Hello, dear friends, today we will read the
memoirs of German veteran Franz Eschner. His destiny on the battlefields of World War
II was remarkable! He does not hesitate to talk about the war
in its true form. Some of the facts of his combat history cause
outrage, while others cause mistrust. Still, I like this kind of recollections of
veterans, it makes us think and check the facts... Now let's get started. After I graduated from the automobile school
of mechanics at the factory in Vienna, I was called up to the RAD, the Reich Labor Service,
where I was given an assignment to a building site for the high party officials in Linz. There I stayed until the middle of 1940. Then I was sent from Linz to Westphalia, to
the region of Radstadt in Breisgau, to work on the fortifications of the Western Wall
before the war with France began. When the French campaign began, I was called
up to the engineering-assault unit. They planned to involve us in the assault
of the Maginot Line. That was where I saw the first victims of
that war. After the ceasefire, I had the opportunity
to get a better look at the French fortifications. I saw the 75-kilometer underground railroad,
bunkers, and hospitals. Following the surrender of France, I was in
Vienna again. They assigned me to the 134th Infantry Regiment. For most of the time we trained in offensive
tactics on flooded area. To practice, we had to march 75 kilometers
from the village of Strebersdorf to the Allensteig training ground, on which various methods
of offense were trained. Some time later I got a job as a lieutenant's
batman. I used to help his wife with her purchases
and do all kinds of small chores at home. I ended that comfortable time when I was assigned
to the 3rd Tank Regiment. I was assigned there to a Maintenance Company
due to my lack of experience. They trained us tankers on the so-called "bloody
field". We were trained on Pz. II, Pz. III and Pz. IV with a short 75-mm gun. In addition to all that we trained an embarkation
and disembarkation of the crew under fire. Simultaneously with the training I kept on
serving in the Maintenance Company. We were soon ordered to move to the borders
of Greece. Our regiment marched through Hungary and Romania
and was moving up to the Yugoslavian border. Then I was assigned as a motorcycle messenger
for a Tank Company. Everything began good. We marched through Yugoslavia with little
or no resistance and attacked the Metaxas Line along with Austrian Mountain Rifle Units. Despite our losses there, we soon managed
to cross Thermopylae and take Olympus. Right at that time I caught high-altitude
fever, leading to the end of my service on the motorcycle. I was not too upset about it; anyway, I was
not particularly happy about it. They sent me to Larissa for treatment. It was there that I got a chance to see our
U-52 planes with paratroopers preparing to attack Crete. Once I recovered, I headed back to my unit
in Thessaloniki. One story happened there. It will never pass out of my mind. Once, during roll call, we got bombarded by
eight British planes. Our commander had just put on his white dress
uniform. Everyone disappeared in a flash, finding cover
in an instant. I found cover under a tank. But our commander had nothing better to do
than hide in the nearest available shelter. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a Company
toilet! After he came out, his whole uniform became
brown instead of white. He was greeted, of course, with a burst of
laughter. All of us laughed, especially me, so I ended
up getting a three-day arrest. But it was not too bad; I was still recovering
from my illness, and it was good for me to have a rest. After that, I was ordered to assist in organizing
the transportation of reserve units to Thessaloniki for our Company. At the same time other units of the 2nd Panzer
Division, accompanied by the Austrians, were sent to Patras (or Patra) and boarded on the
vessels "Hipfels" and "Marburg". On their way out of Corinth Bay the British
submarines torpedoed and sank the vessels. This meant loss of tanks, motorcycles, rifles
and men for our division. In Trieste, where I stayed on my way to Vienna,
I was told that some of them escaped. I recall while we were marching through Albania
and Kosovo, we became hungry and noticed a cow standing in a field. So, we lured it from the field and were about
to butcher it when a peasant girl appeared. She rushed up to us screaming: "Allah, Allah,
don't shoot, that's my only cow!" Of course, nothing stopped us. She was left with nothing. We made our way to Trieste, where our commanders
informed us of the loss of the ships. It was my order to go to Nuremberg through
Vienna and Yerlangen. Here in Vienna, I had the opportunity to visit
my parents. A new order was waiting for us in Nuremberg:
our unit had to participate in the occupation of Southern France. We were moved to the area of Rouen. During the invasion of Russia on June 22,
1941, I was still in the south of France. On one occasion we got buses during our leave
and I was even able to reach the Spanish border. The Spanish fascists invited me to the bullfighting
