Gas chamber - Majdanek, Poland

Hans is fascinated at the ferocious survival will of the trapped inmates. Most fight to the death for their very existence. The strongest claw their way to the top of the pile and the weakest end up underneath. The infants and the elderely lie crushed with their skulls smashed and some of their stomachs burst open, under the weight of the heavier corpses on the top. Some of the captives had just arrived in the camp and were still healthy and well fed. The largest group is stacked up against the door of the chamber like they are trying to escape from their entombment.
Some attack each other and others tear their hair out by the roots. The frenzied scrachers and scrapers rip their nails against anything around them and bash their heads off the dark blue, inky walls of the chamber of extermination, filled with wretchedness and hopelessness. The piercing screams and screeches are fused with the endless, spine tingling shrieking, wailing and weeping, which slowly subside into a deathly silence. A ghostly stillness and calmness seems to descend like a mantle of comfort over the knotted pile of broken lives, with their stolen dreams and stolen lives. The mounds of misery are splattered with excrement, vomit, urine and bits of brain and intestines from the crushed victims. The powerful stench is joined by noxious smell of the pungent, poisonous gases.
Hans squeezes his nose together with his left hand and swallows large mouthfuls of his spirit, in order to kill the smell of the condemned and the damned. Sometimes half of a litre provides a cure and does the trick, but there are occasions when the odours cling to him and perade his insides. He’s mesmerized by some of the fixated staring eyes filled with pain, terror and shock. He believes that they’re holding secrets, which will always be locked away from him.
The Sonderkommando (Jewish, Polish and Russian inmates used by the Lublin SS) arrive and hose down the bodies and then distentangle them. They drag them outside and remove gold teeth and hair, before transporting the grizzly load to the coke-fuelled furnaces in the crematorium. The lifeless bodies melt and wrinkle as they blaze and burn. Their limbs contract and move like they’re still alive. The grotesque pageant belongs to a bizarre world that’s escaped from reality.

The battle

Schmidt notices a movement from the bushes about 400 metres away. He peers through his binoculars and notices the muzzle of a gun pointing in his direction.
“Achtung! Load!”
Hans grabs a HE round (high explosive) and slams it into the breech.
“Range 400 metres –10 o’clock. Achtung! At my command – fire!”
The 88 makes a massive ear splitting smash and Tiger-Lilly rocks from the recoil like a nervous filly. The empty shell casing rumbles through the spring action mechanism of the shell-casing ejector, and clangs into the canvas bag.
Hans’s ears are ringing, but he enjoys sending greetings to the Bolshies. The Waffen are much quicker on the draw than their Marxist enemy.
“Achtung! Load!”
He feeds his Tiger with HE and is determined to continue stuffing it until it chokes or throws up.“Achtung! At my command – fire!”
The massive thump of the discharged round almost merges with the booming slam of the sledgehammer impact.
Hans is ramming then in as quick as he can.
“Achtung! Load! Fire!”
“Achtung! Load! Fire!”
“Load! Keep firing!”

Hans is smiling to himself and frothing at the mouth. This must be better than Heaven. The buzz is turning him on and he’s getting more excited every moment. He’s ecstatic and his face is glowing with gleeful pleasure. He feels he might burst at any moment. At last he’s found his true calling. His commander is getting hoarser by the minute and he’ll have to use sign language if his condition worsens.Killing the bastards is pure enjoyment. It’s like eliminating targets at a carnival, except his new hits jump and hop around in circles like a raving group of fire breathing dancers and skippers, jigging and skipping in every direction.

Nazis

"This was made so that others with no clue will realize the power and evil the Nazis held. And that if it were not for our Allied veterans of WW2 we would all be speaking German right now..."

by hxcjeff

Hermann

As Hans is leaving the building a tall dark haired SS-man approaches him and introduces himself.
“Hello, my name is Hermann Müller and I work in SS HQ (Headquarters) in Wilhelmstraße. I think I’ve seen you before.”
“Yes, that’s possible. I like to spend time in Berlin. My name is Hans Koch and I’m based in Sachsenhausen.”
Hans is curious and surprised at Hermann’s interest in him. Maybe they have met in one of Berlin’s many nightclubs, when he was under the weather and on the prowl for a stray female.
“Would you like a coffee, Hans? I know a nice coffee shop nearby.”
“Of course, Hermann. Why not.”
He can see that Hermann is middle class and speaks with a cultured accent. Maybe he can be a useful source of information. He looks elegant in his black uniform and obviously comes from the sunny side of the street. Hans is surprised that he’s not an officer. He’s just an SS-Sturmmann like himself.
“I’m a Berliner, and I was a student in Universitat Zu Berlin on Unter der Linden for three years. I decided to leave last year, because of some dangerous and undesirable elements there, and felt I would be better off doing useful work for the Reich.”
Hermann is economical with the truth. He is fiercely proud of his city and his university, which had been founded by the humanist Wilhelm Von Humboldt. It became a centre of German philosophy and produced Karl Marx. Albert Einstein was a professor there, when he was director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics in Berlin. Hermann left because the Nazi peasants burned books, and expelled and murdered many students and professors. He was devastated and had no choice but to enlist in the forces of the Reich, as he believed he had a better chance of survival inside the serpent’s lair than outside. He likes to keep his feet on the ground so the Luftwaffe (Air Force) and the Kriegsmarine (Navy) were out of the question, which left the choice between the Wehrmacht and the SS. The streets of Berlin are wall to wall with Wehrmacht, making them almost common, and he did not want to be one of the millions. He wanted something a bit more exclusive, and the SS seemed a better choice with its maximum number restricted to ten percent of the Wehrmacht’s strength.He knows he can rise above its Nazi ideology and avoided officer training, as even he didn’t want to get buried in a sea of ideological confusion. He chose the Allgemeine SS and was happy to find a nice comfortable niche in SS HQ (Headquarter) in Berlin, so he can stay in his native city.
Hans is unsure about Hermann.
“My job is to keep the records of the camp up to date, and share information with the Gestapo.”
Hans is a trained killer and a practiced hangman and executioner in the camp, and he’s wary of his new friend. He knows his curriculum vitae would make many cringe, and he does not intend to reveal his real purpose to an ex university pen pusher.

Highly recommended

"On 19 July 1969, at the Church Congress in Stuttgart, Manfred Augst, Ute Scheub’s father, stood up during a reading by Gunter Grass, grabbed the hall microphone, made a confused speech attacking the Church and what he called the establishment, before concluding to boos from the audience: ‘And now, I’d like to salute my comrades from the SS’. He then put a small bottle to his mouth, swallowed the contents, and informed the woman standing next to him: ‘And that, young lady, was cyanide.’ In a book that couldn’t have been written before now, Scheub confronts her father’s past – a candid study of private guilt and a wider assessment of the German psyche from the Second World War onwards. "
http://www.new-books-in-german.com/spr2006/book28a.htm

Ute Scheub
Das falsche Leben. Eine Vatersuche(A False Life: In Search of My Father)
Piper Verlag February 2006,

291 pp.

