The rest of the journey needed a lot of patience with hour-long stops between stations, ten hours in Jerxheim, and another four, via Brunswick to Hannover. It had taken the whole day until after dark. And dark it was, for the trains had no lighting, or heating. The passengers standing or sitting were cold, frozen through, and silent. Those sitting could at least warm themselves on the stranger sitting alongside. Upon looking through the window, it was dark outside. There were no lights to be seen in the countryside houses. As we chugged our way through the towns, there were no lights there either, just the ruins rising into the night sky as ghosts out of the darkness.
The main railway station in Hannover was very dimly lit, but the masses of travellers were the same, just as they had been in Berlin, with hollow cheeks and in tattered clothes. They drifted over the platforms, perhaps with hope in their heart that things would normalise, that “everything changes”. Perhaps it would be today. But on that day, they appeared to me to be the driftwood of war.
I saw British soldiers, for the first time, in their khaki uniforms, walking comfortably through the grey throng, well nourished and chewing gum, as I went on my way to a bed. It had been offered to me by Jan Reilingh, the brother of my fallen friend Robert. As a student in Dresden, he had managed to land near the ‘Brits’ in Hannover. He now worked in a hospital, which was where he found me a place to sleep, in the boiler room in the cellar. It was not very comfortable, but it was warm! The next morning found me under way once more.
I sent a telegram from Hannover to Brigitte and it worked. Brigitte was waiting for me on my arrival. It was now nearly six months since we had seen one another and it was a very happy wiedersehen. Despite the food problem, Brigitte looked just the same, and at least she had found some luck over the last few months. We were happy that we had both survived the evacuation. Her first quarters in Horn-Oldendorf, she told me, had been primitive. She was given work, like all the others, in order to be given a ration-card. Her work was in a factory making wooden lamps, in Detmold. There she caught the eye of the factory owner who took her away from the factory and she now worked in his house. It was a villa where she had her own room. She was taught to cook and was well looked after.
During my stay I had a guestroom in Heiligenkirchen and we spent a lot of time walking and talking and when I accompanied her home, it was always after dark. Our feelings for one another had not changed. They intensified and there were no doubts in either of us that we were meant for one another. At the same time we both knew that I could not stay. I had managed the dangerous journey into the British zone, but I did not feel safe with the close proximity of the Dutch border. I did not feel safe with the thought that I could, when caught, be classified once more as a DP and handed over to the Dutch authorities. I had neither that very precious settlement permit in this situation, or an Inge to procure one for me. No settlement permit and no roof over my head. No roof over my head, no work, and no work meant no ration card. Brigitte had all of these in Detmold, in the land of the river Lippe, and the British zone. I had all of these too, in Finsterwald, in the Russian zone. With heavy hearts that is where we knew that I had to return. We had no other choice. We had been patient for so long, and knew that we had to be just as patient for a little longer, to see what the future held. It was cold reality and we could not alter the situation. I returned after those wonderful days in the land of the Lippe, using the same route by which I had come.
I was once more in the land of the ‘Ivans’ on 13 November. My return trip, on my own, had not been a problem. I had had no companions. Who wanted to return willingly to this ‘Red paradise’ on the other side of the Elbe?
Once more in Finsterwald, I came to the conclusion that life in the Western zones was not all that the German refugees had hoped. They did not find the quality of life that they were used to or expected, in comparison to the Stone-age ‘Nirvana’ to be found here in the Russian zone. Although there was no arbitrary deportation in the Western zones, ‘power to the full’ was well practised over the vanquished.
The power was soon to be seen in all its force, beginning on 20 November 1945 in the form of the Nuremberg Trials, which lasted for nearly a year, until October 1946. The Germans looked, waited and hoped for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, plus the resurrection of rights. They were treated to the wrath and revenge of the conquerors, decorated with a ‘holier than thou’ attitude in a ‘show trial, in which the laws were made by the ‘victors’. The prosecution was made up of the ‘victors’, judge and jury were ‘victors’ and the hangmen too. We returned to Medieval laws that were now wrapped in modern, new, and the fictitious, accompanied by the guiding principle that “those who lost the war must forfeit their lives”.
Orders and obedience were crimes. The breaking of our oath was, perhaps, a mitigation. Denunciation was rewarded with the ‘closing’ of your case. All of the principles of law were not only ignored but were trampled into the ground by the feet of the ‘victors’ in Nuremberg. For example, “No sentence without lawful rights, or carrying out of orders under force”, meant non-convict ion. One could not be sentenced for the actions of others.
In many prisons under the Western Allies the use of torture was allowed. It was on the daily agenda, be it physical or psycho logical. The means justified the end. The use of manipulated gallows to ‘hang’ the said prisoner was one of those psychological methods. Spinal injuries and irreparable damage to the vertebrae of the neck were the result. Torture continued until the said prisoner signed a confession that had been dictated and typed beforehand by the ‘victors’. No one questioned the self-same format of the hundreds of prisoners presented as evidence. Illegal Courts Martial were held within prison walls. There was blatant disregard of Church Law, using soldiers disguised as priests to hear the intimate ‘confessions’ of the prisoners. Nothing, but nothing was sacred and all entered the court as wrecks, with broken bones, broken spirits, abrasions or burns, to take their places in court or in the witness-box. Defence lawyers who protested at the lawless justice, were whisked away under arrest. Insight into the prosecution documents, bringing clarity, was refused. They were shipped off by the ton, to disappear and in many cases to be destroyed.
Outside the courthouse, people were starving to death. Inside the ‘victors’ were judging Germany’s crimes against humanity. Outside, hundreds of thousands sat in prisons without any proof their crimes. Inside the ‘victors’ sat and judged the arbitrariness of the Germans. The sweet odour of epidemics wafted over the victims of the bombing of the ‘victors’ outside. Inside an International Tribunal judged the behaviour of the Germans. Meanwhile, thousands at that time were being dragged out of their homes and deported as slaves into labour camps. There they worked until they died. All of which happened in the Malmedy trial.
A Transitional Agreement was drawn up in 1954 in Paris, on 23 October, after the Declaration of Sovereignty over the Bundesrepublik. It stated that German jurisdiction would not be allowed to judge the crimes of the Allies. Rights? Revenge? “Don’t do what I do, do what I say?” What cannot be denied is that it was not a case of “Rights for all”. One has to ask what did the Nuremberg Trials alter? The answer is nothing. Most certainly it did not affect the number of wars that have taken place since 1945, and with far more sacrifices than in the Second World War. Most certainly not for the ‘victors’. No one however has brought the warmongers into court.