German veterans of World War II. How German Veterans Help Russians

Publication date: 06/14/2019

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Attitude towards veterans is an indicator not only of the economic condition of the state, but also of less material things.
It is interesting to compare the position of World War II veterans in different countries.
Germany
The state provided a comfortable old age and a high level of social protection for Wehrmacht veterans.
Depending on the rank and merit, the amount of their pension varies. from 1.5 to 8 thousand euros.
For example, a junior officer's pension is 2,500 euros. About 400 euros is awarded to the widows of those who died or died in the post-war period.
Payments are guaranteed to persons of German origin who served in the Wehrmacht and "performed the statutory military service in accordance with the rule of its passage until May 9, 1945."

Interestingly, Red Army veterans living in Germany are also entitled to a pension of 400-500 euros per month, as well as to social security.
War veterans can count on free two-time hospitalization during the year, and if we are talking about prisoners of war, then the number of hospitalizations is unlimited.
The state also partially pays for former Wehrmacht soldiers to visit the places where they fought, including abroad.

Great Britain
The size of the pension for veterans of the Second World War in the UK directly depends on the military rank and severity of injuries.
Monthly payments in European currency range between 2,000 and 9,000 euros.
If there is a need, then the state pays extra for a nurse.
Moreover, right any Briton who suffered during the Second World War has a pension.
The supplement to the basic pension is also provided to the widows of veterans.

USA
American participants in World War II are honored by the US authorities Twice a year.
Fallen soldiers are remembered on Memorial Day, celebrated on the last Monday of May, and veterans are honored on November 11 on Veterans' Day.
American veterans are entitled to a $1,200 supplement on their pension, which averages $1,500..
Participants of the Second World War in the United States oversees Department of Veterans Affairs, which operates 175 hospitals, hundreds of nursing homes and thousands of community clinics.
If the illness or disability of a veteran is a consequence of military service, then the state assumes all expenses for his treatment.

Israel
WWII veterans living in Israel receive $1,500 pension.
Immigrants from the former USSR can also count on it.
Many veterans, having collected the necessary package of documents in their homeland, receive a pension not only from the Israeli Ministry of Defense, but also from the Russian budget.
Veterans are exempt from city tax payments, receive a 50% discount on medicines, and receive substantial discounts on electricity, heating, telephone, and utility bills.

Latvia
The situation of war veterans in Latvia can be called deplorable.
They do not have any benefits, unlike the "forest brothers" (nationalist movement), who receive a monthly pension supplement of $ 100 from the Ministry of Defense.
The average monthly pension in Latvia is approximately 270 euros.
The lack of attention to WWII veterans in Latvia is not surprising, since There is no official Victory Day for Latvians.
Moreover, quite recently the Latvian Seimas adopted a law prohibiting, along with Nazi and Soviet symbols.
It means that WWII veterans living in Latvia will lose the opportunity to wear military awards.

Czech
Slightly better life for Czech veterans.
The list of their benefits is rather modest: free use of public transport and telephone, and an annual voucher to a sanatorium from the Ministry of Defense.
Unlike other European countries in the Czech Republic, widows and orphans do not receive benefits.
Interestingly, until recently, Czech veterans were provided with medicines for free, but now they have to pay for them out of their own pocket.
Veterans of the Czech Republic receive a regular pension of 12,000 kroons, which roughly corresponds to the pension of Russian veterans.

France
The number of veterans of World War II in France is approximately 800 thousand people, of which 500 thousand are former military personnel, 200 thousand are members of the Resistance and 100 thousand are deported to Germany.
Also, former prisoners of war were included in the category of veterans - 1 million 800 thousand.
The pension of French veterans is higher than that of Russians - 600 euros. They receive it not from the age of 65, like ordinary citizens, but from 60.
French veterans have their own department - they deal with their problems Ministry for Ex-Servicemen and War Victims.
But the subject of special pride of France - having a long history House of the Invalids.
It is both a hall of military glory and a hospital. Veterans in need of care can count on permanent residence here. To do this, they will have to give a third of their pension, and the rest of the state will transfer them to a bank account.

The losing soldier of the Wehrmacht and the victorious fighter of the Soviet Army - on different lines ... of fate

A few years ago, no one could even imagine that these life stories, these destinies would fit side by side on one newspaper page. The defeated soldier of the Wehrmacht and the victorious fighter of the Soviet Army. They are peers. And today, if you look at it, they are united by much more than then, in the flourishing 45th ... Old age, illnesses, and also - oddly enough - the past. Albeit on opposite sides of the front. Is there anything left that they, German and Russian, dream of in their eighty-five?

Joseph Moritz. photo: Alexandra Ilyina.

80 ROSES FROM SMOLENSK

“I saw how people live in Russia, I saw your old people who were looking for food in garbage cans. I understood that our help was just one drop on a hot stone. Of course, I was asked: “Why are you helping Russia? After all, you fought against her!” And then I remembered about the captivity and about those people who handed us, former enemies, a piece of black bread ... "

“I owe the fact that I am still alive to the Russians,” says Josef Moritz, smiling and flipping through an album of photographs. Almost all of his life is collected in them, most of the cards are connected with Russia.

But first things first. And Herr Sepp, as his relatives and friends call him, begins his story.

We are sitting in Moritz's house in the city of Hagen, this is North Rhine Festphalia, there is a terrace and a garden. He and his wife Magret learn the latest news from a tablet computer donated by their daughters for the anniversary, quickly find the necessary information on the Internet.

Sepp has come to terms with the 21st century. And even, one might say, made friends with him.

