The Other Side of the Hill

Soviet rifle platoon on the march.
(Source)

Efréĭtor¹ Ustin Rodionovich Kazankov looked across the bleak fields which stretched from their entrenchments out to a thin line of trees some five-hundred meters to the west. It was cold and rainy and his left foot ached, the result of loosing two toes to frostbite in Finland. He was still in the Red Army, not that anyone had asked if he'd like to get out, which he didn't, and he'd gained a promotion in the meantime.

Miraculously, the five men he had had with him near the end of the Winter War were still alive, still with him. A stray captain, one Ivan Filippovich Telitsyn, had led them to safety during the Hell of those last days. As they had gone forward, and not retreated as so many others had, the Party was pleased with Ivan Filippovich, he was now a major and in command of Kazankov's battalion. He had done well for himself and Kazankov's men. Didn't hurt that he was also a Party member.

Krasnoarmeyets² Vitaliy Afanasievich Kolobkov came out of the dugout to Kazankov's left rear, "Comrade Corporal, is there any of that vodka left?"

Kazankov shook his head, "We drank it all last night Vitaliy, the Comrade Commissar is paying us a visit today, wouldn't do to have strong drink around."

"Why? Are they concerned we might drink too much and let the Motherland down?"

"No Vitaliy, I'm concerned that the Comrade Commissar would steal it. Remember Grushanin?"

"The Comrade Major's orderly?"

"The very one, he knows where he can get some more of our national drink."

"When?"

"My but you're impatient, maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow, I don't know, I just work here."

Kolobkov laughed, then sat on the edge of the trench, looking across the fields as Kazankov had been doing. "Are they out there?"

"Who?"

"The snow fairies ... You know who I mean, the damned Fascists."

"Our glorious Allies? The Germans, is that who you mean?"

Kolobkov laughed again, "Yes, those bastards."

"Ah Vitaliy, my friend and comrade-in-arms, I fear you don't have the right socialist attitude towards our brothers to the west." Kazankov hated the Germans almost as much as Kolobkov, but he enjoyed taunting his friend.

"Bah, you'll be an officer in no time, Ustin Rodionovich."

"And why is that?"

"You're a natural leader ..."

"Why thank you Comrade ..."

"And you're an overbearing asshole." Kolobkov said with a chuckle.

"You are such a bad socialist, I should report you to the Comrade Commissar!"

"You should, it might help us achieve true communism quicker."

Kazankov spat over the lip of the trench, towards German-occupied Poland, "Ha, I might make a good officer, but you would be a natural for Commissar!"

Kolobkov shook his head, "Never happen, I'm not smart enough to keep my mouth shut and parrot whatever the Party says."

"True, very true. Now go wake up the others, morning stand to in fifteen minutes."

"Da Tovarishch Efréĭtor, I serve the Soviet Union!" he barked while throwing Kazankov an exaggerated salute.

Kazankov shook his head, "Be careful Vitaliy, or you could end up in Siberia, counting trees. Or worse."

"Worse than this?" Kolobkov swept his arm around to encompass the bleak vista before them.

"Yes, much worse. Siberia makes Finland seem tropical."

Kolobkov grimaced, then turned on his heel. Looking over his shoulder he said, "In that case, I will behave, I will be a perfect socialist!"

When Kolobkov had disappeared back into the dugout, Kazankov shook his head, "That boy will be the death of me. Him or those Nazis across the way."

It began to rain again. Kazankov swore there was snow mixed in with the rain, he shivered.

It was early November, 1940.

¹ Corporal (Ефрéйтор, Russian)

² Private (Russian, literally "Red Army Man," Красноармеец, Russian)

Out Back of Beyond

Poland, near Leśna, Golice, Masovian Voivodeship
(Source)

They had bivouacked the night before after a long march from the railhead. As they had moved east, all the men saw was forest and fields, forest and fields. They had marched through the  occasional rundown village along the way, all of them deserted.

"Where are all the people?" Schütze Hans Warstadt had asked. They had seen German-manned checkpoints but hadn't seen hide nor hair of the local population.

"Perhaps they're in hiding," offered Oberschütze Leon Schwarz, "I mean, there is a war on you know."

"But that was over a year ago!" Warstadt protested.