ISBN 3-492-04839-0

Nazi Germany - newsreel (part 3)

by green1976

Nazi Germany - newsreel (part 2)

Nazi Germany - newsreel

"Germany under Hitler - This short video merely provides a glimpse of what's in Nazi Germany, not every bit of it (which is impossible). Whether you are pro-Nazi or anti-Nazi, you may have your own interpretation but that's what really took place at that time. The subtitles merely tell you what's going on in the video. The music comes from the video editing program which was used to produce this video. It's up to your personal taste to like it or not. You should be happy to live at this time, being free to express your own opinion (don't use foul language!)... imagine you were in Germany of 1930s."

by funfront

Tank hit

'Tank explosion'. Instalation by James Van Arsdale


A few days later Dima accelerates out of the valley of death, after he’s seen a battlefield near Krasnograd, and he notices a Tiger about 500 metres away with smoke billowing from it.
They’re probably charging their batteries and he alerts Alik who decides to contact Fiodor, as both tanks are designated for one Tiger. He organises machine gunners and snipers to deal with the crew if they attempt to escape.
Larissa is instructed to fire the first round at the tracks, and that should move it forward for a short distance on one track, and it should then turn sideways because of the damaged track. The moment it turns sideways Fiodor’s T 34 will fire at the fuel tank on the side of the Tiger.
***
Meanwhile Hans Koch has grudgingly got permission from his Commander Helmut Schmidt to relieve himself. He doesn’t like any of his crew leaving the tank, as that’s when they’re most vulnerable, but he allows a morning and evening visit to the toilet. Helmut is obsessed with his loader, and rarely takes his eyes off him, and watches him going towards the bushes. He’s unaware that he is under surveillance from two T 34s that intend to send him on his way to a hellish Inferno filled with everlasting fire.
Hans has just found a comfortable spot in the bushes, when he hears a massive explosion, and sees a blinding flash, which waters his pupils and stings his eyes, and leaves his insides dry, until he’s unable to breathe.
The Tiger rattles and shakes violently, as it twists and turns sideways, leaving its fuel tank exposed, and when it’s hit the second time the hull rocks and trembles making the impotent monster quiver with fearful convulsions.The HE (high explosive) ammunition, which he had stored in the tank that morning, explodes with a vicious vengeance, and creates pressure waves inside the compartments, which blasts the hatches open, causing white hot slivers of steel from the inner walls of the tank to dance and ricochet around the interior, slicing the torched and burnt out crew with permanent disfigurement and mutilation, that will dispatch them to eternity.
The blazing red and orange-yellow flames dance and leap from the exposed hatches, attacking everything in their path and lick the burning, melting, sizzling steel with naked aggression, looking for something to scorch and melt.
The sparks fly and gush from the mouth of the 88 MM cannon with hostile intensity, spitting furious fire on the roasting and bruised Tiger that’s burning uncontrollably with demonic savagery.Steam hisses from the giant engine that’s expired, and small droplets of molten metal drip from the twelve-cylinder Maybach power plant. Hans notices that the ’Serpent’s Head’ Völker is the only one who manages to escape. He crawls towards Hans waving his hand and screaming for help. Hans has his SS dagger ready, as he’s determined to cut the Serpent’s eyes out, and crush his fingers with his boot.
***
Tanya, one of the Russian snipers, gets a perfect shot between the Serpent’s eyes, and the bullet departs from the back of his ugly head taking a few pieces with it.
Hans is ecstatic for a few seconds and jumps in the air forgetting that his braces are undone, and he collects a bullet in the rear, which throws him forward and the second sniper, Pietya, gets him in the leg.
The T 34 crews are overjoyed, and when they get their 1000 rubles bounty for the kill, they’ll pass it on to the widow and family of one of their dead comrades.

Russian monsters - T 34s

by florencegriffig

From 'Cross of Iron' - battle scene

Der Saviour

by Paul Padua, dated 1939, "The Führer Speaks."

The family from old to young is gathered round the Volksempfänger, an inexpensive radio receiver, listening to Hitler speak. His picture is on the wall.

...Hans decides to start a new chapter in his life. He knows his limitations and the best way for him to get respect, authority and power is to join one of Hitler’s elite SS units.Poor Hans is having an identity crisis, which will soon be rectified, as ‘Der Teufel’(the devil) in the clothes of ‘Der Saviour’, has given nationhood and identity to his beloved people, who will all share the same focus to serve their Führer and the fatherland to the bloody end. This icon belongs to everyone, regardless of class or position, and in a short time he will be part of every household in the land. He will become an inseparable and permanent necessity for every family, as he coils tighter and tighter around their very essence, like a greasy, limbless reptile sucking them dry. There is no escape from his almighty presence, and even a visit to the toilet is no guarantee, as his face is stamped on every piece of toilet paper.
His demonic vision is not spontaneous, but a deliberate plan to unite the people behind him, and give them common goals. This bonding is strengthened by providing them with a common enemy, which includes the Jews, who are responsible for all their ills, and the Bolsheviks, who are a threat to the fatherland’s new political freedom. Many more enemies of the Reich will join this endless list, and accommodation has been thoughtfully prepared for them, as early as 1933 in Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen, with fully trained staff on hand.

When the more enlightened members of society realise what has happened, it will be too late to stop this avalanche on its destructive path. The tentacles of the octopus have spread into every area of society that exists, and there is nowhere to hide. The population is controlled and monitored from the cradle to the grave, from the ‘Hitler Youth’ and the Bund Deutscher Mädel for young girls and ladies to the Volkssturm, the people’s army, which consists of the leftovers. The show is supervised by an iron fist without limits, which includes one of the largest best equipped, most professional armies the world has ever seen, and a massive security service, which looks into every keyhole and behind every door in the land. The system is built on a lack of privacy, where the family is totally subordinate to the state, where children act as the eyes and ears of the Gestapo, and sometimes sacrifice their families to feed this hungry monster with a limitless appetite. If you are not an agent for the Reich you are an enemy.

Vicky

Hans is walking around in a trance for the next few days, and can’t believe his luck. He realises that status and mystique means everything. Meanwhile Victoria is sitting by the telephone waiting for his call, and after three days decides that he’s too special, and she doesn’t want to lose him. She’s desperate and decides to go to the Adlon Hotel before he leaves, as she knows that spies are always on the move, and are a rare and exotic breed.
Hans is nervous. He’s besotted with Victoria and he’s unable to concentrate on anything for the last 3 days. Yesterday he tripped over a suitcase and fell down the stairs, colliding with an elderly lady. She injured her leg and needed medical assistance. The hotel manager was not impressed and Hans was threatened with dismissal.This morning he spent most of his week’s wages on a bouquet of red roses in the hotel’s florist shop. Most of the staff are making jokes about the posh porter behind his back and some of them refer to him as ‘Cockroach Koch’. Hans is trying to work up the courage to ring Victoria and arrange a date for this evening. The problem is that he’s not quite sure what to say.
She’s got successful parents and they live in a luxurious villa surrounded by elm trees. He’s alone and has no one to confide in. He feels like an outcast who belongs to nothing, and seems to be destined to a lifetime journey travelling on a twisted road filled with misery and insecurity. Poor Hans has been an outsider from childhood and he would kill to be an insider. Victoria is too good for him. How will she react if he tells her the truth? He’d prefer not to live a lie in his first relationship. Telling lies about lies is not the way he wants to live. Will she be happy to tell her rich friends that her new boyfriend is a porter? He’s not just a porter, but a porter without parents. He can’t introduce her to his non-existent family. He’s sick of having a permanent identity crisis.
Hans only refuge is a lonely, little attic room, filled with an iron bed with broken springs and a wafer thin mattress, which he shares with the local fly population. He’s joined by two resident mice, which are intent on starting a family. When he looks out his attic window he feels like a trapped pigeon. The peephole doesn’t close properly and he has to stuff the gap with a blanket, which he stole from the hotel. The furniture is complemented with a table that has a gammy leg and an unstable three-legged stool. His room makes an average prison cell look inviting.
Victoria dresses in her finest, and borrows her mother’s sable coat, and takes a taxi to the Adlon.
She goes into the restaurant and approaches the senior waiter.
“Excuse me, please. I’m looking for a Hans Koch. He’s staying in the hotel.”
“Madam, we have someone of that name working here, but you’d have to check at reception to see if they have a guest with that name.”
“The Hans I’m looking for is about 22 years old, approximately 172 to 175 cm tall, stock’ily built, with short blond hair, blue eyes and a fresh complexion.”
“Yes, madam, that’s him. He’s been working here as a porter for the last two years, and I believe that he worked as a farmhand in Oranienburg, before he took up employment here.”
“Many thanks. You’ve been very helpful.”
“It’s been a pleasure, madam. Good day.”This has been Victoria’s darkest day and she’s sick with rage, as she storms into the foyer, where she sees her out of breath spy coming in through the main entrance, hauling a trolley load of suitcases and dressed in a ridiculous looking uniform. He looks like a garden gnome. Poor Hans doesn’t see her until she’s standing in front of him, blocking his path. She clicks her fingers and screams:
“Gepäckträger, Gepäckträger! (porter) I want you to trot outside and collect my luggage, you horrible little man.”
Hans’ face has turned white, as his pathetic little world comes crashing to the ground. He’s unaware that the reception staff and several guests are staring at him.
“Your uniform suits you. Where are your medals? When you’ve collected my luggage, I demand that you polish my boots.”
And with that Victoria marches towards the exit, crashing the doors behind her.
Hans is trembling and grabs a suitcase, and throws it in the direction of the reception desk, and dumps his porter’s jacket on the floor. He heads for the exit like a mad bull, waiting for a chance to kill the first person who gets in his way.
When he gets back to his apartment he throws the rest of his uniform into the incinerator, and goes to the nearest pub to get smashed.

