War Diaries (October 9) (nonfiction)
War Diary entries for October 9.
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Diaries
Horst Lange: October 9, 1941
Decampment from the forest yesterday morning. In the end one of the self-built huts went up in flames. Destructive drive of the ordinary man who is only too happy to destroy what he has built when he no longer needs it. This forced vagabondage causes a shift in possession and property. – Drive down the crowded road of approach to Yelnya, which was in German hands once before. Russian positions: nothing but primitive little foxholes. No wiring. The first corpses, lying next to the road. That certain kind of immobility and ultimate paralysis. Bloated faces tinged blue and green. The guns still in their hands. Next to them, slow and indifferent, prisoners repair the road. Slightly cloudy sky, cold wind. The convoy moves along in a cloud of dust, fine brownish meal which gradually powders me all over. Unbroken procession of wagons. Countless regimental dogcarts. The weary, sweet-tempered horses. Here and there sick ones led by the halter, walking skeletons, lame and feeble. – Deep anti-tank ditches outside Yelnya. Dynamited bridges being rebuilt. – The road to Dorogobusch. An utterly razed, burned-out village. Only a few remnants of fences and garden plants show that houses once stood here. Charred tree stumps. Seen low against the dust-clouded sun, from the back opening of the truck: a landscape like France in 1917. – Bottlenecks in ravines where the convoys pile up. General yelling and cursing. – Short rest in a small village where we’re supposed to be quartered at first. Stinking poverty. A coquettish girl in a dirty white dress and felt boots – swaying her hips as she crosses the field, on parade in front of the strange men. – Onward, to the next chance of quarters. A village burns in the valley. Lurid red flames against the yellowed birch forests and the soft October blue. – Time and again prisoners in scattered squads, marching back alone. One man on crutches, struggling along step by step.
