objects in the distance might have been the shells of burned out vehicles. But despite the obvious marks of fighting, the no man's land wasn't as dead as one might think. There were patches  of grass and even some bushes and trees that were still alive and bore leaves. In the distance, on the horizon there was something that seemed like an enormous monolith. This must've been on of Ivan's bunker's. A shudder ran down my spine as I suddenly felt very exposed. I withdrew from the hole and let Burghardt take his turn.
"See anything you like?" Nilsen asked as I sat back down with the others. "I didn't expect it to be so green," I said. The three older soldiers nodded amongst each other. "No one does when he comes here. But parts of the front can go without significant combat for months at a time. Gives nature some time to recover," Schmidt explained. "Doesn't mean that I have to like this silence lately." Klock spat again. "They haven't even given us a token shelling in weeks. Say whatever you want, but that just isn't right."
We settled in again. Nilsen and the two veterans kept chatting away about things and events Burghardt and I as newcomers had no idea about. They were just getting started on the subject of a Hauptfeldwebel who had somehow managed to smash his fingers in a bunker door when from somewhere outside there came a low booming sound.
"What was that?" I asked, somewhat unsettled. Schmidt, who had already halfways stood up from his seat, hushed me with a raised finger.
The booms outside continued, their volume rising as they got closer. Then they were right on top of us. It felt as if the whole structure shook from the shockwaves of the explosions going off.
"That's shelling, my boy." Schmidt finally exclaimed. He grabbed the machinegun leaning against the wall and got into position behind the sandbags. "And long overdue," Klock added. He grinned like a maniac as he grabbed his own rifle and chambered a round. "What did I tell you," he shouted as he took his place besides Schmidt, "Fucking Ivan never quits!"  He slapped Schmidt's shoulders and started peering down the sights of his weapon. I was thunderstruck. This man must have been crazy, getting that happy about people trying to kill him.
"Shouldn't we take positions outside?" Burghardt asked Nilsen, who hadn't even bothered standing up from his crate. He almost spat out his coffee at my comrade's question. "Don't you ever go out in a Stahlgewitter like that if you can avoid it. Don't they teach you basic survival instincts anymore?" he said after regaining his composure. "This is just routine shelling anyways. No, we'll stay right here and man the positons of our friends here if Ivan decides to blow what passes for their brains out of their ugly mugs."
"I'd like to see them try," Klock shouted over the rumbling of the artillery, "Four years and I am still here. If Ivan hasn't done me in now, he won't ever manage it. I've got experience in staying alive, you know."
The shelling went on for about ten more minutes. Ten minutes, during which Burghardt and I sat with tightly gripped rifles and uneasily stared at each other, the bunker's door, where my subconscious told me to expect an enemy breakthrough at any second, and back again. Nilsen just sat there as if all the goings on didn't concern him in the slightest and drank his coffee. After the shelling had stopped, the other two continued peering through their firing slits for ten more minutes, before calling in at the command bunker and reporting no enemy contact. Klock cursed as he put his rifle down again.
"First they don't shoot at us for so long you might think the damn war were over, and then they don't even send a small combat patrol at us when they finally start up again. This war is finished, mark my goddamn words. Ivan has to be on his last legs to put up such a poor show."
Schmidt pulled open the bunker's door. "Quit your bitching and get out. Let's see just how much damage Ivan has done this time.

Outside, things had changed surprisingly little. There was a burnt smell in the air, and I thought that some of the craters I saw when I peeked over the trench's breastworks were new, but that was it. There were no bunkers smashed to smithereens, no collapsed trenches. Some soldiers were already back at their posts, laughing off the attack and going back to whatever they had been doing to pass the time when they had been so rudely interrupted.
Without a word, Klock grabbed the lower rungs of a metal ladder that had been embedded next to the bunker's entrance and swung himself up onto the roof. Nilsen groaned. "Come on, this shit again?"
