In politics nothing is contemptible.
Disraeli

Chapter 2

POLITICALLY CORRECT

After Father found housing in Landsberg, mother and I followed. It was the beginning of the 1936 summer school recess, which gave us plenty of time to get settled before school opened.

We moved into a new up and down duplex, another first for us, since we had always lived in large apartment complexes. The owner of the duplex, a dentist by the name of Fichtmann, occupied the ground floor, while we had the spacious apartment upstairs. From the large balcony there was a 180° view of the surrounding suburban area, and a large sandy hill, where until about 1850 condemned criminals had been hanged.

Up to now we had lived in large metropolitan areas, so I had to adapt to the different life style. Tthe people who lived in this small town, Landsberg had only a small streetcar system in the downtown area, about two miles from our duplex. I had to have a bike. Father finally gave in and bought me an old clunker of a bike “to learn on”. It was a “museum’s piece,” as we kids called outdated things in those days and it embarrassed me to ride it in public. After I proved that I could ride the bike he said he would buy me a new bike, which I could select myself.

One of father’s customers delivered my new bike,which was not the latest in bike technology but it solved my transportation problem. Now I could roam and explore the picturesque town and surrounding areas. The Warthe, a large river, ran through town in a westerly direction. It was spanned by a massive stone bridge connecting the two parts of the city divided by the river. The river was navigable for ships up to 200 tons. Barges towed by tug boats, or self-propelled, hauled bulk freight up and down the river. South of the river was a huge, fertile and rather flat valley, shaped during the last ice age by melting glacier water. This valley was subject to flooding every spring, so it was prime agricultural land.

North of the river the land rose several hundred feet into smooth, sandy, pine forested hills, with numerous picturesque lakes. The town of Landsberg (which had a namesake in Bavaria), was old for this part of Germany. The massive, Gothic style Marien Kirche (church) in the center of town had been built in the 16th century, and had been altered and expanded in subsequent centuries.

My father already had numerous business contacts and mother and I met many of them. Peter Bergner and his large family were some of the most interesting people. Mr. Bergner had the largest dry cleaning and dyeing business in town. He employed about 50 people, including a maid by the name of Emma, and a chauffeur.

Peter’s second wife, Martha, had been his secretary when his first wife died of cancer. He had a much older son from his first marriage, and four daughters and a son from his second one. The daughters were Anneliese, Ruth, Edith, Inge and son Dietrich (Dieter, Dee). When I first met them, Anneliese, the oldest daughter, was about 20 years old. Dee was seven years old.

Peter Bergner, had connections everywhere and was well liked. His extravagance was a dark blue 1934 Packard sedan of truly impressive size, driven by his chauffeur. The chauffeur compartment was separated from the passenger section of the car by a sliding glass window. The car easily accommodated six passengers. Its massive engine had the most horsepower of any car registered in the county of Landsberg.

The Bergners often invited us to their home, and I was in Inge, who was about my age.

The only student not in the Hitler Youth

Starting in a new school was always a grizzly experience for introverted me, even though I had changed schools often, and should have been used to it. There were no co-ed schools in Germany. To fit into a new school class was difficult, because each class had an established pecking order that was upset by the addition of a new pupil. The “new one” had to be scrutinized and classified to find out if and how he fit in.

I had to first deal with the aggressive class bullies. The outcome depended on how they sized me up, and that depended on how I dealt with them. It was an intimidating experience because I had these clowns behind my back, until either I or they, had established a new pecking order. I tried to play it cool until I had sorted out their intellectual capacities. That didn’t take long. Scholastically I was more than one year ahead of these boys, because Berlin had far better schools than this small town. I ignored the smart alecks, but once in a while they ganged up on me. They finally classified me as a kid of rich parents, because I wore better clothes, and my father had a car.

I didn’t have to pay much attention in class, and yet was consistently among the top three students in school and most of the time, at the very top. My biggest handicap was that I was the only student in this school who was not a member of the Hitler Youth (HJ). One student out of 450. Talk about pressure, from the kids and the teachers. I tried to ignore them as much as I could.

The teachers were a special subcategory of homo erectus. They fit Murphy’s law which says, “Those who can, do, those who cannot, teach, and those who cannot teach, administrate.” The principal of the school was Mr. Hildebrand, a veteran who had lost an arm in World War I, and was an SA Obersturmführer. He often wore his Nazi uniform in school. He liked me, but I wasn’t sure if that was because of my top notch scholastic record. I never felt comfortable with him. Much later in 1945 when the Russian Army occupied Landsberg he committed suicide.

My class teacher was Mr. Zülke, another Nazi, who constantly reprimanded and embarrassed me because I wasn’t a member of the HJ. A funny guy was Mr. Zippel the PE teacher. He was tall and extremely gawky but not a member of the brown shirted Nazi variety. After he came back from the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936 he was the only one who gave us an honest account of the winners of the Olympic competitions.

The most impossible character was Mr. Dietert, whom we called “the Owl,” because he looked like one. This could have been because he was teaching natural history and biology. He did some interesting experiments with the class however. When teaching about human perception, he had the class get paper and pencil ready and then he opened the windows for 5 minutes. We were not allowed to speak or make noise, but had to write down all the outside noises we could hear. He then closed the windows, and each student had to write an assay about the noises they had heard, and how the student thought the noise had been generated. Then all the assays were compared, and it was stunning what some students heard and what they thought the source of the various noises were. A very interesting study about differences in human perception.

