Hitler's Girls: Doves Amongst Eagles

by Heath, Tim

  Under the Volkssturm and Werewolf Project, Anna Dann, the little fifteen-year-old Berliner, was also given basic introduction on the use of weapons during the mass militarization of German society.

  It was quite frightening, as in our BDM meetings we suddenly went from learning about first aid, childcare and homecare, and making things like gloves and hats for our soldiers in Russia, to learning about guns and how to kill people. There had suddenly developed an air of depression that seemed to sweep across the whole of the city. We were told that we must learn to use weapons so as we could help defend the city if the enemy invaded. There was no way I could lift up an army rifle; I was only a small girl. In fact, many of my friends in the BDM group giggled as I struggled with one of the rifles, trying to lift it up. It was swiftly taken away from me when I almost dropped it on my toes. I was then shown stick grenades and Panzerfaust rockets, both of which were quite easy to use.

  We were also told that during the coming weeks we would learn basic marksmanship and would have to learn to fire air rifles at paper targets. If necessary, air rifles would be used to fire pellets at enemy soldiers, which, when you think about it, is pretty ridiculous. My parents were quite horrified and were not happy at all with the idea of me having to handle weapons. My two brothers Franz and Josef were even more concerned, and they later told Mother and Father that the other men serving with the flak units had planned to flee Berlin if things became too bad, as they did not wish to see their families die in a futile battle. Franz and Josef knew how bad things were and hinted at this often to Mother and Father.

  It was quite clear at that time that the war was going very badly and could be lost, and all hopes would have to remain with some crazy defensive strategy, which included us children. It was insane to see little girls carrying Panzerfaust tubes when they had previously carried dolls in their arms.

  Over and over again we were told, ‘If you do not do your own personal duty to your Führer and the Reich, then Germany will fail and you will all be made communists under Stalinist-Russian rule, and you will only have yourselves to carry the guilt.’

  Each day though, more and more people were joining the refugee columns pouring through the city from east of Berlin. We often talked with these people and they said that the Russians were coming and that nothing could stop them. Some of the Berliners would shout ‘Feigling!’ [coward] or ‘Verräter!’ [traitor] at these wretched people.

  Kirsten Eckermann, having completed her RADwf land-labour service had spent some time in Essen with her aunt. She returned to Berlin in late 1944 to find the populace consumed by the madness of the suicidal Volkssturm and Werewolf mobilization.

  I had kept in touch with my family in Berlin via letter, and used to listen to the radio to find out about the events taking place in Berlin and all over Germany. You could never tell which were truthful or which was propaganda, though, with the nightly radio broadcasts. I found it very scary when Hitler announced news of creating a people’s army. I did not want my mother or father to have to fight, and to be honest, I did not really want to have to fight either.

  When I returned to Berlin in November of 1944, after spending some time with my aunt and four cousins in Essen, I was able to get work quite easily as I now had experience with driving various cars and lorries, and was able to turn my hand to more or less anything. More and more men were being required to join the war, and we women had to fill in for them when they went away. After two months of working with the postal services and telecommunications, I ended up with three other young women as a train driver.

  The BDM began to play a greater role, as more girls were required to replace the men leaving Berlin and other cities to fight. Though that did not mean that I escaped the Volkssturm mobilization, and I too had to learn to use a weapon. Most common was the Panzerfaust and stick grenades that we had to learn to use properly. Huge supplies of these weapons were poured into the city, ready in case they were needed. It was common to see small children practice throwing stick bombs in the parks, and Volkssturm members encouraging these proud little warriors. I also saw little boys of between eight and ten with stick bombs in their trouser belts, proudly showing off their weapons and giving passersby Hitler salutes. The Volkssturm armband worn on their coats or jackets identified those men as belonging to the Volkssturm.

  As I travelled the familiar route through the city on the train runs, it was obvious things had changed considerably. It was a pathetic sight, in many cases old men, some of whom could barely walk, wearing the Volkssturm armband. The ordinary people were no longer happy; they were absolutely tired of the years of war and having to hide away in air-raid shelters throughout the day and night, and were physically and emotionally exhausted by it all. We were all suffering from the rationing of food, the constant threat from the air raids, and most were tired of the promises of better things that had not materialized under the National Socialists.

  There were also whispered rumours that millions of Jews, Poles gypsies and many German non-conforming nationals had been slaughtered by our own soldiers in specialist death camps, which seemed to permeate every day conversation. Now they were being told to prepare to fight or die, and that only traitors would not stand up and fight.

  The people of Berlin had always been a bright and fiercely proud people, but now that pride had gone and was being replaced by fear. We didn’t want to fight, no one did, even our parents and grandparents were being called up to fight in the Volkssturm and both Mother and Father were taught how to use a rifle. During the evenings we discussed what would happen if the worst came, and we had a plan that we would throw away the guns and try and head in a westerly direction out of the city to safety. It seemed better to take our chances and head for the English and Americans to the west, it was considered suicide to head east. Though some had already left the city, new laws were soon put in place by the authorities and these laws were reaffirmed by the Gestapo, in an effort to dissuade or prevent people from leaving Berlin. Soon anyone attempting to leave Berlin would be arrested if caught and would be a traitor to the Reich and the Führer. This carried a death penalty and even children were told they could be shot for trying to flee. Often they were told that if they refused to stay and fight, their parents would be executed. We were also told that if we were called upon to defend Berlin, then it would only be until our armies arrived to take over.