"Halt's Maul," came the answer from above, "Got to check the sector, don't I? Works better from up high." He began striding around up there, staring into one direction, then the other. Any moment I expected him to come tumbling down. How could any enemy resist such a juicy target?
But no shots rang out, and after a while Klock jumped back into the trench. "No real damage as far as the eye can see. No Russians either. Fucking disappointing." I must have still been staring at him quite shocked, because he walked over to me. "Want to know how I know that there's no one around?" he asked me.
"Because you didn't see anyone from up there?" I stammered, impressed by both the man's callousness and bad breath up close. He laughed at that.
"No, my boy. If Ivan was out there, he would have shot me." He spat one more time over the edge of the trench, then went to get Schmidt who was still talking to Nilsen, and together the two of them returned to their position. Burghardt and I stared after them as they shut the door behind themselves.
We spent most of the day with the rest of our orientation. With the questionable highlight of getting caught in enemy fire behind us, even the most impressive fortifications seemed bland to us. Nilsen led us through what felt like several kilometres the trenches and bunkers up to the command bunker of our neighbouring company, and then, when he realized that it would mean less daily routine for him, relented and showed us the anti-air defenses behind the main lines. The multi-barrelled autocannons and missile launchers were a likely explanation for the lack of visible enemy airpower. Whoever became visible on our radar would fly straight into a storm of steel that would be all but inescapable. Not even the tsarist-bolshevist forces could hope to muster enough men and material to make a significant aerial push through.
The true highlight, however, came in the evening. Upon our return, Nilsen had proposed that we should be shown Friedrichsstadt, and Thaler had agreed. So it came that our squad hitched a ride on a supply truck bound for the rear. Despite our insistent questioning, neither Thaler nor Nielsen answered our questions as to what Friedrichsstadt was suppossed to be besides toothy grins and cryptic replies to the extent of "You'll see."
And see we did. Friedrichsstadt turned out to a soldier's dream, a Reeperbahn behind the front, an amusement mile for grown-ups. As we later found out, former Hauptfeldwebel Christian Friedrich had opened the bar that would become the groundwork for Friedrichsstadt after his military career was ended by the shell that took his legs. Over the years, it had only expanded. Along a dirt road a few hundred metres off the Rollbahn there were brothels, casinos and bars, anything a soldier might need to take his mind off his duty. The garishly lit streets were full of soldiers, some in uniform, others in various states of nakedness. I couldn't believe it. A Hauptmann and a Leutnant walked past us, looking prim and proper despite the giggling prostitutes on each arm. A drunk lay passed out in between two buildings. Even the military police did not impose order, rather, they joined in. The MPs openly drank as we walked past where they stood at the entrance of a bar. "Keep your men in check, Uffz," The Feldwebel in charge slurred at Thaler. One of his men said something and the whole MP squad shook with laughter as we entered the bar.
The inside was just as rowdy as the street had been. Troops from all branches of the military were busy getting drunk, fighting each other and generally making a mess of things. All this didn't seem to bother the barkeeper and his trusty assistants who were never too busy to crack a joke with a customer or too meek to throw out someone who had gone too far even for this establishment. In the middle of this mess was a jolly men in a wheelchair. His legs ended below the knees, and where ever he rolled, even the most drunk made way.
This was Christian Friedrich, Hauptfeldwebel a.D., founder and absolute ruler of everything the men in the building valued. Angereing him was a surefire way to earn a ban from Friedrichsstadt, and  for many of the men stationed on the Kaiserstellung this seemed like a fate worse than death.
I won't go into the details of this first evening at Friedrichsstadt. It should be enough to say that the next day, noone remembered how or when we had gotten back to our bunks, and that our first "real" day was spent with a throbbing headache.
In time, things settled into a comfortable routine. We would spend the days in the bunkers and the trenches. The evenings would be spent reading, writing home, or visiting Friedrichsstadt with one's comrades, a habit that took a heavy toll on the monetary situation of many of us. The Russians started shelling more regularly again, even if the more experienced members of the company were eager to assure us that it was far from as frequent or intense as it used to be. Thus reassured, we grew accustomed to the sound of explosions going off outside of our bunkers and trenches. It is quite fascinating how quickly a human being can grow accustomed to new conditions.
