ZGram - 11/11/2004 - "I could have been Heidi" / Part I

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

Zgram - Where Truth is Destiny:  Now more than ever!

November 11, 2004

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

Sometimes I am asked if I have any hobbies.  I wish I had time left 
for hobbies.  However, I am collecting first-person experiences of 
people who experienced World War II as Germans, and if any of my 
readers have such recollections or know of someone who does, please 
remember that there will be Zundel Archives in the future when calmer 
times return. 

For the rest of this week, I am going to send you a four-part 
description of Germany in the last weeks of World War II, written by 
someone called "Fritz", a young SS-man, on furlough from the front, 
trying to save his family in the chaos and destruction caused by 
Allied bombing raids.  This is not a sophisticated account, and it is 
clear that the writer is not a native English speaker.  In order to 
preserve authenticity, I have left the spelling and sentence 
structure as I received it except for a few minor corrections which 
are obviously typos.

"Fritz" is not someone I know.  In this account, this German soldier 
has a wife and two young children, the oldest of which is called 
Heidi.  I could have been "Heidi", for I was on the road in those 
weeks from February to April 1945, a first-grader, flying from the 
Red Army.  I have memories exactly as described in this four-part 
Zgram - with one exception:  I did not have a father to protect me. 
I had only a mother, a grandmother, and a baby sister, about the age 
of Heidi's baby sister, a toddler named Helga.  My father was in a 
Soviet Gulag, having been arrested without cause -  exactly as Ernst 
was arrested two years ago on American soil, without cause, without 
due process - as any German male age 14 and over, who fell into 
Communist hands, could have been and often was arrested in those 
days.  Will history repeat itself here? 

The story is only a vignette, without a beginning and a satisfactory 
end.  I wish I knew more about this family - what happened after 
they, too, experienced the brutal Soviet occupation, as they must 
have, given the incomplete geographical description.

[START]

      In June of 1944, it became apparent to me that it was not going 
so good for us at our military fronts. The superior strength of our 
enemy's destructive weapons directed on our fighting men was 
overwhelming. Even though our armament firms were operating at their 
best, they were not equipped to attain an equal balance to such 
weaponry. This difficult situation was made even worse during the 
first week of June through an event of decisive importance.

      On Tuesday, June 6, 1944, I was on vacation for several days in 
Tetschen to relax somewhat with my loved ones. After breakfast I had 
taken Heidi by the hand for a little stroll in the city. It was a 
bright sunny day, and every now and then, I met acquaintances whom I 
greeted wholeheartedly. Eventually we came to the delicatessen shop, 
Palazzolo. Naturally, there was not much good and fine things to be 
bought here anymore because of the war, but, just the name, 
Palazzolo, had an intriguing sound to it.  Palazzolo was standing out 
front of his shop and I rejoiced that I could engage in a good 
conversation with him. But Palazzolo had troubling news that he had 
just heard on the radio. "American and English soldiers have invaded 
the north coast of French Normandy."

     Ever since our victorious conclusion of the French campaign in 
June of 1940, this feared second front to our west was now opened. So 
now, we had the Soviets pressing forward into the German Empire in 
the East and the Americans and the English pressing on our west. This 
was news to lay heavy on one's soul. Poor Germany. Many dogs are the 
death of a rabbit, says an old hunter's proverb. They had already 
brought us death in the fall of 1918.

      The joyful vacation days were over. I returned to Wuppertal, 
where I saw only anxious faces. Shortly therafter information from 
our leader's headquarters let a little hope germinate that all was 
not lost, because of a new style of highly explosive flying charges 
directed on England. The charges were named VI and V2. It was a 
question of the first remote control rockets, certainly a big 
developement in the technology of arms. However, the discharge of 
this flying body required a firm discharging base, and these bases 
were constantly bombarded by our enemies and soon demolished. It 
became apparent that the VI-V2 projectiles could not really come into 
sufficient operation.

With the advent of the American/English invasion certain of our 
German generals committed high treason. I name for the traitors only 
representatively, the name "Spiedel", a man, who after the war, 
played a very big roll in the so-called NATO. 

