Sniper on the Eastern Front

The Memoirs of Sepp Allerberger, Knights Cross

Albrecht Wacker

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781848846937
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Zweiter Weltkrieg

A biography of the second most successful sniper of the German Wehrmacht and one of the few private soldiers to be honored with the Knights Cross award. An Austrian conscript who qualified as a Wehrmacht machine gunner, Josef "Sepp" Allerberger was drafted to the southern sector of the Russian Front in July 1942. Wounded at Voroshilovsk, he experimented with a Russian sniper-rifle while convalescing and so impressed his superiors with his proficiency that he was returned to the front as his regiment's only sniper specialist. This sometimes-harrowing account provides an excellent introduction to the commitment in fieldcraft, discipline and routine required of the sniper, a man apart. There was no place for chivalry on the Russian Front. Away from the film cameras, no prisoner survived long after surrendering. Russian snipers had used the illegal explosive bullet since 1941, and Hitler eventually authorized its issue in 1944. The result was a battlefield of horror. Allerberger was a cold-blooded killer, but few will find a place in their hearts for the soldiers of the Red Army against whom he fought. "It is a great read and covers just about everything you would want to know about Allerberger, the weapons, techniques and employment of German snipers on the Eastern Front in WWII but does it in a manner and narrative that is never boring and is guaranteed to hold your interest." — Argunners Magazine "A very unique story and experience worth telling of an Eastern Front Sniper." — Sniper Central

Chapter 1

The end of human innocence

A shining summer morning on the Eastern Front is just warming up. The dampness of the night gives a spicy scent of earth and grass to the warming air. But he doesn’t pay any attention to Nature; he cannot let it distract him now. All his senses are tensed. He resembles a predator searching for prey. Looking through the binoculars, he scans the approaches of the Russian front line again. Somewhere out there was his enemy’s perfectly disguised position, the Russian sniper who’d killed nine comrades in the last few days. He had to be an expert, because Sepp had already been searching in vain for his position for two days. But when the marksman’s bullet had hit the ninth rifleman in the early hours of the morning Sepp believed he’d been able to distinguish the approximate direction from which the shot had come.

There, finally, a revealing sign. Tufts of grass standing somehow strangely below the edge of a bush. His gaze concentrated piercingly on the suspicious spot. Yes, that was exactly where he was. The adrenaline coursed through Sepp as he recognized shadowy parts of a telescopic sight, and the weapon’s muzzle as it suddenly flashed. With a crashing bang he could see the projectile racing towards him. As if paralyzed, he lay there unable to escape. With a damp shock the missile hit the middle of his forehead and his head and thoughts exploded in a flash of light.

At that very moment Sepp wakes up – from a deep dream. His heart is pounding up into his throat. It feels like minutes before he can drag himself back from 1944 to the reality of the present day. Slowly he pulls himself together, but he doesn’t even think of sleep any more. Through the open window of his bedroom come the muffled sounds of night and the lovely fresh air of early summer. He stands up and goes to the window. He sucks the night air deep into his tight chest. After a few breaths his gaze settles on the silhouette of the Salzburger Alps, above which a beautiful moon is hanging. Just as clear as the moon had hung above the Russian steppe in late summer, as a tiny train with supplies for the front roared across the huge expanse. He remembered sitting in the open door of the carriage, his thoughts full of tense impatience for his coming soldier’s life. ‘We were poor, thoughtless small fry,’ he reflects, and his thoughts began wandering. And as they had many times before over the years, episodes of his wartime life involuntarily wander through his mind. Some of the events that occurred more than fifty years ago are as fresh as if they were yesterday.

Born the son of a carpenter in September 1924, Sepp grew up in the surroundings of a village in the Salzburgerland. He spent a carefree youth guided by conservative values such as patriotism, diligence, discharge of duty, and obedience to social authorities. It was his firm anchoring in these ethical values that enabled him to accept his coming fate with such fatalism. He naturally followed in his father’s footsteps and learned the carpenter’s trade in preparation for taking over the family business one day. The prospect of military service he regarded as a duty and an honour at the same time, as soldiers enjoyed considerable respect in the community. Conscription was an exciting experience for young men, providing them with new self-esteem and the sense of having achieved adulthood. Sepp was a product of the social and political conditions of his time. His childhood was influenced and controlled by the dirigisme and strong ideological policies of the Third Reich, which was practised at linking national self-consciousness and conservative virtues with unquestioning readiness for duty, especially among the young, in order to implement its political aims. It was natural for young men of Sepp’s age to report to the Wehrmacht voluntarily, to fulfil the aspirations of their government by force of arms.

