Hermann lived with Inge ‘in sin’, or a ‘wild’ marriage which had nothing wild about it, for it was one without a marriage certificate, and he lived there under another name. He had escaped from a POW camp following some dangerous adventures. No one knew that he was not Inge’s legal husband (in those times it would have been a scandal) or that he had been a former Waffen SS officer. We had no inhibitions in deceiving the absurd and bureaucratic ‘collective’ régime that masses of others also sought to avoid.
The excessive number of criminals now found within the Communist authorities was just as much of a scandal. It did not need a very high intelligence on our part to hide our identity or our past from them. In my case, I had been a Dutchman under the Poles and now, I was a German with the Christian name of Heinz.
I lived with Inge and Hermann in a room at the back of their house, which was warm and comfortable, the warmth coming from the traditional tiled stove. Inge was well-known since her childhood, which was not so surprising, for her family’s textile business could be found on the market square. It had been one of the leading businesses for the last 100 years. It was highly respected, the reason for the very quick settlement permit when one had contacts!
It did not take long for me to find a circle of friends who shared my own tastes. Tastes? With that I mean in beliefs and convictions, all having been part of the young war generation, growing up in the Third Reich, and not being able to throw off its fascination. On top of this, the shock of losing the war ran deep. They would tell you that they did not feel freed, or even agreed that they had been, but that they had been betrayed of their ideals. Added to this was the brutal régime of the Soviets, which did nothing to bridge the gap between them and their convictions, and most certainly did not make them change sides! The continual defamation of the German soldier from the occupiers hardened their attitudes, beyond any doubts. We were soon to become just as much of a conspiratorial band, a corps bound together, as that which I had found in Breslau.
This new chapter in my life did not bring a new routine into it, for we were all hungry. When you needed something as nourishment, then your empty stomach had to groan until you found something to eat, which usually meant travelling for miles around. It was a catastrophe when the distance to the local farms was just too far for a bicycle ride. It sometimes resulted in going away empty-handed, because the farmers had nothing themselves. Then you had to take the train, which meant special permission. I had no trouble in obtaining this special permit for a long train journey in 1946 in those Eastern zones. I obtained a permit at the office of the ‘Antifa’, because I was a representative of the firm of Inge’s parents, and I went on buying trips for them. This process was not however possible without a certain ‘denazification’ procedure.
I travelled with a rucksack and a cardboard case filled with textiles as exchange wares, just as I had in Breslau at the junction of Scheitniger Star. I was once more ‘king’ of the road and the barter business. My expenses from the firm did not run to anything like a good square meal on the way. It was nothing more than a potato cooked in its jacket and spiced with a little salt. This pomme de terre was cold, the carriage was cold and my fingers were blue with the cold. I ate it usually just after the train rolled out of the station, in the hope that I could replace it with something edible from the farmer, on arrival. There was no heating in the train, for many a window was broken, or did not have any glass in it at all. Many were provisionally repaired with cardboard or wood but the wind whistled through the carriages nonetheless. Others could not be moved, up or down, because the leather strap for this had been cut off by passengers and taken away, most probably to sole a pair of shoes.
The whole population was now a caravan of merchants, all travelling hundreds of miles for corn, flour, potatoes or apples, anything to fill those groaning stomachs. Perhaps if one was lucky, one took possession of a bundle of dried tobacco leaves, for a puff or two. In every carriage of the train, small textile or household businesses were represented with tools, saucepans or an iron, rugs, underwear or suits as exchange wares for the farmers.
Such train journeys were not without danger and led to many accidents. A permit most certainly did not ensure you a seat. Every inch of the train was used as one, be it by climbing on to the roof, sitting on the buffers, or clinging for dear life on to door handles whilst standing and journeying on the running-board. All the ways were as dangerous as the other. For those on the roof, a tunnel meant lying flat and holding on tight in order that you were not blown away. For this far from luxurious method of travel, I invested in a pair of motorbike goggles against the soot and black smoke from the steam-engine, not only to protect my eyes, but in order to see better. When I found that there was no seat for me, then I always favoured the buffers between the carriages, where there was a little protection against the wind.
A situation that I experienced in Berlin is burned into my memory. For me it represented the basic instincts of man and took place in the almost destroyed transit station. At 11 o’clock at night, the station looked like something out of the Balkans, or a soldiers’ camp. Everywhere were bodies, men and women snatching sleep, with their arms tightly holding the treasures of that day against thieves. All were waiting for the next train, which departed at three in the morning.
As the train slowly rolled into the roofless station, there was an eruption of movement and a flood of people stormed the train. People shoved, people were pushed, elbowed and all fought for a place on the train. They screamed and fought one with another like animals. One man I saw paid the penalty of using his ingenuity, climbing in through a window, half in and half out, someone saw the opportunity of a lifetime and, from behind, helped him out of his shoes. Decent behaviour or consideration, if brought up with it, was in this situation worthless. One had to reduce yourself to that basic instinct just like everyone else.
