by Giles Milton
On arriving here, he had no problem buying an onward ticket to Boppard, where the French-controlled bridge spanned the Rhine. However, when he went to board the train, he was stopped by an officious inspector who announced that everyone travelling to Boppard required not just a ticket but a special pass as well.
As Peter remonstrated with the man, he was acutely aware that the train was inching slowly out of the station. There was not a moment to be lost – it was make or break time. He pushed passed the inspector and made a dash for it, chasing along the platform and throwing himself aboard the moving train. He glanced back and saw to his immense relief that the inspector was still at the barrier, having neither the energy nor the inclination to raise the alarm.
After a long journey, the train pulled into Boppard on the banks of the Rhine. Peter now had to face his greatest hurdle – crossing the bridge on foot without being rumbled. He was in luck: although he was extremely nervous and covered in goose pimples, he was not stopped by a single guard. When he was at last on the far side of the river and safe, he headed to a local inn for food.
It was while he was eating that a man sat down at his table and said to him: ‘You’re an escaped prisoner of war.’ Peter was so taken aback that he admitted it.
The man showed no signs of wanting to report him, telling Peter that a number of escaping prisoners had passed through Boppard as they attempted to make their way home. He then offered Peter some advice, informing him that there were two possible ways to enter the American zone: either on foot or by train. Peter heard him out before settling on the latter.
Boarding the train brought him none of the problems he had faced at Saarbrucken, but when it reached the border between the French and American controlled zones of Germany, all the passengers were told to get off. Their papers would be scrutinised and their bags searched before they would be allowed back on the train.
Everyone got out except for Peter. He had decided to hide in the toilet, an old trick, except for the fact that he left the door open and clung to the hook at the back. He hoped that the guards and military police would see the empty cubicle and not investigate further.
Once again, his luck held. A guard poked his head inside and, satisfied that no one was there, continued down the corridor. After an agonising wait, but no more inspections, Peter heard the passengers getting back on board. Soon after, the train lurched forward, carrying him finally into American-controlled Germany.
He now took a train to Frankfurt and Heidelberg before continuing on towards Karlsruhe and Pforzheim. He had prepared himself for what he might expect in his home town, yet it still came as a massive shock to see the ruins. Although more than sixteen months had passed since the bombing, Pforzheim remained a gigantic heap of debris.
Peter bumped into family friends as he walked through the town. Two of them rushed off to find his parents, who were on their way to a concert in nearby Brotzingen. The third ran home to alert Peter’ siblings.
His youngest sister, Barbara, was sitting in the garden, reading a children’s classic about a happy child, when the family friend rushed up the path and told her that she, too, was about to become a very happy child.
As she said this, Barbara spied her eldest brother sauntering along the road. He had changed enormously in the two years he had been away. He had became a man, and was smoking.
Elation, disbelief and sheer joy: Peter experienced a wave of emotion as he made his way up the garden path. Above all, he felt a deep pride in his achievement and could not quite believe that his bid for freedom had been successful. He had been blessed by good luck, of that there was no question, but he had also put enormous effort into the planning. He was one of the few German prisoners to successfully escape and make it home alive. And he was fêted as a hero by everyone in the family.
Wolfram stared out of the train window as the French countryside flickered past, trying to catch glimpses of places he might recognise. At one point he saw towers and spires astride a hilltop, which he thought might be Luxembourg. Not long afterwards, the train crossed the Rhine and the men found themselves back in Germany. As they pulled into Saarbrucken, hundreds of women and children poured on to the station platform to greet them.
The ex-prisoners soon discovered why they were being given such an enthusiastic welcome. The women had learned that soldiers returning from America often brought with them huge quantities of cigarettes, which happened to be true in the case of Wolfram and his comrades. Having no idea how precious these packets were, they were extremely generous in giving them away. Only later did they realise that cigarettes were a valuable currency on the black market.
Their journey became painfully slow once they were back on German soil. They stopped in Marburg, where they were registered and given official papers declaring them free to go. As the damaged rail network was undergoing repair, Wolfram had to take a circuitous route, passing through Frankfurt, Wurtzburg and Heilbronn before catching an onward train to Stuttgart. Now, at long last, he felt he was nearing home.
At one point the train passed through a most beautiful village where he had once gone for a long hike with his mother. He rejoiced that not everything had been destroyed.
After another long stop in Bietigheim, twenty miles to the north of Stuttgart, Wolfram finally boarded a train bound for the village station in Eutingen. He was excited as well as a little anxious to think that he would soon be back in the family villa that he had not seen for two years and wondered what changes he would find. He had received almost no news from his parents since he had left for Normandy in January 1944. A lone postcard, which reached him at Camp Gruber, had informed him that they were still alive, but these prisoner-of-war cards, issued by the state, allowed the sender to write just twenty-five words.
The train slowed as it pulled into Eutingen station. There was a squeal of the brakes and then it jolted to a halt. Wolfram gathered together his few belongings and stepped down on to the platform. As the train’s conductor gave a shrill blast on his whistle, signalling its departure for Pforzheim, Sigrid Weber, who had just climbed aboard, glanced back down the platform as the train drew out of the station. She saw Wolfram’s familiar figure, and recognising him instantly, realised that his parents had no idea of his imminent return.
