Children to a Degree - Growing Up Under the Third Reich (11 page)

Harold adjusted his belt buckle and Karl noticed that his friend had lost some weight.

“I don’t understand why your teachers would be interested in your parents’ discussions. It sounds like as if they wanted to learn from you, while it should be the other way around.” Karl tried to make sense of what his friend told him.

“No, Karl, forget about your idea of a regular teacher. In the Napola we have no teachers like we do here in school. Instead, we have several different instructors.” Harold was done with his belt and continued. “The assignments to write about our parents came from the ‘Political Education’ instructor. A young fellow with a ‘party bonbon’ on his jacket.”

“How can you learn from a young fellow?” Karl wanted to know. “How old was he?”

Harold shook his head. “Karl you don’t understand. Listen to what I am telling you. I use the word ‘instructor’ on purpose. Right in the beginning, during the first hour of our introduction, we were told to be absolutely precise in choosing our words to communicate. The word ‘teacher’ implies that you are being taught. The word ‘instructor’ does not apply to teaching. In the Napola we are being ‘instructed’. A far cry from being taught. Think about it.”

Karl allowed that there was a difference. “So, do you think about it a lot? I mean do you really think so deeply about the difference between being taught or being instructed that you are willing to give up the cadet school?” he wanted to know.

“No, Karl, I don’t think too much about it but it bothers me. Matter of fact it bothers me a lot.”  The boys had walked from the Jungvolk assembly hall to the street corner where they usually parted. Karl had to turn into the Uhland Strasse while Harold went too far and had to double back.

“Let’s turn around and talk some more,” suggested Karl. “What else turned you off?”

Harold looked at his friend. “When I think about it, there was not much that I liked. On Sunday mornings we had to march around the local Catholic churches and sing at the top of our lungs. The purpose was to sing loud enough to interrupt the church service.”

Karl was puzzled. “Did your instructors justify the interruption of the church service?”

“No, but that’s not all,” answered Harold. “We had to place one of our boys at the church portal to listen to what was going on in the church. When the ringing of the little bells at the altar announced the beginning of the Holy Communion, he waved at our drummers to step up to the entrance to beat double time. At the same time our trumpets repeated the attack signal over and over again.”

“The attack signal,” exclaimed Karl. “You were attacking the church members?”

“No, you dummy. We were not attacking anyone. It was just the loudest trumpet signal we knew. The trumpet detail, about 20 boys, rehearsed it every morning and every evening.”

“So, the way I understand it, the whole exercise was for the express purpose to interrupt the service.” Karl tried to sum it up.

Harold shook his head. “I think that there was more to it.” He turned to look behind them just in case someone might be overhearing their discussion.

“When we blew the trumpets, some of the church members came out to complain…” He wanted to say more but was interrupted by Karl

“Do you blame them, Harold? I don’t think that your parents would tolerate this disruptive exercise.” Karl knew that Harold’s parents were Catholic.

“No, let me finish, Karl. During this exercise we were escorted by civilian members of the Gestapo. As soon as a church member came out to complain he was interrogated by the Gestapo and warned that if he ever interrupted the musical exercises of the Napola again, he would be detained.”

Karl was dumbstruck. “I heard that the Gestapo hunted down members of the Jewish faith. Are you telling me that they are now after the Catholic faith too?”

“I don’t know that, Karl, but I heard that they are after any and all dissidents. I have the strange feeling that they singled out the women. I overheard that they are running short of labor in the ammunition and armament facilities.”

“What about the men?” Karl inquired.

“I heard them say not to worry about the men because they would soon enough be drafted into the Reserve Defense Divisions.”

“What are the Reserve Defense Divisions?”

“We were told that during the next few months the draft for the military service will be extended to include every able man, including the previously exempt occupations.”

Karl thought that he had heard enough. The boys had walked in a circle around an apartment block and he needed to get home.

“Harold, how about discussing what you just told me with my grandfather?  When do you need to report back to the Napola?”