For a while, we managed to forget our dreams of glory and victory on our comfortable posting. That is, until the routine got broken in the most brutal of ways.

It was one early September morning. It had been a long and boring night of standing watch in in the machinegun bunker, and now Schleier and I were exchanging a few pleasantries with our relief.
"I hope you left us some coffee," I said to Obergefreiter Holm. He laughed at that.
"Are you sure it's coffee you need? You guys look like you need a good night's rest more than anything right now."
He had wanted to say more, but he was cut off by the booming of big guns outside, quickly followed by the noise of impacts and explosions on our side of the front. We dropped whatever we had been doing and hurried back towards the firing slit. Schleier cursed as he fiddled with his helmet's chinstrap. The bombardment was of an intensity that had so far been unknown to us. Dust and small chunks of concrete fell from the ceiling, and it felt as if the whole bunker got shaken about by some kind of giant. I silently prayed that we would be spared a direct hit. Whatever new caliber this was, it would be sure to annihilate our position if it came down on top of us.
From time to time, we took turns to have one of the four of us peek through the firing slit, but all we could make out were massive geysers of churned-up earth flying up, alongside huge clouds of smoke wafting over no man's land. The small bushes and trees that had fascinated me upon my first visit to the trenches were ground to sawdust by the raging inferno or stood in flames.
Finally, the enemy seemed to relent. The frequency of the firing slowed down, and the impacts slowly moved away from us. Very carefully, as if  enemy soldiers would spot us through the concrete walls if only we moved to fast, we stood up and shook the dust from our uniforms.
"Well, that certainly was something," Holm started again, when a cry from the soldier who had accompanied him interrupted him.
"They are coming! Ivan's here!"
At once we threw ourselves back behind the slit. What I saw made me gasp. The cratered hellscape of no man's land was teeming with russian infantry. It looked as if a swarm of insects was on its way to us. What must have been several companies worth of soldiers stormed from cover to cover, some of them seeking cover and firing at our trenchline to give their running comrades covering fire. In the dusk of the early morning, the tracers and muzzle flashes of their firing only made the silhouettes of the bounding soldiers stand out more.
"What are you waiting for? Fire!" shouted Holm. And fire we did. It was as good as impossible to miss. Despite our fear, our training kicked in, and Schleier and I started picking off running soldiers with our rifles while Holm and his companion worked the machinegun and poured belt after belt into the charging mass in front of us. Similar scenes must have taken place in the rest of our bunkers. Soon, the advancing mass of infantry got raked by dozens of machineguns and autocannons. The enemy machinegunners tried to suppress our fire as much as they could, but that only resulted in them getting picked off first. Mortar grenades started to land among the attackers now, at times finding clumps of troops cowering in cover and turning them into spectacular fountains of flying limbs and debris. A Russian sergeant leading his men got his head turned to mulch by a twenty milimeter shell. His body continued stumbling along for a few more metres before it fell.
What I had at first thought a major Russian offensive was now exposed as what it really was: A scouting force, and a small one at that. No wonder the Russian artillery had stopped firing, they had only served to protect the infantry from sight so that they could at least approach our lines without being shot down before they got their eyes on us. Now that their radiomen could call in whatever was of interest to the officers who had ordered this action, their lives were forfeit. They had been hung out to dry, without further artillery or armor support. The poor sons of bitches had never been supposed to come back.
The Russian force in front of us melted away like snow in a furnace in the face of the withering fire directed at them. Soon, all that was left were heaps of bodies covering the ground of the killzone and some remnants huddling in whatever cover or crater offered protection.
