Hitler's Last Witness (4 page)

In Cologne, I lodged at the Kolpinghaus youth hostel on Breite-Strasse. One could live very comfortably there, and a meal was to be bought for only forty pfennigs. At the beginning of March 1936, I saw German soldiers on the Cologne streets, moving out to occupy the demilitarised Rhineland. At the time, this was not a special experience for me. It was during the famed Cologne carnival, and the city was in a state of high excitement – just as it used to be in its ‘wild days'. There was music and dancing everywhere. I was fascinated by the great city, the legendary gaiety of the Rhine and naturally the girls of Cologne. I felt free and had a lot of fun. After this six-month excursion I went back to Hoyerswerda to continue my training.

I was soon able to put to good use what I had learnt in my advanced training. In the whole town I was now the only person who could gild competently. Most people thought it was dreadfully expensive, but it never was. I knew that one could go a very long way with a bag of gold dust for thirty-seven Reichsmarks. In Cologne I had learnt that, with a little pile of gold dust sufficient to cover a five-mark coin, I could gild a whole horse. When they wanted to use bronze for the clock on an evangelical church tower at Hoyerswerda, I made it clear that the bronze would soon darken. Thanks to my skill in persuasion they used gold instead. And so I gilded not only this clock, but also the background of the fourteen stations of the cross in a Catholic church. At Moritzburg Castle near Dresden, Schüller and Model restored the gilded picture frames. The remains of the gold I preserved carefully in silk paper. A short while ago, I gave away my last packet of it.

Olympic Games: 1936

In the spring of 1936, at the shooting festival for which I had done the painting in 1935, I took part in the actual rifle competition. I was the third-best Silesian in the youth competition, for which I received a small bronze medal with the official Olympic logo and the inscription: ‘We call the Youth of the World – Berlin 1936', a diploma and a free ticket for the opening day of the Berlin Olympic Games.

Thus, on 1 August 1936, there I stood, the young man from the village with my Aunt Sofia in the crowd before the Reich stadium. The tension, the masses of people, the theatre – it was tremendous.

The entry of Hitler made the greatest impact on me. As luck would have it, just at the very moment that my aunt and I stood very close to the carriageway for the guests of honour, Hitler came past, at the head of the triumphal convoy of officials and guests of honour which had driven from the Reich Chancellery through Berlin. He stood up in the open limousine, saluting the crowd, surrounded by members of his personal bodyguard who rounded off the picture perfectly in their black uniforms with white belts. The crowd was beside itself. Everybody was now looking in one direction; all eyes were on this man. Not ten metres away from us, the limousine slowed. Before it came to a stop, the men of the bodyguard party had jumped off the running boards elegantly and thrown their whole weight into holding back the surging throng of spectators. The public pushed and shoved. Whoever managed to get through the cordon clung to the vehicle like a drunkard and had to be dragged away. All was jubilation and cries of joy – it was deafening.

I was completely swept up in the emotion; tears welled up in my eyes. ‘What is wrong with you?' my aunt asked. I was dreaming, imagining myself standing on the running board of the car; a member of the bodyguard squad, in one of those smart uniforms. Man, they were just normal soldiers, how lucky they were. I never considered that my daydream would one day become reality.

My ticket allowed me to go much further into the Olympic stadium, but I did not use it. After experiencing the entry of Hitler at such close quarters, I was so full of impressions that all I wanted to do was return home. Go any further into this frenzy? No, I was not in a state to do so. It was simply too much for me. And, anyway, my aunt could not have got in without a ticket. Never again did I experience anything comparable to this spectacle. Berlin sank into a sea of flags. One could hardly make headway through the streets.

For days and weeks after that event, I was still totally gripped if I thought back to it. The overwhelming entry of Hitler had not brought me nearer to the Nazis and their policies. What they wanted, to where they were moving our country, who did what within the regime – people talked about it but I never took part in these discussions. I was interested in my work, and, besides that, only sport. I loved playing football, which my boss at work did not look upon kindly, for fear that I might be injured. After watching me play once, however, he relented. Apparently, he was a little proud of his apprentice, for in contrast to his son I was a really gifted footballer.

