The Boy Who Went to War

by Giles Milton

Gauleiter Robert Wagner saw the event as an opportunity to demonstrate his fanatical loyalty to the Führer. There were to be marches and parades through the streets – colourful affairs with flag-bearers and Nazi pageantry. The marchers carried vast brick-red banners that were unfurled in the stiff spring breeze. ‘In our unity and togetherness lies our strength,’ read the motto on a thousand such banners.

  For the Aïchele family, Hitler’s birthday was an occasion to work in the garden and keep a low profile, but in the Rodi household, Peter, the eldest son, could not resist ridiculing the day’s solemnities. He pinned up a postcard of Hitler in the entrance hall and decked it with a colourful garland. The postcard was the only image of Hitler in the house, sent to the family by a concerned cousin who feared that Max Rodi, a state employee, would get into severe trouble if he was discovered not to be in possession of an obligatory portrait.

  On this festive day, that tiny picture with its garland of flowers was turned into an object of satire. Peter’s dressed up in his Hitler Youth uniform and persuaded his sisters to do likewise before calling for his parents.

  The children recited to them trite poems celebrating Hitler and also sang the Nazi songs they had been forced to learn in the Hitler Youth. Their mother, half bemused and half shocked, did not quite know how to react.

  The long summer holidays of 1939 were overshadowed by talk of war. For weeks there had been the same daily news on the wireless. The constant refrain was that the Poles were mistreating the ethnic German minorities who lived in the border regions of Poland. Hitler, it was said, was no longer prepared to tolerate this and would soon put matters straight.

  The Aïchele parents, in common with their church friends, the Rodis, were convinced that war was now only a matter of months away. Yet many people in Pforzheim continued to believe Hitler’s assurance that he would avoid plunging Germany into conflict, even though the facts seemed to contradict this.

  Hannelore Schottgen came down from her bedroom at the end of August to see lots of colourful cards laid out on the table. Her father told her that they were rationing cards. ‘Everyone gets the same,’ he explained. ‘Food, meat, bread, soap.’

  Hannelore’s mother was not impressed. ‘You’re not trying to tell me there’s not going to be a war with such preparations,’ she said to her husband and began to make her own, ready for the conflict that she felt certain was to come.

  A very elegant bag made from pig’s leather, which was discreet and could hold a great deal, now came into its own. Five times a day, she headed to the shops and bought sugar, rice, coffee, chocolate and other essentials.

  She had to be extremely careful not to be caught stockpiling provisions. People who purchased more than was strictly necessary could be denounced for displaying a lack of confidence in the regime.

  As the holidays came to an end, the news grew increasingly gloomy. Hitler was playing a dangerous game of brinksmanship in the international arena, convinced that he would get everything he wanted. He not only demanded the return to the Reich of German-speaking Danzig but he also wanted a road and rail link through the so-called ‘Polish corridor’ that separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany.

  Poland had no intention of acceding to these demands. Pforzheim’s morning newspaper was indignant at what it believed to be Polish intransigence. ‘In the last four days, the nerves of the German people have been stretched to the limit…all of Germany has been waiting by the wireless in order to listen to the words of the Führer and the red heat of anger has inflamed their faces as they have listened to his numerous attempts to find a solution to the Danzig problem.’

  The paper claimed that Hitler had bent over backwards to avoid conflict and that he had even pursued suggestions proposed by the British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain. ‘But the Polish people simply laughed dismissively.’

  Less than twenty-four hours after the appearance of this article, Germans heard the tidings they most feared. A peaceful solution to the crisis had not been found. Their country was once again at war.

  Fifteen-year-old Wolfram was on a solo cycling tour in the Vorarlberg region of Austria and was sleeping in a rural barracks when the news broke.

  The local farmer rushed into the barracks and announced to the soldiers that Germany was declaring the outbreak of hostilities. There was a stunned silence as everyone considered what it meant. The unwelcome intelligence came as a particular shock to the village youth, who were immediately conscripted. Most were dismayed by the very thought of another war and had no clue why Hitler wanted one anyway; several of them confided to Wolfram that they had thought the Polish corridor was the name of an English politician.