“I was called to the front when I was just 17 years old. The father left much earlier. I was sent to Poland. He was taken prisoner near Kaliningrad. Before my homeland, and I was born in East Prussia, there were some 80 kilometers ... ”

The memory almost did not preserve the terrible war memories. As if the black hole swallowed everything. Or maybe he just doesn't want to go back there...

The first bright flash is the Soviet camp.

Sepp learned Russian there.

Once, water was brought to their camp on a wagon to the kitchen. Sepp approached the horse and began to speak to her in his native language. The fact is that he was from a farm and had been managing livestock since childhood.

A Soviet officer came out of the kitchen and asked his name. "I didn't understand. They brought an interpreter. And three days later they called me and took me to the stall to the horses - so I got the opportunity to ride them. If, for example, our doctor went to another camp, then I saddled my horse and we rode together. It was during these joint trips that I learned Russian. Probably, that kind commander saw a son in me, he treated me so well.

The Germans were transferred to Lithuania, from there to Brest. They worked in the quarry for a short time, then in the construction of streets. A blown-up bridge was being restored in Brest. “You know, this happened too - ordinary people came up and shared the last piece of bread. There was no malice or hatred ... We were the same beardless boys as their sons who had not come from the front. It is probably thanks to these kind people that I am still alive.”

In 1950, Sepp returned home - with one wooden suitcase and in wet clothes, got caught in the rain. At the station he was met only by a friend who had been released a few days earlier. Family, parents still had to be found. My father was also a prisoner for a long time, but with the British.

The community helped all those who returned and gave them some money. “I was offered to go to serve in the police, but I refused - in captivity we swore to each other that we would never take up arms again.”

There was nowhere to go and no one to go to.

“We were sent to a rehabilitation camp, where we were given free rations and we could sleep there. It was 50 pfennigs a day, but I didn't want to be a freeloader. A friend offered me a job with a farmer I knew, but I also refused - I didn’t want to work as a laborer, I dreamed of getting on my own feet. At the same time, I did not have a profession as such. Of course, apart from the ability to build and restore...”

When Sepp met his future wife Magrete, he was already under thirty, she was only 10 years younger - but another generation, post-war, did not survive ...

By the time he met his fiancee, Sepp Moritz could already boast of a decent income as a bricklayer. 900 West German marks were then a lot of money.

And today, the elderly Magret sits next to her old husband, corrects him, if this or that name does not immediately come to mind, suggests dates. “Without Zepp, I would have had a very hard time, I am happy that I have such a spouse!” she exclaims.

Life finally improved, the family moved to Magrete's homeland - to Hagen. Sepp worked at a power plant. Raised three daughters.

Until 1993, Josef Moritz did not speak another word in Russian.

But when their Hagen became the twin city of the Russian Smolensk, Russia again burst into the life of Herr Moritz.

Hotel “Russia”

He took a phrase book with him to Smolensk on his first visit, as he was not sure that he could even read the names of the streets. He was on his way to see his acquaintances from the work of the Society of the Commonwealth of Cities.

Why did he do this? There is just such an old, non-healing wound - it is called nostalgia.

It was she who forced then, in the 90s, still cheerful German pensioners at their leisure to first talk about: a) the general high cost of life; b) pensions, insurance, German reunification, foreign tourist trips.

And only on the third - on the most important thing, when the hops hit the head - about Russia ...

“I settled in the Rossiya Hotel. I went out into the street, looked around and came back, shoved the phrasebook far away - everything was completely different. ”

The trip in 1993 was the beginning of that colossal activity, at the origins of which stood Sepp Moritz. “Our sister city society has organized charitable transfers from Hagen to you,” he explains very formally.

Simply put, huge trucks with things, products, equipment, which were assembled by ordinary people like Sepp, were drawn to post-perestroika Smolensk.

“When we brought the first cargo of humanitarian aid, we had to urgently deal with customs clearance,” says Sepp. - It took a long time, some parameters did not match, the papers were not drawn up very correctly - we did it for the first time! But your gentlemen officers did not want to hear anything, our truck was to be confiscated and sent to Moscow. It was with great difficulty that this was avoided. When all the formalities were finally settled, we found out that most of the products brought had deteriorated and had to be thrown away.”

Leafing through the album, Sepp talks about Russian old men raking garbage heaps in the garbage heaps. About the peaceful Smolensk roads that were not gouged by tanks. About the children of Chernobyl, whom he and his wife hosted at home.

A nation of winners. Oh mein goth!

“People often ask me: why am I doing this? After all, there are certainly millionaires in Smolensk who, in principle, could also take care of these unfortunate people ... I don’t know who owes what to whom, I can only answer for myself!”

675 bags, 122 suitcases, 251 packages and 107 bags of clothes were sent to Smolensk over the years. 16 wheelchairs, 5 computers, you can list for a long time - the list is endless and also pinned to the documents: for each package delivered, Herr Sepp reports with truly German punctuality!

More than 200 people from Smolensk lived as guests in his family, in his house, someone for several weeks, someone for a couple of days. “Every time they bring us gifts, and every time we ask them not to do this.”

All the walls here are hung with photographs and paintings with views of the Smolensk region. Some of the souvenirs are especially expensive - this is a portrait of Sepp, painted by a Russian artist against the backdrop of the Assumption Cathedral in Smolensk. Right there in the living room is our coat of arms with a double-headed eagle.

Letters of thanks are collected in a separate folder, the governors of the Smolensk region and the mayors of the city succeeded each other throughout all these years, but from each of them there is a letter for Mr. Moritz. One of the messages is especially valuable, it contains 80 autographs of his Russian friends, exactly the same number of scarlet roses were sent to him from Smolensk for the previous anniversary.