Next to me, Holm jammed a new barrel into the machine gun. He had gone through three others during the fighting, firing until they glowed red-hot. We all eyed the rim of a crater about two hundred metres to our front. The remnants of a Russian squad had managed to find shelter in there, even if the last few men in the formation had been mowed down on their way there. Now we waited for any attempt they might make to get out of the cover that had become their trap.
"Should I call in mortar fire?" asked Schleier, one hand already on the dial of the radio.
Holm waved the offer aside.
"No," he said, "let's wait and see what they'll do."
Indeed, there were noises coming from the crater. Shouts of pain and anger. Clearly, an argument was taking place. Then, a rifle was lifted up. Fixed to the barrel was a scrap of cloth. I felt myself relax. They wanted to surrender. I had lived through my first encounter with the enemy, however onesided it had been, and now we would even bring in prisoners. That surely would reflect...
A gunshot shattered my fantasies and I saw the rifle fall back into the hole.
"Seems like their officer is a hardliner," commented Holm's number two on the machine gun as the shouting started up again in front of us. A burst from a submachine gun silenced the argument. Then, the white flag rose again.
"Nicht schießen, Kameraden! Wir ergeben uns!" someone shouted himself hoarse out there.
"German conscripts from the occupied territories. Scheiße, that's nasty business." Holm murmured. Then he shouted as loud as he could: "You can come over! We won't fire."
Slowly, the enemy survivors rose from their cover. There were seven of them, two of them carrying a wounded man, a soldier still carrying the white flag in the front. As theygot closer, I could make out some details in the dim morning light. Their brown uniforms were splattered with mud and blood. Most of them had no helmets and wore garrison caps. They wore rather primitive webbing and besides the radio of them had  still slung on his back were carrying not much equipment. I could make out the face of the man leading them as he passed a the burning remains of a tree. It, much like his clothes, was streaked with dirt, but also shone with relief and hope.
Then our machinegun let loose a long burst into the would-be prisoners.
Schleier and I were thunderstruck. In front of us, the enemy soldiers thumbled over, their bodies shredded by the machinegun's enormous firerate. Even as they fell, their arms were held up high.
"Damn shame." muttered Holm more to himself than any of us.
"What did you do that for?" Schleier managed to press through his frozen lips. He was just as shocked as I, but I could hear the rage bubbling in his voice.
"They had surrendered. They were our goddamn People!" I grabbed him by the shoulder to keep my comrade from throwing himself at Holm.
He struggled a bit, before finally straightening himself. From outside came a cry choked by lungs filling with blood: "Murderers! Damn bastards!" Holm looked at us without expression, seemingly unimpressed by Schleier's outburst or the sobs of the wounded man in front of the bunker.
"Are you done?" he asked my fuming friend. Then, to me: "Schleier, keep your mate in line. Can't have him attacking others for following standing orders." Having said his piece, he turned back to his machine gun, aimed, and fired another burst. The sounds from outside stopped.
"What are you guys still here for?" He asked us after turning back. He sat the gun down, gave his partner a nudge, and went over to the crate with the coffeepot.
"Your shift is over, isn't it? Get out of here, get some sleep."
His utter indifference was almost as baffling as his claims. I grabbed Schleier by the shoulder as a sign to go. There was no need to further antagonize the possibly unstable man when we could just ask Thaler later. My friend evidently didn't share my assessment. He freed himself from my grip and followed the men of the new shift over to were they sat.
"What do you mean, standing orders? I haven't heard anything about a policy of not taking any prisoners."
Holm sighed and looked up from his cup with the kind of look one might give a new puppy that just relieved itself in the middle of the living room.
"Listen, boy. Might be that things are different in the Elsaß, but most of the Reich is going hungry. If we take in every goddamn Ivan or friend of his who throws down his guns, we'll soon have starvation rations, and after that, the war is as good as over. Now, if those guys had something valuable to us, intelligence perhaps, we might have taken them prisoner, but you yourself saw them shoot their officer. So no intelligence to obtain there. So shooting them was perfectly in line with the Dienstvorschrift on the preservation of resources and fighting strength. Now, if you think you need to report me, feel free to do so, but I guarantee you that no judge in the whole German army will find me guilty. And now get out of my bunker."
