In the spring of 1947, soldiers fleeing from other camps who had been taken prisoner again were often brought our camp. According to their accounts, in the interior of Russia they were not guarded as strictly as we were. Some of them had travelled unmolested among Russian civilians, by railway, to the area of the border. Since the new border with Poland had for a long time been strictly guarded, they had easily been caught and were with us in the camp. Among them was a man who, with some thousands of others, had succeeded at the end of the war in fleeing across the Baltic to Sweden. As is generally known, Sweden, contrary to all the provisions of international law, responded to Russian pressure. They handed back those interned German soldiers to Russia. Some of the men had been forcibly loaded on to ships and carried across the Baltic. Our man came from a camp at Libau in Estonia. He had also been picked up close to the border.
I only knew of one man who escaped from our camp. He was the former Major Witzel, whom I have mentioned before. He was brought back after three days. He was given a few day’ solitary confinement, which he had to sit out in a so-called bunker. Then he was brought out to the camp company, who were assembled to be counted. After that he took up again the quarters he had had before he escaped. He was with the group of former staff officers who worked inside the camp in a primitive workshop making nails.
I have not yet spoken of the daily counts. Morning and evening, the camp had to assemble and form up into ranks of five. Then the Russian who was on duty walked through the ranks and if the numbers agreed, the count was quickly concluded. Once there was an amusing incident. Because smoking in the ranks was of course forbidden, burning cigarettes had to be put out at the beginning of the count, during which we had to stand to attention. Once, in the winter, a man near to me had not properly put out his roll-your-own Kippe, i.e. fag. During the count, smoke was visibly coming from his overcoat pocket. The comrades standing around him had long since spotted it, but he himself had not. The incident had no unfortunate consequences. Probably the Russians carrying out the count had appreciated the comedy of the situation.
In Georgenburg the food situation in the second half of 1946 had improved and it remained that way. I have already mentioned that in the daily sugar ration a distinction was made between officers and other ranks. It was the same with tobacco. For the officers there was only rarely the usual crumbly makhorka often given to the men. For the most part we had fine cigarette tobacco, sometimes even the black Caucasian tobacco. Ready-made cigarettes, papyrossi, we never received. Only the guards smoked them. Also there were never any cigarette papers or pouches in which you could put your tobacco. But in Georgenburg we had enough newspaper and were all old hands at rolling our own cigarettes.
Of course everyone had to be careful to keep back a certain small supply of newspaper, because that was also needed for toilet purposes. Mostly the ‘business’ had to be done in the so-called Dutschlandhalle, a simple barrack block about 30 metres long, through the length of which ran a Donnerbalken. On it prisoners usually sat really close together. It would never have occurred to anybody to feel disturbed by his neighbour. We had long since had to accustom ourselves to such sensibilities. The art of switching off and keeping oneself to oneself, even if everybody could be seen by everybody else, was something that we had long since learned. The most popular method was to pull the blanket over your head when you were lying on your bunk.
After the turnip scrap soup of the summer of 1945, there followed, for at least a year, cabbage soup twice a day. Then, in Georgenburg, twice a day, one litre of soup made from cabbage or various types of grain and in addition a quarter-litre of kascha. That was a moderate, sometimes very glutinous brew, mostly made from buckwheat, and also, rarely, from millet. In the morning there was one litre of tea, and those of us who were good managers still had left a remnant of the spelty bread from the previous day’s bread ration. In Königsberg there had still been the risk of starving to death. But that was not so in Georgenburg. In 1947 some comrades even succeeded in bringing in with them, from places of work outside the camp, provisions that they had exchanged or that had been given to them. Of course nobody knew how long we would be staying there, or when our captivity would come to an end.
Little was known about the situation at home. Remarkably, at about the turn of the year 1945 to 1946, the results of the first election of the Austrian Nationalrat had trickled through. I can still remember today, that the ÖVP received 85 seats, the SPÖ 76 and the KPÖ 4. But it was particularly the bad result for the Communists that no-one had expected. We did not dare to believe it, so reassuring was the result. At that time, the sentences in the main war crimes trials in Nuremberg were also being talked about. I recall that I felt it to be light at the end of the tunnel. There was a glimmer of hope that such distinctions were made in those sentences. Papen, Schacht, and Fritsche had even been released. Also from the Tägliche Rundschau, a newspaper that appeared in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany, much could be picked up concerning the general situation. Generally speaking, it had an anti-fascist, that is a communist slant.
All the time I worked in the library and was exposed to the Antifa influence, I struggled with myself for a new, correct view of the world. It was not an easy job for me. Traditional bürgerlich values had been handed down to me. My deep-rooted child’s faith, it is true, was based on no firm certainty of belief. So I struggled with what I had recently heard. It seemed to sound so simple and convincing, supported by my dull imaginings of a new life. What Father had written about Rudi’s death did not fit in at all with all the talk of the ‘superstructure’. I simply could not believe that ‘spirit’ came out of material. What moved me was what I talked about in long conversations with Dr Deckwitz. He understood my needs. He offered me something of a way out. He referred me to the religious socialist movement of the Swiss Protestant theologian Leonhard Ragaz. Fortunately, in the meantime, the problem soon sorted itself out.
My days in the library were numbered. All in all it had been a good year spent in that work. With the help of many books, I had been able to keep my mind fresh and active and to acquire a bit more learning then I had already. I had read Goethe’s Faust in a connoisseur’s pocket edition, bound in dark red leather. On the inside of the binding in front of the title page the owner had stuck a photograph. It was the picture of a young woman, obviously his own. She was standing naked on a beach by the sea, behind her waves were curling; she was happy and ready for love. She must have been very fortunate and the owner of the book must have been very fortunate too. When the book, the contents of which had been spiritual nourishment for him as they had for many Germans, was taken away from him, he must, in the face of this double loss, literally have felt himself to be, like Faust, a ‘poor fool’.
I have already spoken about the Deutschlandhalle as the camp’s great public lavatory. I must add to this by telling of the large tin drum that stood outside the barracks door for use at night. Since it was in the evening that we had the greatest intake of fluid in the daily rations, the drum, which once had served to carry petrol, was often used, particularly during the late hours of the evening. On cold days my bladder was particularly sensitive, and for a long time, two to three times a night, I had to get out of my bunk and run outside the barracks until my bladder was emptied and I found peace until the morning.