At Leningrad's Gates

by William Lubbec

  In running his class, Herr Künne maintained strict discipline and none of us ever dared to challenge him in any way. While he was always demanding, his dictations proved especially difficult. Depending on the number of errors a student made in copying his dictation, he or she might receive a spanking with a switch in front of the entire class or have to remain after school to complete additional assignments.

  Although maintaining only average grades in all subjects, I was generally able to avoid Herr Künne’s punishments. When school let out, I would return to our house to do my homework. Afterward, my time was spent on farm chores or playing with some of the other children in the village.

  Early on, I became friends with several of the boys my age in Püggen: Otto Werneke, Fritz Dampke, and Otto Tepelman. Among my peers, I tended to be a more reserved and private person, like my father. For me, friendship was less about camaraderie and more about exercising leadership and cooperating with others to accomplish some purpose.

  Upon finishing fourth grade in 1930, I left the village school in Püggen and spent the next eight years attending a larger and better school in the town of Beetzendorf, located about six miles from our village. Like many upper level schools at the time, this school required the payment of a small tuition, which helped support a dedicated and professional staff.

  Every morning around 7:30, I would set out on my bicycle for the 30-minute trip to school, even if it was raining or snowing. This journey was often miserable in the cold and snow of winter, since I was dressed in the short pants that most of us wore year-round. A pair of knee-high stockings provided my calves with a little warmth, but my knees were often red and numb by the time I reached the school.

  While we remained together with the same group of male and female students throughout the day, our teachers would circulate among the school’s classrooms to provide us with an hour or so of instruction in history, German literature, science, mathematics, English, and French.

  The school offered more engaging give-and-take discussions between the instructors and students, but my academic struggles persisted. A couple of times, my parents had to read me the riot act when I received a note from the school informing them that I was not doing well in my classes. Such letters bothered me deeply because of my parents’ disappointment, but my performance never greatly improved.

  It was rare for children from Püggen to attend the school in Beetzendorf. Children were only required to attend school through the eighth grade and most either apprenticed to learn a trade or began working full-time on a farm or in some other employment after that. As part of an extended family that included teachers, doctors, and lawyers, my parents perhaps placed a higher value on education than most other families in our farming community. This commitment was also demonstrated by my father’s willingness to pay my tuition in the midst of the Depression.

  When outside the school buildings during recreation periods or after class, the boys would wear caps with colored bands identifying their class year. While discipline was strictly enforced inside the school building, there were occasional full-scale brawls right behind it. Typically, these slugfests resulted from disputes among boys of different class years or from different villages around Beetzendorf. In one instance when another student began calling me names, I engaged in one of these fistfights, but I generally tried to avoid such crude behavior.

  On most days, I rode my bike straight home, where I would work on my homework assignments and help out around the farm. Despite the many hours spent completing my farm chores and schoolwork, I generally enjoyed a carefree youth and often found time to pursue other interests and activities.

  GROWING UP

  Probably more curious and adventurous than most other kids, I always wanted to explore my surroundings and learn what was going on around me. At the same time, my father and mother were especially strict parents and disciplined me sternly if I misbehaved. While they accepted my independent spirit, they also taught me responsibility and respect for authority.

  One summer afternoon when I was about ten years old, I was playing soccer with some other local kids in a sports field just behind our farm. Feeling the urgent call of nature, I opted not to take the time to run back to our family’s outhouse and instead headed into a nearby field of rye about five feet tall.

  Unfortunately, a neighbor saw me and informed my father that his son had trampled another farmer’s field, an almost sacrilegious act. When I returned home that evening, my father gave me a forceful lecture on respecting a neighbor’s crops. Though I tried to explain the urgency of the moment, my father dismissed my pleas and reinforced his point with a severe spanking with a wooden switch.

  About this same time, I joined a group of other boys from Püggen who wanted to play a prank on an elderly man in his seventies who regularly walked down the sandy road that ran between our farm and the pastures to the south. There was some debate over what we should do, but everyone eventually agreed on my scheme of outfitting myself as a ghost in order to scare him.

  While the boys remained behind in the woods to watch, I went out to the road covered by a white bedsheet as our victim approached. Though hardly able to see anything in the darkness through the sheet, I knew he was coming closer to me so I began making what I thought were creepy noises.

  Much to my surprise, my supernatural appearance did not produce the desired alarm. Instead of cowering in fear, the old man began whacking me repeatedly over the head with his cane. With my plan gone awry, I attempted to make a run for it, but could only manage to stumble away blindly. Alas, the identity of the culprits behind this fiasco was obvious in a small village like Püggen. On reaching home that night, my father made me pay a visit to the gentleman and apologize.

  Being athletic, I enjoyed playing a number of different sports when growing up, especially soccer. In the winters we played ice hockey on a frozen pond located about a half-mile from the school in Beetzendorf as part of the school’s physical education class. Often lacking enough players to have a game, one of the teachers would occasionally join us. To express our gratitude, we took every opportunity to knock him onto the ice. Those games provided a rare opportunity to ignore the normal social rules that demanded respect for those in authority.

