Eyewitness Testimony Jürgen Brather

Ronny Beuckmann wrote: > Dear Mr. Brather, > > As I already wrote in the introductory email, I am very interested in your > story. > > I have been dealing with the Reimahg for some time and have, among others, > contact with Mr. Willy Schilling, the author of the book > > Deckname Lachs. Since Mr. Schilling wrote a very interesting but relatively > uninformative book, I tend towards > > the idea of writing my own book. I am currently spending all my free time > researching in archives, and it is > > very gratifying when one hears about a contemporary witness who kept diaries. > Your diaries are, for me, an aspect not to be > > overlooked. A book that deals only with the technical aspects is not a real > book for me; a > > book must also express feelings, and that is where you and your diaries come > into play. > > Therefore my question: > > Could you possibly send me your diaries? (of course as copies) > > Furthermore, I would be very pleased about any hints. > > With kind regards from rainy Jena > > Ronny Beuckmann > Dear Mr. Beuckmann, A quick short answer: I did not keep a diary. That would have been completely impossible under the conditions at the time: We had no writing materials available nor the strength. Who would have had the desire to do so, when it was only about getting through this terrible time somewhat unscathed. You must consider that we 15-year-old boys were exploited to exhaustion in terms of time and strength with extremely poor nutrition. You can imagine that we used every free minute to get a little sleep. I recommend that you yourself once march in winter, hungry and in frost, in the dark to Walpersberg, in ill-fitting soaked felt boots, and there work hard from the beginning of daylight and stagger back more exhausted than in the morning at the onset of darkness, and that with malnutrition. It is simply the case that a person who did not experience this time suffers from false ideas. Please do not take this as pedantry, but I know the problem from numerous contacts and conversations with young people. A few years ago I wrote a book about Ahrensbök in the district of Ostholstein (near Eutin) and portrayed the period from 1919 to 1945. Of course, I interviewed contemporary witnesses as far as still possible and recognized that one must make huge concessions due to frequent distortions. In my explanations, this will not be the case because I had them sent to "fellow fighters" for checking for possible errors. After all, more than 56 years have passed since then, and people's lives are more than filled with later experiences and impressions. Here now my PC notes: Müller, K. W. and Schilling W.: Deckname LACHS, 3rd edition, Heinrich-Jung-Verlagsgesellschaft Zella-Mehlis 1996, 88 pages, priced at 24.80 DM Jürgen Brather Behaimring 57c 23564 Lübeck Tel. 0451-60 26 60 Fax 0451-60 72844 HJ deployment in Kahla January to March 1945 In the second half of December 1944, I, along with other schoolmates of the 1929 year group, received a call-up for HJ deployment in the Reihmag operation near Kahla. We received a driver's permit for the Reichsbahn from our home town (in my case from Bad Frankenhausen/Kyffhäuser) to Kahla. Appearance in HJ winter uniform was required (desired?), and if possible, shovels or spades were to be brought along. The latter was only followed by very few, the most fanatical Hitler Youth boys at that time. We arrived shortly after the beginning of the year, probably on January 2, 1945, and were led "without step" on snow- and ice-covered roads to our camp in Bibra. Accommodation was found, with talk of 3,000 boys of the 1929 year group, in unfinished two-story houses. The "inventory" of the rooms consisted only of a wood wool box, on which we had to lie so tightly packed that we only had enough space to sleep on our sides. Each was assigned two blankets. A so-called "washing facility" was at the end of the camp, where a single pipe came out of the ground, from which a thin stream of water flowed. Considering the prevailing cold, most did not wash. The toilets we called "18-cylinder": In one room stood 9 WC bowls side by side without partitions and behind them the same number facing the opposite direction. Whether there were other toilet buildings, I do not know. Because of the uncleanliness and the associated terrible stench, some of us stopped using this room after the first day and instead relieved ourselves in the adjacent forest, which rose on the slopes above the camp. I can no longer remember the food on the first day. The next noon, food distribution took place outdoors. We stood in a long line and waited about 2 hours in icy cold until the first received their food. This consisted of a mixture of much water and little milk, whose sediment formed half-raw rutabaga shreds. Some tried this disgusting mixture and then poured the contents of their cooking pots into