Interview with Knight's Cross winner and SS-Oberscharführer Balthasar 'Bobby' Woll, veteran of the SS-Totenkopf-Division and Tiger tank gunner extraordinaire in 1. SS-Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS-Adolf Hitler and later Panzer instructor, Sennestadt, 1989.
Bobby: Okay, count this a lucky day, I usually don't talk about this part of the past, but I am always willing to help out a
close friend. Hilde knows you, so it is okay that we speak. So why the SS? I was
never interested in politics, I just wanted to live a good life and have fun
doing what I liked to do. The war would find my class soon and it all seemed
to be going very well, but all of us wanted it to end.
We did not like war, and the many fallen notices of friends were
sombre. More and more were being drafted and I wanted a say where I would
end up. You could either freely enlist and have your choice or wait to be called
and then be told where you would be placed.
I knew classmates who had went into both the Heer [army] and SS, but the SS
seemed to offer more in the way of choice and they seemed happier and with more
comradeship. I had made up my mind to volunteer and by 1941 was assigned
to the 'Totenkopf' training battalion; I was assigned to the MG [machine gun] section and
trained on the MG 34 and 42 [German machine guns]. When I went to the front, I had an old French
weapon, and others had former Czech weapons; so there you have it.
Frau Helmke [Hilde] said we should speak as you were with 'Totenkopf' at Demjansk?
Can I ask what it was like?
Bobby: Yes, I was in the Demjansk Pocket. It was cold and miserable, that is
what it was like. It made me question whether the Infantry was for me; we
had been surprised by the Russian attacks. [Theodor] Eicke had us very well organized
which helped in the defence. The Russians were very disjointed in their
attacks; I do not think they expected to have so much success in their counter-attacks, so they failed to use the initiative correctly.
We suffered through the coldest winter in years, which made it extra
hard. The cold made movement almost impossible, the few vehicles we had
would not start. We did have our winter clothing however, Eicke made sure
our trains handed them out when it got cold. It is a big exaggeration that the
German forces were left with no winter clothes. Some units, more to inept
leadership and supply, did get stuck with summer tunics, but they were the
minority. The home front rushed to help get them the clothing they needed.
The Luftwaffe was a daily sight for us; they kept us well supplied in
spite of heavy flak fire. We always had food, medicine, ammunition, and
reinforcements. We also had many Russians who were trapped with us, the
civilians we could not get to leave, as they did not want to answer to the
commissars. We had prisoners who our Hiwis [the German abbreviation of the word Hilfswilliger or 'auxiliary volunteer'] would help take care of. We
did release some of them who were wounded, and the Russians were grateful
for this humane treatment. The war in the east was not fought with hatred by
us. After a few months of this, we were freed by the start of new offensives.
[Above: Bobby Woll with his Panzer comrades, Woll is 2nd from the left, the only one wearing a Knight's Cross. Look at all the kills painted on the barrel of that tank!]
Bobby: After Demjansk I had enough of infantry life, and the opportunity
came up to join the now expanding Panzer arm of the Waffen-SS. I was
recruited to go into the assault artillery which was not what I had in mind but
at least I got to get out of the war for a bit. Then the chance came to go to
Panzer school and I volunteered to do gunner training.
While I enjoyed this immensely, I was still a little immature you
could say, the ladies are what I wanted to attend to. I was a decorated SS
soldier and wanted to attend dances and parties. I had a good NCO instructor
who understood how to reach my interests, he helped pull me through gunner
training, and I think he was responsible for getting me into the LAH [Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler].
This is where you met Michael Wittmann, was he a good leader? [Wittmann became a cult figure in his time and a legend till this day when on June 13, 1944 he destroyed up to 14 British tanks, 15 personnel carriers and two anti-tank guns within 15 minutes with his Tiger tank!-Ed.]
Bobby: Yes, after much training I was assigned to the 1. SS Panzer Regiment
and Michael was my commander, I was assigned to his tank, a new Tiger.
These were fickle machines in the beginning and even in Panzer school there
were problems with them. In combat, these problems because amplified.
