Our canteen boasted a good-sized billiard table and I often played against other auxiliaries in the evenings if I was not writing letters or reading. We were lucky to have a professional musician, Gefreiter Rothe, among the soldiers in the battery. He was said to be from Hungary and was a fantastic gypsy violinist. It was not long before those of us who had been members of the school orchestra teamed up with him and began to entertain the battery staff with popular light music and jazz. Heinz Rücker played on the canteen piano, Wolf Bredemeyer was the cellist, Claus Günther played on a set of drums and I was the second violinist.
Rothe managed to get sheet music since we boys were not experienced in extemporising, but we soon got the hang of it. Thanks to his musical leadership, our quintet developed great dash and we were much in demand. Heinz Rücker, who was by nature a very gifted piano player, later used his acquired skill in playing jazz to earn money for his upkeep when he was a student.
One of the few sinister aspects of my life in war-time Germany was that I had to be very careful about what I said unless I was in the company of intimate friends. Even when staying with the Soukals, we avoided speaking about the war or political matters in case the maid should overhear us. On the other hand, I invariably spoke English with Erika in public without ever getting a reaction from anyone, not even the police or members of the SS.
Although I knew of the GESTAPO and was vaguely aware of some sinister connotations, I do not have any personal memories of them. I think the only time I saw any members of that organisation was when I happened to be in a town and I recognised them by their uniform.
In the early summer of 1943, our battery moved near to the village of Schotterey, six miles further west, so we were still protecting the same industrial belt. I was fascinated to see how our equipment was dismantled, transported and reassembled. We auxiliaries took no part in this, but were allowed to watch as long as we kept out of the way. I was particularly impressed by the huge tracked transporters that were used to pull the heavy guns out of their dug-in locations and reposition them at the new site.
We now lived in converted railway carriages that were placed at ground level without any protective bank of earth around them. I suppose the thinking was that if there was an air-raid alert, we would be in our protected stations anyway.
Life went on as before; we still did not get sufficient sleep and the classroom situation was no better. I used to cut slices of bread into narrow strips and toast them on our army stove during the daytime. Then, when we had to sit up during air-raid alerts at night, I chewed them slowly to pass the time and counteract pangs of hunger.
I was able to continue my twenty-five words-a-month correspondence with my parents, but naturally mentioned nothing about my changed circumstances. Since the forms that were used still went through a central collection office of the Red Cross, there was nothing on them to show my current address and my parents thought I was still in Haubinda.
Some friction occasionally arose among the auxiliaries, but that was understandable in view of the strain caused by lack of sleep and our confined living conditions. Luckily, I had no problems and got on very well with my group. Being able to continue playing my music also went a long way toward compensating me for the hardships I was enduring.
After spending almost one year to the day with the FLAK, I was among the first to move on when I was conscripted to the Labour Service in February 1944. I was very sad to be parting from my school chums, many of whom I had known for four and a half years. Of course, it was not just that I was losing my friends; I was now severing my connection with what little had been left of a normal lifestyle.
On 15 February, 1944, I handed in all clothing and equipment and was given back my civilian clothes. My instructions were to report for service at a labour camp near the small town of Zarnowitz in East Pomerania. The camp was only a few miles inland from the Baltic Sea and about 45 miles north-west of the town of Danzig – now Gdansk.
It was a long journey by train. When we later crossed West-Prussia, I saw a part of Germany that was new to me. The landscape was very flat, with a few small hills, but it was good agricultural land and I saw many beautiful lakes and extensive woodlands. After Danzig, the train travelled to Zoppot on the Baltic Coast and then on to Gedingen, now Gdynia, the home of Lech Walesa, the Polish president. Gedingen was an important base of the German Navy and I was thrilled when I caught sight of many warships anchored in the harbour.
At Gedingen I had to change trains for the tedious, last part of my journey. As we crawled along in the gathering dusk, the countryside became increasingly bleak and relatively uninhabited. After a while, the woods closed in all around and the snow, so attractive in daylight, now only made everything look more desolate.
At my destination, a village called Krokow, I saw other young men, who were obviously fellow-conscripts get off the train. A man in Labour-Service uniform was waiting for us and led us on a forty-minute walk to the camp. It was a relief to walk through the snow after being cooped up all day in a railway carriage and I was looking forward to a hot meal. By the time we arrived and had our meal in the canteen, it was almost time for lights out. Chequered blue-and-white linen, the standard army issue, was already laid out on the two-tiered bunks and as soon I had settled in I was glad to go to bed.
The following morning I was able to take stock of my new surroundings. The encampment was situated on a flat clearing in a dense wood. There were seven large timber huts, five of which provided sleeping accommodation; another contained the kitchen, canteen and washrooms, while the last was the general store and first-aid centre, with a small ward. The accommodation huts contained two dormitories, sleeping twenty men each, and a medium-sized dayroom. The NCOs slept in our huts, but they had a section to themselves.
After breakfast we were issued with our new clothing and equipment. The formal uniform, which was worn only on parade and all leave of absence, was of an attractive chocolate-brown colour. It was made of high quality, felt-like, material and the dress hat that went with it had a stiff, conspicuously high dome. For labouring work and military drill, we were given light-coloured fatigues and a peaked cap to match.
The Labour Service, known as the RAD (Reichsarbeits-Dienst), was prescribed by decree of 6 September, 1936, and covered every able-bodied citizen of the Third Reich. All German men between nineteen and twenty-five had to work in labour camps. Most were assigned to farms where they worked in accordance with a strict disciplinary code under responsible leadership. During the war, men were drafted into the Labour Service at eighteen, and later at seventeen, years of age, so that they would have completed their stint when they were conscripted to the army. As the concept developed, men were employed in road building and other civil engineering projects and wherever a large pool of unskilled labourers was required. When the RAD was first established, men had to work in it for six months, but during the war the period was reduced to three months so that men could be released sooner to the armed services.
The RAD made no distinction; intellectuals, labourers, artisans and peasants were all subjected to common tasks. A cheap labour pool was thus set up and unemployment was reduced at the same time. Another aim of the RAD was to achieve a mix of people from the whole of Germany. Since there can be quite a difference in the characteristics of people living in different regions, it was considered essential to encourage a greater understanding of all one’s fellow countrymen.