  Equestrian sports were not a hobby of mine, but I often rode on horseback and developed into a competent rider. Most nights, I would take the horses down to our pasture on the south side of our property, and then in the mornings lead them up to the farm where we would put them to work. Additionally, my father gave me the responsibility of taking our mares to visit a nearby stud farm about four or five times a year.

  When I was about 15 years old, I began participating in our region’s annual equestrian competition. Riding our horses bareback, we would maneuver a long spear in an attempt to snag a six-inch diameter ring hung about 15 feet above the ground. I never won the contest, but the riding skills I developed later proved very beneficial in the army.

  Having an independent nature, I was content to do things by myself and spent many hours reading history, especially about the recent battles of the Great War. While fascinated by the stories of the fighting at places like Verdun and the Dardanelles, as well as by U-Boat operations and naval battles, I never expected to see a war myself.

  Intrigued by all sorts of technical devices, I spent much of my teenage years experimenting with lights, electrical motors, and radios. I was absorbed for endless hours determining how various mechanisms operated and conducting my own hands-on experimentation in our family’s barn.

  When my family needed a light to help illuminate the central area among the barns so that we could unload our wagons at night, I volunteered for the project. Stringing a wire from the house, I installed a light on the barn and placed the switch next to my father’s bed. In addition to allowing us to work outside after dark, it permitted my father to light up the area with the flip of a switch if he heard any suspicious noises at night. As he himself was not technically inclined, he greatly app
reciated my accomplishment.

  At this time, my family had to grind our harvested rapeseed by hand in order to obtain canola oil for cooking, and I became determined to figure out something better. Finding an electric motor, I attached it to the wheel of the press. It worked like a charm. My mother was particularly grateful to have such a labor-saving device and used it for years.

  Despite my successes, some of my projects did not turn out so well. Quite a few times, I was knocked off my feet when I touched the wrong wire. Gradually, through trial and error, I learned what and what not to do.

  My fondest memories of our family life come from the Christmas Eves that we shared together. Wearing a big fur coat, my father would load up the whole family in our large, black horse-drawn Landauer (coach) and drive us to Rohrberg for the special evening church service and the singing of hymns.

  Once we returned home, my father and mother would lock the doors to the living room. While my siblings and I impatiently waited outside in the hallway and pounded on the door, they decorated a freshly cut spruce tree with wax candles and set out our unwrapped gifts around it, as was the German custom. Finishing their preparations, they allowed us to enter the room in single file from youngest to oldest. After the excitement of Christmas Eve, we celebrated Christmas Day the following afternoon with a big dinner of goose, potatoes, and other special dishes.

  Just before the Easter holiday, the residents of small rural communities in Germany would often construct large 20- or 30-foot-high bonfires from logs and other flammable materials on a hill near their village. On the Saturday night before Easter, the bonfires were lit. As we watched, the horizon would be illuminated with the bright glow from 10 or 15 fires burning in the neighboring villages. It was an unforgettable spectacle.

  The following morning, my siblings and I awoke to Easter baskets stuffed with treats and boiled eggs before attending a special worship service at our church. Later that day, my parents held an Easter egg hunt in the garden for us. Afterward, my father would come out to the yard with a boiled egg hidden under his jacket.

  Squatting down, he would loosen his jacket and let the egg drop down to the ground under him. My young sisters would squeal with delight at the presence of a real Easter Bunny. Though my father was generally a serious man, he also possessed a sense of humor and enjoyed teasing us in a good-natured way, especially my sisters.

  Weddings were always major celebrations in Püggen. Everyone in town would ride flower-festooned horses or drive decorated carriages in a large procession over to the farm of the bride’s family to pick her up for the trip to our small church. Following the marriage ceremony, it was customary for the bride and groom to jointly saw a log into halves, which would serve as the legs for a baby cradle. According to the tradition, this assured the couple a family with many children.

  While such happy occasions with our families and community did not cease to take place, life would become much more difficult during the Great Depression.

  Chapter 2

  UNDER THE NAZI DICTATORSHIP

  1928–1936

  THE GREAT DEPRESSION: 1928–1932

  In 1929, a financial disaster struck the world’s economy that sent international investment and trade spiraling downward. In Germany, where business had already fallen into a recession in 1928, the international collapse accelerated a precipitous economic decline, which led to steadily rising levels of unemployment.

  During the years of the Great Depression, my family fared better than many other Germans, but the early 1930s were still difficult years for us. Being a child, I never appreciated the severity of the problem and life seemed to go on pretty much normally for me. I still had enough to eat, slept with a roof over my head, and attended school. The economic hardship was more pronounced in the cities than in farming communities, though my parents experienced daily stress as they struggled to pay our bills and keep the farm on a sound financial footing.