Maya

Maya was arrested for her indiscretions with her paintbrush in 1942, when she was 44 years old. From 1933 onwards she produced many comical and grotesque drawings of Mr Hitler and his puppets, and ridiculed the Nazi Empire. Her work appeared in many Polish and French newspapers, and her existence came to the attention of Hitler himself, when drawings of his sexual life appeared on the pages of Le Figaro. Maya continued with her profane art until she came to the attention of the ‘thought police’.
She was arrested by the Gestapo and taken to Pawiak prison, situated between Dzielna Street and Pawia Street in Warsaw, for interrogation. It’s a mighty four-storey complex in a grey world, and was built by the Tsarist authorities and completed in 1835, when this part of Poland belonged to the Tsar, and the rest of the country was shared by the Prussian and Austro-Hungarian Empires.
The Warsaw ghetto now sits beside it, and the prison is mainly used for political prisoners, members of Armia Krajowa (Home Army) and other dissident factions. Many of these are either dispatched to an appropriate Concentration Camp, or executed in situ, and many thousands never leave the building.
During her time there Maya paints a water coloured picture in her cell, which is signed by eighteen other inmates. Some of them write poems and paint scenes of their life during their incarceration. Others look for solace in a lone elm tree in the centre of the dark yard, situated beside the female block, which is sometimes visited by an occasional sparrow or a yellow beaked blackbird. They often envy the little creatures their freedom, as they flap their wings and fly up into the sky, leaving the earthly problems behind them. Sometimes they look up at the stars twinkling and dancing in the endless sky, and wonder where Heaven is. It seems so distant and remote from their private hell, and it appears that God and his angels are unaware of their wretched existence. Maya is considered a threat to the establishment and transferred to Ravensbrück.

The shadow of Ravensbrück

Prisoners of Ravensbrück

by Maria Hiszpanska

Woman who married Jew exposed as a concentration camp guard

By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles

A German woman who for more than 60 years kept secret her role as a Nazi concentration camp guard, never telling her Jewish husband, has been deported from America after officials uncovered her past.
Elfriede Rinkel, 84, des-cribed as a "nice, sweet lady" by neighbours in San Francisco, admitted working with an SS-trained attack dog at the Ravensbrück women's labour camp near Furstenberg, where an estimated 90,000 people, many of them Jews, died.
According to the US Department of Justice, Mrs Rinkel was a guard at the camp from June 1944 until it was abandoned by the Nazis in April 1945.More than 10,000 women died during the year Mrs Rinkel worked there, some after being gassed or undergoing medical experiments, others from starvation and disease.
When questioned, Mrs Rinkel, who was not a member of the Nazi party, claimed she never used her dog as a weapon against the prisoners.
She said she had volunteered to be a dog handler because it paid more than her job as a factory worker.
Relatives of Mrs Rinkel, whose late husband was a German Jew who fled the Holocaust, expressed shock at the revelation, which came to light on Tuesday with the release of court documents.
Mrs Rinkel left America on Sept 1, telling friends and family that she was returning to Germany because of problems with her San Francisco flat.

It was not clear how US authorities discovered her past but a Justice Department spokesman said it was routine for investigators to compare guard rosters and other Nazi documents with immigration records. "Concentration camp guards such as Elfriede Rinkel played a vital role in the Nazi regime's horrific mistreatment of innocent victims," said Alice Fisher, a Justice Department lawyer.
"This case reflects the government's unwavering commitment to remove Nazi persecutors from this country."
Officials knocked on Mrs Rinkel's door shortly after her husband, Fred, died in 2004. She admitted her role in the camp and struck an agreement with prosecutors to surrender her green card, move back to Germany and never return to America. She now lives with a sister in Viersen.
Authorities agreed not to release any information about her case until after her departure. Mrs Rinkel, who emigrated to America in 1959, had attended synagogue with her husband and had planned to be buried alongside him in a Jewish cemetery. The couple had no children.
Alison Dixon, her lawyer, said the marriage could "have been a type of atonement for her". She told the San Francisco Chronicle: "My understanding is that she has also contributed to Jewish charities."
Mrs Rinkel is the first woman to be prosecuted by the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, formed in 1979.

