Nazilager

CHAPTER 1

May 1, 1943 - In the Tunisian desert south of Majaz al Bab

The unforgiving sun hung like a fireball high over the shifting and scorching sands blown about in violent hot gusts one moment and then eerily still in another. Here and there sand berms had formed as high as 20 feet, but in the distance they flattened and disappeared, as though they had never existed.

Gradually, about a half-mile away, a dust cloud appeared. It grew larger as two dark yellow armored reconnaissance half-track vehicles came into view. They were driving point over the sands in a wedge type formation. The black and white Balkenkreuz, straight-arm cross emblem of the German Army, was featured prominently on their sides. Inside the open body sat the driver, who doubled as the tactical radio operator and a gun crew of two manning the anti-aircraft gun. The soldiers wore soft caps and protective goggles to guard against the blowing sands. They were on heightened alert scanning the horizon for enemy American or British tanks they might have to engage before they reached Majaz al Bab, a small town strategically situated on the main road to the capital city of Tunis 38 miles away. Their orders were to rendezvous with another Panzer group and together attack and reclaim the town from a British ad hoc force, the Y Division, and tank elements of the U.S. 1stArmored Division.

At a safe distance behind the recon vehicles came an almost mile long column comprised of two companies of 14 Panzer IV tanks, 28 in all. They were mechanized elements of the 15th Panzer Division of the German Afrika Corps. Behind them were a light armored staff car, two half-tracks transporting the gun crews for the two towed long-barreled 50-mm antitank guns, four half-tracks carrying troops, a supply line of six fuel tankers and, bringing up the rear of the column, two three-ton cargo trucks carrying what remained of the water and food and ammunition supplies.

A 25-ton Panzer IV painted a desert sand color and bearing a stylized and stenciled design of a swastika superimposed on a palm tree—the insignia of the 15th Panzer—led the column. Like the others it roared through the desert powered by its 12-cylinder 300 horsepower Maybach engine. With black smoke streaming from the exhaust funnel mounted above the rear engine compartment and trailing twin plumes of sand kicked up by its wide metal treads, it led the others toward their rendezvous. Alert for the enemy the tank commanders stood in their open hatches. They swept the desolate terrain with their field glasses, the clanking of metal treads digging into the sand, the drone of the heavy engines incongruous in the otherwise silent desert.

Obersturmbannführer Lieutenant Colonel Carl von Glasow, 38, tall and thin and once boyish-looking, but now burned by the sun his features hardened by the war, was the Panzer’s regiment commander. He sat in the passenger seat next to the driver of the open light armored vehicle that in the desert doubled as his command car, a holstered and loaded Walther P38 down at his side. His jacket discarded as usual, von Glasow wore a tropical field cap and a shirt and trousers of matching mustard yellow cotton. His shirt, opened wide at the neck, was dirty and stained with perspiration. The usual blue-gray on beige Litzen insignia of the German Army was pinned to his collar. But it was the death’s head skulls on his lapels and the pink piping on his shoulder straps that distinguished his affiliation with the Panzer army.

The driver, who wore a tan field cap, a matching tan uniform shirt, short pants, and ankle high canvas-and-leather boots was doing his best to keep the vehicle aligned with the last of the Panzers in front of him. Von Glasow watched him for a moment as he struggled to drive over the shifting sands. Both men had lowered their sand goggles over their eyes. The metal frame holding the glass windshield had been flattened over the hood to minimize the reflection of the sun on their faces. Overhead was a tattered bleached canvas roof. It was an insufficient attempt to block the scorching sun, the smell of the heated material very much in evidence.

In the back seat were the two tank company officers who routinely rode along with him. Unaccustomed to the harsh environment neither had thought to bring along the bulky and uncomfortable sand goggles they had been issued. They squinted instead and lowered the bills of their caps. One was Captain Alfred Runge, 34, new to the Afrika Corps and recently promoted. Unlike von Glasow, who had previously distinguished himself under Rommel, first in France and then in the Libyan Desert at Tobruk and at the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia, Runge had no experience leading tanks in the desert. He had only served in Italy and knew nothing of the grim environment of the Tunisian Desert and was still learning the tactics of war required.