After almost three years of war, with the Wehrmacht marching from one victorious campaign to the next, many young men were almost afraid of missing their chance to participate in the fighting, because according to the omnipresent propaganda machine final victory was now in sight. Distanced from the bitter and merciless reality of war, the day when they were declared fit for military service in the autumn of 1942 was one of honour for the village’s young men. The mayor gave a short speech about service to the Fatherland and the heroic struggle against Bolshevism. The fire brigade orchestra serenaded them merrily, and some girls of the Bund Deutscher Mädchen (League of German Maidens) pinned little bouquets to the lapels of the future heroes. The thought of possible death or mutilation didn’t occur to anyone, but six of the young men who proudly posed for a group portrait would not survive the next two years. A few months later they reported for duty filled with high hopes.

After finishing his apprenticeship aged 18 in February 1943, Sepp, like nearly all the young men from his region, was called up to serve in the Gebirgsjäger (mountain troops), based at Kufstein in the Tyrol. After being kitted out, he and his comrades were transferred to Mittenwald for their infantry basic training ten days later. After six months of being driven hard Sepp was a machine gunner. During the whole of his training period the topic of ‘snipers’ as a tactical aspect of infantry combat was not mentioned at all. There were just some derogatory remarks about Russian snipers and women with shotguns, who were to be fought by the machine gunners vigorously and relentlessly. The training was hard, but without the harassment evident in the peacetime army or in the early stages of the war. Instead it concentrated on preparing the young men – at least physically – for the hardship they would face in the field, and on familiarizing them with their weapons. In particular the instructors, who had experience of fighting at the front, tried to pass on their knowledge. They knew about the dramatically high losses suffered among new soldiers sent to the front as replacements, who were overwhelmed by the horrifying reality of war. Exposed suddenly to the merciless brutality of combat, many were seized with primeval panic and an uncontrollable desire to flee. But though this behaviour might have saved them in olden times, in an age of sophisticated weapons of war capable of killing over great distances it led to their downfall.

Careful training could prepare an individual for the moment of confrontation, but it could do little to help control the natural instinct to run away from danger. In the last resort everybody has to decide for himself – and then not until the moment of conflict actually arrives – if he can look calmly into war’s countenance or not. It is at that moment that the warrior emerges, to whom fighting is second nature and the battlefield is home, but who is forever confronted by the eternal quandary of ‘kill or be killed’. Only from such a forge of warlike reality does a sniper emerge, a soldier who knows how to keep his mind clear, who is able to act in the front line in the heat of battle, and who knows how to apply his weapon, the rifle with its telescopic sight, to optimum effect. Only these soldiers deserve the name ‘marksmen’.

At the beginning of September 1942, Sepp and his comrades got their marching orders to join GJR 144, which was still in the southern part of the Eastern Front, near Voroshilovsk. They were among the final batch of replacements sent to bring the regiment up to its full fighting strength. But before this they received a three-day pass, though the three days passed like the batting of an eyelid. For most of them it was the last opportunity in their young lives to see their families and to say farewell. The uncertainty of his future was indescribable, but Sepp’s mother stroked his head at every opportunity and tried to caress him. His father, a soldier in the First World War, hid his concern in silence and hard work. The inescapable day of separation arrived. When Sepp got on the bus that would take him back to the barracks at Mittenwald, his mother was all tears. His father embraced him when saying goodbye, which he didn’t normally do, and, obviously trying to maintain his composure, whispered into his ear: ‘Take care of yourself, boy. It’s my dearest wish that you return unharmed. But it’s in God’s hands.’ When the bus started, Sepp waved briefly just once, and then faced forward suddenly with a fixed expression. Otherwise he would have lost the composure that he had only managed to maintain with difficulty.

It was anxiously observed that in the area of 3 Gebirgsjäger Division the Red Army was preparing for a major offensive to the Donezbecken (the Donets Basin) and the Ukraine, strengthened by the arrival of supplies of new American weapons. Every man who increased the fighting strength of the German units was therefore highly welcome. Sepp and his companions travelled across the infinite Russian steppe for days in straw-strewn cattle wagons before they reached their destination, the Donezbecken. Their arrival in Voroshilovsk coincided with the very beginning of the Russian attack. Without any chance of becoming acclimatized to life at the front, the day after their arrival they were thrown into the battle for the Redkinaschlucht, which was extraordinarily hard and resulted in many losses. In the opinion of the average ‘Landser’, or common soldier, Sepp had a really hard lot, because 3 GD would serve in an atypical, purely infantry role in the southern sector of the Eastern Front for the rest of the war, always at the heart of the fighting. The unit’s losses were consequently enormous and proportionately far higher than in the rest of the army.