the snow. After further tastings, the waiting line dissolved. How the day continued, I no longer remember, in any case in indignation and doing nothing; the day was in no way structured. In the evening there was some cold rations. After nightfall, several boys fled the camp and tried to get home. Those caught were beaten back; this also happened at night in my sleeping room. We woke up, and after the call "Who is the oldest in the room?" the probably highest-ranking called-up HJ leader (here company leader) responded and received several blows to the face, administered by the leader who brought back the fugitive(s). - In this context, the version spread that patrols were on the stations of Kahla, Jena, and Weimar and in the other direction Gera to catch fugitives. We were not provided with clothing, only felt boots, which, since they were intended for adults, were much too large for most. So we stuffed all the rags we could get hold of as foot wraps inside and wrapped our feet with them. Since temperatures were mostly just above 0° C, the unpaved paths leading through the camp were generally covered by a deep layer of mud. Every day new, quickly sinking "sauerkraut plates" (wood wool soaked in cement) were laid on them. Within a very short time, our felt boots soaked full of muddy water.Thus, our life initially passed with idleness. After about 10 days, the camp administration offered us the opportunity to return home, a possibility that most—myself included—joyfully accepted. A core group remained behind, whose size I do not know. They were probably assigned to make the camp somewhat usable. At the beginning of February 1945, I was again called up as one of, as it was said, 1,000 Hitler Youth to the Reihmag near Kahla. These also almost exclusively belonged to the 1929 birth year. I recall that a boy born in 1930, who had probably been conscripted by mistake, was allowed (or had to) go home after his age became known. In the meantime, two-story beds had been set up in the camp buildings. The rooms were still in a raw construction state: windows were completely missing, so we were defenseless against the penetrating cold. Eventually, we nailed boards over the openings. The two rooms without an intermediate door were heated by a tiny cast-iron stove. We used wood scraps found here and there and wood from the adjacent forest as fuel. Nevertheless, it remained quite cold. In one corner of the room was still a pile of construction debris reaching up to the ceiling. Door handles and locks were also missing. Washing facilities and toilet conditions had not changed, i.e., we remained largely unwashed and continued to relieve ourselves outdoors. New was that we were used for work on the Walpersberg. Before dawn, we marched off in smaller columns and arrived there after about ½ hour. Our task was to level the ground at the edge with pickaxes and shovels and to remove tree stumps in places. Since no axes or hatchets were provided, this work was very difficult, especially because driving the pickaxes into the clayey to loamy soil, sometimes covered with rubble, required a lot of strength. Excavators did preparatory work, and larger stumps were blasted out of the ground. After a few weeks, the residents of my room, about 30 boys, were assigned as helpers in the supply of the ME 262s arriving on the runway. We had to assist with refueling the machines, as well as with hooking up the starting rockets, and also with rolling the aircraft back and forth to bring them into starting position. And almost daily, around noon, we had to fell coniferous trees (pines?) in the adjacent forests and use them to camouflage the machines on the runway to protect them from the British bombers that by then flew over the area almost daily. We were commanded by NSDAP officials, so-called Goldfasanen (golden pheasants). Humanly, we paid no attention to each other, were usually only shouted at, which did not impress us in any way. However, we tried to retaliate in our own way by leading a wire, electrified by a lamp socket, to the door and attaching it there to another wire serving as a door handle for several nights. Finally, we put a wet rag on it and looked forward to the nightly visit of a leader who wanted to harass us. No one came, and the regret was general. When we were still doing the mentioned earthworks, on some days we were promised that after completing a certain quota, we could return to the camp early. However, this was usually set so that we almost never managed it before quitting time. Apart from our time as "ground personnel," we were exhausted in the evenings and still tired in the mornings. Thinking about leisure activities was downright absurd, not to mention that there were no possibilities for it. The general wish was only to finally be able to sleep in. I shared with a friend the hope of getting scabies because that would have meant release from the