  When my family could not pay our creditors on time, officers from the local court would come to our home. These visits were a humiliating experience, particularly for my father. My siblings and I were not allowed in the room as the officers affixed Kuckucks (government repossession stickers) on two or three pieces of our best furniture like wardrobes and desks.

  Eventually, my father would manage to sell enough livestock or agricultural produce to permit us to pay off our 300 to 1,000 Marks of debt and eliminate the Kuckuck. However, any improvement was temporary. My father’s fine oak desk received a Kuckuck two or three times as we went in and out of debt.

  Even in these difficult circumstances, the six farms in Püggen managed to continue operating and providing work for the local laborers. While many farmers around Germany had to sell off part or all of their land because they could not pay their bills or meet their mortgages, my family fortunately avoided having to resort to such desperate measures.

  Still, my father sometimes had to stretch out payment for fertilizers, new farm equipment, and repairs to worn out farm machinery, and had to compensate our hired labor with production from our farm rather than cash. Our farm provided us with adequate food, but there was little spare money, even for basic items like new clothes or the replacement of the soles on our shoes.

  Aunt Hedwig, a distant relative who lived with us, would stitch labels from various apparel manufacturers into the clothes she sewed for my siblings and me. It was a very thoughtful effort to fool us into thinking that the clothes were purchased from a store, even if we saw through the deception. We probably would have liked to have more and newer outfits than the refurbished ones we ordinarily wore, but realized that our family could not afford such items.

  Though it was hard to find the money for such necessities, my father still occasionally treated himself to small luxuries like a mug of beer or the cigars that he loved. On one occasion, he sent me to purchase a stein of beer for him at Püggen’s pub just down the street from our house. Taking the opportunity to taste beer for the first time, I started sipping from his mug on the five-minute walk back home. By the time it reached my father’s hands, a half an inch or more was somehow missing from the top. Growing angry with me, he snapped, “You spilled it again Wilhelm!” Even children never completely escape the stress when times are hard for a family.

  Coming when Germany was less than a decade from the economic struggles during and after the Great War, the Depression years tended to reinforce the nation’s conservative social values and increase popular discontent with the post-war state of affairs. Conversations about the recent war itself were frequent and generated strong emotions.

  Like most other citizens, I believed that the Great War arose from the refusal of the existing powers—Great Britain, France, and Russia—to accommodate Germany’s rising economic and military strength and to accept our nation’s rightful place as a leading state in the world. Despite the loss of many sons and fathers in the conflict, there was a sense of pride that Germany had defeated Russia and successfully resisted the combined military forces of much of the rest of the world for more than four years of war.

  Though Germany agreed to an armistice in late 1918, most Germans did not accept that the nation had truly been defeated, since the German Army still existed as a coherent military force and occupied part of France as well as wide territories in the East. Instead many, if not most, Germans believed it was the revolutionary actions of left-wing Communists and socialists on the home front that had undermined the army’s morale and ultimately compelled the nation to seek a negotiated settlement.

  Discussions of the Great War inevitably led to bitter denunciations of the unexpectedly harsh Treaty of Versailles that the Allies subsequently forced on Germany in 1919. Unjustly holding Germany guilty for starting the war, the Treaty inflicted harsh financial reparations, required the surrender of German territory and colonial possessions, and imposed a 100,000-man limit on the German military. Unsurprisingly, many Germans felt a lingering sense of grievance toward France and Great Britain for the co
untry’s difficult conditions.

  With my interest in military history, I often spent time talking with local veterans in Püggen and neighboring villages. They invited me along to the meetings of the Stahlhelm (Steel Helmet), a large rightwing paramilitary organization comprised of former soldiers who served in the Great War. Wearing their old uniforms and bearing their military rifles, these veterans assembled together a couple of times a year for large outdoor gatherings in various places across Germany.

  Beyond reminiscing about the war, delivering patriotic speeches, eating bratwurst, drinking beer, and leading the crowd in traditional German songs, the group also offered weapons exhibitions to the crowds. More importantly to me, they also gave boys my age a chance to shoot their Mauser rifles on firing ranges. It was a lot of fun, even if the rifle’s recoil would leave my shoulder sore for days.

  Although possessing limited knowledge of political matters at that age, I agreed with what I understood of the patriotic nationalism of the Stahlhelm veterans. Their hostility toward the limits placed on the strength of the Reichswehr (pre-war German armed forces) and other unjust aspects of the Versailles Treaty seemed justified. Although many local Stahlhelm members were hostile to the extreme chauvinism and racial nationalism of the National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party, the national Stahlhelm organization did at times cooperate with other nationalist groups, including the Nazis.

  While the Nazis shared common opposition to Germany’s postwar political order and certain nationalistic views with groups like the Stahlhelm, they would not tolerate any competing groups. After coming to power, they would absorb the Stahlhelm into the Nazi SA, or Sturmabteilungen, their brown-uniformed party paramilitary organization.