Hitler's Girls: Doves Amongst Eagles

by Heath, Tim

  We managed to take some prisoners and these were both soldiers and civilians including women and children. They had to be disarmed and removed to the rear as quickly as possible. Many of us were by this time aware of just how deadly even the children could be.

  One of my good friends told me a shocking story shortly after Aachen had fallen. He told me that a friend of his had seen a German tank roll over a group of young Hitler Youths in the confusion of battle. The youths, including girls, were crushed to death as they were lay down firing rifles and it appears that the tank crew didn’t care and just went over them, the thing just kept going.

  A short distance away, the German tank was engaged and put out of action by one of our tank-destroyer crews with a fifty millimeter. Our guys were on it in seconds, firing their guns through the tanks viewing slits to kill anyone who might still be alive inside. They pulled up the lid and discovered that that tanks crew consisted of senior Hitler Youth boys and a girl, which explained to a good degree their terrible driving. My friends laughed about it, but it illustrated perfectly the measure of desperation that we were facing. I was shocked that young girls were involved in the fighting, but we were warned about them, and they proved every bit as deadly as the male soldiers. Some of the girls carried knives or bayonets hidden in their clothing, and they knew how to use them.

  Corporal R. Marshall, also of the 26th Infantry Regiment, relates a rare account of German Hitler Youth girls in battle at Aachen:

  The ones which we encountered fought very well considering they were after all only young ladies. They sniped at us, threw grenades at us, and generally did their best to kill us, yet when we captured them they would drop their weapons, spring up and raise their hands shouting ‘Amerikaner! Amerikaner!’

  They also became subdued very quickly and asked us for sweets and chocolate bars. That’s one of the funny things, they knew that we Americans always had chocolate bars, and they were just kids and they should never have been used in any fighting at all.

  In general, we were ordered not be social in any way with any of the Germans, and not to smile or be friendly. We did talk to some of the girls through interpreters and discovered that they had been trained as saboteurs, while others had been trained to use anti-tank weapons. One of the little ones I talked with said that she had spent weeks learning to handle and use a Panzerfaust and had been very disappointed that we had not brought more tanks forward into the battle so as she could shoot at them.

  She had explained that the girls of the Jungvolk were promised Iron Crosses from the Führer for every tank they killed. This girl was fifteen years old and had gone to war purely for accoutrements, a pretty badge to wear on her clothes, which is kind of crazy, isn’t it. Just brought it home to me how much war stinks.

  As the nature of the fighting had gradually turned into hand-to-hand combat amongst buildings in the inner-city area, the dangers only increased for the American forces. Around every corner danger lurked. One classic example of this is where Hitler Youth girls and boys hid inside buildings that the Americans thought to be empty. Any careless soldier entering without firstly discharging several rounds from his weapon into the interior areas of the building, could find himself on the receiving end of a stick grenade, pistol or bayonet. You did not have to be a particularly good shot to use a pistol at close quarters.

  Barbie Densk remembers:

  I knew of at least one girl, a friend of mine, who was in Aachen during the battle. She quietly stayed huddled up in the corner of a room inside one of the buildings. When any enemy soldier entered, she raised the pistol that she kept in her hands at all times, and fired. She killed a few enemy soldiers in this way, until she had no more bullets left in the gun.

  She was captured later and she told me that the Americans were very angry with her and they slapped her face and kicked her hard up the backside before moving her away from the fighting. When she was reunited with her parents, she told me that an American shouted at them in German language, something like, ‘You are fucking sick cowards, how do you people allow your children to fight for you, you are sick, where’s your German pride now?’

  I also heard from another friend of an incident where a Hitler Youth boy was trying to shoot a tank with a Panzerfaust. The boy was shot dead by an enemy soldier’s bullet, and one of the girls ran across the street, picked up the dead boy’s Panzerfaust and fired at the tank he had been trying to destroy. She succeeded in firing the weapon and destroying the enemy tank. She then threw down the weapon and ran back across the street to where her friends were. The Americans quickly moved in and fired at them with a small artillery gun, but did not manage to kill them as they had escaped through a maze of rubble.

  In many cases, as the Werewolf groups retreated, they left trip-wire booby traps behind as they had been taught, and these certainly slowed down the American soldiers.

  R. Marshall confirms what has been said above:

  It was unwise to chase kids up alleys and we soon learned to use flamethrowers and grenades instead. There were many incidents where our guys had chased bands of Hitler Youth girls and boys, who had been throwing stones and rocks, up alleyways within the city. The kids would run up the alley, and in many cases, the chasing soldiers ran into booby-trap devices like grenade trip-wires, or were shot or stabbed from behind. The kids, having rigged up the grenade devices, knew exactly where the trip-wire was located, and were able to jump over them as they ran, but the pursuing soldiers in their heavy boots often tripped right over the wires and set the grenades off. Such booby traps were often fatal for one or more of our guys.

  One of the nastiest devices was the anti-personnel mine used by the Germans. There were a few of these in Aachen and you did not know they were there until you stepped on one, where they would then shoot out of the ground to shoulder height and then explode, spraying steel ball bearings everywhere at high velocity. One of our guys stepped on one of those things and there was not much of him left, or the four other guys who were unlucky enough to have been near to him. One of them had been decapitated in the blast, while the other four had been perforated and torn up by steel ball bearings.

