by Heinz Kohler
Fritz kept rubbing his fingers; the Führer continued:
“What our enemies are fighting for, they themselves, except for their Jews, don’t know. What we are fighting for is clear to all of us: For the preservation of the German person, for our homeland, for the children and grandchildren of our people. Let the world know that this nation will never capitulate!"
Dr. Dietrich sat with his eyes closed. I sneaked a look at the leaflet in my pocket:
“The new Germany needs men, not skeletons. Therefore, capitulate!”
The Führer’s voice grew hoarse:
“You must fight like Indians, and be brave like lions! You must be cunning! Shoot till the last bullet is spent, then fight to the last blow with the rifle butt! Every means by which you hold your position and destroy the Bolsheviks is right and holy. There is no turning back. Those who don’t want to fight and seek to desert will be liquidated. Defeat every coward, smart aleck, and pessimist!”
The music came back. Dr. Dietrich opened his eyes. I crumpled up the leaflet inside my pocket.
A leaflet dropped by the Soviets in 1945
Soldiers! In Hitler’s army your inevitable destruction is certain; in Russian captivity, however, the Red Army guarantees you life, safety, and return to your home after the end of the war.
You have a choice:
LIFE OR SENSELESS DEATH
This leaflet serves as a passport for an unlimited number of German soldiers and officers who surrender to Russian troops.
24. People’s Storm
[January – February 1945]
Let me tell you now about the last few months of the war. By the time we had made it to 1945, the whole world was on fire, but I was preoccupied with a much smaller war of my own. I so hated people who claimed to know God’s opinion about everything, who had a direct pipeline to the Almighty, and who never missed a chance to tell others so! I am talking, of course, about good old Pastor Jahn. It must have been about the middle of January, as I was walking through the school corridor to get to my music class, when I ran into him. It so happened that there was nobody else around, and he used the occasion to have the last word in our discussion.
“You know, Hans,” he hissed, with his eyes turning into ominous little slits, “a prayer of mine is about to be answered…” and faster than you can say One, Two, Three, he slapped me on the left ear and the right ear and the left one again. For a brief moment, I stood chin-to-chest with Pastor Jahn as his fingers dug into my shoulders and he shook me violently as if he were trying to shake off a poisonous snake. Then he slapped me one more time across the face–for good measure, as he put it–and walked off as if we hadn’t even met. My nose was bleeding and I silently swore revenge.
Being with my music teacher, Miss Mahler, was an entirely different matter. She was nice to me. She was also very smart about political things, which is why my mother liked her, too. When they first met, Miss Mahler had said “Good Morning” rather than “Heil Hitler” to her. We both knew what she was doing.
On the day of my run-in with Pastor Jahn, for example, Miss Mahler went to the blackboard and wrote down the names of all the great musicians we were about to study that year:
Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck (1714-1787),
Josef Haydn (1732-1809),
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791),
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827),
Karl Maria von Weber (1786-1826),
Karl Loewe (1796-1869),
Franz Schubert (1797-1828),
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847),
Robert Schumann (1810-1856),
Guiseppe Verdi (1813-1901),
Richard Wagner (1813-1883).
In my mind, one name stood out as if it had been written in red, and I instantly thought of my visit with Mrs. Thomas, who ran the grocery store. Mendelssohn was a Jew, and Dr. Dietrich would surely have turned red in the face if he had seen that name on the board. But there it was, nevertheless. However, for the time being, Miss Mahler was safe. Nobody else in class had noticed a thing and we were turning to Richard Wagner first.
“Richard Wagner,” Miss Mahler said, “was born in Leipzig in 1813; he was buried in Bayreuth in 1883. At age 20, he already held his first job as a conductor; he spent the rest of his life writing many Romantic operas, often based on Germanic legends.”
She mentioned Tannhäuser (1845), Lohengrin (1848), The Ring of the Nibelungen (1852 and later), and Parsifal (1872).
