In the Fire of the Eastern Front

CHAPTER 8 My Training in the Waffen SS

Although the British Air Force had not produced any significant damage up to the spring of 1941, the BBC broadcasts exaggerated reports of successful bombing raids over Germany. According to those reports, the Reich’s armaments industry had been destroyed and the cathedral in Cologne razed to the ground, although when travelling in the Ruhr, everything was just as normal as the day before. Happy farmers smilingly waved as they worked in the fields, smoke issued forth from factory chimneys and when driving over the Hohenzollern Rhine-bridge, the cathedral could be seen stretching into the sky, as usual.

A scene that never ceased to impress us was that of the Rhine banks, the 200 kilometres between Cologne and Mainz in particular, with its steep rock cliffs on either side, medieval ruined castles and the picturesque wine-producing villages, nestling on the river bank. When surrounded by the cherry orchards in full bloom in the spring, it was particularly beautiful. So was the region around Sennheim in upper Alsace. Our destination for our battalion’s training was at the foot of the Vosges, not far from Mülhausen, our barracks being a converted, former psychiatric hospital. One of the seven large stone houses surrounding a towered building became our home.

After a welcoming speech, we were separated into companies and our colourful civilian clothes exchanged for the field-grey, Prussian, ‘straight-jackets’. We took care that every button and hook was fastened, even when the collar was too tight and rubbed. Sport played a very large role in Sennheim, sports clothes being issued too and suddenly we realised why we volunteers had been so rigorously selected. ‘Praise be to all that toughens!’ being the favourite saying, which we were to hear time and time again from our instructors. They were all very experienced athletes, never expecting anything from us that they could not demonstrate themselves. This not only gave them a strong air of authority, but it spurred us on as well. Needless to say, by boxing, my first injury was a broken nose and it was not to be the last, by any means.

Throughout our training as recruits, individualism and common initiative were not wished for and were forcefully suppressed, our ‘backs being broken’ and carefully put back together again, piece by piece. We under -stood that we belonged to a military unit in wartime and everyone could not ‘cook their own soup’, but it was not easy at the beginning. It was the reality of being a soldier and our idealistic dreams being miles apart. We had to grit our teeth to come to terms not only with our spartan lifestyle, but also the bodily and mental stress. On the other side of the coin, we knew what it meant to belong to such an elite organisation and so we took one step at a time.

Every morning, on the stroke of five, we were wakened by a non-com-missioned officer with a very shrill whistle, who drove us to the wash-rooms in the barracks, to wash in cold water and a very sticky soap. After our hurried wash, we had to muster for morning gym, in a cold May morning mist in shorts and T-shirts, shivering through our teeth. After a trot around the block a few times, we were rewarded with a sparse breakfast of bread, artificial honey, and artificial coffee made from chicory, to us however, welcome and tasty.

So the order of the day was gymnastics, sport and theoretical studies. Up at the crack of dawn, it was not to be wondered at when sometimes an eyelid dropped, in a warm and airless room. A verbal crack of the whip aimed at one of us, woke us all and made us pay attention once more. Hour after hour, the commands rang out over the barrack-square from zealous instructors, mercilessly driving the panting recruits, in whirling dust and in the burning sun.

We had another problem at first, which was our ‘schoolboy German’, which simply was not good enough. The commands in Prussian-German could have been Spanish for all we knew. Only by hearing them repetitively, learning them off by heart, and learning the songs that soldiers sang, did this improve. After only a few weeks, we had no more problems in understanding what was said, or of communicating. Our German instructors had their hands full with us too. Our typical Dutch liberal mentality caused comments. There was a refusal here and there, instead of the quiet acceptance and wished-for obedience that was very important for the instructors. Our suitability had to be proved, and to fit in with their unspoken choice that was forming for choosing future officers. However, not all the ‘ambitious’ ones were chosen. Transfers and exchanges were made.

“Pre-conditions for suitability are, heart, passion, capability of solving even the extreme and unusual of problems, and of personal example.” (Quote from Felix Steiner). General Steiner’s comments on leadership, in 1942, on the Russian front were, “With the foreign replacements within the division, the diversity of mistakes that can be made informing a close comradeship, will have far more dramatic results, than with a German unit “. He meant us. “The most important pre-requisite for human leadership, is untiring and enduring care from commanders for their men, ensuring complete faith in them and to convince them that he is their best friend. His men should love him. In particular, platoon and company commanders should always be an example to their men. When reasonable, thoughtful, and with a warm heart, then the stronger will be the solidarity and fighting spirit. I beg of all my officers, to nurture a human relationship within their companies, and I mean that most earnestly”.