  I reckon in most instances girls were used as decoys, so we quickly learned, rather than chase them, it was safer for us to use grenades and flamethrowers as these could shoot massive streams of burning, jellied petrol right up the alleyways and inside suspect buildings. Burning to death is not a good way to die as it’s slow, but sadly, there were occasions when we did have to use them to flush out the pockets of armed resistance, and sometimes kids too ran out, enveloped in flames, screaming as their flesh began to melt on their bones. Some of us wanted to run and help, but we would have faced certain ambush had we done so.

  War is an incredibly evil thing, and after Aachen I prayed every day that we would experience nothing like it ever again; it was like a butcher’s shop, with pieces of human meat lying everywhere, dead bodies of men, women and little children. The fact that the Nazis had even encouraged young girls to fight their futile war for them seemed obscene to me.

  In later years, my memories have faded somewhat, but the nightmares, oh yes, I still get the nightmares even after all of these years, and my wife will tell you all about that.

  By 21 October, the battle for Aachen was effectively over.

  On that day, elements of the 3rd Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, were preparing to destroy an enemy bunker emplacement with their 155mm Howitzer. One of the Germans inside the bunker was none other than garrison commander, Oberst (Colonel) Gerhard Wilck. Wilck soon grasped the predicament he was in, and, facing imminent oblivion from the 155mm, decided to radio his high command to inform them it was his intention to fight to the death. After making the call, he promptly emerged from the bunker and surrendered to the Americans.

  After the surrender, 5,600 German defenders were taken prisoner. The US 26th Infantry Regiment had sustained 498 casualties during the course of the battle, a relatively light figure owing to their exceptiona
l resourcefulness and skill. As for the beautiful city of Aachen, some eighty per cent of its buildings had been destroyed in the fighting. For those involved in the battle for Aachen, there are many lasting memories and anecdotes to tell, some very touching.

  R. Marshall confided in me during my last interview with him in the summer of 2000:

  Our intelligence guys had learned some pretty shocking stories during their many interrogations of soldiers and Hitler Youths captured or wounded in Aachen. On the way back home after the war, we talked quite a lot amongst ourselves and swapped information and stories, even though it was supposed to be secret information.

  I heard one story of an old Volkssturm member who had been captured inside the ruins of a beer hall in Aachen. There were four dead Hitler Youths in that beer hall with him, three boys and one girl. Under interrogation it appeared that the old Volkssturm man had told these kids that if we captured them alive we would scalp them just like American Indians did to the white man, so the kids shot themselves with their own weapons rather than surrender to us. That Volkssturm could thank his lucky stars that he was an old broken man, or he would have probably received a punching – our guys didn’t like Germans like that at all.

  However much we tried to hate the kids of Germany, we couldn’t, as they were victims themselves in many ways, and people today must understand this. Before many of us left for home, we came to like some of the kids, who had very likely been trying to kill us in the past fighting. Many of them could not speak very good English, but one of them came to me shortly before we moved on, she was a young, fair-haired girl, very pretty, with lovely blue eyes. She just came over to me and said ‘sorry’ and gave me a rather wilted flower, which she had picked especially for me. Her eyes were vacant and empty, totally devoid of happiness and I didn’t know what to say really, and it sounds stupid when I say that I took that flower from her and I had a lump in my throat. I gave her my packet of chewing gum and my wristwatch, though don’t know to this day why I gave her my wristwatch. I did not know what to say to her as I was just a young guy, so I just told her to take care of herself and to keep out of trouble, and that she should now go away and learn all about the real world that is waiting out there for her.

  Of course, I never saw her again, and I put that flower inside my cigarette case and placed it in my pocket. The flower dried out completely, yet I still have it to this day, kept in the same cigarette case. In fact, my son now has it, and it was the only souvenir I had from Aachen.

  When I last interviewed Barbie Densk, and showed her the content of the above interview, she carefully read through the text and said:

  It does not surprise me at all. Those Americans were very good considering what they had been through, seeing their friends killed and wounded. Some of them never tried to talk to us or show us kindness, as I believe they were ordered not to by their commanders, but there were always those Americans who would sneak us chocolate bars and other sweets. I remember most of them searched our clothing looking for badges and things, which they could take as souvenirs or trophies. I gave one of them my small Hitler Youth badge and my older friend gave one American a RADwf work services badge that had the ears of corn motif on it.

  I often wondered what they really thought to us, if they really hated us, or thought us monsters, or even felt pity for us. Either way, I think we girls earned their respect, as some of us had fought better than our own soldiers, and with bravery also. In reality, Aachen was like some kind of a big playground for many young Hitler Youths cowed into defending the city. I do not think many of us really knew what we were in for, what it was really all about.

  For months after the battle I suffered from nightmares, I still have them now, nightmares about corpses and body parts and blood, and I have relived the battle over and over in my sleep. Aachen at the time though, seemed like a kind of playground, a playground where the children carried guns.