In addition, the very first time - in the 44th, Josef Moritz visited Russia thirty more times.

“I was also in Russia,” his wife adds. But now Magret can no longer travel far, she walks with a rollator, a walker for the disabled, yet she is well over seventy, and in the Russian outback it will be difficult to move even with this device - Magret herself, alas, will not rise up the stairs.

And it’s impossible for Zepp alone to go on a long journey, although he is also quite strong: “I don’t want to leave my wife for a long time!”

Two monuments to Ivan Odarchenko

In the Soviet Union, everyone knew the name of this man. It was from Ivan Odarchenko that the sculptor Vuchetich sculpted the monument to the Liberator Warrior in Treptow Park. The one with the rescued girl in her arms.

Last year, 84-year-old Ivan Stepanovich had a chance to work as a model again. His bronze veteran will forever keep his little great-granddaughter on his knees on a stone bench in the Tambov Victory Park.

“Bronze, like a flame, drenched, / With a saved girl in her arms, / A soldier stood on a granite pedestal, / So that glory would be remembered for centuries,” these poems were read by heart in an ordinary Tambov school, where I also happened to study, on May 9.

Of course, we knew that Ivan Odarchenko, holder of the Order of the Patriotic War of the first degree, the Red Banner of Labor, the medal “For Courage” was our countryman.

Any of my peers of the late 80s, with their eyes closed, could easily mint out this illustrious biography. “I liberated Hungary, Austria, the Czech Republic, ended the war near Prague. After the victory, he continued to serve in the occupying forces in Berlin. In August 1947, on the Day of the Athlete, competitions of Soviet soldiers were held at the stadium in the Weissensee area. After the cross, the sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich approached the beautiful, broad-shouldered Odarchenko and said that he wanted to sculpt the main monument of the war from him.

The rescued German girl was portrayed by the daughter of the commandant of Berlin, Sveta Kotikova.

From the plaster model created by Vuchetich, a twelve-meter bronze monument was cast in the USSR, transported in parts to Berlin, and on May 8, 1949, the grand opening of the memorial took place.

The usual boyish LJ, year 2011, wolfik1712.livejournal.com.

The day was overcast. Even somehow unusual. My friends and I were going to Victory Park. We took pictures next to the fountain, cannons and other equipment. But that's not what we're talking about right now...

And about who we saw. We saw the front-line soldier Ivan Stepanovich Odarchenko, of course, this name does not mean something to everyone.

I'm the only one who recognized him. In general, we managed to take a picture with him and with his monument.

Our photos with Hero of the Soviet Union Ivan Odarchenko. By the way, a very nice person. I am grateful to all the soldiers who fought for our freedom!

Forgive the teenager that he mixed up Odarchenko's awards - he was not a Hero of the Soviet Union, he ended the war too young. But what does Ivan Stepanovich himself think about the current life?

And I called him at home.

Ivan Odarchenko.

“We are expecting a girl by September!”

“Dad just got out of the hospital, he was there as planned, alas, his eyesight is failing, his health is not getting stronger, and age is making itself felt, and now he is lying,” says Elena Ivanovna, the daughter of a veteran. - And before, it used to be that I didn’t sit still for a minute, planted a garden, laid out our brick house with my own hands, while my mother was alive, everything worked. And now, of course, the years are not the same ... To be honest, I don’t even have the strength to communicate with journalists, he will talk about his youth, as he recalls - and in the evening his heart is bad.

Unexpected fame fell on Odarchenko on the 20th anniversary of the Victory. It was then that it became known that he was the prototype of the famous Liberator Warrior.

“Since then, we have not been given peace. Seven times I went to the GDR as an honored guest, with my mother, with me, the last one was already in the delegation. I learned his story about the construction of the monument by heart, but I have been in it since childhood - I myself am already 52.

He worked as a simple foreman at the enterprise - first at Revtrud, the Revolutionary Labor plant, then at the plain bearing plant. Raised a son and a daughter. He married his granddaughter.

- I can’t complain, but unlike many veterans, our dad lives well, he has two rooms in his house, and a decent pension, about thirty thousand plus in old age, the authorities don’t forget about us. Still, he is a famous person, how many more of these are left in Russia? Ivan Stepanovich is even a member of United Russia, my daughter is proud.

And last year, they unexpectedly pulled me out of the hospital in February. It turned out that on the anniversary of the Victory, you again need to become a prototype - and again yourself, now an old veteran. Order bar on a civilian jacket. And there is no former youthful article. Wearily sat down on the bench, and does not stand with the sword of Alexander Nevsky.

Only the girl in her arms seemed to have not changed at all.

It looks very similar, I think! Elena Ivanovna is convinced. “You can’t get to Berlin now, but dad loves to walk in this park, he’s not far from us - he sits on a bench next to himself and thinks about something ...

Is there anything left to dream about? The woman was silent for a second. - Yes, to be honest, everything came true for him. Nothing to complain about. He is a happy man! Well, I probably want nothing to hurt until September, my daughter, his granddaughter, is just about to give birth - we are waiting for a girl!

Back - East

For the last two years, I have suddenly started noticing something strange. Nameless May old men, crawling out of their winter apartments just before Victory Day, rattling orders and medals on stairwells and in the subway, festive, ceremonial, they are no more. It's just time.

Rarely, rarely do you meet someone on the street ...

Age saved them from the Kursk Bulge and the Battle of Stalingrad, the boys of the 44th and 45th years of conscription, today they are the last of the remaining ...

Instead of them - "Thank you grandfather for the victory!", sweeping inscriptions on the rear windows of the car and St. George's ribbons on the antennas.