“I have at least another week. The introduction period is over. I applied for a crash course in the English language, which I’d like to attend and I have to wait until I am accepted.”

“Yes,” Karl agreed. “I would like to learn another language too. It would be nice if we could study together. If you do take the course, when will you be back?”

“I don’t know. I think that it will be another six months.” Harold pointed at a street car going by. “There, have you noticed that all the formerly male street car attendants have been replaced with women? Before I left for the Napola I did not see a single one. It looks like the final draft has begun.”

Karl wanted to answer when he noticed Rudy walking down the street towards them.

“I just received a notice that we are supposed to help some fertilizer farmer in Plaue on the Havel River. Since none of you has to be back in school I expect you tomorrow morning at 9:00 AM sharp.”

Karl nodded his agreement and then asked, “I thought that this kind of farm work was the job of the Reichsarbeitsdienst?”  (Government labor service)

“Not anymore,” answered Rudy. “The labor service is being discontinued. All the men are being drafted into the infantry and the women are being trained to be Flakhelfers. (Air defense helpers). In any event, it is now the job of the HJ to help the farmers. Technically, this excludes you because you are still in the Jungvolk. However, I am short of available members and it is only for one day.” Harold did not even listen to the explanations of Rudy.

“Off course we will be in your office tomorrow morning. But how do we get to Plaue?” Karl wanted to know how he was expected to reach the small town outside of Berlin on the Havel River.

“I think that the farmer will provide transportation,” guessed Rudy. Karl wanted to ask what kind of help was expected of them but Rudy had crossed the street to take a bus home.

“Do you know what a fertilizer farmer does?” Karl enquired of Harold. “No, not a clue. I just hope that it has nothing to do with cow manure.” Harold had the uneasy feeling that they were being ordered to work with dung.

***

The next morning turned out better than the boys had expected. When they arrived at the office there was a bus waiting for them and a dozen HJ members to drive them to the farmer on the low land of the Havel River.

All of the boys were in uniforms and nervous about how they would look after they were done with the work. It turned out that they did not have to worry. It was actually a very clean job that awaited them. The farmer harvested the top layer of soil from the moorlands and sold it as fertilizer.

The boys’ job consisted of laying a Knueppeldamm (placing strong branches) over the harvested area to provide something like a path through the boggy marsh. The only danger was that most of the watery area was down to a depth of eight to nine feet without a solid ground. If you slipped and fell in the morass, you could easily drown. Swimming was impossible and not an option.

The farmer took great care in explaining to the boys where not to step and how to lay the branches on top of each other.

“How do you navigate this swamp by night?” Karl asked.

“You don’t,” answered the rancher. “You will lose your direction due to the many lightening bugs. They will confuse you into thinking that you are close to a road or to a ranch. None of my family ever ventures out at night.”

The HJ members worked a lot faster than the rancher had anticipated. He rewarded the team with a nice meal of fried potatoes and the boys were home before sunset.

The British planes attacked Berlin now more often. Shortly before midnight there was another air raid alarm. This time the whole cellar shook as the Veth family went below for protection. The vibrations were due to some air mines, which leveled an apartment complex around the corner. Right after the all clear signal sounded an air raid marshal solicited help from the tenants to dig through the rubble for possible survivors.

It was the first time that Karl smelled the stench of burnt human flesh and he got sick to his stomach. He wanted to chicken out of the gory labor by saying that he would get additional help from the HJ Dienststelle (HJ office). But when he saw that his mother was carrying the charred remains of a child to a nearby waiting truck, he decided to stay.

Everybody helped and he realized that his mother had an easy excuse to leave because of his little sister. Instead she put his five year old brother in charge of his two year old sister and left them in the security of the apartment.

The digging out of casualties was a gruesome task which got no easier as the day came to an end. After the helpers moved the bodies to a Sammelplatz, ( collection area), the grisly mission continued by trying to identify the individual corpses.