The other was 42-year old Captain Helmut Fenkel, a memorable-looking officer. With dirty blond-colored hair he wore an ill-fitting black patch over his right eye. Below it the flesh of his cheek down to his jaw line was horribly mangled. He had been injured when hit by shrapnel while serving under Rommel as a tank officer in France with the 7th Panzer Division. A devoted fan of Hitler’s he extolled the SS and bemoaned his inability to join its ranks, having been turned down for reasons he would not explain. Like Runge he was inexperienced in the desert and detested the hostile conditions so unlike France with its gentle rolling hills and plowed fields that had proven so uncomplicated to manoeuver across with a mechanized force.

In one hand von Glasow, sitting up stiffly, gripped a clipboard on which were attached the daily fuel consumption reports from his tank commanders. He glanced at them again. Both he and his fellow Afrika Corps officers assumed the maximum distance a mechanized army could operate from its base in the desert and return was about 200 miles. But in his experience von Glasow knew that at even less than 100 miles out about a third of his half-track vehicles would become unserviceable before they reached the enemy. Furthermore, as much as 35–50% of the extra fuel brought along would be consumed just carrying it across the desert.

Glancing at the columns and the scrawled number of gallons remaining for every Panzer IV he noted 22 of them had sufficient fuel remaining to engage the enemy and still be able to return to their base. Six would have to be refueled. And finally the special tropical oil filters that kept sand from the engines would have to be changed on all of the tanks to guard against any breakdowns in battle. Installing filters on 28 tanks was a six-hour ordeal that would consume most of the darkness that night, their final night in the desert before reaching Majaz el Bab. All maintenance had to occur before the sun rose in order to avoid being spotted—immobile in the desert—by Allied aircraft during the day and risk being strafed; but also because with the sun up and the engines hot, replacing the filters was an impractical and dangerous procedure.

In his other hand von Glasow held what was left of the burning Lucky Strike cigarette he was enjoying. He often allowed his men to strip packs of cigarettes from the dead bodies of American tank crews while they searched for maps, code books, and tins of food, a reward for successful engagements against the enemy. Cigarette rations were always running short and the smooth Virginia tobacco was much prized.

Oasis, said Runge suddenly. He sat up, extended his arm, and pointed, wagging his finger as they drew near. On his lap was an open map of the Tunisian Desert. He glanced back down at it. He leaned forward. "Not marked, Obersturmbannführer."

They never are, said von Glasow with little inflection and without turning his head. Mark it on your map if you want, Captain, but we leave it alone for the Bedouins.

We should destroy it then if there’s water. So the enemy can’t —

No, said von Glasow sharply. He turned in his seat halfway to face Runge and Fenkel. He did not bother to lift his goggles from his eyes. Pay attention to my words, captains. If it’s important for our mission we’ll do what we have to, but we leave the Bedouins and their water alone. This is not their war and Rommel agrees. Besides we carry water they don’t. So, is this understood? These are my orders.

Yes, colonel, said Runge unwilling to argue any further. He liked von Glasow, but he feared him as well. He sat back when von Glasow turned around.

Von Glasow and his shit, growled Fenkel turning to him. You know, maybe we should report this to Panzer Army Africa, or better yet to the SS. He grinned unevenly. Then he added. Saving water for the enemy to find. Think about it, Runge. This is treasonous behavior. What would Hitler think?

Runge shrugged. Desert warfare. He’s just following Rommel’s orders, no doubt. He had just about gotten over being disturbed by Fenkel’s disfigured face. It had taken him some time before he stopped seeing it in his dreams. "You see, it’s different in the desert, Fenkel. Tribesmen are not the enemy. So, those are his orders. It makes no difference to us. Besides, what does the Führer know about fighting out here? Nothing, I would guess."

Fenkel glared back at him, the disgust on his face clear, and then turned away. He swatted away again the inescapable swarm of flies that inhabited the desert and could not be escaped.

Runge could see that Fenkel loathed von Glasow. It was evident, but it wasn’t something new. Ever since his recent transfer to the Panzer base, Runge had noted Fenkel’s contempt for his battalion commander. He felt strongly that Fenkel’s conduct was as unprofessional for a Panzer officer as it was for a captain in the German Army. He worried that if it were not rectified, it could lead to serious repercussions endangering them all. He took to tormenting himself about what might happen if, during the tank battle tomorrow at Majaz al Bab, Fenkel chose to disregard one of von Glasow’s tactical instructions.