In Sennheim, we did not possess any weapons. We only had our bayonets attached to our belts and the ‘front’ atmosphere, naturally enough, was not present. It was our basic training, consisting of exercising, drills and marching, by day and by night, which increased from week to week. Up front, the columns were led by our superfit sportsmen as instructors. At the rear came a medical orderly who marched with us, to give first aid to the ‘new-born’ in this test of maximum resilience and constitution! In searing heat, marching for anything between 20 and 40 kilometres daily, we no longer sang ‘It’s so great to be a soldier’, as we marched with taut muscles back to the barracks. Our shaking legs took us, totally exhausted, through the gate, at the end of our strength, but not for a well-earned rest. Shortly after we had to muster once more, to the whistle of the orderly, freshly washed for the evening distribution of orders on the barrack-square.

The toughening process under open skies and in the lap of ‘mother nature’, did not allow however for time to appreciate the magic of picturesque Alsace. We could climb, for want of a better word, the 957-metre-high, Hartmannweilerskopf in the south of the Vosges for instance. It was clearly to be seen from our barracks, but only in the course of duty in a hurried march, and when bathed in sweat.

Sightseeing could only be done when we had permission for free time, which we used among other things to visit towns that were historic to the 1914—18 war. In particular, we saw the 18 metre memorial surrounded by bunkers, showing signs of the bitter fighting between French Alpine and German troops. Our barracks was no cloister and its inhabitants no pillars of holyness. Theme number one was the longing for feminine company, for the daughters of Alsace. At our age it was natural and for us no taboo. But weeks went by before our company officer released us to follow the ‘lust for life’, and not before he ‘talked’ to us for hours on end, on how to behave in the civilised world outside! We patiently listened to the preaching we heard, about our intimate bodily hygiene, and dangerous and doubtful sexual relationships. The language was sober, factual, everything in its place and being named. The guards at the barrack gates also had a part to play within the framework, for they inspected us before we enjoyed ‘Happy Hour’. They saw that our boots and leather belts were polished like mirrors, that we had a freshly washed and ironed clean handkerchief, and a condom.

When, at last, we were no longer under control and inspection, we swarmed like bees into freedom. We explored our surroundings, singly or in small groups. Alsace was a land torn constantly in the past between Germany and France, between their cultures. It resulted in a split personality of French nonchalance and German exactitude. The inhabitants, in answer to the question as to were they an imprinted folk because of it, said that in the years in between, they had found their own identity, of which they were proud. The relationship between them and the Waffen SS recruits was nothing but the best.

Sunday was a day when we stormed the bakers. It was no surprise that the few bakers open on Sunday in Sennheim and Mülhausen were quickly sold out of their delicacies, cakes etc. We followed our instincts and found what we were looking for. After the doors of the barracks were opened we hungry soldiers were let loose, for the Sunday bakers sold their wares without the obligatory food coupons. Once our stomachs were filled, the ‘attractive’ lads in the field-grey uniforms then went on an amorous patrol. In the few hours of freedom at hand, it did not take long for them to make contact, even when the somewhat strange mixture of French and Alsace-German dialect, was a ‘palaver’ to their ears.

I had no problem with Annette, a pretty girl with hair the colour of chestnuts, who came from Thann. I had a stroke of luck, inasmuch as her older sister was the flame of my platoon-leader and her youngest sister a sympathetic ally and girlfriend of our sergeant. She organised many an exceptional pass to visit. The sisterly solidarity for romance determined that our longed-for meetings were therefore not confined to just Sundays. The romance with that pretty ‘amourette’ in the peaceful Vosges nearly made me forget about the war. Together with Annette, walking along ‘lovers lane’ and with the ring of her gentle Alsace dialect I decided that without doubt, the land of Alsace was the pays d’amour. The spit and polish atmosphere however, very quickly sobered ‘this romantic’ upon his return to the very unromantic barracks!

Decades after my recruitment, the description “the volunteers from Sennheim were adventurers and criminals”, was to be found in an official war document. It came from a Dutch historian, who most probably was the only one who knew the truth, whilst turning chronicler and whiling away his time as an exile in England. As such, he could not have been further away from first-hand knowledge. One should remember Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy that “The historian is spoilt, for he has the power to alter the truth which the gods cannot.” It cannot then be said, by those who regard the duty of a soldier as defamatory, that it was the generation of the twenties who had kindled a war.

