Hans Boche My Story (10)
Chapter 11. Trouble in Stuttgart. At this time leave of absence was rare. I wished to make the most of the few days I had been given. The trains were still running but there was disruption from the 'hit and run' Allied fighter-bombers. I had 'commandeered' a car while we were in France, and still had it. It was a Citroen Fifteen, which at the time was a very new model. I was travelling with an NCO from the Division who also lived in Stuttgart, though I had not known him before the War. His name was 'Demmy' Schwartz and he was large, scarred, and crop haired. As we drove away from the West Wall at Aachen we wondered what the situation would be when we returned. Though we were not in a military vehicle we were still wary of the 'Jabos'. The Americans would attack anything. We drove down the Rhine via Koblenz and Frankfurt. It was good to be back in Germany and in the country things looked re-assuringly normal. It was not so in the cities. We could not traverse Koblenz and Frankfurt as the streets were blocked with rubble. They had been terribly knocked about by the bombing. We were sometimes stopped by officious Policemen who obviously thought we might be deserters. We had passes of course, but our most effective pass was the forbidding appearance of Demmy, who did not take kindly to able bodied men in the heart of Germany exercising petty officialdom when a life and death struggle was being waged at our borders. These Policemen wore the distinctive moon-shaped breastplate of State Police. 'Demmy' knocked two of them unceremoniously into the rubble outside Frankfurt when they made a grab at him. 'Demmy' dropped me off, and took the car when we got to the outskirts of Stuttgart. This city was not so badly damaged as others but I saw plenty of gaps in the rows of houses as I walked home. I prayed that Milleburg and our flat would be intact and it was. 'Hild's' bicycle was there as usual, propped against the basement steps. A little thing like this brought a lump into my throat. I had seen so much that was not normal by any civilised standards, that this bicycle and its familiar baskets nearly made me cry. My parents were at home, a little older and more careworn, but the same good people. Father was still employed in the stationery firm, much work was still being created by the Armed Services who now nearly monopolised their efforts. Mother still taught children at our flat. There was a reluctance of some parents to send children to school for fear of air raids, so Mother's extra-curricular cramming was in demand. There was a rudimentary air raid shelter in our lounge which comprised a strong iron cage, just as I had seen for tigers at the zoo. The theory was that even if the house was demolished by a bomb, the cage and its occupants, even in falling to the ground floor, would be alright. Mother had prepared some of my favourite Knackwurst and home-made Stolle Cake. Father plied me with cinnamon flavoured Apple Schnapps, which he had previously always kept to himself. I was surprised also to see Inge there when I walked in. She said that she and Otto were parted and she had moved into the Flat above ours. It had always been empty and she had just taken over, no one had objected. Perhaps the owners had fled Germany before the War. She had one child and it seemed that Mother looked after him, while Inge went out to work long hours at an instrument factory. What of Otto? This was the serious situation that my parents had wanted to tell me of. He was a top Nazi now, and was in charge of deportations from the City and surrounding area. My Father told me that Otto had such power now that nobody could oppose him. The 'deportation' programme, instituted by the Fuhrer was a re-arrangement of the populace, necessary upon the expansion of the Greater Reich, but I knew it was being implimented in a vindictive and cruel way. I had seen some ethnic persecution in Russia and tried to keep away from it and have nothing to do with it. Now it was in the family. The definition of 'undesirable' included The Jewish community and Gypsies. The former had been mostly removed. The latter had made themselves scarce and many had moved East where they originated from. It was to the credit of Stuttgart that this re-settlement programme was not approved of by many of the population. Many Stuttgarters had traded with, and been neighbours of Jewish families for many years, without trouble. There was a sort of Ghetto in Stuttgart. Not in the invidious sense of the word in that the Jewish persons could not live outside it. It was a preferred area for them, where they lived with their co-religionists. Some years before the war when the law came out for the Jewish people to wear the yellow stars, they made a great fuss. I did not support them in this, I wore the Swastika with pride indicating my nationality. They should have been proud enough of their own nationality to wear the star. I personally did not see it as a demeaning device at all, just showing a difference and, goodness knows there are many differences between peoples. As I said, during my time at the Russian Front I had been aware of a hard line taken by our officials with the Jewish population there. I could understand that, in that area, as they were very hairy and dirty and uncivilised in Russia. Perhaps they were a different sort of Jew because the ones in Stuttgart were very smart educated people. I know our Fuhrer had ranted about Jews before the war, I took all that with a pinch of salt. A population must be given some rhetoric and a symbolic scapegoat. The 'Scapegoat' is actually an