With its extensive coalmines the Donezbecken was an important source of raw materials, so it was of the highest importance to both parties. The mines, with their huge tunnel systems, had not been entirely cleared of enemy troops when the Germans advanced. Entire Russian units just let the Wehrmacht roll past them as they hid in the tunnels and then emerged in the midst of the surprised Landsers. As a result there were murderous close-quarter combats that extended even into the tunnel system itself.

The Soviets had already broken through the German lines in an energetic attack before Sepp reached the front, and now they tried to extend this bridgehead. The commander of 3 GD estimated the situation as very precarious, so he made a counterstrike without any further preparations or regrouping of his forces. This succeeded, but it was a victory bought by huge losses among the Landsers.

It was at daybreak on 18 July 1943 that Sepp and his fellow riflemen finally arrived and went quietly to their quarters. Their thoughts were turned inwards and worry and nervousness were written on their faces. Everyone had his own method of coping with the fear that came before deployment. The experienced men were chewing crusts of bread with a dark expression on their faces, or were smoking, or just pulled themselves together with expressionless faces. The newer ones had huge difficulty controlling their nervousness; they were uneasy, restless, twitchy. Many were puking, and they crapped and pissed continually. Lacking any experience of what was about to come, Sepp took the strange scene in with a distinct sense of dread. He was unable to eat, his stomach was about to rebel, and his body felt like jelly. He felt as if he couldn’t move. In this critical situation he was lucky, because his section leader was very experienced, and despite being battle-hardened remained sensitive to the needs of the new men in his unit. He recognized Sepp’s fear and talked to him reassuringly: ‘Breathe deeply, man. Just think of your machine gun and shoot like you’ve learned to. Pay attention to me and to my orders. I take care of my boys, and if it’s really hard I’m with you. Up to now I’ve brought my unit out of every mess and nobody will be left behind.’ A mixture of juvenile naivety and trust in the character of his group leader gave Sepp the necessary strength to overcome his anxiety and confront the events that would accompany his baptism of fire.

It was almost 05:00 when the attack began with a barrage of artillery fire from their rear. With dull thuds, the earth was torn apart in front of the riflemen and soil was blown into the clear morning sky in huge fountains. The totally new sounds felt uncomfortable in Sepp’s ears, where they mixed with the roar of bullet impacts and the high buzz of pieces of shrapnel. He and the other riflemen crouched in their positions and waited for the order to attack. After about twenty minutes the artillery fire broke off and suddenly Sepp recognized an unusual sound. It was the animal sound of wounded Russians. The order to attack came amid the horror that was beginning to grow inside him. All the tension and nervousness was suddenly released into movement. Like a vortex, the violent commencement of the battle dragged the Landsers away with it. Suddenly Russian grenades were exploding in the riflemen’s lines. As Sepp jumped up there was a buzzing, tearing sound. To his right a comrade, a young guy of his own age from Berchtesgarden, was staring incredulously at his torn uniform jacket, from which his intestines were pouring out, more and more of them with every movement. After a few seconds of shock he started to scream tremendously and tried to stuff the steaming intestines back inside. Sepp wanted to help him and he put down his MG, but his section leader hit him on the back and screamed: ‘Come on, attack, nobody can help him, give covering fire to your comrades!’ As Sepp broke free of his paralysis the wounded man suddenly went silent and, with a mystified look in his eyes, sank to his knees and tipped over face down on the earth. Sepp, who was already 20m away, did not see the releasing death of his comrade. His thoughts were wiped away, and he was seized by a primitive will to survive. Death, injury and fear were meaningless. His entire existence was reduced to shooting, loading, jumping forward, looking for cover and peering about for the enemy, his target, like an animal. An alteration was taking place within him. In the ensuing hours of vehemently raging conflict the naive young man turned into a Landser, a warrior in the original meaning of the word. The mixture of fear, blood and death was like a drug, which was on the one hand intoxicating, but on the other depressing, because it not only marked the end of human innocence but also swept away the future and the expectation of a future life. Killing became a trade forced on him, and his fate wanted him to perfect it to mastery.

Sepp’s group worked its way carefully through the bushes until it was suddenly ambushed from a distance of about 20m. A rifleman fell without a word in the hail of bullets from a volley of automatic-weapons fire. Sepp returned fire instantly, while the unhurt riflemen sought cover. Then they threw hand grenades towards the enemy position and advanced, giving covering fire to each other, only to find that the enemy had suddenly disappeared. Pushing forward into the group of bushes they found four dead Russians in front of a masterfully disguised mine entrance. The dead bodies looked totally emaciated and cadaverous. Probably they had been holding out in the tunnel for months.

