SS-Flak (Stahlhelm)

SS-Kanonier Semmler’s account does not cover the complete history of the Flak-Abteilung of 9 SS-Panzer Division Hohenstaufen, merely the participation of its 2nd Battery (88mm Flak 37s) in the Ardennes campaign between 16th December 1944 and 28th January 1945. Ordered in January 1943 and raised by July, at the training camps (successively) of Mailly-Le-Camp, Épernay and Amiens, the unit was assigned thereafter to coastal air defence duty between Calais and Ostende until its departure for the Eastern Front in March/April 1944. Apart from a few specialists transferred from the Luftwaffe, it consisted of newly conscripted youths. After participating in the drive to free the encircled 1st Panzer Army and to ease the siege of Ternopil in Western Ukraine, Hohenstaufen returned to the west in June, to face the Allied invasion. After the savage blood-letting of Normandy and the escape from annihilation in the Falaise pocket the division had to retreat; the Flak-Abteilung making a famous stand against British armour at Cambrai on 2nd September. While refitting in the Venlo-Nijmegen-Arnhem area, Hohenstaufen became embroiled in the ill-fated Operation Market-Garden in the course of which Helmut Semmler’s Battery Commander, Obersturmführer Gropp, distinguished himself; later winning the Knight’s Cross in Hungary.

If Semmler’s diary may at times seem to dwell overlong on his meals and billeting arrangements, it is because it faithfully reflects the concerns of the ordinary non-front-line soldier. Had he been a tanker or a panzergrenadier, doubtless he would have had more pressing concerns to worry about. Even so, from the perspective of a predictor operator, he charts the battle’s course, its descent from initial euphoria to desperate attempts to escape the tightening encirclement: on the 24th December, increased Allied air activity; the first shortages of ammunition; 6th January, withdrawal announced; 14th January, rumours of being surrounded; 16th January, front-line employment as a Kampfgruppe to confront tanks; 18 January, 20 men assigned to infantry use (always a bad sign), and only returning on the 24th; finally, on the 27th, the main battle line only 1.5km away, further preparations for a defensive role as infantry.

What is far more important is what is not even hinted at: capitulation, desertion, malingering. The undemonstrative, unassuming Semmler, like thousands of his comrades in field-grey, faced ever more clearly with defeat and the unconditional surrender demanded by the Allies, was at all times ready to do his duty. In a situation in which other armies simply fled or collapsed, the German Armed Forces of World War II, not least the Waffen-SS, proved to be extraordinarily tough opponents to the end.