Hans Von Luck - Panzer Commander Read online

  Hans Von Luck - Panzer Commander

  Hans Von Luck - Panzer Commander

  The Memoirs of Colonel Hans von Luck

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1. Growing Up, 1911-1929

  2. The Reichswehr and My Teacher, Rommel

  3. The Buildup of the Wehrmacht, 1934- 1939

  4. Europe on the Eve of War: Travels and Experiences

  5. Blitzkrieg: Poland, 1939

  6. Interim, 1939-1940

  7. France, 1940

  8. Interim, 1940-1941

  9. The Russian Campaign, June 1941 to January 1942

  10. Interim, 1942

  11. North Africa, 1942: Rommel, the Desert Fox

  12. The Retreat from El Alamein

  13. The End in North Africa, 1943

  14. Berlin and Paris, 1943-1944

  15. The Start of the Invasion, 6 June 1944

  16. “Operation Goodwood,” 18/19 July 1944

  17. Retreat to Germany, August-November 1944

  18. Fighting the Americans, December 1944

  19. The Eastern Front: The Last Battle

  20. The 21st Panzer Division as “Fire Brigade”: The Beginning of the End

  21. The End

  22. Capture and Deportation

  23. In the Coal Mines of the Caucasus Mountains

  24. Kultura and Corruption: The Russian Mentality

  25. Punishment Camp: Hunger Strike and the KGB

  26. Release

  27. A New Start

  Although names, places, and dates have been carefully checked, this book makes no claim to be history. My memoirs reproduce, rather, the events and experiences that a young German had to go through in a period that changed Europe and almost the whole world.

  The Second World War stands in the center. It shows, along with the preceding years, how intolerance, a false ideology, and propaganda can mobilize whole peoples against each other and plunge them into misery.

  I dedicated my book to my three sons, born between 1954 and 1970, because I wish to address those generations that were born only during or after the war. My son Sascha, the youngest, asked me the other day: “What does”Nazi' actually mean? Why was Hitler 'bad'? Why did a whole people 'follow' him?" He and his generation must be given answers. Many teachers, even those born only during or after the war, have no answer, or only an inadequate one. Older people, for one reason or another, repress the period.

  In countless conversations with the young of Germany, Great Britain, and France, at numerous lectures to young students at American universities, I have found that young people want to clear their minds about a period for which the information they are given is either nonexistent, insufficient, or one-sided.

  Thus I firmly resist, for instance, classifying the Russians as “bad” and us in the West as “good.” That is too simple!

  The reader will learn that the Russians too love their homeland, as we love ours. That during the war Russian mothers and wives had the same worries as ours. Today young people of the world, and precisely those of former adversaries in the war, understand each other with no problems. I hope that glasnost and perestroika will make it possible for the youth of the Soviet Union and other East European countries to be given the chance to join hands with young people in the West.

  Those of my readers who have had the opportunity to visit the USSR, as athletes, scientists, or tourists, will have discovered that the Russian people are charming, hospitable, and ready to live at peace with all the peoples of our world.

  Those who have never been to Russia ought to make good the omission.

  I have tried to draw experiences from hundreds of episodes, pleasant and sad; experiences that may help to make it impossible for the events in Germany before and during the war ever to be repeated, anywhere. It is profoundly depressing to discover that since the end of the Second World War more than 150 wars have been, and still are being waged worldwide, whether on grounds of politics, economics, or ideology. It depresses me that only the presence of nuclear weapons, it seems, is capable of preventing a new passage of arms between two power blocs.

  The example that young people set us older ones should be followed by all in positions of responsibility: the practice of tolerance, that best of human attributes. All of us should know that one can learn from bad experiences.

  I thank all who have helped me to write this book. Without my friend Professor Stephen Ambrose of the University of New Orleans, it would never have been written. He “forced” me to relate my experiences, and constantly gave me the heart to continue.

