Hitler's Home Front: Memoirs of a Hitler Youth - Don A. Gregory, Wilhelm R. Gehlen (2016)

Chapter 1. Through a Boy’s Eyes Clearly

Imagine …

It’s 1942 and you’re a scrawny nine-year-old German boy who was born the year Adolf Hitler became Chancellor. He’s the only German leader you’ve ever known. Germany has already been at war for almost three years. Your father and all your adult male relatives are in some branch of the Wehrmacht. Your country’s being bombed from the west and the invasion of Russia is slowing down. You hear Stalingrad mentioned for the first time and there’s talk of an enemy bent on destroying your homeland and enslaving its people if the war is lost.

And with a group of other boys your age, you repeat the following:

In the presence of this blood banner flag which represents our Führer, I swear to devote all my energy and all my strength to the saviour of our country, Adolf Hitler. I am willing and ready to give up my life for him, so help me God.

This was the Jungvolk Oath, administered to ten year olds in 1936 and afterward; although, after the war began, no one cared if you were not quite ten or maybe even not quite nine. Hitler’s warning to others that, ‘Your child belongs to us already …’ had come true.

* * *

Your world today might look like this: a nice house and flower garden, preferably a few miles outside the city limits, a happy family, a comfortable income; few debts, plenty to eat, and all the modern conveniences. Now, turn the clock back more than seventy years to Germany, or the Greater German Reich as it was called, where Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party (the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - NSDAP) controlled everything from official government business down to how many rabbits you could raise. Your house has a hole in the roof from a bomb dropped by either a British or an American plane and your garden is not for flowers; it’s your survival patch of ground for growing anything you can eat. Your family is one of the lucky ones - you have a garden; many do not. Your family is as happy as it can be, with your dad fighting a war somewhere near Stalingrad or in North Africa, and with the added worry that you might never see him again. All too many of your friends and relatives have had loved ones who had already laid down their lives for ‘Führer, Volk, und Vaterland’. No one has a car. They had practically disappeared by 1941 - requisitioned by the Party for government use, and besides, there was no petrol to run one anyway. Our local Leuna petrol station was selling carrot seeds and cabbage plants by 1941. We had a rusty bicycle that we used to get from here to there, but most of the town’s electric tram system was still running and in fact kept running until near the end of the war. There were fourteen lines all total in our area which connected the cities of München-Gladbach, Krefeld, Rheydt, Wickrath, Viersen and a few smaller places. In March 1945, a few 2,000lb bombs destroyed the power station that ran the system, but it was soon back in operation. The #14 line was out after a bombing raid destroyed the whole 17km-long track and it didn’t run again until mid-1946.

It is a fact that, when war comes to a country, no matter where the soldiers are fighting, the front line is always right at your doorstep. At times, Obergefreiter (Corporal) Lorenz Gehlen, my dad, was fighting 1,500 kilometres away in Russia, but back home, towns and cities were being laid to waste with bombs. The ‘front swine’, as our soldiers fighting in the east called themselves, dodged bullets and artillery, while at home the people dodged bombs and some of them were fifty times heavier than the 105mm artillery shells our Heer (land forces) had to contend with. The constant rain of fire from phosphorous bombs turned cities into infernos that burned for weeks.

From his earliest rise to prominence in the 1920s, many people regarded Hitler as the saviour of Germany after our defeat in the Great War. More thought that way when Germany recovered, under his leadership, from the world recession, which was much worse in Germany than in the United States. The Treaty of Versailles had restricted Germany’s Army to 100,000 men, but that changed overnight when Hitler introduced compulsory military service for every able German. Then came the Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD - Government Labour Service), the Hitlerjugend (HJ - the Hitler Youth), the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM - the Hitler Youth for girls), and many other paramilitary organisations, so that it was impossible for a foreign government to know exactly how many to count as being in the military. It was ‘Sieg Heil’ all over Germany, even in our small nearby towns of München-Gladbach and Krefeld, in the Rhineland halfway between Düsseldorf and the Belgian border.

The ninety Great War deaths the community suffered were forgotten until Hitler came along. The few wilted flowers on the base of the memorial were replaced by fresh ones on 11 November every year, but that was all. The battles of Verdun, the Somme, Ypres and even Langenmarck sank into obscurity, but not forever. Hitler declared that those millions who fell in France, Flanders, and in the East had not died in vain. He said that Langenmarck, where 3,000 German students died in 1914 after only six weeks of basic training, would forever be foremost in the minds of those working for Germany’s revival. Hitler’s power grew year by year with the near-unanimous support of the people who yelled ‘Heil, Heil, Heil’ at Party rallies, on Hitler’s birthday, on Wehrmacht Day, and at every other opportunity. Reality hit the nation on 1 September 1939, however, when Germany invaded Poland from the west, and three days later, Great Britain and France declared war on us. What is often forgotten is that sixteen days after that, Russia invaded Poland from the east. Did those countries then declare war on Russia? I think not.