It was in 1966, in his book Soldaten wie andere auch, that General Paul Hausser, a man worshipped by his men and respected by former opponents wrote, “I respect the opinions of others and of authors, who write against the Waffen SS because of their convictions. I object, when their work is taken as “pure knowledge”, “sober and objective” or “the matter fair and just”, and is discussed or examined as such. In particular “ when they gather only discriminatory material and/or compensate everything of a positive nature, with defamatory comments, which is unmistakably evident”.

Within two years of the end of the war, unqualified and damning literature appeared, such as in the National Socialist newspaper Het Parool. This important instrument of the movement wrote, “since our liberation, there is a chasm of hate and contempt between the National Socialists and the rest of our people. The right to hate, when allowed, is the right of those who personally suffered under the occupation, or were actively resistant. It is noticeable however, that the hate was never as strong with that group as with the average citizen who remained untouched by the invaders. During the war the true resistance members, who chose their own destiny, themselves stood psychologically closer to the Dutch volunteers who also risked their lives, as they had done.”

Our training slowly came to an end in Sennheim, which was not the case with the war. Although we could not say that we had lived like a god in France, to leave its land and people was hard; in particular, to leave the daughters of Alsace was very hard.

In between times, Germany’s theatres of war had extended to North Africa, which was not particularly desirable. Often during the war, Germany’s allies such as Italy, were not, as expected, competent enough to perform their military plans, either due to leadership or quality of troops.

Mussolini’s ‘sword’ proved to be somewhat ‘blunt’, in his lust for expansion, and turned out to be nothing but a burden. Hitler was forced to give him military support in Africa and the Balkans. Still eager for some of the bounty, Italy found itself on the side of the victors during the last hours of the war in the West. After a successful lightning attack during three weeks in southern Europe, German soldiers hoisted their flag of war in Belgrade, and in the Acropolis in Athens. From Tunis, and nearly to the Nile, the Swastika fluttered in the wind, but only after Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps had rescued Italy’s warriors from a military catastrophe. On the Mediterranean island of Crete, German soldiers were also the ‘victors’, after their paratroopers under General Student suffered terrible losses against overpowering odds of 6,000 Greek and 27,000 British soldiers.

Standing in the wings and before we could act in that war, we had another very hard ‘Weapons and Terrain Course’ before us, in the mountains of Austria, in Carinthia. Lendorf, near Klagenfurt was our new posting. In the summer of 1941, our train steamed over Munich and Salzburg into, for us, a strange land, with its Alpine folklore dress of felt hats and leather trousers. We had assumed however that we were destined for the Balkans. Underway and when stopping, the teams of Red Cross nurses quenched our thirst with chicory coffee at the railway stations, and wished us ‘brave soldiers’ a healthy return.

We had been impressed with the hills of Alsace, but we ‘flatlanders’ were overwhelmed with the gigantic mountain world of Carinthia. Standing in front of them was for us an alpine nightmare, one which cut us off from our homeland and was unimaginable from pictures seen in school. In comparison however to our makeshift quarters in Sennheim, our barrack here at the foot of the Ulrich mountains consisted of modern, two-storied buildings of pristine-pure cleanliness, and conscientiously placed against an idyllic background. Specially built for the Waffen SS, the exaggerated and monumental expression of power was missing. Only the huge dining room, which was also the assembly room in the main building, offered the appropriate martial radiance of architecture of that era. Gigantic wall-paintings of battles showing the new German army, decorated the walls between the tall windows and were certainly intended for the motivation of the recruits. I made a return visit to those barracks, used by Austrian mountain troops in 1959, and the wall-paintings were still there.

We were finally issued weapons and with that status, in Klagenfurt. Just as in other armies, we were to be sworn-in as soldiers. It was noticeable that none of the volunteers were forced to take those vows of allegiance. Anyone could then leave without disadvantage, if of the opinion that they were not grown up enough for service to their country and the responsibility thereof, or if they had reservations concerning the conditions of the oath they were about to swear. Their point of view was respected and without any attempts to persuade or convince from their superiors, they could at that point return home as civilians. After duties of the soldier, disciplinary measures, honour, oath to the flag, as well as other regulations were read to us in detail, we then stood under the military, penal law of the Wehrmacht.

