During that part of training, my wife, Hilde, visited me in Spartanburg for the weekend. Her arrival and search for a furnished room was quite shocking to us, as well as revealing about the attitudes still existing in the old South at the time. Even though I was in uniform, one woman informed us, “We do not want you Jews,” and another one slammed the door in our faces.
I WAS SOON SUMMONED in such a hurry, but was not too surprised to find out that Class Number 16, consisting of about four hundred men, would not start for about six weeks. I became a “night-weeper.” As the classrooms were being used during the day, they had to be cleaned at night—the stoves had to be cleaned out and stoked for the fire to be lit for the morning classes, etc. We were busy and slept a good part of the day. I met my friend from Germany, Rolf Wartenberg, there; he had been accepted in Fort Benning, Georgia, which was the Infantry Officer Training School and hard to get into.
At the end of our training, May 1943, I tried the same. There was an opening for five vacancies, and there were about fifty applicants from our class. I was among the last eight or ten, after the others had been weeded out, showing off my skills drilling and commanding about forty people under the watchful eyes of superior officers. My infantry training from Camp Croft would have come in very handy, and I believe that I would have been selected. I was doing very well when suddenly, to my great disappointment, I was called off. The next day I found out why.
Out of our whole class of about four hundred, the top fifty graduates had been selected for an immediate promotion to second lieutenant, I among them. It seemed like a miracle. When I called home and said, “This is Lieutenant Brunswick speaking,” it sounded like a big joke, however, this is what happened. It not only made a tremendous difference in my status, but it also gave me a big boost to my morale, and it especially made a tremendous difference to my family’s economic situation. All of the sudden, instead of having the basic salary of $50 a month, it became $300 a month, and I was now able to really provide for my family and my parents.
IN JUNE 1944, I had my final leave, said goodbye to all my loved ones, and held my little boy for the last time. Then I and many others found ourselves on a troop transport leaving from Boston Harbor. The crossing, in a converted large freighter, was an experience in itself. We slept deep down in the hold in hammocks, with three or four on top of each other like canned sardines. There were thousands of troops onboard, and there were probably ten or fifteen troop ships that crossed the Atlantic in convoys shadowed by war ships, zigzagging and trying to elude the ever-present German submarines, which had sent so many ships to the bottom.
We finally made it to a port near Edinburgh, Scotland. From there, we took a train to Broadway, a quaint little town, into the Midlands of England, not far from Birmingham. Once there, I was selected for an additional period of advanced intelligence training in Swindon. When I returned to Broadway, intelligence teams were formed, each consisting of two officers and four enlisted men, as well as two jeeps and a small trailer for the equipment. Towards the end of August, we crossed the channel and landed in Normandy. We saw what unbelievable odds they had fought, climbing those steep cliffs while being subjected to enemy bombardment and constant machine gun fire from fortified bunkers. They had been so brave, facing almost certain death.
In Normandy we saw additional evidence of all the destruction the war had caused; it was a new experience for us. We landed that day at the headquarters of General Patton, commander of the Third Army. It was not far from Paris, which had just been liberated. We set up our little tents in a meadow where we could see the city in the distance. It was the usual army thing: Hurry up and wait.
The other officer on my team was Lt. Herbert Heldt. He had been an engineering officer before being sent into the intelligence camp, obviously because he knew some German (his parents had been born in Germany). He was short and, in civilian life, had been a jockey and a midget automobile racer. He wasn’t the smartest person, but what he lacked in brains, he made up in bravado. We complemented each other well because we were so different. Then there was Henry Block who had been promoted to master sergeant, the highest grade of noncommissioned officer. There were two lower grade sergeants and a corporal, used as drivers and clerks, to compete our little organization.
We had named our two jeeps Hilde 1 and Hilde 2, which was stenciled on the side below the official number. After that, we had no particular duties except to wait to go into Paris for the first time. We saw the church steeples from a distance, but the city was “off limits” to unauthorized personnel like us. Then Heldt got the idea: “Why don’t we take one of our jeeps and look at what Paris is like?” So we did. It turned out to be what I might call the weirdest night of my life.
As army personnel we had no trouble clearing the various check points. Once in Paris, we parked our jeep in a garage that, we were assured, was under constant guard. This was very necessary, as the many French Forces of the Interior (FFI) were in need of equipment, so there were lots of looting and stealing going on. To be extra careful, we also took the rotor out of the motor without which the ignition would not work. We had our pistols in our belts and the four enlisted men carried their carbines.
Paris had no electricity or running water, however, there was no shortage of liquid refreshments; the Parisians cheered every Allied soldier they saw. Then it got dark. There was still shooting going on by German stragglers, who were apparently trying to escape under cover of darkness. Suddenly, a shot rang out from behind me, grazing my left ear on the inside between ear and head, and some blood from my ear was visible. It was nothing serious, even though another inch farther to the right probably would have ended my story at the age of thirty-three.
For many years I claimed that the only reason I did not get the Purple Heart decoration for a wound received in action was because I could not report it, being AWOL at the time. In the interest of truthfulness, I have to report that the shot had been fired by my friend Henry Block, who had been walking behind me and, in the excitement and turmoil, squeezed off a shot in the wrong direction.