Fahnenjunker-Unterfeldwebel Jürgen von Lüttwitz stood at the side of the dirt track watching his men pass. As it got darker he didn't want the squad behind them to get lost. "It might be smart not to ask those kinds of questions, Hans."

Von Lüttwitz had seen how the Poles were treated by both the SS and the police, even Army units were guilty of atrocities against the Poles. His battalion commander had passed down the word to all of his officers and officer cadets, stay focused on the mission, don't concern yourselves with the Poles. The Party wants them gone, especially in the border regions adjacent to the Soviet-occupied zone.

Jürgen suspected that the people were being moved to places beyond the eyes of the world, and then killed. He had heard rumors and he had actually seen a "special action group" in Siedlce grabbing civilians off the streets and marching them away. One man had protested, he had been beaten to the ground.

Apparently there was no room in Poland for actual Poles.

He had not slept all night, getting the men in place. Oberleutnant Ferdinand Busch, his company commander, and Leutnant Fritz Acker, his platoon commander - recently returned to the unit from hospital - had come by early in the morning and the three men had discussed what they were supposed to be doing and how they were supposed to do it.

Busch assumed that they would be moving further east when the sun came up, they were some sixty kilometers from the border with the Soviet zone. Division wanted them no closer than twenty kilometers from that border. Once there, they were to dig in, and wait. Jürgen had remarked that life in the army required a lot of waiting.

"And digging, don't forget digging." Busch had said with a chuckle.

Unlike many officers, Busch carried an entrenching tool of his own. He dug his own protection out of the earth rather than require the men to do it.

Schütze Bodo Hermann was the first man in the squad to awaken. He sat up and looked around and muttered, "Mein Gott, wir sind am Arsch der Welt¹."

He shoved his buddy, Schütze Michael Offenbach, who was just starting to stir. Offenbach threw off his blanket and looked around himself.

A dirt road stretched to the horizon, there were small stands of woods everywhere the eye could see. There was a lone peasant hut not too far away, but other than the road and the hut, it looked like a place humans had never been.

"Scheiße, wo sich Fuchs und Hase gute Nacht sagen!²" he groaned aloud.

Both men saw their squad leader approaching, von Lüttwitz looked like death warmed over.

"Rough night, Herr Unterfeldwebel?" Offenbach quipped.

"Very. Now get up and get your gear together, we're marching as soon as everyone is ready."

The men grumbled, as soldiers always do, but they were up and about in no time. Good thing too, the battalion commander came up and was bellowing at the laggards in the other  platoons and companies.

"Ah, good work von Lüttwitz, at least two of my officers have their heads out of their asses this morning! Let's go lads, lets go!"

In Berlin, the Führer was holding another planning session. He insisted that first thing in the spring, the Wehrmacht must be ready to invade Russia and destroy Soviet Communism.

It was October 1940. The nights were getting cold, winter wasn't far off. It was the last winter many of the men in Busch's company would see.

¹ "My God, we're in the middle of nowhere. (German) Literally, in the asshole of the world.

² Another colorful German expression for the "middle of nowhere" - Where the fox and the hare say good night.

In the East, On the Soviet Border

The border between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union from September 1939 to June 1941,
somewhere in the occupied territory of Poland.
(Source)

"What the Hell is the name of this place again?" Gefreiter Ernst Paulus asked the two Poles assigned to his machine gun crew.

"Samowicze, Herr Gefreiter!" Schütze Kazimir Dutka barked out, coming to a rigid position of attention as he did so.

Schütze Jan Kołodziej nearly choked as he tried to stifle a laugh. It got worse when he saw the look on Paulus' face.

"Verdammte Polacken!!" Paulus yelled, then burst out laughing.

He actually liked the two Poles assigned to his machine gun team, Dutka was a real horse when it came to schlepping ammunition and Kołodziej made a superb assistant gunner. The man swapped out belts as smooth as silk so that the gun never missed a beat.

The two Poles had been discussing just how beautiful this section of Poland was, not far from the border with the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. Dutka had mentioned slipping over the border and stealing a cow, "It will be like the old days Jan!"

Jan had laughed and said they shouldn't do that as their new masters, the Germans, might not understand them starting a war with Russia before Hitler was ready.

Paulus had never seen a bleaker landscape, endless sandy fields interspersed with woods. Even the people of the region seemed a throwback to medieval times, he doubted that they even knew what electricity was.