Daily Telegraph, 20.09.2006

Hitler in action

by posdeapecuniae

The quickie media researchers

Research on the Second World War must come from direct sources. If you want to understand large-scale tactics i.e. tank armies, army corps etc. the best source is ‘Panzer Battles’ written by Mayor-General F.W. Von Mellenthin (Panzer General, Wehrmacht).
He was interned after the war for two and half years, and was with Keitel’s deputy in the Supreme Command. There were Naval and Luftwaffe officers in the same camp. He believes that their failures started in Dunkirk, when Hitler stopped the panzers against Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch’s orders. This interference happened throughout the war up to the end, when the Soviet tank armies were in Berlin.
To understand Tiger tanks and their deployment on the Eastern Front at company or regimental level a good source is ‘Tigers in the mud’ written by Otto Carius. He was a tank commander, and later a Company Commander of ‘Tiger’ tanks on the Eastern Front for several years. He was awarded the Oak Leaves of the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross by Heinrich Himmler in Salzburg at the end of October 1944. The award was normally given by Hitler, but he was indisposed.
Hitler’s hunts and habits are covered by Traudl Junge’s book ‘Until the Final Hour’. She was one of his secretaries for over 3 years, and was in the bunker when he shot himself. It happened after Traudl had her lunch, and when she heard the shot she looked at her watch: it was a few minutes after 1500 hrs on the 30th April 1945.
Traudl’s husband Hans Junge was one of Hitler’s orderlies, and the two witnesses on their wedding were Otto Günsche who was Hitler’s adjutant, and Erich Kempka who was the Führer’s chauffeur and the officer in charge of Hitler’s personal transport section. Both of them threw petrol over the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun, and Otto Günsche threw a burning rag in the petrol. He told Traudl Junge that Hitler’s skull was badly shattered, as he’d shot himself in the mouth. This is substantiated by Russian sources, including photographic evidence on newsreel and film.
If you want incorrect information there’s a huge choice available. There’s a bunker book written by an ex-Hitler Youth member. There were no schoolboys in the bunker. Another bunker book ‘Inside Hitler’s bunker’ by Joachim Fest says Hitler shot himself at 0330 hours. The bullet main a coin-sized hole in his right temple (I wonder was it a five pence or ten pence coin). Their bodies were burnt using matches and papers to light the petrol. An intelligent person would have used a rag.
The real ‘Schindler’s List’ is written by Elinor Brecher. The book is called ‘Schindler’s Legacy’. It’s written by the survivors of the camp and has little common with Whoopi Goldberg’s fantasy version. His film is fiction, but was sold to the uneducated public as historical truth. Whoopi made sex jokes about the victims of the holocaust. His populism equates to the masses of monkeys, who march into the Tacos of this world thinking that it’s cheap. The directors are smiling all the way to the bank.
There are serious film directors – Roman Liebling Polanski and Martin Scorsese. Whoopi doesn’t belong to this group. His film was softened for the proletariat. In the real world the SS-men grabbed babies from their mothers and held them by the legs, as they smashed their skulls against walls. SS-Untersturmführer (a green-horn Second Lieutenant) used his Great Danes to eviscerate his prisoners (not Whoopi’s German Shepherds).
The Second Lieutenant Amon Goeth was from Vienna and his family run a large publishing company there. He was not hanged in the concentration camp. He was arrested by the Nazis on September 13, 1944 and was charged with engaging in black market activities in the Plaszow Labour Camp and stealing property that had been confiscated from Polish Jews. Due to his diabetes he was not held in jail but in an SS sanatorium in Bad Tölz near Munich where he was arrested by General Patton's troops in 1945 and sent to Poland for prosecution as a war criminal. He went on trial in Krakow on the 24th August 1946 and was hanged on the 13th of September 1946. Some of the survivors in the United States attended the trial. One of them was Margot Schlesinger, who was a prisoner in the Plaszow Camp.
I’m afraid the cosy club of journalists and the rest of the media bandwagon couldn’t see the truth if they fell over it. According to them – for example – Joachim Fest is one of Germany’s most distinguished historians of the Third Reich. It’s strange that he’s not familiar with the 24-hour clock (despite his declared service in the Wehrmacht) and cannot agree with Frau Junge about the time of Hitler’s death (NB.he put his fingers into a screen version of Junge’s memoirs, ‘Downfall’). His position in the eyes of the Anglo-Saxon media seems to have only one reason: Herr Fest was a German journalist, broadcaster and long-term editor of the cultural section with the leftie Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
The problem with mafia groups is that they don’t have the correct facts, the arrogant know-alls never check data, and leave their followers walking around in a pool of ignorance.

Tigers vs. T-34s

by Ju87StukaB2

Some photos from the Eastern Front.

"Positive side to our work..."

Hans is delighted that he has an interest in his work, and is sure that he will help his situation if possible.
“There is a positive side to the situation, gentlemen. First, we are getting rid of the enemies of the Reich. We supply cheap labour to many of our Reich factories, including producers of military hardware, which gives us an economic advantage over our enemies. Some of our inmates are used for medical experiments in the laboratory, which helps to advance German medical research. Our camp also includes a cinder track, where some of them run around in circles all day, testing the durability of shoe soles. It has the secondary advantage that many die from exhaustion, and if the heat doesn’t get them the extreme cold will. You can’t lose. You can see, gentlemen, that there is a positive side to our work.”
Colonel wishes to scream: Jesus Christ!
There’s a long silence and Hans notices that his comrades are gazing at him, as if they are hypnotized. He’s obviously impressed them and decides to show them some action photos, which he took in the camp after ‘Crystal Night’.
“Gentlemen, I must show you some photos of my work. These are enemies of the Reich that I have personally dispatched. I hope you find them interesting.”
The Colonel has just knocked back another extra large glass of cognac and wishes it was stronger. He takes the photos from Hans and gives some of them to Hermann, who is decidedly under the weather, and has almost emptied the cognac bottle.
“Thank you, Hans. Much appreciated.”
The photos are worse than he expected. The pictures of the hangings are taken at different stages of the process all the way to the victim’s death. Age or sex makes no difference. He feels dirty and sad, because he and many others did nothing to stop this happening. He can’t believe that this is being done in his name, and in the name of his fellow Germans. This monster has probably murdered some of his friends including Jewish ones.
He notices that Hermann is gone to the bathroom, probably to get sick, and he must get some fresh air, as he feels unwell. He’s nervous and afraid in this creature’s company, and does not want to upset him. He can see that the beast is loaded, and his face is lit up like a red traffic light. He gives the photos back to Hans.
“You are a diligent SS-man and a good photographer. I think we should go into the garden for some fresh air.”
Hans jumps to attention and almost takes the Colonel’s eye out, as he raises his right hand in the air, clicks his heels and screams
“Jawohl, SS Standartenführer. Heil Hitler!”

Meierdress

SS-Obersturmführer (Lieutenant) Erwin Meierdress was as neat as a pin, and looked like a super Ubermensch with attitude, with his field grey cap resting on his head, and his tanker’s goggles hanging over his black, patent leather peak. He wore his treasured Totenkopf black and silver honour title on his left hand cuff.
Zee Obersturmführer looked like the classic role model, which most empires would die for. His ‘Heil Hitler’ face showed a cool and determined expression, like he’d been especially poured from an SS test tube for an advertising poster.
The picture had been painstakingly added to with his prominent nose and manly lips, that can spit you into a gas chamber instantly without flinching, to the tune of ‘Sturmstaffel Marschlied’. His ‘Deutschland über Alles’ dimpled, square jawed, jutting chin looked like it was designed to dominate the landscape. If you press a spot on his narrow forehead he’ll scream “Sieg Heil!” and march on Poland, as he roars down the Autobahn in his hysterically large ‘Roll-over-Poland’ Daimler Benz, crushing everything in its path to the tune of ‘Lilly Marlene’ and ‘Vee are zee Ubermenschen’.
Hans would like to be a hero and show off his decorations, but he’s never been put to the test. The only enemies he’s ever shot were wretched, starving, unarmed civilians in an enclosed area with no escape. The thought of meeting an experienced and well tooled up mad, bad Ivan – out of his head on an overdose of vodka or hallucinogenic mushrooms – is a worrying prospect.

Nazi murder mills

Sachsenhausen

Hans is posted to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp in Oranienburg, which is familiar territory for him, and settles down easily. The camp was rebuilt and reopened the previous year, during the Berlin Olympic Games.
The normality outside is surreal, with the tree lined avenue leading up to the entrance, hiding the bazaar madness in the midst of the normality surrounding it, with children playing on their swings and see saws in the nearby gardens, as the villagers go about their everyday business.
Hans is unaware of these oddities, as he has become conditioned to normality and insanity being side by side. He’s pleased that he’s only a ten-minute stroll to the railway station, which will take him to Berlin in about thirty minutes, so he can strut around the capital getting envious looks from the porters, doormen, tram drivers and postmen.
He now has a licence to kill, and intends to use his authority whenever he wishes. He exudes power and senses a feeling of fear and awe from the other male predators, who are afraid to get in his way. The SS have a fearsome reputation and he enjoys every minute of it. He demands and expects respect in large doses, and is determined to make up for his lost years as a nobody.
The days of being a bastard orphan farm boy and a trolley pushing porter are history, and now he represents the right arm of the Third Reich with the might of the SS behind him. He knows that he’s above the law and can kill, torture and execute at will. His days of opening doors are over and he’s welcome in whatever nightclubs he chooses. Crossing Hans is a dangerous practice, as he becomes well connected with the Berlin Gestapo, who have expanded their interrogation. He checks the Totenbuch (death book), which records the details of those who have been executed, and is delighted to find Victoria Snyder and the rest of her family’s names entered in the register.
(L.Hellmann, When the lights went out, 2006)