ABOUT A WEEK LATER, we were called to Third Army headquarters. One of the jeeps belonging to an IPW team with one of the divisions had hit a mine on the road. Three of the six team members had been killed, so we replaced this team. We got our instructions, received our orders, and were directed to the headquarters of the XV Corps to report to the colonel in charge of the Intelligence Division at Corps Headquarters. He assigned us to the HQ of the 2nd French Armored Division, which was one of the three divisions that belonged to the Corps. It turned out to be a good assignment.
The commander, General LeClerk, and his officer corps were professional soldiers who had served in North Africa and had all along been staunch supporters of General de Gaulle. From North Africa, they had been shipped to England to be re-equipped with American tanks and then had come from Normandy to Paris and beyond. The whole division consisted of volunteers of whom 20 percent were known to be Jewish. The French division was much less tightly controlled than the American ones; in fact, they were somewhat too independent for the American generals under whose command they fought. We were advised not only to furnish the division commander and Corps Headquarters with intelligence from interrogations, but also to provide the Corps with our own reports about the French division’s movements.
AS AMERICAN OFFICERS, we ate in the mess with the general and his staff. Conversation was naturally in French only. Even with our knowledge of French, I understood only about 25 percent when they were talking among themselves rapidly and using a lot of North African patois.
The French operated differently from American units. The American units would prepare each tank advance with a lot of artillery preparation to hold down casualties. The French were less cautious; they hated the Germans more than the Americans did, having been subjugated by them, and were most anxious to liberate all of France as fast as possible. They advanced faster than the cautious Americans, thus suffered a great many casualti
es.
Our first battle was at a town called Andelot. It was a small town in a valley, surrounded by woods and hills, and we took it by evening. We were told that there were about four hundred prisoners whom we could see in the morning. At night, there was a lot of shooting in the hills. In the morning when we wanted to interrogate the prisoners, none could be found. We drew our own conclusions as to what had happened to them. In the town itself, a civilian mob had taken justice into its own hands to punish some collaborators. There were a bunch of men with pants around their feet and bloody genitals, there were women who had their hair cut off, and it was not a pretty sight.
WE WERE KEPT BUSY, as the troops advanced through France toward the Alsace, sometimes very fast, sometimes held up for a week or longer, either by German resistance, or supply problems, or other reasons that I did not know. I tried to write Hilde and my parents whenever possible. I knew they worried about me. I thought about Hilde and my son, Freddie, a lot. I missed them, feeling somewhat lonely and blue at times, and hoped that I would see them again, in good shape and soon. The other soldiers also felt the same way, especially the somewhat older ones who had families.
Due to heavy German resistance that slowed our advance, we stayed for about two weeks in a little town named Gerbevillers, but we were kept very busy at times with the German prisoners brought to our HQ for interrogation. Then one day something strange happened. I sat on one side of a table together with one of our men and a prisoner who was brought into the room. Before interrogating him, he had to empty his pockets and show his German army papers, which gave his name and serial number. This man was Martin Look, who said he was born in Bocholt. I had gone to school with Martin Look for four years, from age six to ten, and had even been in his parents’ house.
Now I met him again, about twenty-five years later, and wouldn’t have recognized him without seeing his papers. I doubted that he recognized me, and he was certainly not in position to ask an American officer any questions, but for half a minute I was tempted to ask him if he still had the wood-burning stove in his family’s kitchen. Then I decided that not only did I not know whether or not he’d been a Nazi Party member, but that I also did not want any gossip among other POWs, so I sent him on his way, just like everyone else. I later found out from my old neighbors in Bocholt that Martin Look had told somebody that “Hans Braunschweig was the American officer that interrogated me.” I still regret not having revealed myself during the interrogation.
BEING WITH THE 2ND FRENCH ARMORED DIVISION was very exciting. Between that division and the XV Corps, I believe we were some of the most independent American soldiers in the army. When the division expected to be in reserve and stationary, we asked for passes (Ordre De Mission) for the six of us, and permission was granted to go to Paris and return, “when mission was finished”—in other words, an indefinite time order. All we had to do was ask every day at headquarters in Paris when we would be needed back. We took off in our jeep, reported to French HQ and were assigned to first class hotels. It was a welcomed change and lasted for about a week. By this time, living conditions in Paris were a lot closer to normal than they had been during our first visit. There was electricity most of the time, running water, and no more snipers.
THE THIRD ARMY, along with the XV Corps and our French division, continued its advance through France southeast via Metz, where our team “liberated” a Panhard car. The headlights did not work but, nevertheless, it permitted IPW Team Number 92 to travel in style with one car and two jeeps. We could do things like this only with the French division, which was in every sense a very unusual outfit. It also comprised a battalion of Ghoums, native North African troops clad in black burnooses that surrounded them like big tents. They were very good at creeping up to enemy lines at night with a long knife in hand and creating havoc.
