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Josef Nowak: Rhine meadow camp of Rheinberg

Chapter 3: Wire cave of Brackwede

Sports area of Brackwede -- hunger torture and water torture and sleeping in the upright position -- criminal "Americans" destroying food of German soldiers on the floor -- the child of a general's daughter -- catching tins -- criminal "Americans" torturing by beating -- water torture on the ground of the pit -- first living skeletons -- beating with hydrant wrench -- washing and cleaning does not exist -- torture with faked news about coming home -- also criminal Belgians watching the hunger torture and thirst torture against half dead Germans -- flak in Bemerode in February 1945 with illegal news about the "end" -- torture without toilets, with waste water and fever -- beating torture -- theft from comrades with the deads -- many families are believing that the prisoners have died in Russia

from: Josef Nowak: Seeded on the field. War prisoner in the home land.
(German: Mensch auf den Acker gesät. Kriegsgefangen in der Heimat)

translated by Michael Palomino (2013)

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[A sports ground and tennis court in Brackwede near Bielefeld]

The village of Brackwede is near the town of Bielefeld. There is a general sports ground and tennis court there. Perhaps Brackwede is noteworthy also by other qualities. But these were not communicated to us. The sports ground was with a strong wire fence and was very suitable for being a cage for cattle of all kind.

When we jumped from the lorries we were ordered that the kind of marching would not change between the Prussians of before and their successors from Washington. Double quick would be the slowest way of marching, at least for the prisoners of war. If this condition was an effect of the work of general von Steuben has to be clarified by military historians, also the question if the old corporal stick from Frederik was illegal in the democratic American army or not where it was also applied what we could feel. Our guards were forming a lane with sticks, and the prisoners had to pass this lane in a joyful pace and well dressed moving to the entrance of the wire cage. Strong arms were writing us the alphabet of the winners on the back and on the bottom. These were white Americans beating us. When there were beatings, then they came always from the whites swinging the stick, in rare cases from mixed raced Americans, and never from the Negroes. Thousands and thousands of prisoners [p.35] came into this wire fence landscape. All some minutes a new convoy was coming. When this stream had not stopped with sunset the wires had been cracked. And in this case machine guns had barked.

[No food, no water, no straw sack, no space, sleeping in an upright position]

As we had not got any lunch already we were not very surprised that also any dinner was left out. No, this American militarism did not make any difference from the Prussian one. Two times in my life I was drawn to the German Air Force, one time as a sad piece of human being which is called a recruit in general, and the second time as a member of a replacement group after all. Both times I came only after 6 pm to the barracks. It was my fault. Why I had not taken another train bringing me to the goal earlier. The suppliers had shut their counters already. Who was coming this late was not a member of the "being" force any more and had not right for bread and meat. Also bedclothes were none for him any more. But the late coming person had the right for getting a full or empty straw sack  which had to be filled yet. Here in Brackwede also the straw sack was left out. Therefore bedclothes had not to be given at all. Because where in the world existed the custom to put a bed linen on the naked earth? Our jailers had enough space for sleeping on the grassy soil or on the concrete ground. [But we had now space]. Finally one knows that also horses are sleeping in an upright position.

Prussian soldier instructors are just the best! He was not so bad and did prepare us to many hard situations of the human existence. Above all he was teaching us at the flak tower to stay upright for days and to sleep in every situation of life. In Brackwede I was living 8 days almost only standing on my feet. When I had a thought today to make a memorial visit to this little townlet then I would be surprised for sure to see that there are also seating accommodations to have. Eight days I was standing there on this tennis court in Brackwede, without washing, without shaving, and I was one of perhaps 30,000 not washed and not shaved persons there.

[Food of the German prisoners is scrunched on the floor by the criminal "Americans"]

At least during four hours in every morning after sunrise we were hoping that some breakfast would be given to us. From then on we were hoping for a lunch. We had heard from Liberty ships of the Emperor coming with full bellies of Californian crops to Europe. Many of us had not been necessary to receive American food. They had rucksacks with them full of bread, sausage, sugar and cheese, fresh meat and meat in tins after the breakdown of the home land front. Now the white [p.37] Americans mostly destroyed this food during the detention putting the German food into the dirt and scrunching it. Why? Was this atavism [deformation of brain or body]? Already during Bronze Age it was normal to destroy the corn fields or the vineyards of the defeated enemy.

[Sugar from the comrades]

Slowly I was coming to the wire fence wall and was making my tour around my cage, and sometimes I was seeing and saying hello to some comrades of my flak tower again. They almost all had had the same way to here. They almost all had full pockets in their trousers or coats, filled with sugar. The first night of their captivity they had passed in a sugar factory. They had slept on sugar sacks and made holes into them for having some provisions. One or another got his fingers in it and then I got some sugar into my hand and I was licking thankfully the sugar from my cupped hand.