Many times they were unable to differentiate between the male and the female casualties and any personal identification was nearly impossible. Neither Karl nor any of the other helpers realized at that time that this was actually a benign chore compared to what lay ahead of them.

It was benign because the air raid had stopped and the helpers could concentrate on nothing else but on the work at hand. In the following months these jobs became extremely difficult because continued bombing hampered and constantly interrupted rescue efforts.

The few civilian authorities who were still working decided to tally the survivors instead of counting the dead. Finally, during the last few weeks, before the surrender of Berlin to the Soviet forces, any and all rescue attempts came to a complete stop. While the allied planes bombed from above, the Soviet artillery hammered Berlin nonstop.

In spite of all the civilian casualties, the authorities of Berlin never ordered the population to evacuate. Hitler was adamant in his final order of “Scorched Earth.” Scorched Earth was all he wanted his enemies to find.

Within two days after the mass burial of the unidentified casualties, the survivors of the apartment house scratched their names on the larger pieces of the rubble. They also put the current date behind their names. This way it was clear to anyone who might be searching for them that on this date they were still alive.

Ten

“Tell me about your experience in the Napola,” Karl’s grandfather prompted Harold when the boys visited him.

“There was not much of an experience,” answered Harold. “We were awakened with a trumpet signal at 6:00 AM. After about an hour of Fruehsport (early morning exercise), we ate breakfast. Then began the school hours which during the time I was there consisted of nothing but somehow convincing us that we were part of the foundation of a 1,000-year empire.”

“Were all of your teachers civilians or were there also some in uniform?” Karl’s grandfather asked.

“Some of them were in SS uniforms but most of them were civilians. However, all of them were wearing the party emblem.”

“What did they mean by a 1,000-year empire?” Karl was eager to hear the answer.

“I am not too sure, because we were not allowed to interrupt the instructors with questions. But from what I could gather, they meant that all the previous empires failed to maintain longevity by deterioration from within.”

“And the Nazis have a structure in mind to avoid the pitfalls,” Grandfather guessed.

“Yes,” answered Harold. “The idea is to build a race with strong everlasting principles. We, the graduates of the Napola, were selected because of our heritage and our demonstrated ambitions and we were to be trained to be the leaders of this nation.”

Karl wanted to ask a follow-up question but was interrupted by his grandfather. “Did they explain why in their effort to build a 1,000-year empire, they were persecuting people of different faiths?”

“Not so much of a different faith, but by citing examples of how to recognize inferior people.” Harold warmed up to the subject.

“So, the builders of this empire pursue and hunt down the Gypsies and the Jews for the solitary reason that they are inferior to the Aryan race?” The grandfather doggedly steered his questions in the direction he wanted to go.

“No, Herr Veth,” answered Harold. “None of my instructors ever directly mentioned a Jew or a Gypsy. However, they did say that homosexuals should not be permitted to live because they are mentally deranged and even if they could reproduce, they would produce nothing but other deranged and mentally ill individuals.”

“So, then I take it that the goal of the Nazi’s is to eliminate all mentally unbalanced members of society.” The WW I veteran tried to sum it up. “If this is the case,” he continued, “then why are they after the Jews? I have met quite a few of these people during my lifetime and none of them were mentally challenged. Did your instructors bother to explain this?”

Harold tried to remember, but he was unable to recall a direct mentioning of any particular race. “No, however, they instructed us how to discern unproductive tendencies and shirkers of honest labor.”

“I’d like to hear more about that,” the old man encouraged.

“Well, for one thing, you recognize a drifter by seeing that he never learned a trade, that he does not belong to a recognized trade guild and is therefore a master of nothing.”

“This is nonsense,” interjected Karl. “We have extremely knowledgeable minds in the sciences- in astronomy, in physics, in the mathematical sphere, in the medical field and in a long list of other occupations. None of them belong to a trade guild! Besides, what about all the military leaders and achievers?”