Our French division eventually advanced to Saverne, a town in the hills overlooking the plains and the roads leading to Strasbourg. The hills were snowed in, which the Germans were defending rather vigorously, and the pass through Saverne was considered the only passable one during winter for heavy tanks. However, the French could not be held back; they knew of some back roads that were not as heavily defended by the Germans.
They surprised the defenders, enabling the French 2nd Armored Division to break through. Then, against all orders from the XV Corps and Third Army HQ, it proceeded to advance with lightning speed for about sixty miles to Strasbourg, much to the consternation, as we later found out, of the American command, which by no means were ready to advance that fast on the whole front. We were promptly cut off by Germans, whom we had left behind us on both sides of the Alsatian plain.
Germans were also shelling us from across the Rhine, especially at the Gestapo building where the division headquarters had been installed. We were given a room on the top floor from which there was an excellent view of the Rhine and of the German positions. We also had an excellent chance of being hit by one of the artillery shells. We therefore decided that it would be much more prudent to change rooms and move into the basement.
One of the journalists of the newspaper Yank had heard of this story, and subsequently it appeared as one of the news articles in the paper with our names. The Gestapo building, however, was listed as a hotel in the newspaper, for security reasons. The Germans must have left in a tremendous hurry, for the drawers in the desks were still full. In one of them, I found a beautiful Walther pistol, which I brought home and had for many years.
OUR DIVISION WAS CUT OFF in Strasbourg for several days, as the U.S. Army had expended more ammunition than anticipated and had to stop its advance until supplies could catch up while being transported over the terrible and devastated roads of the French countryside. Our division had to withdraw to protect its flanks. When we eventually advanced again into Strasbourg and the Alsace, it was for good.
We spent quite some time in the Alsatian plain. This was where the news of President Roosevelt’s death reached and surprised us. I remember that I was not the only one who cried at the time. Not only was I grateful to him that I and many others had been able to come to America during his presidency, but above all I believe that without his foresight, Hitler might have ruled the world. Roosevelt had to fight a tremendous amount of reactionary opposition in helping England and engineering the lend-lease destroyer deal, which made it possible for England to survive the unlimited U-boat war of the Germans. He had also supported the rearmament program of the United States before we actually entered the war, realizing that our help would be needed eventually.
There had been, at the time, the very influential German American Bund, as well as the pro-German and anti-Semitic propaganda of the radio priest Father Charles Coughlin and antiwar involvement speeches of Republican senators like Senators William Edgar Borah and Gerald Nye of Idaho and North Dakota, respectively. Roosevelt was not perfect. Turning away the seven hundred Jewish refugees from the S.S. St. Louis when it came into New York Harbor (many of whom perished after returning to Europe) and not bombing the rail lines to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp will forever be blots on his record, but on balance he had been a great leader. Without him, the world would have been a much worse place today than it is already.
IN THE ALSACE, we found heavy resistance but being with the French troops, our living conditions were generally much better than if we had been with an outfit under direct American control. We usually found an abandoned house from which the Germans living there had fled and made ourselves as comfortable as possible. Of course, there was no electricity, and there was no heat in the midst of a severe snowy winter, but there were usually beds and nice down comforters.
I was always amazed at the courage displayed by, and the seemingly nervelessness of, the French officers. I remember particularly one time when the command post was in a little village, and the German artillery was constantly shooting at the nearby church steeple from which their positions could be observed. There could have been someone hit at any minute and the
noise was deafening, but everybody went about their business as if nothing else mattered and everything was peaceful. I don’t know whether inside they were scared—I’ll admit, I was.
Somehow, however, their attitude must have rubbed off on me to a certain extent. I recall interrogating a German major who had just been taken captive. We were in a building, the front of which had already collapsed, and we were on the second floor. There was constant artillery bombardment, apparently from two or three different gun positions. It was extremely important for us to know where these positions were, but he did not want to say anything other than his name, rank, and serial number. I finally said to him, “You won’t get out of here until you give the information. You know that you Germans have lost the war, and it’s just a period of time before it’s finished. If you want to get yourself killed at this late date, go ahead. I have all the time in the world.” He must have seen my point, because he finally told me what I needed to know and that ended this episode, not a minute too early for me.
Another interrogation that I remember vividly had taken place under more quiet conditions sometime earlier in the fall of 1944. The man I interrogated seemed intelligent and reliable. He was with what might be best translated as a punishment company. After he gave me all the information I wanted, like armaments, officers, and opposing regiments, I asked him why he was in a punishment outfit. He said, “I was on the eastern front near Riga, Latvia, where the SS rounded up thousands of Jewish men women and children. They made the Jews dig ditches, undress, and stand so that, when they were shot, they would fall into the ditches. This went on every day. There were so many that the SS needed help and requested regular army troops to help kill the Jews. I refused and that is why I’m in the punishment battalion.”
While I had heard rumors of concentration camps, being cut off from all current news, mass murders surpassed anything I had imagined. I forwarded my interrogation report immediately to the division and also directly to Corps Headquarters, where I hoped it would be going up to higher headquarters. I have a copy of this interrogation still in my files because I was so shocked, even though this was against all army orders.
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