“There are so few of us that the government can probably afford to treat everyone like a human being, Putin and Medvedev regularly promise this,” says 89-year-old Yuri Ivanovich. - Beautiful words are said before the sea holiday. That's just really nothing to be proud of. All our lives we have been building communism, we were like on the front line, we were malnourished, we could not afford an extra shirt, but we sincerely believed that one day we would wake up in a bright future, that our feat was not in vain, so with this blind and unjustified faith we end our days.

Immediately after the anniversary of the Victory last year, 91-year-old Vera Konishcheva took her own life in the Omsk region. A participant in the Great Patriotic War, a disabled person of the first group, she huddled all her life in a village house without gas, light and water, until the last she hoped that, according to the president, she would be given a comfortable apartment, at least some! In the end, she could not stand the mocking promises, she died a terrible death after drinking vinegar and leaving behind a note: “I don’t want to be a burden.”

It cannot be said that German old people live much better than ours. Many people have their own problems. Some children help. Someone has small social pensions from the state, especially in the east, in the ex-GDR. But almost everyone here has their own home - while ours were building communism, the Germans were building their own housing, in which they met old age.

They say they have nothing to be proud of. That on this holiday “with tears in their eyes” they do not wear orders and medals.

On the other hand, these people do not expect anything. They completed their journey with dignity.

Many, like Josef Moritz from Hagen, managed to ask for forgiveness from the Russians, while ours often leave with resentment in their hearts.

And in local German newspapers, advertisements are increasingly being printed from funeral companies that are ready to inexpensively organize the funeral of a German veteran - to return his ashes to free Poland and the Czech Republic, to the Bug, Vistula and Oder, where his youth passed. The land is cheaper there.

Hagen — Tambov — Moscow

The other day I visited the offspring of the famous noble family of Stakhovich - Mikhail Mikhailovich. Four years ago, having lived all his life in Austria and the USA, he returned to his family nest, which his parents left during the October Revolution - the village of Palna-Mikhailovka, Stanovlyansky district of the Lipetsk region.

I will not hide, despite the conflicting feelings that some facts of his biography evoke, such as, for example, service in the ranks of the German Wehrmacht from 1939 to 1945, it is interesting for me to communicate with this old man.

Not always, however, the tongue turns to call him an old man, because at 88 years old, Mikhail Stakhovich looks great - fit, athletic and, most importantly, in his right mind and memory.

Stakhovich never ceases to amaze. During our last meeting, he stunned me by the fact that he had just returned from a road trip through Europe, having wound ten and a half thousand kilometers on the speedometer of his Renault minivan. I went by car to Austria, visited my daughter in Sweden, rested with my young wife in Croatia, and transited half of Europe. At 88 years old!

To my surprise, he said that it was very convenient for him to travel behind the wheel. “I can drive for 12 hours and never get tired,” Stakhovich says.

And I look at his Russian peers and just marvel. Comparisons are not in our favor. And very few of us live to that age. Moreover, “this age” protected our country from the Nazis, the war for the most part wiped them out.

Once I told his wife Tatyana, who is half his age, about this, and she told me one interesting detail.

When we registered the marriage in Salzburg, during our honeymoon, I got to a meeting of Mikhail's classmates, Tatiana said. - Can you imagine, all his classmates are alive. And they feel great. They danced for so long! At the same time, all the guys from his class, as well as Mikhail, served in the Nazi army. There are those who survived near Stalingrad ...

Frankly, I asked Mikhail Mikhailovich different questions. And uncomfortable for him, it seems to me, including. Somehow I reproached that it was difficult for our country to recover after what the brave soldiers of Adolf Hitler had done here. So I tried to justify the whole disorder of our country. Of course, he agrees with this, but ... He once said, as if by chance, while trying not to offend me: “Berlin was destroyed by Soviet troops almost to the ground. Dresden too. And such a fate befell 60 German cities. The Germans restored everything almost from scratch in 12 years. And then there was only development, and you know what Germany has become ... ".

Mikhail Stakhovich does not try to make excuses for his past, service in the Wehrmacht. It is not his fault that the Revolution of 1917 forced his father, a tsarist diplomat, to stay in Europe, where Mikhail Stakhovich was already born in 1921. And how could he, an 18-year-old boy, an Austrian citizen, know when he volunteered for the Nazi army what the Fuhrer had in mind and what fate he was preparing for his historical homeland. Stakhovich was driven by another interest - the volunteers had the advantage of choosing a place of service and a branch of service. If he had entered the army a little later, on conscription, it is not known how his fate would have turned. However, I will not repeat myself, about this in ...

Austrians aspired to the Third Reich with great desire

This time I asked Mikhail Mikhailovich about what I forgot to ask before: “Have you seen Hitler?”

One single time, - Stakhovich began his story. - It was in 1938, during the Anschluss of Austria by Germany. On March 13, our entire class was brought from Salzburg to Vienna, where the Reich Chancellor was to come. I remember we were led to some kind of bridge under which he had to pass. The people gathered on the streets of Vienna - darkness. All with flowers, flags with a swastika. And at some point, a real hysteria began, an enthusiastic cry filled my ears - a car appeared on which Hitler stood to his full height and waved his hand to the crowns that met him. I saw him...

It was the famous, triumphal entry of Adolf Hitler into Vienna, accompanied by the chief of the Supreme High Command of the German Armed Forces, Wilhelm Keitel. On the same day, the law "On the reunification of Austria with the German Empire" was published, according to which Austria was declared "one of the lands of the German Empire" and became known as "Ostmark".

