In the Fire of the Eastern Front

by Hendrick C. Verton

  Such spots were well-known to the German Police on the other side, and by criminals too. Particularly in the winter of 1946/47, there was heavy criminal activity at the checkpoints, leading even to murder. Criminals, released from German prisons and concentration camps, returned to their former professions that had put them there in the first place. They lurked in the darkness to rob the refugees of all that they had. They were all using the protection of the popular ‘politically prosecuted’ status.

  I had not known any of this as I arrived in the British zone at the end of October. My route had taken me through Berlin, Magdeburg and Halberstadt. There, prior to reaching the station, the train stopped, having used up all of the coal allowed for the journey. The passengers had to alight from the train and walk the rest of the way along the railway tracks. So far, so good. I was in the Harz region and the next stop was Dedeleben, which I reached through thickly wooded slopes, on foot. In the railway station there I had a wait of ten hours, before the next train left at two in the morning. In order to hold on to the little that I had with me, I hooked my bags through my trouser belt as I slept. Dedeleben was the end of the line, with no other connections to the West, and so there were few using the train. Those that did, were like me, on their way to the ‘green border’. I found out the way after requesting directions from the railway porter, on leaving the train at five in the morning.

  We were a group of around 30 people. All were heavily laden, like mules, with bulging rucksacks, baby-prams and little carts. I looked, with my coloured and checked coat from Breslau, like a pauper in contrast. It just seemed to happen that I became group-leader, possibly because of my orienteering talent. I warned the others of obstacles and Russian patrols, although I did not know exactly where we were going. Our route away from this ‘iron curtain’ was not easy, and more than once some stumbled into holes in the ground, and our shoes and socks were wet through, for it was still dark. That was all the better for one’s target, when shooting at something or someone, was harder to hit.

  When on the road through the woods we could hear the sounds of motors, long before the Russian patrol lorries reached us, we had time to hide. We hid from the strong searchlights mounted on the lorries and after the pause I gave the order Gepäck aufnehmen, ohne tritt marsch. Not in parade-style of course, but it did not take them long before they behaved like a regular army recce patrol. Once a Russian soldier saw us, as we crossed a well-lit open space, and we heard Halt! come here!” which we ignored. The group followed my order not to stop, but to disappear as quickly as possible into the woods on the other side. There were two shots and then silence. He did not attempt to follow us, possibly because he was on his own.

  We then, unbeknown to us, walked in a complete circle, not knowing that we were so close to the British zone, which we entered, and left to return to the Russian side and where we were seen by two Russian guards. The unbelievable happened, for they looked, saw and indicated with a nod of their heads, that we should continue on our way! We did.

  One of the group, a woman, was much older than the others, and was exhausted. The journey and possibly the tension were so great that she wanted to give up. So I supported her for the rest of the way, while others pushed her small wooden cart, with her possessions in it. At daybreak and with the rising of the sun behind us, I knew that we were nearly at our destination. We saw a farmer on his bike, and as he approached us we asked if we were already in the British Zone and he answered in the affirmative! Not long after, at around seven in the morning, we reached the transit camp in Jerxheim, where we had a friendly reception, not from soldiers but German police, once again black-dyed Wehrmacht uniforms. They inspected our luggage for ‘hot wares’, i.e. cigarettes and alcohol. One man in our group was a handler, he was the man that had his hands already in the air as he had heard the two shots when in the woods. He had a good stock of vodka in his baggage, which was immediately confiscated.

  The rest of the journey needed a lot of patience with hour-long stops between stations, ten hours in Jerxheim, and another four, via Brunswick to Hannover. It had taken the whole day until after dark. And dark it was, for the trains had no lighting, or heating. The passengers standing or sitting were cold, frozen through, and silent. Those sitting could at least warm themselves on the stranger sitting alongside. Upon looking through the window, it was dark outside. There were no lights to be seen in the countryside houses. As we chugged our way through the towns, there were no lights there either, just the ruins rising into the night sky as ghosts out of the darkness.