He took another gulp of coffee and as we turned to finally leave I heard his buddy murmur "Verdammte Weicheier." unter his breath.
Schleier was cursing damn trigger happy fools who were too full of themselves all the way back to our quarters. To his (and my own) surprise Thaler confirmed to us that not taking any prisoners had in fact been semi-official policy on the frontlines when he had still been an enlisted man and that he was far from shocked by the continuation of the practice.
"My advice to you is to not make any waves," he told us. "There'd probably be no quicker way to make enemies on this side of the line. I know that it's hard to accept such things at first, but I guarantee you that our dear neighbours don't do it any differently."
When we finally fell into our bunks, we didn't get much sleep. My head was constantly replaying the scene of the surrendering soldiers getting shot down, followed by the accusatory screams of the wounded man.

1964
Autumn
The siege

The rest of the summer passed without further incidents of note. Schleier still did his best to avoid Holm and when he had to work with the man, he made it a point to get things done as soon as possible. Holm, for his part, didn't seem to hold that morning in the bunker against us. No wonder, no report had been filed. The occasional shelling continued, but there came no more enemy combat patrols into our sector, a fact that upset a certain comrade of mine greatly.
"I tell you Hansen, it's not fair." Klock complained to me as we drank together one evening in our company's recreation room. There had been no trucks driving past Friedrichsstadt today, so we were forced to drink at our own rather small and poorly stocked bar.
"I mean, Ivan let's loose the first attack in months, right? And by all accounts it was good fun, too. No one got hurt too bad, except for Meinhagen, but that guy was an asshole anyway, so fuck him and spit on his grave. And were am I while you guys are amusing yourselves with the surprise party the Tsar decided to throw you? Stuck all the way back in Bremen to accompany some incompetent fuckwit of a supply Feldwebel to get some useless motor parts." He slammed back his glas of schnaps and went to work filling up another. I likewise finished my beer. One wouldn't want to dehydrate while listening to one's comrade's complaints. That would be bad for the morale.
"Where was I? In Bremen, right?"
"Right, in Bremen. With that 'fuckwit of a supply Feldwebel', as you so eloquently put it."
"Exactly. That dumb asshole takes goddamn hours to fill out his stupid forms, and while I stand there, bored out of my mind, this transport soldier walks past, spots our division insignia and says to me:'Heard you gave Ivan a good onceover today.' And I stand there, don't know what that joker is talking about. And then he tells me that it was on the radio. Can you believe it? Finally a bit of good old shooting war again, and your old pal Klock is not only not there for it, no, I have to get the news from some asshole who heard about it on the radio."
"Real tragic," I agree. "At that rate, you'll never get yourself shot."
Klock klocks me over the head, but it is a light, comradely punch.
"Oh shut up, you snot-nosed little shit. What do you know? You aren't even through your first year. You'll learn. But what I don't get over is Ivan's sheer audacity. On the way back from Bremen, you know what I kept thinking? I kept thinking 'Here you go, Klock, old boy, the war is picking up again. Time to get back in the thick of it.' That's what I thought. I was itching to get back here. And then? No fucking attack in our sector anymore. Oh sure, they hit the Frenchies once or twice, and the lads to our south, but there#s nothing going on here. Gottverdammte tote Hose." His breath is reeking of Schnaps and cigarettes, but that doesn't stop him from leaning in closer.
"Sometimes I wonder what Ivan has planned for us. There's got to be a reason for them to leave us alone."
"Did you ever consider that you are just too intimidating? They attacked once you were gone, stopped when you came back. Doesn'T that seem weird to you?"
Klock grins at that, showing is brown teeth.
"Don't flatter me too much, Hansen. But I'll be damned if our dear neighbour doesn't have a card up his sleeve that he still has to play."