The groupies’ delight

A whole nation has now become obsessed by a hysterical Austrian provincial with penetrating, flashing eyes, who dances on his podium like a raving epileptic. His flaming eyes dart around, as he gesticulates in a frenzy to his fawning disciples, like an ill mannered baboon. The coarse and repulsive redneck dribbles a continuous torrent of diarrhoea, fuelled with lies, as foam drips from his open mouth and spills onto the gutter, where he came from. This hateful tyrant succeeds in turning millions of people into a race of heel clicking, robotic, ‘Sieg Heil’ slaves. To keep control of this circus the actors are put in fancy dress, and made dance to the music. This is super symbolism at its best, fuelled with a massive overdose of martial music, incessant parades and rallies, decorated with rows of flags, miles of bunting and pictures of the Corporal’s face, staring at you from every lamppost. The range of uniforms is mind-boggling, with almost everyone from rat catchers to vermin exterminators dressed up like Field Marshals. The secret service is exempt, but they have a penchant for long black leather overcoats, which doesn’t make them very secret. This is paradise on earth and a groupies’ delight.

Old & new Nazi propaganda

Other link to similar video: good documentary photos, neo-Nazi song

Terrifying...

Otto & Maria (2)

Later they sit down to a hearty meal, and he gives them a brief edited outline of his shady past.
“I worked in the Adlon Hotel in Berlin, and because of my age I knew I’d be conscripted for the Wehrmacht. I was young at the time and volunteered for the SS, as I liked their uniform and felt that it had more prestige.”
Otto and Maria are curious.
“What did you do in the SS, Hans?”
“I was given Infantry training at the beginning. I wasn’t a great soldier and worked in the quartermaster’s stores at Lichterfelde Kaserne, Berlin, which is the HQ of the Leibstandarte – SS ‘Adolf Hitler’.”
“Did you fight?”
“Yes, Otto. I was sent to the Eastern Front as a tanker and was injured. I was in hospital for many months, and was detailed to report to a Concentration Camp, as I was no longer fit for service on the front.”
Otto is fascinated with this big world outside of his farm.
“There has been talk in Saarbrücken about Jews being sent to camps, but we’re not sure, Hans.”
“It’s the truth, and they are being exterminated by gas, shootings and starvation. It’s not only Jews. It consists of many different types of people including Gypsies and misfits. I didn’t want to do this, and that’s why I escaped from Berlin and came here. If the authorities catch me I’ll be executed.”
Otto is impressed with Hans’s character.
“I’m glad you did, Hans. I would have done the same. I understand that someone who fights for his country has to kill the enemy, but killing innocent people is evil, and is against God’s law. Whoever breaks that law will pay the price sometime, and if it’s not in this life it will be in the next one.”
“Yes, Otto. I joined the SS to fight for our Fatherland.”
“We’re so proud of you, Hans. We always knew you were brave.”

(L.Hellmann, When the lights went out. 2006)

Otto & Maria

Hans continues with his impersonation act in SS Psychiatric Clinic in Giessen for a few weeks, and gradually shows an improvement in order to gain more freedom. The doctors are pleased with his rapid progress, and allow him to walk around the grounds with the healthier patients. Hans observes all of the staff and patients, and he slowly builds up their confidence in him. He’s punctual and correct, and develops set routines, which they get used to, and - when he catches the right moment - he disappears, and travels by night on a stolen Zündapp KS600 motorcycle to Otto and Maria Koch’s farm in Martinshöhe, which is situated between Saarbrücken and Kaiserslautern. When he arrives in their area he stays in a forest until morning and burns the bike, and hides the remains in the undergrowth.

Otto is working in the vicinity of the barn, when Hans approaches. He’s not sure who the stranger is.
“Good morning. Can I help you?”
Hans smiles.
“Hello, Otto. How is Maria? I’m Hans Koch from the orphanage in Oranienburg. It was a long time ago. You probably don’t remember me.”
“Of course I do, Hans. Wilkommen (welcome). I’m delighted to see you. Please come over to the house and meet Maria.”
Hans can see that they’re a lot older looking now. Otto’s face is wrinkled, and his hair has turned grey, but he still has the sparkle in his eyes. Maria is robust looking, and still has her warm welcoming smile. He feels happy and sad, and knows that they’re his only connection to his childhood, and part of his identity. That’s all he’s got.
“I’m delighted to see both of you. You bring back many happy memories for me. I wish I could turn the clock back. I’ve so much to tell you, but I don’t know where to start.”
Otto and Maria notice his dishevelled look, and are curious about his life since they last met over 20 years ago.
“Don’t worry, Hans. We’ve got all the time in the world, but first we’ll get you something to eat and organise a clean bed for you to lie on.”
Hans can see that they are kind, simple people, who live in their own uncomplicated world, and would never harm anyone. He feels ashamed, and knows that they’re too good for him.
“You’re the kindest people I’ve ever known. I’d forgotten that people like you still exist in this savage world. Maybe there’s still hope for civilisation.”
“Don’t mention it, Hans. What’s the point in living if you can’t help someone? That’s what life is for.”
Hans is embarrassed with their deep Christian values, and doesn’t want to infect them with his evil. He gives himself a much-needed scrub, and changes into some of Otto’s fresh clothes.

(to be continued)

Majdanek

After Hans recovers from his injuries he’s posted to Majdanek Extermination Camp in Lublin, Poland, in October 1943
Hans knows this posting is a dead end without purpose or fulfilment, and the Eastern Front with all its dangers had its moments and differences, which kept him alert and gave him a buzz. The danger and the possibility of death kept him more alive than he had ever been before, and he was often intoxicated with the mixture of fear and excitement, which kept him right on the edge, like he was sitting on a razor blade.
It was a 24 hour game of Russian roulette, using two revolvers seven days a week, that would put him on the borderline of insanity, where he reached peaks of madness, and nothing in the world mattered, as he knew every second could easily be his last. He became so addicted to danger that he’d almost get high, when a round whistled past within millimetres of the Tiger, and then he’d open his eyes like he was being born again. The cycle of living and dying was turning him on, and he was quickly becoming a junkie, where survival and instant extinction was giving him kicks that he’d never experienced before.

(L.Hellmann, When the lights went out, 2006)

Islam & Nazism: Appendix

I’ve written below about the alliance between Nazi Germany and the Great Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Muhammed Amin al-Husseini, and presented a recruitment ' Mufti' poster calling Balkan Muslims to join Muslim divisions of Waffen-SS, but this is the first time I’ve seen actual video of Hitler meeting with the Mufti of Jerusalem.
From a German TV documentary, with English subtitles.