As they laughed, manning their post at the border crossing, Leutnant Spahn came up with their squad leader, Unteroffizier Werner Baumbach, "I'm glad you boys are having a good time. Any sightings of our 'allies' across the way?" The lieutenant had had a smirk on his face when he had used the word "allies," they all hated the Russians and couldn't wait to cross over and destroy them.

But for now, they lived in an uneasy coexistence, both sides understood the need for separation, the nearest Soviet border post was a good kilometer to the east. Jan had mentioned that it wasn't far enough, "You can still smell the bastards when the wind is in the right direction."

"Don't like the Russkis, do you Jan?" Paulus had commented after the lieutenant had left.

"Nope, dislike them even more than Germans."

Though Jan had smiled when he said that, Paulus wondered. It hadn't been quite a year since Germany had marched into Poland, both of his erstwhile comrades had been in the Polish Army then, no doubt they had both killed Germans while wearing a Polish uniform. Though both men seemed to like him alright, he wondered if they would just as soon kill him as look at him.

It was then that Dutka had clapped him on the back and said, "My dear Gefreiter, you shouldn't worry, ever. You're almost a Pole yourself, being from Gdansk¹. Er, I mean Danzig ..." Dutka grinned, he actually liked Paulus.

Jan nodded, "Yes, you would make a good Polack, Gefreiter Ernst."

"You two make me nervous, you know that right?" Paulus had hissed at the two as Baumbach came out of the small guard shack next to the road.

"Okay, you three, knock off the grab-ass and get on your gun. According to Leutnant Spahn, the Commies are sending over some officer to talk with our colonel. Don't shoot the Russian bastard, but keep an eye on them while I check their papers."

"Do you read Russian, Herr Unteroffizier?" Dutka had asked.

"Just enough to get in trouble and seem like I know what I'm doing."

Jan mumbled to Dutka, "Sort of like your German Kazimir."

Dutka gave him an evil look before grinning, "Better than your Polish, you half-German mongrel."

Both men stopped when Baumbach stood in front of them, "Something you two would like to share with me?"

"No, sorry Herr Unteroffizier, we were just commenting on the weather. It seems dry this year.. We should see the dust from the Russians' vehicle when they're approaching." Dutka answered.

Baumbach just shook his head, "Verdammte Polacken." Then he walked back to the guard shack.

Jan mumbled in Polish, "We get that a lot from the Niemcy, don't we?"

Dutka smiled and said, "Yes, not everyone has the honor of being Polish, makes 'em jealous I think ..."

¹ The Polish name for Danzig, and the name that fair city bears today.

Life on the Border Between War and Not-Quite-War

MG 34 general-purpose machine gun mounted on a Lafette 34 tripod
(Source)

"Jan, I heard it straight from the Spieß, we're shipping out to the east, next week," Schütze Kazimir Dutka insisted, "we're headed somewhere around Chelm. He wasn't sure of the exact spot, and honestly he knows so little of Poland, but from the orders he's seen, it has to be Chelm."

Schütze Jan Kołodziej shook his head as he looked at his friend. Dutka was a big man, like Jan he was part German, from the village of Stegna in the area which the Poles called "Pomorze" and the Germans called "Pommern¹." He too had been deemed "German-enough" to be conscripted into the Wehrmacht². "Are you sure Kazimir? This isn't just another barracks rumor?"

"Yup, I'm sure. We're marching to the railhead, then heading east. I've seen the supply requisitions. The Spieß is convinced that Hitler means to attack Russia, he's always hated the Communists, his deal with Stalin was just to get us out of the way while he dealt with France and England." Dutka had been a stevedore in Gdansk, while he wasn't well-educated, he paid attention.

"Damn." Jan muttered, setting the ammunition belt he was loading with 7.92 mm rounds aside, he looked at Kazimir. "What am I to do about Elżbieta, how can I get a pass to Warszawa to try and see her? Also, she's seen me in this Nazi uniform, I'm sure she hates me now."

Dutka nodded and said, "Her problems may be worse than yours. Rumor has it that the Niemcy are rounding up everyone who has a college education. Priests, lawyers, doctors, and professors are being killed out of hand. The Niemcy are forcibly removing all Poles from Western Poland to resettle the area with "pure" Germans." Dutka spat as he said that.

"Elżbieta was due to finish school this past spring, of course, after the invasion ... My God, do you think she's been arrested?" Jan had trouble controlling his voice, the more he thought about her, the more he realized he loved her.