As soon as she arrived in Pforzheim, she ran straight to the school where Erwin was teaching to pass on the good news.
Erwin found it hard to believe what she told him. ‘Is it really true?’ he asked breathlessly. ‘Can it really be true?’
When Sigrid confirmed that it was definitely Wolfram she had seen, Erwin clapped his hands and called for silence in the workshop, then made an apologetic speech to his students. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, ‘but I have to leave immediately. I’ve just been told that my son, whom I haven’t seen for two years, has arrived home.’ Hardly daring to believe it, Erwin lost no time in catching the first train back to Eutingen.
Wolfram was meanwhile climbing the Hohe Steig – the High Path – which led to the family house. At the end of the long climb he reached the top to stand once more in front of the familiar plate-glass windows and low porch. A light could be seen shining from the kitchen and a familiar figure stood at the sink. His mother, Marie Charlotte, was preparing lunch.
Wolfram rang the bell and waited. For a few seconds there was no sound, then he heard the shuffle of feet in the hallway. The door opened slowly and he stood face to face with his mother.
She let out an excited shriek, flung her arms around him and pulled him into a huge embrace. She had been in the middle of making pastry and was so enthusiastic in her hugs that Wolfram’s dark American army shirt was soon white with flour.
Half an hour later, Erwin arrived from Pforzheim to be reunited with his son. It was a moment to be savoured for years to come. Wolfram looked older and thinner than when he had first left home and his face was still pale from the long sea voyage. But he was alive – alive! – a lucky survivor of both the eastern and western fronts.
> When the time was right, he would tell his parents of his experiences: his hellish months in Normandy, his brush with death and his extended captivity in America.
For now, on the day of his homecoming, it was time to celebrate. Almost two years after he had been taken prisoner – and fourteen months after the German army had surrendered to the Allies – Wolfram’s war was at an end.
Epilogue
Wolfram spent just six weeks at home before returning to Oberammergau. He had been longing to restart woodcarving ever since his studies had been abruptly terminated by war in the spring of 1942. Now, almost four and a half years later, he finally got the chance.
He set off for Bavaria in July 1946 in order to be certain of having a place for the autumn term. Once this was assured, he spent the summer months hiking in the spruce forests of the high Wetterstein and chopping wood for the winter months ahead. He also crafted spinning wheels, still much in demand at the time, and trudged with them from farm to farm, exchanging them for food and supplies. The interiors of these farmsteads, furnished with rare examples of Bavarian folk art, were to inspire him far into the future.
The war had left Oberammergau untouched but it had taken its toll on the students. Wolfram learned that several of his comrades had lost their lives and many more were now disabled, having lost feet and legs. A high proportion of the newly enrolled students had been farmers in peacetime. Now, missing limbs and unable to do hard physical work, they had turned to woodcarving in the hope of scratching a living.
Wolfram excelled at his studies. When the three-year course drew to an end, each student was set the challenge of carving a miniature processional church staff – a final showpiece. The creator of the best sculpture would be granted the honour of donating a full-size version to the village’s glittering baroque church. Wolfram clinched the prize with a deftly carved Christ on a donkey. It remains in the church to this day.
In Pforzheim, life remained fraught with daily challenges as people adjusted themselves to not only living amid a heap of rubble but under an occupying army. The French forces had left Pforzheim within two months of their triumphant entry into the town, to be replaced by American troops in the second week of July 1945.
Most Pforzheimers were glad to see the back of the French. They had fleeced and exploited the local population with all the enthusiasm of a medieval army, looting and requisitioning food, cameras and electrical equipment.
The French were still looting on the day that the Americans moved into Pforzheim, obliging these newly arrived soldiers to frisk and search their departing allies. ‘All convoys of French vehicles were halted and the property not authorised to leave the area was taken from them,’ reads the first official report issued by the new occupying forces. The Americans found themselves the unexpected custodians of a large collection of farm animals that were being smuggled out of town: ‘hogs, cattle, sheep, goats, ducks, chickens and a few automobiles’.
The French had further offended the local population by exhuming the decomposing corpses of resistance fighters – Frenchmen executed by the SS – and requiring everyone in Pforzheim, young and old, to view them. This policy of deliberate humiliation was a serious misjudgment. Although there was widespread revulsion, the reaction of the populace was not ‘How terrible that this happened,’ but ‘What a disgrace that we’re being forced to look at such things.’
The French had mounted these gruesome displays out of a concern that people might refuse to believe the enormity of the atrocities carried out in the name of Nazi Germany. The truth was indeed too ugly for ordinary Germans to comprehend. When the full horror of Auschwitz was made public, many Pforzheimers dismissed it as Allied propaganda.
The Americans displayed boundless energy from their very first day and expressed surprise that the French had repaired so little of the damaged infrastructure. ‘Nothing has been done towards clearing the city,’ wrote one newly arrived officer, ‘except the removal of the rubble and debris from the main roads.’
