Listening post in the forest
Our duty as guard personnel was not uninteresting, since the forests reached right up to within 100 metres of the town.
We had our fixed guard posts (listening posts) deep in the forests at night, and along the roads to the other villages, which also ran through the forests.
For the sake of silence, a single man was placed alone at such a post, so it was not for the faint-hearted.
If anyone was afraid of it, it did not take long before he was removed, for there was no way around it, and one might as well get used to the idea from the start that life could be lost at any moment.
It also did not take long before death became something not worth dwelling on.
I do not think there were many of us who were unhappy or afraid; on the contrary, one rarely saw a unit with such fighting spirit as ours.
I remember my first night watch as a listening post in the forest.
It was far from the village, overlooking a small, rutted road that ran through the woods.
I trudged out in the darkness of the night to relieve the man stationed there. The forest was completely silent; when I stood still, I could hear the slightest sound.
I believe my heart was beating a little faster than usual.
When I finally reached the place, I stood for a while, staring stupidly around. I could not see any listening post anywhere.
All sorts of thoughts ran through my mind: Had I gotten lost? Would I be able to find my way back? and so on.
Suddenly I got my first fright when something creaked behind a small tree right next to me, and the first thing I saw was the barrel of a rifle.
At that moment I was probably worth very little, but a few seconds later the man behind the rifle whispered our password in German, and I then understood that it was the man I was to relieve.
Afterwards followed a quiet whisper about what one should especially watch out for here, and then his almost soundless footsteps disappeared into the darkness.
I was alone.
Being alone is, especially at night, but also during the day, quite certainly one of the most depressing things that can be imposed on a soldier.
If one is just two, one feels that one can handle anything.
For me, it was also the first time, and I felt that I was exposed to such danger that I had very little chance of getting out of it alive.
Ah, I had not yet learned how wonderful the forest is in darkness, and how many advantages such a stationary post actually has.
In the dark, one can hear even a frog approaching long before it can sense one’s presence.
The enemy can slip right past without noticing that one exists.
I was not aware of this and much more at the time, and I must honestly admit that I was quite afraid.
The deep, quiet, and unfamiliar nature of the forest naturally feels somewhat eerie to someone not used to it.
But once one becomes accustomed to moving through the forests at night, even with the enemy present, the forest feels wonderful in the silent dark night.
Of course, then there are a thousand things to watch out for: orientation, moonlight shadows, broken branches, and much more.
One learns all this very quickly when one must, and I believe a human being can become accustomed to, and endure, almost anything.
I now stood for the following four hours, listening tensely to all the strange sounds produced by the forest and its animals in the still night (it was a beautiful, quiet, and clear night in mid-May).
The life one can then hear and feel pulsating is indescribable and can only be understood by someone who has experienced it.
Further to the west I could hear the thunder and crackle of weapons from the Main Line of Resistance (H.K.L.).
An occasional night fighter roared past overhead, and then it was again as silent as the grave.
Now and then a vehicle or a few soldiers passed along the road. They were carefully observed and checked by me, without their being aware of it.
Most of them were Danes who were billeted in a village nearby.
It was part of my job.
When my four hours were over, I had experienced nothing more than a small taste of the night watches at the front, but even that was something.
Our reconnaissance patrols in the forests during the day were more interesting.
These expeditions were carried out twice a day by my company, and I took part once a day, since my group had to take half of the patrols because we had the experienced front-line soldier Unterscharführer Kling as group leader.
It was necessary to have an experienced leader, as we were tasked with important reconnaissance work, and it was very difficult to find one’s bearings in the vast forests with the incomplete maps available for that part of Russia.
These patrols usually lasted 3–4 hours, during which we went in groups of 10–12 men deep into the forests to scout out the partisans, their locations, and their strength.
These were quite dangerous operations, as one could at any time encounter larger or smaller groups of these irregular soldiers, who were very cunning and ruthless and were usually prepared to fight to the last man.
In addition, mines had been laid in many places, which were difficult to detect before one stepped on them in the densely overgrown underbrush.
It was by such a mine, and on one of these patrols, that the first of our men fell.
He was called “Marokko Jensen,” but I did not know him.