Fortunes of War
Diary of a Stosstrupp Leader (Part 13)
This post continues the translation of the diary of a German soldier who fought in the First World War. Readers can find links to other posts in this series in the following guide.
17 December 1916 (Sunday)
As today was Sunday, there were no work details. Nonetheless, we performed the daily chores of shoring up the walls of our trenches (lest they collapse on us) and the digging of drainage holes under walkways. Many of the shelters for enlisted men - narrow, small, and incapable of being heated - struck me as unfit for human habitation.
It was not so cold.
Today, Marutschka (our medium Minenwerfer) delivered her Sunday greetings to the enemy in the form of hundred-pound mines that produced both enormous explosions and ferocious fragmentation.
The Russians responded without delay, with a ‘rolling salvo’ fired by eight artillery pieces. A Russian heavy shell flew within a hair’s breadth of my head. (When it exploded), a fountain of earth hit me.
Feldwebel-Leutnant Johannes took command of the 3rd Platoon. Thus, I became, once again the deputy platoon leader. Each of us stood duty, supervising sentries and listening posts, for eight hours each night and two hours each day.
The weather got colder, freezing our legs to the point where, no matter how much we move, they cannot get warm.
19 December 1916
I stand duty in the trenches for eight hours. The winter landscape creates a sense of wonder!
A Russian shell struck U II, a shelter that held (containers full of recently delivered) food. None of the men waiting to fill their mess kits suffered any injuries. The explosion, however, destroyed the shelter, thereby rendering the food inedible.
The nine men (who had been waiting for their food) reacted in the manner of old soldiers. Rather than celebrating the fact that none had been injured, they expressed great anger at the Russians for ruining their well deserved lunch. It was only after someone pulled a large shell fragment out of the ground that one of the soldiers said, in his thick Berlin accent, ‘That could have put somebody’s eye out’.
20 December 1916
The weather was cold and clear. I stood duty for eight hours. Five packages arrived.
21 December 1916
I stood duty from one in the afternoon to seven thirty in the evening.
22 December 1916
Lots of aircraft appeared above the snow-covered countryside. I stood no daytime duty, but stood eight hours of duty during the night.
At midnight, it rained again. Then everything froze. A shell killed two of our men.
to be continued …
Note
The term Feldwebel-Leutnant defies translation. Those who wore the rank - which British sources often translate as ‘sergeant-major lieutenant’ - performed the duties of junior commissioned officers. Nonetheless, all concerned expected that, once the war had ended, these ‘temporary gentlemen’ would revert to their pre-war status as senior sergeants.
Sources
The text comes from Alwin Lydding Meine Kriegstagbuch (My War Diary), an unpublished manuscript that I found at the Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive) (Folder N 382/1).
The photo comes from the regimental history of the Reserve Infantry Regiment 265, a unit that, like Infantry Regiment 97 and Infantry Regiment 137, served in the 108th Infantry Division. W. Walther Das Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment 265 in Angriff und Abwehr 1914-1918 (Zeulenroda: Bernhard Sporn, 1933)
For Further Reading
Old soldier’s gift for phlegmatic understatements never ceases to amaze me 😂
With respect to Feldwebel-Leutnants, I know that in the German Army of the WW II era, Infantry unit strength authorization tables prescribed that one platoon leader in each company was an NCO, usually an Unterfeldwebel or Feldwebel. Do you know at what point the Heer made that change?