Steven Karras

by The Enemy I Knew: German Jews in the Allied Military

  IN DECEMBER 1944, I was promoted to first lieutenant, but then all good things have to come to an end. One day we were advised that our XV Corps had been transferred from the Third to the Seventh Army, but the 2nd French Armored Division was to remain with the Third Army. When we were called back to HQ, we received a very nice letter of recommendation from General LeClerk. I personally was told that I would receive the Croix de Guerre for the valuable information I had provided the division. The 2nd French Armored Division received a Distinguished Unit Citation from the American High Command for its heroic campaign, entitling the participants in the campaign, naturally including us, to wear a fourragere, a corded ribbon, on the left breast of our dress uniform thereafter.

  All of the above may sound as if being in the war was a lot of fun. I can assure you that it was not. We were very busy on most days, driving, looking for a place to sleep, setting up equipment, worrying about mines on the road, or roads under enemy fire. In the evenings, we were typing our reports, mostly in a cold room by the light of a gas lantern. I, like most everybody else, was waiting for letters from home; the mail reached us very irregularly. I wrote to Hilde whenever I had a chance, and to my parents and sister about once a week. My wife was doing her part for the war by accepting a job with the Office of Censorship. Since she could read German script, this enabled her to read the mail coming to German prisoners who had been brought to the United States. Quite a bit of valuable information could be gleaned from these letters—had our planes hit a bridge or missed it, was food scarce as a railway line was out of commission, was morale good, and so on.

  I also worried about the future. I was thirty-three years old with lots of obligations and no means to speak of or any specialized knowledge of any kind to put to use after my return.

  AFTER A WHILE, we were assigned to the 106th Cavalry, which was a reconnaissance outfit with light tanks and armored cars. We arrived there shortly before Hitler’s last offensive in the area of the Vosges Mountains in the winter of 1944. At the time, we were in some village not too far from the Saar River, south of the Vosges Mountains. Of course, we didn’t know about the offensive. We had quartered ourselves in some abandoned house when at about 2 a.m. we were awakened: “Get out of here within fifteen minutes, the Germans have broken through.” We had never packed up as fast in our lives and were gone in ten minutes or less.

  After Hitler’s surprise offensive had finally been beaten back, the Allied advance took us up to the Siegfried Line, a continuous line of fortified bunkers, antitank ditches, and clear fields of fire for the German artillery. In our sector, once again luck was with me. I interrogated a very young captured SS officer who had been in the frontlines of fortifications. It was extremely important for us to know where some of the main gun positions were situated, but he would not talk.

  Eventually, I got him involved in a conversation about Hitler, the master race, and ethnic purity. We also talked about the fact that Germany could not win this war anymore, to which he reluctantly agreed halfheartedly. I convinced him eventually that, in the interest of the Fatherland, it would be the best thing for Germany if the war would finish quickly and that he could save precious German blood and lives if he would cooperate. With tears in his eyes, he showed me on a detailed map the location of two of the gun positions with which he was familiar.

  OUR UNIT FINALLY CROSSED THE RHINE near Mannheim on a pontoon bridge. The regular bridges over the Rhine had all been destroyed by either the retreating Germans or our aerial bombardments. From there, we gradually advanced to the Danube River, then to Wuerzburg, and on to Nuremberg. Most of Nuremberg was in ruins, with many of buildings still smoking. From Nuremberg, we advanced to a little town named Dachau. A few miles away was a camp, though we did not know what kind, whether POW or labor, which at this time was being penetrated by the first of our troops.

  A strange odor hung over the town. When I inquired about it, several people pretended not to know where it came from. We soon found out. We drove to the camp the next morning, but were totally unprepared for the sights that awaited us. Right outside the camp stood about fifty open freight cars. Lying in them were dead starved people, severed limbs, which had fallen off bodies when some of the starving survivors had tried to throw out the dead people. They apparently had been able to climb out, but had been too weak to go any farther.

