As it was by now August and the ‘summer term’ was already upon us, sports equipment was ordered (again to be paid for from the common fund) and work was started on the necessary facilities. Two tennis courts were laid out–minus the high wire fencing, of course–and covered with a surface layer of fine red ash. We also made a 400-metre running track, dug a long-jump pit, and constructed horizontal and parallel bars for the gymnasts.
To help in the levelling of the cinder running track, the camp authorities kindly made available an ancient cast-iron roller. It took the strength of four men to move this museum piece, which, it was said, dated back to the War of Independence, when its motive power was provided by negro slaves.
It still gives me a certain pang of guilt, even after all these years, to have to admit that we marked out the white lines of the tennis courts with fine white flour! At a time when our nearest and dearest at home were under strict rationing and having to tighten their belts, this could only be described as criminal waste. But we had been supplied with an abundance of flour and were simply observing that old soldiers’ dictum: never return unused rations to stores–you’ll only be issued with less next time.
Our cultural needs were also well catered for. The theatre director had gathered together a talented group of players. With the assistance of the make-up artist they even ventured to stage Gotthold Lessing’s 18th-century comedy ‘Minna von Barnhelm’, with the unmistakably masculine Minna receiving by far the loudest round of applause. The undisputed success of the season, however, was ‘The Green Light’, a thriller with no female roles, which was specially written by an Oberleutnant in the camp who had been a lawyer in Vienna in civilian life.
But our main cultural fare was music. A symphony orchestra of almost professional standards was assembled under the leadership of our conductor. The larger instruments such as the piano, double-bass, drums and brass were again acquired through the camp’s central funds, while the smaller violins, violas, cellos and woodwind instruments were purchased individually by those able to play them. For example, I clubbed together with a comrade to pay sixty dollars for a cello, which we then took turns to play. Several classical string quartets, sometimes enlarged to quintets, were also formed from among the members of the orchestra. One of these I enriched with my own modest musical talents.
The orchestra gave one concert a month, always on a Sunday. The performances were invariably very well received as our quality of playing, even if I do say so myself, was not at all bad. Our repertoire included such pieces as Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto, the Alpine Symphony by Richard Strauss and, of course, Dvorák’s New World Symphony. A number of the American officers on the camp staff made a point of attending our concerts whenever their duties permitted, and this latter item always went down well with them.
Our string quartet also tackled one or two more difficult compositions, among them Schubert’s Death and the Maiden. This required a certain amount of expertise and a whole lot of practice. But time to practise was one thing we were not short of at Como.
Theatrical and musical activities were not restricted to either the summer or winter term, but went on all year round. There was one comical incident when the camp announcer made a Freudian slip. He was reading out various items of information to do with our everyday life in camp and had just come to the end of a long litany of announcements, including the names of those who had mail to collect, when he turned to the subject of the following Sunday’s orchestral programme. He had simply jotted down ‘5th Symphony by L. Beethoven’ on his piece of paper, but–with the lengthy list of names and ranks he had just ploughed through probably still in his mind–he unthinkingly read it out as: “5th Symphony by Leutnant Beethoven”. There was such a storm of laughter in the room that the walls shook and a couple of guards came rushing in with weapons drawn thinking that they had a riot on their hands.
During the winter term of 1944/45 I decided it was high time that I started to learn English, and so put my name down for an interpreter’s course. I successfully managed to complete it, thereby qualifying as an assistant interpreter. The details of everybody who enrolled in, and passed, any of the many and varied courses on offer to us were documented in special prisoner-of-war certificate books, and all qualifications thus gained and attested to were officially recognized by the German authorities after our return to the homeland.
For as long as the war lasted we were very well off in material terms. Each side was conscious of its own prisoners in enemy hands, and so the rules of the Geneva Convention were strictly observed. Among other things, this meant that we were entitled to the same level of rations and medical care as American troops in the Zone of the Interior. After a few initial difficulties the mail system also got into its stride and we regularly began to receive (via neutral Switzerland) letters and parcels from our families at home. All correspondence was, of course, subject to censorship, as became apparent from the occasional offending passage in our letters that had been carefully blacked out.
Such minor irritations aside, we really had little to complain about. The absolute fairness with which we were treated by our captors–and the truly international nature of the world of science–was demonstrated by an incident involving our professor of astronomy. Apparently, in 1945 a comet was expected to enter our solar system. Not knowing what havoc it might cause, it was publicly announced in the press that a prize would be awarded to the person, or persons, who could calculate its likely course. Our astronomer read about this competition in the newspaper and applied to enter. It caused a minor sensation in the camp when he was later declared to be the joint winner together with an American observatory.
Despite all these extra-curricular activities, the fact could not be ignored that we were still, first and foremost, prisoners-of war–which brings us to the subject of escape attempts. My lack of proper English ruled me out as an escaper, but just to know that they were going on, just to be able to help–in however small a way–filled one with a certain excitement, tension and, above all, a real sense of satisfaction.