camp. We hoped the same from tuberculosis, which is why we repeatedly stood with bare upper bodies in the icy cold after coming back sweaty from work. But that was in vain; not even a cold set in. Our rations consisted of one serving of soup in the morning and evening each, and for cold rations per day, 400 g of commissary bread, 20 g of butter, and 50 g of cured sausage. It was distributed in the evening, and it took great self-control not to consume it all immediately, at least the butter and the sausage. Occasionally, there was an air raid alarm. Then we were directed from work into tunnels, which had been driven in large numbers into the Walpersberg and were to serve the assembly of the aircraft after their expansion. Even today, I still have the unpleasant sound of compressors in my ears, which served to supply breathing air. There was no protection against air raids in the camp, no shelters, and not even bomb crater trenches. I remember an attack by low-flying aircraft, from which we tried to protect ourselves by hiding behind one or the other corner of a house depending on the flight direction. Thus, there were probably neither dead nor injured. Towards the end of February or beginning of March 1945, the HJ district leader Theo Schulte appeared and gave a fiery speech with the usual slogans of perseverance and victory in a large assembly or dining room of the staff. However, the present Hitler Youth felt far less impressed by this than by the fact that there was goulash with rather overcooked boiled potatoes for the "celebration of the day." A little later, we had to line up and listen to a few more words about victory, after which it was said: "Whoever volunteers for the war, three steps forward!" We did so en masse; only 3 boys out of about 1,000 remained standing. There was no enthusiasm, but everyone knew there was no alternative. Afterwards, we were called for short individual talks and asked which branch of the armed forces we wanted to be drafted into. I stated that I wanted to become a medic because I still believed there was some sense in it. I was answered: "You mean the SS medics!" I denied it, after which a verbal exchange followed in which I deliberately acted somewhat pitifully stupid, and so the conversation ended without a decision recognizable to me. In conclusion, I received, like all the others, a certificate with the text: "Jürgen Brather has volunteered for the war and is entitled to wear the red cord." There was a small red...Cord that could be worn around the armpit flap of the uniform jacket. There were no contacts between the numerous prisoners of war and us, except that we were repeatedly secretly asked for bread. These battered people suffered incomparably greater hunger than we did, despite much smaller rations. They were also always brutally driven to work. Occasionally, they offered us money (probably from their starvation wages) for it, up to 50 Reichsmarks for a piece of bread weighing about 400 g. Unfortunately, several of my comrades made these sales, so that by the end of our deployment they had sums larger than ours (300 RM and more). At that time, towards the end of our stay, things were somewhat better for us because we occasionally had the opportunity to transport provisions from trucks into the magazine and sometimes managed to set aside some bread. I remember that a prisoner of war surprisingly took off his wedding ring and offered it to me in exchange for a piece of bread. I complied with his request but left him the ring. It would have been impossible for me to enrich myself in such a way, although I envied the comrades who had turned it into money. Even today, I am grateful that I was able to resist all such temptations. Only once did I accept compensation for bread when, assigned to room duty, I had a Russian do my work while I used the time to alleviate my great fatigue with some sleep. The prisoner, for his part, had obviously managed to shirk his work and thus had a comfortable day by his standards. At the runway, prisoners or forced laborers picked up discarded newspaper paper from us, in which we had wrapped our cold rations. They cooked this in water in old tin cans and drank this poisonous broth, at least containing a few fat spots. Italian Badoglio prisoners had it particularly hard, suffering extraordinarily from the cold. So they lit small fires outdoors during their short work breaks whenever possible (there were no common rooms for them or for us) and warmed themselves by them. However, a Goldfasan usually appeared soon, extinguished the fire, and drove them away. I observed particularly sadistic behavior when 10-15 prisoners stood around another who held a frozen fodder beet in his hand. They were eager to snatch a piece of it. A Goldfasan noticed this, snatched the beet from the owner, and kicked him in the lower abdomen so that this weakened man collapsed unconscious. Then