I finished school and didn’t join the Hitler Youth until a law was firmly enforced that decreed that every youth between the ages of ten and 18 was “automatically” a member of the HJ. When I reported to the “brown kindergarten” as I called it, the first question was, “How come you are joining late?” My prompt answer was that it hadn’t been compulsory before. That really angered the HJ Führer, who put me in with the ten year old kids, which was the most demeaning insult to me. I towered over everybody. I retaliated by not showing my face very often at their meetings, and the police inquired several times about my whereabouts and I always found some excuses.

My father insisted that I have a private tutor in English so I would be fluent in the language. The Nazi attitude was that German would soon be the most important language in Europe so there wasn’t emphasis on foreign languages in the schools any more. Mrs. Peters, my tutor, was an older, frightfully English lady, who drilled me in British grammar and syntax, irregular verbs, quamperfects and similar unpleasant grammar subjects. On occasion she told me the latest political jokes about Hitler, which she picked up from friends and relatives in London and from the BBC. She was a good teacher who always checked my homework, and tried to give me a good base in the language. Unfortunately I didn’t gain fluency in conversational English because there was no chance to practice it.

To get together with different kids and to continue my favorite sport, I joined one of the local rowing clubs in Landsberg. Here, as in Berlin, I liked working out, meeting new people, and seeing new scenery. All the rowing took place on the Warthe River, which was large and swiftly running. Every spring the river flooded wide agricultural areas despite the fact that they were diked. This was a fun time for rowing out and crossing some of these large flooded areas. There was competition between the clubs as to who would be the first one up the river in spring. The up-river restaurants offered schnapps and the traditional one dozen eggs for the first crew arriving. Yes, even as 14 year old kids we downed the one shot glass of schnapps. This first outing was commonly referred to as the “egg trip”, an old rowing tradition, often risky, because large chunks of ice were still floating down the river. If we ran aground while using shortcuts across the flooded areas, the coxswain was obliged to step into the shallow, icy waters and push the boat off the obstruction.

The Olympics and the American Relatives

When the 1936 Olympics were held, I was sorry not to live in Berlin any more. Even though I was excluded from physical education in school because of my earlier leg accident, I was privately active in soccer, field and track, swimming and rowing, so I wanted to watch some of these events. My Aunt Hanna and her daughter Ellen had come over from New York again, and I wanted to see them too. My mother, however, invented all sorts of strange excuses why I should not. Finally I gave up. I found out decades later from Wolfgang that my mother was afraid I would get romantically involved with my cousin, it was one of her Schnaps idea as my father said. Maybe it was because Ellen’s father, Hans Hirschfeld was Jewish and mother was afraid of Nazi reprisals. She never told me about her reasoning.

Aunt Hanne got into hot water with the ever present Nazi party members in Berlin. She refused to raise her right arm to greet Nazi flags that were carried in rallies, etc. They questioned her and she told the Nazis that she and her daughter were Americans and couldn’t be bothered to greet a political party’s flag. My aunt didn’t beat around the bush, and couldn’t be intimidated. With so many foreign guests in Berlin for the Olympic Games, the Storm Troopers (SA) didn’t dare raise a ruckus about it. My other aunt, Kläre, who was working for the government, was embarrassed about her “little” sister, and kept a distance from her when in public.

A lot of things happened in 1936. The Olympic Games started with an enormous propaganda effort. Hitler reoccupied the Rheinland, and nullified the Locarno pact. Compulsory military service of 24 months duration was decreed by the government. Hitler and Mussolini signed the ill fated “Axis” pact, which would become a troublesome burden to Germany later on. An Anticomintern pact with Japan was also signed, which likewise proved not worth the paper it was written on.

Even though a lot of people in Germany were still enthusiastic about Hitler, there was an increasing fear that his political games would lead Germany straight into another war. The older people were especially opposed to war, they still had bad memories of World War One.

I enjoyed going on long bike trips in Landsberg, and often went for 60 mile trips all by myself. I never had a serious accident, even though no helmets were worn. One day however I had the glorious idea of going down a steep and narrow downtown street called Schlachthofgasse. It’s lower end forming a “T” with Landsberg’s main street. I couldn’t stop as I approached the main street, so I schussed across both traffic lanes at right angles and onto Mr. Schumm’s Shell filling station, which was across the street. I heard the screeching brakes of an Opel convertible, and saw the driver literally stand on his brake pedal. When I saw what I had done I didn’t waste any time and pedaled off at top speed, disappearing into the next side street to avoid the irate driver. Mr. Schumm, who had been filling up a car at the moment when it happened, was panic stricken by what he saw and of course knew who I was. When I arrived home, the “reception committee” was waiting for me, and they hadn’t rolled out the red carpet. My father furiously read me the riot act, strictly forbade me to ever ride that street again, and locked up my bike up for two weeks. I had learned my lesson, plus I now had to walk for the next two weeks, which gave me time to contemplate my stupidity.

Confirmation

Early in March of 1938 I was almost 15, and was to be confirmed at the large Lutheran Marien Kirche in Landsberg. My parents had disagreements about my confirmation. My father had left the Church many years before and considered confirmation unnecessary. My mother thought that I should be confirmed, and that I could then decide whether I wanted to remain with the church. I went through the necessary instructions, and was looking forward to the festivities. Many family members whom I hadn’t seen for quite some time arrived in Landsberg for the occasion.