in Bilbao. All the while, our training was going on. We were wearing our new African Corps uniforms
around that time. In September 1941 we got orders to reposition. For 14 days, sometimes by train, sometimes
on our own, we moved through La Rochelle, Paris, Leuven in Belgium, Ostend, Hamburg,
Harburg, and then through the whole of Poland to the Russian border. Nobody kept it a secret that we were on our
way to Russia. We were advancing through some swamps and
dams when I got my orders to get some spare parts from the Maintenance Company. We got bombarded by enemy aircraft a few times
on the way back. On the way back to the front our reconnaissance
vehicle had broken down. And we were forced to make a halt in the forest,
probably with many partisans and isolated Russian squads. We were in the worst possible situation. Besides, we never managed to change the tire,
and it became clear that the brakes had to be repaired as well. It was necessary to go back to the spare parts
warehouse. Someone from the Luftwaffe offered to give
me a lift. Three of my comrades were left behind to guard
the truck. We started our way. It was already dark when we left. All of a sudden, I noticed a Russian "sewing
machine" (a Soviet PO-2 plane) overhead, and I immediately informed the driver and advised
him to keep his headlights off. But he did not pay attention, and in some
minutes a bomb, or maybe hand grenade, blew up near us. My consciousness came to me already in the
ambulance together with four wounded soldiers. I was missing all my upper teeth and my leg
was injured. I never knew what happened to that driver
at the time. There was one of the wounded men who had been
shot in the head right behind his ear by a Russian sniper. This man remained knocked unconscious. Two of the others were also seriously wounded. In my opinion, they were wounded by shrapnel
from a shell. They took us to Smolensk. There we were separated according to our wounds,
some of us were sent on planes. It was my order to leave by train for Spremberg
in Niederlausitz. This took place already in December. There several times I was operated on. I was in the ward where 25 wounded men were
lying and I was there until almost Christmas... Because I was considered recovering, they
sent me to a maintenance company of our unit in Brunnen near Vienna. Until then I was assigned to guard the trains
for a few months. The most enjoyable thing was that I stayed
close to Vienna. After I returned to my Company, I was sent
straight to the Neuwaldegg Tank School, also near Vienna. For further training we were sent to Frankfurt. Then we were sent to Poland.... I do not remember the city name, but I do
remember the thousands of Jews with yellow stars on their chests, under the guard of
SS soldiers. The entire night we heard the machine-gun
fire. Until the end of the war, I never knew what
happened to them, I guess they had all been executed. The next day after that, we moved forward
to Zaporozhye, for preparation for the offensive on Stalingrad. I was assigned to the 9th Tank Division, a
regiment I was unfamiliar with. Because I was good at armored vehicles, I
was assigned a special duty. When I was heading for the 9th Tank Division,
we suddenly got an order to halt. We were sent to defend a fortification in
front of the bridge near some place called Voskresnoye, 76 people from different units,
including me. We suffered losses thereafter. My position was as a machine gunner on the
right flank of our defensive line. I was sent to fight as an ordinary infantryman! After that episode I was given the rank of
Oberfähnrich (candidate for officers). There was not any serious fight in my area
for several months, until the 1st of May. The enemy had attacked us with about a battalion
(that is 3-4 companies). I was all alone without a 2nd number, but
we made it through the entire 3 days of constant attacks. On the 4th day the Russian attacks ended. What I noticed was that the crows began pecking
at the bodies in front of me. Watching this was unbearable, so I tried to
chase them away with machine gun fire. In a few days we managed to make arrangements
with the Russians to take the bodies. I had found a young Russian blond guy who
had been wounded in the shoulder. I helped him make his way to his people. I have no idea what happened to him later. Finally, we were rotated in by some mortar
units. I joined my division's 33rd Tank Regiment
when they were defending near Orel. We were covering a 400-kilometer front line
section with only 50 tanks! I arrived there on May 13, 1942, but there
was no job for the new incoming soldiers, so we were sent to clean one forest from partisans. So, we hid ourselves near the road, cloaked
ourselves, and began to wait. It turned out that the Russians were all over
the area, but there was only three of us, with no communication with our unit, and we
never had the courage to shoot at them. Sometimes there were armored vehicles on that
road and we took one of them to return. We made it back by road Smolensk - Kursk - Orel. Once we were given orders to tow a destroyed
Pz. IV with the help of a trophy T-34. When we approached our tank, we found that
