Recollections of the Huertgen Forest by Hubert Gees (English translation)

Foreward: This extraordinary happening is probably the only kind of this type. A former German lieutenant in the German Army is honored by an American Army organization, The Twenty Second United States Infantry Society of World War II. The story is related by a fellow combatant who served with Lieutenant Lengfeld in the Battle of the Huertgen Forest. This story has been a long time in the making as many years have passed since these incidents took place and time has shaped the events into what you see here. It begins as a young German soldier faces a new life of horror and inhumanity in a battle with the American enemy. It ends with an American tribute to Lieutenant Lengfeld who fought along side of the writer of this tribute in their battle with the Americans. Lieutenant Lengfeld’s memorial plaque is shown at left (Click for enlarged picture) and his picture is included in the story. 

Recollections of the Huertgen Forest (English translations)

War is the worst thing that human beings and peoples can do to one another. This I experienced when I was 17 and 18 years old at the front. The schools and the propaganda of the Third Reich had taught us otherwise: “Death on the battlefield is the most beautiful death”. Similar themes were found in patriotic songs. To risk one’s life for the Fatherland was the greatest honor of a young man. Right would be on our side, we were completely one-sided informed. “Persevere, the new wonder weapons will soon be in mass production!”

   Thus we young men were motivated even when the war was not winable. Otherwise we stood with our backs to the wall without a  perspective of the future: Unconditional Surrender, the Norganthau Plan, the Revenge of the Victors, particularly the peoples of the East. We suppressed dark misgivings. Often torn hither and fro by doubts, we grasped at every flicker of hope as we carried out our soldierly duty. How did I experience the horrible war as Company Runner in the 2nd Company, Fuesilier Battalion, 275th Infantry a few of my extreme experiences?

   Today, exactly 50 years to the day, at dawn of the 7th October 1944 we advanced along the winding road into the valley of the White Wehe to counterattack the Americans who had broken through on the day before. Our 2nd Company attacked behind the bridge by point 312 in a southerly direction on the west side of the valley. After we had advanced some 1000 meters we came under American mortar and artillery fire as we reached a brook. The sad balance of the first day: 35 casualties, dead and wounded; more than one third of our battle strength of 100 soldiers. Among the wounded, my Company Commander Lt. Tatzel; among the dead, my First Sergeant Zeppenfeld. Lt. Lengfeld took over our 2nd Company.

   On 18/19 October we were shifted to the east side of the Wehe Brook. The other two companies of the battalion linked up closing the line from Germetsbach up toward the saw mill at Wittscheidt. We had to dig in, because most of our casualties came from tree bursts of artillery. With great effort we dug our foxholes with our primitive children’s spades, layer by layer in the slate stone. At midday an artillery salvo hit us. A medical aid man was killed by a fist-sized piece of shrapnel that hit him in the back. One asked sarcastically wither this was “the most beautiful death on the battlefield” which we had been taught to sing in the patriotic songs? However, not everyone who was hit had the good fortune to die so quickly and painlessly. At twilight another artillery salvo hit us, during which a splinter cut through a foot of our stretcher bearer.

   During the late evening a piece of shrapnel tore the lower thigh bone off a comrade who was lying next to me in the foxhole. He died the next morning of an embolism. A NCO did not return from the reconnaissance squad: shot in the stomach. We rarely had a day without casualties. .At the end of October there was another change of position: From the right wing to the left wing of the Fuesilier Battalion, bounding here at the main road to the edge of the forest before the Wittscheidt saw mill, which was in American hands.

On the morning of second day of November (All Souls Day),  a terrific artillery barrage fell on our positions (12.000 shells according to American records). The earth and the air trembled an hour long. The 109th Infantry Regiment of the U.S. 28th Infantry Division took Katzenhard to the north and advanced by early afternoon to the edge of the forest. In reporting our losses to Battalion a comrade and I hurried along the first tree lane there, and suddenly confronted an advancing group of Americans. But before they could raise their rifles to fire, we had already run back into the forest. Furious rifle fire followed us, and my comrade was hit in the elbow: A “lucky shot” which would allow him to go home. — I envied him.

On the afternoon of 2 November we immediately shaped our position up to the minefield “Wild Boar” which had already been laid on the westerly side of road. A machine gun protected the mine—free lane, which today leads to the cemetery. We held this position until the 20th of November. Our troop leadership on 3 November threw the 116th Panzer “Windhund” ­Division into the torn up front between Schmidt and Huertgen. On 4 November the grim counterattacks started. In the area from Vossenack to Schmidt heavy fighting raged, accompanied by artillery duels and tank battles. The U.S. Army Air Corps joined in the ground fighting.

