Monday, March 21, 2011

My Training

My Training by SS-Instructos
. I was called up for a short period to become a Hilfsausbilder December 1944 at Friedrichstrasse in Berlin which was at that time a garrison for the Leibstandarte "Adolf Hitler"and given papers to  go by train to the 5th Reichsausbildungslager in Bistritz am Hostein, Slovakia (a rather beautiful place). These training facilities were entirely run by the SS. The total number of trainees amounted to 500 boys aged 16-19.(Another 500 were "weeded out" as unsuitable.)The instructors were without exception all NCO’s. Most of them wounded and unfit for combat.(It is my understanding that there were several Training Facilities like this, one in Belgium that trained Tank Drivers, another one in Austria training Gebirgsjaeger.)

  We were in groups of 7 and I had a rather fanatic NCO by the name of Hess, his rank was Unterscharfuehrer. My offence was that I had copied a number of a
“Love Letters” that was quite “innocent” unless you read every second line which was of a sexual nature.I had been reported and as I had degraded the “honour” of the Germanic Womanhood (there was not much honour left after being raped by the Russians) I received a punishments like carrying a rock while running and the usual crawling in the mud etc.
After my successful completion of training I was sent to Ruedesheim am Rhein which was a Wehrertuechtungslager (this was run by the Wehrmacht our commander was  Hauptmann Stuemmer) to teach in the use of the Panzerfaust, this was my main task, to young and old, partly Volkssturm-men. We all had our Soldbuch which states clearly that you are a member of the “Wehrmacht”. Yet due to the small sizes of uniforms unavailable we did wear the Luftwaffenhelfer outfit which was Air Force blue in colour. My Unit was the 12th Panzervernichtungsbrigade, which was in part decimated during the fighting after the Americans crossed the Rhein at Remagen. To refill our ranks, members of the HJ or Jungvolk were forced into combat with disastrous consequences. Anyone taken prisoner by the American forces were shot without mercy. I myself saw the bodies unearthed out of a shallow grave in the vicinity of the Harz Mountains.They were some of ours OK, a priest had been present during the execution and confirmed the event what had taken place. (It was the practice of US armoured Units to push ahead way into our lines as scouts and later withdrew) As we were pushed back towards the Tschec border it was decided to surrender part of the brigade, except 15 men and one Lt. and we roamed through the Sudeten Mountains until we heard of the unconditional surrender of Germany and became POW’s, under Eisenhower in a number of his Death Camps were 1.7 million Germans died of starvation, yet I doubt this figure although I have been eating grass and my weight was down to 50kg. There was no Red Cross or the Geneva Convention for us.
I have never been a member of the HJ or Volkssturm only part of the younger Junkvolk and have no regrets nor did it ever harm me in any way.
As a footnote about 7-8 SS Instructors were unmarried and all of them had rather attractive Jewess girl friends working within the military installation. It shows you when boy meets girl and the chemistry is right religion colour or creed does not matter. They (instructors) taught the official NS-Party line (Politishe Weltanschauung) when it came to their private life it was a different story.

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