Eastern Front counterattack

19th December 1943: The Wehrmacht infantry strategy is always to counterattack when attacked - and a young soldier just survives

Tiger panzers on the move on the Eastern Front December 1943.

On the Eastern Front, Günter Koschorrek had survived several engagements with the Russians since his return to the frontline. Almost exactly a year earlier he had been wounded and had spent the early part of the year recuperating in Germany. Then, like tens of thousands of other German wounded who made a recovery, his time had come to return to the meat grinder again.

On the churned-up field behind us the wounded are whimpering, for they can no longer run.

The Soviet forces were now in the ascendant, increasingly confident and becoming more expert by the day. The Germans had struggled to stabilise the lines before winter. They had had hopes that the pace of Soviet attacks might slow up with winter. Somehow the German morale stayed steady, despite all the retreats and the setbacks, despite the news from the war elsewhere, despite the bombers devastating their homeland. They were still, at all levels, ready to counter-attack whenever they could.

‘Soldat mit Panzerfaust, Ukraine, Dezember 1943’