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

Chapter 7. Regulations and Propaganda

After 1939, we would occasionally have a Party official call on us to conduct a Viehzählung, or animal counting, but it didn’t include cats and dogs and no one kept fish or birds as pets. He was interested in animals that were normally slaughtered for food like pigs, rabbits, chickens, geese and goats. Farmers had to register every one of these. We figured, since there was a war on, somehow this must be important. The problem was, if you had too many, and we never knew from one visit to the next how many would be too many, the animals were liable to be confiscated without payment. Often the goose you had been fattening up for Christmas dinner would end up on some Party member’s table if you had a couple more running around in the yard. Now we didn’t know that for certain, but we always thought it. To have more animals than you were allowed for your family’s survival was not a crime as such, but you could very well have them taken away after you had fed them for a year or longer and that was a waste of feed for us. You also had to have a permit (of course) to slaughter anything bigger than a rabbit and if you got caught, that was a crime and the punishment could be severe. This kind of slaughter was called Schwarzschlachtung or ‘black slaughter’ because people who did this were usually selling the meat on the black market. In times of rationing, when you have to have a ration card for a pint of watery milk, the black market flourishes.

Meat or other food was traded for everything from accordions to porcelain figurines, award medals to wooden clogs. In our household, after Baby Fred was born and before Granddad died, there were six people including Aunt Carol, so we were allowed twenty-six rabbits and six laying hens. We had stopped raising pigs in 1939. They ate too much and had to grow for too long before they could be slaughtered. Neither was true of our rabbits. They would eat most anything vegetable and they grew quickly and multiplied. In 1941, we had fifty-six of the little crunchers and that many rabbits eat as much as a pig, so it was a daily job finding enough food for them. One August day in 1941, the official Nazi animal-counter came to our village to check on every non-farming household. He looked like a true National Socialist with his brown peaked cap and a grayish uniform. He saluted Granddad when he answered the door with a smart ‘Heil Hitler’ and proceeded to ask questions about our rabbit population. We were told that we could only have twenty-six and that he would be back for the rest. Well, he did come back but he only found twenty-six live rabbits. The rest had gone into our stomach or into the canning jars. It was not a crime to slaughter rabbits and we were not about to give them away after caring for them and feeding them since they were born. We had no reason to believe that our rabbits would go to hungry people and no idea what the Party man would really do with them. Granddad didn’t trust them to do anything they said they would do and the rest of us were beginning to think the same way.

We kept about five egg-laying hens and they produced one egg each per day in the summer when they were doing their jobs. They didn’t do as well when daylight was really short in the winter months. We had ration cards for eggs too, but that would only get you one or sometimes two eggs per week per person, and most of the time, they were not available at all except on the black market. Often we traded a rabbit for ten eggs or whatever else we needed. Eggs need to be consumed if you can’t keep them cool, but we found out that if you don’t wash fresh eggs they keep much longer. We would sometimes boil them for ten minutes, then crack the shells and put them in a basin and cover them with a strong salt-water solution. After twenty-four hours in this brine, the eggs would float to the surface. We then took them out and put them in an egg box and kept it in a cool place. They would be edible for up to four weeks. We used these eggs for making breakfast by warming them up in tomato sauce, mushroom sauce, mustard or bacon gravy and have them with rye bread. Then there is waterglass (sodium silicate) which can be used to preserve eggs but not many people know how to do it. It’s simple: a solution of 10 per cent waterglass with 90 per cent water is poured over the unwashed eggs and they are stored in the coolest place you have. The eggs will keep a few weeks in this solution. In times when we needed more eggs than were available on ration cards, or if our hens went on strike, this was one good way to preserve them for things like traditional Christmas baking. Mum could also make four sandwiches with one egg. She would beat the egg in a bowl and add three tablespoons of unsweetened condensed milk and a teaspoon of cornflour before frying it in a hot skillet with oil. American GIs supplied us with powdered egg right after the war and we traded Nazi trinkets for them. They were all looking for some sort of souvenir to take home with them.

Other regulations in addition to rationing that affected our community were introduced soon after the war began. I remember one day a leaflet was distributed throughout the town and a copy was put in the letter box of each household. In big letters the title read: ‘Entfernung eiserner Einfriedungen’, which means: ‘Removal of all Ornamental Iron Fences’. It went on to say, ‘We need your ornamental fences for the war effort. The Reich must have a reserve of important metals; therefore a new law has been signed that calls for the removal and confiscation of all iron fences. Violators who do not comply or hide their fences will be prosecuted beginning 1 June 1940. All demolition and transport costs will be met by the NSDAP.’ Well, we had no iron fences so that left us out, but our school fencing went into the smelter, and so did the school’s iron bicycle shed. Iron manhole covers were replaced with concrete ones, and the huge automatic gates at the food-processing plant were replaced by a 65-year-old First World War veteran sprouting a Hindenburg moustache, a dark blue uniform, and a cap with an eagle on it. He was armed too - with a walking stick.

