大象传媒

I should have done this long years ago but after I was demobbed on May 1st 1946 I had other things on my mind within a few months and she鈥檚 still my girl.

Some years ago I came across a sentence in the preface of a novel, 鈥淥ld men forget more than they remember and remember more than they forget.鈥� I thought it so apt and amusing it has stayed in my mind ever since. There are obviously gaps in my memory when nothing in particular happened and then there are periods when memory is crystal clear. I can remember incidents 75 years ago but can鈥檛 remember what happened last week. I鈥檓 assured that that is perfectly normal.

I was born in 1920, part of the post World War 1 baby boom after the surviving service men returned home. The same happened of course after World War 2.

The Treaty of Versailles in 1919 had imposed crushing reparations on the Germans. The French particularly were determined that Germany should pay dearly for the devastation of a large area of North East France. There was much unrest in the new Germany 鈥� the Weimar Republic 鈥� during the 1920鈥檚, squabbles 鈥� riots with new rival political parties of Left and Right and galloping inflation, inflation beyond belief. Money became worthless. The whole world was in recession, including the United States. The Germans desired a strong government, a strong leader. Politics and politicians were held in contempt. Hitler and his National Socialist Party, The NAZIS, came to power in 1933 and by ruthless methods, opposition was not tolerated, planned to make Germany a great power again.

By the Treaty of Versailles the German army was limited to 100,000 men but the demilitarised zone of Rhineland, a buffer zone between Germany and France was reoccupied. France and Britain objected but diplomatic protests were ignored and no military action was taken. The terrible casualties in the 1914-18 war were a recent memory. I can remember as a small boy that some children older than me had no fathers and that many families seemed to have a maiden or widowed aunt. The whole world seemed to stop at 11 A.M. on 11th November every year on Armistice Day. Of course German casualties were much worse than ours because they had been at war on so many fronts against so many nations but most Germans were prepared to accept and risk the possible cost of the better life that Hitler promised.

Many M.P.s, Winston Churchill for instance, leading foreign correspondents, newspaper editors and those in command of the Armed Forces were very uneasy about the situation. The Spanish Civil War had started in 1936 and was still in progress and General Franco鈥檚 forces, fascists or Nationalists, according to which newspaper one read, were gaining ground all the time. The German air force, and to a lesser extent the Italians had bombed many Spanish towns. The British government became obsessed with air defence. It was realized that air power was paramount, and of course it still is, and fighter planes Hurricanes and later Spitfires, search lights, A.A. guns, barrage balloons, air raid shelters became a priority. In September 1938 the Germans occupied the Sudeten area of Czechoslovakia which had a majority of German speakers, this of course was a legacy of the old Austrian Empire. Chamberlain, the prime minister flew to Munich to confer with Hitler and came back, waving a piece of paper and cheered by the crowd at the airport. 鈥淧eace in our time鈥�. This was the end of German territorial ambitions.

In March 1939 the Germans reneged on the agreement and the whole of Czechoslovakia was occupied. The newsreels showed a very different reaction from previous enthusiastic crowds in the Rhineland, Austria and Sudetenland. Most people in Britain and France feared that war could not be avoided. What would the next target be? What was Hitler鈥檚 next move to be? It was obvious, the so called Polish corridor. No other provision in the Treaty of Versailles had caused so much resentment in Germany. This territory had always been Polish before Russia, Austria and Prussia had carved Poland up in the 18th Century and had a Polish majority but the important seaport which had been handed to Poland, Danzig, was almost entirely German and West Prussia had been separated from East Prussia. It was fairly obvious to the French and British what the next move would be.

There was no doubt what the French required, although there was no formal alliance, as in 1914-1918, a British Army committed to Europe. But! the British Army was deployed to defend the Empire, especially India and Egypt and the Suez Canal, and was totally inadequate in numbers and equipment for a European War. That, I suppose, is the end of an overlong preface.

In 1935 I went on a school journey to Belgium and Luxembourg and had a great time. We stayed in several Youth Hostels in chateaux that had seen better days. The sanitary arrangements were past their best to put it mildly. In 1936 we went to the Rhineland. The Olympic Games were being held in Berlin which just showed how Germany and Hitler had been accepted internationally. The German youth hostels were a tremendous improvement on the Belgian and Luxembourg hostels of the previous year. New, or refurbished, with excellent sanitary arrangements and hot showers. We were really impressed with the wonderful new autobahns, superb new swimming pools, excellent trains and trams.

