Snipers of the East
The story of Josef “Sepp” Allerberger
The war on the Eastern Front is known for its brutal and savage fighting; when put into perspective, it shows just how much the two sides hated each other. The Nazis had "unspoken rules", as in were. On the Westen Front, their treatment of the Allied forces, compared to the Soviets (or Ivans, as the Nazis would call them), was extremely cordial. However, the very influential Nazis propaganda machine did not portray the Allied soldiers in the same light as the Soviets. Very Nazis citizen was conditioned to believe that everyone east of Germany, regardless of background or race, are less than human.
During the first few months of operation Barbarossa, the Nazis found out after losing many officers to Soviet sniper fire that a counter was needed. Before the onset of sniper schools, Nazi soldiers had to lean "on the fly" using captured Soviet rifles. (As Sepp did). Subsequently, the Nazis started to train their snipers by 1943, and in a stunning piece of irony, trained their snipers the same way the Soviets would. As Albrecht Wacker, in Sniper on the Eastern Front, recalls:
To their amazement the film was Russian with German subitiles. It was shot in 1935 and gave an impressive insight into the high standers of Russian training. Before screeing it, their trainer commented: “just take a look at this. Ivan isn’t bad. His marksmaks were already making trouble for us during the advance of 1941–42 and we were standing their in shorts.”
Expanding on the quote, as the aforementioned Sergent pointed out the colossal success of the Soviet marksman targeting the Wehrmacht's officers. Without any heavy weapons to counter during the advance of 1941–42, as the Sergent said, the marksman held off entire divisions. The enemy snipers reduced the division's effectiveness by taking out the Wehrmacht's leadership — killing one or a few officers — of said division.
As the war when on, the Soviet sniper scourge started to waver. As the Nazis began to field their snipers, the two adversities would go toe to toe in sniper duels, as Sepp would recall talking about his first kill as a marksman.
A menace among the logs
Sepp got his shot as a marksman when he spent some time behind the front lines. He saw a captured Mosin Nagant PU rifle in the battalions armoury. The Weaponry NCO, interested in what Sepp had to offer, handed Sepp the rifle, saying, "show me what you can do. Perhaps you're born to be a sniper. We need such boys to give Ivan a good going over. You know how this marksman made our lives miserable."
That same evening, nursing a wound, Sepp started practising. It became clear to the NCO after watching Sepp shoot; he had a natural talent for precision shooting. At 100m, Sepp could hit a matchbox, and at 300m, he could hit a wooden ammunition box which measured about 30 by 30cm. I had the honour of shooting one of these rifles, and I can say at least from my experience that Sepp was a maverick, only having a few hours or so to train.
Sepp went back to his division as the divisions only Markman. His first kill, one he would never forget, came from the trenches. An enemy Marksman was harassing the line; Sepp's comrades had no counter until Sepp came. The Soviets inexperience showed as he would stay in the same position when he fired: the muzzle flash from the rifle gives away one's position, stay there for too long, and you're going to get hit. Sepp, for his part, knew this rule: shoot and move to stay alive.
Sepp got his chance to silence the Soviet Marksman; the latter was among a pile of logs about 90 meters away. However, Sepp's nerves hindered him at the final moment:
He felt paralyzed and was unable to pull the trigger, and he had to put the rifle down and take deep breaths to regain his composure.
Sepp shoulders his rifle a few times, ready to take the shot, but again he backs off, sitting the rifle back down. His comrades were stood around him full of impending relief, to be finally rid of that menace among the logs. One said, echoing the thoughts of everyone there, "well, what now? Give him a wallop." Then, as if snapped out of a trance, Sepp took the slack from the trigger, along with a deep breath and fried. The news came from the spotter, "you got him, lad!. A perfect hit. That swine is dead."
And so, Sepp got his first kill as a marksman.
Explosive rounds
In the early days of the campaign, Sepp used captured ammunition for his PU rifle. The Soviets being the first to use explosive rounds, the Nazis followed suit a couple of years later. Sepp would use captured explosive rounds also. Thanks to the bitter rivalry between the two sides, the explosive rounds were exclusive to the East. If a Wehrmacht division were transferred to the West, their units marksman would hand over their explosive rounds, using only regular ammunition in the West.
The account of Sepp using these devasting rounds is, quite frankly, a harrowing read. During the night of 25–26th March 1944, Sepp's division was entrenched in a defensive position, thanks to a week of rest-bit from the Soviet onslaught. Thus, they had a week to prepare. Then, on the night mentioned above, a small unit of Soviet stormtroopers stormed the trenches. These men were experienced soldiers; their speed moving through the trenches, moving swiftly as a unit, only highlighted their skill.
