‘Then was our swearing-in, a ceremonial occasion. In the afternoon we had no duties and we had our first trip out, it is true, with our NCO and Obergefreiter. But it was quite nice. We gorged ourselves at a confectioner’s. For once at least we were full again. Otherwise we are always hungry. Yesterday we got our pay books and identity tags’. To Father I reported on 25 August that ‘today we had been flushed out, quick marched with machine-gun and gas mask, and then over the 2.5m high scaling wall’. But still, ‘I don’t let it get me down, you needn’t worry. In the group there’s a lot to laugh about, and you get through everything much easier with humour than with idealism’.
On 4 September I told Mother of a stay in sick quarters. The cause was angina, from which I had suffered a lot in my youth. In that letter I was longing for my schooldays, but in the next sentence went on that ‘we all really think that we’ve never had any other life than the one we have now in the military. Our time as civilians is only a beautiful dream. For all that we’re happy and contented’. In the letter of 18 September to my Mother, I reported that ‘in the last two days we have had no rest at all at night. The day before yesterday we had night exercises until 12.30am, then straight into the air-raid shelter until 2.30am. Yesterday was Gentlemen’s Evening again, very jolly, then air-raid shelter again until 2am. A Gentlemen’s Evening like that’, I said, ‘was as good as a rest, despite the tightness of space, especially the tightness of my tunic. I sat at table with the Colonel, but fortunately he left about 10pm. Then things got going. You get used to drinking. Today I can feel no ill effects at all’.
At the beginning of October, the recruits arrived who were born in 1922. They had been called up normally. For us officer cadets, who had the so-called inspection behind us, it meant that we had reached the lowest rung on the military ladder. We were assigned as block seniors and during the mornings served as assistant instructors. My nine men, all but two, were Silesian farm lads. In my letter of 18 October I answered Mother’s question as to how I was feeling to be block senior. ‘It was very nice’, I said, ‘the work was quiet and we didn’t have to do any more lousy jobs. On the other hand, we didn’t have any more free time for ourselves – particularly because we needed to attend the officer’s mess very often’. We had to go to the Gentlemen’s Evening there three evenings a week, as well as having to have lunch there on Saturdays and Sundays. At another level that made a change. Among the older officers who frequented the mess was the leading baritone of the Breslau Opera. The palm court orchestra that sometimes played in the evenings, was conducted by the Opera’s first violin.
At the end of October I told Mother and Rudi of my success in pistol-shooting, that our training work was indeed easier, but not our other work. Part of that meant we had to run the obstacle course with the heavy machine-gun, the mortar, and each of us carrying 50lb weight. I also told them about essay subjects. We had to write the essays in the evenings we were not at the officers’ mess. The theme, ‘Loyalty is the very marrow of honour,’ is something I could still write about today, unlike the question ‘Why must Russia lose the war?’ I give an account of the swearing-in of the recruits as a ceremonial occasion in which the regimental music corps participated. They played, among other things, the chorale Wir treten zum Beten vor Gott, den Gerechten, ‘We Come to Pray before God the Just One’, the so-called Dutch Prayer of Thanks. In a letter of 30 October to Lieserl, who was seven at the time, I wrote that snow had fallen overnight, but that I was sorry I couldn’t go sledging with her, but on the other hand had to be glad if no-one was going sledging with me.
I do not remember whether at the time we actually suffered from hunger, even if I often wrote about hunger and tiredness. But it was no wonder. The unaccustomed physical strains reached the very limits of what we could tolerate. Others, thank God not me, experienced symptoms of exhaustion such as nose bleeds. The comradeship among us eleven was good, even if at first we two Austrians and the two Sudeten Germans did not feel really very comfortable together. That was why I wrote, with delight, ‘now and then I meet a fellow-countryman’, such as, a man from Waidhofen who had studied with our Professor Höchtl.
By the middle of January 1942 we had completed the first stage of our training, and after a successful ‘inspection’ we were promoted to Gefreiter. Then, too, came the longed-for leave, during which an event occurred that threatened to derail my plans. Literally overnight I got severe pains in the region of my appendix which required that I was admitted immediately into the Stockerau civilian hospital. In the middle of the night the consultant had to be fetched. After palpating my abdomen, to no little horror on my part, he uttered the words, ‘It’s too late’. In fact, the appendix had perforated, but an infection had developed which had to be cured before there was any question of an operation. I had to remain in hospital for some weeks.
On the day after I was admitted I was laid down in a small room. The only other patient there I recognised as my schoolmate, Ewald Henk. A few days previously – I had found out from Herta – he had attempted suicide because of an unhappy love affair. The object of his affections was ‘Mausi’ Grundschober, a really striking girl who, however, had not yielded to his advances. Standing in front of a mirror in order to give particularly drastic form and experience to the scene, Ewald shot himself through the body with a 6.35mm Flobert rifle. But he had set the barrel muzzle too low with the result that he shot himself in the left lung and spleen. After the shot he dropped the rifle and staggered wailing into the family living room where he cried: ‘Help me, I have shot myself!’
My great worry was that the ill-timed appendix would throw me completely off course or else delay my training. Only at the end of March did I arrive back with mixed feelings in Mörchingen, just in time to be able to spend a few days with my comrades before they left for the field. A farewell photo shows us on the steps in front of a door in the barracks building, crowding round our Lieutenant Riedl, our NCO Gehle and Obergefreiter Wahle. For the farewell, which meant the end of our period of training, we received presents from the Leutnant. For me he had selected a small volume of poetry, Volk vor Gott. This showed that he had not only recognised the religious bent instilled in me by my parents, but that he also admired it. The dedication harked back to the hard period of training and also contained a maxim for my future:
‘Dear Scheiderbauer. Life brings us many hardships, but it is only in these that we show our strength. We overcome! We never give up! The reward will be ours!’ The little book contains -
Gebet in höchster Not, a prayer when things are at their worst, by Ricarda Huch; Gebet der Knechte und Mägde, a prayer of the Lads and Lasses, by Richard Billinger; Die innere Gestalt, a prayer, ‘The Inner Form’, by Josef Weinheber; Geistiches Lied, a ‘Song of the Spirit’ by Hermann Claudius; Zuflucht, a ‘Refuge’ by Ina Seidl; Haussegen des deutschen Bauern, ‘The German Farmer’s Blessing on His House’ by Paula Grogger, and Jochen Klepper’s Neujahrslied, a ‘New Year’s Song’. Hermann Stehr, Heinrich Zillich, Walter Flex, Bergengrün and Rilke, Agnes Nigl and Rudolf Alexander Schröder with his Lobgesang, a Song of Praise, were among the authors. The last page contained the prophetic dedication of my friend Hans Altermann that I have already mentioned. ‘Either we shall meet again in victory – or never again! Always, your friend Hans’.