Destined to Witness

  By the time I caught up with her, the sun had gone down and it was pitch black outside. “What were you trying to do to me—drive me mad?” she teased. She then suggested that we’d take a walk to nearby Wiesendamm, a two-lane street whose long center footpath with its trees, shrubbery, and wooden benches made it an ideal lovers’ lane. We found the place deserted and selected a strategically located bench that was flanked by two trees.

  Flying strictly by the seat of my pants, I literally put myself in Gerda’s experienced hands. When we heard approaching footsteps, ecstasy mingled with fear as we held each other tightly while holding our breath. As the steps came closer and closer, my anxiety grew. Any moment I expected to hear a voice shout “Sicherheits Dienst!” But the footsteps went by and kept on going. When they were completely out of hearing range, we came alive again until we both had our fill. In addition to worrying about getting caught, I had been afraid I would make a complete fool of myself. But perhaps my youthful ardor and energy had compensated for my inexperience, for Gerda assured me that I showed a great deal of promise for a fifteen-year-old boy.

  She was adamant in refusing my offer to let me take her home. “Let’s not stretch our luck too far,” she said. That remark brought me back to reality. Reality for me was that, unlike my Aryan friends who were dating to their hearts’ content, I had to sneak around like a thief in the night and risk the Gestapo’s brutality.

  When I finally showed up at home, I still could smell Gerda’s penetrating perfume. Knowing that my mother had an extremely keen sense of smell, I was convinced that she would notice the perfume the moment I set foot in the door. But tactfully, she never mentioned it. Instead, she asked me how I liked the movie. At first I wanted to tell her that I liked it okay, but somehow the lie refused to come out of my mouth. “I ran into some girl I know and we decided to leave the movie early and go for a walk,” I told her, sticking as close to the truth as I could.

  “Is she a nice girl?” my mother inquired with typical motherly nosiness.

  “Yes, very nice,” I responded.

  “Just be careful, Hans-Jürgen. You know what I mean,” she warned, with that troubled look on her face that weighed on my conscience like a ton of bricks.

  THAT OLD GANG OF MINE GOES TO WAR

  One after another, my boyhood cronies were disappearing from the neighborhood. Most had been drafted for military service and a few—for reasons that had nothing to do with love for Hitler or Vaterland—had volunteered. Karl-Heinz Bülow, the avowed anti-Nazi, joined the navy for the sole purpose of improving his chances of scoring with girls. He was counting on the widely known fact that girls were partial to men in navy uniforms. According to a censored letter he sent me, he had already seen plenty of action on a submarine in the Atlantic, yet none so far with the girls in port. So had most of my other pals: Eugen Braun, the brothers Hans and Karl Morell, and Fiffi Peters, the former waiter apprentice. Jack Spederski joined the army to escape the humdrum life of an unskilled laborer. He wound up in the Soviet Union as a tank driver in the celebrated Panzer Division Gross-Deutschland. Walter Brauer, my red-light-district coconspirator, had become a motorcyclist in one of the army’s famed KRAD units. Only Wolfgang Neumann, the ex-Hitler Youth leader and my one-time bodyguard, had volunteered for the vaunted Waffen-SS because of his unshakable belief in Hitler’s cause. For his trouble, he made all the hometown papers when he received a battlefield commission for bravery somewhere in Belgium, and again when—to no one’s surprise—his name was among the first to appear on the daily newspapers’ steadily growing military obituary pages.

  In spite of the mounting German casualties at the various fronts, I rather looked forward to doing my share of fighting, if for no other reason than to prove that I was as good as everybody else. Yet I dared not volunteer lest I be turned down—as so often in my life—for being non-Aryan. That’s why I rejoiced when one day an official-looking letter—the equivalent of Uncle Sam’s “Greetings”—summoned me to report for my physical examination, called Musterung, to determine fitness for the one-year paramilitary Arbeitsdienst (Labor Service), which all seventeen-year-old German boys were required to join prior to serving in the Wehrmacht. If they had no use for me, I reasoned hopefully, they wouldn’t bother to have me take the physical. Feeling more and more optimistic, I decided that there was no better way for me to erase the racial difference that had always set me apart from even my closest friends than to wear the much-respected uniform of a German soldier. Once in that uniform, I was certain that I would prove beyond a doubt that I was as good as anyone else.

