The Journal of a German Officer

By Michael Busch

Following more than ten years in England, the Busch family, with the exception of Mary, who was already at university, returned in 1958 to live in Germany, where Wilhelm had a job with Massey Ferguson, the Canadian manufacturer of agricultural machinery. Michael and his younger brother Nicholas entered the German school system and, in due course, became fluent in both English and German. Sadly, Patricia died in 1994, leaving Wilhelm living alone in his little wooden house near the town of Kassel.

Whereas his brother Nicholas remains to this day a resident of Germany, Michael immigrated in 1967 to Canada. He married Elizabeth in 1968 and has two Canadian-born sons, one of whom became a professional ice hockey player in Germany, where, over the course of his career, he electronically scanned his grandfathers diaries, returning with a flash drive for his father, Michael, to translate into English.

Having translated the turbulent years leading up to 1948 for the benefit of immediate family in Canada, Michael became convinced that his fathers journal has significant historical value for those who might be interested in the lives of ordinary Germans, citizens and soldiers, during the first half of the twentieth century. Notably, as an officer in the Wehrmacht, Wilhelm challenged the rigid army system by going all the way to the very top in order to obtain permission to marry an English woman immediately following the outbreak of World War II.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 4, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514476796

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Copyright © 2016 by Michael Busch.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2016904520

ISBN:      Hardcover       978-1-5144-7680-2

                Softcover         978-1-5144-7678-9

                eBook              978-1-5144-7679-6

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Rev. date: 03/31/2016

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CONTENTS

About The Journal

The Early Years

The War Years

The Hungry Years

ABOUT THE JOURNAL

The Journal of Wilhelm Otto Busch

Born, December 8, 1911

Died, May 25, 2012

F OLLOWING MORE THAN ten years in England, the Busch family, with the exception of Mary, who was already at university, returned in 1958 to live in Germany, where Wilhelm had a job with Massey Ferguson, the Canadian manufacturer of agricultural machinery. Michael and his younger brother Nicholas entered the German school system and, in due course, became fluent in both English and German. Sadly, Patricia died in 1994, leaving Wilhelm living alone in his little wooden house near the town of Kassel.

Whereas his brother Nicholas remains to this day a resident of Germany, Michael immigrated in 1967 to Canada. He married Elizabeth in 1968 and has two Canadian-born sons, one of whom became a professional ice hockey player in Germany, where, over the course of his career, he electronically scanned his grandfather’s diaries, returning with a flash drive for his father, Michael, to translate into English.

Having translated the turbulent years leading up to 1948 for the benefit of immediate family in Canada, Michael became convinced that his father’s journal has significant historical value for those who might be interested in the lives of ordinary Germans, citizens and soldiers, during the first half of the twentieth century. Notably, as an officer in the Wehrmacht, Wilhelm challenged the rigid army system by going all the way to the very top in order to obtain permission to marry an English woman immediately following the outbreak of World War II.

THE EARLY YEARS

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M Y FIRST URGE to keep a daily diary occurred while at high school in Koslin, eastern Pomerania during the years 1927 – 31. That was until my mother happened to glance in to my writings and correctly described them as little more than daily weather reports.

It wasn’t until the outbreak of war on September 1st, 1939, that I felt a renewed desire to describe some of my experiences most of which remain vivid in great detail even to this day. The immediate post war period on the other hand, with its bitter struggle for survival, allowed little time and energy for pen and paper and only when employed as a translator in the German Section of the BBC in London during the summer months of 1949, 50 and 51 did I once again begin to write of war time experiences beginning with my role as training officer in a Romanian NCO school.

Now nearly thirty years later, I am experiencing a renewed wave of writing enthusiasm in the hope that my children and even my grandchildren will find an interest in a period during which enormous political, cultural and social changes of the kind never before experienced took place in our small corner of Europe.