It must be said that the absolute majority of Austrians, and this is confirmed by the witness of those events, Mikhail Stakhovich, accepted the Anschluss with approval. As Stakhovich said, and this is confirmed by history, during the so-called plebiscite on the Anschluss, which took place after the fact, on April 12, 1938, the overwhelming majority of Austrian citizens supported him (official data - 99.75%).

But there were those who opposed the Anschluss and Hitler. There were very few of them, and after the reunification their fate was unenviable. The concentration camp was waiting for them.

The plebiscite was not secret, the Austrians voted by name, and the opponents, as they say, everyone knew by sight. Real repressions began against such people. Two Austrians, persecuted for their convictions, hid in the attic of the Stakhovich house. Mikhail Mikhailovich himself learned about this from his mother only many years later.

Of course, if the police knew about it, the fate of my family could have changed dramatically,” he says now. - I think that we, the Russians, who sheltered the opponents of the annexation of Austria to Germany, would hardly have been able to avoid reprisals.

But, the vast majority of Austrians really wanted to reunite with Germany, - recalls Mikhail Stakhovich. - The Austrians then lived very poorly, there was a terrible unemployment. And nearby was Germany, which had already grown rich, where there was no unemployment and the Germans lived very decently. Austria simply longed for reunification with Germany. It really was.

How can one not believe the old man Stakhovich? These are well known facts. The Germans, the losers of the First World War, whose national pride was trampled under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and subsequent events, with the advent of Hitler greatly perked up and under him Germany gained unprecedented economic power.

Admittedly, the evil genius of Adolf Aloizovich Shiklgruber did the impossible.
That is why Germany idolized him so much, and the people followed him on all his adventures. The average German did not need to know that the entire economic power of the country rose mainly on loans from American and British banks. And in order to pay off the bills, and at the same time try to win world domination, Hitler plunged the world into the most terrible meat grinder in the history of mankind.

It seemed to me that in the four years of my acquaintance with Stakhovich, I already know the biography of this living witness of the terrible events of the bygone 20th century quite well. It was stupid to think so. Nobody knows his life better than himself. And apparently there is still a lot of unknown in it. During my recent visit to Stanovoe, Mikhail Mikhailovich again showed his photo archive. Some of the photos I have already seen, and there was an opportunity to retake them. This time, among a pile of photos, one card flashed, which seemed very interesting to me and promised new pages in the history of the life of Mikhail Stakhovich. On it, Mikhail Mikhailovich stands next to American soldiers. He himself, noticing my interest in this photo, explained: “This is me after the war, in the USA, at an American military base. There I taught the Americans lessons in radio communications and encryption ... ".

Damn it! It looks like another "series" of the story is brewing. We'll have to "torture" him about the soldiers of the Nazi army, who ended up in the hands of the Americans after the war, and, apparently, brought considerable benefits to their military.

My name is Artem. More than a year has passed since that day, May 16, 2012, but everything didn’t get around to write. Finally, the vacation, the sea and the wind blowing at a speed of 13-16 m / s, exhausting all the forces for 2-3 hours in the water, left a lot of time to write this story.

I'll tell you about a day in Germany, passed along the route Kassel - Leutzendorf - Olnitz - some kind of gas station near Stuttgart.

I am in the business of interviewing veterans and have long wanted to interview our opponents. It is curious to look at the events of that time from the side of the Germans, to find out the realities of the life of German soldiers, their attitude to the war, to Russia, to frost and mud, to victories and defeats. In many ways, this interest was fueled by the experience of interviews with our veterans, in which a different story was revealed than the one that was emasculated and put on paper.

Sliding text and 28 photos

However, I had absolutely no idea how to approach it. For several years I have been looking for partners in Germany. From time to time, Russian-speaking Germans appeared, who seemed to be interested in this topic, but time passed and it turned out that things did not go beyond declarations. And in 2012, I decided that it was time to get down to business myself, since there was no time to wait. Starting this project, I understood that it would not be easy to implement it, and the first, most obvious, problem was the search for informants. A list of veteran organizations was found on the Internet, probably compiled in the 70s. They started calling and it turned out that, firstly, all these organizations are one person, a coordinator, from whom one could sometimes find out about his fellow soldiers, but basically the answer was simple: “everyone died.” In almost a year of work, about 300 phones of such veteran coordinators were called, of which 96% turned out to be wrong, 3% died and half a percent were those who either refused to be interviewed for various reasons or agreed.
So on this day we are going to two who agreed. The first of them living in the city of Loznits is some 340 kilometers away, the second one is 15 kilometers from it, then I still need to get to Stuttgart, because the next morning I have a plane to Moscow. Total about 800 kilometers. Fine.

Climb. Morning exercise.

It is necessary to transfer the recording and pictures from the previous interview. In the evening there was no more strength. For the sake of the interview, I drove 800 kilometers. And what did you get? A senile, whose older brother died, and who tells his stories, spiced with what they gleaned from books. I define it in a folder called "Hans-racer" and will not return to it anymore.

Why do you have to travel so much? Because informal veteran associations in Germany (meaning its Western part, since they were generally banned in the Eastern part) have practically ceased to exist since 2010. This is primarily due to the fact that they were created as a private initiative. No material or other assistance was provided through veteran organizations, and membership in them did not give any advantages, unlike similar associations in the former USSR and Russia. In addition, there were practically no associations of veteran organizations, with the exception of the veteran organization of mountain rifle units and the organization of the Knights Cross. Accordingly, with the departure of the bulk of the veterans, and the infirmity of those who remained, the ties were broken, the organizations were closed. The absence of such associations as a "city" or "regional" council led to the fact that after interviewing an informant in Munich for the next interview, one could travel 400 kilometers to Dresden, then to return back to Munich, because the informant in Dresden gave the telephone number of his Munich acquaintance . Thus, during the few weeks that I spent in Germany, I drove about 20,000 kilometers by car.