“The Ring of the Nibelungen,” Miss Mahler said, “comes in four parts. The first of these is Rheingold, It tells the story of a Germanic god, Wotan, who makes a deal with giants to build him a great mansion in the sky, to be called Valhalla, where the souls of slain heroes are to reside. In return, he promises them Freia, who is the caretaker of the Garden of the Gods, which contains apples that give eternal youth…”
I only half listened to the story. My eyes drifted to the clouds sailing past the window–I saw pouch-like cumulonimbus mammatus, indicating the approach of a severe thunderstorm–and I looked in vain for a glimpse of the gods residing above them in the sky. My mind pictured airplanes diving out of these very clouds, spitting fire and destruction upon us who would not believe…
“The second part of the Nibelungen,” I heard Miss Mahler say, “is called Valkyrie. It tells the story of a knight, called Siegmund, who must fight Hunding, his arch enemy. But Siegmund has fallen in love with Hunding’s wife Sieglinde, who shows him the oak into which a stranger once put a sword. Siegmund succeeds in getting it out; it is Wotan’s sword! Wotan watches all this from the sky and decides to let Siegmund win, but after Freia points out that Siegmund is an adulterer, he orders one of his handmaidens, Brunhilde, to give the victory to Hunding. She disobeys, and Siegmund wins. Wotan, now furious, kills Siegmund himself, but Brunhilde hides Sieglinde from the angry god. As punishment, Wotan places Brunhilde on a rock surrounded by an ocean of flames….”
I saw airplanes diving out of clouds, spitting flames from their wings, and I felt the heat from the sea of flames surrounding our house when it was still there. I felt dizzy and scared and I wished I had my Valerian drops.
“The third part of the Nibelungen,” I heard Miss Mahler say, “is called Siegfried, who turns out to be the son of Siegmund and Sieglinde. Siegfried learns to be a blacksmith and remakes Wotan’s sword. Siegfried uses it to kill the giant called Fafner, and when Siegfried touches the giant’s blood, he can suddenly understand the language of animals. A kindly bird shows him the way to Brunhilde, whom Siegfried frees after fighting Wotan himself.”
And I saw airplanes dive out of clouds, spitting flames from their wings, and I felt the heat from the sea of flames surrounding our house, and I saw images of blood, the lieutenant’s blood and Dieter’s blood, and my heart pounded in my chest. But Miss Mahler was relentless.
“The fourth and last part of the Nibelungen,” I heard Miss Mahler say, “is called the Twilight of the Gods. At this point in the story, we find Wotan deeply depressed about his loss to Siegfried. He cuts down the World Oak and stacks its wood around Valhalla to burn it down….In the end, Siegfried is killed, his body is burned on the banks of the Rhine, Brunhilde jumps onto the pyre, and the heavens turn a fiery red. The twilight of the gods has come, because the gods were too guilty and too weak.”
And I saw airplanes dive out of clouds, spitting flames from their wings, and I felt the heat from the sea of flames surrounding our house, and I saw images of blood, the lieutenant’s blood and Dieter’s blood and I saw charred bodies piling up in the street and the sky a fiery red, as it always was when we emerged from the shelter after a raid….
“Hans,” Miss Mahler said, “are you even listening?”
I looked around and, except for Miss Mahler, everyone was gone.
“As I said, you are a little behind the rest of the class so far as music is concerned,” Miss Mahler said, “I think it would do you good to have some private lessons with Mr. Kalitz. I’ll talk to your mo
ther about it.”
