Imprisonment and Slave Labour 1940 - 1945 -Part 2

After a trade treaty with Germany Hitler’s ambitions got the better of him thus the day and night trains of tanks, lorries and guns which could be seen on the railways. This was the biggest mistake Hitler ever made as it caused the collapse of everything he lived for. So here we were stuck on a journey to nowhere trudging, wondering, travelling and having to discard any possessions as we were unable to carry them. There was no medical examination to see if we were fit any more than there had been one to see if we were fit for anything at all, and we were on absolute starvation rations. On looking back I can’t understand how we made it, those of us who did.

The first place I remember after Lamsdorf was Pieborn then Neisse, then I was astonished to pass through a town called Frankenstein then a town called Streigau which was full of refugees from Nemesis ! The Russians were creating hell for the ones who had such venomous regard for their countrymen and Poles and Jewish people. German cruelty and bestiality had run amok, untethered and encouraged. This was the second of the two whirlwinds about which I would say as would the Yanks, ‘they ain’t seen nothing yet !’

The mixing together of us and the refugees who were mostly German at Streigu gave me a comfortable feeling not of revenge as these people were as pitiable as those in France, but one of ‘I told you so’. These people had backed Hitler thinking he would be the winner. The refugees weren’t machine gunned and bombed as were the French on their escape routes. Gott mit uns !

The Germans had blitzed France and treacherously attacked the Russians with their full ferocity after soothing their fears with a massive trade pact. Gott mit uns ! was a blasphemous assumption. With their death camps and death factories as well as my own experience of these men and women in their paroxism of hate I felt that God had his own plans for this race of people who had run amok. And the rolling of guns and the blaze of orangy light from behind us bode ill for the master race and for all that I did not feel they were punished enough. I feel they will rise again and are already undergoing that process. While we suffer wars between periods of peace they suffer periods of peace between wars.

Although the distance doesn’t appear very great between where we began this trek to Schweidneitz by the time we arrived we had suffered terribly from cold and starvation. My hands were turning blue and if it weren’t for our arrival at Schweidnitz I would undoubtedly have died on my feet. Here was a great army barracks and they provided us with a thick barley stew or rather soup.

That the Russians weren’t far behind was obvious one night whilst as were were in a barn there was a great deal of noise outside and two tanks were firing as well as guns and all we needed was a round in amongst our straw! However, when the doors were opened in the morning there was no sign at all of damage or any evidence that we had not been dreaming.

We had to sleep with our boots on as being in the middle of winter if we had taken them off they would have frozen stiff. This did happen to some of our number.

As we jogged merrily on after Streigau came Jauer, then Gorlitz where there was as usual a camp surrounded by barbed wire and sectioned off an area of Jews. This was the first time we had seen them in their striped suits and they looked even hungrier than we were. Here we had an opportunity to use a bunk and had running water for the first time. Before we left either some or all of the Jews were marched out down the road Westward and we had our first sight of one of their number actually brandishing a whip. We found it hard to believe but there it was.

The next town we were marched to was Bautzen and we entered it by the side of a large typical stone public building. When we reached the front of the building we found a large band of material roped round the front and on it was printed in large letters ‘Ober Commando der Wehrmacht, Section Ost.. Section Ost (East) appeard to be having a decidedly rough time of it. The whole horizon was ‘lit up’ and the rumbling of guns had become much nearer.

The next place for Section Ost to evacuate to had to be Dresden which, with Meissen nearby had a famed ornament industry. Doubtless they have recovered by now.

On our way, in the direction of Dresden we deviated across fields to the North in order to by-pass the town and though we were unaware of Dresden’s ordeal there was masses of ‘window’ lying about, about 2” wide and yards long. Though we had an idea it was ‘window’ we weren’t sure as it still had brown paper on it.

After this we went up through Kamenz and Konigsbruck and back down through Meissen which appeared not to have been damaged. We had no idea Dresden was as good as a dead city or perhaps it would be better described as ‘City of the Dead’. Had it not been practically destroyed no doubt it would have very shortly have been HQ Section Ost though the master race was rapidly running out of Ost !

The German armed force was quite colossal before the Russians began their return. But the Russians had an even more powerful build-up since Stalin built up his military industrial strength behind the Urals and surprised everyone, especially the German Reich. Not quite a thousand Years ! Now it was pay day and then some !

Up to this point most nights were spent in barns on farms although early on one night we spent sitting on seats of what appeared to be a roofless cinema which had not been very good. All the towns were more than a day’s march or ‘stagger’ apart and we were getting weaker by the day. Armies are reputed to march on their stomachs but only if they have something in them. We were also getting dehydrated as our usual diet of ersatz coffee and so called soup were not provided as in the camps.

