(From the book “Arch of Fire” Copyright 1995.)
Nazi radio stations did not broadcast reliable information. When German armies were thrown back, somewhere deep inside of Russia, the newscaster would say that the front lines had been “straightened.” When hundreds lost their homes during an Allied air attack on Kiel or an attack on other cities, the Nazi radio announcer claimed that the air raid had been “without any success.” Any information that listeners might have interpreted as unfavorable was avoided. Nazi propaganda prevailed. But if the Nazi ministry of propaganda under the direction of Josef Goebbels viewed some event as “positive” for the Nazi regime, we got to hear about it over and over again.
Quite in contrast, news broadcasts in the German language by BBC, the British Broadcasting Corporation, tended to be very reliable. My parents were intent on knowing how the war was going. When would the Nazis be beaten? How much longer would it
take? Would we, all of us, survive long enough to witness the end of the Nazi regime?
BBC news provided potential clues. I still remember the signal that would precede news on the British radio: four tympani beats, somewhat similar to the first four notes of Beethoven’s fifth symphony. Then the same words, three times in a row: “This is England, this is England, this is England. You are listening to the news.”
My father had attached a long antenna wire to a tall birch tree about 30 yards from the house. The wire led toward the house and through the window frame into our large Blaupunkt radio. Whenever a storm would move the tree enough to snap the antenna wire, my father quickly repaired it. Contact with the world outside was important. Without that antenna, short wave reception was very poor and the BBC station was inaudible.
The Nazi government had made it very clear that listening to foreign radio stations was illegal and would be severely punished. My father said, “If they catch us, we will suddenly
be less tall, exactly by the size of one head.” It was gallows humor. He was talking about the guillotine, the old capital punishment system of the French Revolution. The Nazis had
reintroduced it. They were using it extensively to “reward” all those German citizens who carelessly said something that could have been interpreted as critical of Nazi activities. The
same treatment awaited anyone who engaged in even a minor action that was forbidden by Nazi rules. In other words, we had to be very, very careful. But there was a way to be adequately careful and still listen to the British newscasts. My parents would place a heavy blanket over both their heads and the radio. The blanket would muffle the sound. It was necessary. We never knew who might hear.
Once, the Nazis had even placed a listening device inside the wall of our house. The microphone had been inserted from the outside. During the 1940s, such devices were still relatively crude and large. My father noticed that the wallpaper was bulging. He carefully removed a bit of the paper, cut a lead wire and replaced the wallpaper. From time to time he would check that the device had not been replaced by a new one. However, we never knew whether there might be another device someplace in our house.
We never knew whether someone might be listening outside of the window or whether somebody might walk in at the wrong time.The blanket that covered my parents and the radio was needed to make sure that nobody would hear. They would turn the wavelength selection knob on the Blaupunkt radio to shortwave and the BBC station. Despite the blanket, the volume would be kept as low as
possible. At that same time, I would go outside to “play.” Sometimes I would take my soccer ball and bounce it up and down, walking in continuous circles around the house. I was not
actually playing with the ball; I was watching everything that was happening. If some other person would walk toward our house, I quickly went inside and tapped my parents on their blanket covered shoulders. They, in turn, would switch the radio back to the Nazi AM station, would fold up the blanket and would act as though they had just listened to a “legitimate” broadcast. Fortunately, one of the Nazi stations was located at just about the same dial position on AM where BBC was located on short wave. Most of the time, a flip of the wavelength switch was enough.
I played this “game” with my ball many times or I invented other reasons to keep circling the house. Generally no one came, and my parents would hear the entire broadcast. Occasionally, I had to interrupt them. But one evening, things got a bit problematic.
As usual, I was bouncing the ball, walking slowly around the house. As I turned one of the corners, our neighbor, a local farmer, saw me. The wheat had been harvested on his fields.
Now he was shoveling grain from a wooden, horse-drawn wagon into large 100 pound sacks. Yesterday, the threshing machine had been at the farm. It was time to fill the sacks with wheat. Tomorrow the harvest would be taken to the nearby mill.
“Come here!” he called me. “You can help a little.” On that evening he did not have anyone to hold the sacks for him. Most of his workers had been drafted to fight in the German armies. His son, an officer in the air force, had just been killed in action. The Russian POWs assigned to his farm were busy elsewhere.