  We found out later that this train had come from a camp in Poland, probably Auschwitz, which the SS had evacuated before the advancing Russians would overrun it. The unprotected human cargo had apparently been on the way for several weeks with no food and delayed by bombed out tracks. They finally ended up at Dachau, where guards apparently had had no more time to unload them and to destroy the evidence. The stench which permeated the whole area was unbelievable. It was so horrible that for months afterwards, whenever I thought of Dachau, the stench till seemed to fill my nostrils.

  Inside the camp, more horrible sights awaited us. The SS guards had all fled but for a few who had been killed by our troops. Inside the barbed wire were thousands of emaciated inmates, their black and white striped uniforms hanging loosely on their bones. The ovens where the corpses were being burned were still warm. Outside the building were heaps of clothing and inside bodies, just skin and bones with a numbered tag on the big toe, were lying in heaps, maybe five or six feet high. If I live to be a hundred years old, I will never forget this unbelievable sight. Our American soldiers, mostly unsophisticated young boys from all over the United States, were completely unprepared for the sights they encountered. Until now, they had not really known what Nazism meant.

  Two WEEKS LATER, we captured Julius Streicher. He had been a particularly sadistic anti-Semite. His newspaper Der Stuermer showed the most vicious caricatures of Jews, said the most outrageous lies about Jews, and incited the people to violence against them. The paper was read all over Germany and Austria. The man himself used to strut around with a horse whip in his hand. At any rate, he was jailed and I interrogated him in his cell before he was shipped back for more detailed questioning over many days.

  It was amazing to see how ordinary a balding, middle-aged man looked when seeing him without his glamorous uniform and how his arrogant bearing changes when seeing him in a jail cell. He had posed as a bombed-out artist hiding in the mountains and painting pictures. I was amazed to hear that he was actually a friend of the Jews and, like the Zionists, just wanted them to go to Palestine. I questioned, listened to his answers in amazement, and took notes. He sounded so ridiculous and pathetic that I could not even hate him. He was sentenced to death as a war criminal during the Nuremberg Trials and eventually hanged.

  I RECEIVED ORDERS TO REPORT EARLY on May 5 to headquarters of the XV Corps, right outside Munich. Subsequently, I found out that I had been selected to be the official interpreter at the surrender of all the southern German armies. The German Gen. Von Foertsch was the chief of staff of Gen. Albert Kesselring, who was the commander of all German armies that had been in Italy, Austria, and southern Germany. There were six American generals, including Gen. Jake Devers, who was the commander of the two American armies in the southern part of France and Germany. Then there was also one lowly First Lieutenant Brunswick.

  The picture in the New York Times, as well as those in the other metropolitan newspapers throughout the United States, had the caption, “Surrender at Munich,” and listed all the generals by name plus “an unidentified American officer.” People at home who knew me recognized me in the picture—for once Hilde knew where her husband was. In any case, it was a moment in my life that I will relish as long as I live. There were long negotiations with the Germans—the officers wanted to stay in charge of the troops, they wanted to keep their side arms, and so on—all to no avail. Finally, this Jewish refugee who, eight years earlier had to leave his homeland, asked this high-ranking German general: “Do you understand that this means, ‘unconditional surrender?’” To this, with utmost reluctance, the general eventually spat out, “Yes, I understand.�
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  HAVING BEEN IN THE ARMY during World War II and proven my worth, this had greatly increased my self confidence and done away with the feeling of being inferior to native-born Americans. All through my youth, even before Hitler, Jews supposedly were equal citizens, but they were still perceived by many Germans as unequal. There had always been a lot of anti-Semitism. When I played with other children in Bocholt, I believed subconsciously that I was always wilder than they. I remember climbing on the outside of our house into the second story window, or climbing a tree high enough so that I could get on a factory roof, always trying to impress my friends.