  Goebbels was still churning out propaganda, calling for every man, woman and child to stand firm and that Germany would be like a phoenix rising from the ashes, saved by our Führer Adolf Hitler, all this to a backdrop of corpses hanging by ropes from trees and lampposts.

  The degree of shooting skills attained by the girls of the BDM at the Hitler Youth firing ranges varied considerably, as Sophia Kortge explains:

  Some of the girls were absolutely hopeless shots and could not hit a thing, in fact they were dangerous. The rifle instructor was a young man from the Hitler Youth who had been given the task of training us to shoot properly. He once went berserk and refused to train one group of girls after one of them fired a rifle by accident and the bullet just missed him. He later complained and had said something about ‘life being much safer fighting the Russians than training that lot to shoot’. Yet some of the girls were pretty good and just needed nurturing.

  From talking with the one-time child combatants, it has become obvious that the defensive strategies of both the Volkssturm and the Werewolf Project were arranged so that the children and civilian fighting units would in a way bog down and severely hinder the enemy advance. Hitler had, by this time, removed any feeling of guilt over the use of Germany’s children to achieve his military aims. He once said, ‘I have no scruples and I will use whatever weapon I require.’

  On 3 January 1945, a document was issued outlining a new proposal, stating that girls of the BDM and boys of the Hitler Youth would be called upon to replace post office officials in German cities. The idea was that 60,000 male postal officials could then be released for army
service, or, in some cases, for employment in war industries, though this duty would not affect their military mobilization should it be required. The previously secret document obtained by David Jackman states the following order:

  The Reichsjugendführung [Reich Youth Leadership] has declared service in the postal service to be a Jugenddienstpflicht [Youth Conscript]. Boys and girls between twelve and fourteen years old wearing Hitler Youth or BDM uniform will be employed, for five hours a day, on light duties such as letter-sorting, messenger services, assisting in the telephone exchanges, etc.

  On 1 March 1945, copies of a document was issued to all Hitler Youth leaders or their authorized deputies.

  The document outlined the importance and the immense damage that can be caused to the enemy by basic sabotage techniques. The techniques outlined were instructed to young girls and boys under the Volkssturm and Werewolf Project, along with weapons training programmes. In this declassified document, also sourced by David Jackman, the thirteen basic rudiments of sabotage are explained:

  1. Sugar in gasoline. This causes pistons to get stuck and the motor becomes unserviceable.

  2. Sand in gasoline. Fuel lines and valves become clogged and the motor is rendered temporarily unserviceable.

  3. Tar in intake valves on motors and wheels (in case of railway cars). Bearing burn out and vehicles get out of control and become unserviceable.

  4. Placing of metal spikes at road curves during the night. Tyres of vehicles blow out and vehicles get out of control and become unserviceable.

  5. Stretching piano wire across the road in the dark (in this case consider the colouring of the wire). Vehicles and especially motorcycle couriers can be put out of action.

  6. Laying boards with nails at road curves. The result same as in 4.

  7. Placing rocks into switches. Switches cannot be set and trains will derail or collide and the enemy suffers heavy losses.

  8. Laying drag-shoes on open track stretches. Trains derail.

  9. Destroy wire mechanism for controlling semaphore signals. Trains go past signals and derail or collide.

  10. Connecting power and telephone lines by throwing wires over both lines. At all exchanges connected with that line the apparatus will burn out.

  11. Piercing membrane in telephone receiver by means of a pointed pencil. One party can hear, but the other one cannot.

  12. Tearing down enemy telephone cables. Interruption of enemy communications and command systems.

  13. Steal from the enemy whatever you can. Weapons, ammunition, equipment, parts of uniform, food gasoline; in fact everything that belongs to the enemy and that he can utilize destroy in any out of the way place, so that he cannot find anything on you if you are searched.

  It is difficult to see how any enemy, particularly those of the British, Canadian and American forces, could have psychologically prepared themselves to confront units of either the adult civilian Volkssturm or child Werewolves.

  Allied intelligence warned that troops could find themselves under attack from civilians and children, but the rules of engagement were not to be changed.

  The Red Army High Command, on the other hand however, knew all too well from experiences such as the terrible siege of Stalingrad, that in war sometimes every resource has to be pooled in order to survive, let alone emerge victorious, even if it does defy acceptable grounds of morality. The Red Army was also sending its female soldiers into battle, and some of them would fight units of German female combatants pressed into service in the Volkssturm or the Werewolf Project.

  The scene was now set. As the Allies approached Aachen from the west – just across the Dutch border – with the intention of taking the first major city in Nazi Germany, the Russians were rapidly clawing back the German-occupied territories from the east.