It was customary that all teenagers who would become members of the church were introduced to the congregation by name. When we stood up, the minister asked religious questions. When one of my rowing buddies was introduced, the question was, what is the difference between the “Heavenly kingdom” and the “Third Reich”? He answered, “There isn’t any difference, both will last forever.” This caused an audible gasp in the congregation and raised numerous eyebrows, but the Nazis in church were pleased. I could see my father’s head shaking and his facial expressions giving an indication of annoyance. I later talked to my rowing buddy and he told me that his answer had been ordered by the minister, who was apparently more often seen in a Nazi uniform than in his ministerial robe.

The family party was a bash, with some embarrassing moments for my mother. Father, probably because of the “Nazi statement” at church, didn’t even talk to the pastor when he dropped in. That upset my mother, because father could at least have said hello. The relatives ignored my father’s anger and all continued to have a good time. I received a lot of gifts, and also many flowers from my father’s customers. I counted a total of 13 beautiful azaleas, which I adored, but I secretly wondered about the ominous number 13.

Starting professional education

I finished school in 1938, one year ahead of schedule, and was the top ranking student in my school. My father insisted that I learn a technical profession. I would have liked to be a car mechanic, but my mother categorically declared that she was not going to wash the dirty overalls of a car mechanic, and that was that.

I went to the employment office to see what other apprenticeships were available. I easily passed several technical aptitude tests and settled down to study ophthalmic optics. During my apprenticeship I attended a local technical school and several times a year I had to take special optics courses away from home. The apprenticeship was to last four years.

I hated the political crap that was going on in the Hitler Youth (HJ). I considered the marches and meetings childish, but I had to make at least a token appearance now and then at their meetings. I discovered that I could transfer into the Motor-HJ and I would gain technical automobile knowledge, learn traffic rules and how to ride a motorcycle. This was better than being taught how to serve “Our Führer”. Despite the technically interesting subjects, I stayed away as often as possible but had to invent all sorts of excuses such as my rowing training, and the heavy schedule of my apprenticeship etc. The police questioned my mother several times about my whereabouts.

Girls, not the Hitler Youth

On top of all these demands on my time and skills, I was going through puberty. I had a number of good-looking girlfriends and mother encouraged me to bring the girls home, so that she could see with whom I was hanging out and whether or not she could live with them, in case there was a need to take her in as a daughter-in-law.

In school and in the family I had learned about venereal diseases and the dire consequences of making a girl pregnant. An enormous amount of fear and apprehension had been instilled in us kids. We were told never to have sex without a condom, but nobody told us how sexual intercourse was done. Most of what I learned was fantasy, in hush-hush talks, with the kids who did it. A few girls got pregnant and that was scandalous. Most kids grew up with negative impressions, even fear, about sex, and avoided it.

In 1938 Germany annexed Austria under the pretense of bringing it home into the big Fatherland. That was followed by the Sudeten “crisis”, the Munich conference, and the occupation of the Sudetenland. It was obvious that Hitler would not keep any of his promises and pacts, and that he was determined to go as far as he could get.

Reichskristallnacht

One day I was biking downtown and saw SA men and other people standing in front of businesses whose show windows had been smashed. I talked to the people milling around the stores, who told me about the Reichskristallnacht, the plundering of Jewish businesses and confiscation of their property. I didn’t even know that these businesses were owned by Jewish people. I called my mother right away, so she could turn on the radio, to find out what was going on.

At work on Monday morning, my boss, Mr. Buchner, his daughter, and I discussed the situation. They were incensed about this illegal and frightening action. Again the discussion turned towards whether or not there would be another war. We agreed that it looked that way. The cleaning lady, Mrs. Milke, was besides herself about the possibility of another war. Her son had been drafted into the army, and she worried about him a lot, as did millions of mothers in Germany.

My personal life was far more important to me than the political scene. I had a new girlfriend Steffi, from Austria. I suspected that she had been sent to relatives in Landsberg until things calmed down after the Anschluss in Austria. She was pert and short, blond, quite muscular and totally different from the Landsberg girls. She wore lederhosen and coarse mountain hiking shoes with steel-nailed soles. She didn’t take crap from anybody. When the guys got fresh with her she would let go with a hard punch to their stomach. I ogled her from a safe distance, and didn’t make any attempts to meet her. This went on for quite a while until she noticed my inattention. Then she started hanging around where I worked, particularly around quitting time.

One night I came out of the store to go home and Steffi was showing off in a most peculiar way. She would run and then go into a skid on the smooth, granite covered sidewalk, sending showers of sparks from the steel nails under her shoe soles. Guys did that occasionally, but girls? I thought it was a bit theatrical, but the fact that she was different made her interesting.

I asked her for a movie date. We became good friends. She turned out to be feminine, even romantic but just a bit too gushy. She apparently put that rough behavior up for self-defense, to keep the guys she didn’t like at a distance. Being Catholic, she didn’t believe in premarital sex or even petting, but wanted to get married as soon as possible and have children. I dated her for a while but lost interest because I didn’t want to get married that young.

My father didn’t like the political situation and could not refrain from making sarcastic remarks about the Nazi nonsense. One day he asked at a neighborhood store for a “Hitler herring”. When the owner’s wife, Mrs. Ihlenfeld, looked puzzled, she asked her husband, working in the back of the store, if they carried Hitler herring. He came up front to see who the joker was that asked for it and when he saw my father, he said to his wife, “Give him a Bismarck herring without a head.” His answer had them all in stitches.

