Armageddon - Max Hastings [201]
Boys and old men in their thousands were summoned to active duty with the Volkssturm. When seventeen-year-old Joseph Volmar reported for morning Appel at his Luftwaffe glider school outside Königsberg on 20 January, he and his class were hastily marched to the nearest station, almost two miles through driving snow. They fought their way on to a train for the city, through a mob of terrified civilians. On arrival, they were paraded before a harassed infantry captain. “Men or boys or whatever you are,” he said, “you have been assigned to my command for the heroic defence of Königsberg. I hope you will do justice to yourselves when the time for combat comes.” They were issued with French long rifles of 1914 vintage, and twenty-five rounds of ammunition. One boy was given a Czech machine-gun. To their sergeant’s fury, only Polish ammunition proved to be available for it. They were loaded on to a city bus, under command of a Hitler Youth leader, and drove slowly through the street. An NCO coaxed them into song. They joined hesitantly in a chorus of “Edelweiss.” As they gazed from the windows at the throng of refugees stumbling through the snow, the early morning’s sense of adventure gave way to mounting unease, then to fear: “Hundreds of frostbitten faces stared up at us as we sped in the opposite direction. One face was like another, each showing hunger, fatigue and fear as a pair of weary eyes peered out from under a scarf. Small children were bundled up in a sled or riding uncomfortably in baby carriages stuffed with clothing and household goods. Often, the carriages were abandoned at the roadside.”
They travelled some thirty miles into deepening darkness. They began to pass soldiers, plodding in the opposite direction. Then, without warning, they heard shellfire. The bus stopped in a village which had been abandoned by its inhabitants. They were told to bed down in two houses beside the church. “What about food, Scharführer?” someone asked their NCO. He shrugged: “You’re out of luck today.” They wandered among the buildings until they chanced on a supply dump that had been set on fire, and salvaged a few wheels of cheese and bottles of wine. Then, wrapped in their greatcoats, they drifted into anxious sleep.
They were roused four hours later by their sergeant: “Everybody up and outside! The Russkis are coming!” Some ninety-strong, they were marched to an embankment in front of a railway line at the edge of the village. They had just begun to dig holes in the snow when Russian mortaring began. One boy groaned and slid down the embankment, rolling in agony as he came. Lying at Volmar’s feet, he muttered, “Say farewell to my mother,” and died. They could hear screams from other wounded. When Volmar tried to load his rifle, he found the bolt was frozen. He attempted to put a tourniquet round the bloody leg of their machine-gunner. There were cries of “Sanitäter! Sanitäter!”—“Medic! Medic!” As Russian fire intensified, the boy crawled among dead comrades, searching for ammunition. For four hours, they lay and fired as best they could at the Russians, who advanced steadily closer. Finally their NCO shouted: “Let’s get out of here! We can’t hold on any more! Everybody get across the tracks and make for the river! Bring the wounded if you can.”
They could not. They simply ran, more boys falling to a Russian machine-gun. One, hit in the leg, cried as he lay: “Help me across the tracks! I don’t want to be taken prisoner.” Volmar began to drag him, but suddenly saw a Russian soldier fifty yards away, holding a machine-pistol. The young German abandoned his screaming comrade and started running again, throwing away helmet, gas mask and finally a beloved camera. Just as he crossed the railway