Although it was the middle of winter and all roads had hard packed snow I don’t remember any snow falling at all so one can say that was our only blessing. Also our boots didn’t get the pounding they would have on hard road surfaces as there were no
replacements.

I had a Brummie for a mate, one of the pleasantest chaps I ever knew. He developed frost bite on his feet and I believe and can only hope he got treatment, not the kind he would have had had he been a Russian. So now I had no partner for many days. Except for losing my mate we all had the same problems, could we carry on, keep up, would our boots hold out. A blizzard would have finished us all off in our state of health.

From Meissen we came to Dobeln, a big town and no particular events occurred here. It should be remembered that by this time each man doubted he would be able to survive the forced march and starvation diet. I wonder even now what kept me going.

After Dobeln we appear to have dithered about round Zeitz Solingen, Seesen, Meiningen or Metningen. I suppose because of uncertainty about which direction to take with the Russians surging onward, the strike Northwards by our chaps and the Yanks pushing up from the Rhine. I believe Lubeck was the first intention but it began to look as if it was cut off.

To press on, there was Jena, Weimar, Erfurt then Gotha. Well Gotha had a visit that night. The RAF started chucking land mines about so its citizens and us of course had a bit of a hectic night. When we left Gotha there wasn’t a roof anywhere so they’d had a double Allied Visit.

Near Eisenach, the end of our trip on the horizontal East to West map we turned North as we were getting close to the Ruhr but that night we had no barn and were invited to spend the night in the local stone quarry where they managed to find us a blanket each. Their excuse was that one of us had purloined a sheep of all things and this was our punishment. Of course it snowed a bit that night, not much luckily but enough to make their crime complete although it probably helped us as the snow clouds kept the frost off.

So off we go again towards Nordheim and Gottingen. We weaved a bit and arrived at Duderstadt at a charming brick storage place consisting of several floors. It had a large lift with trellis gates. A deep hole in the yard with a pole across it was provided for people who felt the need to make use of it. But this was no use for the night time as we were locked up inside and there was no deep hole there After about 3 months of crude food dysentery was rife and the result was a lift shaft full of our insides. I’m glad I didn’t have to clean it up ! Anyway good luck to Duderstadt !

And so on to Braunswig (Brunswick) and Hanover, then a right turn on to Magdeburg on the Elbe, after the longest stretch so far. Believe it or not we got praised for the effort ! As a reward we slept on the cobbled road beside the Elbe. This was the beginning of the end. After dithering around we came to Treuenbrietzen, a nice little country town and plodded on through Juterbog - odd name, but in fact it was a large

training area. On our right was a grassed aerodrome and as we passed over 30 ME l09’s took off en masse ! They were so close together it looked like panic ! We passed this place and slept in yet another barn.

On starting out next morning we found we were going back the way we came. Before we reached Juterbog again a mass of horses came hurrying up from behind pobably spooked by two Mustangs and Typhoons which came hurtling from ahead up the road ready to let us have it. We split to each side of the road but I don’t think they fired. Sometimes one’s memory gets a little hazy. Anyway I do remember that at the time I was hoping they wouldn’t fire on the horses. I can’t remember seeing anyone with them.

Some time during this period an enormous bus like thing roared past us, black, with dials showing.

So we reached Juterbog aerodrome again, this time on our left. 3 or 4 planes lay scattered on the field and to our amazement they caught fire, one after the other. So those other planes must have taken off in a panic and the ones left were the lame ducks without petrol I expect.

Now, for some reason we veered to the left and approached the forest at the top of the aerodrome and hidden inside were two twin engined planes each with FW 190 mounted piggy-back. No petrol again I presume. I can only surmise the German guards either wanted to see these knowing they were there or wanted us to see them as I could see no reason for veering off the road. The next town, Treuenbrietzen we entered the same way we left it but did not find it in the same state. It had been smashed up and though not an enormous distance from where we turned back we had heard nothing, in the same way we had heard nothing near Dresden when that got the treatment. Maybe being in a closed up barn each time with all the straw and being used to the commotion on the Russian front, the sound was muffled.

I mentioned Gotha and its troubles, we passed through Muhlhausen in the evening. There was a long main street of houses and the roofs of all them were burning. We weren’t too popular and they must have felt we were chuckling to ourselves, serve them right, if only for what they were doing to us personally at that moment. For them it was beginning not to look like a lovely war after all. The unter-menschen were giving them ‘whatfor’ in the not too distant eastern sector.

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