There were fresh tracks leading back into the mine. A mixture of curiosity and fascination compelled some of the riflemen to go in, their weapons held ready in firing position. A few minutes after the earth had swallowed them up Sepp heard the dull sound of shots deep inside. Shortly after that the riflemen staggered back into the daylight deathly pale and obviously quite confused. There was no time to ask questions, because a Russian company was now attacking the sector and the swirl of battle drew the riflemen away.

The relentless struggle lasted until dusk at about 22:00. It was a wonder to Sepp that he had survived this day, in contrast to many of his comrades. Now his company was pulled back to the start line from which the morning’s attack had commenced. Because of the underestimated resistance put up by the Russians the attack would have to be mounted anew the next day, and both sides took the opportunity to regroup. This pause in the fighting was used to see to the smaller injuries of those who remained fit for action, and to bring up supplies of food and ammunition. Sitting with a crust of bread, a can of fish and a cigarette, they talked about the most significant events of the day. This was the first opportunity for Sepp to ask his surviving comrades what had happened in the tunnel. In short sentences, still clearly shocked by the unexpected horror of what they had seen, two of the surviving riflemen described an incredible event of the sort that seemed to happen every day during this war.

Groping their way forward in the pale light of the tunnel, after about 50m the men had found a meagrely-lit cave that stank unbearably. It took them a few moments to adjust to the darkness before the horror became visible. In a corner two Russians were squatting alongside each other. Close by were the remains of two carefully preserved human bodies lying on ammunition boxes. They had obviously been smoked above the fire in order to preserve them. Next to a pile of excrement in another corner were their intestines, which were starting to decay, and gnawed bones. Shaking with disgust, one of the riflemen who was able to speak a little Russian asked the two survivors what had happened.

They reported that they had been left with thirty-five men in this tunnel when the Russians withdrew, with strict orders to stay in hiding and hold the position until their army counterattacked. This counterattack didn’t come for months, so very soon all their supplies were used up. Their officer nevertheless ensured that they complied with their orders, and when many of the soldiers demanded that they should withdraw he killed the two youngest – they were just sixteen years old – as a deterrent. He shot them in the neck in cold blood, and then ordered the other soldiers at gunpoint to gut them, carve them up, and smoke their body parts over the fire. He forced the soldiers to divide the corpses’ livers and to eat them fresh. For the next few weeks they lived on the offenders’ flesh. They did not even think of rebelling against the officer, because their sergeant and the other two non-commissioned officers sided with him and secured all their weapons in boxes. Before long the bodies were eaten, and the officer then shot the next youngest soldier without mercy. A few days after that the Russian attack finally retook the tunnel and this obliged the group to come out.

While the rifleman translated this report, one of the other German soldiers started to puke, overwhelmed by disgust. Once he could breathe again, he shouted, ‘You revolting arse-holes,’ and fired his MP40. In disbelief, their eyes full of panic, the two Russians stared at the impacts on their bodies, while foaming blood came from their chapped, speechless lips. With a final twitch of their tortured bodies their lives leaked away. ‘Get out of here, boys,’ shouted the section leader, and they hurried out, leaving the nightmarish scene behind them. They sucked in mouthfuls of fresh air greedily.

To the experienced Landsers this was just an incident of war, but Sepp was overwhelmed by a flood of extreme emotions, gaining insight to the unplumbed depths of human experience. Yet this was no more than an almost innocuous introduction to war’s depravity compared to what would follow. But this was no time for profound thoughts. Sleep and hunger were demanding attention, and there were just a few hours of rest left.

In the end it took four days before the Soviet resistance could be broken with the support of additional artillery and assault weapons. This tongue of conquered Russian soil was bought with the lives of 650 German soldiers.

At the end of the five days Sepp had lost even the last shreds of his juvenile naivety. The experience of these murderous battles had already etched its lines into his face, making him look ten years older. His company, the 7th, had been reduced to just twenty men. Of his own squad only he and his section leader were left. Sepp had lost all sensation of time, fear and compassion. He was a product of the events around him, driven by a primitive instinct to survive the demands of combat, hunger, thirst and exhaustion.

Chapter 2

‘Try your luck as a sniper’

On 22 July the struggle to restore the former German front line succeeded. The Russians fought with desperate courage. Well camouflaged, they often demonstrated enormous fire discipline, only shooting from a distance of under 50m. This way nearly every shot hit its target. The Russian marksmen in particular made sure that the German riflemen were cut to the quick.

The realization dawned on Machine Gunner Allerberger that his job was a suicide mission more than anything else. The strategic importance of machine guns inevitably mea...