  I thank Major John Howard, my British adversary on D-Day, who as the “hero of Pegasus Bridge” has passed into war history and is today my friend. John tells anyone who asks him: “If you want to know what it was like 'on the other side of the hill,” ask my friend Hans." I thank Werner Kortenhaus, who is writing the history of the 21 st Panzer Division, for the extensive material which he put at my disposal.

  My thanks are due to all my fellow prisoners, who shared with me the hard fate of five years of Russian captivity and who are still in touch today through the Camp 518 Association. Many refreshed my memory or, by describing their own experiences, helped to give the reader a graphic idea of our “gulag” life.

  All, whether it be my adjutant Helmut Liebeskind, or my orderly and friend Erich Beck, or the many who fought with me on every front for nearly five years, have helped me and are a constituent part of the book.

  My particular thanks are due to George Unwin of Surrey, England.

  Of much the same age as me, George has translated my manuscript into English with fellow feeling, identifying himself with me.

  My American and British friends who have read his text say without exception, “We can literally hear Hans speaking and understand what he has to say to us.” Last but not least I thank my wife, Regina, for her patience and collaboration. For nearly four years she has allowed me to work on my manuscript, assisted me in my research, and in her spare time made copies of hundreds of pages.

  I am deeply moved by the Introduction which Steve Ambrose has written for this book. He has made my experiences his own. I am proud to be permitted to call this remarkable human being, author, and h istorian my friend.

  I first met Hans von Luck in November 1983, in Hamburg. I was there to interview him on his role in the fighting on D-Day. My subject was the action at Pegasus Bridge, over the Caen Canal, which he had defended against a glider-borne attack by British airborne troops. He came to my hotel room, arriving precisely at the stroke of four P.m., as agreed.

  The immediate impression was of a thin, wiry, strong man of medium height and, despite his white hair, of medium age. But a closer study of his ruddy, weathered face, deeply lined with wrinkles, revealed a man well into old age (he was in fact 72 years old). He had sharp features, a hawklike nose, deep-set penetrating eyes, a jutting chin, a large broad forehead, high cheekbones, and big jutting ears. Although he was dressed in a business suit, it took only the slightest imagination to see him in his desert uniform, buttoned to the high stiff collar, his Knight's Cross around his neck, a German officer's hat set back on his head, his goggles in place, the dust of North Africa covering him.

  We ordered coffee from room service as he spread out his maps of Normandy. His English was accented but perfectly understandable. His manners, and his mannerisms, were those of an Old World aristocrat. He chain-smoked Marlboro Lights. He was eager to tell me of his experiences in Normandy, enthusiastic about my project.

  We talked for four hours, with scarcely a pause. I got the details of his actions on the night of 5/6 June 1944, and an outline of his service elsewhere. As a military historian, I was of course fascinated to hear the
war stories of the man who led the way into Poland in 1939, who was at the vanguard of Rommel's thrust to the Channel Coast in June 1940, who actually reached the outskirts of Moscow in November 1941, who supervised Rommel's extreme right flank in North Africa in 1942-43, and who commmanded the armored regiment that met the first D-Day attack in 1944. His stories of life in a POW camp in the Soviet Union, 1945-50, were gripping and revealing. His frequent expression of his great love for the Russian people, and his sympathy for their plight, was quite genuine, and surprising.

  Indeed, much as I was impressed by Hans the professional Soldier, I was even more taken, charmed, in fact, by Hans the man. He was kind and open and-I couldn't put the word out of my mind. In 25 years of interviewing veterans, I had never heard war stories so well told, so full of compassion for the oppressed, of whatever race or nationality. Except for Dwight Eisenhower, I had never met a veteran I liked or admired more.

  I urge those American readers who still believe, as I once did, that all the good Germans are either dead or long ago emigrated to the United States, to give Hans a fair reading. He deserves your attention and respect.