  The main railway station in Hannover was very dimly lit, but the masses of travellers were the same, just as they had been in Berlin, with hollow cheeks and in tattered clothes. They drifted over the platforms, perhaps with hope in their heart that things would normalise, that “everything changes”. Perhaps it would be today. But on that day, they appeared to me to be the driftwood of war.

  I saw British soldiers, for the first time, in their khaki uniforms, walking comfortably through the grey throng, well nourished and chewing gum, as I went on my way to a bed. It had been offered to me by Jan Reilingh, the brother of my fallen friend Robert. As a student in Dresden, he had managed to land near the ‘Brits’ in Hannover. He now worked in a hospital, which was where he found me a place to sleep, in the boiler room in the cellar. It was not very comfortable, but it was warm! The next morning found me under way once more.

  I sent a telegram from Hannover to Brigitte and it worked. Brigitte was waiting for me on my arrival. It was now nearly six months since we had seen one another and it was a very happy wiedersehen. Despite the food problem, Brigitte looked just the same, and at least she had found some luck over the last few months. We were happy that we had both survived the evacuation. Her first quarters in Horn-Oldendorf, she told me, had been primitive. She was given work, like all the others, in order to be given a ration-card. Her work was in a factory making wooden lamps, in Detmold. There she caught the eye of the factory owner who took her away from the factory and she now worked in his house. It was a villa where she had her own room. She was taught to cook and was well looked after.

  During my stay I had a guestroom in Heiligenkirchen and we spent a lot of time walking and talking and when I accompanied her home, it was always after dark. Our feelings for one another had not changed. They intensified and there were no doubts in either of us that we were meant for one another. At the same time we both knew that I could not stay. I had managed the dangerous journey into the British zone, but I did not feel safe with the close proximity of the Dutch border. I did not feel safe with the thought that I could, when caught, be classified once more as a DP and handed over to the Dutch authorities. I had neither that very precious settlement permit in this situation, or an Inge to procure one for me. No settlement permit and no roof over my head. No roof over my head, no work, and no work meant no ration card. Brigitte had all of these in Detmold, in the land of the river Lippe, and the British zone. I had all of these too, in Finsterwald, in the Russian zone. With heavy hearts that is where we knew that I had to return. We had no other choice. We had been patient for so long, and knew that we had to be just as patient for a little longer, to see what the future held. It was cold reality and we could not alter the situation. I returned after those wonderful days in the land of the Lippe, using the same route by which I had come.

  I was once more in the land of the ‘Ivans’ on 13 November. My return trip, on my own, had not been a problem. I had had no companions. Who wanted to return willingly to this ‘Red paradise’ on the other side of the Elbe?

  Once more in Finsterwald, I came to the conclusion that life in the Western zones was not all that the German refugees had hoped. They did not find the quality of life that they were used to or expected, in comparison to the Stone-age ‘Nirvana’ to be found here in the Russian zone. Although there was no arbitrary deportation in the Western zones, ‘power to the full’ was well practised over the vanquished.

  The power was soon
to be seen in all its force, beginning on 20 November 1945 in the form of the Nuremberg Trials, which lasted for nearly a year, until October 1946. The Germans looked, waited and hoped for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, plus the resurrection of rights. They were treated to the wrath and revenge of the conquerors, decorated with a ‘holier than thou’ attitude in a ‘show trial, in which the laws were made by the ‘victors’. The prosecution was made up of the ‘victors’, judge and jury were ‘victors’ and the hangmen too. We returned to Medieval laws that were now wrapped in modern, new, and the fictitious, accompanied by the guiding principle that “those who lost the war must forfeit their lives”.

  Orders and obedience were crimes. The breaking of our oath was, perhaps, a mitigation. Denunciation was rewarded with the ‘closing’ of your case. All of the principles of law were not only ignored but were trampled into the ground by the feet of the ‘victors’ in Nuremberg. For example, “No sentence without lawful rights, or carrying out of orders under force”, meant non-convict ion. One could not be sentenced for the actions of others.