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And so it was to be. Private lessons were arranged, and Mr. Kalitz, who was not in the military because he had a deformed leg, made me listen to the Nibelungen, and all sorts of other recordings, on the record player in his living room, every Thursday afternoon, right after school. I don’t remember much about the music, but I do remember his walking stick which stood right next to the couch on which I was to sit. As was customary in those days, his walking stick was covered with all sorts of tiny metal plates that indicated the places he had visited in some earlier and happier days: Copenhagen, Paris, Ibiza, Malta, Rome. But Mr. Kalitz smoked cigarettes, and I hated the smell of them in his house and on his breath. And he annoyed me further by continually cleaning his ears with a tiny silver scoop attached to an ivory handle. So I was determined to sabotage the whole enterprise until one Thursday afternoon when, upon opening his front door, I heard the characteristic boom, boom, boom, BOOM of the BBC. He was mighty nervous when he realized what I had heard, but I told him I was an old friend of the BBC and he had nothing to fear from me. That was the day we became best friends and these are some of the stories we heard:
1945
January 12
Marshal Konyev’s First Ukrainian Front opens offensive along Vistula River
January 18
Russians troops take Warsaw, the first European capital to have fallen to Hitler’s Blitzkrieg. As a result, Russians stand 433 kilometers from Berlin
January 23
Russian troops enter German territory in East Prussia
Swedish radio confirms: Russian troops, finding Russian soldier dead in village street, liquidate whole population of village
More members of the German resistance, linked to the July plot, are killed in Plötzensee prison, including Count Helmuth von Moltke, Eugen Bolz, and Erwin Planck, son of Nobel Prize winner Max Planck
January 30
The Strength-Through-Joy ship Wilhelm Gustloff , having departed the Baltic Sea port of Gdynia with over 5,000 East Prussian refugees, is sunk by a Russian submarine
Russian troops reach Oder River
February 13
First of several Allied air raids on Dresden, which is totally destroyed
February 24
Russian troops seize Lower Silesia
To my surprise, some of the events just noted were more or less confirmed even by Radio Berlin. During the Vistula offensive, war correspondent Heinz Meyerlein was quoted as follows:
“The Russians are using their new Joseph Stalin super-tank on an ever-increasing scale. This most powerfully gunned and armored vehicle in the world, carrying, as it does, a 122 mm gun, is more than a match for our best tank, the Royal Tiger, and its 88 mm gun.”
Likewise, on January 30, the 12th anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s government, and, ironically, also the 2nd anniversary of the Stalingrad defeat, Dr. Goebbels admitted to recent military retreats, but concluded, nevertheless, by yelling “We shall win, because we must win!”
And in late February, the bombing of Dresden was confirmed by all German radio stations. An outraged speaker on Radio Germany noted “the wanton destruction of churches, hospitals, and cultural treasures in a city that had no strategic value, was undefended, and was crammed with Silesian refugees.” Radio Berlin reported 15 square kilometers flattened and 50,000 dead. It even recounted the burning, by a special SS detachment, of 6,865 corpses on pyres in the Altmarkt [Old Marketplace].
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It was about then that Dr. Dietrich canceled school and organized a rally in front of the Town Hall. A policeman blew a trumpet and Dr. Dietrich told everyone that it was time for all Ziesar citizens to help organize a Volkssturm [People's Storm] against the enemy. Ever since last October, he said, town after town had joined in; now it was our turn. Every male aged 12-16 or aged 45 and above and, therefore, currently outside the regular army, was to be trained for this new civilian army. Having just turned 12 the previous summer, I didn’t like what I heard. My mother was standing next to me; she must have been reading my thoughts.
“They are not going to get my boy,” she said, stroking my hair, but then there was that trumpet again.
“Under Heinrich Himmler, Supreme Leader of the SS and Minister of the Interior,” Dr. Dietrich said, “the People’s Storm is ideally suited to stop the enemy advance. Make no mistake about it, you kill the enemy or he kills you. Every hour, we get new reports of terrible happenings in the occupied areas. In East Prussia, Marshal Konyev’s Cossacks use their sabers to hack down every living thing, even those who try to surrender. His tanks charge into columns of brave defenders, running them down and crushing them under their tracks. Vicious Mongols drench women and children with gasoline and set them on fire…and out west, savage Blacks machine-gun cripples in a hospital... That’s why you must join the People’s Storm and strike the enemy at the throat. You must defend the fatherland to the last drop of blood! Heil Hitler!”
There was that trumpet again. My mind drifted back to the BBC and its boom, boom, boom, BOOM signature. “Three short notes and one long note,” Mr. Kalitz had said, “is the Morse code for V, which stands for victory. It’s also the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.” I liked learning things like that.
“Idiots,” my mother said, “now they want to sacrifice teenagers and the elderly; they are not going to get you, Hansel, not as long as I’m alive.”