invention of the Jewish people who used to heap all blame on a poor actual goat and leave it in the desert to perish. Busy with fighting the war myself, I had only seen evidence in Germany of the re-settlement by groups of Jews at Railway Stations with their cases. I do not know where they were going. I imagined it might be Lithuania, that was a God-forsaken place no one else wanted much. I had another glass of that lovely cinnamon Apple Scnapps while my Father told me of Otto's enthusiastic role in the re-settlement programme. It was common knowledge that Otto enriched himself by taking the valuables and property of those who were sent away, and taking much more from those who were able to bribe him to remain. He distributed some of this largesse to a company of SS men who worked for him. Inge did not necessarily quarrel with the idea of re-settlement for these different minorities, it may well have been in their best interests, but it was being done in a bad way and it had brutalised Otto, or brought the brute out of him where it had been all the time. He had also established a couple of mistresses in luxury, ex-Jewish homes. She said he sometimes came to the flat for his son, she could not deny him access, and he sometimes took him on one of his 'round-ups' in his vast Maybach limousine. Who knows what effect this may have had on little Richard. I re-assured Inge that I thought she had been right to leave Otto, he was nothing to us any more. I told them there were many unpatriotic self-seekers in Germany, Otto was not unique. The war was in the balance now, we must concentrate on our survival. I must continue to fight, and so would Bernard. There would be time to settle accounts with Otto and his like after the war. Father was in the Volksturm and had a Panzerfaust (Tankbomb) behind the front door. I told him not to throw his life away. If Allied tanks ever came through Stuttgart then the war would be lost anyway and there was no point in needless sacrifice. The next morning when I got up for breakfast my Parents looked very strange and secretive, then up from behind the settee rose a tall blond Luftwaffe Officer. It was Bernard. It was a very undignified re-union for two Majors involving much back-slapping and hugging. I had not seen him for four years and he looked very impressive in his best uniform. I was glad to see I had actually grown a little taller than he. He was decorated with the Knights Cross with oak leaves and the Iron Cross Class 2 (Like mine). He looked in one piece but for the back of one hand. As we shook hands he noticed my loss of a finger and I felt the scar tissue on the back of his hand. I asked if he was burnt elsewhere but he shook his head. He asked me if I was hurt elsewhere than my hand. As I had on only my dressing gown I gave him a good view of my scarred abdomen, quickly assuring him that my insides were OK. I omitted the leg and foot episode in Poland. We talked incessantly, man to man, which we had not done before. He had been just about a man before and I had definitely been a boy. Bernard had high hopes of ultimate victory in the War and enthused me with his optimism when he told me of the jets. He had just got the first squadron of Messerschmidt 262 jet planes, and they were virtually at operational efficiency to take on the terror bombers. He said he would hit the lumbering bombers for six as the 262's had double the speed of any Allied plane. I liked the sound of that. I had to relate to him my whole war, from Poland, to France, to Russia, to France again, and now at the West Wall. We did not talk much about the consequences of defeat, it was better not to think of that. He said he had tried to throw away Father's Panzerfaust, but he would not let him. So far as the cowardly brother-in-law Otto was concerned, he patted his Luger holster and was in favour of going to kill him now. I dissuaded him and we made a pact that whichever of us survived the war (hopefully both) would get rid of him then. We both had seen so many fine and valuable human beings killed that it it gave us no qualms to plan to exterminate that parasite. I bet, if we lost, there would be many such vendettas in Germany. Had War brutalised Bernard and I? The Allies and Russians wouldn't care a jot if German killed German. In my absence at the front, Lotte had spent some holiday time with my parents. Poor Lotte had been recently orphaned. Her Mother, who had been widowed when Lotte was small, had been killed in a freak accident. Lotte's mother Magda worked on her own smallholding growing vegetables. A terror bomber so high to be out of sight, jettisoned bombs or misaimed them. For whatever reason, the bomb-load fell across the gardens and Magda was the only person killed. What sense in that, what harm in growing vegetables? My parents were very fond of Lotte and wanted nothing more than to see us married in normal life again. Well, before that could happen there was a little matter of a World War to be finished. 