Whether the newborn Jürgen Georges Knocke had a living father was still unknown.
List of Figures within Endgame.
Fig # 1[rev] – Table of comparative ranks.
Fig # 1a – List of Military map icons.
Fig # 223 – List of important locations within Endgame.
Fig # 224 – Important locations in Southern USSR.
Fig # 225 – Areas around the Neman River, Lithuania.
Fig # 226 – Reorganised Legion Corps D’Assaut, December 1946.
Fig # 227 – Demarcation lines in Europe as of 15th March 1947
Fig # 228 – US Forces engaged at the Schönbrunn Palace.
Fig # 229 – Soviet Forces engaged at the Schönbrunn Palace.
Fig # 230 – The Schönbrunn Palace Gardens, Vienna, Austria.
Fig # 231 – US Forces engaged at Veľký Saris.
Fig # 232 – Soviet forces engaged at Veľký Saris.
Fig # 233 – Vel’ky Saris, Czechoslovakia.
Fig # 234 – Seirijai, Lithuania.
Fig # 235 – Polish Forces engaged at Seirijai, Lithuania.
Fig # 236 – Soviet forces engaged at Seirijai, Lithuania.
Fig # 237 – Old Man’s Nose, Seirijai, Lithuania.
Fig # 238 – Soviet forces, Koprzywianka River, Poland.
Fig # 239 – Allied forces, KOPRZYWIANKA River, Poland.
Fig # 240 – The battleground, Koprzywianka River, Poland.
Fig # 241 – Legion Corps D’Assaut radio call signs.
Fig # 242 – Braun’s manoeuvre, the Koprzywianka River, Poland.
Fig # 243 – 1er Bataillon Chars Léger at Sulisɫawice.
Fig # 245 – Sulisɫawice, Poland.
Author’s note on the Auschwitz section.
When I first decided to take on the particular section dealing with the ex-SS and their time at Auschwitz, I understood that it would have to be done in such a way as to properly represent the matters I wished to raise.
I also knew that whatever I wrote, some would find it distasteful or even derogatory. As you can see, that did not stop me from trying to write about the issues.
When I first stood in the middle of Auschwitz-II Birkenau some years ago, I was amazed to feel nothing in the place. I wrote at the time that it was as if the whole area had surrendered every essence of its being, every last measure of emotion, and that it had seemed to have been left with nothing whatsoever, a vacuum into which you could bring every part of your imagination.
Truly, I have never been in such an empty place in my life, and I have been to other dark places such as Malmedy, Wormhoudt, Natzwiller-Struthof, Mauthausen, and Nordhausen.
To tackle the enormity of such a place is decidedly beyond my skills as a writer, but I so wanted to try to impart that feeling to the reader.
I chose to do so in a different way, by incorporating it in a story where the ex-SS come to a place synonymous with themselves and the victims of the regime they both represented and fought for.
Anyone with the slightest knowledge on the subject, and certainly myself, knows enough about the SS to know that the force contained some of the vilest beings ever to darken the planet, individuals who should have been exterminated long before they got into a position from where they could impact other’s lives so terribly.
I also know that many of them were through and through Nazis, or whatever that represented for them at the time. We now apply the label of ‘Nazi’ in a different way, in many ways making it synonymous with the camps, and I am directly aware that some of those who joined the party had absolutely no idea of what it would finally come to represent, and what its full and horrible agenda was.
In other words, what they joined was not what it became, and their continued membership of it, given the likely consequences of trying to leave, is something we can probably all understand but not necessarily condone.
My point on the enormity just being too much to contemplate is quite valid. For quite some time, even the Allies refused to believe the stories of mass killings and genocide that slowly started to emerge, considering them beyond possible.
How wrong they were.
The defence of ‘just obeying orders’ holds no water for me. I never ever followed an order I considered incorrect or wrong, although in my career they were rarely life-changing orders, and then also rarely was my life involved.
However, I did want to expose that ‘defence’ for what I consider it to be; a weak man’s solution.
But I also wanted to bring to mind the alternative.
It is my fondest hope that, were I positioned as Bach was in the book, or thousands of others during the war itself, then I would have had the moral courage and conviction to place what is right and my code of honour above my own well-being, and that I would have refused to enact orders that brought about such suffering and death.
But, in honesty, I am in the closing years of my life, and such decisions are made more cheaply than when in the flower of youth or of recently acquired manhood.
I, like most people, have absolutely no idea what I would have done had I been so placed.
Hopefully, this chapter will promote that debate within the reader, although you will find no certain answers; of that I’m sure.
What I set out to achieve was firstly to put over some idea of the awfulness of Auschwitz and Birkenau.
Secondly, I wanted to highlight that the common impression of the SS, that being that all were guilty of the crimes of the camps. Absolutely, all were guilty by association, by wearing the uniform, but many members of the Waffen-SS, and I make the distinction Waffen-SS, were not aware of the horrors conducted by the regime for which they fought so bravely.
To some, that makes me an SS apologist. I do not see it that way; I might be wrong but I don’t think so. I would certainly consider myself one who is armed with enough information to know that the SS contained both good and bad men, and also that I possess enough impartiality to understand and represent that view openly.
As I said at the beginning of this series, it is my view that there are no bad peoples, just some bad people.
Thirdly, I wanted to challenge the reader to consider the subject of moral duty, orders, and self-preservation.
Whatever you take away from this, and whether or not you now see me as an SS apologist or simply a poor writer, I would ask that you understand my real hopes and purpose in writing the chapter.
That it should never ever happen again.
Legion Tank conversions and types.
ALLIGATOR
Stug III chassis with extended fighting compartment. Armed with the 75mm KwK 42 L/70.
AARDVARK
Panzer IV chassis with Achilles turret installed – limited number. Armed with 17pdr.
WOLF
Panther chassis with Panzer IV turret installed. Armed with the 75mm KwK 40 L/48.
ANTILOPE
Standard SDKFZ 251 with additional plate and armoured roof, and a Puma turret installed. Armed with the 50mm KwK 39/1 L/60.
HUNDCHEN
Standard SDKFZ 251 with strengthening for gun mount. Armed with the 128mm Pak 44 L/55, taken from damaged AT weapon mounts or unserviceable Nashorne SP guns.