Dieter Pfeifer (1923-2010)
The Panzer Commander from Bolivar City
Dieter Pfeifer (1923-2010)
Last edited by TabsTabs1964; 11-06-2022 at 05:42 PM.
THE REBEL BOY
The protagonist of our story was born on February 28, 1923 in Ciudad Bolívar, (Bolivar City) the capital of the State of Bolívar, southeast of Venezuela on the banks of the Orinoco River.
Map of Venezuela. Circled in red Ciudad Bolívar, near the mouth of the Orinoco River in the Caribbean Sea
Raised on the banks of the great river, he spent his childhood among the leafy chaparrals and bathing in the waters inhabited by caimans whose presence did not frighten him. He was the oldest of three siblings (two boys and one girl). Restless, mischievous and undisciplined; an authentic "carajito" in Venezuelan speech. He something apparently unbecoming of the son of the marriage of German immigrants, the Pfeifers.
Bolivar City. Angostura Bridge over the Orinoco
The Pfeifer couple had emigrated in search of new opportunities in that city of deep Venezuela. There they raised their children without much success in terms of their behavior, despite having the help of a compatriot as a governess.
Due to their very European appearance and because they almost always played in a vacant lot with hardly any vegetation, the children were known as the "moor Cossacks". Dieter, which is the name of our protagonist, barely spoke the language of his parents and spoke Spanish with the unmistakable Guyanese accent.
In 1933, unable to straighten their children out, the Pfeifers decide to send their two sons to boarding school in the Motherland.
So with ten years Dieter, two less his brother Bernard, the mischievous children left their tropical homeland and embarked for cold Germany.
Thousands of descendants of german origins studied in the Homeland
Certainly this is another story of those known as Volksdeutsche, (which will remind us of the story of the Namibian Hellmut von Leipzig, Rommel's driver) fully accepted in Nazi Germany, who welcomed with open arms the descendants of their compatriots emigrated all over the world.
Young blood, today students and tomorrow soldiers.
The Ministry of the Interior had updated censuses of young people of military or pre-military age with dual nationality, who studied and resided in the Reich.
Germany was preparing for war at a forced pace and needed to quantify its human reserves; so in early 1939 his boarding school was visited by officials who interviewed the Pfeifer brothers and other dual nationals. Dieter is offered the possibility of full citizenship if he joins the army.
THE BRAVE LITTLE SOLDIER.
At just 16 years old, Dieter entered the Wehrmacht as a volunteer. His assignment was one of the most modern panzer divisions.
Wünsdorf, young Soldiers of the Panzerregiment 5
Dieter was trained for just over six months as a tank driver. And in that position and at the controls of a Panzer II he participated in the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939.
First campaign and first wound. The flimsy armor of his panzer II could not withstand a Polish shell whose shrapnel grazed his right calf. He recalls backing up and moving his vehicle out of the line of fire while the other two crew members (commander and gunner) returned fire with the 20mm cannon. and the machine gun mounted on his little tank.
In the foreground a Panzer II, in practice an armored reconnaissance tank.
With the Polish capitulation on October 6, 1939, his unit returned to its barracks.
Dieter will spend the end of 1939 and the spring of 1940 in Germany, wearing the gleaming black uniform of panzer troops with the silver skulls on the collar tabs of his tunic and filled with pride at his first combat wound.
The number of Wehrmacht units was growing non-stop and in particular the five panzer divisions that invaded Poland in 1939, were subdivided to create new ones prepared for the coming war in the west.
His combat experience in the Polish campaign and another six months of training will make him the commander of a new tank in a new panzer division.
Later image in time, when most PzIII Ausf. A-D tanks that were reclaimed in the winter of 1940 were sent to training units. Some of them had their turrets and turret platforms removed
With 17 years old, the one in France will be the second campaign of this Venezuelan.
A Panzer III in France
He is now the commander of a Panzer III, a medium tank that, at the time, mounted a short 37mm cannon. and has a five-man crew (commander, gunner, loader, driver, and radio-machine gunner)
He belongs to the 7th Panzer, the "Gespenterdivision" the "Ghost" division that three months before the attack on France has a new commander: the then Generalmajor (Brigadier General) Erwin Rommel.
A private foto of the Comandant of the 7th Panzer Division
So we know that he was in the French counterattack at Arras on May 21 and that he continued his gallop causing chaos in allied communications and supply columns; and that he reached the English Channel on June 10 and occupied the port of Cherbourg.
Gespenten Division emblem
Who would have thought that this little boy from the deepest Venezuela would take part in all these episodes of World War II.
Rommel in Cherbourg with captured British officers
Dieter remembers his arrival on the French coast and the ships evacuating Allied soldiers. He tried his luck and indicated to his gunner a barge in the distance, set the angle of his cannon and the shell made a direct hit!
That night his crew celebrated their victory with French wine seized from innumerable cellars.
German soldiers in Dunkirk enjoing loot
Although France capitulates on June 25, 1940, the 7th Panzer Division will remain there until February 1941. It was in those months that the anecdote most remembered by our protagonist happened.