  The morning of the Musterung, I and several hundred youths also born in 1926—including a fair number of long-haired and dapper swingboys—were herded into the huge gym of a downtown public school. Since many of the young men present made no secret of their hope to be rejected by the draft board, I thought it wise to keep my military ambitions to myself.

  The gym’s walls were lined with tables manned by Wehrmacht and Arbeitsdienst officers in their respective uniforms. The booming voice of one officer ordering us to shut up ended the din of our conversations. After characterizing us as a miserable bunch that was badly in need of straightening out, the voice ordered us to have our pictures taken, then to strip completely, shoes, socks, and all, and to leave our clothes in neat piles on the floor. We then were ordered to walk in a single file in front of the tables where officers were busy checking us out from scalp to toes while writing down their findings on stacks of forms. From the remarks I overheard while passing the various inspection stations, I concluded that I was in perfect general health, that my eyesight, hearing, and teeth were above normal, but that I was several pounds underweight, due, likely, to the stringent rationing of food.

  “Too bad we can’t draft you,” a sympathetic Arbeitsdienst officer told me. “All you need is a year of our good food and regular work in fresh air to put some meat on your bones.” The officer’s words, however well meant, jolted me back into Nazi reality and crushed my hopes of ever escaping the cursed stigma of race. I suspected that if I wasn’t even considered good enough to dig holes and build Autobahnen for the Labor Service, I certainly wasn’t considered good enough to fire a rifle for the army. My suspicion was confirmed when, at the last table, an officer handed me my brand-new Wehrpass (military pass), which detailed my military status and which all male civilians were required to show on demand by authorized persons. Near my photo someone had written in ink the lowercase initials “n.z.v.” When I asked an officer to explain what that meant, his laconic response was “Nicht zu verwenden (not usable).”

  With all of my buddies having left for military service, my life at the home front became pure drudgery—all work and no play. Even at the shop, all of the younger men had either been drafted or had volunteered for one of the armed forces’ branches. That left me virtually without any contact with men near my own age. But boredom was the least of my problems. As one of a tiny, rapidly dwindling group of able-bodied young men who were not yet in uniform, I became more conspicuous—and subsequently more self-conscious—because of my civilian attire than because of my race. Amid the constant praise of “our men in uniform who are giving their all for Führer and Vaterland,” I developed a stifling sense of inferiority and of total isolation that grew and grew until it threatened to overpower me. That feeling reached a peak when a wounded Waffen-SS officer on crutches accosted me in the street and loudly questioned my right to walk around in safety while “brave German men” had to risk life and limb in combat. I realized then that my situation as a non-Aryan civilian was fraught with grave potential danger. Remembering Herr Dutke’s prophecy that after the Nazis were done with the Jews, I would be next, I felt I was sitting on a time bomb that was ready to explode. The only thing I felt that could save me was to become a member of the armed forces and wear that uniform, since nobody was respected more in Germany than a German soldier.

  Even the prospect of becoming one of the mounting front-line casualties—wh
ich by mid-1942 was a strong possibility—and my growing suspicion that Hitler’s war was wrong and headed for disaster, could not diminish my determination to join the military. I reasoned that I’d rather take my chance of getting hurt or killed on the battlefield than fall into the hands of the SS. In effect, I was willing to climb aboard a sinking ship when I was still relatively safe ashore. Looking back today, I can readily see how foolish my thinking was, but at the time, it made all the sense in the world to me.

  The crucial question was how I could get the military to accept me. It dawned on me that perhaps I might have better luck going the volunteer route. The idea seemed at least worth a try. Although declared ineligible for the draft, I hoped that the heavy casualties suffered by all branches of the Wehrmacht had created enough vacancies to literally give me a fighting chance.

