After Hitler: The Last Ten Days of World War II in Europe (28 page)

Nevertheless, two divisions were quickly formed. The first came into being on 10 February 1945, when it was reviewed by General Vlasov and its commander, General Sergei Bunyachenko, at Muensingen in Germany. By April it had taken up battle positions against Soviet troops on the Oder front. It would now have to fight against its own countrymen.

Things quickly went wrong for the Vlasov force. In the latter half of April Bunyachenko pulled his men out of combat on the Oder and withdrew them farther south. At the beginning of May the 1st Division of the Russian Liberation Army was at Beroun, 16 miles south-west of Prague. And it had become utterly disaffected with its German ally.

The reason for this lay in a bitter disagreement between General Bunyachenko and the German High Command. The Wehrmacht had insisted upon an attack plan despite Bunyachenko’s strong opposition to it. On 14 April 1945 the Vlasov Division had been ordered to go into battle against an extremely well-defended Red Army position at Frankfurt-am-Oder. There were political reasons for this order, which was given only two days before the Red Army’s own Berlin offensive – a desire to demonstrate the reliability of this new formation to the Wehrmacht by ‘blooding’ them in combat against their compatriots. Bunyachenko vigorously protested – to no avail.

On one side was German unease at employing Russian troops as an independent fighting formation. On the other was Russian distaste at having to fight against their own countrymen. The planned battle engagement resulted in a dismal failure.

The Red Army defences were held by Major General Likhov’s 119th Armoured Brigade. Likhov’s bridgehead on the western bank of the Oder was strongly fortified, with machine guns and mortars covering all its approaches. It was further protected by the flooded fields in front of its position – which created a swamp about a mile wide and in places 6 feet deep. On the eastern bank of the river, Likhov had an artillery regiment ready to give supporting fire to the defenders.

Sigismund Diczbalis, a soldier with Bunyachenko’s division, described the offensive: ‘A hail of bullets and mortar fragments swathed into our troops. Some sunk slowly into the marsh and drowned. A furious barrage of fire reduced the remaining force to platoon strength, with men being cut to pieces by eight machine guns from a Red Army reserve detachment that had appeared as if from nowhere. It was clear that the attack could go no further.’

After five hours of senseless slaughter General Bunyachenko withdrew his troops and then shepherded them away from the German lines. He had lost more than 350 men; the Red Army a mere 13. The division moved south.

Bunyachenko’s force was still nominally within the Wehrmacht command system but was now disregarding its orders. Nevertheless, at the end of April Field Marshal Ferdinand Schörner, the leader of the German Army Group Centre, determined to take charge of the situation. He demanded that the Russians move to the vicinity of Prague, to rendezvous with his group, which was planning a westward retreat towards the city. Major Helmut Schwenninger, a German liaison officer with the Vlasov Division, was uncertain whether this would happen or not. ‘I suspect the plan is to wait in the wings,’ Schwenninger wrote in his journal on 30 April, ‘until the time that a popular uprising breaks out in Czechoslovakia. I anticipate that the insurgents will try to make contact with Bunyachenko in the next couple of days.’

The situation was poised on the edge of a knife. Schwenninger noted that General Vlasov had come to visit the division. Vlasov did not want a complete break with the Germans and on 1 May he persuaded Bunyachenko to stick with the Wehrmacht. Recognising that his divisional commander disliked Schörner’s fanaticism, he suggested that he open talks with more moderate German generals. At this late stage of the war, Vlasov was being pragmatic. He wanted to retain the Russian Liberation Army within the structure of the German armed forces and then negotiate a wholesale surrender to the Americans. He was gambling that this would be the best way of saving his soldiers.

But then Schörner intervened. Losing patience with Bunyachenko’s division, and not really trusting it, on 2 May he ordered that it disband immediately. Bunyachenko was furious. He ignored this command and instead broke off contact with Schörner and all the other German generals too. The Vlasov troops were now on their own.

