Was the thought that raced in her mind as she looked over her comrades, - former students barely out of the classroom, now shivering from cold and fear in the trenches. For her, promoted to the rank of 2nd lieutenant after graduating from the national university and passing a half-year basic officer course, this was a terrible, unjust burden.
The NVA was officially the Parteiarmee, army at the service of the party, so frequently more importance was attributed to following party slogans and proclamations, rather than considering the necessities of warfare.
All communications with battalion HQ had been down for a long time already, and the decision was hers to make.īut if we do leave our positions, we could be court-martialed. Claudia had to make a decision - to retreat to the secondary defence line, or stay and fight, - the latter would inevitably mean the destruction of the entire company. Considering the fact that they had been engaged in close quarters combat with the BETA the entire day, it was hardly surprising.ĭuring the night the weather conditions worsened considerably, and visibility was effectively limited to less than half a kilometre. Not more than fifty men, a quarter of the initial contingent, were still capable of holding arms. The company commander, Oberleutnant Claudia Quirnheim felt the bitterness of despair on her lips. Narrow trenches with reinforced concrete walls were filled human and alien bodies, and as horrendous as it was, the soldiers did not even have time to separate the dead, much less give them proper burials.
The positions of the 35th NVA mechanised infantry regiment "Ernst Schürer", second battalion, third company, which only today had held them against three tank-class BETA assaults, were by then a living hell. ++Outskirts of Cottbus, 6km west of the Neisse river