She hugged me and we went home. But my mother couldn’t foresee what would happen in school the next day. Dr. Dietrich canceled all regular classes and brought us all into the big auditorium, where he showed us two films, one about Soviet barbarism, the other about the People’s Storm.
The first film told the story of Nemmersdorf, an East Prussian village that had been briefly occupied by the Russians on October 22, 1944. When German troops under General Friedrich Hossbach liberated the village a few days later, the announcer said, they could not believe their eyes, which is why they filmed it all: Not a single person in the village was alive; all had been murdered in the most bestial fashion. Some had been crushed by tanks; babies had had their heads bashed in; dozens of naked women had been nailed to barn doors, in cruciform positions, like Jesus on the cross! That should motivate all of us, Dr. Dietrich said, to defend the fatherland to the last drop of blood.
The second film featured Reich Youth Leader Artur Axman at the Berlin Reichssportfeld [Reich Sports Field]. He was training Hitler Youths in the use of the Panzerfaust, a rocket-propelled grenade, a single one of which could allegedly destroy a tank.
“The Panzerfaust,” he said, “must be fired only at close range, preferably at the tank’s turret.”
We watched the formation of the first Panzerjagd Division [Tank Hunting Division], consisting of Hitler Youths on bicycles, each carrying two Panzerfausts, one on each side of their handlebars. And while the bicycle division rode off into the sunset, Artur Axman’s voice talked of the heroism of Sparta, of performing tasks, even suicidal tasks, that would prove our unwavering loyalty to the Führer.
Then Dr. Dietrich gathered up all of us who were at least 12 years of age and marched us down to the castle. In the central yard, several policemen were waiting next to a series of harvest wagons, but the horses were missing. Dr. Dietrich said we would be outfitted presently and we would receive our first training later that afternoon. For that purpose, he arranged us in a long line, which reminded me of all the queuing I had done at stores in Berlin.
The first outfitting station was a wagon filled with uniforms of all shapes and sizes. Some of us received army jackets, but when we struggled to get our arms through sleeves made for grown-ups, the emphasis shifted to a rather chaotic array of head gear. There were only a few smaller-sized steel helmets for boys; the regular army helmets dropped over our ears and eyes. There were also a bunch of Käppis [side hats] and even a few World War I Pickelhauben [peaked caps]. I managed to get a Pickelhaube and, like everyone else, a fancy armband with the inscription "German People'
s Storm---Army."
The second wagon was filled with weapons and ammunition, again of many different types. There were some sabers from the War of 1870/71, some World War I service pistols, a whole bunch of 1940 French rifles with 4 bullets each, and all sorts of hunting rifles. Because I couldn’t hold a rifle to my shoulder–it was too long for my short arms–the policeman gave me one of those hand grenades with wooden handles that were piled up behind him. But all that unexploded ordnance made me awfully nervous and I put the grenade back when he wasn’t looking.
The third wagon contained several large boxes, each labeled Volkshandgranate #45 [People’s Hand Grenade #45]. Those grenades, we were told, would be used in our practical training presently. We were asked to carry one of the boxes into the open fields outside the castle yard, but it was far too heavy. That’s why the policemen carried it themselves.
Once outside the yard, Captain Werther, who was the Chief of Police, took over. He taught us how to line up in rows of three, march to the sound of Left…Left…One, Two, Three, Four, Left…, then stop, and make an about-face for inspection. He cursed, cajoled, and threatened us when we didn’t stand straight enough or when a jacket wasn’t buttoned right or somebody’s hair wasn’t properly combed. Then he grasped a pole with a rolled-up flag from his deputy, planted the pole’s butt firmly on ground, and shook the flag loose until its red field and white circle with the black swastika broke into the light. Then he drew a sword, held it up, where it gleamed in the sun, and made us take the oath.
“In the presence of this blood banner,” we repeated after him, “which represents our Führer, I swear to devote all my energies and my strength to the savior of our country, Adolf Hitler. I am willing and ready to give up my life for him, so help me God.”