the party man took the beet, threw it far away, and signaled the prisoners to fetch it again. A fight broke out among the starving, while the sadistic Goldfasan almost doubled over with laughter, hands on hips. Around mid-March 1945, we were released home as part of the dissolution of the Reihmag. For me, this ended one of the most terrible periods of my life. Jürgen Brather Tel. 0451-60 26 60 Fax 0451-60 26 80 Behaimring 57c 5.11.1998 23564 Lübeck To the Heinrich-Jung Publishing Company 9854 Zella-Mehlis Dear Sir or Madam, I read your book "Codename Salmon" (3rd edition) with great interest. Unfortunately, I found only brief information about the deployment of the Hitler Youth. The file situation probably did not allow more. As a participant, I have now written down my observations and impressions about my deployment and had them checked by some of my former comrades for memory gaps or distortions. I would be grateful if you would forward the attached report to the authors. They could then incorporate it into a further (?) edition according to their assessment or at least archive it in a suitable place. With kind regards A response came immediately by phone. It is a one-man publishing house that overestimated the size of the 3rd edition, so no further edition is to be expected. I have not yet gotten around to reading your emails. Yours, J. Brather. HJ deployment in Kahla January to March 1945 In the second half of December 1944, I, along with other schoolmates of the 1929 year group, received a call-up for HJ deployment in the Reihmag operation near Kahla. We received a driving permit for the Reichsbahn from our hometown (in my case from Bad Frankenhausen/Kyffh.) to Kahla. Appearance in HJ winter uniform was required (desired?), and if possible, shovels or spades were to be brought along. The latter was only followed by very fanatical Hitler Youth, thus very few at that time. We arrived shortly after the beginning of the year, probably on January 2, 1945, and were led "without step" on snow- and ice-covered roads to our camp in Bibra. Accommodation was found, with talk of 3,000 boys of the 1929 year group, in two-story houses in a raw state. The "inventory" of the rooms consisted only of a trough made of wood wool, on which we had to lie so tightly packed that we only had enough space to sleep on our sides. Each was assigned two blankets. A so-called "washing facility" was at the end of the camp, where a single pipe came out of the ground, from which a thin stream of water flowed. Considering the prevailing cold, most did not wash. We called the toilets "18-cylinder": In one room, 9 WC bowls stood side by side without partitions, and behind them the same number facing the opposite direction. Whether there were other toilet buildings, I do not know. Because of the uncleanliness and the associated terrible stench, some of us did not use this room after the first day but relieved ourselves in the adjacent forest, which stretched up the slopes above the camp. I no longer remember the food on the first day. The next noon, food distribution took place outdoors. We stood in a long line and waited about 2 hours in icy cold until the first received their food. It consisted of a mixture of a lot of water and little milk, whose sediment was half-raw rutabaga shreds. Some tried this disgusting mixture and then poured the contents of their cooking pots into the snow. After further tastings, the waiting line dissolved. How the day continued, I no longer remember, in any case in indignation and inactivity; the day was in no way structured. In the evening, there was some cold rations.After nightfall, several boys fled the camp and tried to make their way home. Those caught were beaten back; this also happened at night in my dormitory. We woke up, and after the call "Who is the dorm leader?" the highest-ranking one, a called-up HJ leader (here a banner leader), responded and received several blows to the face, administered by the leader who brought back the fugitive(s). — In this context, the rumor spread that patrols were on the train stations of Kahla, Jena, and Weimar, and in the other direction Gera, to catch escapees. We were not provided with clothing, only felt boots, which, since they were intended for adults, were much too large for most of us. So we stuffed all the rags we could get hold of as foot wraps inside and wrapped our feet with them. Since the temperatures were mostly just above 0° C, the unpaved paths running through the camp were generally covered by a deep layer of mud. Every day new "sauerkraut plates" (wood wool soaked in cement) were laid on, which quickly sank again. In a very short time, our felt boots soaked up muddy water. Thus, our life initially passed with idleness. After about 10 days, the camp management offered us the chance to return home, a possibility that most — including me — gladly accepted. A core group