Von Glasow gazed out over the undulating sands through his goggles, his eyes drawn to the small fertile area breaking the desolate landscape. It was a cluster of ragged dusty palm trees beneath which probably sprouted an unreliable spring of brackish, but drinkable water. Its location no doubt known to the nomadic tribes who despite the war still silently crisscrossed the desert on their camels, the colonel surprised to see that no one was there.

The oasis behind them von Glasow’s mind leaped thousands of miles away. He was back home in Magdeburg again, a city he had not seen in over a year. There, he reminded himself bitterly, he had believed his wife, Marga, along with his infant son Dieter he had never held in his arms, impatiently awaited his arrival that had been postponed three times already. Instead, a letter from his wife, long delayed because of the Panzer’s unpredictable desert deployments, had reached him just the other day. Uncharacteristically abrupt, its tone dismissive of his love for her, Marga wrote she was divorcing him. She was unrepentant and gave no grounds for her decision. In fact, she continued, she was already pregnant by another man, a man not in the military who had asked her to marry him and she had accepted his proposal. She advised him she was back living with her mother.

Stunned, von Glasow couldn’t begin to imagine why she hadn’t waited for his return. Marga wasn’t the only war bride whose husband was away serving the Vaterland. Such women were everywhere in Germany, especially in Berlin and no doubt in Magdeburg as well. He was certain of it; strong and loyal wives who stood by their husbands while they went off to war. He couldn’t begin to understand what had led to her decision and whom it was she had met, or even how they had met. And now she was pregnant by her lover.

Von Glasow agonized over her letter for days.

The von Glasow’s had moved out of Marga’s mother’s house where they had settled temporarily. Because of his rank, and his affiliation with the Afrika Corps, the army had finally secured quarters for them near the training base for tank crews. It was a small one-bedroom apartment, one of four carved out of a recently converted grand house in the suburbs. Marga soon learned from the other tenants that it had been seized by the Nazis from a Jewish industrialist. When Marga told him about what she had heard he preferred not to dwell on it and the subject was dropped.

His eyes briefly closed, von Glasow imagined returning there on his next leave and seeing the pitying eyes of the other three tenants in the house. Perhaps they might even remember him as he stepped through the grand entrance with its white marble floor. He would be wearing his cap, his pressed M-40 tropical uniform, and his polished boots. He would climb the elaborate staircase with its wrought iron handrail and make his way around the circular landing to apartment No 3. There he would insert his key and view for a moment the small rooms empty and dark where they had lived as a family before he left for Tunisia.

Incredulous at first von Glasow became progressively furious. He took to shouting at Runge and Fenkel and at their tank commanders and was curt and dismissive to everyone. Finally, he wrote Marga a scathing, three-page sarcastic response, but then tore it up; besides, there was nowhere to mail it.

Then, he calmed himself and rewrote it.

This time he asked for more details about young Kurt, and off-handedly about whom she was marrying. Von Glasow assumed the only men of age left in Germany in the spring of 1943 were soldiers who had been gravely wounded in the war, skeleton crews of middle-age officials needed to run the city and the trams and trains, and those who managed the banks and the insurance companies and the newspapers.

Gradually, as the North African desert campaign wore on, some of his officers had begun sharing distressing news in letters received from home. Still more Jewish businesses were being shuttered overnight and still more families were disappearing. There were also persistent mentions of extermination camps established by the SS and now, isolated out in the desert no one quite knew what to believe. Runge was skeptical though not an outright disbeliever. However Fenkel was silent, as if he alone knew the secrets of the SS.

Von Glasow refused to dwell on it; he had his orders and the SS had theirs and together they would win the war; the Jews were an incidental distraction. As a loyal Panzer officer his allegiance was to Field Marshall Erwin Rommel. Rommel, it was whispered, was no fan of Hitler’s, something every desert tank officer had heard about. And when the Führer ordered Rommel’s men to kill all Jewish soldiers, civilians, and captured commandos in the Tunisian Campaign Rommel let it be known the order was to be ignored.

CHAPTER 2

Lieutenant Colonel von Glasow had never felt better, never felt more prepared to kill the enemy and destroy their armor. The Marga situation helped channel his aggression and sharpen his resolve, though the soreness of losing her persisted. The night before arriving at the rendezvous location, after a cold meal of smoked meat, dried fruit and water poured into metal cups from 5-gallon cans, and while the tank crews were refueling and changing the oil filters, von Glasow sat in his empty staff car. The yellow beam of a flashlight positioned on the dashboard was aimed at his lap. Wrapped as usual in his heavy great coat to guard against the nighttime temperatures that always dropped precipitously, he was holding his dog-eared army issued pocket diary. On its brown leather cover were the words Panzerarmee Afrika - 1943 Kalender and below was an emblem of a swastika superimposed on a palm tree. Von Glasow wrote in it sporadically, but always before going into battle. Tonight, still obsessed over Marga’s news, he wondered whom he was writing for. He found the small blank page for 1 März and positioned his pen; were these going to be memories for Marga who no longer cared?