  The American forces in Aachen conducted themselves in a highly professional manner. The author could find no instances of any American committing war crimes against any of the German prisoners of war, or against any of the civilian population in the city during the occupation. There were some relatively minor assault cases where American soldiers had either kicked or punched German soldiers and civilians, but these instances were very few.

  According to Red Cross and other formerly secret military files, there had been no reported cases of rape or sexual violation of young girls or women in Aachen under the American occupation, and, under the circumstances, most of the inhabitants were treated with respect. With Aachen now captured, the Allies could breathe a huge sigh of relief and continue their advance into Reich territory, while the Russians pushed towards Berlin. There were however many other as costly battles that would be fought in and around small villages and towns in Germany while on the road to the major target of Berlin, including the last great Nazi gamble of the Battle of the Bulge. The Battle of the Bulge was the last German ground offensive of the Second World War, and although initially successful, the German forces soon lost the initiative against their superior Allied opponents.

  As far as the Russians were concerned, Berlin was the biggest prize of them all. They were determined that they would be the first to occupy the Reich capital.

  The seriously depleted remaining fighting elements of the German army had already fallen back from the Russian advance, as were tens of thousands of fleeing German refugees and wounded soldiers. Both soldier and civilian were now literally running for their lives. This defeated army began to prepare for what would be the final battle, the battle for Berlin.

  This was the twilight of Hitler’s twelve-year Reich. It was also a time of reckoning for Germany’s female youth operating as Werewolves, or recruited into Gertrud Scholtz-Klink’s female guerrilla units. The civilian population of Berlin had already heard the death knell of the distant Russian guns. The city had been reduced to rubble from the constant pounding from the air, and many of her citizens were now hiding in cellars, subways, sewers and any other place that might offer some degree of safety from the coming onslaught.

  Many others had no choice but to fight, and began to prepare themselves to meet the arrival of the feared Soviet soldiers. The old men and women of the Volkssturm, and young Hitler Youth boys and girls had also been mobilized in readiness. The Red Army was advancing at a fast pace, virtually unhindered. They knew that the Germans were technically beaten, but they also knew that Berlin was not going to succumb without a fight. It would be a last-stand battle, a battle of annihilation of the die-hard remnants of Nazi Germany’s armed forces.

  The drug-addicted Hitler still attempted to evade the reality of the now hopeless situation. In his delusionary state of mind, he still believed that it was possible at any time for Germany’s military fortunes to change miraculously. The already defunct Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht would emerge like a phoenix from the ashes to destroy the hated invaders from the east. The Führer could no longer separate fantasy from reality, marrying mistress Eva Braun as a final token of capitulation before ending his own life. History, however, had already decided the fate of the German people.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Fall of Berlin

  As the German forces began to retreat from the Red Army, they were ordered to destroy railway lines, bridges, food stores and shops, and indeed anything else that might prove to be of material use to the Russian enemy. The Germans were now having to do exactly what the Russians had been forced to do at Stalingrad.

  With their Aryan biological duties now almost completely suspended, many German girls, including those of the Jung Madel and BDM, had little choice but to arm themselves and join the fight against the approaching Russians. It is therefore pertinent at this stage, to briefly examine certain aspects of the conflict, prior to the battle for Berlin, in and around Warsaw in Poland. It was here that the German female guerrilla units, organized by Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, first fired their weapons in anger at the enemy.

&
nbsp; Little is known about Scholtz-Klink’s all-female guerrilla units, other than the fact that they were hastily trained but well-motivated individuals, ranging in age from girls as young as thirteen to young women of twenty-four years of age.

  From the examination and translation of documents that have lain in archives in various institutions in the UK and Europe since 1945, one is able to build up a slightly better picture. Russian documents appear to confirm that there were definitely female guerrilla units deployed by the Germans in and around the Warsaw area in 1945, and that they did in fact engage in combat with Russian forces, inflicting casualties on them.

  Whilst the author could find no information on any unofficial or homemade insignia, as mentioned later by Theresa Moelle, this does not mean that such insignia did not exist. The emblem in question apparently consists of a dark-blue or black wolf’s head on a white background.

  The girls within the two guerrilla units were employed in much the same ways as male riflemen and were used mainly to augment the Wehrmacht forces within the Warsaw area. They were also actively employed as snipers, saboteurs and to keep guard over prisoners. There are no casualty statistics available for these female combat units. It is clear, therefore, that they had never been intended to be anything permanent, but were more of an expendable means of filling in the spaces left by German soldiers badly wounded or killed in action.

  Young girls were sent to fight the Nazis’ war under the orders of both Hitler and the Hitler Youth leadership. The fighting at Warsaw was extremely fierce as the Germans fought desperately in vain to halt the Russian advance. The ensuing close-quarter combat with bayonets, rifle butts, boots, fists and knives was a sign of things to come, and it would only get worse. The Germans again suffered defeat, and those not killed or taken prisoner were forced to run. The jubilant Red Army forces of Marshal Georgy Zhukov’s 1st Belorussian Front, liberated Warsaw on 17 January 1945. An estimated 800,000 of its population had perished during the course of the Second World War.