Everyday life for the soldier in Russian winter

[sgriffin383]

Anybody done any research on the day to day life of the German soldier in Russia? Did they sleep in tents, no tents, captured buildings, etc? Thanks!

[Alex Dekker]

For three weeks now, I'm working on the story of my grandfather. The part about Russia is finished already. I did found the following. Common soldiers were sleeping in tents, officers were sleeping in Russian houses. From october on, the tents rained wet and kept wet. The soldiers used, just like the officers, Russian buildings: schools, houses, eveything they could find. During july and august, sleeping out in the open was an option. During the rain period, it became impossible.

[charlieboy]

i would have thought that after the russian scorched earth policy, that a great deal of buildings were not available to them, and tents were the only option left to them.
micky

[John Kilmartin]

Hi Guys,
I've seen pictures of the type of building that the partisans were using which consists of basically a trench between a metre and a half to two metres wide and maybe a metre deep,with a sloped enterance at one end. Above this three or four logs made up the walls and a peaked roof consisting of branches, bark and moss ran along the length. The height above ground would be roughly three quarters of a metre in the centre. There is a Russian name for this sort of structure and I am pretty sure I've seen the same name used in relation to where members of the Blue Division were sleeping. I don't speak Russian so maybe the term is more generic.
This sort of structure was said to be fairly warm in the winter as the snow added insulation and cool in the heat of summer, but not so good in the spring thaw or the autumn rain. It also was noted for its powerful smell as they were primarily heated by cramming it with people and had only the door as ventillation.
Cheers,
John K

[Rolf Steiner]

Judging by the (comparatively mild in the scheme of things) winter temperatures we're having here in the UK, it must have been absolutely bloody hellish... I can only imagine some pretty strong booze was made available as antifreeze. Anyone earning the order of the frozen meat (or the Soviet equivalent, if there was one) must've been made of strong stuff.

[sgriffin383]

Rolf:

I can only imagine myself. I live in iowa in the USA and tonight it is getting to negative 20 degrees F. I was in the the military and was in the field in the winter time and it is no picnic. I couldn't imagine what the wehrmacht went through in Russia. If you have no shelter from the cold, there is no escape, what a miserable existence!

S

[German Born]

We associate Hell with fire and burning heat but the Russian winter was in fact the complete opposite it was a freezing Hell.

[Rolf Steiner]

Phew, it's risen just above freezing here and I've never been so grateful for a 'normal' bracing January day. Just yesterday I did a quick trawl thru the Imperial War Museum and the mannequin in the doghair coat and those huge clumpy cold weather boots (there's a pair of those straw overboot things right next to him) again caught my attention. I'd imagine not everyone was as well equipped as that in those first two winters. In which case, at minus 20, particularly if one was stuck in a predicament like Stalingrad, a chronically underfed young man's reaction to the possibility of a soviet bullet might well have been one of indifference?

[Landserstudent]

Some useful books for the topic:

James Lucas, "War on the Eastern Front"

Willi Peter Reese, "A Stranger to Myself " This book is especially poignant as it was a manuscript found after WWII in Germany. Willi Reese is still listed as missing and presumed dead (early 20s) in the fighting near Vitebsk mid-war.

Richard Landwehr, "Frontfighters: The Norwegian Volunteer Legion of theWaffen SS, 1941-1943


-Landserstudent