In early 1939 my father told us we had better prepare for a war, because Hitler was doing the same. My parents had lived through World War I, and so they knew what type supplies would be in short supply but could be stored. My father also decreed that we would go on a family vacation.

During July 1939, we set out for the Baltic Sea in father’s company car. As we drove north from Landsberg, we met all types of military convoys. Father said he was worried that if the war started while we were on the road, we might not get any gasoline. However, the front wheel drive DKW was extremely frugal in gas consumption (about 30 M.P.G.), and father always carried a spare can of gas in the trunk.

We had selected a tiny Baltic Sea village named Pustchow near Hoff for our vacation spot. Mother and I had been there before, and we stayed with the same family, who farmed and did commercial fishing. We had a simple room with our own kitchen and did our own cooking, since there weren’t any restaurants in the village. My father took a liking to the host family and we helped them get the hay in when thunderstorms threatened, or helped to haul in fishing nets.

Mysterious flying objects

Below the coastal cliffs was a beautiful white beach. This remote village wasn’t frequented by many tourists, so the visitors really stuck out and they sure looked different this year. While on a hike along the sea cliff we noticed new wooden structures that looked like observation platforms, but we could not figure out what there was to observe. Careful questioning of the locals revealed that strange looking small and very fast airplanes were flying parallel to the coast. Some measurements were apparently being taken from these platforms. It took my father’s considerable patience to find that much out. It also seemed that some civilians, who looked like summer guests, were really watching everybody. We decided that the airplanes were obviously part of a secret project, so we refrained from prying any further. The atmosphere along the coast was not the usual summer vacation party atmosphere.

Years later I learned that Werner von Braun was leading the research and development work of the first pulse jet powered military weapon, later called V-1. This work took place in Peenemünde, about 40 miles southwest from us on the island of Usedom. The test vehicles were flown along the Pomeranian Baltic coast, and were observed from the platforms we had seen.

Despite the charged and uneasy atmosphere at the village, we had a good time soaking up the sunshine, and swimming in the beautiful blue green sea. At the end of July 1939, we returned to Landsberg, again encountering many military convoys. The masses of military vehicles with heavy artillery pieces driven through Landsberg had caused cracks in houses along the route. People realized that war was imminent. Landsberg was only about 25 miles from the Polish border, and if a war broke out, artillery shells from the Polish side could reach us. There were idiots who claimed that the war would be over in two weeks, if not sooner.

On August 23, 1939, the radio announced that Germany and the Soviet Union had reached a nonaggression pact. Not many details were given about the agreement. First the Nazis made a propaganda effort against Stalin and the USSR, and now they had signed an agreement with them? Who could figure that one out? The opinion was, the war against Poland was now as good as won.

Not even the worst pessimists, or optimists, guessed that this pact would seal Hitler’s fate. Stalin was now in the driver’s seat, because an economical agreement had also been reached. Germany would receive oil and other important strategic materials from the USSR, so Stalin could influence Hitler’s actions.

Three days later it was announced that ration cards would be issued for food, soap, shoes, textiles and coal. “Now you have the shit,” declared my mother. The allowances were 1.5 lb of meat, 6/10 lb of sugar, 1/4 lb of jam, 1/8 lb of coffee or ersatz-coffee, and 4.5 ounces of soap per week, per person. Everybody said Hitler must be preparing for a long war.

September 1, 1939

On September 1 Hitler ordered the army to invade Poland and the sun started to set for Germany on this infamous day.

An immediate blackout was ordered. All street lights were turned off and vehicles had to put black discs with only a narrow horizontal slit over the headlights. Residents were ordered to blacken all windows so that no interior light could be seen from the outside.

Air raid wardens made the rounds in their neighborhood, checking for visible light. This caused a lot of irritation at first, until efficient ways were found to darken houses and apartments. Stores and restaurants had to put black curtains inside of each entrance door so that no light could be seen when the doors were opened. Since most people had vertically hinged, double windows which opened inward, they covered the inside windows with black paper or fabric, and left the outer windows clear. The blacked out windows were left open during the day. In many houses only one room and the kitchen were blacked out, because people didn’t have enough money to buy black material for all their windows.

In the streets, curbs around intersections were painted white to make them visible to pedestrians. Everyone had flashlights, but even these had to be dimmed by blue filters. People wore stick-on fluorescent buttons on their clothing so they wouldn’t bump into each other in the dark. It was especially spooky during the moonless nights. It was quite an inconvenience, and only we teenagers were having fun, since young eyes are better in dark adaption.

The news on the radio and in the papers now dominated everything. France and England had now also declared war on Germany. The information, or rather the propaganda of the Nazi government, was running at full speed. It fed people all the bullshit they could take, and then some more. Fortunately my parents had a radio with shortwave bands, so we listened to what the propaganda machines of the outside world were cranking out. By believing 50 percent of what the Nazis said and 50 percent of what the outside world said, we were able to get close to the truth.

The first obituaries of soldiers killed in Poland appeared in the papers, and even we kids became aware of the terrible price individuals had to pay to satisfy the ambitions of a few idiotic politicians. Although the war in Poland ended after one month, nobody felt better, we knew that war would continue at the western front. Nothing was heard about fighting there, and everyone hoped a peace agreement could still be reached. That was wishful thinking, Hitler’s violent action in Poland had removed any doubt about his true intentions.