it was covered literally with the holes from the 88mm gun captured by the Russians. There was blood all over the vehicle inside. Then we got under a mortar attack... At that time our division moved forward to
Stalino to assist the 6th Army in its advance on Stalingrad. We got under heavy artillery fire over there. I was assigned as a sentry in the Vasin-Bryansk
area, while our company settled down to take a rest. There were "sewing machines" flying over our
encampment. I remember a soldier stepping out of his tent
to have a smoke of a cigarette. In a minute a few small bombs fell into the
tent and everyone inside was dead. Then we gathered up the bodies piece by piece
and I was ordered to guard the bodies until the funeral, which happened the next day. I remember someone noticing that one of them
had no head. I tried to look for it, but I was unable to
find it in the dark. I was told I was not looking hard enough,
and therefore I would guard the bodies all night. It was a night I will never forget. I was moved to the 2nd Company as a "Tiger"
driver, and I was soon in Headquarters Company. It was always my goal to join Headquarters
Company. I had already learned how to maintain the
tank engines by then. One night I remember we were ordered to move
toward the front with the lights off. We had trucks, motorcycles and various foreign
troops in our column moving between the tanks. One of the tankers overlooked a column of
three motorcycles and squashed them. All three of the motorcyclists were dead. These incidents occurred many times later,
when we were moving with lights turned off. We never succeeded in breaking through the
ring of the Russians. Due to the Soviet offensive and fuel supply
difficulties, we were obliged to destroy 28 our tanks near the village of Sleptsovo to
keep them from falling into the hands of the Russians. All that we managed to save was a mobile crane
and a recovery tank. The roads were barely passable because of
the mud. I and three other soldiers were left to destroy
the tanks. We were operating in two shifts-two men were
working, the other two were sleeping. It took us two months to make our way back
to our soldiers. The Russian women who left with us were helping
us. What they did was to help us escape being
captured. Then one day we heard German speech and since
we hardly looked like Wehrmacht soldiers, we gave ourselves up with our hands in the
air. We were led to the commander and after several
questions we were sent back to our unit. Those women stayed in our company as Hiwi
(they are the Russian volunteering for Germany, mainly Soviet captives). I was awarded the Iron Cross, 2nd class. This is where I think back to another incident. At the time of the retreat from Russia. There was an SS vehicle that got stuck in
the mud and the SS soldiers wanted to make us pull it out. They were aiming their guns at us. We had the enemy breathing down our necks,
and our soldiers wanted to fire at us! That was just out of line. It was four of us, so we fired on them and
fled. I have never told this incident to anyone. We were soon sent out to the West as a replenishment
of the 506th Heavy Tank Battalion, equipped with the " Royal Tigers." The battalion was under direct command of
the OKH (Oberkommando des Heeres) as a Special Forces Battalion. I became seriously ill in the battalion and
was hospitalized for three months before I returned to duty. I remember this one day on the Western Front. We settled in the woods and suddenly found
ourselves under heavy gunfire. I noticed an aircraft over us, which seemed
to spot our clothes hanging out to dry as well. So, I ran out into the woods, or I was sure
death waiting for me there. It was a hell of a fire. I crossed a small road right beside the woods. Because I was running, I was stopped by two
soldiers from the Feldgendarmerie. I told them I was supposed to report to headquarters,
which was about 3 km away, about the bombardment. But they did not believe me, so I picked up
my MP-40 and pulled one of the grenades from my belt. I threw this grenade and started running. I do not know what happened to them, but when
I returned there, the guys had gone. By the time I returned to the woods it was
almost totally wiped out. All of the tanks had been destroyed. This happened in the Ekweiler-Gelsenkirchen
area. We were out of supplies, so we had to fend
for ourselves. I met the groom of my sister. I found him shivering in a tree. Together we were trying to shoot wild boars
using a rifle. None of that worked. Then we were attacked by P-38s. About 600 bombers were attacking something
not far away. The P-38s were among their squadron. These fighter planes caused us a lot of losses,
particularly in the infantry. As there was no fuel for our Tigers, we were
forced to battle as regular infantrymen. While we were marching, we noticed an ambulance,
so the idea occurred to us to pretend to be wounded. I and my three comrades bandaged ourselves
with what was left of our bandages, and I shot myself in the arm for plausibility. And we gave ourselves up to the first American
we met. And that is all for today! If you enjoyed this video, please like it
and subscribe, so you can support the channel. Bye everyone, and see you later.
