Rank and File
A Clerk’s War
Saturday 19th April 1941: 2AM to 7AM
“Saturday 19th April 1941”: will we look back at that date as the beginning of the “Thousand Year Reich” or will it be the start of a conflict that will destroy everything for which we have worked? Who knows? One thing is definite: it is a day that nobody involved will ever forget.
I had set my alarm clock to wake me before 2AM and was at the Reichskanzlei well before 4AM. I was not surprised to see lights in most government building along the Wilhelmstraße. The Foreign Ministry in particular was lit up like a “Weihnachtsbaum”. Pasing the sentries (was it my imagination or were there more than usual?) I hurried to the radio room, where a select few officials were already gathered in anticipation. I knew everyone there – no strangers would be allowed to join us.
Taking a seat, I was told that we were in luck. The radio operator had managed to gain access to a secret Wehrmachtbericht channel and was currently tuned in. This was not the normal civilian channel but a high security connection from the front. The radio station’s front line correspondents would use this to send their reports back to Berlin for editing and use in the regular morning broadcast. We would get to hear the unedited, first-hand reports. Needless to say this is strictly forbidden – it gave a touch of danger to the whole exercise that was not unpleasant. In fact, the dark, the sense of fear and the knowledge that soon the world would erupt with action: it brought back memories of the last war.
At about 3AM the first news came through – from Berlin! A reporter described the arrival of the Russian Ambassador at the Foreign Ministry and, barely minutes later, his hurried exit. I must say the reporter was very good. He expertly described the mixture of panic, fear and anger on the face of the Ambassador as he raced back to inform his government that our countries were now officially at war. (I had a brief thought for our man in Moscow, Friedrich Werner Graf von der Schulenberg. Somehow I feel this veteran of the first war would make it home, perhaps through Turkey, where he has many friends).
The next 30 minutes were spent in anticipation as reporter after reporter from Memel in the north to Vylkove in the south checked reception with the station in Berlin. It was obvious that Minister Goebbels had spent months preparing this, anxious to milk the moment for every bit of propaganda. From comments made it was clear there were film crews present at selected spots along the front, so we will see newscasts at film-theatres in the next few weeks.
Just before 4AM the reporter in Suwalki took over, and later I was able to get a transcript of his lead up to the beginning of Unternhemen Barbarossa.
“ I am standing on a slight rise overlooking the border area, right next to General Felber’s communications post. Although it is not yet dawn, my eyes have become accustomed to the dark and there is enough light to see some of what is happening around me. Across the strings of barbed wire along the border all is still. I have been told that only a few kilometres away we believe there are at least four Soviet divisions, one of them a tank division. But at the moment all I can see is empty fields.
Around me there is quiet. For hours thousands of men and vehicles have been getting into position, ready to move at the signal. Far to the rear I know there are ranks of artillery, waiting to unleash a torrent of shells onto what we believe are the enemy strongpoints and depots. Even further back, aircraft are even now taking to the air, sagging under the weight of their bomb loads. The sense of pent up energy is palpable. It awaits the decision of one man, far away in Berlin. One man whose will can unleash not just his vast army behind me, but dozens of similar groups along the length of Europe.
And now that moment has come. In the dull glow of the radio vehicle’s night light I see an officer listening intently then signalling to the command group. A telegraph form, barely a scrap of paper, is rushed to the General who glances at it, obviously already aware of the contents. A nod, and within seconds signal rockets are lancing into the sky. There seem to be scores of them, different colours and combinations, all apparently of significance to the waiting units. Immediately the dull throb of diesel engines and the higher pitch of the trucks and other motor vehicles becomes a crescendo.
I don’t know what I expected from the soldiers as they realised that we were moving east, but I was surprised to hear a huge cheer as ….. “
Unfortunately here the transmission was drowned out by the roar of hundred of artillery pieces firing almost simultaneously.
The radio switched to another reporter, this time in Rumania. He was in the middle of describing the scene in front of him as hundreds of inflatable rafts were being paddled across the river Bic, a tributary of the Dneister. The pioniere regiments of 1st and 7th Gebirgsjäger Divisions were heading towards the city of Chisinau, garrisoned by three full infantry divisions. There were descriptions of the engineers busily preparing to launch the pontoons to allow the crack mountain troops to cross and assault the city. He described General Volkmann, calmly examining the far side of the river with his binoculars, searching for any sign that the enemy had been alerted. Next to him an artillery officer waited patiently, ready to immediately transmit target co-ordinates to the guns in the rear.
Then another switch, to Iwanice in southern Poland. We could barely hear the reporter yelling with excitement over the roar of tanks moving past him at speed. Apparently he had set up next to the main access road into Iwanice and it sounded as though every one of General Hubicki’s vehicles was driving within a metre of him. From the garbled sentences we managed to hear, 7th Panzer was already in action, having caught the border garrison division unawares. Although the war was less than an hour old, the reporter was already shouting about a victory. He must be very young.
The next broadcast was from an airbase outside Königsberg. Above the drone of aircraft we were told that minutes before two hundred dive-bombers of “Schwerz” and”Hammer” had broken from a holding pattern above the airfield and had disappeared east, flying at full speed. Currently Kitzinger’s 3rd Kampffliegerkorps was taking off, the overloaded Ju 88s struggling to get airborne while above them, like mother-hens, the Fw 190As of JG 72 “Zebra” kept careful watch. The reporter kept having to move as ground crews and refuelling trucks raced to prepare for the return and re-arming of Löhr’s Henschels.
By now it was nearly 7AM, and we could hear from the bustle outside that the normal office staff were arriving. There was no point in pushing our luck. One by one we slipped out of the radio room and returned to our respective offices, each with our own thoughts.
As the adrenalin subsided, I tried to think rationally about the events of the morning. Through it all, one question kept coming into my head: “What have we done?”