Apprenticeship in Optics

I liked working as an apprentice for Mr. Buchner. I learned to cut and edge corrective lenses, repair lens frames, and fit the frames to customer’s faces. I also trained in subjective refraction and theoretical physiological optics, and took courses in physical optics.

The son-in-law and daughter of Mr. Buchner, Willy Bauer and his wife who worked there as opticians, and I were enthusiastic photographers. My favorite work was doing photo enlargements, but this was done only for the Buchner family. The printing for customers was done by a professional photographer across the street. At times I was down in the lab by myself, and experimented with various enlargement techniques. That was fun, but it was frowned upon by the boss, because new printing paper was no longer available. One time I had to move the enlarger, and discovered a whole stack of nudist magazines under its base plate. I was sure that they had been left there by Willy Bauer. I suspected that he and his wife had sex in the refraction room at times, because they made strange noises in there. Willy also went on vacation with his stepdaughter Margot, who was my age. They always went to the Baltic during the summer, while Mrs. Bauer went on vacation by herself to Bavaria or Austria. There was much talk about that in town.

The war eliminated my father’s position with Shell Oil Company in Landsberg, because the government took over administration and distribution of all gasoline and oil. Gasoline was available only to a few institutions and individuals. They had to have a red chevron on their license plates. Only government officials, physicians, essential trucks, and farmers with motorized equipment had these license plates. Many owners of automobiles had to report to the military with the vehicles they owned. Father stayed for a while in Landsberg to convert the local Shell distribution center for the war requirements, then he transferred to the Shell Company’s main office in Berlin, which functioned as a government distribution agency now.

Another move

My father was still allowed to drive his company car, but he didn’t get commissions any more, so we had to lower our living standards considerably. That meant another move into a smaller, less expensive place. My mother fortunately found an apartment in an older up-and-down duplex in the same street. The best feature of it was the large garden, important during war times. Mother was an enthusiastic gardener, and was looking forward to that garden work with pleasure.

The disadvantage of the place was that it was the only house in the neighborhood not connected to the city sewer. The house had a large concrete cesspool that collected all the sewage, which had to be emptied several times a year. The owner had installed a large hand pump and had bought a number of galvanized sheet metal gutters to distribute the contents of the cesspool throughout the garden. Talk about smell! I did not enjoy that type of fertilization, necessary to make our mini-farm productive. The neighbors ran around with clothes pins on their noses when it was pump day.

The downstairs apartment of the duplex had three rooms, plus one bathroom and a kitchen. There wasn’t enough space for me to have my own room, so I had to sleep in the living room. The large basement had an old-fashioned laundry room. A huge copper cauldron built into a firebrick base, heated by wood and coal, it was used to boil the laundry. There was also a wood and coal stove in the kitchen, with an additional gas range. It was a move back in time by about 50 years, as well as a move down in size. We also had to chop our own firewood. I couldn’t help but make a sarcastic remark to my mother, “Ma’am, permit me to say, we thank our Führer.” She gave me a dirty look but had tears in her eyes.

We slowly got acquainted with our new neighbors. To the left were Dutch people by the name of Timmermann. He was a tall, authoritarian looking character, who worked at Landsberg’s gas processing plant. Mrs. Timmermann, who always wore black or dark colored old fashioned dresses, seem to be from a different era. She too was tall, and looked like she had come out of a medieval castle. According to my mother she seemed to be pregnant all the time. Mrs. Timmermann could hardly speak German, so everybody had problems communicating with her. They already had three girls by the name of Anni, Hilde and Lotti, and later another girl, Carla.

Above us lived Hildegard Piechatzeck all by herself. Her husband had been drafted right away when the war started, and he was in the air force at the western front. Hildegard was an attractive young woman, blond and slim and always well dressed. She liked to dance, and lived it up while the old guy was away at war, which annoyed my mother. Mother thought that Hildegard had affairs all over town. At one time Hildegard tried to seduce me, but my mother stepped in and broke up the attempt. Mother’s opinion was, that at 16, I was too young for sex. Later I often fantasized what would have happened if Hildegard had been successful. I wished she had taught me all she knew about sex. She was lonely, so her amorous advances were understandable. Mother and Hildegard were on good terms and became good friends.

In 1940 we heard of a big new development being planned around Landsberg. Nobody knew what was going on, but the I. G. Farben Company, one of the largest chemical concerns in the world, had purchased a huge tract of land northeast of the city along the Friedeberger Chaussee. In a short period of time large buildings were erected for an industrial complex. Under the direction of Dr. Klare it became Germany’s largest manufacturing plant of man-made fibers. Dr. Klare was the co-inventor of the Perlon fiber. Perlon was every bit as good as, and in some characteristics better than, Nylon. When fully on stream the Landsberg plant cranked out six tons of Perlon per month, primarily used in parachutes for the Luftwaffe and airplane tire cords. It brought a large influx of workers into Landsberg.