remained, whose size I do not know. They were probably assigned to make the camp somewhat usable. At the beginning of February 1945, I was called up again as one of, as it was said, 1,000 Hitler Youth boys to the Reihmag near Kahla. These also almost exclusively belonged to the 1929 birth year. I recall that a boy born in 1930, who was probably mistakenly drafted, was allowed (or had to) to go home again after his age became known. In the meantime, two-story beds had been set up in the camp buildings. The rooms were still in a shell condition: windows were completely missing, so we were defenseless against the penetrating cold. Eventually, we nailed boards over the openings. The two rooms without an intermediate door were heated by a tiny cast-iron stove. We used wood scraps found here and there and wood from the adjacent forest as fuel. Nevertheless, it remained quite cold. In one corner of the room was still a pile of construction debris reaching up to the ceiling. Door handles and locks were also missing. Washing facilities and toilet conditions had not changed, i.e., we remained largely unwashed and continued to relieve ourselves outdoors. New was that we were used for work on the Walpersberg. Before dawn, we marched off in small columns and arrived there after about ½ hour. Our task was to level the ground at the edge with pickaxes and shovels and to remove tree stumps in places. Since no axes or hatchets were provided, this work was very difficult, especially because driving the pickaxes into the clayey to loamy soil, sometimes covered with rubble, required a lot of strength. Excavators did preparatory work, and larger stumps were blasted out of the ground. After a few weeks, the residents of my dormitory, about 30 boys, were assigned as helpers in the supply of the ME 262 arriving on the runway. We had to assist with refueling the machines, as well as hooking up the starting rockets, and also with rolling the aircraft back and forth to bring them into starting position. And almost daily, around noon, we had to fell coniferous trees (pines?) in the adjacent forests and use them to camouflage the machines on the runway to protect them from the British bombers that by then probably flew over the area daily. We were commanded by NSDAP officials, so-called Goldfasanen (golden pheasants). Humanly, we paid no attention to each other, were usually only shouted at, which did not impress us in any way. However, we tried to retaliate in our own way by leading a wire, electrified by the switched-on lamp socket, to the door for several nights and attaching it there to another wire serving as a door handle. Finally, we put a wet rag on it and looked forward to the nightly visit of a leader who wanted to harass us. No one came, and the regret was general. When we still did the mentioned earthworks, on some days we were promised that after completing a certain quota, we could return to the camp early. However, this was usually set so that we almost never managed it before quitting time. Apart from our time as "ground personnel," we were exhausted in the evenings and still tired in the mornings. Thinking about leisure activities was simply absurd, not to mention that there were no possibilities for it. The general wish was only to finally be able to sleep in. I shared with a friend the hope of getting scabies because that would have meant release from the camp. We hoped the same from tuberculosis, which is why we repeatedly stood with bare upper bodies in the icy cold after coming home sweaty from work. But that was in vain; not even a cold set in. Our rations consisted of one serving of soup in the morning and evening each, and for cold rations per day 400 g of commissary bread, 20 g of butter, and 50 g of cured sausage. It was distributed in the evening, and it took great self-control not to consume it all immediately, at least the butter and the sausage. Occasionally there was an air raid alarm. Then we were directed from work into tunnels, which were driven in large numbers into the Walpersberg and, after their completion, were to serve the assembly of the aircraft. Even today, I still have the unpleasant sound of compressors in my ears, which served to supply breathing air. There was no protection against air raids in the camp, no shelters, and not even bomb crater trenches. I can remember an attack by low-flying aircraft, from which we tried to protect ourselves by hiding behind one or the other corner of a house depending on the flight direction. Thus, there were probably neither dead nor injured.Towards the end of February or the beginning of March 1945, the HJ regional leader Theo Schulte appeared and gave a fiery speech with the usual slogans about perseverance and victory in a large assembly room or dining hall of the workforce. However, the Hitler Youth boys present were far less impressed by this than by the fact that for the "celebration