Electric fans would not work, gears would go out, fuel pumps would fail; it
was trying.
I knew electric work [after the war he would become an electrician-Ed.], so once I had to re-route fan wires to stay on
all the time. The Tiger is talked about today as a super weapon and superior
to everything on the battlefield, but I can assure you it could be knocked out,
it only took a skilful gunner with an armor round. With that said, I did feel
very protected by the frontal armor, and we always showed our front.
One of the first things Michael did with me was take me for practice;
I was very nervous and did not do well. I remember he spoke as a father,
friend, and comrade. He said, "You have a job unique to a Panzer, it is all of
us who make the Panzer live, but it is you who make it successful. You must
not let us down, we all want to go home, and we can only do that by knocking
out the enemy."
This did something to me, and it motivated me to be patient, yet fast,
to find the puncture point and fire with precision [Bobby Woll was renowned for his ability to precisely hit enemy tanks while they were moving, a difficult feat!-Ed.]. He brought out the best in
my talents, we practiced day after day. Then we were called to action to stop
a tank attack. One positive I can say about German Panzers is that we had
excellent optics, and we could take on enemy tanks from long range.
Sometimes they had no idea where it came from.
We could hit them where they could not see us and did not expect
us to be. Michael had no fear however of moving close. He was known to
charge right into enemy starting points and disrupting attacks before they
even could start. Some called this reckless, but it worked, and he always
showed the front, so enemy shells would just bounced off with little fuss. Of course,
on the inside it made a racket, but at least we lived to keep fighting.
Michael formed us into a tight team, we knew exactly what we were
to do and how to do it, he even had us trained to take over for another position
if we needed to. My loader and I could put a round on target in split seconds,
which was all the difference in taking on multiple enemies. As a team, we
had excellent success and racked up a good kill tally, the best in the regiment. [Credited with a total of 80 tanks destroyed plus many armored vehicles and assault guns.]
We became best friends to the point I was his best man in 1944 when
he married Hilde, that was the best time of his life. He was allowed to have
her in our billets, she helped take care of the place and brightened it up. She
got along well with the French neighbors and we shared good dishes with
each other. She even tried to play matchmaker for some comrades, with
French girls.
[Above: Michael Wittmann sitting atop his armored beast in Normandy, where he would become a legend and Wittmann with his wife Hildegard (Burmester) on their wedding day. After the war she remarried and took the name mentioned in this interview 'Helmke'.]
Bobby: I do not do politics, and it is only because of who you know that I
will even indulge you. The SS was a military force with strict laws and
enforcement. I will never believe that any of our comrades willingly
committed crimes against soldiers or civilians. I read today report after report
of supposed crimes by Peiper, Eicke, Dietrich, and many more. I pay no
attention to them as the occupiers get to tell and enforce their view of history.
I will give you some examples I did see, I fought on the Eastern Front, against
Russians who we were supposed to be killing and exterminating. I saw our medics
from the both Totenkopf and the LAH treat not only civilians, but Russian soldiers as
well. Sometimes using up vital supplies they could have saved for comrades,
but they viewed the enemy as a soldier first and foremost.
Our divisional doctor was killed while coming back after helping a
Russian woman give birth to a healthy baby.
We once shot up a Russian tank, and the crew jumped out on fire, Michael didn't even have to order us out to
go help them. We hated Bolshevism, yes, but we had no animosity towards
the people. We would expect them to do the same for us. Later in the war,
propaganda made acts like this less likely, as hatred had turned our enemies
into something evil who would shoot medics and aid personnel without any
distinction. We were made into bugs that needed squashed.
At no time did I ever see mistreatment or abuse of prisoners,
civilians, or wounded by German personnel. If so, we would have revolted
and disobeyed those orders if given. I know some partisans were executed
but this is a different topic, partisan warfare is a war crime in itself. We
comrades are very proud of our service to our nation, even though today it is
occupied and forced to turn on us.
[Above: Bobby Woll has become famous for his wondrous feats against the forces of darkness. Here is a figure of him you can buy.]
