Armin Scheiderbauer - Adventures in My Youth

True, we were not cavalrymen, but it matched our youthful spirit when it said, ‘We ride and ride and sing, in our hearts the bitterest distress. Longing seeks to conquer us, but we ride longing down’. In the final verse, ‘We ride and ride and hear already the battle afar. Lord, let us be strong in the battle, then our life will be accomplished!’ Of the songs that were sung in our room in the evening I will mention Heilig Vaterland, Du voll Unendlichkeit, Kein schooner Land in dieser Zeit , or ‘Nothing can rob us of love and faith in our land, to preserve it and to form it is what we are sent to do. Should we die, then to our heirs will fall the duty of preserving and forming it. Germany will never die’.

‘Belief in Germany’ was the title of a well-known and much read book from the First World War. Belief in Germany had seized us all, whichever Germany that meant. It also played a part in the letter that Uncle Erich’s battalion commander had written to Aunt Anneliese after Erich had been killed in action. The letter was doing the rounds of the family. Erich’s death touched us all to the quick. We were glad, that as a fanatical National Socialist, who had left the church, he had still become reconciled with my Father. It moved me deeply and I wrote home about it. In February, in a large parcel from Aunt Anneliese with apples and other things, I received a tin of marmalade that had been meant for Erich. It had already been to Russia, but was too late to reach its recipient.

When the course finished at the beginning of April 1943, we got 14 days’ leave. After that Popovsky and I had to report on 15 April to the Ersatz unit, Grenadierersatzbataillon 7, in Schweidnitz/Silesia. The Silesian Ersatz-Armeekorps had a few months earlier been moved back from Lorraine and Alsace to the home garrisons in Silesia. We then came for the first time into the place that had been talked about by our comrades. We believed that from then on and even after the war, the place would be our home. Schweidnitz was called the Potsdam of Silesia. Before the war it housed the Staff, the first and the third battalion of Infanterieregiment 7, the Staff and the first and second Abteilungen of Artillerieregiment 28, a medical unit, District Military Command, Military Records Office and Army Ancillary Office.

Schweidnitz was the Stadtkreis and Kreisstadt in Lower Silesia, principal seat of the principality of the same name. It lies in a fertile valley between Zobten and the Eulengebirge. The city has two Protestant and two Catholic churches, among them the Pfarrkirche founded in 1330 by Duke Bolko II. It has the highest (103m) tower in Silesia with a triple crest (1613). There is a synagogue and an old Town Hall with a famous cellar, and various monuments.

Economic activity comprised the manufacture of electricity meters, machines, furniture, gloves, tools, terra-cotta and pottery ware, feather edging materials, vehicles, cigars, needles, paper and paper goods, bricks, iron casting and textiles. Long since famous was also the beer brewery (Schweidnitzer Schöps ). In addition, the city possessed a chamber of commerce and a Reichsbank office. There were two grammar schools, a theological institute, an agricultural winter school, two orphanages, an educational institute, a theatre, and an archive. It was the seat of a district court, a magistrates’ court, a Landkreis administrative office, a motor sport school and several technical schools.

The early fortifications were removed in 1868, and transformed into beautiful parks. The Neptune Well, four market wells and a Neopomuk Column of 1718, enlivened the picture presented by the city. The residential houses originated in part from the eighteenth century. Of the royal castle only the Renaissance-Portal of 1537 was retained. The town of Schweidnitz was founded during the first half of the thirteenth century as a town laid out on a grid pattern between two roads. In 1260 it was granted its town charter. It was the residence of the first Piasten and an important festival ground in Silesia. In the later Middle Ages Schweidnitz developed into the second-largest trading city after Breslau. The principality of Schweidnitz was founded in 1291, and joined with Jauer in 1326. Through the marriage of the heiress Anna with Kaiser Karl IV, it passed in 1368/69 to the crown of Bohemia. In 1526 it went to the Habsburgs, and in 1742 to Prussia.

In 1427, Schweidnitz was besieged, in vain, by the Hussites. In the Thirty Years’ War (1642) it was destroyed by the Swedes under Torstenson. In 1747 it was taken by the Prussians and developed as a fortress. In 1761 it fell once more by trickery, into the hands of the Austrians. Then it was retaken in 1762 by the Prussians, after a stubborn defence, remained under Prussian control and was significantly reinforced by four forts. In 1807 the French took possession of them and razed the outworks to the ground. In 1816, after the fall of Napoleon, they were rebuilt, but completely flattened again in 1867. According to the census of 17 May 1939, Schweidnitz had 39,100 mostly Protestant inhabitants. According to the regimental history that was the past of Schweidnitz.

The officers’ accommodation in the barracks was insufficient, therefore many officers were quartered in hotels. Popovsky and I had a room in the Hindenburg-Hof , evidently the first house to hand. It was next to the railway station. The square in front had a small park, on to which we looked down, from our first-floor room. As far as work went, there was not much to do. We were simply waiting for our marching orders. After Popovsky left on 29 April, I felt a bit lonely. I became accustomed to the feeling. But I soon found a few good comrades. One was a chap from Linz, one was from Franzensbad in Bohemia, and there was a Feldwebel-Offizier candidate. He was a clergyman in the Confessional Church and, at forty years old, was waiting for his promotion to Leutnant .

From a letter to Father, I find that I gave him the ‘Stalingrad Letter’ to read and copy out. That was the shocking letter of a clergyman to his congregation who had remained in Stalingrad. (I still have the copy). In the same letter I asked Father urgently for cigarettes. Mother still kept her cigarette ration card ‘z.b.V.’ i.e. zur besonderen Verfügung , for special use. With cigarettes she could probably obtain food or could meet other obligations on which she depended.

The food in the barracks was frugal. Once I succeeded, on a forty-kilometre march, in getting into a village inn and in eating there, ‘naturally for nothing’, i.e. without having to hand over any Reichsmarks , Eierspeis or Eröpfelschmarrn . I remember my conversation with the landlady, who thought I was from Schweidnitz. As a result of a musical ear I could get the Lower Silesian accent very well. She was amazed when I told her that I came from the Vienna area. On such marches through the countryside around Schweidnitz I often had leisure to indulge in my thoughts. From Breslau, Silesia, in 1813, the War of Liberation began against Napoleon. King Friedrich Wilhelm III had founded the Iron Cross. The simply-styled decoration can be traced back to a design by Schinkel, the brilliant Berlin architect. Few people know of that connection. During my time in Schweidnitz I found out that the Zobten had played a similar role to the Wartburg, and that the students of Breslau had once made pilgrimages there.