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As a boy I was surrounded by the bountiful world of large estates in the Baltic region, in East Prussia and later in Pomerania where I experienced the dignified atmosphere of the big houses, the honest hard work of the estate workers, the trust and affection shown their horses a few of which I was permitted to ride either at lunch or at the end of the day. Unforgettable was the sight of twelve or fifteen horses three abreast at harvest time or in front of the plough in the autumn. Equally memorable were the farm and estate dairies where milk and butter were produced, the latter of a deliciously rich, spicy texture no longer found today.

Following the harvest when barns were brimming with corn and the first autumnal hints of frosts filled the air, the days echoed to the sound of threshing machines while, out in the fields, long lines of women could be seen filling baskets with freshly dug potatoes.

The landscape was further marked by the exciting sight of steam trains bound on distant errands. In the luggage wagon, attached to third class carriages, farmers’ wives would bring their chickens, ducks and geese to market while back at the station horse drawn wagons and carriages remained patiently waiting under the watchful eye of their drivers.

Europe was then of greater importance in the world. There still existed a British Empire, a powerful France, a self-conscious newly united Italy, a strong Poland and the countries of the low land through their expanding colonial possessions still exercised a stronger voice than the size of their homelands would normally have warranted.

Germany, although still a united country even though East Prussia was now cut off by the Polish Corridor had however been severely punished by the Treaty of Versailles. I recall the evening of June 30th in 1929 - it was a wonderful warm evening as I cycled home from Koslin through the villages of Belgrad, Plathe, Labes accompanied by the inevitable sound of scythes being sharpened in preparation to the hay harvest when suddenly the church bells began to ring to mark the tenth anniversary of the much hated Versailles imposition.

But let me start from the beginning. I was born in the month of December in the year 1911 on the Garasen Estate in the then independent Latvia which later like its neighbouring Lithuania and Estonia were to later become part of Imperial Russia. It should be noted that our family was German in language and culture but like many thousands of other Germans living in Russia were loyal citizens of the Czar.

My father was manager of this estate which belonged to Baron Budberg. My first memories however were of the garden belonging to the Birsgalen vicarage of my grandfather. I think it must have been either during the spring or summer of 1915 when my mother was forced to leave the sanctuary of my grandmother’s house in Birsgalen with us boys - my brother George having been born on 23 October 1913 - and make for the town of Tula to avoid the approaching German front. I clearly remember the blanket laid out near a thick tree trunk upon which my brother George and I lay to have our photo taken together with our mother. This photo has astonishingly survived two world wars and three refugee treks. I am immediately reminded of something else at the time. I think it was during a frightening thunder storm in Tula when Grandmother Busch sat at my bed side stroking my hand to calm my fears. That is all I remember of her. Only much, much later, sometime during the nineteen twenties, did I get to see some photographs of her. She resided until her death in 1936 with her youngest son, my uncle and Pastor Willi who following the death of my grandfather took over the parish of Birsgalen.

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Further memories originate from our time in the North Caucuses. While playing with a friend in the sand beside the rails of a train track, I recall looking up and clearly seeing on the horizon the distinct silhouette of the Caucuses Mountains. My parents later told me that these mountains held Kislawodka, a then famous spa where my father was sent to convalesce following his severe wounding. Upon recovery, he was assigned to the district command of Wladikawkas as aide to the commandant. Wladikawkas marked the northern approach to the main route over the Caucuses to Tiflis which was an important supply centre for the Russian forces facing Turkey.

Our apartment sat above that of the local commander in a red tiled building not far from the train station. In the yard were stables where among other animals we housed a cow which was milked by Demschick, my father’s batman.

Let me interrupt my memories by speaking of an earlier story that characterized social conditions at the time in the Baltic States. My grandfather, Graf Reutern, had sought a home schooling companion for his son Michael (known as Mischa) from the Pastor in Birsgalen and the selection fell on my father. Thus from the autumn of 1894 to the summer of 1898 he came to reside and study in the stately house of Ringen with Mischa with whom he would become a lifelong friend although in 1898 the two went their separate educational ways. Before his final matriculation in the fall of 1901, my father spent three years at a high school in Tuckum before entering an agricultural college. His studies however were interrupted by a one year voluntary service with the Russian Infantry Regiment 116 in the city of Riga followed by induction in to the Guards Regiment in Kronstadt during the Russo- Japanese war of 1905-06. He later completed his agricultural studies at the Polytechnic Institute in Riga.

