Mortar Gunner on the Eastern Front

Returning to his unit, a grenade launcher commander endures heavy battles, wounds, and perilous escape toward captivity.

Returning to his old unit, the grenade launcher, in May 1944, he experienced the heavy defensive battles in Romania as a platoon commander and from August 1944 in East Prussia and Lithuania. After being transferred by ship from Memel to Königsberg in late 1944, he took part in the battles for Ostprussen in the winter of 1944/1945. Constantly exposed to the attacks of Russian bombers and fighter planes and severely wounded by shrapnel on the leg, he manages, with the help of a Russian volunteer and a horse-drawn vehicle from Balga to Rosenberg, from there by ship transport via Pillau to Świnoujście and by train to Schwerin.

Fleeing the impending Russian imprisonment to the west, he falls into American captivity on 3 May 1945 and is released in July 1945 in the home.