  The reality of the German situation was conveyed to the people by changes in the methodology of the German propaganda machine. The message had dramatically shifted emphasis from that of great nationalistic pride and conquest of weaker nations, to that of the preservation of the Fatherland, regardless of cost. By means of Nazi propaganda newsreels and films, the German nation was warned of what awaited them should they ever fall under Russian occupation.

  With the Allied air forces now ruling the skies over their country, and the rumble of distant Russian guns in the east now audible, even the most misinformed of Germans could not help but be aware of the seriousness of the military situation.

  The Volkssturm and Werewolves would soon get the chance to prove themselves in battle.

  Chapter Twelve

  A Playground with Guns

  After the remarkably successful but equally costly acquisition of their Normandy beachhead on 6 June 1944, the Western Allies began to break out from the invasion beaches to begin their difficult advance inland into enemy-occupied territories. The battles that followed clearly illustrated to the Allied forces that the liberation of Europe would be both costly in terms of material and human casualties – a task that would be anything other than easy. It was also clear that the German forces were prepared and willing to contest every square kilometre of ground.

  The youth of Germany had also proved themselves fanatical in some respects when Canadian forces engaged the 12th SS Panzer Division-Hitler Jugend in Normandy. This unit of Hitler Youth boys fought with a ferocity never before experienced, or indeed, expected by many of the battle-hardened Allied soldiers. The conduct of the 12th SS Panzer Division-Hitler Jugend in the field of combat can only best be described as barbaric. In their wake, they left only murder and mayhem.

  The first real test for the Jung Madel and BDM girls of the Hitler Youth operating as Werewolves would come in the battle for Aachen. The battle developed as a consequence of the United States First Army’s offensive to break through the Westwall fortifications, the German term for what the British called the Siegfried Line. Aachen was the first German city within the Third Reich to face an attack from the Allies, and was therefore from many perspectives a target of immense importance. Space does not permit what would be a lengthy narrative for the attack on Aachen, but there is much material available online and in print, which explains the Allied plans in their entirety should the reader wish to research the battle further.

  In the city itself, prior to an inevitable American attack, the atmosphere was said to have been intense beyond description. Many of the young women in Aachen, with young children and babies, had gone to shelter in cellars and air-raid shelters, while Werewolf groups, made up of older children and those enlisted with the Volkssturm, were busy preparing and taking up positions within the city. Weapons had been distributed amongst the population and all they could do was await the inevitable storm that was to sweep through their city.

  Barbie Densk was born and raised in Aachen, a city and its people she loved very much. After turning fourteen in August 1943, she had also joined the BDM with many of her school friends. She had also volunteered to become a Werewolf, and was now with a large group of girls and boys preparing to defend Aachen, lying in wait in a trench with a loaded rifle by her side.

  She periodically picked up a pair of binoculars to scour the terrain immediately in front of her, her piercing brown eyes searching for signs of movement amongst the barricades of upturned commercial vehicles and city trams. Beyond the barricades lay a railway line. Enemy movement had been spotted within that area, so it was presumed that the enemy might choose to simultaneously attack from that direction. Barbie wore a whistle on a length of black lanyard around her neck. At the first sign of enemy soldiers approaching, she was to blow the whistle as hard as she could to alert everyone. She explains the general plan of defence and what the waiting was like:

  Waiting for something to happen, that was the worst part. I had left my mother and father during the early hours of 10 October, as I had volunteered to help defend our home and our city. All Volkssturm and Werewolf members had been mobilised as a result of German intelligence that had warned of a possible enemy attack
on the city, but we were given no suggestions as to when it might happen, and were just told to prepare ourselves.

  The preparatory shelling and bombing by the Americans had probably been warning enough to most that the Americans were going to attack soon, and we wondered if they were going to hit us from everywhere at once. Mother, Father and my two young brothers and younger sister had moved long ago with other civilians to the safety of the main air-raid shelter a short distance from our homes. Mother in particular was very unhappy with me being involved in any possible defence or fighting in or around the city, and said that maybe I should hide somewhere. My father offered to go in my place, but because of a physical impediment, the local authority flatly refused this request. I told them both not to worry about me, and that I was not foolish, and besides, nothing might happen after all.

  We travelled to the various weapons-collection points in the city and were each given a weapon. There had been some heavy sporadic bombardment so we were forced to move quickly around the city, making use of any cover. A long snake of old men, boys and girls trudged their way to the weapons-collection points. At the collection point, I was issued with a rifle because I had proved during the great mobilization that I could shoot. I had trained using an air rifle, firing small lead bullets at paper targets and empty tins. I had only fired a proper army rifle a few times previous and I found the kick rather painful to my shoulder area. Other girls within my group had grenades and rocket launchers.

  We were also offered steel helmets and I decided to take one of these. I was later told by one of our soldiers to make sure I did not have the strap done up too tightly under my chin. He told me if possible to leave it loosened or completely unfastened, and when I asked why, he explained that if I were shot in the head, even with just a glancing blow, because of the force of impact the helmet would get blown backwards off my head and the strap could break my neck. The soldier had learned this from his father who had fought in the Argonne Forest at the end of the First World War.