  Although these are the memoirs of a professional soldier, they are not written for cadets in a military academy, but rather for a general audience. Hans is a raconteur with a sharp eye for the telling anecdote or incident. For a warrior who was in combat almost continuously from September 1939 to April 1945, there is surprisingly little blood and guts. For a man who won his country's highest military decorations for courage, there is surprisingly little boasting about personal exploits. For a man who was a POW doing slave labor, there is surprisingly little bitterness. Instead, there is insight, a marked sympathy for the human condition, good humor, tolerance, and wonder.

  What we do have in these memoirs is a remarkable life. We begin with the young Prussian aristocrat following the family tradition by joining the army. We see his training, accompany him on his travels, watch the rise of Hitler, and see the effect of Hitler's policies on the newborn German army. Hans marches us into Poland and carries us along the heady string of victories in France and Russia. He tastes defeat, for the first time, in North Africa, but soon is established in a penthouse in Paris, enjoying the life of a conqueror. He gives us the details of his bittersweet wartime romance. Then he learns about defeat again, from the British in Normandy, the Americans in eastern France, and the Russians south of Berlin. We end up in a POW camp in the Caucasus, with Hans working as a coal miner.

  Along the way he gives us marvelous vignettes o f the people he encountered: the pope (priest) at the Cathedral of Smolensk, the madam of a brothel in Bordeaux, the Bedouins in the desert, his French friends in occupied Paris, and many others.

  Famous German generals march through these pages, including Jodl, Kesseiring, and Guderian. But the dominant personality, aside from Hans himself, is Fieldmarshal Erwin Rommel. Hans knew him first in the pre-Hitler era, when Rommel was his instructor in tactics. From 1940 to 1944 Hans spent most of his time commanding the recce battalion for Rommel. He was the general Hans admired most, and clearly Rommel not only had a very high opinion of Hans, but felt nearly as close to him as he did to his own son. Thus Hans is able to describe for us Rommel in action as well as Rommel in contemplation. It makes a fascinating portrait of the general many military historians including me) would rank as the best of World War II.

  But the real hero of this book is the German soldier. Hans's troops, in the 7th Division in France and Russia, and the 21st Panzer Division in North Africa, Normandy, eastern France and Germany, never let him down. They were remarkable for their endurance, tenacity, boldness, comradeship and loyalty. So was Colonel von Luck. One of the outstanding soldiers of World War II, he has written a memoir that is simply superb, an instant classic that will be read for decades to come.

  Stephen E. Ambrose

  RELEASE.

  It was a cold winter's day at the end of 1949 in a special camp for prisoners of war in the neighborhood of Kiev; at two o'clock in the morning a barrack door flew open.

  “Ganz von Luck,” shouted a Russian guard. “Davai, to the office.” I still have to smile: the Russians cannot pronounce the H sound. How amused we had been a few years earlier when at the shout of “Goggenloge” no one had stirred. Intended was Prince Hohenlohe.

  We German prisoners of war had been in Russia since June 1945; since the late autumn of 1948, former members of the SS and the police, and also all those who had fought against partisans, had been collected into a kind of punishment camp. Also includedsomething none of us could understand-were all staff officers.

  Drunk with sleep I stood up. The Russians were fond of interrogations by night. It was easier to extract something from a tired prisoner.

  A few weeks earlier, the camp interpreter, a Jewish doctor with whom I had become friendly, had told me what was in the wind.

  “I have heard that under pressure from the Western Allies Stalin has agreed to observe the Geneva Conventions and release the prisoners. In the ordinary camps the releases are almost complete, but even here releases will be made. Fifteen percent will be condemned and remain here. We don't want to send home any war criminals. Besides, we need manpower.” Not long after, commissions had indeed arrived from Moscow. At nocturnal hearings, by some system incomprehensible to us, 15 percent had to be sorted out; the rest really would be transported home. A five-person commission from Moscow would make the decision.

  And now it was my turn!

  My nerves were at breaking point. I forced myself to keep calm.

  I spoke good Russian; while a prisoner I had been able to improve my knowledge of the language and had often been used as an interpreter. At the office, the commissioners' interpreter, a young woman I knew well, was waiting for me. “I don't understand or speak a word of Russian,” I whispered to her.