As Hitler’s panzers rolled through Poland, then France and the rest of Europe, the nation celebrated victory after victory, but a few chips of the enamel of Hitler’s holy aura were soon to be broken off. When the first casualty lists from the fronts came in and were published in newspapers, everyone knew the war was real. Great War veterans knew already, but the consequences of real war are forgotten quickly by those who were not in it. With the rationing of food and other goods, a few younger Germans also came to doubt the National Socialist leadership. The first air raids, life in shelters, lost sleep and sixty-hour working weeks made doubters of many more.

We lived on the edge of the industrial area of the Ruhr, so we naturally had a good number of anti-aircraft, or flak, batteries, in our vicinity. Most people don’t know it but the word ‘flak’, which is used in many languages, comes from an abbreviation of the German word Fliegerabwehrkanone, meaning anti-aircraft gun. The huge Krupp Steel and Armaments Works was only thirty-two miles away and there were other vital industries near us: copper smelting facilities, stainless steel mills, Buna artificial rubber plants, synthetic petrol plants, the Mannesmann (steel tubing) works, and the DEMAG (heavy-lift cranes) operation, just to mention a few, that had to be protected from air attack. Near us were also factories that processed and packaged food, made paper products and one that made submarine parts. Other smaller enterprises were involved in manufacturing textiles and roof tiles, and there was a large creamery that bought the local farmers’ milk for processing. Luckily, we had no ammunition plants near us, but there was a large railway shunting yard with a locomotive repair shop that was highly visible from the air. All of this had to somehow be protected just in case Churchill decided our area was important enough to bomb.

When men began being drafted into the services, several of the pubs and restaurants closed. A sign was usually placed in the window that said: ‘Wegen Einberufung geschlossen!’ which means, ‘Closed because of being drafted’. Some even added, ‘See you back here after final victory’. By 1942, some of the pubs and restaurants had reopened and were being run by the woman of the house, but the quality of refreshments and meals had deteriorated. One never knew if the rabbit stew being served was made from the animal that hopped or the other kind. ‘Roof rabbits’ (cats) were eaten all over Europe late in the war. It was best not to ask the cook and no one did. The beer was watery and stale even if it was fresh. Wrought-iron tables and chairs were gone; probably melted down and reborn as Panzers or guns. The once-immaculate beer gardens were overgrown with weeds. Folks who were too old for military service and those who had returned badly wounded or were on home leave still frequented these establishments - mostly just to have somewhere to go and talk. The endless talk was always about the fronts. The old First World War veterans, pipes in their mouths, gave their advice to the young soldiers on how to send the Russians packing. Others drew maps on bare table tops with fingers dipped in beer and explained how they had beaten the ‘Frogs’ (the French) on the Somme river in 1916. At least all this talk could be had without a ration card and the beer was only twenty Pfennigs a glass. Getting drunk on the stuff after 1942 was impossible, however; one would burst before that happened. Some industrious men brewed fruit brandy from cherries, pears or apples but that was a hazardous occupation, mainly because of the improvised equipment they had to use and the ever-present Polizei (police) snooping around.

Most trades, small firms and workshops had closed by the middle of 1942 because anyone with a knowledge of cars, construction, carpentry and related things, ended up in the Wehrmacht. One tradesman that was hardly ever called up was the watchmaker. They were mostly old, retired people too feeble to fight in Russia, but their skill was always sought after. There were no battery-operated watches; all had wind-up mechanisms and in the intense cold of Russia, the metal gears contracted. Watches stopped by the thousands and those that ran didn’t keep good time. Soldiers needed watches, especially those in forward areas. Attacks and retreats had to be coordinated so everyone would know precisely when to move or how long to hold out. In North Africa, on the other hand, fountain pens dried up in the heat. Pencils can be used for solving that problem, but telling time accurately requires something more complicated.