Satanic Invasion

When Larissa leaves the restaurant she decides to go to Gorki Park and place a red carnation on the spot where Yurii used sit in the sunshine. It seems like a light has gone out in her life and will never light up again. Time is a revolving wheel that never goes backwards, and she’ll never catch those enchanting moments again. There’s no past, no future, only the instant now, which keeps passing like an endless, non-stop motion picture, with the actors falling off when their performance ends. She hears the wail of air raid sirens and the noise of heavy gunfire, and realises that it’s the continuous rat-ta-ta of batteries of anti aircraft guns on the other side of the city. She sees tracers shooting into the sky and decides to stay in the park, as it might be safer than a building. Larissa turns her head to the left, as she thought she heard a humming sound coming from the direction of the bushes. Gradually the humming or droning sound envelops her. She’s unable to identify the direction, and then in the distance the sky seems to darken, as it fills up with enemy formations. She’s nervous and afraid. Her stomach aches and feels empty. They look like a swarm of bees with yellow noses that are heading for the city centre. As they get closer she notices that the humming invaders are adorned with black swastikas and crosses. The satanic invasion has begun. There’s a squadron of Stükas with yellow noses on her left and a formation of Heinkels heading in her direction. They keep descending, and – as their altitude drops – they grow bigger and bigger. When they level out she sees a shoal of glistening underbellies with spinning propellers sweeping across her city. /…/ A Soviet Yak-1 (Yakovlev) fighter – adorned with a large red star on its rudder tab and one on its side – peels away from its formation and starts to dive. When it descends to 150 metres it levels out and rolls, and disappears behind clouds of fiery red and black smoke bellowing from the area of Kiyevskij Vokzal (Kiev Railway Station). There’s at least 1 kilometre filled with black, grey and white smoke with sheets of angry flames shooting out of the clouds of the thick, murky haze. The next moment the Yak appears from nowhere – inverted – as in upside down, and almost touches a chimney of the buildings on the other side of Serpukhovskaya Square, and dives towards the ground almost sucking the tarmacadam, and accelerates flat out up into the sky, brushing the chimney by centimetres on its departure. It’s happened in split seconds and it’s now rocketing towards space. (L.Hellmann, When the lights went out, 2006)

The Invasion of Poland - Einsatzgruppen

“What will you have, Rudolf?”
“A beer, please.”
“Maybe you’d like a vodka as well. It will help keep you warm in this freezing weather.”
“Thank you, Hans.”
Hans wants him to relax more. He comes back with the drinks, and waits for Rudolf to finish the vodka.
“I got a feeling that Poland was no holiday camp, Rudolf. We didn’t get any information here. I was worried about you, and I didn’t know that you were injured. You know they tell us nothing here. Everything is top secret.”
Rudolf is feeling a little better.
“Yes. I know, Hans. It was the same with the regiment. Everything was secretive. It was a bloody mystery tour.”
“Ha ha ha. Now you’re coming back to your old self. I’ll get another round of drinks. It can be great medicine on occasions, comrade.”
“Thanks, Hans.”
“To the good times. Prost!”
“What I tell you is in confidence, Hans.”
“You know what I think of you, comrade. This is between two SS-men. My lips are sealed.”
Rudolf is desperate and needs someone to talk to - otherwise he’ll explode. He can’t take it any longer.
“I don’t know what to say, but I’ll do my best. It’s not like working in Sachsenhausen. In the camp we deal with inmates with numbers. They wear striped clothes and have shaven heads. They have no identity and they all look the same. They match their grey environment filled with the deadness that surrounds them. The watch towers, the searchlights, the electrified fences. It’s like a strange factory that isn’t real.”
Hans never thought of it like this.
“That’s interesting, Rudolf.”
Rudolf can’t stop.
“When you see people in their own clothes, with their own personalities and identities, surrounded by their families and friends it affects you differently, because they are real living people.
It’s many different things. When you go into their villages and their houses you see people who share a similar life style to you, sometimes with similar problems. They have their family photos on the wall and on the sideboards, and are surrounded by their mementos. Their whole life and all the different aspects of it are looking back at you. A pram in the corner, a baby’s bottle on the floor, with a few scattered toys beside it. An unpaid bill on the table beside a broken wireless set, which someone was trying to fix. Sometimes you see a birthday cake on the sideboard beside a birthday card. It’s not killing. It’s a desecration. It’s elimination. It’s like you’re killing God. It’s like you’re killing yourself. You feel stinking and contaminated from head to toe. It’s evil. They are no different to you. When you kill them you kill yourself.”
Hans is shocked and mesmerised, and sees that Rudolf is crying. He’s in a terrible state.
“Don’t worry, Rudolf. I’m listening.”
“I saw a photo of a man on the wall of one of the houses, and he looked identical to my own father. The expression, the smile, everything. When I went outside I saw him on the street, lying among lots of other bodies, with his head thrown back and his eyes and mouth open. His hands were by his side and he looked like he was asleep, except for his face and the position of his head. He looked like life had just escaped from him, and his face was still frozen with a strange and terrifying expression. His frantic, bewildered looking eyes were staring straight up at the sky. He even had an Adam’s apple like my father.
There’s a dark haired woman about 35 years old lying on her side facing him. Her hand is touching him like she had just said good-bye. She looks almost happy that they went together. On the other side of them are three bodies grotesquely knotted together, one of them with a terribly distorted face, and nearby is a small motionless dog looking like he was having a sleep.
It killed me inside. It finished me. There’s nothing left in me. I will never forget it, never.”
Hans is feeling very uncomfortable and doesn’t know what to say. He can see that Rudolf has serious problems.
“Go on, Rudolf. You know you’re with a real friend.”
“Everything together was too much. I walked along the street in a trance and saw a black and tan German shepherd the same colour as my dog ‘Sergeant’. He was doing everything to protect his owner. Someone shot him and he continued to defend him with his stomach hanging out. I’ll never forget the screams. I aimed at his head even though it was difficult to see, because of the tears in my eyes, and eventually the giant dog slumped to the ground resting at the foot of his master.
Hell had paid a visit to Wloclawek. The dogs, and cats, and everything were in distress. Some of them were running around in circles. Even the birds were filled with trauma, banging and flapping around in their cages. The wild birds had flown away.
The terror, the cries, the agonising screams, the groaning, the howling were all around me. They were inside and outside my head all at the same time.
I’m going mad. I want to kill myself.”
(L.Hellmann, When the lights went out, 2006)

Interesting links:

http://felsztyn.tripod.com/germaninvasion/

http://felsztyn.tripod.com/

http://www.mtsu.edu/~baustin/einsatz.html

Valley of Death

Dima Ivanovich Dolzikov, a Russian tank driver from the 3rd Guards Tank Army, passes through a valley near Krasnograd about 130 kilometres south of Kharkov in the Ukraine, in February 1943. Dawn is breaking when he comes across the aftermath of a battle, which has eliminated most of their forward Infantry Battalion that had been used for covering the retreat of one of their divisions.
He feels uncomfortable and intrusive in his noisy, clanking, metallic monster, and wishes he could be somewhere else. The dead seem to awaken, and follow him with their eyes watching his every movement. They stare at him with a confused accusing expression, like he had invaded their secret world, and that this intruder came to discover the mystery of their new existence. He wishes he could escape and go back to his collective farm, but he cannot take his eyes off the obscenities confronting him.
Dima knows that he’s gripped by an addictive curiosity that devours him. Just another gawking gaping voyeur offending the modesty of the half naked corpses, stripped by the searing blast of the explosions. He jumps, as he spots a piece of a face with the remaining single eye staring at him with a steely mocking searching expression – another peeping Tom. It sends a shiver down his spine and, as he looks away, he sees a rat crawling into the stomach of the remains of the body.
In the distance a group of soldiers are lying on top of each other face down, with rifles clutched in their hands, like they were kissing the ground before they were killed. The remainder look, as if they’ve been surprised by death, lying on their backs with arms outstretched, like they were going to surrender.
Dima’s resolve to rid the Hitlerites from his Motherland is strengthened further, as he accelerates his steely T 34 V12, 40-litre menacing monster towards the front, in order to trap a few Tigers.