  The next morning, Wolfram headed to the canteen for his usual breakfast of fried polenta and coffee, but there was one dramatic change. All the soldiers had left in the night, having been drafted back into the army.

  The reaction to the gathering storm was very different in Innsbruck, which Wolfram visited on the following day. The people there were less pessimistic and more confident in Hitler’s ability to succeed.

  As Wolfram made his way back over the border into Germany, he witnessed scenes of mayhem in towns and villages as lads of fighting age sought to register themselves for the military.

  Frithjof Rodi was in his bedroom when the announcement came over the radio. His father came in wearing full military uniform to say his goodbyes. As a former officer in the First World War, he had been recalled to service in the forces. He was sent to Brno in Czechoslovakia where he was charged with training artillery for the battles that were sure to come.

  That morning, in the centre of Eutingen, young Doris Weber, a friend of the Aïchele family, leaned out of her apartment window and immediately realised that something of great significance was taking place. Hundreds of soldiers were marching through the village, in uniform and carrying flowers they had been given. Everyone was hanging out of their windows to watch the soldiers go by, shouting: ‘We’re going to war!’

  Wolfram’s parents were deeply alarmed by the news. They had two possible channels for getting more information on the morning that war broke out: the state-controlled radio or the state-controlled newspapers. Both presented a very similar version of events. Polish troops were said to have started the conflict by attacking a local transmitter on the Polish–German frontier. This, according to Hitler, was the casus belli. Germans had the right to defend themselves.

  Unbeknown to the Aïchele family – and to almost all other Germans – the Polish attack had been an elaborate deception. One hundred and fifty inmates from a German concentration camp had been dressed in Polish military uniform and forced to stage a mock assault on the transmitter in the frontier town of Gleiwitz on the night of 31 August 1939.

  This gave the German war machine the excuse to go on the offensive. Bombers and fighters screamed into action, attacking air bases, road and rail communications, and munition dumps. Dive-bombers were sent to strafe columns of Polish troops; soon after, motorised infantry and artillery launched the first blitzkrieg ground offensive of the Second World War. Speed was the operating tactic of the German army whose intention was to strike with such rapidity that the enemy would be completely overwhelmed.

  On that opening day of the campaign, Hitler made a speech to the Reichstag that was broadcast on the wireless. It was listened to with nervous anticipation by both the Aïchele and Rodi families.

  ‘My whole life has been nothing but a struggle for my people, for their revival, for Germany,’ said the Führer. ‘This struggle has been fought continually under the banner of faith in this nation. There is one word which I have never learned: capitulation.’

  The outbreak of war came as a thunderbolt to many Pforzheimers who had hitherto supported Hitler. Hannelore Schottgen’s father was speechless, having really believed that Hitler did not want military action. Hannelore herself was upset all day; war had finally arrived – the big thing that everyone had been talking about.

  Yet many also felt
that German pride could at long last be restored. Goebbels’ propaganda machine used every possible means to whip up a sense of patriotism in those initial days. And there was a great sympathy for the army, especially after its defeat in the First World War.

  In the Rodi family, there was a feeling that something ought to be done. On the first weekend that Max Rodi had leave, he suggested that the family protect themselves in some way and got the two boys to dig a defensive trench in the garden as a protection against air raids.

  Frithjof and Peter set to work with pickaxes and shovels; the trench grew longer and deeper with every hour that passed. Then it started to rain and the mud in the bottom turned into a swamp. When their father returned to his regiment on the following day, a neighbour came round to inspect the work. He told the boys it was ridiculous, so they filled it in.

  Their mother, Martha Luise, also felt that the grave situation required some sort of response. She bought a large map of Poland, pinned it to the dining-room wall and then made lots of little flags – each one representing a division of troops – so that she could monitor the campaign. The family followed the battles closely and always listened to the daily news bulletins.