When milk was rationed, it was only little babies that were entitled to full cream milk and even they didn’t get it very often. The rest of the people and older babies had to be satisfied with watered-down skimmed milk. The NSV realised in September 1939, when milk rationing was first introduced, that they would have to do something to make sure that newborn babies would receive proper nourishment. Of course, newborns can be breast-fed, but if the mother is undernourished, she won’t produce enough milk, and by the middle of the war, with all the rationing, that was usually the case. A breast-milk collection point was established in Magdeburg in 1939 and it was managed by the Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft für Mutter und Kind (Reich Work Organisation for Mothers and Children). The NSV became the appointed overseers of breast-milk collection points and by mid-1940; there were more than a hundred of these well-run facilities. Soon, of course, the Nazi Party Bonzen started meddling in the organisation and split this institution up into several segments, all under the supervision of the NSDAP. They quickly realised that there was more to it than milking a mother and storing the milk in a refrigerator. Each mother who had breast milk to give away had to be tested by a doctor who made sure that the donor was healthy and not of Jewish ancestry. The Party was responsible for keeping morale up at home and they somehow thought this would make a difference to mothers of starving babies. Most of the Bonzen were shirkers and never fired a shot in the line of duty. It was not that we disliked the NSDAP at the time or even what they stood for; what irked the people at home was that many of these able-bodied men and women were useless in the positions they occupied within the Party, while the Wehrmacht was bleeding to death on the battlefields of Kursk, El Alamein and Leningrad.

When the programme was first established, the women with milk lined up at the collection points like cows in a milking parlour and that was just not acceptable. Later, to give some respectability and dignity to the process, breast pumps were given to mothers so they could do the job themselves at home. The milk was then collected every other day by the NSV ‘milk man’. This was also an extra source of income for mothers. They were paid three to four Reichsmarks per litre and then the milk was sold by the NSV to mothers who needed it for five Reichsmarks per litre. Mothers who could not afford the cost got it free through the National Health Service. The NSDAP even advertised the milk-collection programme in their Party publications. This sort of thing might seem abstract today, but these milk-collection services saved the lives of many newborn babies. We had a baby at home and a father on the Russian Front, so anything to do with the welfare of our family and other families like ours was of major importance to me, even though I was just a boy myself. All this was naturally of no concern to Brother Len and the older Hitler Youths. They had other duties to fulfil, as Goebbels reminded all of us in one of his many proclamations. ‘The destiny of Germany’s youth is to carry the final victory in their hands.’ We all wanted to do that because, since our first day at school, we had been told that we were the building blocks of the future Reich.

Everyone who was not in the military had a job, but only coal miners or steel workers were entitled to Schwerarbeiter Zulage (extra rations). It was a serious crime to quit your job and try to find a better paying one. The National Socialist Labour Office kept close track of that sort of thing. Every worker had an Arbeitsbuch (work book) and the employer kept those books up to date along with the worker’s insurance payments. Everyone had an identification card but the phrase, ‘Papers please’ was rarely heard. Your ID was mainly used for visits to municipal offices. The local police in our area knew most of the residents anyway. Even many POWs, especially Russians or Polish, were issued ID cards. They worked on farms, sometimes in groups, guarded by a wounded soldier or elderly Landsturm (reserve military) man, but often with no guard at all. The farmer who had hired them was responsible for the prisoners’ welfare. As long as these prisoners did their job, the farmer was happy and some POWs on farms lived better toward the end of the war than German citizens in large cities. Sabotage in our area was unheard of, but the prisoners would attempt escape occasionally. After all, France and Holland with their large resistance movements were only a few miles away. Some made it and joined the Polish Resistance Brigade in France; most didn’t make it. Getting recaptured was a sure ticket to a concentration camp or an SS firing squad. Some never went back to Russia or ‘liberated Poland’ after the war and settled in the western occupied zones of Germany, preferring to live in a foreign country to living under Stalin.

Poor city-dwellers with no gardens travelled by the thousands to the surrounding countryside, usually many miles out, to beg or trade for food. This was of course forbidden and in 1944, Himmler sent out a directive to all Gestapo and police officers to check any large bags being carried by people. If the person could not give a good explanation for how and where he obtained the cabbages or potatoes, the food was confiscated and he could find himself in court. You could get three months in prison for this or even be put in a concentration camp if someone in the Party wanted it. Himmler, in his memo, called it hamstern (hoarding, like a hamster) and that word stuck with the German people until June 1948 when the new Deutschemark currency was introduced and the economy began to recover.