  In my army years, at times the same motives must have been at work; when in basic training I tried to excel, or when I interrogated the German major under artillery fire, I continued until he gave up. In any case I had often been a “reluctant” Jew, asking myself whether it was worthwhile to belong to a small minority and being exposed to discrimination by so many unenlightened people. Being in Israel changed my outlook. I greatly admired what Jews had accomplished there in such a short amount of time and I admired their spirit. While I had not contributed to their achievements and therefore had nothing of which to be proud personally, I came to feel that I was fortunate to have been born a member of this small group of people. In five thousand years of recorded history, Jews have suffered so much, yet still have given the world so much to advance it, in religion, philosophy, science, medicine, and many other fields of endeavor.

  In short, over a period of time, this reluctant Jew became a rather proud Jew. Throughout the years, when someone questions me about my German accent, I’m always pleased to say, “No I’m not German; I escaped Hitler and I am Jewish.”

  IN 1992, WHEN HILDE AND I WENT TO AMSTERDAM, I rented a car for one day to show her Bocholt, where I had spent the first fifteen years of my life. It gave me a chance to spend some nostalgic moments thinking of the little boy and his sister who had roamed around here some sixty-five years earlier and of their parents. The house looked no longer as nice as it did then, nor did its visitor.

  From there we drove to the Jewish cemetery on the outskirts of town. It was well maintained; monuments of my grandparents and other family were all still standing and in reasonably good shape. However, the memorial tablet at the entrance to the cemetery annoyed us. It said, in translation: “In memory of our Jewish citizens who had to lose their lives during the Hitler time. They died for their people and their religion.” What nonsense! An upright statement as to what had happened would have read: “In memory of our Jewish citizens who were murdered during the Hitler years.” It showed me that even well-meaning Germans, who had re-established the cemetery and were keeping it in good shape, still had a hard time, fifty years later, coming to grips with the awful truth.

  In balance, I think that I have been extremely fortunate overall. My family, parents, sister, and I could have perished in the ovens of Auschwitz, like so many unfortunate others. We all escaped. I could have been killed or maimed during World War II, and again I escaped unharmed. I arrived in the U.S. penniless, with only a good education but no particular skills at the age of twenty-six. I was able to acquire the means to make a decent living for my family and myself and to give my kids a good education. I have been able to see my three sons marry and enjoy my seven grandchildren.

  John Brunswick became a manufacturer of plastic shower curtains, tablecloths, and mattress covers.

  Chapter 24

  OTTO STERN

  ROTH, GERMANY

  70th Infantry Division

  Otto Stern came from Roth, Germany, and settled in Chicago in 1936. After a brief stint in the Army Specialized Training Program, he was sent to the infantry. He returned to Europe as a rifleman in the 70th Infantry Division and remained on the frontline for eighty-six consecutive days of combat. In the photograph above, Stern is met by former neighbors upon returning to his hometown just after VE Day, May 1945.

  Many young men, refugees from my neighborhood in Hyde Park, Chicago, were drafted. Some weren’t even that young anymore. They drafted everyone from eighteen to thirty-five unless he was married. My brother, Julius, was also in the army. By that time, I spoke relatively good English, but with an accent that I still have. I had been in the United States for six years by the time I was drafted, so I was assimilated. The army knew I was German, but I let everyone know I was Jewish. In all of the three years I was in the service I only experienced anti-Semitism once.

  I was sent to Camp McCoy on Monterey Bay in California for infantry training. Although I was in really good shape, training was hard, but I knew if I wanted to defeat Hitler I had to work very hard and I did. It entered my mind that I might be sent to the Pacific, but thank god I wasn’t. My brother went through basic training with me and we were in same barracks, too. He had the upper bunk and I had the lower for three months, until the army split us up.