Dead and damned (part 2)

The moment I was clear of the building I no longer felt afraid. The camp was still deserted and I visited the crematorium. I felt calm and relaxed, and noticed a rest room for SS members on duty. There was a kettle and a gas cooker in the corner, which was sharing the same energy with ovens used for disposing of the bodies.
At approximately 1500 hours I decided to leave. I walked towards the entrance, and on my right was the perimeter fence with the watchtowers located in strategic positions, and a few trees close to me. On my left were the red brick buildings, where I had been about twenty minutes earlier, and the railway track was to the left of them. Just before I came to the third and last blockhouse, which I visited, I heard a humming noise. I looked up at the trees on my right expecting to see birds. The trees were barren and there were no birds. The humming got louder and louder, and when it reached a crescendo I was surrounded by about twenty or thirty men, women and children. They were well dressed, and the nearest were about two to three feet from me. They had their arms outstretched towards me and were desperately trying to say something. They wanted to give me a message or the warning, and were very close, almost touching me.
I wanted to stay, but I couldn’t stop walking, as something was moving me on. I was surrounded by these people from the moment the humming reached a peak, which lasted for the time it took to walk about one hundred and fifty feet, and as soon as the humming started to drop they disappeared. This happened near the place, where the transports came in from all over the Poland and Europe. In the second half of 1944 many of the trains were coming from Hungary. The selections were made here to check who would work and who would go up the chimney. I felt in harmony with these people, and believed they were happy and at peace. The feeling and intensity was indescribable. I felt safe and could see that they wanted to convey a message to me, but there was no sound, only a deathly silence. I didn’t stop or speak with them. I was like a robot that was being controlled by some power outside of me.
I kept this experience inside myself for almost nine years until it surfaced after a life threatening experience. Now it haunts me.

The dead and the damned (part1)

In October 1994 I travelled from Przemysl on the Polish-Ukrainian border to Krakow in Southern Poland. There was an outbreak of cholera in the Ukraine at that time. I decided to visit Auschwitz (Oswiecim) and Birkenau (Brzezinka) Death Camps, which were about 40 miles away.
I was disappointed and surprised at the carnival atmosphere in Auschwitz One – with hot dogs and burgers for sale, and lots of bad-mannered children playing games and making lots of noise in the corridors of one of the big red-bricked buildings, where inmates were housed and tortured. The execution yard was alongside the building and the victims were shot at the wall at the end of the yard.
I left and walked about three kilometres to Birkenau, also known as Auschwitz II. The huge camp was deserted. As I walked through the gates I saw that the administration offices were situated alongside them. There were rows of red-bricked single story buildings on my left, and one of the crematoriums was located in the bottom left-hand corner of the field. A railway line was coming in the gate, and was on the right-hand side of the blockhouses. The tracks were extended into the camp in April 1944 and completed in June 1944.
To the right of the track were military style wooden huts. They had rows of wooden bunks on both sides, and were stark and uninviting. There was a strong smell of preserved wood. I went back to the left of the camp, where the red-bricked buildings were located.
The first one felt unpleasant and oppressive. The second one was similar with a putrid smell of decay. This one had photos on the wall, which were taken when the camp was in operation. They had pictures of inmates and SS-guards. I fancied one of SS-women who was walking alongside a group of inmates.
The moment I stepped inside the entrance of the third building I stopped dead, as I felt I wasn’t alone. I sensed a powerful presence in the building, which reeked of depravity. I stood at the top of the aisle, which was about three feet wide and separated a row of large wooden bunks – that were against the wall – from a metallic trough, which went along the centre of the building. The other side was similar with the bunks facing out. The blockhouse was approximately forty feet long, but I was unable to see more than twenty feet away. I noticed a smoky-grey blob, which was clouding my view. It was close to the ground and was slowly starting to expand and change shape. The feeling of a presence was frightening and I could almost touch the obnoxious stench of evil, which was creeping towards me. Suddenly there was a loud noise, similar to the movement of heavy furniture. Within a few seconds there was another noise similar to the first one, like as if there was a creature trapped between the bunks and the trough, and was trying to break free. The grey blob was expanding and growing, and getting darker and darker, and the aura, which exuded from it, was starting to envelop me. Suddenly there was a massive crash, - like it finally freed itself – and the black shape was now standing up facing me. The intensity was overpowering and before the figure was fully erect I dashed out of the building.

(to be continued)

Islam & Nazis

Hermann decides to open up fully to Hans. He pauses, and takes a long pull on his cigarette before expelling it slowly in controlled puffs.
“Some things are secret. Promise you’ll never say a word.”
Hans puts his glass on the table and looks at Hermann.
“On my oath and the oath of the SS I swear that nothing we say will ever pass my lips.”
“I know you are an honourable man Hans, and you have served our Fatherland well. I have to be careful, as I pick up a lot of information in HQ, and I sometimes have access to secret documents.”
Hans is honoured that Hermann is going to share top secret information with him.
“You know I have always respected and admired you, and both of us realise that times have changed, and we have been betrayed.”
Hermann gets up from the table.
“Same again, Hans.”
He comes back with refills and speaks slowly.
“Many of us agree with you. It makes us feel sick to know that we have been cheated.”
Hans looks at Hermann and realises that they have a similar viewpoint.
“I tried to do my best for Der Führer and look where it got me. I saw a Muslim, wearing an SS officer’s uniform with a maroon fez hat, going into SS HQ today. What’s happening?”
Hermann looks around the bar to make sure they’re not being overheard and whispers
“Yes, we have been cheated and misled. Until recently the SS were either German or Germanic, Aryan or Nordic. As the war progresses and the losses increase, they are recruiting from European countries, which includes Muslims from the Balkans. Soon our SS will consist of 50 percent foreigners.”
“So they are desperate. We’re going to lose the war.”
“Of course Hans. It’s only a matter of time. Do you know that Himmler said to Goebbels that Islam educates the men for him? If they fight and are killed in action they go straight to Heaven. It’s the perfect religion for soldiers.”
Hans laughs and says.
“Ach, so. They’re like Japanese kamikaze pilots – suicide bombers without wings.”
“Yes, I know. It’s so ridiculous it’s almost funny. The Reichsführer thinks it’s a great idea to enlist Bosnian Muslims in our SS, as they have a traditional hatred of the Orthodox Serbians, who make up the bulk of Tito’s partisans.”
“The cunning bastard, Hermann.”
“Hans, I need another weisse beer and a schnapps please.”
“Of course comrade.”
Hans returns and mentions that the lights have gone out on the other side
the river.
“That’s normal Hans. Things are getting to the stage where the allies won’t have any targets to hit, and they’ll have to bring them with them.”
“Our Fatherland has now become a firing range for these bastards. Tell me Hermann, how did the connection start with the Muslims?”
Hermann is pleased with Hans attention, and is happy to share his knowledge with his subordinate.
“It’s a long and complicated story, but I’ll do my best. In 1941 the Great Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin el Husseini, arrived in Europe after organising an unsuccesful anti British coup in Iraq, and was officially received by Hitler on the 29th November that year in our city. Our Nazi comrades organised a bureau for espionage and 5th Column activities in Muslim regions of Europe and the Middle East.”
Hans opens his mouth in surprise.
“So, this was on an international scale?”
“Yes, Hans. You understand the situation perfectly. The alliance included the formation of Muslim Waffen SS and Wehrmacht units in Bosnia, Herzegovina, Kosovo-Metohija, Western Macedonia, and other occupied areas.
We even have a Waffengruppe der SS – Krim formation consisting of Chechen Muslims from Chechnya and a Tarter Regiment der SS made up of Crimean Tartars. In North Africa we have the Arab Legion (Arabisches Freiheitskorps) and the Ostturkischen Waffen SS Verband der SS made up of Turkistanis.”
“It seems that we are only minnows in a global strategy, Hermann.”
“Yes, Hans. It’s only the tip of the iceberg. The Wehrmacht have units made up of Turkoman Muslims, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kirghiz, Karakalpaks and Tadjiks. They have a Caucasian-Mohammedan Legion consisting of Dagestanis, Azerbainjanis, Lezhins and Ingushes.”
“Jesus, Hermann. I didn’t know these tribes existed. We’ll be overrun if were not careful, and end up in the Baltic Sea.”
“If we’re invaded, Hans, it will be the Red Army. We need as many allies as we can get, even if we have to sup with the devil. The World Zionist Organization looked for global Jewish support for the British war effort against us. This is a war against British-American World Jewry allied to the Bolsheviks. Jewry is Islam’s principal enemy. Allah says in the Koran that the Jews are our enemy and Allah’s enemy. My enemies’ enemy is my friend. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. Allah is with you.”
(L.Hellmann, When the lights went out)

for marcus_crassus

Writing about writing.