  Crouched around the wireless, they would absorb each fresh despatch from the front line. The bulletins always began with music by Liszt, followed by interminable speeches by Hitler, riddled with references to treachery, betrayal and the ultimate victory of German arms.

  Max Rodi was disgusted by the Führer’s ranting monologues. In one speech, Hitler claimed to have destroyed nothing in Germany. Max exploded and shouted out: ‘Nothing! What about the synagogues?’

  Chapter Six

  Deporting the Jews

  ‘If we lose this war, then God help us!’

  Everyone in Pforzheim was stunned by the opening days of the military campaign in Poland. Hitler’s gamble had proved a spectacular success. Wolfram’s mother tuned in to the state radio each evening to hear that the German army was sweeping all before it. Warsaw had been heavily bombed by a formation of forty planes and many other Polish towns were also subjected to heavy raids. The Nazi regime’s bellicose policy had, it seemed, been triumphantly vindicated.

  Marie Charlotte, concerned that the news on German radio might not be trustworthy, tuned in to a Swiss channel, even though it was strictly illegal, only to find that the broadcasts were remarkably similar to what was being reported on German radio. Hitler’s military invasion of Poland had indeed turned into a spectacular rout. On 6 September, Krakow fell to the German army. Less than two weeks later, Hitler himself addressed a triumphant crowd in Danzig. By the end of the month, Warsaw had fallen and 140,000 Polish troops were taken into captivity.

  The good news was tempered by bad. Britain’s declaration of war on Germany, two days after the invasion of Poland, came as extremely unwelcome tidings to Wolfram’s parents, as to all their Pforzheim friends. It even alarmed senior figures in the Nazi hierarchy. When Goering was informed of it, his initial reaction was one of panic: ‘If we lose this war,’ he said, ‘then God help us!’

  Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry was undaunted by Chamberlain’s defiant stand. Fully forty-eight hours before Britain had declared war on Germany, the ministry had already issued a confidential press directive to all newspapers editors in the country, informing them how to react in the event of such an outcome.

  It read: ‘Britain is the true aggressor in the world…It is clear that the British mediation was merely hypocritical and that the British government never intended to produce a settlement.’ It went on to instruct editors how they should report the news of a British declaration of war.

  Pforzheim’s two newspapers took Goebbels’ advice to heart on the morning of 4 September. Both contained long articles about the insolence and treachery of erstwhile friends. ‘England Betrays Europe,’ was the headline in Marie Charlotte’s paper. ‘The British hypocrisy has come to a head.’

  The talk was bullish and defiant: the British people, said the Pforzheimer Rundschau, were going to have to pay the consequences for their warmongering leaders. ‘There is no way they can avoid the ring of iron and concrete in the West which is manned by stubborn German men who have been sent by the whole German nation to fight until the final victory.’

  Pforzheimers were reminded that Germany had never sought conflict with the British. ‘England has declared war on us. She has thrown down the gauntlet. We are now picking it up and will fight against these “holier than thou” troublemakers on the banks of the Thames.’

  The local Pforzheim newspapers, in common with their counterparts across Germany, only ever covered stories that had been approved by Goebbels’ ministry and were quick to publicise the military successes of the Polish campaign. What they neglected to report was the fact that Hitler had ordered three SS Death’s Head regiments to follow in the wake of the army, under orders to ‘incarcerate or annihilate’ all enemies of Nazism, notably Poles and Jews. Reinhard Heydrich had made it quite clear what this meant: ‘The nobility, the clerics and the Jews must be killed.’

  The SS began its covert operation within forty-eight hours of the invasion being launched, shooting Polish and Jewish civilians in cold blood. It was the start of a murderous six years for the inhabitants of Nazi-occupied Poland. The country was carved up, with three large districts incorporated into the German Reich. The rump, which became the General Government, was handed over to the rule of Dr Hans Frank. ‘Poland,’ he said, ‘shall be treated like a colony. The Poles will become the slaves of the Greater German Empire.’