He was seriously considering deserting and trying to get to Warszawa, but his common sense told him that that would likely result in his own death and help Elżbieta not at all. Once his unit went to the East, there was no telling what would happen next.

On the other hand, if there was an opportunity to kill Russians, that would be all right in his book. If Hitler wanted to attack the Soviet Union, well then, Jan would help.

Elżbieta Chlebek looked around the hospital. Her shift was nearing its end and the number of sick and wounded Germans was much less than before. Those wounded in the campaign last September were being moved to the Reich if they were incapable of rejoining the army. The less injured and the sick were sent back to their units as soon as they were healed. Even in a army not actively fighting, accidents happened all the time. Men were still dying.

Though Elżbieta still hated the Niemcy, as a general rule, she had discovered that some of them were not so bad. She still shuddered at seeing her Jan in one of those uniforms, but she had since learned that many Poles had been conscripted into the Nazi army, whether they liked it or not. She supposed that they were simply doing whatever they had to do to survive.

She had a moment of shame when she realized that what she had done was no different from what Jan had done. She now had papers indicating that her name was Elisabeth Brodt, a German version of her own name.³ Though she had been very close to completing her medical degree, the Niemcy were suspicious of any educated people in this area of the world.

As her accent was obviously Polish, she did what many had done, claimed to be from what the intelligent learned to refer to as the German areas illegally annexed by Poland after the first war. In her case, she claimed to be from Lauban (Lubań in Polish) in Silesia, an area which had already been reclaimed by the Reich.

Currently she was employed as a nurse in a hospital taken over by the Germans. Though still in the capital city, she dared not visit her old friends or even her parents' flat. Any suspicion that she was Polish would have led to her being shot out of hand or transported to a camp. She had heard the rumors. The Polish intelligentsia were being slaughtered by the Nazis. Any hint of her true nationality or that she had been training as a doctor would be a death sentence for her.

"Elisabeth!" She turned as the German doctor hailed her. She was treated like dirt in this place, what was it with these Nazis?

Caporal Guillaume Micheaux, late of the 142e régiment d'infanterie of the 8e division d'infanterie, stood in the parlor of his cousin's small house on the outskirts of Reims. She had provided him with civilian clothing, the rough attire of a farm laborer but it blended in nicely with the other civilians. The clothes had been her husband's, Pierre had been killed in the initial fighting in the Ardennes around Sedan. Guillaume had liked the man, a lot.

"How are you doing Michelle, now that, well now that ..." Guillaume had trouble saying the words.

Michelle Cordonnier (née Micheaux) shook her head, "Now that I'm a widow? Is that what you mean Guillaume? I thought the army might make you less, I don't know, polite?"

Guillaume chuckled, "Well, I'm a little less polite than I used to be, but around my family? Never!"

"I am doing well enough, I visit your mother every day, and why don't you go see her?"

"Les Boches paroled me, they didn't let me go. If I visit maman, they will know. I haven't reported in yet, I'm thinking of going into the forest and joining the resistance. Or perhaps trying to get to England and join De Gaulle ..."

"De Gaulle!?" Michelle barked at her cousin, "he is simply another politician, if he wanted to fight, why didn't he stop the Boches from taking Paris?!"

Guillaume shook his head, "If only it were so simple. I must go, thank you for the clothing, and the food. Let maman know that I'm alive and well, tell her someone told you that, don't admit to anyone that you've seen me. I don't want you getting in trouble."

"There are no Boches here, no occupiers, they are all in the major towns and the cities." Michelle protested.

"Don't underestimate those bastards, soon they will be everywhere. There are also those who will collaborate, to live a better life helping them. Be wary. Now, I must go my dear."

He kissed his cousin on the cheek, then left quickly, without looking back. He didn't know what he would do, but he refused to do the bidding of the Nazis and their minions. Somehow, he must continue the fight. Somehow get back into the war which had ended without him firing a single round.

His honor demanded it!

¹ Pomerania in English

² The German Armed Forces - the Army (Heer), the Air Force (Luftwaffe) and the Navy (Kriegsmarine). This didn't include the Waffen SS, who were an arm of the Nazi Party for all intents and purposes.

³ Chlebek can be translated into English as "bread." There is also a German surname "Brot" (literally bread) of which Brodt is a variant spelling.