Generally I was glad to help the farmer. He was a fairly nice man, a bit authoritarian perhaps. Most of the time, I learned something new whenever he talked with me. But today it would be different. I could hardly help him and protect my parents at the same time. I thought of an excuse. “I am supposed to come inside – in just a few seconds!” But he was not to be dissuaded. “A few seconds is not now! Just come over here and help.” I had no choice.
“Here, hold this sack. No, not like that! I can’t put anything into it if you hold it like that.”
He showed me how to hold the sack, not end to end, but stretching out only part of the opening. That way the rest of the material at the opening would drop downward, providing space for his shovel and the wheat. “That’s it!” He smiled at me when I followed his instructions.
The first sack was quickly filled. Then a second. And a third. As he placed the third sack to the side, I noticed an older boy, dressed in a Hitler Youth uniform. He was leaving the neighbor’s house and walking toward ours. He carried a small container, the kind that was used to collect coins and bills for a variety of purposes. Possibly “Winter-aid-funds” or some other officially sanctioned cause. We never believed that the money would be used
for beneficial causes. Probably they were just adding money to the war effort. Young people in Nazi uniform kept coming to collect money with increasing frequency.
The Hitler Youth was getting closer to our house. I had to go and warn my parents! Our front door, as always, would not be locked. The kid might ring the door bell and wait. But he could just as well walk in and catch them! I had to go and warn them!
“I have to go now!”
But the farmer did not want me to leave. “Your parents won’t mind,” he insisted, “I will tell them why you stayed here. And when they really want you to come inside, they will come looking for you. Just hold that sack open!” That one was now about two-thirds full.
I held on. He filled it and put it aside. The youth was closer. The farmer took another sack.
“Hold this one! And look at what you are doing. You are not holding it right!” His authoritarian nature began to limit his tendency to be friendly with children. Shovel after shovel of grain. As that sack was a bit more than half full, the Hitler Youth was heading directly for our front door. He was no more than fifty feet away. I dropped the sack. The wheat poured onto the dirt. I raced toward the house, slammed the door behind me and tapped on my parents’ shoulders. The doorbell rang. The blanket flew aside. The switch on the radio jumped to AM. Nazi news was coming from the speaker.
My parents went to the front door. I stayed. I was shaking. The brown-shirted Youth and the farmer were both at our front door. The Youth wanted money. The farmer was furious.
“Siegfried is usually very nice and helpful,” the farmer complained. “But this time he poured a whole sack of grain onto the ground. It was pure and simple nastiness! He did not want
to help me and decided to get back at me for asking him to stay! He must be punished for that kind of stupid behavior! Such things should not happen! And at a time when people are starving all over this country! Wheat is so scarce!”
I was afraid. What would happen now? But I had no choice! After all, I had to warn my parents!
I felt a little better when my father’s voice remained calm. “We will take care of it. Siegfried will be treated appropriately. And I am very sorry about the spilled grain. Can I help you to pick it up?”
“No!” The farmer shook his head vehemently. “That wheat is wasted. The chickens will eat it.” He walked away. My parents gave a few pennies to the Hitler Youth, about as little as they could get away with. Then I heard their steps coming toward the room. I was sitting on the sofa, pressed into a corner. What would happen now? I must have looked rather pale as they walked in. My mother was first through the door and put her arms around me. And my father came and stroked my hair: “Thank you!” He smiled at me. “You did that well!”
Not long after that search of our house, an attempt at Hiter’s life had failed and the Nazi government decided to arrest and incarcerate any former national legislator whom they considered to be dangerous. Several among the stories in my book Arch of Fire speak about that time, about my father’s arrest and a letter from the commander of the concentration camp claiming that my father had “died of pneumonia” four months earlier. Half a year later the Nazis lost their war and Allied Forces occupied Germany. When, at that time, we spoke to others who had been opponents of the Nazi regime, some expressed the opinion that my father might not have been killed in the camp. But where would he have ended up? My mother wanted to find out. The next story speaks about an attempt to speak to others who had been kept in concentration camps. If you wish to read that story, please click on “next page.” If you want to select which item on the site you want to see next, please click on “Go to Glossary.”
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