None of the successful escapees from Como ever got all the way back to Germany, it must be said. But geography was overwhelmingly in our captors’ favour. The only ray of hope was the port of New Orleans, some 600 kilometres away near the mouth of the Mississippi. From here it might just have been possible to get aboard a ship bound for one of the neutral countries of Central or South America. But the odds against this were so high as to be almost non-existent.
To stand even the remotest chance of success an escapee had to have four things: sufficient money, the right clothes, excellent English (spoken with an American accent) and the ability to act and behave like an American. Just one of the camp’s 1,000 inmates possessed all four of these attributes. They even got him as far as New Orleans, but there his big mouth let him down. He climbed on a streetcar, not noticing that this was reserved for blacks only. When this was pointed out to him in no uncertain fashion, he reacted violently and a massive free-for-all broke out.
The upshot was that he was returned to us after a four-week absence, still looking somewhat the worse for wear, and promptly sentenced to another four weeks in solitary. This might well have been construed as a contravention of the Hague Convention. But the Americans had a ready answer. The four weeks were not a punishment. They were a term of quarantine imposed to prevent the possible spread among us POWs of any contagious disease he may have picked up on his travels. A likely story, there had been no mention on the radio or in the press of any epidemic in the area.
Another group of escapees managed to make it to the banks of the Mississippi which, at its nearest point, was only about thirty kilometres away from the camp. Here they assembled a couple of kayaks out of the wooden frames and sheets cut from rubberised waterproof raincoats that they had prepared earlier and carted with them to the river. They set off southwards for the delta, travelling only by night and hiding up during the hours of daylight. They didn’t make it very far before being
spotted, however, and they too were all brought back to Como to face the music.
Two others pulled off an even more daring escape–one almost worthy of a film–by dressing up as a pair of Ami officers. Wearing their bogus uniforms, some of the items ‘organized’, other bits skilfully hand-made, they marched boldly out of the front gate shortly after the guards had been changed. Strolling casually over to the motor pool, they purloined a jeep and disappeared in the direction of New Orleans. Attempting perhaps to be too clever, they stopped in a patch of woodland, where they set about trying to disguise the vehicle’s military markings. But they were being watched by a ranger, who brought their excursion to an abrupt and inglorious end.
This episode had an unforeseen sequel, for the pair were hauled up in front of a military tribunal. Their temporary ‘borrowing’ of the jeep was looked upon as auto theft, a crime seemingly comparable to horse stealing in the bad old days of the West. And although they might not end up hanging from the nearest tree, it could mean a lengthy term in jail. Luckily, the judges did not lack a spirit of sportsmanship. They handed down a sentence that ultimately allowed the two to be returned home at about the same time as the rest of us.
Incidentally, we regarded our escape attempts in something of a sporting light too, even if each did require planning with an almost general staff-like precision. It was always good to put one over on the Amis. The first thing that had to be done was to find the necessary amount of ‘real’ US dollars, our camp currency being useless outside the wire.
This was not all that difficult, as the GIs were very keen on anything hand-made by German POWs. Some of our more gifted comrades did a roaring trade in such things as violins–made either of wood, which could be easily procured, or out of thousands of matchsticks–wooden ornaments or sculptures of all kinds (the female form was always a hot favourite), decorated lampshades and paintings. These items were all paid for in cash, twenty-five per cent of which had to go to the camp committee, who administered it as a secret ‘escape fund’.
Any clothing, either civilian or military, that was required for a planned escape attempt would be made by the tailors of the Betriebskompanie, or ‘servicing company’. This was modelled along the lines of the Luftwaffe’s airfield servicing companies. It was composed of a group of about thirty NCOs and other ranks, all craftsmen or artisans skilled in a wide variety of trades and professions, who looked after the camp’s internal maintenance and day-to-day needs. We had our own bakers, for example, who ensured that we were supplied with German-style bread. And on a more clandestine level there were metalworkers who could provide authentic-looking American badges and insignia–at least up to the rank of captain–simply by fashioning them out of empty tin cans.
Once a group of would-be escapees–usually numbering between two and six–had formulated a plan it had to be submitted to the escape committee. If it was given the go-ahead, the requisite funds were allocated and the date, time and exact spot for the attempt would be fixed. Most attempts were made during the hours of darkness, of course, preferably during a new moon period, or half moon at the very most. Once these details were settled, the following arrangements had to be put in place for the actual execution of the breakout:
- Depending upon the direction of the wind on the night, the occupants of the huts nearest to the spot in the wire where the escape was to be made had to bank up their stoves in order to produce as much covering smoke as possible. Time: H-hour minus twenty minutes.
- H-hour minus five minutes: two men had to crawl across to the wire, cut a hole of just under a metre square in both the inner and outer fences, and then remain in place flat on the ground under cover of the wire. (These two would be armed with a pair of wire-cutters that someone had once ‘liberated’. They were the camp’s prized possession, second perhaps only to the secret radio, and were guarded like the crown jewels.)
- H-hour: the escape group, together with whatever luggage or equipment that needed to be taken, to exit through the wire.
