Page 13 - Fanget I Tiden oversættelse - caught in time (komplet)-converted

Chapter 4

Leningrad, November 1941
There were four main roads out of Leningrad, plus numerous minor roads which meandered

from its centre. The fourth battalion had been stationed at the windswept Finnish border town,
Ivarli, under the command of SS-major general Jürgen Hahn. They had marched and fought their

way 210 kilometres to the Russian village Smylinsko, which was less than 10 kilometres from the

centre of Leningrad. With massive support from the Luftwaffe’s bombers that had been in
operation almost continuously with a barbaric aggression never experienced before bombing

Russian towns and civilian targets indiscriminately, including schools and hospitals, the fourth

battalion managed to penetrate far deeper into Russian territory than anyone would have
expected from a conventional war strategy.

On 6 June 1941 at exactly 1 pm, Hahn bellowed: "Burn the church!" This was the end of a two-
hour round up for Smylinsko village’s shocked residents and the start of the four-year long siege

of Leningrad.

The screams from the 152 residents of this village went on for the next three hours until their
church was burnt down completely. Black clouds of smoke and a stench of burned flesh continued

to bellow out from the ruin-crater for the rest of the afternoon with the result that all the soldiers

were sick one by one. The 500 year old village church had ended as an evil death trap for
Smylinsko’s God-fearing residents who had tended it for many generations. The fourth battalion

had been lucky. They had managed to conquer an almost intact village, which meant that for a

while they had sleeping facilities and even running water.
Jürgen Hahn trudged restlessly backwards and forwards in the small mobile hut that acted as the

camp’s control centre.

"Bloody cold," he would utter intermittently, these words sounded harsh and were just about
audible squeezed through his narrow chapped lips. Jürgen Hahn stamped lightly on the floor and

buried his hands even more deeply into his coat pockets. His coat was made of thick black leather

and reached right down to the edge of his boots. Neither his coat nor his high boots could keep
the cold out any longer. Under his coat he wore his uniform jacket, shirt and tie and the grey well-

pressed but almost worn-out trousers which he had stuffed down into his boots. His decorations
were hidden under his coat; they sat fixed to the right hand side of his uniform jacket. He had the

urge to finger the iron cross which hung in the centre just below his neck – a habit of his. But he

refrained and let his hands remain in his coat pockets. The cold changed everything, including
Jürgen Hahn’s habits. Besides hating the cold, he felt queasy. The stench from the small,

spluttering paraffin stove made the air in the room thick and stuffy.

"Yes, Herr major general."