All my thoughts and hopes were directed at that time toward becoming a soldier. My school, my future profession, and my home faded into the background. With quite extraordinary and touching patience and goodness, my mother did her best to make me change my mind. Yet I stubbornly went on seeking every opportunity of achieving my ambition. My mother was powerless in the face of such obstinacy. My relations wanted to send me to a training college for missionaries, although my mother was against this. I was halfhearted in matters of religion, even though I conscientiously followed the regulations of the Church. I lacked my father’s strong, guiding hand.
In 1916 with the help of a cavalry captain whom I had got to know in the hospital, I finally succeeded in joining the regiment in which my father and grandfather had served.[12]
After a short period of training I was sent to the front, without my mother’s knowledge.
I was to see her no more, for she died in 1917.
I was sent to Turkey and then to the Iraqi front.
The fact that I had enlisted secretly, combined with the everpresent fear that I be discovered and sent back home, made the long and varied journey that took me through many lands on my way to Turkey a deeply impressive event in the Life of a boy not yet sixteen years old. The stay in Constantinople, which at that time was still a richly Oriental city, and the journey by train and horse to the far-distant Iraqi front were likewise packed with fresh experiences. Nevertheless these were not of fundamental importance to me and do not remain clearly imprinted on my mind.
I remember, however, every detail of my first encounter with the enemy.
Soon after our arrival at the front we were attached to a Turkish division and our cavalry unit was broken up to act as a stiffening force with the three Turkish regiments. We were still being trained in our duties when the British—New Zealanders and Indians—launched an attack. When the fighting became intense, the Turks ran away. Our little troop of Germans lay isolated in the vast expanse of desert, among the stones and the ruins of once flourishing civilizations, and we had to defend ourselves as best we could. We were short of ammunition, and the first-aid station had been left far behind with our horses. The enemy’s fire became even more intense and accurate, and I soon realized how serious our situation was. One after another my comrades fell wounded and then suddenly the man next to me gave no answer when I called to him. I turned and saw that blood was pouring from a severe head wound, and that he was already dead. I was seized with a terror, which I was never again to experience to the same extent, lest I too should suffer the same fate. Had I been alone I would certainly have run away, as the Turks had done. I kept glancing round at my dead comrade. Then suddenly, in my desperation, I noticed our captain, who was lying behind a rock with icy calm, as though on the practice range, and returning the enemy’s fire with the rifle that had fallen from the hands of my dead neighbor. At that, a strange calm descended on me too, such as I had never before known. It dawned on me that I too must start shooting. Up to then I had not fired a single round and had only watched, with mounting terror, as the Indians slowly came nearer and nearer. One of them had just jumped out from a pile of stones. I can see him now, a tall, broad man with a bristling, black beard. For an instant I hesitated, the image of my dead comrade was before my eyes, then I let fly and, trembling, I saw how the Indian plunged forward, fell, and moved no more. I cannot honestly say whether I had even aimed my rifle properly. My first dead man! The spell was broken. I now fired shot after shot, as I had been trained to do, and had no further thought of danger. Moreover, my captain was not far away and from time to time he would shout words of encouragement to me. The attack was halted as soon as the Indians realized that they were faced with serious resistance. Meanwhile the Turks had been driven forward once more, and a counterattack was launched. On that same day a great deal of lost ground was recaptured. During the advance I glanced with some trepidation and nervousness at my dead man, and I did not feel very happy about it all. I cannot say whether I killed or wounded any more Indians during this battle, although I had aimed and fired at any enemy who emerged from behind cover. I was too excited about the whole thing.
My captain expressed his amazement at my coolness during this, my first battle, my baptism of fire. If he had only known how I actually felt deep down! Later I described to him my real state of mind. He laughed and told me that all soldiers experience much the same sort of feelings.
I had an implicit and unusual confidence in my captain. He became, so to speak, my soldier-father and I held him in great respect. It was a far more profound relationship than that which had existed between myself and my real father. He kept me always under his eye. Although he never showed any favoritism toward me, he treated me with great affection, and looked after me as though I were his son. He was loath to let me go on long-distance reconnaissance patrols, although he always gave way in the end to my repeated requests that I be sent. He was especially proud when I was decorated or promoted.[13]
He himself, however, never recommended me for any distinction. I mourned his loss deeply when he fell in the second Battle of the Jordan, in the spring of 1918. His death affected me very profoundly indeed.
At the beginning of 1917 our formation was transferred to the Palestine front. We were in the Holy Land. The old, familiar names from religious history and the stories of the saints were all about us. And how utterly different it all was from the pictures and stories that had filled my youthful dreams!
At first we took up positions on the Hejaz road, but later we moved to the Jerusalem front.
Thus one morning, as we were returning from a lengthy patrol on the far side of the Jordan, we met a column of farm carts in the valley, filled with moss. As the British were using every imaginable means of supplying arms to the Arabs and the mixed races of Palestine, all only too anxious to shake off the Turkish yoke, we had orders to search all farm carts and beasts of burden. We therefore told these peasants to unload their carts, and interrogated them with the help of our interpreter, a young Indian.
When we asked them where they were taking their moss, they explained that it was destined for the monasteries of Jerusalem, where it would be sold to the pilgrims. We were somewhat mystified by this explanation. A little later I was wounded and sent to a hospital in Wilhelma, a German settlement between Jerusalem and Jaffa. The colonists in this place had emigrated from Württemberg for religious reasons some generations before. While I was in the hospital, they told me that a very profitable trade was carried out in the moss that the peasants brought to Jerusalem in their carts. It was a kind of Icelandic moss with grayish-white streaks and red spots. It was described to the pilgrims as having come from Golgotha, the red spots being the blood of Jesus, and it was sold to them at a high price. The colonists explained quite frankly that in peacetime, when thousands visited the holy places, the sale of this moss was an extremely lucrative business. The pilgrims would buy anything that was in any way connected with the saints or the shrines. The large pilgrim monasteries were the greatest offenders. There every effort was made to extract the maximum amount of money from the pilgrims..After my discharge from the hospital, I had a chance of seeing with my own eyes some of these activities in Jerusalem. Owing to the war, there were only a few pilgrims, but this shortage was made good by the presence of German and Austrian soldiers. Later on I came across the same business in Nazareth. I discussed this matter with many of my comrades, because I was disgusted by the cynical manner in which this trade in allegedly holy relics was carried on by the representatives of the many churches established there.
13
Hoess was twice wounded, in Mesopotamia and Palestine. In 1917 and 1918 he received the Iron Cross, 1st and 2nd class, the Iron Crescent, and the Baden Service Medal.