For Schwenninger, Field Marshal Schörner’s heavy-handed intervention was the main reason the Vlasov Division turned against the Germans. ‘This blunder provoked the First Division of the Russian Liberation Army into joining the side of the insurgents in the Prague uprising,’ Schwenninger said. The German officer was a well-informed witness to these unfolding events. He added:

‘It seemed to me that even at this stage Vlasov and Bunyachenko disagreed and that General Bunyachenko was the driving force behind the decision to support the uprising. Vlasov did not want to break his agreement with the Germans and felt what Bunyachenko was undertaking was too risky. Vlasov himself never renounced the treaty he made with Germany – what followed was confined to Bunyachenko and his own division.’

Schwenninger’s testimony was illuminating. It formed an important part of the story, but there was a further dimension to it.

Bunyachenko was disillusioned with the Germans, but still unsure about taking part in an uprising against them. He knew the rebels would be poorly armed and that they lacked political unity. On 2 May, the same day as Schörner’s ill-fated intervention, a communist group – parachute-dropped into the area a month earlier to encourage rebellion as the Red Army began fighting on Czech territory – opened communication with Bunyachenko’s forces. These men had a number of contacts in the Czech underground in Prague and knew that an uprising was imminent – and they wanted Bunyachenko to join it.

This was a Soviet guerrilla group operating behind German lines. A key member of it, and the one who struck up a rapport with Bunyachenko, was a Czech – Francis Konecny. Over a number of days Konecny met first with Bunyachenko’s chief of staff and then the general himself.

Twenty-six-year-old Konecny had a remarkable personal story. He had begun as a soldier on the side of the Germans, first in the invasion of France and later in the war in Russia, in the Wehrmacht’s 28th Infantry Division. But he became disillusioned by the savagery of the conflict and the atrocities committed against the civilian population. He was captured by the Russians and spent a while in a prison camp, and then joined a force of Czech soldiers – the 1st Czechoslovak Brigade, who were now willing to fight with the Red Army.

Konecny had fought on both sides – and so had Bunyachenko. The two men understood each other.

Another German liaison officer, Lieutenant Colonel Hansen, had said of General Sergei Bunyachenko: ‘A troublesome but remarkably competent officer, who made his career in the Red Army, rising to Chief of Staff to Marshal Timoshenko. He deserted to us by flying over German lines and landing his plane in our rear.’

There were two significant moments in Bunyachenko’s military career in the Second World War. The first was at Mozdok, 50 miles west of Grozny, on 31 August 1942. Bunyachenko was fighting with the Red Army against the Germans. He was ordered to blow up a bridge before the majority of his soldiers had crossed it. He refused, was tried before a military tribunal and sentenced to death. This was commuted to ten years’ penal labour, once the war had finished. Bunyachenko did not wait. Appalled at this willingness to sacrifice the lives of his soldiers, in a way he judged to be unnecessary, callous and incompetent, he deserted – and joined Vlasov’s army as soon as he could.

The second, as has been related, was at Frankfurt-am-Oder on 14 April 1945. Bunyachenko was fighting with the Germans against the Red Army. After five hours of senseless combat, he refused to further endanger the lives of his men. These were two powerful stands on principle – but where could Bunyachenko go now?

Konecny persuaded Bunyachenko to make another brave and principled gesture nonetheless – to come to the aid of the Prague uprising. The general thought this offer over and then consulted with his men. They agreed with his decision. Sometimes in a demoralising situation, a clear course of action can have a galvanising effect, whatever the risks involved. Vlasov soldier Sigismund Diczbalis described the impact:

At Beroun we learnt that we were to advance on the Czech capital and help prevent the insurgents being crushed and the city destroyed by diehard SS units. Information reached us that an entire SS battle group – retreating from the Eastern Front – had been ordered to Prague to help reinforce the garrison. This news brought a surprisingly positive boost to the exhausted, dusty and foot-sore ranks of our soldiers … Not once did I hear any man suggest that this change of tactics was unacceptable. No-one opposed our First Division commander’s decision. Everyone turned to checking their weapons, supplies of ammunition and equipment.

Faced with the threat of extermination by the SS, the Czech National Committee in Prague, although pro-Soviet, had taken the risk of inviting the Vlasov forces to their aid. On the evening of 5 May they had no other choice – it was a battle for survival. But now another dangerously unstable element had been added to the political mix. The Russian Liberation Army was strongly opposed to Bolshevism and had fought against the Red Army. And it had within its ranks the remnants of the notorious Kaminsky Brigade, Russian collaborators with the Wehrmacht who had conducted some of the most brutal anti-partisan operations ever seen within the German-occupied portion of the Soviet Union. For the advancing Red Army, a more incendiary choice of ‘ally’ by the insurgents could hardly be imagined.

