Hans Heinz Rehfeldt - Mortar Gunner on the Eastern Front. Volume II

The Memoir of Dr Hans Heinz Rehfeldt

Volume II: Russia, Hungary, Lithuania and the Battle for East Prussia

Hans Heinz Rehfeldt

Foreword by Gilberto Villahermosa

Translated by Geoffrey Brooks

Mortar Gunner on the Eastern Front:

The Memoir of Dr Hans Heinz Rehfeldt,

Volume II: Russia, Hungary, Lithuania and the Battle for East Prussia

Greenhill Books, c/o Pen & Sword Books Ltd,

47 Church Street, Barnsley, S. Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England

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Copyright Hans Heinz Rehfeldt, 2019

English translation Greenhill Books, 2019

Gilberto Villahermosa foreword Greenhill Books, 2019

German text Verlagshaus Wrzburg GmbH & Co. KG

Flechsig Verlag

Beethovenstr. 5 B

D-97080 Wrzburg

Germany

www.verlagshaus.com

CIP data records for this title are available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 78438 365 7

eISBN 978 178438 366 4

Mobi ISBN 978 178438 367 1

Dr Hans Heinz Rehfeldts second volume of Mortar Gunner on the Eastern Front has been published on the eightieth anniversary of the beginning of the Second World War in Europe and the seventy-fifth anniversary of the D-Day landings in France. Despite the passing of eight decades since the beginning of the global conflagration that resulted in the death of 50 to 80 million people and left much of Europe and the Soviet Union in ruins, interest in the Second World War remains strong as a new generation of readers seeks to come to grips with the history of the worlds most destructive war. Books like Mortar Gunner on the Eastern Front are important not only because they remind us of the cost of global conflict and the sacrifices required to bring down a monstrous regime that ran rampant across Europe and Russia and slaughtered millions, but also because they provide new and important insights on all aspects of warfare, from the political-economic at the strategic level, to the operational and tactical on the battlefield. Mortar Gunner on the Eastern Front shows us the war from the perspective of a single German soldier.

Heinz Rehfeldt was no ordinary soldier. A member of the Hitler Youth before the war, he volunteered for the Grossdeutschland s panzer arm in 1940, joined the unit in October 1941, and fought with the Grossdeutschland for almost the entire duration of the war. By the end of the war he had been decorated with the Iron Cross First (of which only 300,000 were awarded) and Second Class for valour; the Eastern Front Medal ( Ostmedaille ), presented for service in Russia during the winter campaign period of 15 November 1941 to 15 April 1942; the Close Combat Clasp ( Nahkampfspange ), bestowed for hand-to-hand fighting in close quarters; the Infantry Assault Badge ( Infanterie-Sturmabzeichen ), given to those who had participated in infantry assaults with light infantry weapons on at least three separate days of battle on the front line on or after 1 January 1940; and the Wound Badge ( Verwundetenabzeichen ), awarded for a wound or wounds received as the direct result of hostile enemy action. These awards attest to the fact that Rehfeldt was an exemplary soldier, placing him in the top 1.5 per cent of all Wehrmacht personnel during the Second World War. Yet from 1937 to 1946, this model infantryman kept a detailed diary throughout the war a major security violation of German military regulations punishable by death if discovered.

The Grossdeutschland was one of the most elite German Army formations of the war. Formed in the 1920s as a ceremonial guard unit, it had expanded into a regiment by the late 1930s. In 1942, it expanded again into the Infantry Division Grossdeutschland . By May 1943, it had been reorganized and renamed Panzer Grenadier Division Grossdeutschland . Its unofficial title was Bodyguard of the German People. Lavishly equipped with Tiger tanks and armoured personnel carriers, it fought exceptionally well throughout the war on the most critical sectors of the Eastern Front. As the Wehrmachts Fire Brigade, it was shuttled to wherever the situation was most critical. In November 1944, several of its subordinate formations were expanded to division status and the group of formations was reorganized as the Panzerkorps Grossdeutschland . The men of the Grossdeutschland fought fiercely until the very end of the war, suffering some 17,000 casualties by January 1945. Only 4,000 men surrendered to the British in May 1945.

Although some German histories of the formation mention only that draconian measures were occasionally required to bring the civilian populations of conquered territories into line, the soldiers of the Grossdeutschland Regiment, like too many of their comrades fighting on the Western and Eastern Fronts, were complicit in war crimes. Most notable were the execution of black French Army prisoners in France in 1940 and dozens of civilians during the invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941 by men of the regiment. These atrocities occurred before Rehfeldt joined the regiment. The author claims never to have witnessed any war crimes committed by the Wehrmacht. While readers should give Rehfeldt the benefit of the doubt, they should never forget that the myth of the Clean Wehrmacht has been decisively debunked by a new generation of German historians who have proven conclusively that the German Army and Waffen-SS were complicit in atrocities on a massive scale in Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Most of Rehfeldts diaries cover the GermanRussian War on the Eastern Front, which was waged on a truly titanic scale. During Operation Barbarossa , the Wehrmacht and its allies marshalled more than 3 million men, 3,000 tanks, 600,000 motor vehicles and more than 600,000 horses for Nazi Germanys invasion of Soviet Russia. In the first six months of the conflict, the Wehrmacht shattered almost 200 Soviet divisions of Stalins Red Army, inflicting more than 4 million casualties (including almost 3 million killed and captured) and destroying or capturing 18,000 combat aircraft, 20,500 tanks, and more than 100,000 artillery pieces and mortars. Rehfeldt, who fought at the Battle of Moscow at the end of 1941 and Kursk during the summer of 1943, makes it clear that Hitlers war against Stalin was no simple walkover. Noteworthy are his comments on the ever-present Red Army Air Force bombers and fighter-bombers. Particularly worthy of respect, according to Rehfeldt, were the Il-2 Sturmoviks armoured ground-attack aircraft that mauled German columns regularly with bombs, rockets and cannon fire in 1943 (when the second volume begins). The Red Armys medium and heavy tanks, for which the Germans had no equivalent at the time, also caused soldiers like Rehfeldt nightmares. Likewise, Soviet artillery and multiple rocket launchers hammered German positions relentlessly. Finally, no matter how many Soviet divisions the Wehrmacht destroyed, there were always more waiting in the wings to attack. Rehfeldts survival on the Eastern Front seems nothing short of a miracle. Some 80 per cent of the almost 19 million German soldiers that served in the Second World War fought on the Eastern Front. Of the 5 million that died, 2.7 million more than half died fighting the Russians. So Rehfeldt had about a one-in-three chance of surviving the war in general and less than a one-in-two chance of living through combat in Russia.