People began to stink, literally. No - baths were not rationed, but soap was and what we got didn’t last long or get us very clean. In the early part of the war, baths were taken once a week, except for those who had really dirty jobs, like coal miners, manure spreaders and soldiers home on leave. The extra baths for them were encouraged to get rid of lice that have always followed any soldier around. Cars became cheap; we used to say you could have one for an apple and an egg. There was no petrol to buy for private use, so what were you going to do with a car? A sausage and a two-pound block of butter were far more important than a DKW or an Adler 4-cylinder. Anyway, most privately owned cars and motorcycles that would run eventually got requisitioned by the Wehrmacht. Doctor Kreutzer, our local doctor, was well known in Germany during the war, and she had an Adler sports car. Sadly, she was killed in the last air raid on our town in February 1945.

We got war news from a radio that Dad brought home from Poland in 1939. It had short, medium and long-wave reception. We were not allowed to listen to enemy radio broadcasts, but stations in Sweden, Switzerland or Portugal were allowed. Some people did break the law but if they had been caught, a heavy fine, a prison sentence or even a stay in a concentration camp could have been their punishment. Newspapers were all controlled, owned and printed by the NSDAP and censored by the office of Propaganda Minister, Dr. Goebbels. He had a couple of nicknames too: ‘Herr Big Mouth’ and ‘Club Foot Jupp’. Occasionally, they would print world news but we never knew if the stories were genuine or not. For instance, in June 1940 an article in the official Party newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter listed the UP (United Press) as the source of an interesting story. At that time Germany was not yet at war with the United States. The article described a test by a scientist at the University of Minnesota, a Dr. Alfred Nier, who had successfully produced Uranium 235 from the much more abundant Uranium 238, which was a major step toward making an atomic bomb. The article went on, saying that, ‘Up to now, only a few grams of this new isotope have been produced and we doubt that this discovery will be of military value in the present war.’ The article continued with a description of atom splitting and tests at Columbia University. So by no means was Germany completely shut off from the rest of the world in 1940; that would come later.

The Second World War didn’t come to our part of Germany with a big bang. In fact it was only the radio and newspapers that kept us informed of things that were happening in Poland; that is, until the telegram came telling us that Uncle Fritz (Dad’s sister’s husband) had been killed in action there. My dad was soon drafted into an assault gun unit and left for training. In peacetime he had been the driver of an electric tram. I guess that made him qualified to be the driver of a tracked assault gun, although I thought there was a lot of difference between the two.

When the war started, the area we lived in immediately became part of the 64th Flak Air Defence Command, whose headquarters was in Münster. This area encompassed the whole of the Ruhr valley from the Dutch border in the west to just east of Dortmund and from Münster in the north to Cologne. By 1944 there were several flak divisions defending the area with almost 20,000 guns in all. Most batteries were positioned north and west of this vast industrial complex, but many positions were in close support of vital war industries. Ammunition factories were also present and it was not every citizen’s cup of tea to live in a house knowing that just down the road from them, shells and bombs were being turned out by the millions and that these places were favourite targets of the Allies.

Since the beginning of the war, a total blackout had been ordered throughout the Reich and air-raid wardens were appointed to see to its enforcement. These wardens were usually men over sixty years of age, old wounded veterans from the First World War, or Party members without more important assignments. Their job was to patrol the streets after dusk to make sure that no light was visible from houses and factories. Violation of the order could result in a brick coming through your window. The wardens were also responsible for blocking access to bombed areas and keeping the roads open for firefighters and rescue teams. With us living in the Ruhr, blackout regulations seemed to be a farce at times. The Ruhr contained many steel works with huge smelting furnaces and the glow from them was visible for miles. Their chimneys billowed smoke and steam day and night. We had framed blackout paper covering our windows that could be removed during the day. Everyone had little crosses of tape on their windows to stop flying glass in case the window was shattered by the concussion of a nearby bomb explosion.

Mr Vink, our primary air-raid warden, was a veteran of the Great War and had served with Granddad Willem in the same infantry regiment, the 77th Lübbener Jäger. Lübben is a town in Brandenburg and a good 250 miles from the Rhineland, but Granddad and Mr Vink were in Lübben on a work detail when the war began. They enlisted there and then and joined the light infantry. They were both at the Battle of Verdun and both walked home from Belgium at the end of the war. In 1939 Mr Vink, who at the time was the furnace stoker at the nearby food-processing plant, was made our first air-raid warden. He was also the only person I knew during the war who had a flashlight. If the electricity went off during a raid, we had to make do with homemade candles or sit in the dark. We only had one 25-watt light bulb in each room, so we were almost in the dark anyway. Mr Vink even had a steel helmet given to him by the Party. To be honest, to us kids, he looked pretty ridiculous in it. He was about six feet four inches tall with a head like a large pumpkin and the helmet was about two sizes too small, but he wore it with dignity and in fact, to adults, he was a well-respected member of the community. He was the only person who could shout, ‘Lights out, damn it’ and be obeyed by young and old, regardless of who they were. Arguing with an official air-raid warden performing his duties was an invitation for trouble. He could have you arrested or even worse.

