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Josef
Nowak: Rhine meadow camp of Rheinberg
Chapter 15: The big
trek
New clover field "Camp E2 -- remembering a poet
cottage -- terrorism with headlights at the fence in
the night -- remembering flash bombs over Misburg in
1944 -- rain is converting the camp into a tideland
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)
[Mud up to the knees
- "American" order for Camp E that digging tunnels would
be forbidden]
At the
beginning I was living in Camp C. From then on I was
shifted into Camp D one day. When he mud there reached the
water level of the knee, at least in the arterial roads
[in the main paths] then we were shifted to Camp E which
had been created just before with new fences. In Camp D we
had digged out caves as normally. These caves were
displeasing the commander - or even the displeasing of an
even higher animal which was sleeping in one of the
confiscated hotels or in a German mansion never realizing
what for adult men were working in the sand an in the clay
for building a housing for themselves. The unsatisfied was
ordering strictly that no fox-holes were allowed any more
in the new Camp E.
[This order provoked the "right" for the "Americans" to
destroy the tunnels later with a bulldozer filling them
simply up burying the inmates alive leaving the murdered
there where they had been buried].
It was a real military order, 08/15 of American layout,
just with the spirit as were the German orders of before:
flak cannoneers, you have Russians as assists but you are
not allowed to speak with them. There were more orders
without common sense in this way: soldiers, before
sleeping you have to clean the ovens of the barracks. Any
fire has to be extinguished. [Or this order]: On October 1
the first button of the air force shirt has to be shut,
and on April 1 it has to be opened without considering the
atmospheric conditions. How nice [p.141] that stupidity on
Earth was spread without considering any national border
or even oceans.
-- Stupid dog! Complete idiot! Bonehead! These were the
moderate verbal notes headed to the commanders. And when
he had had five stars on his cap or on his collar, a man
who was giving such orders had lost to be entitled to be
taken earnest.
[The trek reaching the new cage "Camp E" - a blooming
clover field]
It was about lunchtime when we were beginning our march.
Marching boots were not missing. Our feet and legs were
encased up to our knees with clay. Reaching Camp E it was
a blooming clover field. We were wading joyfully passing
the crumping green splendor. Kipling has written in his
Jungle Book something about the dance square of the
elephants how they were tramping down a forest meadow and
tramped also all shrubs forming a firm pub for them. It
was just similar what was going on here with 60,000
tramping feet on the clover.
There was no digging provisionally, not because the fools
of commanders wanted to leave us with the illusion that
they had something to say here, but we had not taken our
positions yet, we had not elected our locations yet. We
had to occupy our claims first like gold diggers. All this
took it's time. We would not loose our land.
[Remembering an excellent lieutenant colonel who let
build a poet's cottage for Nowak]
When I was without housing on the field I was sending a
wireless greeting to my [p.142] former regiment's
commander in Bensheim-Auerbach [south of Frankfort].
Hopefully it was going better to him now. He was dismissed
from the Wehrmacht because he had contradicted a district
leader (Gauleiter). When the lieutenant colonel knew that
there was a writer in his flak regiment whose plays were
performed even on stage, then he was looking for me in my
barrack which I shared with 13 other men. Immediately he
urged the battery boss that I would receive an own room.
And when the chief declared that he had no other room for
me the commander let come a little barrack for me
personally. "Poet's cottage" was it called by my comrades.
It was almost a neutral and holy ground. One had the
feeling that even the battery chief had less to say here.
There were really high officers behaving in this way. This
must not be concealed. I also had a brigade commander who
had the time to give us personal assistance. As he had
given me six weeks of holiday - following the highest
order of the Reichsmarschall [Himmler] - for putting down
the film script for Carl Fröhlich there was the law that
one holiday only was three weeks, but he gave me just two
holidays of three weeks. Together with the regiment's
commander he was arranging the affair in a way
promoting me to be a petty officer thus I was freed from
the pressure of the lower military hierarchy. I was just
thinking of these two men now and also on this lieutenant
colonel performing a substitution inspection in Hanover
who had liberated me from any military service in 1940
[p.143] whereas he had not been allowed to do so. He just
had taken the resolution to overlook the foot note in the
law - in the name of Goebbels and other persons of about
the same kind [propaganda people].
[The new "Camp E" - with a little bit more food than
before - headlight terrorism in the night]
In the middle of Camp E also a military hospital tent had
been installed already, as also a kitchen tent and a
provision tent. These tents ere forming - as everywhere
now - a little concentration camp for themselves.
As the refugees were moving back and forth without calm
the machine gun watchtowers were staffed doubled. Standing
under these towers one could see the ammunition belts.
Negroes were leaning at the railings of the towers, they
were lazy but watching.
When night was coming the headlights began to work. The
four wired walls were lighted as bright as day. From time
to time light bunches were heading into the swinging
masses. We were staring blinded like red deer on the motor
way into the light beams and then we were suddenly
standing blind in the night again thus we did not risk one
single step.
[Remembering a bright night in 1944 apr.: allied attack
on the oil tanks in Misburg with flash bombs - the flak
cannot see the air planes any more]
Now I remembered another bright night. It was in Bemerode
[near Hanover] where is the main gate to the Hanover
exhibition site. Radio "Primadonna" had communicated that
there were strong enemy bomber groups over the town of
Kassel performing their carousel there and the latest news
was that they had turned to the north. Silently without
waiting for any order we put our steel helmets on our
heads. Kassel - course to the north - this meant oil
refinery of Misburg will be attacked [p.144]. Our battery
was on the ground, but was on the way of this bomber
group.