  I had no problem getting a day off from work after I explained to Meister Neumann what I intended to do. Volunteering for military service was high on the list of national priorities. I took an early train to suburban Rahlstedt, the location of Hamburg’s Wehrbezirkskommando (regional military command). When I arrived, the suburb buzzed like a beehive with military activities. Soldiers of all branches were scurrying around, on foot and in camouflage-gray vehicles that bore the familiar open-ended cross logo of the German Wehrmacht. Most of the soldiers I passed were too busy to notice me, but the few who did invariably did a double take, obviously surprised to see an able-bodied young man in civilian clothes, and a black one at that. I wasn’t sure whether they were startled by my civilian status, my “unusual” looks, or both. But I didn’t care, figuring that once I wore a uniform, too, they wouldn’t think of making fun of a comrade-in-arms.

  My thoughts were interrupted by the screeching brakes of an open staff car that had pulled up beside me. “Sie da! Wer sind Sie und was machen Sie hier? (You there! Who are you and what are you doing here?),” an army lieutenant colonel in the rear seat demanded to know in a voice that betrayed a mixture of contempt and suspicion.

  Glad to oblige, I pulled out my Wehrpass and handed it to him. After leafing through the document, the officer carefully studied my photograph, then compared it with me. “So what is it you want?” he continued his interrogation.

  “I want to enlist in the army, Herr Oberstleutnant,” I replied, hopeful that my ability to recognize his rank would make him more favorably disposed toward me. But no such luck.

  “You what?” he asked, in utter disbelief that couldn’t have been greater had I asked him for his daughter’s hand in marriage. “Enlist in the army? You must be mad. Don’t you know that non-Aryans are barred from service in the German Wehrmacht? Even your Wehrpass states that you are untauglich (unfit).”

  “Yes,” I admitted, “but I had hoped that because of the army’s great manpower need it might make an exception.”

  The officer was visibly getting angry. “Let me tell you something,” he snarled, his steel-blue eyes narrowing to slits, “Germany is not, and never will be, so hard-up as to need the likes of you to win the war. My advice to you is to get back to your job as fast as possible and not waste any more valuable production time with your foolish notions. Verstanden (Understood)?” Not waiting for my reply, he threw my Wehrpass at me and ordered his driver to drive on.

  The verbal attack from the army officer had taken me completely by surprise. It was so unexpected that it sent me into a state of utter dejection. I had been prepared for the possibility of having my enlistment request turned down, but I was not prepared for gratuitous insults.

  Without bothering to get a second opinion at the recruitment office, I dragged myself back to the station and caught the next Hamburg-bound train. As I sat on the train, still numb from the dressing-down I had just received, I kept hearing the officer’s voice: “Germany is not, and never will be, so hard-up as to need the likes of you to win the war.” I remembered that I had heard similar sentiments when I was only ten years old and my mother tried to have me accepted by the Hitler Youth.

  Remembering, my numbness vanished and gave way to rage. I resolved in that instant that if I couldn’t join them, and I couldn’t fight them, I would do the next best thing and hate them from the bottom of my heart. It was my hatred for the Nazis that sustained me during the remaining war years that were still lying ahead.

  THE BEGINNING OF THE END

  After the German army’s massive defeat at Stalingrad in the winter of 1942, it became clear to even the most optimistic Germans that the war was not going as smoothly as they had hoped. One indication that German troops were unprepared for the subzero temperatures in the Soviet Union was an emergency appeal by the government for German women to donate their fur coats, muffs, and hats to the war effort so that the garments could be retailored to provide warm clothing for front-line soldiers who were literally freezing to death.