About this time my grandfather, Graf Reutern Nolcken, was in need of a new estate manager and offered the job to my 24 year old father who in January 1907 took over management of the lands of Ringen, Pampeln and Essern encompassing tenant farms, woods and estate lands of approximately 50,000 acres.

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Nolcken Family Estate

Father must have been hardworking and talented estate manager although his employment ended abruptly in 1910 when he and my grandfather’s second daughter fell in love. Whereas the old baron had no objections to the union, for my grandmother it was a disaster. For her it was totally unthinkable that the daughter of Baron Reutern-Nolcken, a powerful land owner and member of the Kurland nobility and appointed Royal Hunt Master should be wed to the son of an ordinary pastor. My mother was duly shipped off to Switzerland to help change her mind while my father resigned his post as estate manager and took on the management post of the estate of Baroness Budberg.

From my mother I later learned more of the story (which has a fairy tale quality to it). How long she remained in Switzerland I don’t recall although on a crackling cold morning surrounded by deep snow she fell in to my father arms at the Friederichstadt railway station following which she was warmly welcomed in to the vicarage by my father’s parents and on February 13th 1911, my mother’s birthday, they were married by Pastor Busch in the Birsgalen church.

This was a huge provocation for my highly charged and domineering Reutern Nolcken grandmother, and she persuaded her husband to disinherit his daughter and also forbid her from setting foot again on the family estate. No one from her family attended the wedding and thus it was that my mother never again saw her much loved father and what that meant to her I, even as a six year old, could sense when she received the telegram from Stockholm announcing his death in early December 1917.

Let me return now to my early years in the north Caucuses where my father’s batman was charged with milking the cow each day. For long periods he would return with a pitiful quantity causing my mother to complain loudly. One day however he cheerfully produced a full bucket. When asked how he had achieved success, he said he had found the solution. Apparently the animal had a habit of stamping its feet that is until one day she put a foot in to the bucket at which point she became quite relaxed and thereafter with one foot in the bucket my father’s batman was always able to milk her without trouble. I am not sure how the cows foot added to the taste of the milk.

From the yard where we lived I recall the sight of a slender minaret pointing to the sky and many a morning I spotted the silhouette of the Imam calling his flock to prayer.

Wladikawkas had, in those days, wonderful boulevards flanked by long rows of chestnut trees, and there were frequent walks with my parent through the heavily laden fruit orchards from where there was a clear view of the twin horns of Mount Elbruck. One day while out alone, I suddenly found myself lost and had to knock on a number of doors to get directions home. In the end much to the relief and delight of my parents I arrived home without incident for it was a time of considerable turmoil as people from the hills had descended in to town and there existed a constant danger of a child of a Russian officer being kidnapped and held for ransom. Mother calmed me by handing me a glass of sugar water which was so good that a few days later I tried the same trick but this time it led only to a spanking.

I clearly remember a Cossack regiment marching past our window on its way to the southern front. On another occasion we had some guests from great distance. An officer belonging to an advance detachment of a British army unit similarly on its way to the Turkish front line stopped to report to my father. The Englishman had pulled up in a small military car, a predecessor to the Jeep, and a highlight for me was an invitation to take a ride in it.

The British army unit remained with us for several days in Wladikawkas and during that time a football match was organized between the English and members of the local garrison. I still clearly recall the high wooden fence that surrounded the playing field and my parents comments about the unusually high number of injured who had to be carried off the field and brought to the local military hospital.

The river Terek then as now flowed through the centre of town and during the dry summer season could easily be crossed by way of stepping stones however on other occasions it brought down vast quantities of water. Sudden unexpected rain deluges would often occur and once when my parents had gone to the cinema they discovered they could only exit the theatre by climbing up on to a row of chairs thoughtfully laid out by the cinema proprietor.