Good morning Nastya! Nastya is primarily an assistant and, most importantly, a translator, since I myself speak German, except for “Spreichen zi Deutsch?” and "Nicht shissen!" I can't say anything. I was fabulously lucky with her, because in addition to the fact that the level of her language is such that the Germans were interested in where she learned Russian, it was also easy to be in the car with her for many hours for several days in a row. But we have been on the road for a week, yesterday's haul and the senile did their job - it's just hard to force yourself to go somewhere at 6 in the morning.
Frost on the roof of the car - frost.

And here is our car. Diesel Citroen. Dull, but economical.

Nastya turns on Shoma - without a navigator we are nowhere.

Sleepy Kassel

Shell gas station. Why the hell did I pick the most expensive one?

Interview at 10.00. In principle, they should arrive at 9.32, but it’s good to have half an hour left - it’s not customary to be late here at all.

Bears are our everything. I can't drive without them - I get sick. The pack is over, you have to go to the gas station, buy a new one.

Morning landscape.

By 10 o'clock, leaving behind 340 km, we are in place. Houses in the village.

So the first grandfather. Getting Acquainted
Heinz Bartl. Born in 1928 from Sudeten Germans. Peasant son.

“In October 1938, the Sudetenland was incorporated into the German Empire. I must say that our area was purely German. Czechs were only the head of the railway station, post office and bank (Shparkassy). At that moment I was only 10 years old, but I remember conversations that the Czechs were firing Germans from factories, squeezing them out.

What has changed in the school curriculum after the accession of the Czech Republic to Germany?

Absolutely nothing. The Hitler Youth organization had just appeared.
From the age of eight, the boys went to "pimphas", and from the age of 14 they were accepted into the Hitler Youth. We had meetings in the afternoon, we went hiking, we played sports. But I did not have time for all this - I needed to help at home with the housework, since in 1940 my father was drafted into the army. He fought in Russia and Italy, was taken prisoner by the British."

Father in the barn

He is on vacation with his wife and son. Wehrmacht soldiers were entitled to a three-week vacation once a year.

“I stayed at home, my mother and my grandparents. Nevertheless, at the age of 14 I joined the motorized Hitler Youth. We had a small motorcycle, with a 95 cubic centimeter engine. Here we rode it. During school holidays we went to the camp for a few days. The atmosphere was great. In addition, we played shooting sports. I liked to shoot."

Heinz with his school friend In the uniform of the Hitler Youth

I must say that we practically did not notice the war in Okenau. Very many villagers provided food for themselves, and did not depend on the rationing system introduced in 40-41. Although we had to give about half of the crop for the needs of the state, but the rest was enough to feed ourselves, hired workers and sell on the market. Only the sad news that either one or the other soldier again died for his homeland "by the death of a hero" on the battlefield in Russia, Africa or France came to our village.
On February 20, 1945, we became soldiers of the Wehrmacht. A couple of days later, a full-fledged drill began for us. We were given a uniform and carbines 98k.
On April 18, 1945, the company went to the Eastern Front. During a stop at Lobau on April 20th (Hitler's birthday), everyone received a pot lid full of rum as a gift. The next day the march continued towards Goerlitz. But this city was already occupied by the Red Army, so we took up positions in the forest in the direction of Herrnhut. On this segment, the front stood still for two days.
At night, I stood guard and demanded that the approaching person give the password or I would shoot. This man said in German: "Kamerad, don't shoot." He stepped closer and asked, "You don't know me?" In the semi-darkness, I saw wide red stripes on the trousers and answered: "No, Mr. General!" He asked, "How old are you?" I replied: "16, Mr. General." He cursed: "What a pig!" and left. That same night, our unit was withdrawn from the front. As it turned out later, it was Field Marshal Schörner, commander of the Eastern Front. We returned to Dresden - it was destroyed to the ground. It was terrible... Terrible. There was only scrap metal, only destroyed houses.
At the end of April, the company commander ordered us to throw away our weapons and try to get captured by the Americans, because the war ended anyway. We ran away. We went through Chemnitz and the Ore Mountains home to Czechoslovakia. But on May 8, the Russians were already there. On May 11, a patrol stopped us, the officer said that wojna kaput (hereinafter, the words spoken in Russian are indicated in Latin) and sent us under guard to the assembly point. So I became a woennoplenyi. For the first two days we didn't get any food and we weren't even allowed to drink. Only on the third day I received my first cracker and water. Otherwise, I personally was treated well - they didn't beat me or interrogate me. At the Sagarn camp, we had our hair shaved off, which was very sad. From there we were taken to Poland. We were located at a large airfield. Soon we were loaded into wagons and taken to the east. We drove for a week. 40 people in the car. There was a hole in the floor as a toilet. We fed, giving out a can of soup - we each had spoons. We were scared - we thought that we were all being taken to Siberia. We did not know anything about Russia, except that there is Siberia there, where it is very cold. The train stopped in Vladimir, the sun rose and the golden domes shone. Then we said, it would be nice if we stayed here and did not go to Siberia.