The first bombs

It was early 1940. The year had started with more bad news. Finland had to capitulate to Russia. Germany marched into Denmark and Norway. Then suddenly on May 10th the much awaited German offensive against France, Belgium, Holland and the British Expeditionary Army began, and to everybody’s surprise was won by the end of June. The German Wehrmacht seemed to be invincible, and everybody was certain a landing in Britain would be next. The Luftwaffe continuously bombarded cities in England, and on July 26 the inevitable happened. The British returned the “courtesy”, and bombed Berlin, which according to Goering, could not happen. Goering’s name after that event was “Meier,” because he had bragged in a speech that if the British could get through to bomb German cities, his name was going to be Meier. It again showed what dumbskulls our leaders were.

One night our air raid alarm went off, but was ignored as usual. Whenever Berlin was under attack, 80 miles west of us, Landsberg also had air alarms. Shortly after the alarm, I heard a single airplane overhead and seconds later two explosions. That certainly got everybody’s attention. Since I had been outside when the explosions occurred, I had a general idea of the direction were the bombs had come down. Early next morning I hopped on my bike to find the location. About a mile from our house I saw two large bomb craters in an open field. Army officers from the nearby garrison were already looking at the craters and had found parts of a bomb’s tail section. This bombing was part of a psychological British warfare to show that every area of Germany was vulnerable now, and could feel the destruction of war.

With the Hitler Youth to Poland

The Hitler Youth group that I was a member of planned a trip into occupied Poland. We would use our own bikes to get there. I didn’t want to go, but to my surprise was urged by my father to participate. A group of about 20 of us guys set out from Landsberg early in the morning, and crossed the old border post around noon. We continued east to a little town by the name of Pinne. We went to a large country estate with a mansion type home, several guest houses overlooking a pond, and many horses and other animals. Our leader apparently knew the present occupant, or had made arrangements with him. He showed us all to our quarters, and ordered us to clean up and report at the dining room in the mansion at 5:30 pm sharp. I got sidetracked by a bike problem, and missed that time by a few minutes.

When I did arrive, everybody was already seated at a U-shaped group of tables in the huge dining room. I was embarrassed about my tardiness, quickly assessed the situation, and sat on the nearest available chair. I noticed that my late arrival triggered consternation at the head table. A fat party boss in the usual brown uniform, and various other potentates sat with our Hitler Youth Führer. They frowned at me with displeasure and the Hitler Youth Führer whispered something to the party boss, who was probably a District Party boss, or “Kreisleiter.” I pretended not to notice the disturbance at the head table, and casually talked to the guy next to me. He whispered to me that I was supposed to go up to the Kreisleiter, salute, introduce myself, and shake hands. I thought, why didn’t they tell me that ahead of time? I wasn’t going to get up again, walk up to the head of the table in front of everyone and make a fool of myself, besides that, dinner was starting already.

In came eight uniformed footmen, carrying huge food platters as would have been customary at the four star Hotel Kempinsky in Berlin. I thought, this cannot be true, and my usually camouflaged Berliner arrogance broke through. I thought if they want to play that game, I can handle it. When the servers presented the patters I haughtily requested the best pieces of pheasant, venison, and roast beef. I was determined to show them that this pompous exhibition could not intimidate me. In other words, I was showing off my social background and impressed the surrounding audience by displaying impeccable table manners. Even the Kreisleiter, who was constantly watching me, seem to notice that I didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the group. I practiced a “stiff upper lip” and pretended that this service was what I was accustomed to at home.

Unfortunately, the after dinner speech of the Kreisleiter did not match the quality of the food and deserts. The Nazi “Führer” gave a speech detailing the Party’s “Ostraumpolitik” for Poland. He hashed over all the garbage that I had already heard from the likes of Alfred Rosenberg and other party nincompoops on that subject. I didn’t pay much attention to what he said, because that kind of rhetoric bored the hell out of me. After the speech we were urged to go to town, and see for ourselves how the new Nazi order had changed things. I really wanted to see that, because I had not seen much of a difference on either side of the old border.

We all walked to the little town’s square. Here we were, a bunch of young guys in the uniform of the Hitler Youth, walking along the sidewalk and the Polish people stepped off the sidewalk to make room for us. Some of the older men even lifted their caps and bowed their heads towards us young whippersnappers. I was stunned and ashamed because the Nazis had turned my upbringing upside down. I had been raised to respect the elders, and had never experienced this subservience. I could not believe that people older than I would step off the sidewalk for me. I was disgusted and angry at the local Nazis, who had obviously beaten these people into such obsequious demeanor.

The whole experience deeply disturbed me. I lost a lot of my faith in humanity that day, even though I knew that all through history these things had happened. It was sure different to experience it in person, than to read about it in history books. I felt that even though we were the “victors”, we had no right to expect, or extract, such behavior from the losers.

We biked home the next day, and all through the trip there was talk about our experience and now I knew whom I could trust, and whom I must not trust. As a nonconformist I often opened my mouth too wide and that was getting increasingly dangerous. The secret saying was, “Silence is Gold, talking is Dachau.” I understood now why father wanted me to see the situation in Poland.

Military Physical, 1941

I was 17 years old in early 1941 and was called up by the local military draft board for a physical. My parents were anxiously giving me instructions to tell and show the military doctors my leg injury. I did, but they classified me “K.V.” meaning, “Able to serve in the war” anyway. These military boards never bothered to determine if a man was physically in good condition, all they wanted was new cannon fodder for the front lines. Their edict was predictable: I was usable for the intended purpose (war). At the end of the examination, recruiters from the various branches of the armed forces were waiting to enlist some of the draftees.