Another time I had to journey home on the running board of the train and experienced at first hand the depths that basic instincts sink to when hungry and in need, from people in despair. I hung on, with my precious bundle strongly held between my knees. The quality of coal was not the best and public transport suffered. Second-grade coke fired the furnaces of the steam-trains and this poor quality showed itself when pulling a heavy load uphill or around bends. The train puffed its way nearly to a standstill. Those standing with their treasures on the outside of the train, were subjects of attack, from people who had reconnoitred and were standing at those points, armed with long sticks with hooks. They tried their best to snatch whatever they could away from you. Many a bundle changed hands this way, in trying to ward off the attacks with hefty kicks.
One of my journeys to Berlin forced me into the lions den, i.e. the Dutch Consulate. I had enough cheek to ask for one of those CARE packets, even as a bogus ‘displaced person.’ It was dangerous being on ‘Dutch soil’, so to speak, I could have been arrested, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, and I was not asked for any proof identity. As a German soldier I had no right to this treasured parcel, a ‘generous gesture’ from America. But my cheek paid off and I walked out of the Consulate with one under my arm. So it should not be wondered at, when some time later I was ordered to register myself in Berlin, for my name was on a wanted list. I was accused of entering foreign service without the permission of Her Majesty. That ‘Her Majesty’ had deserted her land and her people, whereas I had defended both from Communism, would not be a debatable point or argument, and so I ignored this.
I was deeply moved by the sight of the city of Berlin, the old capital city of the Third Reich. No matter in which direction one looked its destruction stretched for miles and miles. In the Zoo there was not one tree standing. It was nothing more than the bones now of the capital that it had once been. Bones that had been licked clean of its charm, culture, and its beautiful facades. Stripped of its character it stood derelict from horizon to horizon. Berlin had died, been mercilessly killed. The former American Consul for Germany, Vernon Walters, on a
visit in October 1945, declared that “Not even the war damage that I saw in Italy can compare with that which I have now seen in Berlin. It resembles a crushed skull”.
German discipline and industriousness came to the fore, an example shown by the Trummer-Frauen. They were the women who for nearly six years, had hidden in cellars by night to survive the bombing of the Allies. They had taken over the important work left behind by their soldier husbands. At the same time they brought up their children. They showed the world that it was time for a new start. They sorted half a brick here, a whole one there, and threw them into piles. From houses that had once been, they were now symbols of reconstruction.
I only learned later about the battle for Berlin. I heard from French volunteers, who had like me, volunteered to fight against Communism and who, in Kolberg and especially in Berlin had given their last drop of sweat and blood for the cause. Their sacrifice is without comparison. In the centre of Berlin, it was the ‘Charlemagne’ who fought to their last man and destroyed sixty enemy tanks. The American historian Cornelius Ryan reports in his book, The Last Battle, that nearly 100,000 women were raped in Berlin, by Russian soldiers. A further 6,000 committed suicide rather than live under the rule of the Bolshevik régime. At that time the ‘missing persons’ list increased out of all proportion, as the people of Berlin were dragged from their homes by the Reds and transported away to the East.
I was to experience the extreme contrast of misery and amusement at that time. Hundreds froze and starved in the extremely cold winter of 1946/47. The old people were the sacrifices, not having the strength to trudge cross-country with a rucksack for their needs. That was one side of the picture and the other presented itself in the amusement of the newly presented American way of life. I ventured one evening to the area around the railway station, ‘Berlin Zoo’, to take a look for myself. Already in the early evening I heard the ‘swing and jazz’ oozing from the murky underground bars and clubs. It was an offence to the ears of every normal German. They were newly formed in the cellars of the houses. In those bars, a bottle of whisky cost the princely sum of 800 marks. The well-nourished ‘kings of the black market’ enjoyed the spoils of their unscrupulous business deals. Needless to say, there were the highly made-up madams, who were willing to hop around, to ‘jitter-bug’ with the crew-cut styled and sweat-bathed GIs in an ecstasy of wild movement, which released all their inhibitions.
The ‘black’ market in the Scheitniger-Stern was harmless in comparison to Berlin, for it was strictly forbidden. Forbidden or not, it flourished. The people were in dire need and already there were new selling spots for one’s dealings, be it in house doorways, or an abandoned bus, or a cellar. Once more everything was there. Once more, the ‘man in the street’ could not afford the prices. When one was caught scheming and dealing, then one could expect the hardest of sentences from the authorities. Every one took the risk, for they had no other choice. It was a code of honour to procure what one could for the simplest or the most urgent of needs. Prison was the result. More than once I came close to this, although I never had any ‘hot wares’ on my person.
This happened in Berlin, Dresden and in Leipzig, where police sirens were to be heard. Police in old Wehrmacht uniforms dyed black stormed out of lorries, together with Russian soldiers in jeeps. The streets were very quickly cordoned off encircling the innocent as well as the scheming dealers. One had to be like the wind to escape. One had to be fit in order to be far quicker than they. I thanked my lucky stars for my sports training as a soldier, that life-saving training for the battlefield. This was also a battlefield, but of another sort and the ruins gave plenty of cover.