Actually, we should never have needed air-raid wardens, although a Luftschutz (air protection) law in 1936 required their appointment. Reich Marshal Göring had promised Hitler and the people in 1939 that, in the event of war, no enemy plane would ever be able to cross into the Reich. A few months later, a bunch of British Hampden twin-engined bombers dropped a few bombs on Wilhelmshaven, doing no damage, but nevertheless, the occasion gave Göring the nickname ‘Herr Meier’. The use of this nickname is very old and has origins in a German expression of doubt about a prophesied event and it just seemed to fit the occasion I guess. After our Reich Marshal’s promise proved to be as meaningless as most of the other propaganda, we were glad to have our wardens. Even though Göring knew all about his nickname, it was still not a good idea to use it around people who might report you to the Gestapo. We knew they got most of their information from ordinary citizens reporting on others they might want to see jailed, and everyone knew there was a large Gestapo office in Krefeld, not far from us.

* * *

Our healthcare before the war was probably the best in the world, but the invasion of Poland and the subsequent six-year war created problems that could not have been foreseen. Even before the ‘Barbarossa’ campaign against Russia in June 1941, there were almost a million wounded or sick soldiers in public hospitals, military hospitals (Lazaretten) or otherwise getting treatment for war-related injuries. Injured or sick civilians were generally better off than the soldier at the front. At home, there was always a doctor, a nurse, a first-aid station or a hospital nearby. As the war turned decidedly against Germany, it was a lack of medicines that created the real problem. This was especially the case with drugs like morphine, that were made from plants that we could no longer import. Dandelion flowers or Rose Hip tea won’t do much for a broken arm or pneumonia.

Up until the First World War, the civilian population as a whole was not too bad off food-wise. It was not a densely-populated area, but the First World War and its aftermath brought famine to Germany on a scale that no one had foreseen. Hitler promised the Germans a better life, and for a few years after he became Chancellor, life was better. But twenty-one years after the guns of the First World War fell silent, a new war started and immediately another food crisis came over the country. Germany was again unable to provide the necessary food for its eighty million inhabitants. The country was first blockaded by the Royal Navy and later by the US Navy. There were battle fronts in all directions and the shortage of men and machines to till the fields made for a food shortage that would not be overcome. German citizens sensed by 1943, after the defeat at Stalingrad, that this war was lost, just like the earlier one. Unlike 1918, however, they knew that this time the war would be coming home to them before it would be over. By the end of 1944, the population of some towns in distant East Prussia had a taste of things to come when the Red Army crossed into Germany. News travels fast and bad news travels even faster and the news we got scared everyone. The distribution of rationed food that was available frequently broke down, due mainly to attacks by Allied planes on food-processing centres and transport facilities, but also due to the overall inability of the authorities to cope with a disaster of this magnitude.

The NSDAP’s Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt (NSV - civilian welfare organisation) took care of people who were less fortunate than us and there were lots of them. In addition to recipes, they also provided clothing and essentials for those who had lost everything in air raids, took care of orphans and collected clothing. Given the circumstances at the time, when air raids had become a daily occurrence, they did a great job, providing one gave them a smart ‘Heil Hitler’ salute as a thank-you. The NSV issued leaflets and books with new recipes for meals and medicines but most people asked their parents and grandparents what could be eaten and ignored the government publications. By the end of the war, there were lots of reasons for not trusting anything that came from a Party organisation, even the NSV.

The NSV women, who were cooking for thousands of people, also advised us on how to cook over open fires between the ruins of bombed-out homes. Some recipes were worth a try, but others were outright ridiculous or dangerous. One of their proclamations comes to mind and I give it here, but please don’t try it. The leaflet we received went something like this:

Dear Volksgenossen (loyal Party members):

Our present economic situation requires us to make many sacrifices now so that we can look forward to certain victory against the Bolshevik menace and the Jewish-inspired gangster clique. We urge you do as much as possible to obtain your own cooking facilities if you have been bombed out. This will allow the NSV to attend to more urgent matters. Please do not waste any scrap of food. Search your cellars, your gardens, and report any dead farm animals (cows, horses, pigs, rabbits, chickens, dogs, cats, goats, and the like) to one of the NSV officers who will then make sure that nothing edible is wasted. Your cooperation in this matter is a duty to our Fatherland.

Heil Hitler