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In any country with a one-party system, propaganda is a must to keep the voters, and those who don’t have an opinion, happy at all times. Germany was no exception to this rule. In a free and democratic society, you don’t need a special Minister of Propaganda. Imagine one sitting in Washington today with a staff of several hundred and a billion-dollar budget. Americans would get the same thing we got from 1933 to 1945. Propaganda, in simple terms, is a method used to keep the population happy with the present government, whatever it is. German propaganda was specially geared to National Socialism and later the war. The words ‘National Socialism’ might sound nice today to some people’s ears, even Germans - if it hadn’t already been used by the Nazis.

Radio and newspapers were the essence of propaganda. The other source of news was the Wehrmacht reports, but not many people back home believed them and even fewer soldiers at the fronts. A radio was always in demand for the entertainment, the musical concerts and the evening news reports. Telefunken, Loewe Opta and others made radios before the war and they were dearly sought after, but they had not been mass produced. Hence, the Volksempfänger was invented, which was a small black-cased radio that was cheap, about seventy Reichsmarks at the time, and it soon got the nickname ‘Goebbel’s mouth’. It worked only on the Decimetre frequency and one could only receive German transmitting stations. The verboten transmissions of the enemy came over short wave and the older radios were able to receive these transmissions, but listening to a BBC transmission could bring you a world of trouble. After the defeat at Stalingrad, the mood of the population at home was so low that the government decided enough is enough. On 18 February 1943, as 100,000 German prisoners were being transported from Stalingrad to the far reaches of Russia, Goebbels, in front of a crowd of Party members in the Berlin Sports Palace, declared his ‘Total War’ programme. At first, not much was done to enforce this new policy and the Allies answered his declaration with an intensification of bombing raids on German cities. Only after the Normandy invasion was his plan better implemented.

What Goebbels lacked in physical stature, his mouth surely made up for it, with the masses following his speeches in the beginning as if he was the messiah. All slogans, in papers, on the radio, or even just painted on house walls, had to be approved by the propaganda office of the relevant local Party Headquarters and they all had propaganda offices. The slogan ‘Wheels roll for Victory’ on the wall of a railway station made sense, but that slogan painted along the wall of the local motorcycle track didn’t. Late in the war nobody had a motorcycle anymore and this just reminded us of it, and almost nobody owned a car; roller skates were all we had left. I didn’t see how they could roll for victory. The only wheels still rolling were train wheels and factory machine wheels.

Nazi propaganda wasn’t only confined to Germany either. Goebbels’ tentacles reached out to the occupied countries too and even to the front. Soldiers were inundated with leaflets, news reports of imaginary victories, and maybe excuses for the bad food over their radios that could only pick up Radio Belgrade. ‘The Homefront goes hungry too’ was a slogan often heard on the radio we had. Yes, we knew about going hungry, but until the very end of the war, we also knew our soldiers ate better with their rations than the coal miners in Dortmund. Many sent their butter or chocolate rations home; even packages of bacon, sausage, soap and Papyrossi (Russian cigarettes) were sent through the Reichspost. In the other direction went cigarette lighters, flints, gloves, scarves and the well-known honey cake, made of course with ersatz honey.

Then there was the propaganda beast named ‘Kohlenklau’, a villainous-looking character who stole coal or used more of it than he needed. A lot of homes were heated with wood and food was cooked on a wood-burning stove, but I never heard of a ‘Holzklau’. Probably by the middle of the war there were so many bombed-out houses, there was plenty of wood around in the cities. This conservation propaganda was directed at children as well as adults. There were even board games and storybooks with this Kohlenklau character to indoctrinate the very young about the need to save energy. Sounds like something you would hear of today, doesn’t it?

Of course, even the best propaganda can turn sour if fed day after day to a population that has no illusions about the outcome of the war, but no soldier wrote home to his wife that, in his opinion, the war was lost and that Hitler had made a mess of it all. Feldpost letters were censored frequently, so if he had something to say regarding the state of the war, it was mainly, ‘We will win this war; let’s wait for the V-weapons; let’s believe in the Führer who has mastered other bad situations’. Even death notices in the newspapers eventually got censored to something like: ‘Heroic death for the Fatherland and Führer’. There were no exceptions; death came to generals with the Knight’s Cross the same as to the private. The bullet found the eighteen-year-old Hitler Youth as easily as a sixty-year-old Volkssturm grandfather.