  After basic training the army gave us an IQ test and sent me to Stanford for more tests and then to University in Idaho for the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP). It was essentially college where we would be trained in a variety of concentrations that could be of use in military government during occupation. With the invasion of France coming, however, the need for man-power must have been great, for early in 1944 the program was disbanded. I was sent to Camp Adair, Oregon, to train with the 70th Infantry Division and then to Camp Leonard Wood, Missouri, where I ended up in what was going to be a frontline rifle company—three rifle platoons and a heavy weapons platoon that handled mortars. This was August 1944. I was an assistant Browning automatic rifleman and carried all of the ammunition.

  The people I trained with were great guys. My platoon sergeant was a wonderful Korean man named Kim from Hawaii. I was a private first class, the only rank I wanted. Later when all of the officers and the first sergeant were killed, I was offered an immediate battle field commission, but I didn’t want it. D-Day took place while I was still in Camp Adair. We left around December 5, 1944, for France, just before the Battle of the Bulge, on a ship called The West Point, which had all three regiments of the 70th Division, but no artillery.

  We landed in Marseille in southern France. Since we arrived without artillery support from our own division, we were called “Task Force Herran,” named for our commanding officer. We stayed in tents in a big, open, muddy field on the French Riviera for about five days. Then we were loaded onto freight trains, French 40 and 8s (forty men and eight horses), up the Rhone Valley, taking us as far as they could go. And then the trouble started.

  We got on trucks and went farther north to Hagenau, where there was a terrible battle going on in a place called Wingen. The 4th Platoon, my platoon, was on the left and the others were on the right. Our platoon came under heavy artillery fire, and that is where I got my baptism of fire against the 6th SS Mountain Division. Fighting in the infantry was very tough; when you’re under artillery fire, there’s nothing you can do about it. It is a helpless feeling.

  It was January and it was bitter cold. When we walked through the town after the battle, we were loading bodies onto trucks and they looked like pieces of wood. On the second afternoon, we patrolled through a forest of pine trees, and a German machine gun opened fire, killing a radio operator and his assistant instantly. We pulled back out of the pine trees and were ambushed by hand grenades flying everywhere. We couldn’t dig in because the ground was frozen and had to pull back. The next day Sergeant Kim snuck us back up to the line by going a little to the left, where we had the higher ground overlooking at least four or five machine gun nests—twenty or so Germans—and we killed them all.

  When we moved into a gulley not far from there, a German came out of nowhere with his hands up saying he wanted to surrender. Just as I was going to question him, the soldier next to me shot and killed him—a bullet right through the heart. I just hated that, and in fact, it is still on my mind. The last word the German said was, “Mutter” (Mother).

  That same afternoon, we dug in the same area a
nd the Germans devastated us with 88s. The same American soldier who shot the German was killed. I didn’t know him very well.

  We slept in the Maginot Line the next night and then we were moved up again to the Saar Basin. It was our task to take the high ground overlooking Saarbrucken. By now it was mid February and we were constantly on patrol up the hill and launching several attacks. This went on for about a month, as it was very difficult to get up there. My best friend, a German kid from Texas who was about eighteen years old, was killed. When we got up the hill, the whole thing was ridden with mines and six lieutenants lost their legs.

  We advanced toward Forbach, where there was a castle we had taken. The German counterattack was fierce. The worst thing in the world is when there is a tank firing point-blank at you. We were told to dig in while the Germans attacked the castle. I Company was in the castle while we were outside dug in deep, which was good because our artillery opened up on the Germans who were coming up the hill, and we had no causalities. When it was over, there were about fifty dead Germans right near the front of the castle.

  In the Battle of Forbach, we were divided by train tracks; the Germans were on one side and we were on the other. It was brutal fighting, mostly house to house where we had to run like hell every time we moved. When we took Forbach, I was chosen to lead a patrol to the Saar River, which was right across from Germany. We were able to see the Siegfried Line, railroad tracks, and the heavy fortifications. We quickly turned around and headed back to our lines, when all of the sudden eight Germans appeared with their hands up. We couldn’t believe it. I talked to them and brought back to our unit, and I was awarded a Bronze Star for this.