  To keep up morale at the front and at home and to minimize the damage inflicted by the Allied forces, Dr. Goebbels’s propaganda machine went into overdrive to turn defeats into victories. In the process, an entirely new vocabulary was invented that included such euphemisms as a strategische Absetzung (strategic distancing) for a German retreat. One key tool in Goebbels’s propaganda war to maintain the fighting spirit of the German people was the movie industry. In rapid succession it churned out films that either romanticized the war, depicted Jews as the root of all evil, or simply provided an emotional relief. Undoubtedly the most anti-Semitic movie ever produced by the Nazis during the war was director Veit Harlan’s notorious Jud Süss, with Ferdinand Marian, one of Germany’s most distinguished actors of the time, in the title role. Marian, who put his heart and soul into his role as a despicable Jew every moviegoer loved to hate, committed suicide after the war, apparently because of shame and guilt. Some propaganda films designed to lift the rapidly sinking morale featured the romantic adventures of dashing military officers, such as Die Grosse Liebe (The Great Love) in which popular star Zarah Leander leaves the audience with the upbeat message, “Ich weiss es wird einmal ein Wunder geschehn (I know a miracle is going to happen).” Soon, millions of anxious Germans were singing the hit song, hoping against hope that a miracle would happen that would turn their misfortunes around and put an end to the war. Other typical propaganda fare included Hollywood-type song-and-dance musicals aimed at letting people forget, if only for a couple of hours, about hunger, bombs, casualties, and a host of other war-related calamities.

  Goebbels’s determination to bolster morale was felt even at the workplace. On several occasions our shop was visited by “Strength Through Joy” teams of entertainers—usually two or three—who, for an hour or so, tried to cheer us up with humor and accordion tunes. While we were appreciative of even the smallest diversion from the relentless pressure of war production, we realized that we were only receiving crumbs. All of us had seen newsreels of workers at major defense plants being visited by Germany’s most prestigious symphony orchestras, such as the Berlin Philharmonic.

  Another tool aimed at boosting morale by intentionally misleading Germans about the progress of the war was the state-controlled Deutsche Rundfunk (German [Radio] Broadcast). Even some of the more gullible citizens began to regard with increasing skepticism its distortions and lies. To offset the predictably one-sided news accounts, I risked severe consequences by listening to the German-language news broadcasts by the BBC, an act the Nazis considered treasonous and dealt with accordingly. Punishment for breaking that law ranged from incarceration in a concentration camp to death. Although I had no specific knowledge of what went on in them, word had gotten out that concentration camps were hell on earth.

  Ironically, my source of Allied news was our small, battery-powered Volksempfänger (people’s receiver), an inexpensive, government-built and-marketed appliance that had been intended to give every German a chance to own a radio and be propagandized. Notwithstanding my mother’s laments about the danger involved in my illegal activity, I became addicted to BBC news, whose integrity I trusted more than t
he obvious lies churned out by Goebbels’ propaganda mill. To keep from getting caught in the act, I would put the radio on my bed, then cover it and my head with a heavy blanket while my mother would listen at the door to make sure nobody was standing outside. During this clandestine operation, our squeaky stairs served as a primitive yet highly effective alarm system. Thanks to the BBC, I had a fairly accurate picture of the disastrous defeat that Hitler’s war machine was headed for, long before Germans who relied entirely on Goebbels’s fabrications had a clue.

  Unfortunately, my superior source of military information exposed me to the constant temptation of sharing what I had heard with other, less-informed friends and to contradict information disseminated by the Goebbels press. In one instance, I narrowly missed blowing my cover when, on May 10, 1941, the Nazi press broadcast the sensational news that Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, had flown to England in order to negotiate a peace settlement. Eager to learn more details, I kept tuning in to the BBC. A few days after the incident, the German-language broadcast from London confirmed the German report, stating that Hess had landed somewhere in Scotland. When, in a subsequent discussion of the Hess caper with some of my fellow workers, I repeated the word Scotland, one of them corrected me, insisting that Hess had landed in England, as all the early German reports indicated. Fortunately, he wasn’t the suspicious kind and didn’t press me to find out where I had gotten my information. Had my coworker put two and two together and wished me harm, he would have been able to prove that I had engaged in “highly treasonous activity” by listening to and disseminating enemy propaganda.