“In Vladimir, in the city camp, they gathered everyone who was released. We were given new white cloth boots, although there was still knee-deep snow in Vladimir, and new padded jackets. We also received money. In the camp, we had to earn, in my opinion, 340 rubles a month, and if we earned more, then this money was credited to the account. When we were released, they paid us. It was impossible to take rubles with you. A shop came to the camp, some prisoners with money bought watches and suits for themselves, and I stuffed my wooden suitcase with Kazbek cigarettes for my grandfather. At the end of March 1949, we were loaded onto a train. For almost eight days we traveled by train from Vladimir to Germany. On April 1st, 1949, I was at home with my family in Gross Rosenburg.”

View from the window of his house

We left about one o'clock in the afternoon. The next interview was still four hours away. Slightly napped in the car. We ate at a Chinese restaurant on the way, I even took pictures, but I could not find any photos, except for a few with clouds.

Let's go to Oelnitz. They abandoned the car and went to look for August Bebel Street 74. They found the street - there is no such house - after 20 the numbering ends. We call grandfather. We ask where his house is, he begins to explain. Everything seems to fit, but not at home. We can't understand anything. Then the grandfather asks: “And in which Olnitsa are you?” Oops! It turned out that there are Oelsniz\Erzgebirge and Oelsnitz\Vogtland in the area. We are in the first, and he is in the second. There are 70 kilometers between them. We say that we will be in an hour, and he graciously agrees to receive us. We jump into the car and in 40 minutes we are there.

Silesian Erich Burkhardt. 1919 year of birth. Truck driver in the 6th Army.

The beginning of the war is remembered thus:

“In Ukraine, the civilian population greeted us with flowers. One Sunday before lunch we arrived at the square in front of the church in a small town. Women in smart clothes came there, brought flowers and strawberries. I read that if Hitler, that idiot, would give the Ukrainians food and weapons, we could go home. The Ukrainians themselves would have fought against the Russians. Later it became different, but in Ukraine in 1941 it was as I said. About what they did with the Jews, what the police services, the SS, the Gestapo did, the infantry did not know.

I must say that this position “I don’t know anything, I didn’t see anything” came across to me in all the 60+ interviews I conducted. It seems that all those arts that the Germans created both at home and in the occupied territories were made by aliens in human form. Sometimes it came to insanity - a soldier, awarded the Iron Cross 1st degree and a badge for close combat, declares that he did not kill anyone, well, maybe he only wounded. This is largely due to the attitude of society towards them. In Germany, veterans are almost officially considered criminals and murderers. It's not easy for them to live there. It's as if the official position of our society was a joke about the fact that if we lost, we would drink Bavarian.

Until November 19, 1942, he was a truck driver. Then the gasoline ran out, the cars were abandoned, and he became the messenger of the battalion commander. He delivered messages to the companies and to the headquarters of the regiment.

“When you went forward in the summer of 1942, did you think that you would win now?

Yes Yes! Everyone was convinced that we would win the war, it was obvious, it could not have been otherwise!

When did this victorious mood begin to change, when did it become clear that this would not be the case?

Here, in Stalingrad, it was before Christmas 1942. November 19 - 20 we were surrounded, the boiler was closed. For the first two days, we laughed at this: “The Russians surrounded us, ha ha!” But it quickly became clear to us that it was very serious. Until Christmas, we kept hoping that the southern army, General Goth, would pull us out of the pocket, but then we learned that they themselves were forced to retreat. On January 8, a Russian aircraft dropped leaflets calling on the generals, officers and soldiers of the 6th Army to surrender, as the situation was hopeless. It was written there that in captivity we would receive good treatment, accommodation and food. We didn't believe it. It was also written there that if this proposal was not accepted, then on January 10, a battle of annihilation would begin. I must say that at the beginning of January the fighting died down and we were only occasionally fired from cannons.

And what did Paulus do? He replied that he remained true to the Führer's order and would fight to the last bullet. We froze and died from wounds, the infirmaries were overcrowded, there were no bandages. When someone died, no one, sadly, did not even turn in his direction to somehow help him. Those were the last, saddest days. No one paid any attention to either the wounded or the dead. I saw how our two trucks were driving, the comrades hitched on them and drove behind the trucks on their knees. One comrade fell off, and the next truck crushed him, because he could not slow down in the snow. It was not something amazing for us then - death became commonplace. What happened in the cauldron for the last ten days, with the last who remained there, is impossible to describe. We took grain in the elevator. In our division, at least there were horses that we let in for meat. There was no water, we melted the snow. There were no spices. We ate fresh boiled horsemeat with sand, because the snow was dirty from the explosions. When the meat was eaten, a layer of sand remained at the bottom of the pot. This is still nothing, and the motorized units could not cut anything edible from the tanks. They were terribly hungry, because they only had what was officially distributed to them, and this was very little. Airplanes brought bread, and when the airfields Pitomnik and Gumrak were liquidated, occupied by Russians, then we received only what we dropped from aircraft. At the same time, two out of three of these bombs landed at the Russians, who were very happy with our food.

At what point did discipline fall in the Stalingrad cauldron?

She did not fall, we were soldiers to the end.

