Tactical Shooting: Singing the Cold War Berlin Blues

[Icelander]

Ernst Tarnow
Codename Hessian

Ernst Tarnow was born in 1921, in the formerly Prussian province of Vorpommern on the Baltic shores. He joined the German Wehrmacht in 1938 with permission from his aged father. The tall and ramrod-straight youth proved to be a fine soldier, learning quickly not only the necessary skills, but a military comportment that he would retain all his life. He was assigned to a Guards unit, the Wach-Regiment Berlin, which was eventually incorporated into the celebrated Großdeutschland Regiment (later Division, Panzergrenadier-Division and briefly Panzerkorps Großdeutschland). He fought in the France offensive and then in Operation Barbarossa. Tarnow fought outside of Moscow in 1941, at Fall Blau, the Don river, Stalingrad, Voronezh and Rzhev in 1942. He was at Kharkov and Kursk, and on the bitter fighting retreat through the Ukraine he fought at Belgorod, the Dnieper river and Michurin-Rog he was wounded three times and earned an Iron Cross, First Class.

His division was the mobile reserve during the Wehrmacht’s futile effort to fend off the crushing weight of the Soviet armoured forces with mobility and counter-attack. Despite some shining feats of arms that are still studied by generals all over the world, every new battle was just a little closer to the Vaterland. Most units would have broken months ago. Years ago, perhaps. But the Panzergrenadier-Division Großdeutschland endured and even managed some hard-won victories that bought time for other units to retreat, to regroup, to rearm. Ernst added more decorations and suffered more wounds. He was eventually awarded the Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Eichenlaub, or the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves in the closing days of 1944. At that time, he would rather have gotten more ammunition.

Rather than break under the strain, the Panzergrenadier-Division Großdeutschland was destroyed. Only a few hundred survived and most of these were either prisoners of the Russians or the British. Ernest was lucky, managing to reach the British lines before being forced to surrender. Those of his comrades who surrendered to the Russians were mostly not seen again.

After the war, Tarnow found himself at loose ends. He had grown up a soldier and it was all he knew. A world at a peace seemed a strange world to him. He found a girl he had courted before the war, but she was pregnant and sad all the time. Their relationship did not last. Eventually, a chance conversation with a British officer of the occupation forces in a bar resulted in the man, an old-fashioned gentleman with quaint notions of warrior honour, recommending him for a job with the occupation forces. In a rare example of bureaucratic competency, someone noticed that Tarnow was not all that qualified for shifting rubble, but that he could be useful in other ways. He was initially used to train local watchmen and overseers and did so well at that job that he was chosen to help with establishing the guards for the seat of government for the new Federal Republic in 1949.

It was then that he made the acquaintance of American anti-Communists who believed firmly that the Soviet Union was the enemy of Germans and the occupying forces both. Rhetoric that justified the horrors of war and defeat was music to Ernst’s ears and he found himself employed as for various odd jobs, mostly acting as a bodyguard for Army intelligence officers who did not want to draw attention to themselves by having armed troops with them. The increasing profile of the CIA led to him being seconded to duty with them, as an instructor in Scandinavia, training émigrés from Baltic countries in basic infantry skills for when they would be infiltrated back to their places of origins and unleashed at the soft underbelly of the bear.

The gradual slow-down of émigré operations might have resulted in lack of employment for Tarnow, but an old acquaintance from Army intelligence made sure to recommend him to the new Chief of Berlin Operational Base. In 1953, Ernst Tarnow found himself in Berlin, learning how to be a spy and an interpreter for the Americans. Fortunately for him, Big Bill Harvey was mostly interested in him for his wartime skills, explaining that as the Chief of Station for the biggest and baddest CIA base in the world, he had more enemies than the President. So Tarnow kept on soldiering, in this strange war that was not yet a war.

Equipment:
Wehrmacht feldgrau Greatcoat (Holdout +4, Camouflage +1, Weight 5 lbs.); East Berlin field labourer’s outfit in faded black, brown and grey, complete with discoloured brown hat (Disguise +1, 2 lbs.); Sneakers (Stealth +1, 2 lbs.); Good-quality Concealed LBV with TL-122D flashlight (left side), first aid kit (small of the back), 4 AMC M26 grenades (upper chest) and 4 40-rd 9x19mm magazines (Holdout +1, Fast-Draw (Ammo) -1, Weight 13.5 lbs.); SIG MKPS 9x19mm Parabellum submachine gun with high-visibility sights on an expensive one-point sling under right shoulder (Holdout -4, Weight 9.9 lbs.); Beretta Mod 1951 9x19mm Parabellum pistol in belt holster on the right (Holdout -2, Weight 2.8 lbs.); 2 8-rd 9x19mm magazines in belt magazine pouch on the forward left (Weight 1.1 lbs.); Solingen GBK-04 ribbed handle boot knife in canvas sheath on left side of belt (thr imp, sw-2 cut, Weight 0.7 lbs.); Personal basics for urban survival; Mangy Burlap sack with an outer compartment holding 15 lbs. of potatoes and a concealed inner sack (Holdout +4, Combined Weight 48.8 lbs.) holding the following: Leather belt magazine pouch with three 40-rd 9x19mm magazines for MKPS (Weight 5 lbs.); Carl Gustaf Kulsprutepistol model 45B submachine gun in 9x19mm Parabellum with high-visibility sights and compensator (Weight 9.4 lbs.), good-quality load-bearing vest (Fast-Draw +1, Weight 15.5 lbs.) with 4 AMC M26 grenades, TL-122D flashlight, a first aid kit, Ka-Bar MK2 combat knife in plastic sheath (thr+1 imp, sw-1 cut, Weight 0.9 lbs.) and two magazine pouches, each holding two 36-rd 9x19mm magazines.
Total Weight 86.8 lbs.