In December 1936, my apprenticeship terminated. My journeyman piece, some advertising for a travel company, was never finished. Scarcely had I started on it than my boss told me to leave it. ‘The others are no match for you, Rochus.' My practical work was therefore waived; I received only the highest marks.

After some time as an assistant painter at Hoyerswerda, one of the older colleagues at Schüller and Model – the master-painter (arts) Schweizer from Hornberg in the Black Forest – brought me to his home town, where he wanted to set up his own business. He was hoping to receive commissions under a programme aiming at beautifying Germany, which attracted state subsidies of up to 45 per cent. Therefore, I completed designs for public buildings in Hornberg, Triberg and Hausach, three pieces each, and then the public commissions really began to roll in. We also painted advertising boards, among others for an important exhibition in Brussels. I earned ninety-five pfennigs an hour.

In the Black Forest, I quickly made friends, and in my spare time I was mostly with three or four people of my own age. One of them was a technical draughtsman in a neighbouring business. We often went to a rustic inn, offering glorious Black Forest ham. Before our eyes, breath-fine slices were cut from a giant ham with a very sharp knife, and we relished them with black bread and mustard. We went a lot to dances and the swimming baths. There, I got to know a miller's two daughters and tried to impress them with my virtuosity on the mandolin. One of them became my first girlfriend. Best of all, I liked going with my friends to Überlingen at Lake Constance at the weekends. I packed the mandolin and bathing trunks, and then off we went. The best memories of my youth are from this time.

Of course, we got up to all kinds of mischief. We boys were able to roam freely and unsupervised – the opportunity had to be seized. Once, in Überlingen, we came across a defective cigarette machine, which simply could not stop spilling out cigarettes. ‘Try to leave some behind,' my friend warned me – his pockets already stuffed full with packets of them.

None of us knew then, of course, that the carefree times for our generation, as for so many others, would soon come to an abrupt end.

1
In 1936, as a result of the National Socialist policy of Germanising Polish-sounding names, Alt-Schalkowitz was renamed Alt-Schalkendorf.

2
The ‘English Disease' was rickets, an illness caused by vitamin D deficiency.

3
The official abbreviation of the Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten was NPEA, which became Napola colloquially. The schools had the task of educating the future National Socialist ruling elite.

Chapter Two

Conscripted Soldier: 1937–1939

IN 1937, I RECEIVED
my call-up notice. I had to become a soldier. There was no choice.

A few weeks after my twentieth birthday I took the train to Offenburg, together with my friend of the same age, Hermann, for assessment. SS men had set up a small table in the open and were pressing fairly hard for volunteers to do their national service with the
Verfügungstruppe
.
[1]
The lure was four years' military training while avoiding the compulsory RAD (Reichs Arbeits Dienst/Reich Work Service). It counted as full discharge of the general obligation and could provide direct entry into state service.

For my friend Hermann the matter was soon clear: normally conscription and RAD, plus a break in-between, took three years. Here one had the opportunity to hang an extra year onto that, but then afterwards go directly into public service and rise to be an official much earlier than would otherwise have been the case. It appealed to Hermann: ‘Man, Rochus, I'm joining.' This way he saw his path eventually into the newly formed Reich autobahn police, and already he envisaged himself roaring up and down the brand-new motorways on a BMW motorcycle.

Initially, I was not as enthused as Hermann, because it was very important for me to avoid any kind of office work, and I feared that was what above all awaited me in public service. I cast my doubts aside, however. Why not become an official? Perhaps there would be something in the Reichsbahn involving travel, or I could work for the state as a graphic artist. In any case, Hermann and I both filled out the necessary application forms for the SS-VT at Offenburg and then went back home. Some time later, I was invited to attend another assessment for the SS-VT – this time in Munich. It was an unspectacular affair – do a few exercises, how much did I weigh and how tall was I? My height interested them in particular – I heard it said that one had to be at least 1.78 metres. There were 139 young men called up for the SS-VT, and, together with eleven colleagues, I was ‘specially selected' for the
SS-Leibstandarte
.
[2]
That same evening I received the official conscription notice for 1 October 1937. I lost sight of Hermann that day and never saw him again.