After they were married, and on the only occasion of his home leave, she urged him to tell her about his life in the Libyan Desert, his first African assignment and a place she could only imagine. So he had made a point of beginning to record details he thought might interest her: the blistering sun and the shifting sand dunes that distorted the horizon, the horrible sameness of the mostly cold rations, the Bedouins on their camels still traversing the desert the way they had for centuries, the clear and peaceful-looking night sky so full of stars and the swarms of biting flies that drove men mad, how at night he slept slouched over in the seat of his staff car and how every man was issued a compass to guard against becoming lost in the terrifying sandstorms that would spring up all of a sudden if he found himself disoriented while answering nature’s call.

Or was he perhaps writing for himself now a tortuous record to help jog his memory in the years ahead as he remembered his exploits as a Panzer officer in the African desert. He doubted he would ever forget battling the Americans and the British in the most hellish environment he had ever found himself in since graduating from officer cadet school in Danzig.

By the next morning they had broken camp at first light and, after another quick cold meal, the drivers climbed into their sand-colored tanks and half-track vehicles. For a moment the air was filled with the familiar growl of engines being started and the stench of exhaust that rose in black columns of smoke and stained the brilliant bright blue sky. Standing in his command car, von Glasow looked out over the companies and knew he was fiercely proud of his men. To his mind they were as always the most ferocious and best trained and equipped fighting army in Africa and he hoped one day it might be Field Marshall Rommel himself who would be at his side as they went into battle.

Finally von Glasow instructed the captains to give their men the order to move out. Soon, all up and down the line the revolution of engines increased and now the familiar clanking of treads filled his ears as the tank companies made for Majaz al Bab estimated to be no more than two hours away.

The commander in the lead tank, 27-year old Sergeant Paul Spang, was one of the most experienced desert tankers in the two companies and the one von Glasow unerringly turned to discuss tactics from the point of view of a tank commander. Like all of von Glasow’s tankers Spang was a volunteer; he was required to be unmarried, an Aryan, and have a certificate of graduation from a gymnasium, which he did. Short and stocky his fair skin had, as the result of lengthy exposure to the African sun, turned the color of cork and behind his back his tank crew had nicknamed him Corken. Spang and his men had survived battles not only at Tobruk, but also in Tunisia at Sbiba, Kasserine, Djebel el Hamra, Thala and Zarat on the Mareth Line. Spang had repeatedly come to von Glasow’s attention for his obvious bravery, his ability to outwit the enemy, but most importantly his evident grasp of the tactics of war required in the desert, something rare in a non-commissioned tank commander. Impressed, von Glasow took a special interest in him, listened to him carefully, and often gave him advice.

Spang held his field glasses tightly to his eyes. He stood as usual in his open turret hatch examining the flat, desolate unmarked desert sands ahead always trying to outthink the enemy, always trying to imagine how they might be ambushed. Periodically, he would scan the skies trying to spot in the distance the dark outlines of approaching American and British bombers against which the Panzers had little recourse except to engage in evasive maneuvers. Below him inside the hot and loud tank compartment, the 19-year old goggle-wearing driver Corporal Otto Schramm was seated at the front-left, his head protruding through the hatch above his head. Cursing repeatedly, he tugged and pushed on the two side-by-side floor-mounted steering columns to keep his tank moving in a straight line. Alongside him was the tactical radio operator 21-year old Private First Class Anton Menny, who doubled as the tank machine gunner. His radio equipment was made up of an ultra short wave transmitting, and receiving radio set, and a tank intercom set; because of the radios German armor had an overwhelming tactical advantage when battling Allied tanks that were not similarly equipped. Panzer commanders could communicate with one another, set up enemy targets to be fired on and receive instructions from officer observers. The Americans and British tanks on the other hand were blind.