This time there was a new tactic coming in. The first
group of air planes was flying on a height of 9,000
meters. They were putting bright lights as if there would
be a big glass cupola. We began shooting at the lights
without sense from a distance of 5 km on. When the guns
had got their electronic data for shooting, the second
wave of air planes came in on a height of 3,000 meters.
The Marburg device was registering it.
-- Electronic East!
-- The battery chief was shouting like a fool. Because now
the turn was our one. With such a height it's possible to
hit the target. The second group of air planes was putting
little lights, but shining intensively. In a wild hurry we
are giving the new data to our commando guns. But now the
short range radar West was registering the third air plane
group on a height of 5,000 meters.
-- Electronic West!
A caos was breaking out. The night was shining brightly
but the range finder cannot see any air plane. There is
too much light between sky and earth. Also the third group
of air planes has thrown a big quantity of lamps confusing
us completely. And then there is a thunder over us
provoking our knees shivering. Hundreds of air planes are
heading in a rigid way to Misburg now. We got new
ammunition, fire shrapnel grenades. They are exploding in
all heights like little stars, all four seconds 16 peaces,
and every star is giving [p.145] a comet's tail. This is a
magic fire as not a film maker could create it. The whole
sky is in flames and is exploding and glowing. It's coming
almost to the point that we are screaming and dancing.
This is not a war any more. This is Twilight of the Gods
itself. Where is the orchestra for Wagner's music of the
doom on the stage? Here it's not possible to shoot any
more. Here one can prepare oneself only preparing to
survive the catastrophe.
The wild army is passing. It's making noise, rattling,
crashing, thundering in the air as if whole forests would
be trampled by storms. Then the darting flames are
provoked, hundreds of meters of height. Oil tanks have
been hit, have exploded, are burning like torches as high
as mountains, in black and red.
We were not hit. We were not worth one single bomb to this
bomber group.
Again one of the headlights is hitting me waking me up in
the night of Rheinberg. What do the Americans want with
this headlight terrorism, do they want to peep our beds or
what? They cannot understand that we are upright yet, we
are walking, we are upright, we are walking.
[Camp E: rain and military hospital tent - a
rumor about the gate - the new tideland and the caves]
Amidst in the night rain is beginning, first like a
cloudburst, then a little bit less, but constantly and
without mercy. It was a real steady rain which was not
only threatening softening the clothes but also the skin
below. Slowly, just slowly, but with some dozens of
locomotives [p.146] under the pressure of steam the masses
were shifting to all sides against the military hospital
tent, the only roof in Camp E. The medical doctors became
white like a bed sheet as I was told later. On the boards
of the tent the wave was jamming with waves, they were
breathing one more time. Soon they would destroy the tent.
In some seconds all doctors, paramedics and ill persons
would be trampled down, would be scrunched, would be
crushed.
But one was using this moment of horror. God alone knows
how he did it. He had a strategic idea. Suddenly there was
a rumor being transmitted from mouth to mouth "All to the
gate!"
And soon the mass could not be stopped any more. The
concentric pressure was coming down. The rings were
fastened. "To the gate! We will be transported today yet!"
Nobody wanted to be late. Nobody wanted to stay in the
camp only by negligence. But nobody knew something
precise. Everybody had heard about the secret plans of the
Americans. There was no rebellion in the camp, also no
joy, but people were ready to evade this dreadful open-air
waterfall.
But where was this gate? We had come only some hours ago
to Camp E. We had no orientation. And even when we had
known about the direction where the gate had been, how
should we find it? Water walls were enclosing our bodies,
these were impenetrable thick water walls. Were we going
or were we only remaining on the same stop in the mud?
[p.147]
The headlights were moving now, were throwing their light
beams to us. But the did not achieve to penetrate the
dense water veil. What was up in this Camp E then? What
was coming into these damned Germans? Until today it has
worked just perfectly. One could treat them worse than
Russians, worse than captives on a galley, worse than
black people, worse than Chinese servants. Those wanted to
have a handful of rice at least. But to the Germans it was
possible to give some days nothing at all. They were not
rebelling. Did they support any meanness only with
hypocrite patience? Should this be the beginning of a
rebellion of the abused?
Now tanks were coming. Infantry with machine guns was
taking it's position. How beautiful that also these guys
had to be profoundly wet one day.
White and black people were watching us angrily through
the wire fence. Was there a reunion of lemmings for a
march into death? Any moment the quick fire could begin
committing another mass murder. There was only needed just
a fool loosing his nerves. It was rare basically that this
did not happen. If the snipers did see at the end that
prisoners should be allowed to walk in the rain as they
wanted when there was no housing during a rain?
When the rain was ceasing a little bit, when I was
conceiving after some time that in such a night [p.148]
hardly could be projected any transport, I was just
throwing myself down somewhere being exhausted as never
before. I was also crying a little bit. Perhaps I was even
crying intensively. I did not have regard for myself any
more, I remained lying in the mud with a flat puddle as a
head cushion. I was almost rained into the earth. There I
was until I got a plumb gray beam into my eyes. It was
sunrise behind the rain clouds.
This [life] had not ended so. I was standing up slowly
like a very old man who seemed to be dead in the coffin
and who was protesting with his last invalid force against
this error.
When I was looking around the nice clover field had
disappeared. The whole Camp E had converted into a
tidewater where the tide had gone just before. Not one
single green leaf could be seen any more. Now we were
parting the land as if we had geometers, and then we
installing ourselves. Some ours later the first tunnels
had been driven into the earth [p.149].
^