  In many prisons under the Western Allies the use of torture was allowed. It was on the daily agenda, be it physical or psycho logical. The means justified the end. The use of manipulated gallows to ‘hang’ the said prisoner was one of those psychological methods. Spinal injuries and irreparable damage to the vertebrae of the neck were the result. Torture continued until the said prisoner signed a confession that had been dictated and typed beforehand by the ‘victors’. No one questioned the self-same format of the hundreds of prisoners presented as evidence. Illegal Courts Martial were held within prison walls. There was blatant disregard of Church Law, using soldiers disguised as priests to hear the intimate ‘confessions’ of the prisoners. Nothing, but nothing was sacred and all entered the court as wrecks, with broken bones, broken spirits, abrasions or burns, to take their places in court or in the witness-box. Defence lawyers who protested at the lawless justice, were whisked away under arrest. Insight into the prosecution documents, bringing clarity, was refused. They were shipped off by the ton, to disappear and in many cases to be destroyed.

  Outside the courthouse, people were starving to death. Inside the ‘victors’ were judging Germany’s crimes against humanity. Outside, hundreds of thousands sat in prisons without any proof their crimes. Inside the ‘victors’ sat and judged the arbitrariness of the Germans. The sweet odour of epidemics wafted over the victims of the bombing of the ‘victors’ outside. Inside an International Tribunal judged the behaviour of the Germans. Meanwhile, thousands at that time were being dragged out of their homes and deported as slaves into labour camps. There they worked until they died. All of which happened in the Malmedy trial.

  A Transitional Agreement was drawn up in 1954 in Paris, on 23 October, after the Declaration of Sovereignty over the Bundesrepublik. It stated that German jurisdiction would not be allowed to judge the crimes of the Allies. Rights? Revenge? “Don’t do what I do, do what I say?” What cannot be denied is that it was not a case of “Rights for all”. One has to ask what did the Nuremberg Trials alter? The answer is nothing. Most certainly it did not affect the number of wars that have taken place since 1945, and with far more sacrifices than in the Second World War. Most certainly not for the ‘victors’. No one however has brought the warmongers into court.

  It took twenty years before the former American Minister of Defence could admit to the world that the American government had made “a terrible mistake” with the Vietnam war! Robert McNamara used the term ‘mistake’ in that 58,000 American soldiers lost their lives in fighting for their fatherland. It was a ‘mistake’ that cost two million Vietnamese their lives? Two million?

  The historian Dr Golo Mann, declared that “To research the crimes of the Allies against the Germans in Germany, is absolutely necessary for German history”. I will do that.

  The Americans held over three million German soldiers prisoner in the summer months of 1945, in Europe. The American General, and Commander-in-Chief of the Allies, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who later sat in the top-most seat of the government, that of the US President, said it all when declaring, “We did not come as liberators, we came as conquerors”. He never said a truer word. Liberators have no need to torture, have no need to rape and have no need to harass. Liberators possess the self-esteem to keep to the rules of human rights. They have no need to plague, or deliberately let people starve, as he did.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower begrudged the prisoners a roof over their heads, begrudged the prisoners even the simplest and most meagre portion of food, even though huge reserves were available. Prisoners were given less consideration than animals that had a burrow to keep them dry and warm. Out of the rain? Protected from the sun? The prisoners on the meadows of the Rhine had none of that. They lived in holes in the ground and were forced to go there. Holes that filled with rain produced a bog. They did not even have the most primitive of sanitary conditions, which in turn produced epidemics and death, adding to that of being left to rot. Many died in the Rhineland between Remagen and Sinzig. It was a deliberate programme of extermination. It happened not only in the Rhineland, but in other places as well. Places of extermination!

