Armin Scheiderbauer: Adventures in My Youth

At the beginning of October, the recruits arrived who were born in 1922. They had been called up normally. For us officer cadets, who had the so-called inspection behind us, it meant that we had reached the lowest rung on the military ladder. We were assigned as block seniors and during the mornings served as assistant instructors. My nine men, all but two, were Silesian farm lads. In my letter of 18 October I answered Mother’s question as to how I was feeling to be block senior. ‘It was very nice’, I said, ‘the work was quiet and we didn’t have to do any more lousy jobs. On the other hand, we didn’t have any more free time for ourselves – particularly because we needed to attend the officer’s mess very often’. We had to go to the Gentlemen’s Evening there three evenings a week, as well as having to have lunch there on Saturdays and Sundays. At another level that made a change. Among the older officers who frequented the mess was the leading baritone of the Breslau Opera. The palm court orchestra that sometimes played in the evenings, was conducted by the Opera’s first violin.

At the end of October I told Mother and Rudi of my success in pistol-shooting, that our training work was indeed easier, but not our other work. Part of that meant we had to run the obstacle course with the heavy machine-gun, the mortar, and each of us carrying 50lb weight. I also told them about essay subjects. We had to write the essays in the evenings we were not at the officers’ mess. The theme, ‘Loyalty is the very marrow of honour,’ is something I could still write about today, unlike the question ‘Why must Russia lose the war?’ I give an account of the swearing-in of the recruits as a ceremonial occasion in which the regimental music corps participated. They played, among other things, the chorale Wir treten zum Beten vor Gott, den Gerechten , ‘We Come to Pray before God the Just One’, the so-called Dutch Prayer of Thanks. In a letter of 30 October to Lieserl, who was seven at the time, I wrote that snow had fallen overnight, but that I was sorry I couldn’t go sledging with her, but on the other hand had to be glad if no-one was going sledging with me.

I do not remember whether at the time we actually suffered from hunger, even if I often wrote about hunger and tiredness. But it was no wonder. The unaccustomed physical strains reached the very limits of what we could tolerate. Others, thank God not me, experienced symptoms of exhaustion such as nose bleeds. The comradeship among us eleven was good, even if at first we two Austrians and the two Sudeten Germans did not feel really very comfortable together. That was why I wrote, with delight, ‘now and then I meet a fellow-countryman’, such as, a man from Waidhofen who had studied with our Professor Höchtl.

By the middle of January 1942 we had completed the first stage of our training, and after a successful ‘inspection’ we were promoted to Gefreiter . Then, too, came the longed-for leave, during which an event occurred that threatened to derail my plans. Literally overnight I got severe pains in the region of my appendix which required that I was admitted immediately into the Stockerau civilian hospital. In the middle of the night the consultant had to be fetched. After palpating my abdomen, to no little horror on my part, he uttered the words, ‘It’s too late’. In fact, the appendix had perforated, but an infection had developed which had to be cured before there was any question of an operation. I had to remain in hospital for some weeks.

On the day after I was admitted I was laid down in a small room. The only other patient there I recognised as my schoolmate, Ewald Henk. A few days previously – I had found out from Herta – he had attempted suicide because of an unhappy love affair. The object of his affections was ‘Mausi’ Grundschober, a really striking girl who, however, had not yielded to his advances. Standing in front of a mirror in order to give particularly drastic form and experience to the scene, Ewald shot himself through the body with a 6.35mm Flobert rifle. But he had set the barrel muzzle too low with the result that he shot himself in the left lung and spleen. After the shot he dropped the rifle and staggered wailing into the family living room where he cried: ‘Help me, I have shot myself!’

My great worry was that the ill-timed appendix would throw me completely off course or else delay my training. Only at the end of March did I arrive back with mixed feelings in Mörchingen, just in time to be able to spend a few days with my comrades before they left for the field. A farewell photo shows us on the steps in front of a door in the barracks building, crowding round our Lieutenant Riedl, our NCO Gehle and Obergefreiter Wahle. For the farewell, which meant the end of our period of training, we received presents from the Leutnant . For me he had selected a small volume of poetry, Volk vor Gott. This showed that he had not only recognised the religious bent instilled in me by my parents, but that he also admired it. The dedication harked back to the hard period of training and also contained a maxim for my future:

‘Dear Scheiderbauer. Life brings us many hardships, but it is only in these that we show our strength. We overcome! We never give up! The reward will be ours!’ The little book contains -

Gebet in höchster Not , a prayer when things are at their worst, by Ricarda Huch; Gebet der Knechte und Mägde , a prayer of the Lads and Lasses, by Richard Billinger; Die innere Gestalt , a prayer, ‘The Inner Form’, by Josef Weinheber; Geistiches Lied , a ‘Song of the Spirit’ by Hermann Claudius; Zuflucht , a ‘Refuge’ by Ina Seidl; Haussegen des deutschen Bauern , ‘The German Farmer’s Blessing on His House’ by Paula Grogger, and Jochen Klepper’s Neujahrslied , a ‘New Year’s Song’. Hermann Stehr, Heinrich Zillich, Walter Flex, Bergengrün and Rilke, Agnes Nigl and Rudolf Alexander Schröder with his Lobgesang , a Song of Praise, were among the authors. The last page contained the prophetic dedication of my friend Hans Altermann that I have already mentioned. ‘Either we shall meet again in victory – or never again! Always, your friend Hans’.

My comrades’ ‘assignment’, the term by which it was known to us, was followed by dreary weeks for me. I was only fit for indoor duties and was employed as recruit Gefreiter in the 2nd Company of Infantry Ersatz Battalion 461, in the neighbouring barracks. The recruits, who reported on 1 April, were all from the eastern part of Upper Silesia, aged from thirty to thirty-five years, and were all members of the so-called Volksgruppen 2 and 3. According to that system of classification, which still covered the Reich Germans ( Volksgruppe 1) and the Poles ( Volksgruppe 4), there were those who professed to be German or who were still classified as Germans.

Two of these I can still see. One was a slim, sensitive cobbler Slavik, from Ornontowitz near Gleiwitz. The other was a small, black-haired and round-headed Hilfsarbeiter Stanitzek from Hindenburg. Slavik used to tell of his craft and how he had made orthopaedic footwear but also had made riding boots for Polish officers. He told us that he had not long been married. He had taken a kind of vow never to take off his wedding ring, and spoke of his marriage in a way that impressed me. But he was killed in Russia when he went into action for the first time. Stanitzek was a true Pjerun. I remember him as a Schweik character. He taught me how to drink 96% proof vodka, that is, trickled on to a sugar cube!

I then had more time for myself, and went into the officers’ mess as I had before. Jochen Fiedler, who had a wireless set, left it behind for me. After four weeks I had to report to the medical officer, and at the beginning of May was sent to the reserve military hospital in Metz. For a few more days I was ‘under observation’. Indoor duties such as peeling potatoes, in comparison with my previous duties, I found demeaning. If they were not on the agenda, we could go out and look around the town. I went for walks in the parks by the Moselle and even went to a concert. One afternoon I had been in a coffee-house and got into conversation with Wolfgang Schneiderhahn, the young leader of the Vienna Philharmonic. That evening he was playing Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. The German cultural life in Metz was mostly provided by artists from Vienna. Later I found out that, at that time, people like Josef Meinrad were engaged in the theatre in Metz.