  “Understand?” She smiled and nodded; she would go along with my charade.

  I was led into a large room and saw in front of me a big, T-shaped table, at the head of which sat the commission. In the middle was a Russian colonel, apparently its leader, an affable-iooking man of about my own age, bedecked with orders and with an almost square head. He looked like Marshal Georgi Zhukov, the “liberator” of Berlin.

  On either side were civilians, probably a public prosecutor and KGB officers. They looked rather less affable and stared at me with impenetrable expressions. At the other end of the table, about 20 feet away, I took my place with the interpreter.

  The hearing began.

  “What is your name? Your unit? Where were you in action in Russia?” The interpreter translated, I replied in German, “I have already said all that at least twenty times for the record.”

  “We want to hear it again,” said the Colonel.

  My statements seemed to agree with their documents. They nodded their approval.

  Then, “You capitalist, reactionary; von Luck is like von Ribbentrop (foreign minister under Hitler), von Papen chancellor before Hitler). Everyone with 'von' is a big capitalist and a big Nazi.” After the translation I replied, “I have nothing to do with Ribbentrop or Papen. I have been in the war for more than five years and then five years in captivity. That's more than ten years of my life. I should now like to live in peace with my family, follow a profession. I have neither money nor landed property, so what's all this about capitalist, Nazi, and so on?”

  "I'he interpreter translated word for word.

  They didn't seem to have anything else to lay at my door. So the Colonel turned to his colleague and spoke openly in Russian.

  “What shall we do with the polkovnik (colonel)? He's not a member of the SS or the police. At the time of the partisan struggles he was already in Africa. But I hate to let one of these vons get away.” One of the KGB officers chimed in, “We can charge him with stealing eggs from Russian villages and thus committing 'sabotage' against the Russian people.” That was the last straw. I knew that even such a minor offense could incur ten to fifteen years in a punishm
ent camp.

  I stood up and, as a start, uttered one of the worst Russian oaths. (The Russians and Hungarians are said to have the coarsest of oaths.) I saw the shocked face of the interpreter and the astonishment of the Colonel and his associates.

  Only now and in this way, I thought, would I have the chance of going home.

  After a short pause for effect, I spoke accordingly, “Polkovnik, you are a colonel like me. (I deliberately used the familiar du form of address.) You have done your duty in the war just like me. Both of us believed we had to defend our homeland. We Germans were probably misled by highly accomplished, one-sided propaganda. Both of us have taken an oath.” The Colonel listened attentively.

  “It's three o'clock in the morning,” I went on. "I am tired.

  At six we shall be woken up again to start another day of our captivity.,, “I know the Russian law. The accused has to prove his innocence and not the court the guilt of the defendant. How shall I defend myself? If you want to keep me here, you'll find a reason all right. So make it brief and then let me go to sleep.” There followed a short whispered conversation between the Colonel and his colleagues. Then the Colonel said, “You speak Russian. Where did you learn it?” His tone was placid, almost benevolent.

  “I was interested in the Russian language, Russian music, and Russian writers even as a young man. Long before this wretched war broke out I learned Russian from emigrants. In the nine months of my service in Russia, but above all in the last four and a half years, I have been able to improve my knowledge. I admit it was tactics to let the interpreter translate.” They smiled and my position seemed to me to be a little less hopeless.

  Then came a surprising question from the Colonel, “What do you think of Russia and her people?”

  "I have seen much and learned much in the years of my captivity.

  I like your vast country, I like the people, their readiness to help, their love of their homeland. I think I have grasped something of the Russian mentality and soul. But I am not a Communist and never in my life will I be one. I am disappointed by what is left of Marx's ideas and Lenin's revolution. I should like our people to learn to understand each other, in spite of our many contrasts and different ideologies. That is my answer to your question, Polkovnik." It was a gamble, but I felt that in my situation attack was the best form of defense.