One should not be too critical of the ‘black’ market, however much one thinks it criminal and unjust. It was however the only possibility one had of surviving the drastic conditions that reigned, and more drastic they could not have been. This ‘black’ market forced the last ten pounds of potatoes or carrots out of the farmers’ cellars. The only commodity one could not buy for one’s welfare was coal.
It was a very hard winter, with polar conditions in 1946/47, with the same below freezing temperatures of 20—25° that we had experienced in Silesia and Russia. People not only starved to death, but they froze too, some not being able to fend for themselves. They died by the dozen. The goods section of the railway station in Berlin was guarded like Fort Knox, to avoid the theft of fuel brickettes which were now worth more than gold. The thieves, professionals and or simply fathers of children, were now forced to thieve whilst the goods train was in motion. Some times they found outlying stations where they could uncouple a whole wagon on a dark night, and empty it of its contents. Those goods were meant for the Russian Army and the warmth of their soldiers. The joy of the ‘little German man’ was therefore doubled and trebled, for why should they be the only ones who were warm? So they joined the bands of thieves, wheelers and dealers, who were to be found in the whole of the land. “Steal what you can” was the word in those days.
The normal citizen yearned for an orderly way of life. The Soviets put the pressure on, spraying the land with psychological terror, in the form of political propaganda, such as “learn from the Soviet Union to be victorious”, or “Long live Stalin, the best friend of the German people”. The media were also involved in this brainwashing, particularly in films, in which the German soldier, the Wehrmacht was always the cowardly rogue. Russian actors roared in mime, depicting simple and naive Teutons with helmets sitting crookedly on the backs of their heads, in a stupor from alcohol. Was it an interpretation based on their own behaviour? The Waffen SS were to be seen in the field, in their black parade dress, naturally with white-blond hair, their eyes in a bestial gaze as they took part in erotically sadistic torture of a lovely lady member of the Russian partisans. Naturally enough this lady held the Russian flag high in not giving anything away. It was distaste ful and the worst sort of propaganda, but so apt coming from the Communists. They however were not the only ones.
Already at the end of the thirties, incitement against the German race started in America. They too used their film industry for their propaganda, with one of ‘those nasty Germans’ replacing one of ‘those nasty Red Indians’. Uncountable numbers of those films flooded the screens in the western zones after 1945. Everyone could see spine-chilling and gruesome stories on celluloid, for the brainwashing had begun on the screen!
The American high command possessed, of all things, a Psychoiogical Department! The Chief of this department readily admitted having manipulated and falsified stories, including parts of Hitler’s speeches.
Upon her arrival in Detmold and before I had left Breslau, Brigitte had written to my parents on my behalf. Her letter was the first contact with my parents in which she could but did not mention my name, although she informed them that I was alive and well, and that we were befriended. One must remember that letters were censored. It was in September 1946 that she received an answering letter, from my younger brother Cornelis. He had written that every member of my family had been interned. He wrote that under no circumstances was I either to return to Holl and or even write to my family. Those few words confirmed my fears and my opinions of the political situation back in my homeland. A second letter was to arrive in Detmold. This time it was from my eldest sister Louisa and contained very sad news for me. Brigitte had to in form me that I had lost two very dear members of my family, my father and one of my brothers, the eldest.
My father had died just a few weeks before she had received the first letter from Cornelis. He had died in the Dutch Internment camp in Amersfoort on 27 August. There were only bare facts because of the censorship. Therefore there were no details on the death of my brother Jan, other than that he had died eighteen months before in Assen, on 3 March. I had seen both, for the last time, two and a half years before, but had heard nothing from my family since the end of 1944. My brother Jan was just 27 years old when he died. The news was very bitter for me, very painful. My father had died in an intern
ment camp at the age of 62. For days I could only read and re-read those few lines. I turned to stone trying to imagine the cause of his death, for those lines filled me with fear. For days this brought me to tears trying to assess the cause of death of both my father and my brother. And I could not go home? I could not write? I could not give any support in what had to be a terrible time, for the ominous warning from Cornelis had been clear enough. It was only later that I was to learn of the dimensions of the tragedy, of the Odyssey that my parents, my five brothers and my two sisters had had to suffer in my absence.
My longing to go to my family was replaced with that of wanting to go to Brigitte and it gave me no peace. However, she warned me against a visit to her in the British zone. It was too dangerous. Thousands however had managed to escape from the Russian zone, and from the organisation of their distribution. They wanted to escape from Communist rule, and did so in such numbers, that on 5 July 1946 the borders were closed. One could only travel from one zone to another with a special permit and by train. This ‘inter-zone’ permit was impossible to obtain.
Despite being trapped ‘behind the Iron Curtain’, a term first used by Joseph Goebbels and which was thereafter used also by Winston Churchill, there were escape routes, but one had to find them. I had to find them, for I was not going to be deterred from my visit to Detmold. With a map, and advice on a possible route, I started an illegal journey over the border, to an area that was called the ‘Green Border’ and checkpoint. It was still dangerous, despite its description, but did not have a minefield, barbed wire, or the wide coverless strip called the Death Strip, in full view of the guards. There were however patrolling Russian guards.
In the Fire of the Eastern Front Page 32