The battalion was assembled for swearing-in on the barrack-square in groups of four, and flanked by small upright stacks of machine-guns. With our right hands raised, and our left hands on a drawn sword, in chorus we repeated our oath after an officer. “I swear to you, our leader Adolf Hitler, faithfulness and bravery. I pledge obedience to you and my superiors until my death, so help me God”. It was done in front of our highest commanders.

The pledge was sealed with the tattooing of everyone’s blood-group on the inside of their left arm. It was done as a medical insurance for a quick and life-saving blood-transfusion on the battlefield. However, after the war, it proved to be a stigma for tens of thousands. It was known as ‘the mark of Cain’. They were made lepers of society. It cost them, in many cases, no less than their lives.

Now I was officially a soldier of the Waffen SS and my unit was the 4th Company of the surrogate battalion ‘Westland’, belonging to the ‘Wiking’ Division. This Division was one of the armoured divisions, equipped with rocket-launchers and machine-gun squads and we bore the burden of those machines. We had to carry them, which we did, willingly. In this way, we could stay together as the former unit from Sennheim. New members arrived in numbers, from other northern countries, such as Scandinavia. Things did not always run smoothly for our instructors, having to adjust to the mentality of those young men from the north.

There were problems right from the beginning with the blond northerners, especially with the Danes. They were stubborn, coarse, critical, and loved good drink and food. They complained about the menus from the military kitchens, the food not being to their liking at all. Now and again such criticism even reached obstinacy and defiance.

The German instructors did win their faith, after what seemed to the Dutch, with their strong national sensitivity, to be nothing but harassment and humiliation, which they hated. After a dose of encouragement, they were found to be approachable and, despite everything, showed a wide-awake sense of justice and a spirit of comradeship.

The Norwegians were to be more difficult, more earnest and contemplative. Once you had won their trust too, however, then you had it forever. Most came from villages or small towns from that sparsely populated land, having grown up in comparatively close-knit, down-to-earth communities. They were calmer, possessed a youthful, carefree light-heartedness, which within their military sphere developed their instincts to almost carelessness later, in particular where their own personal safety on the front was concerned. Those young men could also be a joy to their instructors and many were to show how much they were prepared to offer in their first operation as soldiers, and what magnificent comrades those volunteers would prove to be.

With the standard commands, the verbal chaos between the Danes and Norwegians, Flemish, Dutch, and Germans, was gradually overcome. Just as the French 140 years before, Germany had after-all a function in Europe and through their language, especially in the evening after duty, the communication ‘barrier’ of the new ‘European Army’ collapsed.

The language of weapons was foremost in Klagenfurt and demanded from those who carried them, the utmost from every man. We had believed, in our naïvety, that the military ‘polish’ suffered in Sennheim could not be improved upon. We were to learn very quickly, how wrong we were. It was all part of a procedure in supplying the ‘Wiking’ division with front-line combat-ready troops.

Our instructors were upright, strapping soldiers from the Ostmark, a new region won from the Polish Campaign, and who were often more Prussian than the Prussians themselves. We had to be professionals, and follow in the footsteps of the front-experienced soldiers and their praiseworthy actions. “Every soldier should be an athlete. He must run with lightning speed, jump as wide and as high as possible, throw as far as he can and march quickly, with stamina and staying power”, said Felix Steiner. The target was to train a modern grenadier who was stalker, hunter and a fierce storm-trooper at the same time.

The privates shouldered the heavy 8cm mortar, dismantled the barrel, strapping the carriage, weighing no less, on to their backs. Others carried the ammo boxes with the rounds, accompanied by the company’s heavy machine-gun squad. After an extensive march, we practised approaching the enemy, for hours on end, using natural protection, when at hand. We chose spots on the edge of woods, hollows or large rocks to erect in haste and with a practised hand, the MG 34 onto its tripod mount. After brief instructions from our instructor, we heard the command, “Sights at 250. Fire!” Twenty-five rounds of blanks per second burst from every barrel. Then we heard, “Volte deckung! stellungswechsel!” and we had to take cover, and change our positions.