  Such sentiments were not for public consumption and were certainly never broadcast. Marie Charlotte continued to tune in to Swiss radio, in the hope of receiving news that had not been manipulated by the Ministry of Propaganda. However, it proved remarkably difficult to get reliable information from the outside world, as well as extremely dangerous to pass on such intelligence to others in the local community. Wolfram’s mother and father certainly did not exchange news with their neighbours, or even with close friends. People had already learned never to ask any questions and to keep quiet about everything that was taking place.

  The outbreak of war with Britain brought few changes to the daily routine. Wolfram’s father continued teaching at the art school while Wolfram himself was still working as an apprentice at the local carpentry workshop. A few of the basic foodstuffs were now rationed – among them meat, butter and cheese. Yet the rations were generous, for Hitler well remembered how rationing had sapped morale in the First World War.

  For some families, rationing led to an unexpected improvement in their diet. The Rodi boys were surprised to find that they got meat twice a week. On Saturdays their mother used the meat as a basis for making soup; on Sunday they ate the meat itself. The only drawback to rationing was the fact that prices remained high. Martha Luise could not afford the generous quantities of meat that they were allowed and used to give the family’s ration cards to wealthier relatives.

  People quickly mastered fending for themselves in wartime. The Rodis kept their own chickens and rabbits, as well as growing their own vegetables. The Aïcheles, too, grew potatoes and cabbages in the garden below the house, where there were also lots of fruit trees. For those living in apartments, it was more difficult to supplement their rations with home-grown produce, but most had friends or relatives in the countryside who supplied them with extra milk, cheese and eggs. The worst of the hardships were still many years away; indeed, it was not until the war’s end that many families faced prolonged and severe shortages.

  Windows now had to be blacked out at night, on the off chance of a bombing raid. Wardens patrolled the streets of Pforzheim throughout the hours of darkness to ensure that not a glimmer of light could be seen from the air.

  Hannelore Schottgen’s father found it too expensive to buy curtains for the big bay window in their living room, so he brought mats home from his school and stuck them against the glass. They looked nice enough by lamplight, but proved difficu
lt to roll up in the daytime.

  In the end, the family stopped using their electric lamps in the evening, as light still filtered out into the street, and started going to bed by candlelight instead.

  Such measures seemed futile to the inhabitants of Pforzheim, who felt a world away from the hostilities. Many of the youngsters were disappointed when no foreign aircraft flew over the town.

  Yet there were little reminders that Germany was now at war. There was daily training for air raids, and teenage girls were shown how to apply bandages and help children into gas masks. In the Eutingen branch of the Hitler Youth, new marching songs were added to the repertoire. The children were taught songs about England and Churchill, which described him as a fat pig.

  The Eutingen youngsters were also obliged to go from door to door, asking for donations to the war effort. There was no question of opting out since it was all organised by the Hitler Youth. Sigrid Weber and her sister were forever being sent out with collection tins, and would be rewarded with a badge once the tin was full.

  In the early years of the war, these collections were halfhearted affairs, but would become far more serious after the 1941 invasion of Russia. People were expected to donate everything they had. If they did not, it would be confiscated anyway.

  In Eutingen, this policy of enforced donation would eventually create a great deal of ill-will against the regime. People began whispering, ‘This cannot make you win a war,’ but they were afraid to say such things openly.

  With no bombing raids, nor even any planes flying overhead, there was a sense of unreality to the situation. The daily lives of Pforzheimers remained untouched by a conflict that was far away.

  It was a feeling shared by people elsewhere in Germany. Even in Berlin, the war seemed to belong to another world. ‘No excitement, no hurrahs, no cheering, no throwing of flowers, no war fever, no war hysteria,’ wrote the American journalist William Shirer. ‘There is not even any hate for the French and British, despite Hitler’s various proclamations to the people.’