[Somebody has a child in northern Germany with a daughter of a general - Nowak helping with aliments]

Towards lunch time I came to the officer's cage. This was not similar to a luxury hotel but had some old chairs on which the men with their decorations could relax in a certain rhythm. Behind in the corner a middy was going up and down in a military way. Really, it was Hermann. The fact is that we had to settle for our personal names. Middy Hermann was one person of my unforgettable events in the Wehrmacht. One evening when I was doing sentry duty at the gun with the name "Bertha", he came to me and was sighing some times. He wanted to confess something [p.38]. Somewhere in the region at the Main River he had left his wife and his three children following the order of the "Führer". In northern Germany he had got to know the daughter of a general. And then as biology is working a son was given to him in the projected time. The grandfather without willing to be was reacting harshly. Hermann was not prompted to a saber duel but was urged to pay aliments in a standardized way, if not - just this was the thing we discussed in this night. It could not be left out that the battery chief got to know about this case officially, and it could not be left out that the bride at home got also to know about this case in a sad way when Hermann would not pay in time the fine. As I - as everybody knew in the battery group - got some money with royalties in those days from the theaters of state in Dresden, Hamburg, Kassel and Stuttgart, Hermann was thinking that I would be as trustworthy as creditable. I was just lending him a sum  and was paying him sometimes sums of the same height and this was a short time before the first of the next month. But then was another thing yet. My wife was not especially eager to know about financial questions or giro accounts, but one day she detected the strange money business. She was abusing my next weekend holiday for an indiscreet question. And I was answering the truth. But she was not accepting so easily stating a big criticism.

-- Is this not a little bit too much?

-- But I plead you, for this baby of a general's daughter! [p.39]

-- I don't think to the height of the sum. The hole story - to whom you want to make to believe this?

-- Why so?

-- Well, I heard often from men already who were ruffling against paying aliments, but such a donkey paying aliments of other persons I have never seen before.

I was thinking of this when I was sticking my nose through the mesh wire trying to give a sign to the far middy.

[Criminal "Americans" and catching tins: who is not an artist will not get anything - and white Americans are torturing with beatings again]

Some time after there was happening something as it seemed. Thousands of noses were rising giving sign that something was in the air. Should there be some food at last? I was coming nearer and nearer to the hot spot of the unrest. Really, a gate had opened. Behind this gate boxes were piled. Lunch is beginning. Always two and two prisoners are flying passing the givers. The prisoners have to catch the food in the air like gulls. They are throwing tins through the air, always two in one time. What is falling remains on the ground. Who is not an artist has no food or only the half of it. I don't know if this food distribution is one of the specialties of the American Wehrmacht. Perhaps the technicians had constructed an imaginary assembly belt rationalizing the supply service. I only see that there is a lane formed with bully Americans with sticks again and is [p.40] continuing the education for democracy treating the bums with a precision like machine guns. In any case the procedure is accelerated in this way really significantly. In those times we had not seen the film "Damned for Eternity" ("Verdammt in alle Ewigkeit") yet. That's why we were wondering about this procedure - even as defeated people.

I had got Meat and noodles. Others were chewing Lima Beans or Ham and Eggs. The content of one tin - this has to be mentioned here - could be packed comfortably into three or four matchboxes. Then we stated during reading the tin's paper that our daily food ration corresponded to the food of half a breakfast for the Americans, leaving out bred and butter because we never received anything of it. Well, we had not won the war. A prisoner's camp is really not a fattening farm. We had to be content when the oven [the body] was heated [nourished] with half a briquette.

[Criminal "Americans" with water torture: dirty water from the bottom]

Meat and noodles - well, but a cup of tee or coffee had also been very welcome. Rumors say that there behind the Atlantic locomotives are even heated with coffee beans. Some hours later we were as far that we were pleading for nothing but a cup of fresh water. As every well equipped tennis court also the one of Brackwede had a water pipe. It was not spring water what was coming out here, whereas [p.41] Brackwede was at the bottom of Teutoburg Forest. In the war we had drunk some bad waters already without counting the bacillus before. But the water here was managed by a fat Creole [black American speaking a mixed language]. He had a really ugly face provoking really the whole power of the command of God saying that one should love the next as oneself. Evading not any further bad statement I could state simply that God himself had difficulties with this man applying the first and greatest order.

From time to time this Creole was letting some water into the stony trough under the water tap. The trough was full of dust, of garbage, of rests of straw and of other things. Now the Creole let only come as much water coming down so the garbages was just covered provoking that it was swimming. Then the bully boy was ordering us calling us Nazi swines to satisfy our thirst. I was warning everybody who listened to me to drink from this swamp of dirt. I was conjuring the comrades next to me that it would be better suffering one day more thirst, perhaps also some two or three days more. Here was working a butcher, a murderer. But they were drinking. Two days later we knew of what kind this beverage had been.