If I had to serve, I wanted to serve in an interesting technical field. I talked to the Luftwaffe (Air Force) recruiter and took home enlistment papers. When I told my mother what my classification was, she just wouldn’t believe me, and chided me for not properly bringing my leg injury to the doctor’s attention. I told her angrily, that if she had gone to that examination, they would have given her the same classification. I didn’t see anybody at that physical who did not get the “K.V.” status. Maybe if I had come walking with crutches, I would have had a chance.

In the following week I spent a lot of time thinking about what I could do in the military without having to exchange bullets with the other side. I talked to my friends, and most of them said they would just wait and see what branch called them. Others were all gung-ho on volunteering for service in the submarines, the tank force or the SS. I finally decided to sign up for a technical branch of the Luftwaffe, but that meant, I had to sign up for four years. Since I was still a minor, my father had to give his consent. Father had volunteered at the beginning of WWI and he didn’t want me to make the same mistake. He said that he would try to get me a job in the defense industry to keep me out of the armed forces. I was apprehensive about that, because the defense industry was increasingly subject to bombing attacks, and the chances of getting killed there were almost as good as in the trenches. Father finally succumbed to my logic, and signed my papers. I was going to live it up in the time remaining.

Other 1941 events, Hess flies to England

In 1941 it was obvious that Britain was preparing for an offensive in the Mediterranean area, including Greece.

The radio announced that Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, had “secretly” flown to England. He was immediately pronounced insane by the Nazi propaganda machine, but the German people didn’t buy that. The big question on everybody’s mind was, “What was the purpose of the flight?” Germany was fighting on too many fronts. Despite severe punishment for listening to enemy radio stations, many German people were listening to the BBC every night and trying to sort out the facts, but logical reasons for that flight were not forthcoming from either side.

Jitterbug

We young guys knew how precious little time of freedom we had left before being in the Armed Forces and the war. We took advantage of everything we could get away with. Some of the American Dixieland hits were very popular with us teenagers. Our favorite was the “Tiger Rag,” but when some of my friends started to jitterbug, they were kicked out of the bar. Jitterbugging was considered to be a “decadent” American dance by the Nazi government and was strictly prohibited. This was hilarious because some of the guys kicked out were Hitler Youth Führers.

My home away from home was the boat house of the rowing club, particularly since it was getting into summer. We thought up a lot of pranks while boating and got a lot of laughs out of them. One Sunday a four oar crew with me as coxswain decided to row upstream to Zantoch, a small town at the confluence of the rivers Netze and Warthe. About a mile up the river was a nice secluded stretch of beach, so we pulled our boat up on the west bank of the Warthe river. From there we could see the town of Zantoch. Along the opposite bank was a road on top of the dike, occasionally used by bikers. It was a nice warm day so we decided to skinny dip in the river. There was a practical reason for swimming in the nude. One of the basic rules in rowing is to never wear anything wet that would touch the rowing equipment for any length of time. It would cause painful blisters at the contact points.

After we were cooled off, we sunbathed in the nude, and since we didn’t want to sunburn our penis, we covered it with large leaves of wild rhubarb that was growing nearby. It looked cute, five guys sunbathing, with leaves covering the “strategic” body area with the hefty rhubarb stems sticking up in just the right place. We thought it was an ingenious temporary sunshade. Nobody that passed on the other side of the river even noticed, until a group of six uniformed women came along on their bicycles. We recognized by their uniforms that they were from a National Labor Service (RAD) camp in Zantoch. When the women were abeam on the other side, the rowing crew stood up and hollered hello, and when the women looked, we simultaneously lifted the sunshades and waved with them. The result on the other side was instant chaos, they almost ran into each other as they stopped to have a better look. We couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it almost looked as if the women were going to jump in the river, and swim over to join us. Unfortunately they decided against it, and continued biking while waving at us and blowing us kisses. We had a good laugh, unpacked our sandwiches and washed them down with some beer.

A few weeks later an acquaintance of mine who had a kayak invited two girls from Berlin to came along on a weekend outing up the river. Gerhard could only accommodate one additional person in his kayak, so he asked me if I would care to come along in a double skull boat and bring the other girl. She could be my coxswain. I said I would consider it, if my friend Max would have time to come along too. The two of us had sculled together many a times. Surprise trips are usually a lot of fun, but in this case I was a bit apprehensive. These two girls probably didn’t know anything about boating. I liked to share my time with friends who knew the ropes, and came equipped and prepared.

We were going to take as much food along as rationing would allow, a camp stove, blankets, warm-up suit, swim trunks and even a portable gramophone with some of my records. The girls turned out to be pleasant, one brunette and sexy, the other tall, blond and more of the cool type.

We took off upstream when the sun started to set, illuminating everything with a warm golden light. The farmland along the river receded into a light grayish mist and features faded and became indistinguishable. The world turned down its volume control, and the rhythmic splash of the oars and the soft murmuring of the water were the only sounds surrounding us. Once in a while a cow sounded off out in the fields. It was a scene of peace and quiet, but my thoughts were wandering off into the world of terrible destruction and death on the battlefields.

Why oh why God, could the world not be like our surroundings here at this moment? Tears rolled down my cheeks until I reminded myself that I had better enjoy life while it lasted. As we came around a bend in the river we were surprised by a woman standing naked on a stretch of sandy beach, probably cooling off after a hard day of work on the field. We waved and she smiled, and we continued upstream.

