"The Division was only about 20 miles away from Astrakhan, on the Caspian Sea, the furthest east that any unit of the Wehrmacht had managed to penetrate into the Soviet Union, when we received our orders to pull back. The Soviets had already trapped our comrades in the Sixth Army at Stalingrad and at the same time they also attempted to cut us off in the Caucasus.
Our Officers and NCO's drove us hard during that fighting retreat across those frozen steppes, but we didn't need much motivation. The terror of capture or encirclement and certain death drove us on through the driving snow and freezing temperatures. It was during those dark days that those of us who survived that living hell realised that we could no longer win this war!
In 1943, the Soviets were no longer the badly disorganised troops that we had first fought back in ’41, the lessons that we had taught them back then and in ’42 had been learnt and following the failure of our offensive at Kursk we felt their full wrath in more fighting retreats from the Mius and Dneiper rivers, this time it was me driving my squad hard as memories of the previous winter came back to haunt me.....lessons learnt are not easily forgotten, whether you are Soviet or German!
Even so, the Division's losses continued to mount horrendously and the Soviets seemed to have an endless supply of men and equipment. Finally in early '44 with our numbers once again severely depleted we received the wonderful news that we were to be withdrawn from Russia and upgraded to a Panzer Division. They then sent us here, to France, to form the nucleus of this new Division - the 116th Panzer Division - but we veterans knew that we would still be the 'Windhund' of old!
Now, we're busy preparing the new boys for the Anglo-American invasion that we know is coming. These new recruits can't even imagine the hell we've already been through or understand why we the survivors of the old Division stick together or that we no longer fight for ‘Gröfaz’ and the Party......we fight now for the only things that matters to us....our families in Germany, for the Fatherland even....but mostly for each other!
However, the big question remains....do we have enough time to get these boys ready for the coming storm? To teach them our lessons!
Feldwebel Weiss, Unteroffizier Ernst, myself and the other veterans of the old Division know all to well that we have a big task on our hands but we are determined to succeed in the hard days ahead and keep as many of these boys alive as we can......... "
Oberfeldwebel Albert Kurtz, May 1944
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