of the day" there was goulash with rather overcooked boiled potatoes. A little later, we had to line up and listen to a few more words about victory, after which it was said: "Whoever volunteers for the war, three steps forward!" We all did so together; only 3 boys out of about 1,000 remained standing. There was no enthusiasm to be felt, but everyone was clear that there was no alternative. Afterwards, we were called for short individual conversations and asked which branch of the armed forces we wanted to be drafted into. I stated that I wanted to become a medic because I still believed there was some sense in that. I was answered: "You mean the SS medics!" I denied this, which led to an exchange of words in which I deliberately acted somewhat pitifully stupid, and so the conversation ended without a decision recognizable to me. In conclusion, I received, like all the others, a certificate with the text: "Jürgen Brather has volunteered for the war and is entitled to wear the red cord." There was a small red cord that could be worn around the shoulder flap of the uniform jacket. There were no contacts between the numerous prisoners of war and us, except that we were repeatedly secretly asked for bread. These battered people suffered incomparably greater hunger than we did, even with much smaller rations. They were also always brutally driven to work. Occasionally, they offered us money (probably from their hunger wages) for it, up to 50 Reichsmarks for a piece of bread weighing about 400 g. Unfortunately, several of my comrades made these sales, so that at the end of our deployment they had sums larger than usual for our circumstances (300 RM and more). At this time, towards the end of our stay, we were somewhat better off because we occasionally had the opportunity to transport provisions from trucks into the warehouse and occasionally set aside some bread. I remember that a prisoner of war took off his (surprisingly retained) wedding ring from his finger and offered it to me in exchange for a piece of bread. I complied with his request but left him the ring. It would have been impossible for me to enrich myself in such a way, although I envied the comrades who had turned it into money. Even today, I am grateful that I was able to resist all such temptations. Only once did I accept compensation for bread when I was assigned to room duty and had a Russian do my work while I used the time to alleviate my great fatigue with some sleep. The prisoner, for his part, had obviously been able to shirk his work and thus had a comfortable day by his standards. At the runway, prisoners or forced laborers picked up newspaper paper thrown away by us, in which we had wrapped our cold rations. They cooked this in water in old tin cans and drank this poisonous broth, at least containing a few fat spots. Italian Badoglio prisoners had it particularly hard, suffering extraordinarily from the cold. So they lit small fires outdoors during their short work breaks whenever possible (there were no common rooms for them or for us) and warmed themselves by them. However, a Goldfasan usually appeared soon after, kicked out the fire, and drove them away. I was able to observe particularly sadistic behavior when 10-15 prisoners stood around another who was holding a frozen fodder beet in his hand. They were eager to snatch a piece of it. A Goldfasan noticed this, snatched the beet from the owner, and kicked him in the lower abdomen so that this weakened man collapsed unconscious. Then the party man took the beet, threw it far away, and gave the prisoners a sign to fetch it again. A fight broke out among the starving, while the sadistic Goldfasan almost died laughing with his hands on his hips. Around mid-March 1945, we were released to go home as part of the dissolution of the Reihmag. For me, this ended one of the most terrible periods of my life. Jürgen Brather Tel. 0451-60 26 60 Fax 0451-60 26 80 Behaimring 57c 5.11.1998 23564 Lübeck To the Heinrich-Jung Publishing Company 9854 Zella-Mehlis Dear Sir or Madam, I read your book "Codename Lachs" (3rd edition) with great interest. Unfortunately, I found only brief information about the deployment of the Hitler Youth. The file situation probably did not allow more. As a participant, I have now written down my observations and impressions about my deployment and had them checked by some of my comrades at the time for memory gaps or distortions. I would be grateful if you would forward the attached report to the authors. They could then incorporate it into a further (?) edition according to their assessment or at least archive it in a suitable place. With kind regards A response came immediately by phone. It is a one-man publishing house that has somewhat overextended itself with the size of the 3rd edition, so no further edition is to be expected. I have not yet gotten around to reading your emails. Yours, J. Brather.