Knowing that Germany was going to send a small armored unit to avoid the total catastrophe of the Italians in North Africa, eager for adventures, Dieter, like many other experienced tankers, volunteered to be part of the German expeditionary force that would be known as the Afrika Korps.
After medical examinations he was rejected for "not being fit for service in the tropics."
It was useless for Dieter to explain to the doctors that he had been born in Venezuela and had grown up on the banks of the Orinoco!
So instead of going to North Africa under General Rommel, he returned to Germany with his award-winning and famous Division. His destiny was to be another.
Dieter will first enjoy, like his entire unit, a well-deserved rest (which will be the last in the entire war) and during which he will coincide with his younger brother Bernard who is serving in the Luftwaffe.
Bernard (In Luftwaffe uniform, left) an Dieter Pfeifer during a leave
But after permission and just turned 18, his destination was quite likely the Putlos Tank Academy (Panzer Schule) in Schleswig-Holstein, on the shores of the Baltic, near Kiel.
Two images of the Putlos Tank School, circa 1943
Three months of hard technical, theoretical and doctrinal training followed. New tank and new enemy. This time a Panzer IV and the target the USSR
OPERATION BARBAROSSA AND RUSSIA.
Dieter said on numerous occasions that the commander of his unit was Major (Commander) Karl von Sivers, who we know was from the 15 Panzer-Regiment, framed in the 11th Panzer Division.
So on June 21, 1941, at the age of 18, our little Venezuelan begins his third campaign: the invasion of the USSR.
His Division was part of the XLVIII Panzer Corps of Army Group South, so Dieter took part in the gigantic battle that would end in the conquest of kyiv.
The crew of a Panzer IV rest next to a typical Ukranian house
From this time he remembers the uninterrupted advance through the vast plains of sunflowers in the Ukraine.
A sea of sunflowers in Ukraine
If this part of the campaign was tough, the worst was yet to come, as in late September, his unit moved north to assist Army Group Center in Operation Typhoon, as they attempted to seize Moscow.
The heat of the Ukrainian summer was pleasant to him, more so than to many of his comrades; but when the cold set in at the end of October as he approached Moscow, this time he fared even worse than his companions.
He remembers how he changed the landscape from the immense ocher plains, to the black ruts on the snow following the vehicle that preceded him in advance.
The first problems with snow in the cold autumn of 1941...
On November 21, his tank and two others were cut off when the Russians blew up the bridge they had just crossed. He ordered to form a "hedgehog" and they prepared to spend the night. Provided with his thick coat, Dieter jumped from the turret to the ground where he was completely buried in a meter and a half of snow, almost the same height, that day among the laughter of his companions, he earned his war nickname: "Stepke" (the small). Dieter was less than five feet tall.
Hedgehog deffensive position
Dieter and his companions managed to meet up with his unit and from that day on they always fell back. His new rival was the T-34 which proved to be fearsome.
Dieter Pfeifer an 18 year old, veteran panzer commander, in 1941
With the spring of 1942 everything turned into a huge quagmire that would not dry up until the summer. He had already destroyed several T-34s with his tank carrying a short 75mm cannon, when in April he was involved in combat against five of them. His tank was hit and he remembers the explosion behind him, the fire, the enormous heat, the daze and the blood.
1941. A Panzer IV destroyed somewhere on the Eastern Front
He is not aware of how they got him out of his tank, but he did it with ten pieces of shrapnel embedded in his back.
In April he was in a rear hospital lying face down with another panzer commander with very similar injuries. On the night of the 20th, the Führer's birthday, they celebrated with a bottle of champagne, drinking in that awkward position.
A wounded soldier receives a visit from a comrade
Upon recovery he was awarded the Iron Cross First Class, for his valor, and the First Winter in Russia Medal.
He fought for the rest of 1942 in command of a Panzer IV whose firepower allowed him to hit a T-34 at 1,500 meters (so it was most likely already a long-cannon model). In what would be his second lucky shot of the war, he shot down a slow-moving Russian reconnaissance plane.
That second winter in Russia was not so terrible since the men were acclimatizing and had much better equipment than a year before.
His next campaign would be Operation Zitadelle, the Battle of Kursk. His division, with XLVIII Armored Corps, formed the southern pincer and would reach the point of maximum German penetration of the battle.
A Panzer's III crew resting in Kursk
By the summer of 1943, Dieter is 20 years old and four years of war behind him, on his chest he also wears the Wounded and Panzer Assault badges.
According to the protagonist, he at that time commanded a Panzer V, Panther.
One of the photos from the personal collection of the protagonist
At this point, Dieter excitedly remembers the commander of his regiment, Major Karl von Sivers, whom he says certainly destroyed several Russian armored vehicles, but that his greatest achievement was getting his unit out of the tank “melee” that was the combat, almost intact. from Prokhorovka.
From him, he says, he learned prudence in combat. He is critical of the blind recklessness of the most fanaticized SS units which cost them much higher casualties than the army's panzer divisions.
He also remembers that in order to fight day and night without rest, the doctors gave them stimulants.
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