[First skeletons are walking around - criminal "Americans" torturing people with hydrant wrench]

Really, we had lost the war profoundly, totally, one could say, otherwise we had had so much force yet to do something with these criminals [p.42] shredding them on the ground whatever should happen after this. We were supporting him silently. A skeleton of human being on the way to die of thirst, he was an old man of the last defense (Volkssturm), at least 60 years old - he was pleading to the bully of Brackwede who was there like an eunuch almost crashing his trousers [because he was so fat] the plea to let the trough full of water to make the water drinkable in some kind. Oh now the devil's servant got a red neck like a turkey. He was pushing the hydrant wrench into the face of the German - But he was guilty himself, this old man. As defeated people we could not wage to order the winners of the Stupid States anything

This was Brackwede.

[Criminal "Americans": 1 week water torture - 1 week torture without washing or cleaning]

One full week this bad times were going on. There was no washing - no shaving - no cleaning teeth - no comb - all a joke. There was suffering hunger - suffering thrust, freezing - laying in the dirt - despair - this was our kind of life.

[Criminal "Americans": torture with faked news about transports and going home]

Sometimes a white American was coming presenting himself on a platform. He was speaking German too well for having born in the country of the unlimited possibilities. He reported us what would happen outside. Hitler had been captured in Berlin. Goebbels had been brought to London with an air plane already. There would be a peace agreement in some weeks. The guy was preaching patience and understanding. It had been hard to get food here [what is a big lie because Eisenhower was rejecting all food aid because he wants to commit his mass murder!]. But the situation of transportation wold be better from day to day. [All this is a big lie because Eisenhower was rejecting food aid leaving the prisoners without any rights and is committing a mass murder against the Germans in his death camps]. In a short time [p.43] the prisoners could go home [one more big lie]. After such a speech the man was jumping from his box. Was he not limping a little bit? The guy had to have a limping leg. Poor idiot! You did not see any propaganda of a German county's office. The people there knew on February 18 that there were destroyed 350,000 gross register tons in the northern Atlantic on March 3. They were communicating with flourish on March 4 that there had been a success of a submarine and then they were integrating into the same army report the drawback flight from Tobruk to Benghasi. Teh speaker in Brackwede only wanted to have calm in the camp because he wanted to sleep with his German girl in the evening without difficulties. The place of horror which was prepared for us was not here.

[Eisenhower wants the mass murder of German soldiers rejecting all food aid. At the end Eisenhower's system is killing 1 million German soldiers in the death camps and 5 million German civil persons in remaining Germany from 1945 to 1949, and only after the blockage of Berlin in 1948 this hunger terrorism of Eisenhower is stopping step by step. But Eisenhower himself is proud having killed so many Germans as he calls them "gojim" (swines) in Zionist circles. There are books about this general topic of Eisenhower's mass murders in the Rhine meadow camps: "Other Losses", and the other book about the occupation time of "American" terrorism in remaining Germany: Crimes and Mercies[.

[Criminal Belgians: hunger torture and thirst torture and half dead German]

Sometimes I was at the wire fence watching the young Belgians with their rifle in their arm. They themselves were watching the not shaved mass. My trials to speak with these young guys were not successful. The most elegant French I spoke was only meeting deaf ears. But the faces of these little guys were very telling. Tay after day they saw how we were always wilder and wilder. They saw that there were different kinds of persons in our group, big ones and little ones, thick ones and thin ones, old and young. Perhaps there were even good and evil? I was seeing it at their furrowed front that they had difficulties to maintain this ideology which was rammed into them. God alone knows which prejudices they were thinking about [p.44].

[A former NS agent controller is also a detainee now - the affair about the coming end of the war in Bemerode in February 1945]

I am at the officer's cage again. Is this not - yes of course this is my former lieutenant, until some days before he was a measuring officer and NS agent controller in my battery. Well, well, here he is now, too, the Mr. NS agent controller who was preaching about final victory with all his force of a Middle Aged crusade preacher. Now he is standing here, just as poor and lost from God as I am. No, he will have to suffer even more. For me no world was collapsing in my fantasy. For me only a horrible vision was confirmed. I hope having reached the end of the chaos. But he is only in the beginning. But not only because of this I send a glance full of sympathy, full of friendship to him.

We had again - as many times - had a heavy night on our flak tower of defense against air strikes in Bemerode. I had left my post at the commando device and had just seen yet that this Mr. lieutenant was talking with the battery chief. I was sleeping with three other petty officers in a bunker which consisted in two rooms. In the room in the back the lieutenant was living. He could only reach it passing the first one. As I - as the whole battery knew - was listening London radio daily in French and in Italian language, the other three corporals were asking about the war situation. It was February 1945 by the time. I was instructing my public about the strategic actions of general Patton and I was [p.45] giving them a lesson of half an hour stating that there will be only some weeks until day X will come -

[In reality Eisenhower was prolonging the war blocking Patton again and again waiting for the atomic bomb against Germany but the capitulation came too early].