'Demmy' came for me in the Citroen at mid-day, and we made our roundabout way back to Aachen. Being brought up to date with events by my relief Intelligence Officer, I was glad that things had been quiet, no ground lost. On the contrary he was able tell me that at last a big counter-offensive was planned. We were to strike between the British and Americans and reach Antwerp. This attack would go through the Ardennes Forest. Good, I am fed up with going backwards. The Allies haven't seen a 'Schwerpunkt' lately. We'd show them one. Chapter 12. In The Ardennes. The Last Throw of The Dice. It is now Mid-December 1944 and I am still a Major. In my heart I now think we have lost this war but in my head, against logic, I think we can still win. This hope of victory however unrealistic, must be kept alive or what can we do? Also the realities of defeat are too horrible to contemplate. The Russians will surge into our country with no regard for life and will rape and pillage and kill, like the beasts they are. The French will humiliate us. The British will Lord it over us as if we are rubbish, and treat us like menials. There will be no justification for that. To have lost the war is not to have lost our natural supremacy. I have hopes of the Americans as many Germans emigrated there and helped to make the Country. If they go on about the Jews we can bring up the Indians, that should make it even. It's a pity the Americans don't want to take over the world because we would have been just the people to accomplish it with them. I sometimes imagine that sort of world, a technological meritocracy. No two nations on earth would compliment each other as well, German Organisation and Invention with American Production and Manpower. I comfort myself with what might be. It helps me to face the reality, which is that far from being our partner, America is fighting us in ever-increasing strength. We are still a powerful army in being. We are in Germany, but we can hit back, and our Fuhrer is going to do just that. I have been given command of a mixed bag of armour. The core of my squadron is six new 'Tiger' tanks. I also have fifty other Mark V Panzers and Twenty tank destroyers. (Stugs) My men are as varied as liquorice allsorts, though none of them are black. We have a real chance here to turn the tide of the war. Von Manstein is holding the Russians for the time being and if we can turn the Allies back we can then concentrate on teaching the Russians another lesson. Von Runstedt is leading us here. (The German 'Von' is falling into disuse. Adolf Hitler does not approve of it. I used to be called Von Boche, but my family seldom use it now.) We are about to mount a smashing attack, back into France and Belgium through the Ardennes forest. They will not expect it as they believe the Forests can not be passed by a tank army. We have spent much time creeping through the woods and hiding our guns and tanks. The Amis and Tommies have no idea what we are doing because it's been so foggy their damned aircraft have been grounded. We attacked at 4am on the 16th of December and found their defence weak and half asleep. We knocked out all the tanks we came across, Grants mostly, and overran artillery pieces by the score. The Americans were not experienced soldiers. They displayed bravado and determination but that was not enough. We took plenty of Americans prisoner and sent them back in an Easterly direction. We were too thin on the ground to even escort them sometimes. No doubt some Americans went to ground waiting for their troops to turn the tables. Our ranks were now augmented by SS Brigades. They looked like bad news to me with their dark uniforms and they were fanatically motivated. The Americans came to recognise them and I knew the SS would get short shrift if the tables were turned on us. I led two or three close run battles every day for about a week and we made ground all the time. The Americans fought in pockets, and when we met these determined groups we often lost a tank or so to their new Bazookas before we deployed. The bazookas looked like our Panzerfausts but were if fact very different. The Panzerfaust was more effective in penetration but it just threw the bomb by a small charge, so you had to get very close indeed. The bazooka was a rocket, dangerous to use, fatal to stand behind, but with a range four or five times greater than the German weapon. Fortunately for us aiming the bazooka was not easy and the penetrative power was low. It could break tank tracks and penetrate our engine compartments with a shot from the rear. So we needed to keep their infantry well away if we could. Tactically it was a melee as we fought our way forwards. We decimated their Shermans and jeeps and over-ran supply dumps which were very welcome to us. However we suffered casualties which we could ill afford. I personally had to take a Tiger Tank and drag a crippled 'Stug' away under a hail of small arms and bazooka fire. We reached a small town called Bastogne which defended by Americans could not be taken at once.Like a rock in a stream Bastogne parted our impetus and we flowed each side. At our leisure we could turn and mop up the small force there. Antwerp was our goal and we pressed forward. We were always glad to capture Americans because they usually had some of their super Lucky Strike cigarettes. The British Tommy's Woodbines were about as horrible as our own dusty cigarettes. We were always worried about fuel for our vehicles. It was not coming up our supply lines as the rail and road network behind us was knocked out by the Allied planes. Fortunately we captured a great deal, and any vehicles that we immobilised, we were very careful not to set on fire, as we drained their tanks into our own. One problem was the stupid Allied petrol tins. They were square and when stacked were so thin they could barely stand their own weight. It was a brave or foolish man who smoked anywhere near an Allied fuel dump, due to the split and leaking cans. The Allies called our petrol tins 'Jerrycans' and though we were not fond of the word 'Jerry' we adopted the word ourselves. These cans were typical of the whole apparatus of war and the superiority of the German article over all others. My mixed bag of soldiers