Armin Scheiderbauer - Adventures in My Youth

We new arrivals were also given an immediate medical examination. The examination was not even ‘purely clinical’, but really consisted in viewing the naked prisoners and pinching their backsides in order to determine the degree of dystrophy. Since I was extremely emaciated, I could not be put down as capable of working. I was quite happy about that. But I considered myself to be even more fortunate not to be placed in the tuberculosis barracks. The ‘pointed’ noses of the men who were in the process of slowly dying there, beyond recovery, were frightening enough.

In the spacious barracks where we Holsteiners joined the other officers in the camp, there was at last enough room for an individual to lead an existence that was halfway human. We slept on single beds placed in the room either individually, against a wall, or in twos next to each other. Every bed was provided with a straw mattress and a blanket. Among the inmates of the barracks I was reunited with a whole series of acquaintances. Above all was Oberstleutnant Joseph ‘Job’ Deckwitz, whose Obermann in the bunk I was to be for a long time.

Another sign of the organisation in force was the fact that we were recorded on a register. That involved, at least for all officers, filling out questionnaires of several pages. Everyone had to answer 42 questions concerning his personal dates and, above all, the activities in which he had been engaged in the military. Our answers, in conjunction with denunciations by informers, provided the material that served as documentary evidence in the many war crimes trials that resulted in their cursory sentences of 25 years’ hard labour. From the start I had provided true information. For instance I had not concealed my rank as an officer, as many had done.

Even in the camp at Thorn, when informally that was still possible, officers who had ‘lost’ themselves in the ranks had acknowledged their rank. The constant fear of discovery, by comrades or fellow-countrymen, in which those men lived, would have prevented me from taking such a step. That was quite apart too from the fact that it would not have been in line with my natural honesty. As long as I had been with my unit nothing had happened that could not be militarily justified or that could have qualified as a war crime. So I was confident that no undeserved fate would overtake me. In actual fact I had had nothing to fear.

Even during our first stay in Georgenburg in the summer of 1945, the heads of men and other ranks had been shaven. What we took to be a measure intended to humiliate us, had obviously been necessary due to the completely unsatisfactory hygienic conditions. Many others suffered under such degradation. However, I resigned myself to the measure as a fateful means of enforcing conformity. I can still remember how many of us looked at each other in surprise. The disappearance of their hair had significantly altered the appearance of many men. The shape of the skull became a particular distinguishing feature. But we did not have to be subjected to that procedure a second time.

Our insignia of rank had long since been removed, and a man who had previously been an officer could only be recognised by the material and cut of his uniform. But nevertheless there were other signs too that distinguished the prisoners of war from each other. We could not believe our eyes when we saw on some caps small red, or white and red coats of arms and even some others of different colours. As it had been ordered by the camp authorities, it was pointless to let oneself be upset by it. It was an expression of the existing political situation, as it was known to us, by hearsay.

The German Reich, Greater Germany, had been completely conquered and shattered. Germany and Austria had each been divided into four zones of occupation, and no one knew what the borders of Germany would be in the future. So the Sudeten Germans cherished the illusion of eventually returning again to their homeland that had once again become part of Czechoslovakia. That was the case with Staff vet Dr Seyerl and another comrade. Herr Grün, a qualified businessman from Saarbrücken, had studied in Paris before the war. He was distinguished by his knowledge of French food, and reckoned that the Saar would become French. Thenceforward he considered himself ‘French’.

For most Austrians the situation seemed to be simple and clear. Of course many of us could not hide the feeling that it was a shabby trick, after our common defeat, now to separate ourselves. Should we follow the motto ‘every man for himself’, and abandon our German comrades-in-arms to their fate? I also remembered literature concerning the First World War. The members of the successor states of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy had then deserted the flag that they had once served in common. I recalled the snide commentary with which that act had been portrayed.

So now we were in the same situation. We deserted our common flag and for this were given dirty looks by many of our ‘German’ comrades. But no one knew how to answer the question as to what else we Austrians could have done. The thought that the Austrians would generally be released earlier than their comrades from the old German Reich was also by no means irrelevant to this issue. Who could have been criticised for trusting in that hope? Should we be like Paul Eberhart who, in the light of it, passed himself off as an Austrian? The fate of the Sudeten Germans had no doubt long since been decided. None of them knew what that decision was. We were cut off from our homeland. Until then we had not even been allowed to write. The coats of arms on caps indicated at a stroke the problems thrown up by that completely new situation. The Greater German Reich no longer existed. Hitler, to whom all of us had sworn an oath, was dead. It was therefore morally right, and even necessary, to declare our allegiance to our small Austrian homeland.

We prisoners were each assigned to work details, according to our physical constitution. Work details 1 and 2 were completely capable of working and had to work outside the camp. Work detail 3, to which I belonged, was only capable of Innendienst , that is, we could only be used for work within the camp. We still had a few Staff officers in the camp, including Dr Deckwitz, and they too had to be employed within it. Of those, I can recall an Oberst der Reserve , about 50 years old, by the name of Kassl. He was a pharmacist. He had lost an arm and feared that he would not be capable of carrying out his profession, because he would no longer be able to mix up ointments.

The oldest was Major Kischke, owner of a small East Prussian estate. I thought him to be between 60 and 70, he appeared old to me. Then there were a few gentlemen from Peenemünde, the experimental Army rocket station. They had not been able to get to safety in time before the Russians arrived. An ‘old’ Major and former ‘12-Ender’ was called Hinz. He had been the so-called Platzoffizier in Peenemünde. He had the furrowed face and the tanned skin of a native of the Alps, but in actual fact he was not.

The most distinguished among the officers present was Oberleutnant Jürgens, a fighter pilot with, it was said, 88 victories. A young East Prussian was ‘Hänschen’ Wieberneit. The nerves in both his lower arms had been damaged, but all the same he was capable of working.

There was an established hierarchy in the camp. At the head were two former officers who had already been prisoners for some years and who had been in the National Komitee Freis Deutschland . That Nationalkomitee had come into existence under and promoted by the Russians. It was composed of Communist emigrés such as the writer Eric Weinert and other prominent officers. It became well known after the disaster of Stalingrad, and especially through the name of General von Seydlitz. It claimed to be against fascism in the form of the Hitler dictatorship, and in this sense claimed to be collaborating in the political reconfiguration of the Germany of the future. Under the name Antifa the group developed anti-fascist activities, in which, speaking reasonably, there was nothing to object to. The fact that it was actually the activity of a communist cell was something which, in my youthful naivety, I neither recognised nor realised, particularly since its officials with whom I came in contact were, to all appearances, reasonable and decent human beings. The two officers just mentioned were called Kubarth and Gless; one of them was the first camp leader, while Willi Gless was in charge of political indoctrination.