It was time for us to find a place for the night and to beach the boats. Since we didn’t have a tent along, we looked for a barn where we could sleep. At this part of the river the farm houses were on the left side, while the fields and barns were at the right side of the river. It was almost dark and we were tired. We found an empty looking barn, and pulled our boats up on a sandy stretch of river bank. We ate, and talked quietly, while savoring some beer that we had brought along. We learned that the girls from Berlin had not brought anything along to sleep in, they must have been under the impression that we would stay at an inn. Ursula, the cool blond who was going to be a teacher, was better prepared, because she brought warm clothing. Inge, the brunette who worked in an office, and claimed to be engaged, was a bit flighty and wasn’t prepared for anything.

After supper, ideas on where and how to sleep were tossed around. Gerhard, who owned the kayak, said we ought to turn both boats over and prop them up so we could sleep under the hull. Since the double skull boat was long enough, Ursula and Gerhard decided to sleep there. Max and I decided to sleep in the barn. Unfortunately there wasn’t any hay or straw in it. Inge couldn’t make up her mind how and where she was going to sleep. We finally got fed up with her, and just went into the barn and looked for relatively smooth ground, and laid down under our blankets. I was sleeping along one side the barn, Max on the other side. Well, it wasn’t long before Inge came into the barn. I told her to stop fussing around, and come and crawl under the blanket with me just to keep warm. She did, and settled down. Max was starting to snore, and I was about to fall asleep too.

After about half an hour Inge propped herself up, and looked down onto my face, apparently waiting for an inviting reaction from me. I just opened one eye and looked back at her, then closed it again. I didn’t know how to make love, and was ashamed to admit it. I was sure she was disappointed about this klutz, who asked her to crawl under the blanket with her, and then didn’t even give her a kiss. After a moment of hesitation she got up and left the barn. I finally went to sleep and didn’t see her until the next morning. She must have slept outside, because she looked rather disheveled. Everyone was teasing her. It was really my fault, because she had apparently expected me to follow her outside, and make love to her there, away from where Max was sleeping. I hadn’t gotten the message and lost out.

We had breakfast and then went for a walk through the fields, enjoying the rising sun and the warmth that it brought. Then Gerhard had an idea. If we all agreed to stay another night, he would go to the other side of the river, and talk to the farmer to see if he could buy a bail of straw. Gerhard must have been a smooth talking salesman (his real profession), because he got straw, and also brought one large jar of milk and another one with water, and some eggs. Probably paying with cigarettes or tobacco. We hadn’t seen real, rich milk like that since rationing. We were accustomed to “blaumilch” only, as it was commonly called, because there was so little fat in it that it looked blue. Since Inge had been so “awkward,” the guys wanted to generously give her another chance, and named her cook for the next meal. She was to create a cream of wheat pudding from the stuff that Gerhard had brought from home and the good milk and eggs he got from the farmer. When Inge started out I watched her closely, because she didn’t seem to know how to cook. When she made a move to dump the whole bag of cream of wheat into the boiling milk , I jumped in and took over. I couldn’t prevent some of it getting into the milk, but I stirred like crazy, and then added the rest very slowly to prevent big clumps to form. The pudding came out reasonably well and the precious stuff didn’t go to waste.

We felt sorry for Inge’s fiancee, and hoped that he would find out about her cooking before he married her. We spent that evening around a romantic camp fire and made some hot punch from a bottle of red wine that I had brought. We had a good talk session and Ursula took a real interest in me and asked me to visit her in Berlin. At night we all bedded down on straw in the barn. The girls stayed together under one blanket and we had a good and peaceful sleep.

The next morning on our way back Inge steered the boat, while trying to learn the lyrics from a song playing on the gramophone in front of her feet. The title was dumb, and the lyrics were even worse. “Why is the banana yellow, and the orange red?” and it continued with “Why does Fritz not sleep at home, but gladly with Christina?” This was easier to figure out than the rest.

I told Max, who was in the number one rowing position, to keep an eye peeled on the river ahead of us. Inge wasn’t paying any attention, and once we had to work our sculls desperately to keep the boat from hitting a jetty.

Back at the boat house the boatmaster, who was in his mid sixties, had a cow when he saw us pulling in. Mixed crews were forbidden by the club, and the girls were not even club members and the gramophone was of course an absolute no-no in a gentlemen’s rowing crew. I knew right there that I would never hear the end of it. When we got the boat out of the water and had lifted it onto a dolly, the boatmaster scrutinized every square inch of its planking, but couldn’t detect any “damage”. I told him not to worry. I would be called up soon and might not come back alive, so he wouldn’t have to put up with me anymore. The boatmaster gave me a dirty look and strode away, probably to write a report about my outrageous behavior.

Finished my professional education

In September 1941 I worked hard to pass my final written and oral exams to complete my apprenticeship. By the end of the month, I had to go to Frankfurt/Oder to perform additional practical tests at the headmaster’s optics shop. After I finished all the assigned work and had passed all required tests, the headmaster handed me my certificate, and invited me to dinner. I was very proud that I had finished my apprenticeship in only three and one half years.

When I got home I found a registered letter from the draft board telling me to report on October 15 to the National Labor Service (RAD) Company K 10/84 in Bomst, about 100 miles from Landsberg. Shit, that was really the pits. I had hoped to have at least a couple of months before being called up.