Did US-troops saved my father from being a kindergarten-soldier?

Nothing extra special or a great heroic story, i'm sorry.

My father was only 16 at the end of the war. Weeks before the armistice he was sent to an RAD (Reichsarbeitsdienst) casern not so far away, i always thought he should become a worker for the Wehrmacht. He was already a (very young) carpenter.

Anyone here who knows, what he could expect when the americans didn't liberate southern Germany? I read that nearly all of these young boys soon became soldiers of the Wehrmacht. Didn't they need specialists anymore?

The only thing i know is, that his instructor (he described him as a reasonable man) let them all go when the US-troops were approaching to prevent them from being captured in uniform. He then walked home along the Autobahn at night and he told that he was more afraid of the american air force than the german Feldjäger. Interesting though he still had "his rifle" with him and hid it later at home, where it remains until today but i never saw it and it for sure is rusted and rotten. He hid it like the mafia hid their victims
Sadly i didn't asked what type of rifle it was, i guess it was an old french type and he described it as "very long".

Before his duty at the RAD he produced tailplanes out of wood and he was told they were for military gliders. But i am sure he was fooled, the Wehrmacht didn't need and built gliders anymore in 1945. Most likely he built parts for the wooden rocket fighter Natter, which was a secret project and there were launch sites only 10 mls away from his work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0qv8X3LLgI

He died 20 years ago, i regret not having talked more with him in his living years.

 

Actually it sounds like the instructor saved your fathers life.

 

That's possible. A fanatic nazi would have sent them to somewhere to defend the Fatherland. We all know the pictures of Kindergarten soldiers armed with a Panzerfaust desperatly trying to turn the tide of the war.

Another lucky incident was, that he refused to join the Napola after finishing regular school. back then it was a great honour for a young rural boy but he was needed at home - his father died when he was a baby. I guess they all participated in the last stages of the war.

He never told me that the Nazis had a curious method to pick their future elite. They didn't want easy to handle geeks of wealthy families, they prefered talented but difficult "rebels", "raw diamants". He never told me why he was chosen.

After the war he worked for the american occupying forces and he couldn't find enough good words to describe especially the black GIs. Nobody treated him as nazi boy and he always got something to eat, coffee etc. which was great.

 

I cannot begin to imagine what it was like in Germany just after the war. Shortages of everything and destroyed buildings and infrastructure. I assume the Allies provided food and medicine but am not aware of how bad things got. That needs to be my next reading . Any titles ? Where the French, having been occupied and soil fought over any different in the occupational area. Of course the UK suffered bombing and the V weapons and all Allied forces lost thousands of men. Being in the Soviet zone would no doubt have been worst.

Your father was a lucky and resourceful young man.

 

In small towns of southern Germany there were only a few destroyed buildings, my father told me that one (1) 4engined bomber once dropped his load over the next village but not intentional. He survived the air raid on the next city where he worked, it was a daylight attack by the US Air Force.

The city looked like this afterwards:


You have to be lucky back then.

It was a fascinating time too to watch all the airplanes, especially when you are a young boy. Some of them were flying very low.

If you weren't picky, food wasn't a great deal in rural areas. They catched trouts when they wanted something special. I'm sure it was a great adventure when you were young.
But everything you have to buy was a problem, money was worthless.

On the other hand, all the nazi bullshit ended, no more Hitler Youth and your life wasn't ruled by idiotic local "leaders" anymore. And, most important, no more war which could end a young boys life very quickly.
There was a future again and things get better slowly.

Things were much, much more complicated for refugees from the East, who had lost everything and weren't liked by the "old" population.

 

I have read a few books on the immediate situation after Germany's defeat. I will post titles later. My father on the British Army was in Hamburg and befriended a young German family living in a cellar in the ruins. He kept up a correspondence with the father for years and I remember seeing the letters which are lost now. He told me that, although the Allies tried their best to keep control, there were many murdered, starved or died of disease in the chaos of millions of people trying to get home from the labour and concentration camps. Loss of life did not stop when the guns went silent.

 

Being a carpenter would not have prevented your dad from being drafted int he Wehrmacht after his Rad service. The Germans needed cannon fodder and having skills was in second position. You'd be a soldier with carpenter skills and not a carpenter in the army. He would have helped building postion setc... but I suppose that in those days many schoolboys were taught how to be carpeters anyhow. He might have been able to apply for a pionnier unit .

 

Yes, i just thought that building the tailplanes was important but the Nazis replaced special workers more and more by women and slave workers. That's why they always tried to simplfy weapons so they can be produced by unskilled workers.

Without the US Army liberating southern Germany in spring 1945 he would have ended as cannon fudder. The allied soldiers showed no mercy with these boys as long as they were fighting and for a good reason - they were often fanatic and as dangerous as regular soldiers. It was easy to fire a Panzerfaust.

Hamburg was completely destroyed and flooded with refugees, a totally different situation compared to quiet rural towns.

 

My father's battalion history describes encountering many of these young fanatics in the Teutoburger Wald. The Wald is a range of low wooded hills in the north German plain, a natural defensive feature that had to be crossed through passes that were defended by Hitler youth and conscripts. Many of the older civilian conscripts wisely surrendered after firing a few "honor" shots, but the children often fought doggedly and had to be killed. They didn't even understand the basic strategy and tactics of such a defense, in effect they'd stay in a farmhouse or hole until killed instead of holding up the advance and then backing off to a new position a kilometer beyond to start over again when the assault began. "Shoot and scoot" might have held up the advance for several days, but holding up in a no retreat situation just got them quickly killed and allowed the advance to proceed with little delay.

It's a sad yet fascinating aspect of the war.

Another anecdote from my father's unit describes a very elderly man attacking them with a sword in the streets of a small town. The nearest GI simply grabbed his wrist and took the sword away. The old man said that the Nazis were cowards to run away and as a former soldier of the Kaiser he felt compelled to defend his town. He was told to go home and I'm sure that his sword is on a wall somewhere in the US.

 

As mentioned, my father survived an air raid 1st march 1945. He couldn't be a soldier for more than a few weeks.
How should someone like him know how to fight and survive?

They were brainwashed to be tough, ruthless and believed the Propaganda lie of an "Endsieg" and "Wunderwaffen". But my father knew the truth, he listened to foreign radio stations. And he saw complete families in his village wiped out by loosing 3 or 4 sons in a short time.

A surprising fact he told me: Soldiers back home on vacation were more optimistic to win the war even at christmas 1944 than the civilians at home which only saw the allied bombers at the sky.

 

I suspect those unfortunate children in the Teutoburger Wald were Himmler's Volksturm. The Wehrmacht would not have thrown away their lives like that.

 

Usually the Volkssturm units were lead by old veterans from the First World War and it depends on them what these "children" had to do. If they were left alone it was quite possible that they did what you describe.

My Granddad was searched out as such a leader and one evening they met to decide what to do and found out that they couldn't do much without experience and their crappy weapons. And they knew that resistance would cause destruction of houses and useless loss of lifes.
The next day US troops were already passing the city and the Volkssturm was history.

It is a sad fact that there were more german victims between the Stauffenberg conspiration and the end of the war than in the 5 years before.