2 Helion & Company Limited 26 Willow Road Solihull West Midlands B91 1UE England Tel. 0121 705 3393 Fax 0121 711 4075 Email: [email protected] Website: www.helion.co.uk Twitter: @helionbooks Visit our blog http://blog.helion.co.uk/ Published by Helion & Company 2013 Designed and typeset by Farr out Publications, Wokingham, Berkshire Cover designed by Paul Hewitt, Battlefield Design (www.battlefield-design.co.uk) Printed by Gutenberg Press Limited, Tarxien, Malta Text © Estate of Erwin Bartmann/Derik Hammond 2013 Photographs © Estate of Erwin Bartmann 2013 Maps © as individually credited ISBN 978 1 909384 53 8 EPUB ISBN: 978 1 910294 27 7 3 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express written consent of Helion & Company Limited. For details of other military history titles published by Helion & Company Limited contact the above address, or visit our website: http://www.helion.co.uk. We always welcome receiving book proposals from prospective authors. 4 Contents List of photographs List of maps Acknowledgements Introduction 1 A Diary of Indoctrination 2 The Apprentice 3 The Applicant 4 Auf Wiedersehen Lichterfelde 5 A Lesson in Practical Telephony 6 Onward to Taganrog 7 Close Calls 8 A Steppe too far 9 Retreat to the Mius-Sambek Line 10 Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas 11 Spring Smiles on Sambek 12 The Beauties of Paris 5 13 Transfer to Normandy 14 Little Diversions for the Young Men of the Leibstandarte 15 Return to Russia 16 Friendly Fire Photo Gallery 17 On a Summer’s Day 18 Sewing Machines and T-34s 19 Prokhorovka 20 The Scarecrow of Prokhorovka 21 A New Life in Berlin 22 New Year Celebrations, 1944 23 Snobbery and Rebellion 24 First Love and Final Gatherings 25 Fond Farewells 26 The Last Redoubt 27 The Tale of the Three Generals 28 The Junghans-Hengstmann Mystery 6 29 Sardines, Murder and Rape 30 Sanctuary in Jerichow 31 The Wrong Side of the Styx 32 Captivity Epilogue Notes 7 List of photographs Our Berlin family home. 38 Strausberger Strasse is the opening under the round archway. Showing off my new uniform, July 1941. Time for a smoke, October 1941. I only started smoking after I arrived on the Eastern Front. Winter begins to bite, October 1941. Signed by Sepp Dietrich, commander of the Leibstandarte. This certificate, for the 1941/42 Ostmedaille, arrived shortly after my promotion to Unterscharführer in 1943 although I received the medal much earlier, while still a Sturmmann. Spring 1942 by the Black Sea, after our withdrawal from Sambek. Sojourn in France. The Kompanietrupp enjoy a meal in the shade of a tree - a pleasant break from the rigours of the Eastern Front. Taken shortly after my promotion to Sturmmann, a proud moment for me. The star belonging to the cap badge given to me by a Russian POW. Sunshine in Olshany. Our Russian hostess looked after us like a mother. 8 Larking about in the sunshine, Olshany 1943. Testing our connections while keeping a look-out for the enemy. On the road to Kharkov. Myself with Horst dressed in his Luftwaffe uniform. Medical report on my wound at Prokhorovka, written the day it happened. The shrapnel that passed through my lung in Prokhorovka, small but so nearly deadly. The documentation accompanying my Wound Badge in Black. Pages from my Soldbuch with details of my pay and the stamp of the hospital in Judenau, near Vienna. A fellow veteran informed me that a window-sized version of this picture looked down from the photographer’s studio as the Russians entered Potsdamer Platz. ‘The Three Musketeers’ - with Gunter Schmidt, who worked on the Reichsbahn, and Horst Musch, who enlisted in the Kriegsmarine. A girlfriend posing outside the Radio Station in Berlin at the last of their annual floral displays, 1943. I didn’t meet her until about a year after this was taken. 9 My new cap with the wire removed, as was the fashion, taken autumn 1943. Sharing a smile with a fellow machine-gun instructor while stationed in Alt Hartmannsdorf, March 1945. Horst and me, taken shortly after the birth of his first child. POW camp near Aldershot. I’m fourth from the left, top row. It seems I was fated to be a baker. Paperwork issued on 27 November 1948, the day I was released from captivity in Scotland. It entitled me to claim a German military pension for more than seven years’ service. I took my Oath of Allegiance to the Queen on 5 November 1955 and became a British citizen. 10