‘Specially Selected'

So it was that I went into the 5th Company of the
SS-Leibstandarte
, into the old Prussian cadet academy at Berlin-Lichterfelde for military training.
[3]
Everybody in the 1st Company was around two metres tall. I was among the smaller soldiers, having a height of 1.85 metres.

When exactly I swore my oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler, I cannot remember. It was definitely not in Berlin but in Munich, in front of the Fernherrnhalle. The oath taken by SS men was this:

Ich schwöre Dir, Adolf Hitler, als Führer und Kanzler des Deutschen Reiches, Treue und Tapferkeit. Ich gelobe Dir und den von Dir bestimmten Vorgesetzten Gehorsam bis in den Tod. So wahr mir Gott helfe
.

(I swear to Thee, Adolf Hitler, as Führer and Chancellor of the German Reich, loyalty and bravery. I promise to Thee, and to those placed by Thee above me, obedience unto death. So help me God.)

This was, by the way, the only time I ever addressed Hitler by the familiar form of the pronoun for ‘you'.

My military period was mostly spent in a sports camp. Running and exercises of all kinds filled the days. Almost without exception, everybody in my company was a sportsman or had obtained his school-leaving certificate (the passage to university). I got on well with all six colleagues in my squad room. We had a large number of successful high-level sportsmen in our ranks, including Olympic competitors and medal winners from 1936, such as the shot-putter Hans Woellke. The
SS-Leibstandarte
had also recruited track athletes and rowers. I did not do so badly when pitted against them. My speciality was the 400 metres. I was the fastest in my company; my time without any training was just over fifty seconds. In the 5,000 metres I came second, behind the specialist.

I also enjoyed boxing. That was the world of Herbert Kleinwächter and Adolf Kleinholdermann. These two became famous boxers. Kleinwächter was a light heavyweight, while Kleinholdermann, one of my squad room companions, a heavyweight. He had fought against many of the great boxers of the time and knew Max Schmeling well.
[4]
Kleinwächter and Kleinholdermann continued their careers after the war. Thus it came about that Kleinholdermann became the first German to box a US-American, the black boxer Gene ‘Tiger' Jones, after the war, on 14 May 1950. A German Adolf against a black boxer – that was really something so few years after the Second World War. Kleinholdermann lost and was counted out in the fourth round by Max Schmeling, acting as referee. When this was being fought out at the Berlin Waldbühne, I was in the torture chambers of the Soviet secret service. Kleinholdermann was a nice guy. Through him after the war I became a peanut butter producer. But it is a long story until then.

Sports, sports and yet more sports. The cadet academy had one of the most modern swimming pools in Europe. One day, shortly after we finished some building work, the Spiess (CSM) came into our squad room with a bucket and scrubbing brush and grinned: ‘Who's for a swim?' The pool had to be cleaned of all sandy residue, he explained, before being filled with water. He did not need to ask twice. We grabbed the cleaning gear and scrubbed the tiles. Then the pool was filled with water. The high-diving tower was still rusty, but we wanted to stare down from there into the depths. So we began climbing up, and the higher we got the less jovial the troops became.

We were all standing at the top when we heard voices. The commander, Sepp Dietrich
[5]
in person, entered the hall with the actor Mathias Wiemann
[6]
and some generals. Dietrich described the place with sweeping gestures and all kinds of superlatives. Meanwhile, I had pressed myself long and flat like a postage stamp along the springboard so as not be seen from below. But not quickly enough. ‘Have you people been doing any jumps from up there?' Dietrich's challenging voice rang out. It was obvious that the situation could now only be saved, in the truest sense of the word, by jumping into the cold water. It was the first and last time that in deadly fear I made a classic arse-bomb into the depths from a ten-metre high tower. An arse-bomb for the commanding general. What do you think of that?