The persecution of the Jews was not obvious to us at that time and probably of little concern to most of the German public. Rearmament, Hitler鈥檚 slogan of 鈥済uns before butter 鈥� seemed to have little adverse effect and of course all these projects meant more jobs. In fact every thing seemed normal but different to us until we met the Hitler Youth. We stayed in Bonn first of all, and then moved to Cologne before finishing the journey in Koblenz.

The first morning in Cologne we were thinking of getting up when we heard marching feet and singing in the distance but becoming closer. There was a tree lined drive up to the main entrance and our dormitory, with a balcony, was immediately above. There were two separate columns approaching, on the left boys and on the right girls. They were I suppose, 14 鈥� 17. They were all in khaki uniforms, except for one girl, very conspicuous in a bright red dress and very pretty. One of the older boys suggested we shouldn鈥檛 stand there in our pyjamas gawping at the girls so we beat a hasty retreat and watched from the window. Later we met the boys at breakfast, and there were a lot of them. 鈥� While you were in bed ,鈥� they said they had been on a 5 kilometre march 鈥� the lot of them. Some spoke very good English and we managed conversations about school and we were scared they were going to challenge us, running, football, swimming. Anyway, we had a planned programme. Might have taken them on at cricket I suppose. The girl in the red dress was escorted by a few older boys and we wondered who she could be. We asked them about the Hitler Youth. They happily gave us details and frightened the life out of us. I forget the ages of promotion etc. so I looked it up in an encyclopaedia.

At the age of 10 all children were registered and racial purity investigated (that they didn鈥檛 mention). If approved they were inducted into the Deutsches Jungvolk a sort of super tough boy scouts we thought. At 13 they progressed to the Hitler Jugend and spent much of their time out of school on physical training of various types, a spartan life dedicated to team work and the Nazi ideal. The next step made us think! At 18 they became members of the Nazi Party. The best of them served in the Armed Forces for at least 3 years. The rest served in the Labour Corps. The parallel organization trained girls in physical fitness, domestic duties and motherhood. NOW!!

One evening, 6 or 7 of us set out to see the night life of Cologne. At least we went window shopping, just like Oxford Street someone observed, illuminated shop windows: clothes, furniture and bars and restaurants and cafes. We strayed, exploring and suddenly found ourselves in a surprisingly shabby area of tenements with boys and girls hanging about 鈥� as they do. We were invading their territory and the attitude was mildly hostile. There were few adults about, but we knew there was a man walking as slowly as us, behind us. On the pavement approaching us was a group of boys and we didn鈥檛 like the look of them. While we were about 50 yards away, the man behind us said 鈥淐ome鈥� and we looked at the approaching group and went! He went down an alley and started to trot and we trotted too. After some distance he stopped and looked back. We hadn鈥檛 been followed. We turned left at a T junction and appeared to be behind the shops - we could hear the noise of traffic. There was another alley between the shops and we came to the bright lights again. Our rescuer was middle aged and quite small and ordinary looking. His English was adequate. He had heard us speaking and decided to help us. He had been a P.O.W., wounded and kindly treated in hospital and he liked the English he said. He told us to keep to the shop area and wished us Goodnight, and disappeared in the crowd.

One morning we woke up and found that we had blotches on our faces. Joe, our much admired teacher, took one look at us and said 鈥淏UGS鈥� 鈥� we were horrified. Joe tackled the fuhrer of the Youth Hostel and there was a row. Joe really had a go at him and no doubt some rude words were exchanged. Anyway, Joe had us moved. Later he told us that the fuhrer told him that they had had filthy Poles in there as the previous occupants. He told us, from his Western Front experience that he was an expert on bugs and lice and what had been said was nonsense but it just showed the Nazis鈥� attitude towards Poles. Some one asked him, in view of our Hitler Youth experience if there would be another war. He was reluctant to give us his opinion but said if there was, we would be in it 鈥� 鈥淒on鈥檛 tell your mothers I said that鈥�.

At home in 1937 and 1938 we watched the Nazi party rallies on the Pathe Gazette newsreels at the cinema. Uniforms and banners and wildly enthusiastic crowds. Thousands and thousands of young men marching and carrying Nazi banners. A frightening sight.

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