The Americans undertook a comprehensive survey of the local population’s most basic needs, which revealed that two of the town’s three hospitals had been flattened and there was a total lack of medical supplies. Not only was there almost no coal, gasoline or other fuel but there was an acute shortage of flour, oil, meat, sugar and oats.
Acquiring basic supplies was indeed a real problem for families such as the Aïcheles and the Rodis. Barbara Rodi, nine years old at the time, would accompany her mother on long walks in the hope of getting a little flour, milk or oil. Her sisters would wait for hours in long queues just to get a tiny loaf of bread.
American efforts to improve the lives of the local populace were hampered by a general lassitude that had settled over Pforzheim. People were still trying to make sense of the magnitude of their loss. Their loved ones, their town and the war itself – everything had been lost.
It was particularly traumatic for young children. Destruction and death had become so commonplace that it was hard to escape them. Young Barbara Rodi would often play an imaginary game of funerals, making miniature figurines out of flowers and digging little tombs in the garden. Having solemnly buried the figurines, she would decorate and tend the tombs.
The general sense of loss made a deep impression on the occupying American forces. ‘[The people] believed their situation was hopeless,’ concluded one report, ‘so why try to improve themselves?’
When the Americans tried to conscript labourers to help clear the ruins, only 800 men of working age reported for duty, which was deemed ‘unusually low for a city of 40,000 people’. Eventually several teams of workers were assembled and for the next two months they dug corpses out of buildings and transported them to the cemetery. This task had by now become pressing: cadavers were rotting inside the ruins, creating a very real risk of spreading disease and infection.
The Americans also brought a sense of urgency to the most essential reconstruction work. The town’s electricity generators were restored, the crippled gasworks repaired and underground telephone cables that had melted in the firestorm were relaid.
Schools also began to reopen – an essential step on the path to normality. Many children had received no formal education since the summer of 1944, when their teachers were drafted to work in munitions factories.
At first these new educational establishments were rudimentary affairs, often run out of private homes. The Rodi dining room became a classroom for one group of youngsters; Trudel, the family’s aunt, spent her days teaching them to read and write.
Wolfram’s father had also started teaching art again, albeit in the cramped conditions of his atelier in Eutingen. When the weather was fine, he and his students painted outside in the garden.
One of the key concerns of the American occupiers was to capture and prosecute all who had been involved in the organisation and running of the local Nazi Party.
Robert Wagner, the fanatical gauleiter of Baden, had been seized soon after the war’s end, taken into American custody and interrogated. He continued to display ‘a ferocious fidelity to Nazi ideology’, according to those who questioned him, a fidelity that remained undiminished until the last. His final action before being executed was a defiant salute to the unholy trinity that had given his life purpose for more than two decades. ‘Long live Greater Germany,’ he shouted as the noose was placed around his neck. ‘Long live Hitler. Long live National Socialism.’
Pforzheim’s leading Nazi official, Hans Knab, was also tracked down and captured, then put on trial for a specific crime of which his guilt was assured. Fifteen months earlier, he had ordered the execution of seven RAF airmen who had bailed out of their stricken Lancaster and landed in newly destroyed Pforzheim.
Knab had instructed them to be taken to the nearby village of Huchenfeld, well out of sight, where they were murdered by a group of Hitler Youth. The killings were bungled: on the night of the bloodshed, two of the airmen had miraculously managed to escape.
Now, in the af
termath of the war, these two survivors gave evidence at the War Crimes Proceedings in Essen-Steele. It was enough to convict Knab and his accomplices. Knab himself was hanged, along with two fellow functionaries; fourteen others were given lengthy prison sentences. Little by little, the Nazi hierarchy was made to pay for its crimes.
The Americans did not want to punish only those in senior positions of responsibility: they wanted everyone to account for themselves during the previous twelve years of Nazi rule. ‘Denazification and demilitarisation comprises the main effort of all offices…’ reads a report written just three months after the arrival of the Americans. ‘The only way [for Germans] to rid themselves of Nazi influence is by the ruthless removal from office and power [of] all who might seek in the future to reinstate in part or in full the Nazi system.’
To this end, they instituted a sweeping denazification programme in which everyone in Pforzheim and Eutingen, along with all other towns and villages in Germany, had to complete a detailed fragebogen or questionnaire that touched on every facet of their lives.
The Americans placed all Germans into one of five categories to determine their level of involvement in the Nazi regime. The worst offenders were the hauptschuldige – those who had played an active and organisational role in the Nazi hierarchy. At the other end of the scale were the entlastete or exonerated – men like Wolfram’s father and Max Rodi who had managed to avoid joining the party.
Special law courts were established to determine the level of a person’s complicity. These courts relied not only on information contained in the questionnaires, but also on testimonies of neighbours and family.
They were presided over by local individuals, laymen, who were untainted by the previous regime. Both Erwin Aïchele and Max Rodi (the latter had been released from his prisoner-of-war camp in the summer of 1946) were asked to serve as presidents of one of the impromptu Pforzheim courtrooms.
