I was also able to enjoy the luxury of a ‘white’ bed when our military doctor ordered bed-rest for me. I had a couple of days in the Military Hospital, which had been erected in the evacuated Institute for the Blind. Pus oozed from the wound after the metal splinters had been removed from my leg, and I wallowed in the care of the friendly Red Cross nurses.
From where the Institute for the Blind was situated on West Park it was not far away to where the company supply unit was to be found. Upon being released from hospital after the third day, I limped my way to the Pöpelwitz housing estate to report for duty once more. The 11th Company military clerks were housed in Malapanese Street in a very large house with many floors. Also there was my friend Georg Haas, the company accountant, who was overjoyed at my appearance. There were no doubts as to where my bed was going to be! That was in ‘his’ flat, in ‘his’ house.
When he was going about his duties during the day, I helped him by preparing the Notification of Death letters that were waiting for signature by the company leader. The letters of communication, to the families of the dead, did not tell the truth of the conditions of death. Of course, that was out of consideration for the bereaved. Our unspoken law was always to retrieve the bodies of our comrades for burial. It caused us great sorrow when circumstances did not allow this to be done. Very often, as I have described, it would have meant suicide for us to have attempted this, in situations that we could not alter. We could, however, with these notifications of death sent to parents and family, imply that it did. Every one of my fallen comrades, and I knew them all, were respectfully given ‘a hero’s death’. The parents, mother, or wife, should and would never know of the long hours in no-man’s land that he had spent in pain, and dying alone. Our message of death had to be as painless as we could make it, and so we deceived and veiled the truth, in doing this duty. It was the worst of any that one had to perform in one’s life.
Fate can often be followed from a photo-al bum. I had this chance while in quarters with Georg. I was much moved, as I looked through a thick raffia-covered album that I had found. Each photo had been neatly and accurately inscribed, so that I could imagine the scenes behind the photos. I followed the fate of that young family and, although unknown to me, I knew all about them.
There were photos from a happy childhood. There were wedding photos. ‘He’ standing proudly in his Air Force uniform as a Technical Sergeant, in his No. 1s naturally. ‘She’ as the pretty bride dressed in white, wore her hair in a large roll on the back of her neck, in the fashion of that time. Of course, those pictures were followed by those of their children, two sons who had been photographed on the Holtei Hill, perhaps on a day’s outing. There were many, including some of their last holiday, where they were seen in a tree-lined avenue on their bicycles. Fredrick the Great had those trees planted. But the growing conditions, plus the raw east winds of Silesia, were not ideal and all had bent trunks. The very last which had been glued into the album, was a cutting from a news paper, edged in black. The article was decorated with a black cross, which announced ‘Fallen for Germany’.
Where was this lady of the house, this war-widow and her children, who had left her house as if she had gone shopping and would be returning soon? Had she, had they survived? It was spick and span and everything was in its place. It was clean and tidy, so we as guests in her home, tried to keep it that way, knowing full well that it would soon be a sacrifice of the war, as would the album, the record of their lives, that she had had to leave behind.
Among her possessions in the lounge was a gramophone, which we happily used, listening to modern hits and martial music. To put this machine into gear after a glass of dry red wine, which Georg had procured from somewhere in the city, was sometimes a problem though. We did not always have the opportunity. The occasions were rare and of short duration, for even in the supply unit the alarm had to be audible. There was also a radio, an extremely good set with a long-range receiving capacity. It was made in elegant black Bakelite, at which we sat to hear the news which was always richly descriptive. We could pick up foreign radio stations too, and did, although that was forbidden.
Sometimes our very human curiosity got the better of us, and among other radio stations we would listen to Radio Moscow. It was transmitted in the German language and prophesied doom and gloom with phrases such as, “Fright eats away the soul!” and other well-known Russian sayings. On every hour, and punctually at midnight, a monotone feminine voice would begin to dramatically proclaim the death of a German soldier. The mixture of ‘hot-air’ and poisonous ‘black propaganda’ made no impression at all on us soldiers. But how was it received by the not-so-robust members of the public who also listened in?
Continual movement of the besieging forces demanded constant movement from us within. We had to change our positions time and time again. On our marches to new positions, we were stopped by many of the residents from the quieter areas, who asked about the current situation on the front-line. Everyone was frightened, in particular the women. The two main questions from everyone, were “how long can we hold out?” and “Will you be receiving help from outside?” We did not know, and could only answer with some vague knowledge based upon rumours. The rumours were that the Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Centre, General Ferdinand Schörner, with several divisions from the Strehlen and Zobten areas, wanted to try to reach Breslau. That was true, but throughout the period of the siege, there was no sign of them.
Alongside this hope of outside help, the military leadership within the fortress looked at possibilities of escape. A Breslau-born professor was very useful in that way. He produced parchment scrolls from 1767, showing a system of underground tunnels beneath the city. The entrance was to be found below the City Hall, and ran parallel to Schweidnitzer Street, deep under the Church of St. Dorothy, to the city walls. The engineers then went to work and found the tunnel which, as could only be expected after all those years, was in poor condition. To restore even a couple of kilometres would take months. That does not mean that they did not try, they did! The short distance they restored was very useful. They were able to erect an artillery observation post going under the Russian lines, for the direction of firing and observation of enemy movements.
The inhabitants had much to suffer, which they did with patience. Their stoicism would have pleased the old Greek teachers. Their philosophy taught that it is wise to remain indifferent to the vicissitudes of fortune, or as in this case, the vicissitudes of fate. The troops faced that every day.
Helplessness, worry, the loss of homes, together with the ultimate fear of being conquered by the Russians, and fear among women especially, brought about many hundreds of suicides. This we knew, and we tried to calm people, telling them that they could count on us. After the war, Paul Piekert, priest of St Mauritius, reported that the extent of the despair of the Breslau inhabitants had resulted in 100 to 120 suicides every day. This was confirmed by Ernest Hornig, the priest of Silesia’s best known church, in his book Breslau 1945. He wrote that in total, a known 3,000 took their own lives in the 84 days that Breslau was besieged, and that many more have never been recorded.
Breslau’s only remaining line of communication was the Gandau aerodrome. Food was in plenty and no soldier or civilian went hungry in all the months of the siege. It was the ammunition that was very low and our ‘hungry weapons’ that had to be fed! Deliveries were made by our reliable and proven Tante Ju—52 transport machines. They took the lightly wounded out on the return journeys. Those men were to be treated outside the encirclement, so that they were fit for combat once more. The badly wounded who could not be healed so quickly, had to stay in the hospital in the city. It was not only ammunition, many tons of it being flown in up to 19 February, but also supplies of medication, first aid supplies, bandages etc, and also our post which came by air. The loss of the trusted planes was very heavy. The fleet of planes under the command of General Ritter von Greim lost 160 of their machines. At night, the soldiers as well as the civilians would follow the flight paths of the providers in the searchlights of the night skies. The droning of their engines and the timpani of Russian anti-aircraft guns added to the awful and, at the same time, breathtaking spectacle taking place in the heavens. Frequently we saw our planes in flames, falling from the skies, with their helpless passengers on board.