Here by Huertgen counterattacks had already commenced on 3 November against the curved front of the 109th Infantry. On 7/8 November the lO9th’s sector of the front was taken over by the 12th Infantry Regiment of the 4th U.S. Infantry Division. At midday on 10 November a heavy artillery barrage lasting a half hour opened up on the point of the forest and on the American front line southwest of Huertgen. This was a new attempt to throw the Americans back. After back and forth attacks lasting for days the forest point fell, and afterwards the forester’s house, which had changed possession several times; and on 13/14 November for some 10 days was again in our hands.

Whoever would like better picture of the bitter fighting, might read the comments from the war diaries of the 116th Panzer division which are published in the book “The last Year of the War in the West. Here are a few notes from the diary of 12 November 1944:

The battles swung in continual bitterness back and forth. It is raining, wet snatches of fog or snow clouds sweep over the softened land beset with puddles. The fighting infantrymen wading , lying and fighting in mud are close to complete exhaustion. The reported battle strenghts are sinking at an alarming rate. Continually the artillery battle rolls on.” ‘In the forest itself it looks completely crazy. The trees are leaning on one another through continual fire. The infantrymen Look like swine. No rest for over a week and not dry thread on their bodies; for it is raining continually and fog is always at hand. It is a bush war: man against man with enormous efforts for the individual man. The infantry of the division are completely finished. There are only staff officers there, and very few men. But men who cannot even be brought forward at the point of a pistol, are there.

On 12 November, after the soldiers of the U.S. 12th Infantry Regiment had again captured the Forester’s House in a night attack and during the morning lost it again, our company received a heavy blow: During the early morning an obviously severely wounded American soldier was crying pitifully for help. He lay in the middle of the minefield ‘Wilde Sau” at the edge of the embarkment on the eastern side of the street, in No-Man’s Land. My company commander Lt. Lengfeld sent me with the order to the machine gun that was guarding the mine-free road that in no case should it shoot if American medical aid men should some to rescue the severely wounded soldier.

 When the heart rending cries for help continued for hours Lt. Lengfeld ordered our medical aid men to form a rescue troop. It may have been about 1O:30 am; Lt. Lengfeld went to the area of our rescue troop on our side of the street. The street itself  was secured with antitank mines, whose location was relatively easy to recognize. As Lt. Lengfeld was on the point of crossing the street directly over to where the severely wounded American was lying, an exploding antipersonnel mine threw him to the ground. In haste he was carried back to our company OP for first aid. Two deep holes in the back implied that there were severe internal injuries. Lt. Lengfeld groaned under deep pain. Under the leadership of a lightly wounded NCO he was carried immediately to the Medical Aid Station at Lukasmuhie. But during the evening he died of his severe wounds at the main First Aid Station in Froitzheim. His last resting place is Grave No. 38 in Diiren-Rälsdorf.

With this cruel turn of events, I lost my best commander. He had meant much to me in the difficult weeks behind us and he had given me much inner strength. He was an exemplary company commander, who never asked us to do more than he himself was ready to give. He was in the lead of our reconnaissance patrol as we moved up to the American outpost line. When American infantry ammunition exploded in the trees overhead and gave us the impression that the enemy had broken through, he did not order “Go at once!”, but rather, “Come with me!”

Lt. Lengfeld was certainly one of the best soldiers of the Huertgen Forest. He possessed the complete confidence of his soldiers, and had great human qualities. This was proven by his conduct toward the seriously wounded enemy. From the company grade officers of his stature, essentially came the fighting strength of the troops. I was never able to determine the fate of the severely wounded American. He may have saved himself by reaching the American lines before this part of the forest fell into German hands on 13/14 November.

The forward push of the U.S. 8th Infantry Division on 20./21 November paved the way for the downfall of Huertgen. With the support of the U.S. Air Corps and the U.S. 5th Armored Division after days of heavy fighting they succeeded in pushing our troops out of the forest on both sides of the main road and they succeeded in taking the village of Huertgen on 28 November 1944. I was taken prisoner by the Americans along with three of my comrades in the cellar of the Forester’s House near the church. On the evening of 28 November 1944 either fate or Divine Providence allowed seven soldiers, all that remained of the 2nd Company, Fuesilie Battalion, to go amongst other prisoners into the valley as prisoners of war. We had the good luck to survive.

 Story by Hubert Gees    Translation by   John J.O'Malley, Jr Fredricksburg, Texas