      July 20, 1944, 6:00pm, I stepped outside in the factory yard. 
Workers were talking and this is when I heard that an attempted 
murder had been directed upon Adolf Hitler's headquarters that 
morning. Our leader, fortunately, had not been hit fatally. The 
person responsible, the traitor, had placed a briefcase with an 
English bomb under the table, and had hurried away from it, with no 
consideration that it could have hit others fatally, which it did. To 
kill Adolf Hitler, eye to eye, for that, the traitor was too 
cowardly, the traitor's own life had to be saved. Thus, he acted 
according to the manner of an assassin.

      So now a new emotional burden was exacted from the German folk 
during this difficult war time, and perhaps this was the most 
difficult, because with a faction of traitors trying to raise chaos, 
the danger of a bloody civil war lurked in the background. The 
employees in our factory were deeply concerned. I did not see the 
semblance of a malicious pleasure on the face of any single person. 
However, everyone's nerves were stretched to the limit.

      Now during that same night I received a call from the armed-SS 
command in Dusseldorf, regarding my reserve position in the military. 
I was to report for military duty the next morning, July 21.   In 
Dusseldorf I saw that all the adherents of the general SS, who like 
myself had been in reserve, reported here also. Thus resulted our 
personal admission into military units. I was then assigned to nearby 
Elberfeld. About 100 men of the general SS came together in the 
barracks. This was no unusal life for me. I had served actively in 
the Czecho-slovakian army, and afterwards I had completed several 
armed exercises with reserve units in Prague. However, for most of 
the men, excepting for a few World War I participants, the life of a 
soldier was completely new.

     We dressed in police uniforms with the SS-emblems and in the 
course of the next two months, basic military training followed with 
shooting and combative exercises. Our trainers were older officers 
from World War I.

Since I had had previous military training when I was in the 
Czecho-slovakian Army, I was allowed a two week furlough in 
mid-September, 1944. I was very grateful about this because it was 
sufficient time for me to travel to Tetschen to spend some time with 
my family.  Even as a young child it had always been a habit in our 
family to take long walks, several miles or more at a time, to visit 
our relatives in the neighboring villages, or to hike in the woods in 
the surrounding areas. So because of the war, instead of taking a 
vacation like we normally would have, my wife and I took our two 
little girls on several long walks. On the last day of my furlough, 
my father, my sister and her daughter joined us in an excursion to 
the plateau on the Schiechenberg where we had a splendid view of the 
Elbe River and the Valley and the surrounding Swiss like mountains 
belonging to the chain of Sudeten Mountains. Father, 79 years old at 
the time, especially enjoyed this outing. Little did we know then 
that this would be our last outing as an extended family. Or that 
never again would we see our homeland spread out so beautifully 
before us. Thankfully, we had our camera along and in our family 
photo album there is a photo of us together on the Schiechenberg.

      Several nights after my return to my military unit in Wuppertal, 
we were loaded onto trucks for an unknown destination in a westerly 
direction. Due to numerous air attacks the transport lasted several 
hours. As it turned out we were driven to Venlo in the Netherlands, 
just over the German border. As I could read it, our lodgings were in 
the "Higher Imperial Citizen's" school. We were instructed that in 
our spare time we were not allowed to move independently in the 
streets of Venlo or to venture off into the surrounding villages.

     The Normandy invasion's front was only about 30 kilometers from 
our stand in Venlo. A special bombing goal for the American/English 
warriors was the Venlo bridge over the Maass River. Our squad guarded 
this bridge night and day, because with its destruction our German 
front segment would be thwarted, making it impossible thereafter to 
take back our front. To approach the bridge, the enemy's flight 
bombers flew in on relatively low heights.  And under their massive 
fire, we aimed at these airplanes armed with only our infantry arms, 
because we in Venlo had no FLAK canons. However, we did have the 
chance to perforate their benzine containers which then forced the 
airplanes to make an unwanted landing.

      Eventually, the strategically Venlo bridge took a hit from a 
bomb and we immediately began to repair the bridge. Due to its 
weakened condition sentinal guards stationed at both ends of the 
bridge called out to our attention that for the time being no tank 
heavier than 60 tons would be allowed to cross the bridge.