When the assassination attempt on Hitler occurred on 20 July 1944, propaganda was quick to declare it had been the act of a few treasonous officers. That was half right, but there were more than a few officers involved. The Party promised to eradicate the treacherous vermin wherever they were found and put them in concentration camps. From that day on, the Party took over what they hadn’t already gotten their hands on. That’s when we began to hear propaganda that the Wehrmacht, and especially the generals, had failed the country, but that the Party would nevertheless lead Germany to victory. Of course, those few who listened to enemy radio stations knew better. We all knew, or we thought we did, why the war was in such a bad state. With old men, young kids, women, and even the sick and feeble the only ones left defending the Fatherland, what could be expected? We kids were even told by Party propaganda to denounce the eternal churchgoers, the lazy and the workshy. Party members who had never fired a shot in anger were promoted to Wehrmacht company commanders. Propaganda at the end of the war said that anyone not living up to the situation we were in would be arrested and dealt with accordingly. We knew very well what that meant. Most of those arrested were marched out into the fields at gunpoint to construct mile after mile of anti-tank ditches.

One good example of propaganda at the end of the war was a directive issued by Adolf Hitler to defend the old city of Trier on the Moselle River.

By Order of the Führer!

We will defend Trier with all our might. This order is to be perfectly clear; our resolve will be seen in the Panzerfaust. Now only our weapons will speak. Our eyes are directed toward the enemy day and night and our hearts are full of hate. We will block the gate to the Moselle. With the cry of revenge on our lips, we will fight the enemy; every street will have a barricade; every house will be a fortress. Trier will not surrender. Soldiers of the western front, you understand the Führer’s orders the same as our comrades understood in Courland, East Prussia and in Silesia. Not one foreign soldier will enter the city even if we have to kill him with our bare fists; even if we have to strangle him. Trier will stay German.

The capture of the city by Patton was much less dramatic and went almost like a comedy. General Eisenhower in late February 1945 had told Patton to wait outside Trier until he could spare four divisions to take the city. Nevertheless, Patton went ahead with two divisions and took Trier without any heavy fighting. An old saying in Trier was, ‘When the ravens leave the Porta Nigra [a Roman gatehouse in Trier], the city will fall to the enemy’. The ravens left that day and Trier fell.

Will Gehlen, aged eight, in full Jungvolk uniform. This photograph was taken as part of his official Reich identification papers. (Wilhelm Gehlen)

A 1930s map of the Rhineland where Will grew up. München-Gladbach was too small at the time to be included, but it is about ten miles southwest of Willich. Krefeld is about five miles north-east of Willich.

Will and other boys are allowed to inspect a quad 20mm flak gun that would soon be set up in their area. (Wilhelm Gehlen)

Will’s troop with other Hitler Youth and Jungvolk in morale-building exercises in the Eifel. This looks like some version of a tug-of-war. That’s Will in the centre about to take a fall. (Wilhelm Gehlen)

Group photo of Will’s troop on an excursion to Bavaria. Will is near the back row, left of centre with only part of his head showing. Being short was a problem sometimes. (Wilhelm Gehlen)

Obergefreiter (Corporal) Lorenz Gehlen, Will’s father, in uniform. This was taken soon after his enlistment as part of his military identification. (Property of the Gehlen family)

Dad (right) on patrol near Cholm, Russia, in April 1942. (Wilhelm Gehlen)

Dad (far left) listening in while plans are being made; somewhere near Vilikye Luki, Russia, in 1942. (Wilhelm Gehlen)

Brother Len and his group of Hitler Youth on the march during training exercises in the Harz area, 1943. Len is front and centre; in command as always. (Wilhelm Gehlen)

Len and five of his mates no doubt planning an attack on the invading Americans. Photo probably taken right after the end of the war. (Wilhelm Gehlen)

A permit and receipt for having paid the tax for owning a dog. Not many people had pets and if you did, you paid the Reich for the privilege; in this case six Reichsmarks. (Wilhelm Gehlen)

An official document granting a farmer permission to slaughter a pig. To do so without a permit could get you arrested, but farmers had ways of getting around such regulations if the need arose. (Wilhelm Gehlen)

Ration card for children aged six to fourteen. Valid only for part of July and August 1944, it states that the coupons are only valid in occupied Luxembourg. Potatoes are listed, but looking closely, the coupons are for potato flour and only 25 grams; considerably less than an ounce. (Wilhelm Gehlen)

Major General Reinhard Gehlen, Will’s uncle; often called ‘Hitler’s spymaster’. This is a photo of his identification card after he surrendered to the US Army Counterintelligence Corps in Bavaria. (US Army Signal Corps)