D DAY Through German Eyes 2

by Holger Eckhertz

But why were you angry? Because of the senseless waste of all this. All these planes, these ships, were crewed by men who were the same as us, from the same civilization and race as us, and yet they were launching this attack against our Europe, while all the time the Soviets were massing their armies against Europe in the East. It was such a waste, so unnecessary.

Let’s remember that Bayer, which I think is probably still the largest German pharmaceutical company, they invented their two wonder drugs in the 1930s, Aspirin and Heroin. They were intended to go hand in hand, if you remember back then (Aspirin = Hope, Heroin = Heroism.) You could get Heroin very easily from a pharmacist, just like Aspirin.

My view during the war was that we were engaged in a conflict which was ideological in origin, the conflict between our German National Socialism, which had finally unified Europe after all its centuries of conflict, and the vested interests of International Socialism, represented by the Bolsheviks.

You saw your role as protecting Germany? Our training had impressed this on us. The idea was that the Western Allies were in the pay of the Bolsheviks in the East, who were orchestrating world events against us. I remember that phrase clearly from some of the officers: ‘They are orchestrating world events.’ To us, this meant that the Reds were closing in on Germany in the East, and their partners the Americans and the English were trying to crush us in a pincer from the West, by attacking through France. This is another phrase I recall: ‘We are in a clamp, and Germany is caught between the Anglo-Americans and the Slavic races.’ We had no great understanding of politics, my fellow Landsers (foot soldiers) and myself, but we understood the idea of the clamp closing on us. We all believed that we were in France to stop the American-English clamp from crushing our homeland from the West.

We ate our midday ration watching these planes. You ate at such a time? It’s better to eat something before a battle. We had our rations there, so we ate them. Because this was France, our army food was supplemented with very good sausage and cheese, and our officer allowed us to drink some schnapps. It may sound strange, but I actually have a good memory of that meal, because we were all there together, relying on each other and encouraging each other, and knowing that the day could only get more difficult for us. We knew that many of us would probably be among the fallen by sunset, but there was nothing we could do to avoid this destiny. It was better to accept it.

The main reason was that we were a protection force, a kind of guard, against all the bad things in the world which might harm the French. These bad things were Communism, secret societies such as Freemasons, and of course the Americans and the English who wanted to occupy France and use up all its resources for their own people. The French were very aware of how lucky they were to have such a fertile country, so rich in farming and industry, and they were very defensive about foreigners taking their produce. The French government played on this fear a lot, I remember.

The British are the most calculating and cynical people on earth, that is my view. I make no apologies for stating it. I would rather deal with Americans, at least they are basically honest.

When the shelling paused, a few of our men jumped out through the firing slits and raised their hands in surrender, shouting that they did not want to fight any more. These men were blown up with a high explosive shell; I don’t know whether this was a deliberate shot to kill men as they surrendered, or just bad luck. But the rest of us then resolved not to surrender, as we saw the bodies of those men lying literally in front of us, with smoke coming from their skin.

The films changed many things. The films? What films are these? I mean, the newsreel films of the camps, the concentration camps. You have seen these films, just as we all have. I remember when the films arrived, we were brought into the mess hall one morning, this was in May 1945, just after the war ended, and we had to watch the film. I think it was called ‘This was your Germany’ or ‘This was Germany.’ It was specifically made to be shown to German people. They were showing it all over Germany, in every town and village. It went on for about thirty minutes, all the things from Dachau and Belsen and those camps. When the film ended, the American guards refused to speak to us, or even to look at us. Even the guards who had been friendly and helpful, they refused to look at us. They just shouted commands and locked us in the camp with the food. There was some kind of regulation that said we had to be given food, and they could not break this regulation, apparently. What emotion did you experience on seeing the films of the concentration camps? Some of us said that it was a hoax. Most of us knew, I think, deep down, that it was true, and that this was what the regime of the Third Reich was capable of doing. One man, who had also been in Normandy, said to me, ‘Is that why we fought, then?’ That was the question. Was that why we fought all those years? Because we were soldiers being ordered to do our duty, and our duty was for nothing if it was to defend all of that in...

We have to be honest today and say that the function of the coastal defences, I mean the emplacements on the shoreline itself, on the sea wall, was only to slow down an attack and give time for the alert to be sounded and a counterattack to be implemented. Of course, the infantry men inside those sea wall emplacements didn’t know this! On the contrary, they were told repeatedly that their mission was to drive the enemy back into the sea, to prevent them moving off the beaches, that not one enemy boot must step past the shore line, and so on. But this was purely to motivate them. We could hardly tell those boys on the sand, ‘You’re only there to slow the Allies down.’

I was wrong about everything. I know today, ten years later, that everything I believed during the war was a mistake. I understand today that we Germans were not in France to protect the people, we were there only to exploit and persecute them. We should never have been in France, or Russia, Italy, any of those places. The things that we did were appalling . . . everything was wrong. Why would those Americans hate us so much? Why would they cut our throats and break our necks like animals, in the road, without a word? Well, because they knew the truth of what we were doing, that is why.

I would like to add that we in the Wehrmacht were only ordinary men, just as those Americans with their knives were ordinary men. We were not great thinkers, none of us were great psychologists or political experts. We were simple, ordinary men. And yet the other people hated us so much.