  An article in the magazine Der Spiegel, in their 40th edition from 1989, reported, “Foodstuffs, although in huge reserves, were deliberately withheld, so that the interned died. They also died from lack of hygiene and sanitary conditions, both leading to epidemics which killed”. “Ten times more than those Germans who lost their lives on the battlefields of Normandy, and from then until the capitulation, died in POW camps”. A quote from the former candidate for the US Presidency, Pat Buchanan said, “Nearly a million prisoners died, not only in American POW camps after 1945, but in French camps too”. That quote is from the bestseller by James Bach,.

  The figures are only the official ones and most certainly could be added to, but the official figures should not be used to judge or for revenge, conquerors or not. They should be used to add weight on the other side of the scales to achieve a balance that was not done in Nuremberg. There, morals, conscience and most of all justice, were non-existent, and also deliberately ignored. Can we now interpret the words from Carl von Clausewitz as, “The prisoner of war status is another form of the progress of politics”?

  The war had now ended, but not in the POW camps. The German people have the key to unlocking the door of the past that is necessary for German history, necessary for the future. But those who stay ‘mum’, together with those who will not take a look into the past, are lost. One-sided accusation, one-sided “researched facts”, and one-sided withholding of documents of historical importance in their archives, plus those who keep silent, all that has to end.

  For me, it was at that time important not only to have a full stomach and a roof over my head, it was a daily battle to stay incognito and not to become one of those POWs. There were however always checkpoints and inspections of papers. It was all too easy to be noticed at these inspections and arrested. Between 1945 and as late as 1950, 122,671 Germans were to become prisoners of war. 43,000 of those died. 776 were sentenced to death, and that happened in peacetime.

  In Finsterwald the same situation slowly evolved as in Breslau. The longer that I stayed, the more well-known I became, and that I had been a Dutch volunteer for the German Waffen SS. What if someone were careless with this information? This fear was always breathing down my neck and so I moved away. I moved very near to the Laska family once more. But I was to spend the next few weeks and months in the northern part of the East zone and not in the suburbs of Leipzig.

  The eldest sister of my fallen friend, Robert Reilingh, had been married to a German soldier, an officer who fell in Russia. Now being widowed, Eva Gahrmann lived in Greifswald with her parents-in-law. A circle of very nice people, her friends and family members welcomed me with open arms. Greifswald lay on the coast and had surrendered to the Russians. It had remained undamaged, possessing the oldest University i
n the whole of Germany, dating from 1465. It lay in a romantic setting with old gabled houses. Extreme want or need was not to be seen here, for the Gahrmann family, just like that of Inge, were the owners of a large furniture and textile business. They were respected in the vicinity. They had contacts with the farmers in the country, the academics in the University, and with the chemists in the city, who possessed alcohol, for the ‘black’ market. Yes, I was also the executive here, in Greifswald, in the wheeling and dealing business. I undertook the long and uncomfortable train journey from Saxony to Mecklenburg.

  I had, in both the pre-war and post-war years, experienced from many people evidence of unity, and of help and support. That included the medical care of a doctor upon falling foul of malaria. It was during my second visit to Brigitte in May 1947. I detoured on the way back, calling in on friends of the Laskas and from a very short visit, I had to stay for five weeks. I was cared for by those very dear Laska friends as a refugee, and also cared for free of charge, by their doctor, Dr Schuler. The summer months of 1946 had wandered into the summer months of 1947 in the East zone. I spent wonderful days on Germany’s largest island of Rügen, in the very large sum-merhouse belonging to the Gahrmanns. We arrived with more than enough ‘black’ market provisions, with friends who had journeyed with us on the train, over Stralsund and the Sound of Rügen, to Germany’s largest island.

  It was paradise! It was a paradise of flat land, steep cliffs, calm and raw angry seas, woods of beeches hiding moorland and labyrinths of reed. The long, long sandy beaches I remember were empty of people, and were guarded, as we bathed, by towering chalk cliffs. We never saw any Russian military. Tourists? There were none. I thought of Rügen as sitting under a large glass dome, which resisted the disturbance of the occupying government. But even there in the north there were moments that sickened and saddened, such I was to see in Bad Kleinen in the railway station.