      However, during the night a German tank division neared, 
intending to cross the bridge. One behind the other, two tanks, in 
spite of the guards protestations, started crossing the bridge. The 
bridge collapsed under their weight and both tanks plunged into the 
river. The men, however, were rescued. But, because of the rashness 
of these men and their refusal to face orders, this important 
connection to the German front was now out of commission, because the 
bridge could not be repaired through our workmen's improvisations. 
Heavy ferry boats were then used to carry tanks across the Maass.

Shortly after the incidence at the bridge I was appointed to perform 
cartographer work in the command post of the battalion of the S.A, 
which was situated on the second floor of a house in Venlo. It was my 
duty to keep up charts and maps.  Among the men I worked with were 
two sergeants who stemmed from Cologne and who appeared to be active 
police officials transferred during the war into the police-armed SS. 
Both reminded me of the legendary Czech soldiers, Schwejk, in the old 
Austrian-Hungarian Imperial and Royal Army, in other words, not very 
pleasing individuals. And since they had hired a Dutch woman to do 
their cleaning,  I was indeed wary. First of all these fellows 
flirted outrageously with her, and second, distrust had to suggest, 
that this woman had the opportunity to carry priviledged information 
to our enemies. In that, my suspicion was soon confirmed, because 
when hostile artillery took Venlo under fire, one of the first bombs 
to hit the city, hit our command post.

      At the sound of the alarm that day, we had all run for the 
basement of the house.  Afterwards when we crawled out, we saw that 
our house had been demolished. The enemy had done their work made to 
measure, because in the long row of look alike houses, ours was the 
only house erased. It was very clear that the cleaning woman had 
leaked to our enemies, perhaps by means of middle persons, as to 
which house our command post was located.  Naturally, we never saw 
the cleaning woman again. To be sure, she was no longer needed.

      Elsewhere during that attack on Venlo, four men from my unit 
were killed from enemy fire. A funeral rite took place back in the 
Barmen Honor Cemetery, which several of us attended, having driven 
there by car. I had the honor of speaking the address in honor of our 
fallen comrades. Until a new command post could be set up again I was 
assigned back to our main unit and took my turn as sentry near the 
bridge on the Maass River. I saw for myself the VI or V2 rockets 
taking their steered course in the sky to distant England. I could 
not even begin to imagine at that time, that years later these 
rockets would be the basis for space exploration.

      On December 3, 1944, I received orders that I was to report back 
immediately to the Erbsloh Firm in Wuppertal to resume my duties in 
the factory. And then on December 16, a Sunday, German fighting units 
from the air force thundered over Wuppertal. Powerful thunder...in 
the direction of Cologne. The last German offensive of the war was 
underway, entered into our history books as the "Ardenne Offensive" 
of the arm group B (General Field-marshall Model). The intention...to 
create a wedge, to begin at the Maass arch, with the final goal, 
Antwerp...to split the American-English-Canadian invasion front. In 
spite of the foggy weather, we had success.

      Thereafter, I obtained a furlough of several days to spend 
Christmas, 1944, in Tetschen. I took along with me two little dolls I 
had purchased in Venlo. Our Christmas feast stood under the 
impression of a very serious time, however, our German people in 
Tetschen hung under the spell of a certain mental relief, because so 
far, the Ardennes Offensive had been successful. But, I could not 
subscribe to their optimism. Actually, I was very seriously 
questioning our ability to hold out much longer. During my time in 
Venlo,  I had not seen one German airplane for persistent air attacks 
against our enemy, nor had I seen one single German cannon to 
properly answer the constant hostile barrage aimed at us. From bitter 
experience I knew that our German resources for defense, our 
airplanes, our cannons, our tanks, and so on, were limited. It could 
only appear to me that materially, we being bled to death.

      I could not speak my mind during this time of Christmas 
holidays. The times were serious enough and I had no desire to take 
the last ray of hope from anyone, especially at Christmas time, which 
is supposed to be a joyful time. As it turned out, that Christmas in 
1944 was the last Christmas I would spend with my wife and two 
daughters for ten years. To celebrate Christmas with my father, it 
was the last.

[END]

Tomorrow:  Part II

=====