I was just finishing undermining the military moral when the door was opened. The lieutenant was coming from his bunker into our room. I had been deceived. He had not been at the main command post with the chief.

-- You come with me! No, without buckling on!

I have to go with him. Silently I open the door. Silently he is stepping aside and is letting me going first. But he is not steering his and my steps to the command post,not to the chief's bunker. Oh God, I think. So what? Will be a shot in the neck? Since when this will be the custom in the Wehrmacht? Or have come new orders from the commander of the home land army, from Heinrich Himmler? Now the lieutenant is going up a steep path. We are enough far away from the emplacement. Mr. NS agent controller is beginning his statement now opening his mouth for a little speech:

-- What do you think, you complete idiot? Into what position you brought me just before? You just know what I have to do now, what I should do now. And you also know that you will be at a field military court and two hours later you will be shot. That I will say you, when you will repeat this stupid and treachery speeches - damned! Could you not knock at my door before? [p.46] And now go to sleep as fast as you can! Can you rely at least to the other three boys? Can I rely on these jerks?

-- Mr. Lieutenant, they all are three very old party companions.

-- This is even worse! In a fury the lieutenant is shouting. I am calming him. I ensure him that according to my knowledge even the oldest party companions have awaken. The following morning the lieutenant was making his speech - he knew what is the fulfilling of a duty:

-- There were repeated events that soldiers of our battery were doubting about the victory and that there were defeatist speeches of our comrades. No one should be catched by such a high treason. I am authorized to shoot him with my hand without field military court.

The look of the lieutenant to me was rigid and dark. Rigid and dark I was countering his look. Only one time my face was moving a little bit. One fly was sitting on my upper lip and was tickling me with the soft little legs in a terrible way.

Thus this was our lieutenant. Often our flak officers had no revolver but revolvers were lacking and they only had wooden fakes in their revolver pockets, but the lieutenant as an NS agent controller had a real pistol. He had even received a compliment or had even got a promotion when he had killed me. Because I was not an unknown person for my Gau and district officer [p.47]. Additionally the lieutenant was a teacher in his civil life. When one knows what reputation the teachers had got in the Third Reich - in short words - the lieutenant had taught me to think better about teachers. He had really pedagogic capacities. He was an NS agent controller. He was probably really bad when the juridical staff of the United States was getting aware of this. One will be found then who will reveal him. some years this decent person will be obliged to suffer in a penal camp. Who knows if he will survive. And I cannot help him. When one is not allowed to plead for a little tin of proper drinking water, without having the hydrant wrench in the mouth -

[Criminal "Americans": torture without toilets - heavy bodily injury with soiled water and fever - beating torture without reason]

There were no latrines in Brackwede. What for? We did not need any. We produced neither fluent nor substantial fertilizer. All our body was without order like in the Third Reich. Nothing was working any more.

Again and again I saw men drinking from the trough like thirsty horses. Some had even fever now. Petty officer Bruno, one of our mentioned quartet in the lieutenant's bunker of Bemerode, almost could not walk any more. He was suffering a dry heat provoking that he was totally apathetic. Around lunch time I took his arm and dragged him through the lane of the beating bully western men to the food station, and as a salary for my helping activity I got the five or [p.48] ten times as much of beating than normally. I was developing to be an acrobat on stage without training, I was catching his tin and my tin in the air, and at the end of this big strain I was falling to the ground with him without energy.

[Weak people  are robbed - Bruno dies - deacon - his family will believe that he died in Russia - 1,000s of cases like this]

When the next day I made my normal tour in the cage I found Bruno again and I wanted to help him to stand up, but he was only rolling on the floor like a drunken man back and forth. He had also impoverished. Comrades had robbed his wool blanket. Comrades had robbed his golden watch. Certainly, soon he would not need all this stuff any more. But even the vultures and hyenas were waiting normally until the deads are really dead. Only the human thieves are stealing the belongings before this moment already.

There is no military hospital, no ambulance, nothing. There is no doctor, no paramedic, no medicament, nothing. There is no stretcher, no room for ill persons, there no tent, nothing. And thus Bruno has to die like a superfluous old dog in the dirt. He is taken away like a dead animal and then he is buried somewhere.

He had been a deacon, a real man with an upright character, a strong member of resistance of the Confessing Church. With his wife were six children waiting for him. They are perhaps waiting today yet. Nothing was hindering them to believe that during the drawback from Hanover to Elbe River that he had been on the way home to Turingia and had fallen into the hands of the Russians and would be lost in Russia. And he was only one of many thousands [p.49].

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