fought to a standstill near Dinant, within sight of Brussels, then the weather cleared and the Allied planes attacked incessantly. We lost men and tanks and had to stop. This was the end of the line. Army to Army we were still much superior but we could not withstand the air attacks. We turned back and made an orderly withdrawal back to German soil at Aachen. We had shown that, given an equal disposition of force, and if they had not had the Aircraft, we would have beaten them easily. Now various Armies were barking at our boundary. Patton of the silly guns, Montgomery of the silly hat, and Eisenhower, who was about the only one who was not silly. I had again escaped death and capture many times in the Ardennes, and brought back only half the men I started with. Some SS fanatics had wasted their lives senselessly, but bravely, attacking without a chance. Many soldiers had vanished. Some were penned up in France as Prisoners of War waiting to be taken over the Atlantic. Why the Allies took them all that way I didn't know unless it was a revival of the old slave trade, which had been a British and American invention originally. Unfortunately many of our soldiers deserted. The wooded Ardennes was ideal for the purpose. There were so many displaced and unidentifiable people about that it was easy for a German soldier to discard his uniform and equipment, and once dressed as a workman of some sort, could walk back to Germany and stay hidden in the countryside while the rest of us carried on the struggle. I caught two of these vermin hiding in some logs in the Ardennes and pointed my Luger at them. They ran like hares. I did not pull the trigger as perhaps I should have done, and many others certainly would. They would have to live the rest of their lives with this cowardice on their consciences. 'What did you do in the War Daddy.' would be a tough question for them. Naturally the majority of stalwart Germans continued to fight. I am a realist but when we fell back through the ruins of Cologne I finally acknowledged that we could not win. Perhaps an armistice could be effected to save Germany from being over-run and occupied. It might have been possible to achieve a just peace with the Americans, and even the British, but I think the Russians held out against them and wanted unconditional surrender from us. In other words, humiliation. This was revenge at its worst. I believe they were spreading stories of our Jewish Resettlement Camps having been used for killing! Though I had not seen them myself, as they were in the East and Poland, I think they were work camps. There was no room for drones now and we had an organisation for work for our people, as well as displaced minorities and refugees. But no, the Russian propoganda worked and there would apparently be no honourable peace for us. In the outskirts of Cologne there were residential suburbs which were not too damaged, and it was horrible for us, after all that fighting, to see from each dwelling, a white flag of surrender. My soldiers tore many of them down but I suppose the residents put them up again when we had passed through. At Hildesheim my war came to an end. Our forces were now almost non-existent but strangely, the Allies, who were very powerful against us, applied no pressure. Word came through that the Russians were on the outskirts of Berlin. I had written to Lotte many times with one topic only, flee to the West, for obvious reasons. On the First of May 1944 she fell into my arms at Hildesheim and at that moment I decided my war was over. The remnants of my forces, some eighty men, agreed with me, with only two or three who wanted to fight on. One of these diehards vowed to kill me after the war if I surrendered. I have not seen him since. We draped our three remaining tattered tanks with white sheets and threw our guns out into the road. Americans emerged from cover and sauntered over in their lovely looking boots. They were glad the fighting was done and were generous, with some exceptions of men whose 'buddies' had been killed in the fighting. One giant American waded into my men with the butt end of his Tommy Gun, until his own comrades held him back. I had previously seen that Lotte was lodging with a local family, posing as their daughter. I was taken back to Cologne in an American truck with various other German Officers. I was kept in Cologne. It was not a bad time but needless to say it was not pleasant. There was much interrogation by Intelligence Officers, American and British, they spoke good German but there were also a good few native Germans assisting them. I despised them. I was a Wehrmacht Officer. Not S.S, and my records, always meticulously kept by our Army Clerks, were in their hands. I was not to be tried for war crimes, and there were so many of us, we could not all be deported to Canada. I was to be re-habilitated and then released. I wish to gloss over this re-habilitation process, as much of my pride in being a loyal German who had fought a tough war, was knocked out of me. They showed me films of extermination camps where Germans had killed so called 'Untermenschen.' There were obviously two Germany's, the strong and fair Reich I had been fighting for, and a rotten gang of mental idealogues who had carried their policies to inhuman lengths. I was proud to have been part of the former and ashamed to be associated with the latter. I was released at the end of June 1945, with a suit of civilian clothes. I was not allowed to keep my uniform and medals which I think was a petty act of revenge. Chapter 13.
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