[VideoView]

Friedrich Fritz

From Greece to the Barents Sea
video length:
03:20
interviewer:
Ruth Deutschmann
photography:
Benjamin Epp
copyright location:
Wien
date of recording:
2008-06-13
English translation by:
Sylvia Manning - Baumgartner
Italian translation by:
Nicole D´Incecco
event
[1940-06-10] Norway surrenders $child2[$event_text]
event
[1941-04-06] Balkans Campaign On 6 April attacking Nazi Germany, supported by Italy and Hungary in the Balkan campaign of Yugoslavia and Greece. Bommber fighters and destroy Belgrade. Croatia will come to a vassal state of 180,000 Serbs to Germany for work. In an airborne operation is taken in late May with heavy losses Crete, which was occupied by British.
place of recording
$child2[$rel_i18n_id][0]
???iuimd_video_v_zeit_zuordnung_en???:
1941
transcription:
Then we marched to Greece via Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. We broke through the Metaxas Line and marched on to Athens. At the airfield we were supposed to wait for a plane to Crete. But as we waited, we heard that Crete had surrendered. So we didn't fly over there. We lost many troops in Crete. We returned to Austria and our ranks were reinforced because the losses in Greece had been so great. We received equipment and troops. In the meantime the Russian campaign had started but we were not deployed there. In October we went to central Finland to the battlefront near Kandalakcha. We were supposed to continue the attack which two SS regiments had failed to complete to reach the Murmansk railroad. They had been cut down from behind by the Russians who had used camouflaged bunkers. It was impossible to take the Murmansk railroad because the landscape was too boggy and hilly. There were thick woods and huge rocks in the way making it impossible to manoeuvre with large equipment. Two months later we moved up to the battlefront at the Barents Sea. We marched for 500 km in the cold, arriving to the battlefront at the Liza River near Murmansk at 20°C below zero, and had to dig holes in the snow to sleep in. If you had a tarpaulin you could cover yourself, otherwise you slept exposed as you were. We only had small spades to dig with. We carried them on our belts beside the bread bags. It was a very cold affair.