On January 21st, we were removed from our position and sent to the city center. We were 30 people commanded by a senior sergeant major. I don't know how I slept the last few days, I don't remember if I slept at all. From the moment we were moved from our position to the city center, I don't know anything else. There was nothing to eat there, there was no kitchen, there was nowhere to sleep, a sea of ​​lice, I don’t know how I was there ... South of Red Square, there were such long ditches, we built a fire in them and stood and warmed ourselves near it, but it was a drop on hot stones - it did not help us at all to escape from the cold. I spent the last night of January 30-31 on Red Square in the ruins of the city. I was on guard duty, when it got light, at six or seven in the morning, one comrade came in and said: "Drop your weapons and come out, we surrender to the Russians." We went outside, there were three or four Russians standing there, we dropped our carbines and unfastened our ammo bags. We didn't try to resist. So we were captured. The Russians in Red Square gathered 400 or 500 prisoners.
The first thing the Russian soldiers asked was "Uri est"? Uri est"?" (Uhr - watch) I had a pocket watch, and a Russian soldier gave me a loaf of German soldier's black bread for it. A whole loaf that I haven't seen in weeks! And I told him, with my youthful frivolity, that watches cost more. Then he jumped into a German truck, jumped out, and gave me another piece of lard. Then we were lined up, a Mongol soldier came up to me and took away my bread and lard. We were warned that anyone who failed would be shot immediately. And then, ten meters away from me, I saw that Russian soldier who gave me bread and lard. I got out of line and rushed to him. The convoy shouted: "nazad, nazad" and I had to return to duty. This Russian came up to me, and I explained to him that this Mongolian thief had taken my bread and lard. He went to this Mongol, took bread and bacon from him, gave him a slap, and brought the food back to me. Is this not a meeting with the Man?! On the march to Beketovka, we shared this bread and bacon with our comrades.

How did you perceive the captivity: as a defeat or as a relief, as the end of the war?

Look, I have never seen anyone surrender voluntarily, run across. Everyone feared captivity more than dying in a cauldron. On the Don, we had to leave the chief lieutenant of the commander of the 13th company, wounded in the thigh. He could not move and went to the Russians. After a couple of hours, we counterattacked, and recaptured his corpse from the Russians. He accepted a cruel death. What the Russians did to him was appalling. I knew him personally, so it made a particularly strong impression on me. Captivity terrified us. And, as it turned out later, rightly so. The first six months of captivity were hell, which was worse than in the cauldron. Many of the 100,000 prisoners of Stalingrad died then. On January 31st, the first day of captivity, we marched from southern Stalingrad to Beketovka. About 30 thousand prisoners were gathered there. There we were loaded into freight wagons, one hundred people per wagon. There were bunks on the right side of the car, for 50 people, in the center of the car there was a hole instead of a toilet, on the left there were also bunks. We were taken for 23 days, from February 9th to April 2nd. Six of us got out of the car. The rest died. Some carriages have died out completely, in some there are ten or twenty people left. What was the cause of death? We didn't starve - we didn't have water. All died of thirst. It was the planned extermination of German prisoners of war. The head of our transport was a Jew, what was expected of him? It was the worst thing I've ever experienced in my life. We stopped every few days. The doors of the car would open, and those who were still alive had to throw the corpses out. Usually there were 10-15 dead. When I threw the last dead man out of the car, he had already decomposed, his arm was torn off. What helped me survive? Ask me something easier. I do not know that…

Once in Orsk we were taken in a banja, in an open truck in 30-degree frost. I had old shoes, and handkerchiefs were wrapped around instead of socks. Three Russian mothers were sitting by the bathhouse, one of them walked past me and dropped something. They were German soldier's socks, washed and darned. Do you understand what she did for me? It was the second, after the soldier who gave me bread and bacon, meeting with the Man.

In 1945, for health reasons, I was in the third working group and worked in the kitchen as a bread cutter. And then the order came for the third working group to pass the medical commission. I passed the commission, and I was assigned to transport. No one knew what kind of transport it was and where it was going, they thought it was to some new camp. My head of the kitchen, a German, also a "Stalingrader", said that he would not let me go anywhere, went to the medical commission, and began to insist that they leave me. A Russian doctor, a woman, yelled at him, told him: "Get out of here," and I left in this transport. Then it turned out that this was a transport home. If I had not left then, then in the kitchen I would have fed myself, and would have remained in captivity for several more years. This was my third meeting with the Man. I will never forget these three human meetings, even if I live another hundred years.

Is war the most important event in your life?

Yes, it doesn't happen every day. When I was called, I was not yet 20 years old. When I returned home, I was 27 years old. I weighed 44 kilograms - I had dystrophy. I was a sick and emaciated person, I could not pump up the wheel of a bicycle, I was so weak! Where is my youth?! The best years of my life, from 18 to 27 years old?! There are no just wars! Every war is a crime! Each!"

He came out to see us off

And we went to Stuttgart. I usually don’t fall asleep at the wheel, but just pass out - it starts to seem to me that the road goes to the left, that there are houses on the right side of the road, from which other glitches need to be turned away. The speed drops from the usual 150 to 120, or even 100 kilometers per hour. At some point, I realized that everything - I need to stop and sleep, at least an hour otherwise I won’t get there. We went to the gas station

And in the sump I passed out.

The project is by and large completed, one book is out, the second will be out next year. The interviews will be gradually published on the site (these two are published). Several German memoirs will be translated into Russian. Summing up what can be said. It was also unexpected that in Germany, unlike the countries of the former USSR, there is practically no difference between written and oral speech, which is expressed in the line: "some words for kitchens, others for the streets." There were also practically no combat episodes in the interview. In Germany, it is not customary to be interested in the history of the Wehrmacht and the SS in isolation from the crimes they committed, concentration camps or captivity. Almost everything that we know about the German army, we know thanks to the popularization activities of the Anglo-Saxons. It is no coincidence that Hitler considered them close to "race and tradition" people. The war unleashed by the criminal leadership robbed these people of the best time of their lives - youth. Moreover, according to its results, it turned out that they fought not for those, but their ideals were false. The rest, most of their lives, they had to justify themselves to themselves, the winners and their own state, for their participation in this war. All this, of course, was expressed in the creation of their own version of events and their role in them, which a reasonable reader will take into account, but will not judge.