Post-war meetings with military personages were, for me, a highlight. It was not possible during the war, as there was no time or possibility, since, for those of our rank, such men of high rank were out of reach. Now they were no longer military personages, but were free to voice an opinion and share their experiences with us, their men.
One such was ‘Papa Hausser’, or to give him his correct title, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and highly decorated General, Paul Hausser. His name will go down, not only in German history books, but also those of the Second World War. He really was a father to his soldiers, they were ‘his boys’. He was the one who sometimes contradicted Hitler when necessary. He visited us in Bonn one time, where he showed not only his humour but his humility as well. One of us in speaking to him addressed him with his full military title. He didn’t want that. “But General I cannot call you Paul,” as was suggested. “Well, call me Paulchen then!” which is an endearment, for someone of whom you are very fond. We met again Stuttgart in 1970, two years before he died at the age of 92.
Dressed in a light coat, similar to the one that he had worn in Russia, the commander of the ‘Wiking’, Felix Steiner visited us in Bonn. Just like Napoleon, he spoke to his men, one after the other. As a friendly gesture he spoke as if he knew exactly when and where in battle he had seen them before.
Then there was Sepp Dietrich. This old war-horse, this bluff fire-eater belonged to a fraternity all of his own. His strong but casual personality, his laid-back manner, I found just the same in meeting him again. I met Major-General Kurt Meyer, and General Herbert Gilles, who was a sensitive and intelligent man. Despite their former high ranks, both men were humble and approachable. Arrogance was never to be seen.
It was in 1963 that Brigitte and I were in Madrid, for a week, as guests of the legendary Otto Skorzeny. We journeyed together with a married couple who were the book publishers who had published his book, “Live Dangerously”. A most impressive man, Skorzeny possessed the typical charm of the Viennese. In 1943, he was to become a worldwide legend for freeing the Italian Duce Mussolini, from under the noses of the Italians, without shedding a drop of blood. He had read both books from George Haas and wanted to meet me. Nearly every day, and everywhere we went in Madrid, we could see and feel the respect that the Spaniards had for Otto Skorzeny. He was always referred to as ‘Senor Colonel’, and our drinks were always ‘on the house’.
In the 1970s, because our daughter Henrike worked for the German airline Lufthansa, we took advantage of her ‘personal percentage’ for flights. We made a trip to the Eastern-bloc, visiting Moscow, Leningrad, and my wife’s birthplace, Breslau.
Our present and future lives lay in Bad Godesberg, where we felt and still feel 100% at home. It was where the decisions were made, and where the politicians argued over the atom bomb, over re-armament and over Eastern agreements. This ‘dwarf seat of parliament, this post-war capital was to be treated to a good dose of sarcasm from an American reporter as, “Half as large and twice as dead as our Central Cemetery in Chicago”.
In those days Chancellor Adenauer used the small river ferry daily, to go to his office from his house in Rhondorf. He travelled without a government-paid limousine, and also without bodyguards. Both would be unthinkable today. He would doff his hat in respect to his fellow citizens, and to those he knew and met on his way. That is all a thing of the past.
There is an old Russian saying, “We come to treasure the things of the past”. Perhaps if we live long enough, perhaps if we have the urgent need write about it, and if we find the time and leisure to relive our experiences, we may. Perhaps we will, when the shock and the hope, the suffering and the yearning for happiness, and when, in remembrance, all becomes ‘a lighter shade of pale’.
Research into the underlying reasons of our personal fates is also very necessary, in order to be able to correct what is falsely claimed today. It is the duty of those living to protect the honour of those comrades who gave their lives.
Sacrifice was the fate of the ‘volunteers’. The harvest of sowing their anti-communist seeds was defamation, and persecution was the tragedy of their honour. There will always be ‘volunteers’, wherever a future of freedom needs them. In the past they were called fantasists, sentimentalists, pretenders, party-followers and even country-bumpkins and of whom history has disapproved. Idealists should constantly protect themselves against the orthodox.
We were born into an era which we could not determine, but which paved the way for something enormous. It was an era in which Communism was lifted out of its local setting and wanted to grow and spread throughout Europe. We banded together as its opponents, in wanting to ensure an honourable place for our nation, within the nations and new community of Europe.
We believed that with our ‘élite organisation’ of not only upright German, but European ‘volunteers’ from the north-westerly lands, following the victory against communism, we could produce a reform, a Perestroika so to speak. With our participation in the Waffen SS we were treated on an equal basis, as every other. Some of us advanced to ranks above German soldiers, such as the battalion commander who was a Dane, or like my brother Evert, a Dutchman, or I too, on a smaller scale, with 12 to 48 German soldiers under my command.
In Bad Tölz at the Junkerschule, the party programme of the NSDAP was discussed amongst us, and dissected and criticised by the European officers, without any disciplinary action. What we practised, on a small-scale, gave us hope for the future, with not only Germany destined to lead. Was that to be Utopia, only an illusion? Perhaps, but we thought then that it was possible. ‘Lady luck’ didn’t see it like that. She saw to it that, after a lost war, we analysed and learned from this analysis.
A life without a zenith, a youth without reaching the heights or without ideals, was not for us. We lived in a time that needed the utmost effort. Perhaps it was the best that could have happened at that time in our manhood. It was a probation period for us that we came through with flying colours. Those of us who feel guilty must bow to that guilt. Today, what we fight against, whether as an individual or as a group, is the refusal of individuality, which is unjust and basically immoral!
“Everything that is unjust nurtures the seed of destruction.”
Epilogue
A saga, that long epic of heroic achievement, in Medieval prose, was narrative of a long, involved account of a series of incidents. But it is not the same as a fairy-tale in prose. I guarantee that nothing of my account is a fairy story. My feelings and views from that period of my past are also honest.
In my narration I have not tried to glorify, but to present a document that is as correct as an eyewitness from that era can describe. In this present day such a document is a bitter necessity. The past was not always ideal, for us or our opponents. I felt neither wistfulness nor nostalgic longings in writing my book. The facts therein are pure unadulterated facts that are not to be twisted by others for their own false ends. My life was and is worth living.