蜜芽传媒

I am a German living in the UK for 17+ years and, looking at some of the stories here, I felt it might be insightful to ask my father (Wolfgang Wehrmeyer), who was 14 at the end of the war, to recall his experiences. He did so, the result leaves me with uncomfortable parallel impressions about what is happening at the moment in Iraq. The text below is my translation:

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Granddad Wehrmeyer recalls:

A couple of days before the unconditional surrender of Germany, English and Scottish troops marched towards the end of April into Bremerhaven (a harbour city with strategically important access to the North Sea, today with about 80000 inhabitants it is Germany鈥檚 second biggest North Sea harbour. On the opposite site of the river Weser lies Nordenham, with Germany鈥檚 largest US naval base) without encountering any resistance. It was a peaceful and civilised affair.

English Officers occupied the two flats in the ground floor of the apartment bloc we lived in. Both families, together three people, moved in with the current occupants. We knew all about this arrangement: about 2 years earlier a family got moved in on order of the local Nazis, we had to give the local Nazi chief (Ortsgruppenleiter), his wife and daughter a room, and later a further room, so that my mother and her two sons ended up living in one room. With the English in the ground floor, we could live in the second floor, without 鈥渙ur鈥� Nazi family, who have vanished already before the English marched into town.

I was 14 years old, with an incomplete training in the Volkssturm (German鈥檚 equivalent of the 蜜芽传媒 Front army), which I broke off as soon as I was trained as a sharp shooter: this would have meant to deliberately kill, which I was emphatically against, and, in my escape, deserting from the unit, I swore if I ever made it through the raids and the Nazi hunt until after the war that I would never touch a gun in my life.

A couple of days after the capturing of the town, the English troops organised a parade, with flags, armoured personnel carriers and tanks, with the Scottish troops in kilts, all processing in the Kaiserstrasse northwards. My smaller brother, 7-year old Volker, must have misunderstood the tenor of the march, as he suddenly turned up at the front door, dressed with the insignia of his toy policeman uniform, proudly banging on his tin drum. My mother and I took him immediately into the house, as we did not know how the English troops would interpret this.

Later that week, English officers came to the flat and asked whether they could cook in the downstairs area adjacent to the cellar entrance, without discussion we agreed. I was deeply impressed with the quality and quantity of supplies the English officers brought with them 鈥� even tea powder with milk powder and sugar and cigarettes and all sealed in round tins! Like in a field kitchen they cooked on petrol stoves using the same technology I remember from visiting the kitchen in the passenger ships before the murderous war began.

Since I had English lessons at school since I was 10, I could more or less communicate with the English occupiers. One day I was asked for a large cooking pot which I should fill with potatoes out of our cellar, which I did without questioning. The pot was just about full with potatoes, as even they were rare and we were hungry. Shortly after this, the pot was returned, filled with the most wonderful meat cans, Tea with sugar and even cigarettes (which had real currency on the black market)!

I was curious what damage the V2 rockets had caused in England. This weapon terrified people. The destruction of the allied troops was not discussed, but it was pretty obvious, living in Bremerhaven which was 98% destroyed at the time.

The English and Scottish regiment soldiers were very disciplined and treated us with respect, I never heard anything else from kids of my age and their parents during as well as after the war 鈥� even to the point that Soldiers of the defeated German army 鈥� armed and in uniform - were ordered to guard the warehouses at the harbour to prevent looting. Ironically, the stores were full of food and grain which the Nazis plundered from Russia.

I was glad and relieved not to be at the mercy of the nazis and the Army! Outside the curfew, we could play outside, we need not worry any more about low-flying aerial raids and bombs, we did not have to fear explosive and incendiary bombs 鈥� gratefully, peace has come! A few days earlier, a low-flying plane shot at me, but I could just find cover behind debris from an already-destroyed house. A few weeks later, the English moved on to leave the town to the Americans.

The Americans had negotiated that they would control the harbours of Bremen and Bremerhaven as an enclave within the English zone to maintain their supply route. The Americans moved out, but at first our flat was untouched. As it was reported later as well, rumour was that the Americans would distribute chocolate and chewing gum. I have not received any, but I also didn鈥檛 want any as I saw a gesture which I initially did not understand but made me suspicious 鈥� the Americans tried to ask for something by forming a fist and pressing the thumb out from under the index finger. Soon I found out that the Americans were looking for women who they could pay for with food, gin and cigarettes. The kids and teens were asked where to find 鈥済irls鈥� and were rewarded with chocolates. Later this practice was euphemistically describes that the Americans were looking for girls to wash their laundry and to iron.

A few days later, two American soldiers, pointing their guns at me, demanded that I should open the wardrobe, they shouted, threw the content of our wardrobes onto the ground and demanded 鈥渨atches and cameras鈥�, but by that time, neighbours and rumours generally had already warned us, so that they could not find anything valuable. My 鈥渢reasures鈥� were in the attic, which contained small aircraft-dinghies (used by pilots who had to jump out over the sea), several electric drills and, among other things I thought potentially valuable to trade for food, a box of cartridges for bazookas. My mother never found out what I had there; two days later, the door was kicked in and the attic was empty.

For me, the contrasting experience between the English and the American 鈥渢reatment鈥� of civilians left such a mark, that I since can not respect the Americans, but I have always had a warm place in my heart for the English.

The opposite was true for my father (Heinrich Wehrmeyer) 鈥� he was chief engineer on a civilian freighter and was in an impossible position: Churchill stated that all civilian ships which do not surrender are to be treated as enemy ships, and Hitler made the announcement that any German ship that did surrender would be seen as a traitor, punishable by death. So, when brought up by the English destroyer 鈥淩oyal Oak鈥� off the La Plata river in South America, they decided to sink the ship and go into the rescue boats. Then the Royal Oak shot with machine guns into the rescue boats to entice the crew back on board (and thus to save the cargo), killing 5 of the 13 Germans on board. The English navy has never been able to find out who gave the order or who shot into a group of unarmed civilians. Subsequently, my father was in English PoW camps, and has never forgotten (nor forgiven) the English until his death 40 years later.

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