In the elevated turret Spang sat beneath the roof hatch, or stood when it was opened. To the left of the gun breech protruding into the cramped compartment was the gunner, 20-year old Corporal Wilhelm Kluge while 19-year old Corporal Kurt Raeder the loader was to the right. It was Raeder’s job—and he was good at it—to move skillfully with a 25-pound shell in his hands between the rack holding them and the breech of the barrel. Shoving the 3.5-inch Panzergranate 39 armor piercing shell quickly inside, he waited for Spang’s firing order through his headphones, normally given almost immediately, before activating the electric firing mechanism.

Spang took comfort in knowing the ammunition he fired was capable of penetrating the front armor of every Allied tank in North Africa up to 5,000 feet away, and of destroying light tanks at 6,500 feet, if the visibility was good enough which, in scanning the horizon, it looked to be. However long range visibility was not the supreme problem, as he knew well. Not mentioned, he remembered, or perhaps purposely ignored at the tank school from which he had graduated at the top of his class, was the challenge of having to destroy the enemy while moving almost blindly through the sand storm kicked up on desert battlefields as dozens of tanks or more maneuvered recklessly to try and destroy one another. Despite that, and other concerns, Spang calibrated his chances of surviving yet another battle to be better than average; he had served under von Glasow several times before and respected the colonel’s tactics of war. In fact he admired von Glasow cautiously from a distance, but found it strange he was the only one of the tank commanders to have drawn the colonel’s attention and interest.

The Panzer attack on Majaz al Bab had been a disaster. Neither von Glasow, nor his counterpart in the other Panzer group, had anticipated the furious determination of the Allies to save Tunis from German occupation. The Panzers had encountered the American offensive just short of the town in their dozens of fast and lightweight M4 and M4A1 Sherman tanks of the 1st and 13th Armored Regiments.

Von Glasow’s slower, but heavier Panzers had been overwhelmed and even Spang’s courageous tactics had been no match for the American M3 tank destroyers of the 894th Tank Destroyer Battalion. His tank was hit within minutes of the engagement and he and his crew had time to escape and run for safety from the battlefield. The much feared British ad hoc force, the Y Division, had not engaged the Germans and instead been relegated to guarding Majaz al Bab, leaving the battle to the Americans. And von Glasow privately feared his Panzer force would have to contend with Allied air attacks as well. Panzer Command had advised him as much. He had briefed Runge and Fenkel.

Runge seemed resigned to their fate and nodded slowly. He’d been through this before. He’d seen what remained of one of his tanks when an aerial bomb scored a direct hit.

Fenkel gyrated in place impatient for von Glasow’s attention. When the colonel turned to him Fenkel at once outlined how with the help of the Luftwaffe the odds tilted immeasurably in their favor.

Von Glasow stared at him without saying a word. Now he saw his worst fears manifested when six American P40s, suddenly appeared low over the battlefield and began dropping their bombs, all the while strafing anything that moved.

Von Glasow shouted at the driver and at Runge and Fenkel who didn’t need to be ordered to abandon the staff car when the fighters began their bomb runs. The three, now crouching behind the car with their field glasses up to their eyes, watched with difficulty through the sandy haze and the smoke of destruction the unfolding demise of their Panzers. One of the gasoline tankers hit by a bomb suddenly exploded spewing smoke and stench over the stopped German convoy and the three officers ducked deeper behind the staff car for a moment.

Von Glasow turned to Runge who crouched next to him. It’s finished, he said yelling. It’s good Rommel isn’t here. He would strip me of my rank.

Maybe, maybe not, colonel, said Runge. Our Panzers—they can demolish the American tanks." He stammered wanting to sound positive without ignoring what was obvious on the battlefield.

What, you fool? Use your eyes, captain. Do you see our tanks? Look at the carnage for yourself. He turned away and barked at the driver. See if you can raise Spang. Right now, right away.

"At once, Obersturmbannführer." The soldier glanced with concern at the sky and then climbed quickly back into the car and reached for the radio handset while crouching in the wheel well.

Colonel, said Fenkel voicing his opinion for the first time since the attack had begun. He moved closer to von Glasow. If I may say so. In my opinion we could still win the battle. He glanced at his wristwatch. We still have time. This attack? He pointed skyward. Three minutes, no more, I’ve been timing them. I’ve had experience with these sorts of things in France. I know how long their attacks last. As you can see, they’ve only hit two of our tanks. We can still win. With all due respect, colonel, perhaps a call for an all-out offensive with help of the Luftwaffe?

"Your opinion isn’t worth anything