Bracing for the Inevitable
Excerpts from a Captured Nazi Diary in Italy, February–March 1945
On February 19, 1945, the newly-arrived U.S. 10th Mountain Division launched a major attack in the Italian Apennines. The attack achieved near-total surprise, dislodging entrenched German defenders from Riva Ridge, Belvedere, and the adjoining high peaks and clearing the approach to the Po River Valley.
The following diary excerpts are drawn from a newspaper clipping entitled, “Nazi Officer’s Diary Admits War is Lost, Urges Lasting Peace” in the George P. Hays Collection, Scrapbook, pt. 1, Folder 1, 10th Mountain Division Collection, Denver Public Library, Denver, Colorado.
February 13: Time flies. Forever boring. ‘All quiet on the southern front,’ as Remarque would say. Inspection of the positions: One dead, one wounded. The high command news report omits mention of this. One starts to think about the war one thinks of the future. (Do we have any future at all?)…One starts philosophizing—but what good is Schopenhauer’s philosophy, Goethe’s Faust, Nietzsche’s superhuman beings, and Fieht’s well-meant speeches? We all, whether young or old, whether officer or enlisted man, are subject to the laws of this embittered war. Its iron fist forces us into the smallest hole when the splinters start flying around. When the Yankee pulls the lanyard we become animals…Does the war have any meaning?
“War is the father of all things.” So wrote and proved a great German, Karl von Clausewitz. Is it really the father? Is it not the basic evil of all things? Perhaps the steel helmet-crowned graves of the dead of all nations are proof of the truth in the words of God: ‘Peace on earth and goodwill towards men who are of goodwill.’
February 20: I don’t know exactly where the Americans are again reported to have penetrated our positions…Since 7 o’clock this morning the Jabos (fighter-bombers) are continually humming…Their machine-guns are hammering without letup…Just now someone reported the rat-tat-tat of American machine weapons…Those on the other side know as well as we just how much the wheat fields of the Po Valley mean to us. In the east we are evacuating Guben, Frankfurt, etc. In the west, Prüen and Cleve. Priadore has suffered heavily. So Gertrud writes.
February 23: It is 2000 hours. The whole neighborhood is alive with crashes. The bunker is shaking. The air pressure is blowing out the carbide lamp and exerts pressure on the ears. I hope nothing has happened to the food truck. Last night I was out scouting…At last I have more details on the enemy penetrations…Mount Belvedere, CApelle, Conchidos, Mount Torraccia and Mount Castello are in the hands of the 10th American Division. One of our regiments is almost completely destroyed. Two companies have gone over to the enemy.
February 25: All hell has broken loose. Crashes in every corner…Our regiment is retreating in disorder. A staff sergeant whom I visited only three days ago has been captured with two squads. Just now a man from the retreating regiment said I’ll have to pull our outposts back or they’ll shoot into their bunker entrance…I moved to the old platoon CP. It was just about time, too.
I hope that everything will work out alright. If they don’t start a counter push on my right soon, things will go badly. I guess we all might land some place in Canada or Kansas. If my darling only knew what filth they have us sitting in here.”
February 26: The night passed quietly. Everybody is still sleeping. I can’t get to sleep. The air is alive again with the humming of the jabos…and we just sit here and just have to take it all patiently. I can cry in the face of all this depressing superiority…One cannot show one’s self at all during daylight. That would be bordering on suicide. One’s nerves have to be of steel. What the ‘landser’ has to stand here borders indeed on the superhuman. I can hardly believe in final victory. It must be much the same on all the other fronts. God in heaven may give that the end may be at least halfway bearable for my Germany.
February 27: Today I once again just barely escaped death’s cold grip…The Yankees must have seen us as we sprinted across the moonlit yard. A rain of fire followed. I hugged the earth and crawled to the building. A terrible explosion and fire all around me. A human being cried for help. This war is terrible. Whoever has not gone through it as a frontline infantryman cannot possibly picture it. What human beings can do to one another…Damned humanity, what insanity are you committing?
March 2: My nerves have calmed down. Things have quieted down the last two or three days. We have disengaged ourselves…Now, the Yank no longer looks straight down our throats…Three sergeants and two privates disappeared without a trace. I wonder if they deserted?
Everything is possible. During the past few days even I have had just about enough. In five days it will be four full months that we have been up here without relief. Our losses are not too heavy as yet. That’s why they leave us in this long.