‘When the lights went out’ inhabited me and possessed me for what seemed like an eternity. I lived inside it by day and slept inside it by night. It was all embracing. It controlled me and fed off me until I physically and mentally became like the walking dead. It captured me, and my insides became the book, and I was unable to escape. It became my reluctant refuge.
It drained my energy and squeezed me like a sponge even though I was racing around inside. Its all consuming, voracious appetite took everything from me and kept me in its grasp.
Something inside and outside of me was pushing me and driving me to the edge. I couldn’t find the limits. The addiction took control and I became a passenger on the trip. I’m afraid to get off for fear of ending up in a vacuum on a deserted desert.
I tried to escape and close down many times, but I became its prisoner. It held me with a compulsive intensity to the very end.
I think I’m finished, but it’s still devouring me.

Loading the 'Tiger'.

Towards the end of January 1943 Hans is busy helping with the preparation and the loading of the Tiger and its ancillaries in Bordeaux railway station, onto one of 120 trains being used to transport the ‘Death’s Head’ division and its equipment across the Reich, to the main railhead in Kiev, which is used by the 1st SS Panzer Corps of Army Group South.
The Commander Unterscharführer Helmut Schmidt and the ‘Serpent’s Head’ Kurt Völker are supervising the operation and Gerhard Schultze is playing with his wireless set and looking for more signals. This leaves Hans and Fritz Meyer doing most of the work, and the Unterscharführer and his sidekick Völker are taking immense pleasure at Hans’s distress, and make sure that he’s detailed for the dirtiest and most difficult jobs they can find.
They have to remove the cross-country tracks from the tank, and replace them with narrow tracks, in order that they won’t extend over the side of the purpose built Ssyms six-axle flat bed ‘Tiger’ freight wagon, and make contact with an oncoming train.
The work has already cost Hans at least 8 kilos in body weight, and he’s sure he’ll be a skeleton before he leaves Bordeaux railway station, which he never wants to see again.
Hans believed that the sun always shone in Bordeaux, but it seems like this satanic bastard Völker has put a curse on him, and it’s now pouring rain.Fritz pilots the tank up the ramps and onto the wagon in double quick time, and they put the chocks into place to help secure 60 tonnes of armour.
The ‘Serpent’s Head’ details both of them to rope and sheet the Tiger so that nothing remains visible to inquisitive eyes. Fritz is an expert in dolly knots, and would put a sailor to shame with his skill. The roping and sheeting is aggravated by the rain mixing with the deposits of oil and grease, which will turn the surface of the huge tarpaulin into a skating rink.
Poor Hans’s hands are bruised and bleeding, as he wrestles with the massive ropes and chains, which will secure this beast to the flat bed, as otherwise the Tiger will escape, and jump off the train somewhere between Bordeaux and Kiev, which will guarantee him a minimum of at least one firing squad.
The 6-axle wagon is capable of taking an 80 tonne payload on its back, giving it a gross weight in excess of 100 tonnes, and four wagons have to be placed between every two Tigers in order to spread the weight over the axles, so that they won’t damage or demolish any bridges between here and Kiev.
Hans is standing on the greasy cover on top of the tank - about three and half metres above the ground - waiting to catch the rope from Fritz when he hears someone screaming: “Loader, loader!” and - as he moves towards the platform siding - he skids and slides uncontrollably towards the edge, and sees the Serpent’s face screaming at him, as he topples off the tank missing Kurt by inches, and lands on the platform almost losing his manhood, as he misses the barrel of Völker’s submachine gun by a knat’s whisker.
Hans feels like he’s just survived a bomb blast, as he looks up and sees this obscenity standing over him, with his twisted face and slimy eyes, staring through him. Völker’s ears are flapping in the wind, and Hans makes a vow that if he ever gets a chance he’ll stuff a hand grenade without the pin into his pocket, and send his bits in every direction.
/Leo Hellman, When the lights went out. pp.123-125/

Foxhole

Ernst is sorry he didn’t become a tanker.
“You’re right, Hans. You’re a lucky bastard. I’m a bloody foot soldier depending on a lousy rifle, hiding in a hole in the ground like a trapped animal. If the Artillery doesn’t get you the tanks will.
I was buried in my foxhole and I heard this massive rumbling noise, getting louder and louder, and - as it got closer - I looked out and saw this gigantic, smelly, smoky monster approaching our forward trenches about 100 metres away. It looked like the new T 34 and it was preparing for a carpet run over our trenches.
It was creaking and chattering, and the ground was shuddering, as it started to go over them. If they’re not constructed properly you’ll end up as recycled jam.
As it passed close to me I noticed that it had red tracks, and I gradually realised that they were covered in blood - with bits of flesh and insides - hanging between the tracks and the rollers. The snow had changed colour to red.I can’t describe it. I can’t describe my fear. I squeezed myself into the bottom of my foxhole until my neck had almost disappeared into my body, as I tried to make myself smaller and smaller. I though the earth was going to crack. The time was like an eternity and I was in a cold sweat, which was turning to ice on my body, and then the noise seemed to change and go in a different direction. My whole life flashed before me, as strange and unusual events shot through my brain in milliseconds, like my life had rolled into a tiny circle with all my episodes looking back at me.”
/Leo Hellmann, When the lights went out. pp. 71-72/

Outside Moscow

“How did you survive in this icy hell, Ernst?”
“The honest answer was luck and plenty of it. The thought of never seeing my homeland again kept me going, and gave me the will to survive. At the beginning of December 1941 we were almost touching Moscow. Myself and my comrade Siegfried Hortmayer were part of a recce patrol (reconnaissance), and when we reached the tram terminus, about 16 kilometres from the city centre, we sat on the wooden bench in the shelter smoking, and gazed in awe at the city, which looked strangely eerie in the stillness of the night. The cloak of silence was occasionally violated by the creaking of wheels from the assault guns, and the hoarse whispers from the ghostly columns in the distance.
I never believed in my wildest dreams that I’d ever get as close to this strange, alluring city, filled with magic, and surrounded by a virgin white mantle of snow, that seemed to go on forever. The experience was bizarre. My ears were tingling and I went into a trance, which engulfed me, as I lapped up this whiter than white mysterious land. I felt alienated, and the feeling of isolation in this enchanting place, arrested me and imbued me with foreboding. I knew then that I should never have invaded its privacy, and intruded on its tranquillity.”
“It seems to me that you were living inside an iceberg, Ernst”
“No, Hans. It was like living inside an iceberg with the top off. Your breathing crystallises and falls on the ground with a soft tinkle, which seems like the whispers from the stars twinkling in the distant Heavens.”
/Leo Hellmann, When the lights went out. pp.102-103/