- Immediately thereafter, the ‘cutting party’ were to repair the hole in the wire and return to their hut.
As far as I am aware, the guards never once caught a group while it was in the act of escaping through the wire. The next and far more difficult problem arose on the morning following the escape when we were paraded to be counted–how to hide the fact that several of our number were missing? We came up with an ingenious solution.
Like every army in the world the Americans had a strict system of drill, which we were able to turn to our advantage. On parade we always had to fall in in three ranks, one behind the other. Our senior officer would then give the command: ‘Attention!’, and we would stand there like stuffed dummies while he reported the number of POWs present and correct on parade to the American camp commandant. This was checked by the duty sergeant, who strode along the front rank counting off the files and then multiplying their number by three to arrive at the final total.
But all was not as it seemed. Our theatre make-up artist had made six extremely life-like but very different dummy heads (I recall one having an unshaven appearance and another with a large sticking plaster on its cheek). These could be mounted on simple frames, which were then dressed in POW clothing. On the morning after an escape each of the dummies–their exact number determined by how many men had got away–would be carried out on to the parade ground by two ‘minders’. This trio was surrounded by a close knot of other prisoners who masked their movements until all three, the two men with the dummy between them, had taken their place in the rear rank.
With the rest of us brought to attention and also standing ramrod straight and stock still, the subterfuge was complete and practically impossible to detect. (In fact, the Amis didn’t realize what had been happening until the end of the war, when we finally confessed to what we had been up to–and then even they saw the funny side of it.)
That wasn’t quite all, however. We couldn’t keep up the pretence forever. It was therefore decided that we would use the trick with the dummies for just three days, which should give the escapees more than ample time to get well away from the immediate area of the camp. On the fourth morning after the escape our senior officer, who was quite a few ranks higher than the American camp commandant, would officially announce the news of the escape.
This was always followed by the same ritual. Firstly the commandant would give vent to his feelings by loudly cussing us ‘damned Krauts’. Then he would get the guards down from the watchtowers and have them locked up (unfortunately, they were invariably the wrong ones). Next he would order the entire camp to be thoroughly searched, for there was always the possibility that the crafty Fritzes had simply gone into hiding and were waiting to escape at their leisure some time later. While all this was going on we were kept out on the parade ground, usually for the remainder of the morning.
Such was our small contribution to the continuing war against the Western allies. But the nearer we got to 1945, the worse the news of the actual war became–and with it the deeper our mood of depression. Our many comrades with families and loved ones still living in Germany’s larger towns and cities suffered particularly badly whenever we heard reports of the almost nightly raids by hundreds of British bombers. I was slightly better off in this respect, for our house in Rosenheim was a long way away from the firing line, and none of my close relatives was fighting at the front.
Christmas 1944 in Camp Como was a muted and sombre affair. In the succeeding days our mood was not helped by the realization that the Ardennes counter-offensive was not about to bring the hoped-for change in Germany’s fortunes. Even our leaders’ long promised and much vaunted ‘Wunderwaffen’–first the V1 flying bombs that I had witnessed in England, and now the V2 rocket–were delivering only sporadic pinpricks. Little wonder that our last hopes, pinned on the so-called ‘Superwaffe’, now began to fade. And when, at the end of January 1945, the Red Army stormed across Germany’s eastern borders, an air of fatalism descended over the whole ca
mp.
At last we were being forced to swallow the bitter pill of reality. We knew now that the allies were certain to achieve their stated aim of reducing Germany to total impotence; a nation without power and without a future.
The French were demanding that Germany be split up and divided amongst its neighbours (on the grounds of European hegemony). The Americans and the British advocated implementation of the 1944 Morgenthau Plan, which would reduce Germany to a purely agrarian state (for economic reasons). The Poles, with the support of the Russians (motivated by a mixture of revenge, hatred and expansionism) intended to annex Germany’s eastern territories and drive out their ethnic populations.
And over it all hung the allies’ insistence on simultaneous unconditional surrender on all fronts.
CHAPTER 9
THE WAR IS OVER
Although we had long accepted that defeat was inevitable, the announcement of Germany’s surrender on 8 May 1945 still came as a tremendous blow. But our world really started to come crashing down around our ears when we learned of the atrocities that had been carried out in our name. The American press was full of horrific accounts of the extermination camps discovered by the advancing allies in the closing weeks of the war. A tide of hatred and revulsion was stirred up against anything and everything German.
With the hostilities at an end, the Amis no longer felt obliged to abide by the rules of the Hague Convention. The personal behaviour of the guards towards us remained, as ever, perfectly correct. But as of 9 May 1945 we were taken off the equivalent of US Army rations and placed instead on hunger rations of 800 calories per day.
With typical American attention to meticulous detail, our meals nevertheless continued to consist of all the elements of a ‘proper’ menu, such as a soup or some other starter, the main course, with vegetables and/or a side salad, and a dessert. But the individual portions of each were so ridiculously miniscule that they reminded me of nothing more than the table set by Snow White for the Seven Dwarfs!
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