Nazi pageantry firsthand when they attended the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin. My family and many others considered these spectacles simply another form of propaganda. Nonetheless, we perhaps naively thought that relations with our foreign neighbors would improve if they witnessed Germany’s renewed national strength.
Most people continued to feel a sense of bitterness toward France and Britain for Germany’s humiliation at Versailles and its isolation from the most civilized and developed group of countries of which Germany was naturally a part. We also felt threatened by what we saw as a barbaric and backward Communist regime in Russia. While Germany’s security justified an increase in the size of its military beyond the restrictive levels permitted under the Treaty of Versailles, Hitler would go further, and ultimately make Germany threatening to its neighbors rather than respected by them.
As the Wehrmacht expanded in size and increased the tempo of its training, we began to see more military activity. On September 21, 1936, the German Army conducted its largest military maneuvers since the Great War, an exercise in which my cousin Heinrich participated. In this operation, trucks were used to transfer a whole division from the Rhine River in the west to the Oder River in eastern Germany in a single night. Heinrich later told me that the division’s shortage of vehicles had required it to confiscate all the civilian trucks it could find in order to pull the mission off.
As a 16-year-old, I was naturally excited by the impressive military display. Standing alone outside in front of our farm, I watched for hours as the long convoy of vehicles hauling infantry and artillery rumbled through our village along the main highway. Even as my desire to experience soldiering firsthand grew, the Nazi regime was leading Germany inexorably into another war.
By this time, too, females were beginning to dominate my thoughts. The year before, I had taken my first train trip alone to visit relatives in Nordhausen, where I met my second cousin, Ruth. Two years later, she made a return visit to our family in Puggen. Our relationship developed into my first romance, though we never did more than exchange a few innocent kisses. As a token of my affection for her, I would leave a chocolate candy on her pillow in the guestroom at night.
After turning sixteen, I asked my parents to pay for weekly dance lessons with a group of other students in Beetzendorf. Since there was almost no opportunity for us to socialize at school, these dance classes were one of the few places that boys my age could meet girls outside our immediate community. Indeed, it was better to see girls who lived elsewhere in order to facilitate the secrecy that surrounded relationships at that time.
While learning to dance the waltz, the polka, and other popular steps, I met a pretty girl named Hilde, who lived in the nearby village of Audorf. Because dating was not socially permissible, we had to keep the relationship concealed from her parents. Although my parents knew that I dated, they trusted me to behave appropriately and never questioned me about whom I was seeing.
Hilde and I arranged each of our three or four meetings like a clandestine operation. About six or seven in the evening, I would ride my bike the eight miles from Puggen to Audorf and meet her secretly at her family’s farm. Hoping her parents would not discover us, we would talk and flirt with each other until about midnight inside their barn. Despite contemporary social conventions that placed kissing out of bounds, we did it anyway. Once, she even invited me into her room in the house, but I declined the offer, fearing there might be real trouble with her family.
Even as we remained alert for her father during the hours in the barn, I also had to keep an eye on my bicycle. Boys from Audorf who were rivals for her attention might try to steal it as punishment for “poaching” a female on their territory. Happily, I succeeded in eluding either fate.
About this time, my family welcomed two 17-year-old females from eastern Germany who would assist my mother and spend a year learning to run a farm household. Instead of freely choosing such training as in the past, these girls had been compelled to undergo this instruction. They were only the latest trainees to stay with my family in what was now a steady cycle of involuntary female apprenticeship imposed by the Nazi regime.
Since there were only three or four girls their age in Puggen, our trainees naturally drew the interest of the four or five boys in our community. My parents had given these girls rooms on the second floor of the south side of our house, but the local boys mistakenly thought they were staying on the north side.
On several nights, the boys stood under those windows and whistled, attempting to draw the attention of the girls they believed to be upstairs. Much to their misfortune, Aunt Hedwig’s room was located close to that side and the commotion outside annoyed her. When she had finally had enough, she opened the window and dumped her chamber pot on the unsuspecting boys below. They never returned.
While there was no romantic interest between me and our female trainees, we occasionally kidded around together and played tricks on each other. Having further developed my technical knowledge of electrical equipment by this time, I hatched a rather devious scheme.
One evening as we were eating supper and listening to music on the radio, I excused myself from the table and left the dining room just before the regularly scheduled news program was to begin. In another room I had rigged up a microphone made from a spare radio and wired it into the speakers of my family’s radio. Cutting off the regular broadcast, I switched on the microphone. Mimicking the normal announcer I intoned, “The government has decided that all young women who have been assigned to work on farms will have to serve another six months.”
Hearing what they thought was an official broadcast stating government policy, both girls immediately broke into tears. Returning to the dining room, I informed everyone that it had only been a prank, but no one believed it had been me on the radio. When I finally convinced them, my family members thought it was hilarious, but neither of the girls found my deception amusing.
As they consolidated power, the Nazis took control of existing German social, cultural, and educational groups and established new organizations such as the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth). No one was forced to participate in such groups, but the regime created an environment that strongly encouraged people to become involved in some type of Nazi organization, while suggesting unspoken consequences for those who declined. Despite my desire to have nothing to do with the Nazis, I thought it would be unwise to risk completely avoiding any involvement with the Party.
In mid-1937, some friends of mine suggested that I join the NSKK or Nationalsozialistische Kraftfahrkorps (National Socialist Motor Vehicle Corps). The NSKK was separate from the Hitlerjugend, but operated under the control of the Nazi Party. It seemed to me that if I failed to voluntarily join the NSKK, the Nazis might pressure me to join the Hitlerjugend. Compared to the latter, the NSKK seemed to offer a relatively minimal connection with the Party. Besides feeling it was politically expedient to join, I also liked the idea of working on and riding motorcycles.
Wearing our NSKK uniforms, between six to fifteen of us would gather for a couple of hours at night every two weeks in various members’ homes in our villages. During the half-year or so that I was part of the club, there were only two occasions when we rode motorcycles, much to my disappointment.
However, once a month I did get the chance to speak for an hour or so on current issues, something about which most of these farm boys knew little. Using newspapers and the radio for information, I led discussions of national and international politics with other members of our group. Despite being unable to speak freely or to discuss politically sensitive topics, I nonetheless enjoyed the opportunity to develop my leadership skills.
LEARNING A TRADE: January–August 1938
Nearing completion of my eight years of schooling in Beetzendorf in the summer of 1937, I was ready to take my life in my hands and determine my own destiny. I had grown up watching my parents labor long hours on our farm but struggle to pay our bills. This experience and my own lack of interest in agricultural work led me to decide that I wanted to pursue a different profession, even though it meant one of my younger siblings would inherit the farm instead of me.
With a natural ability to take things apart and figure out how they worked, I informed my parents of my decision to leave the farm and pursue a career as an electrical engineer. While my declaration was probably somewhat of a surprise to them, they both supported my desire to pursue a career outside farming. Since they had seven children, they were probably also relieved to have one less mouth to feed.
Shortly after I told them of my intentions, my father and I traveled the 10 miles to Salzwedel, the largest