When the exercise was not executed with the desired speed, ‘gas-mask’ practice was then on the agenda. Made from rubberised tenting material, breathing through gas-masks was twice as difficult when executing the above-mentioned activity! We thought that we would suffocate. We could not expect pity from our instructors, and received none, for we had to run like greyhounds as the ‘Elite’, be as tough as leather and hard as Krupps steel, which was for us at that moment in time, very, very unimportant. With the pressing weight of the weapons, we climbed the slopes, up and down repeatedly in the searing heat, to then wade in full uniform into an ice-cold river and cross to the other side, because an imaginary bridge had been blown. The torture did not end on the return march, for suddenly a cry “plane from the right”, or left, rang in our ears and we had to dive for cover in a ditch, when one was there, or take flight into the nearest wood.

As a reward and as relaxation, when one could call it that, a visit to the cinema or to the theatre was arranged for the evening. Once again, after our evening meal, the company marched the seven kilometres into Klagenfurt. We found, that with the going-down of the burning sun and marching on tarred roads that the seven kilometres were not so bad. However, we had the seven kilometres to march back to the barracks, after sitting in the warm, dark cosiness of the cinema. Not even the magical Marikka Rokk had kept us awake, in A Night in May. After such an exhausting day our marching feet took us back, practically in our sleep.

The Ufa-films in Klagenfurt were much more to our taste. The ‘films’, from the projector on to the screens in the barracks, were about sexual diseases, for our education, and to shock us! Explained to us in detail by the company doctor, pictures were shown to us, mercilessly impressing the dangers of infection upon us. Examples from the First World War were shown to us, whereby syphilis and gonorrhoea infections were deliberately used as weapons, to put careless soldiers out of action. Somewhat confused by such drastic and extreme measures, in connection with loose sexual practices and their results, the impression made on us, as we young men left the class, did not go unnoticed.

During the day, we were once again to be found on the shadowless barrack square, exercising for hours on end in the merciless sun, which for us had nothing, but nothing to do with the acts of heroes. “Present arms! Tempo one! Tempo two!” was to be heard for weeks on end, and we practised, and practised, until our presentation of arms was exact. Even our ‘goose-step’ for march parades was to become our special talent. We, the 4th Company, were to become the ‘presentation unit’ of the battalion, the honour of which, in the face of things we had fought hard for with our sweat. The punishing drilling in Klagenfurt, which tore at one’s strength, the blunt but necessary hitting the ground, standing up, running to crawl over muddy ground in helmet, with weapon and knapsack, followed us into our dreams, although it did us no harm.

This bodily strengthening was to be our saving on the battlefield and was to prove the saying ‘sweat saves blood’, time and time again saving our skin. The iron discipline and growth to manhood that we had to learn, was to our good stead in tight situations and not only in war, but also in POW camps and the troubled years following the war. Even today, very many of the old comrades have profited personally from their strict military upbringing.

Naturally enough, our lives in Klagenfurt did not only consist of moans and groans. We also had our hours of pleasure on Sundays, gathering together by the well-known stone ‘Lindwurm’ fountain, in the ‘old town’ of the city in order to meet, this time, the ‘daughters of Austria’. Well-groomed and dressed to kill, sometimes our caps a little too slanted over our very short back-and-sides, we ‘lads from Lendorf’ were eagerly awaited by the dirndl, the folk dress of Austria and other Alpine lands. That was how the Ostmark population got to know us, the ‘volunteers’ of the Waffen SS, and that was how we courted the young and feminine of their land. The soldier-lads, quick-witted and intelligent, with their unmistakable native accent when speaking German, were very certain of a response from the ‘maidens from Carinthia’.

Our sergeant-major knew this too. How could he not know? He was from the Ostmark. He warned us every time we had free time against developing a serious relationship. He warned us that we were too young and about to be sent to the front. But he also told us with a grin, that there were never as many illegitimate children to be found in the world, as in Carinthia! It was said that the ‘Lindwurm’ himself would wag his tail, when a virgin were to walk past him, and that has not happened in Klagenfurt, ‘till today!’

Despite the warnings, nothing was going to spoil our fun, including comrades, or those with contact with middle-class young ladies, who were certainly no novices from the nunnery! So it was that in not wanting to part from our ‘flame’, or end our enjoyment in our local on each Sunday evening, we noticed very often, that the time had slipped by and we would arrive at the barrack-gates later than was allowed. In order to avoid house-arrest, or even worse the dreaded extra drill, we chose a spot furthest away from the nearest guards and hopped over the barrack walls and crept in, in stockinged feet, with our boots in our hands, to creep into our beds. We escaped the guards and we escaped the punishment for such an escapade, when in reality it would have been character building and better to have obeyed the rules!