The die had been cast. And as General Bunyachenko began to prepare his troops, on the evening of 5 May, he issued a defiant proclamation from his headquarters. It may have been at least partly motivated by expediency, but it carried desperate valour and idealism nonetheless:

Brother Czechs and Russians, Germany is in its death throes. Prague has raised the flag of freedom against National Socialism. We Russian soldiers, inspired by our own nation’s fight against the cruelties of Bolshevism, cannot ignore this rebellion against Nazi atrocity. I thereby order the First Division of our Russian Liberation Army to advance into Prague in support of the Czech forces there.

The time has come for mankind to finally destroy the Nazi menace. I exhort you all – good Czechs and Russians – to fight for this cause.

This is a battle for justice and independence. The cruelty of National Socialist Germany – which has raped nations and killed millions of innocent people – has followed the same path as the bloody consolidation of Bolshevik power in Russia.

Let us wage war against the killers of mankind – Nazis and Bolsheviks alike. Let us fight for freedom!

The following day the 1st Division of the Russian Liberation Army marched on Prague. By the evening, General Bunyachenko had set up his battle headquarters just outside the city and made direct contact with the insurgents. One of his regimental commanders, Major Arkhipov, met with General Kutlvasr, head of the Czech Military Council, to discuss the best way to deploy the troops. And the Russian liberation force had twenty-two tanks and armoured vehicles, which would make a vital difference in the city fighting. The division’s advance units were already in the Czech capital gathering intelligence on German positions. Bunyachenko’s soldiers were about to join the uprising.

7

The Dispossessed

6
May
1945

O
N
6
MAY MAJOR
Hugh McLaren of the 10th British Casualty Clearing Station arrived at Sandbostel concentration camp in northern Germany, 35 miles north-east of Bremen. He wrote a memoir of his experiences, describing it as a ‘horror camp’. Horror is not, perhaps, the most original word for the events of the time – the vast human displacement all over Europe, the death marches, the liberation of slave labourers and the uncovering of the Nazi policy of annihilating those considered undesirable to their new order – but it remains an apt description.

Allied troops who liberated the concentration and extermination camps were profoundly shocked and disturbed by what they encountered. The medical staff who accompanied or followed them had to then stay in these camps and attempt to transform the conditions there. McLaren knew, at the time of his posting, that Sandbostel had been liberated by the British troops of XXX Corps a week earlier, on 29 April. Fighting was still going on and in the immediate aftermath of liberation resources were scarce. But in his first four days at the camp he was absolutely overwhelmed by what he encountered.

‘My first view of Sandbostel was somehow what I had expected,’ McLaren began. ‘Miles of wire encircled each low hut, a further wire fence enclosing the whole compound. There were watch towers equipped with searchlights and machine guns were placed around the perimeter to cover all eleven exits. It was an ugly place to look at – but when you entered the main part of the camp you realized that it was built in a saucer shaped depression giving the prisoners a view of nothing but the sky and the wire wall.’

Already McLaren was encountering a sense of alienation and deprivation. But he then described the camp in more detail: ‘The standard hut was about forty yards long, each having a dark central corridor. In the hospital where we worked, twenty small rooms led off the corridor. In the prisoner section, however, each hut was designed like a barn. There were a dozen shelves where the prisoners could lie down in close-packed rows; an occasional foul mattress was seen, but for the most part the prisoners lay on bare wooden shelves. There were between forty and sixty of them on each long wooden shelf. The most chaotic slum dwelling on the Clydeside was luxurious in comparison.’

Sandbostel camp consisted of three sections. The first was for POWs from the Western Allies. Here conditions were basic. The second was for Russian prisoners. Here conditions were poor. The third was for political prisoners. Conditions here were appalling. It was this section which McLaren would be serving as a doctor. He was totally sickened by his first visit to the hospital. Each hut was crammed with about 350 patients. The latrines had been blocked for days. Most were too weak to rise from their beds. These skeletal patients – naked, unshaved and dirty – defecated where they stood or lay. In one of the huts six were found to be dead.