While Sepp was firing at the Soviets crossing the river, a sergeant beside him took up Sepp's binoculars, observing the trenches captured by the stormtroopers. Touching Sepp on the shoulder, the sergeant said, "I think the fine hat over there is their leader. If you do him over, our comrades will get the Ivans." If their leader fell, the Soviets would crumble. Sepp understood this and took the necessary steps to make sure this man died — Sepp loaded an explosive round to ensure the kill.
Against the backdrop of the trenches, the hat, being white, stood out amongst the fighting. Darting in and out of view: the target would be hard to hit, Sepp and the sergeant (now acting as Sepp's spotter) anticipated where the target would be and waited for him to show.
"Sepp, he's running right. Go with him. Do you see part of his hat above the edge?" Sepp knew where we would appear next: at a junction where the trenches meet. At a distance of 120m, Sepp took the shot. Wacker describes the impact of the round as follows:
Sepp and the sergeant saw the fur hat puff up like a balloon and then burst bloodily like an overripe melon.
The accounts and stories involving the explosive rounds tell us that the Soviet bullet would leave the victim with a fist-sized hole around the head or torso, if the marksman found their mark. Indeed, a horrible weapon both psychologically and physically.
The mistress in the Tress
There were rumors from all over the trenches of the Eastern Front. Entire companies of marksmen, some ten or more marksmen, all in one place. Sepp would see that the myths are true: the advancing section came up against one of the sniper companies. Sepp's section found itself in a kolkhoz, a Soviet collectivist farm, where there stood a forest about 300m away. Here, in the forest, the sniper company laid in wait. Sepp was called to the ruins of the farmstead and ordered to take command of the second Battalion dugout. Sepp's abilities at this point are known throughout the regiment (Three Gebirgsjager Division); consequently, he was ordered to clear out all the enemy snipers.
The plan
Sepp's plan was solid, a clever piece of work. Firstly, Sepp moves to an observation position with a good line of fire into the forest. Secondly, before moving to this position, Sepp filled some grenade bags with grass, drew a face on with some charcoal, and a helmet on top. In the last step, Sepp's comrades would hold up the "dummies" to observe where the shots came from, and from here, order an MG salvo to mask his shots. As I said, a genius plan: Sepp's tactic killed 18 enemy snipers. In time the Soviets wised up and stopped shooting at the "dummies" in the farmstead ruins.
The horrors of all-out war
As previously mentioned, the snipers Sepp was hunting were, to his shock and the rest of the Battalion, young girls no more than 20 years old. Wacker recalls Sepp's memory of that day:
Her right hand was inside her blood-soaked uniform jacket, in which a bullet whole gaped right between her breast. Bloody foam was on her lips. When the rifeman bent over to pick up the rifle her suddenly pulled a Tokarev automatic pistol from her jacket, gurgled, “Smert Faschistam” (“death to the Fascists!”), and pulled the trigger.
The young woman's efforts were in vain as the rifleman jumped out of the firing line. While jumping, the rifleman fired a burst from his MP40 — a sub-machine gun — into the Soviet soldier. The young woman, as if electrified, started shaking as the rounds tore through her torse. Finally, she became limp, and life left her.
On the Eastern Front is truly was an all-out war.
Sepp after the war
Eventually, after a lot of luck and a sprinkle of front-line experience, Sepp survived the war. American GIs captured him in Austria. Although there are many other accounts of Sepp's story on the Eastern Front, I limited myself to three events for the sake of time. To end with, I shall talk a little more about Sepp's capture by US troops.
Sepp's capture by the Americans was, generally speaking, a blessing in disguise. However, the Americans did, as in Sepp's case, hand over their captives to the Soviets. Sepp escaped after learning about this. He wondered around Austria, wanting to avoid the horrible fate that awaited him if some partisans caught him: tortured and then killed. I believe somewhere in Germany, Sepp was, yet again captured by American GIs, only this time he went over into American captivity, not the ice-cold Siberian gulags of the USSR.
The book I have been referencing throughout, Sniper on the Eastern Front by Albrecht Wacker, is excellent; I highly recommend reading it if you wish to know more about Sepp's war stories.
Source
- Wacker, Albrecht, Sniper of the Eastern Front, Pen & Swords Publishing, 2005.
