I think I read something about that somewhere else, or something similar. Maybe in, “The Forgotten Soldier” or a book like it. If you haven’t read it, do. It’s one giant diary from a man of Franco-German descent who was drafted in 1943 or 1944 at sixteen into the Wehrmacht, and filled with stories similar to the one you mention.
All it takes is ONE undisciplined jerk who’s starving, as they most assuredly would have been at the Eastern Front at that time, sprinkled with panic, and that’s what you’d get. 3-5 days without food makes people lose their proverbial collective sh¡t.
That one I believe could have happened. Whether it did or not though is another matter.
I’ve got Sager’s book, one such scene was crossing the Dnieper while retreating from the Russians as the Gestapo was looking for German slackers and deserters...it’s featured in Oxfords’ Book of Military Anecdotes, quite a read...
Russians probably gonna do it again...
He first served in a German army transport unit and then he served out the war in The Grossedeutchland Division on the eastern front. It was horrifying. I read it.