Now comes the less pleasant side of my memories. It was during the summer of 1917 at a time when Imperial Russia had collapsed and for the first time in a hundred years the hill folk used this opportunity to try and throw off the Russian yoke. They first attacked outposts on the Grusinischen military road. Among these south of Wladikawkas stood an army horse depot run by a Baron Freitag-Loringhoven. One evening as we had just sat down to supper, the Baron rushed in to report that the depot had been overrun. Details escape me now although the reaction of this small boy remains indelibly imprinted in my mind. For the first time in my short life I experienced fear, the sort of fear that grabs one by the throat and leaves one paralysed and feeling sick. Later in life, while in far more dangerous situations, I never again experienced that same terrible feeling. Although twice forced to flee with the family, my parents always retained in front of us boys such a calming presence that even in the face of real danger we seldom felt any sense of unease. Instead those episodes remain firmly imbedded in my mind as a period of wonderful adventure. I am convinced this was because my mother and father never lost their head, never showed fear and above all my mother always somehow managed to see the funny side of even the most unlikely situation.

A clear memory was the sight of bullet riddled railway carriage standing at the station in which some Russian staff officers had likely been ambushed. On another occasion we had just returned our cow to the barn when gun shots came through the wooden wall siding but the final straw occurred in the middle of the night when suddenly the apartment was filled with heavily armed Inguschen hill men who went through everything even slicing open the cushions with their sabres. They said because father was German they would take no further action but if we were still there the following night we would be killed just as if we were Russian.

And so began the first flight with my parents. As luck would have it, around noon the last refugee train was leaving for the north and together with the von Freitag-Loringhoven family we were on it. We had of course only the bare necessities with us which we had thrown together in our hurry to get away. Even though it was shortly before Christmas, it was still warm, and we wore our summer clothes. I can recall the plains through which the train travelled and in the bright sun shine a camel caravan moving calmly beside the railway line however within minutes we saw galloping horsemen who shot wildly into the train. A voice in the carriage yelled ’everyone on the floor’ and happily a short while later the train had left the riders behind and no one was hurt. The journey took us via Rostov on the Don, up to Moscow and to Taps, a railway junction not far from Saint Petersburg. Having escaped the fighting between the Hill people and the Russians in the Caucuses, we now found ourselves in the midst of fighting between the Bolsheviks and the White Russians. High up on a railway embankment we came across two huge locomotives blown off the tracks and hanging half way down below us.

In Moscow we had to change trains and the station resembled that of stations during the Second World War; carriages bursting with refugees, doors crammed with more and people even hanging from the windows. With the train about to depart, my father and Baron Loringhoven were threatened with being separated from us and left behind when three giant Russian sailors seized my father and the Baron, hoisted them on to their shoulders and forced their way through the crowd to our compartment. In the family this wonderful small lifesaving act remained a mystery and at first was attributed to the unpredictable Russian character. Only much later in 1971 or 72 when the 90 year old Baron came to stay with us did he explain that somehow in that turmoil he had exchanged a few words with the sailors and described how he was from the Island of Osel. It turned out the three sailors also hailed from the same island and the Osel islanders were not about to abandon one of their own. In the town of Taps we once again had to change trains and while waiting for our connection to Reval, we hunkered down on our bags next to a wall while military controls were going on all around. I made the mistake of saying something in German and was promptly silenced with a sharp cuff. From then on a family motto was ‘in Taps there are smacks’.

End of the line for the time being was Reval where I have clear memories of the town fortifications and of a long horse drawn wagon with which we had driven to see the sea. After that a short journey brought us to Dorpat and the time there was perhaps even more dangerous than in Wladikawkas. Night after night the Bolsheviks carried out raids and searches and luckily throughout my father was able to pass himself off as an ordinary Russian soldier. None the less, countless Balts were rounded up as in a Night and Fog operation only to disappear into the depth of Russia.

In the early morning of February 24th 1918 the town was suddenly overcome by a wave of excitement, relief and joy. German troops had arrived. In a lightning move bicycle troops had covered the forty kilometres from the front and freed the town from the much surprised Bolsheviks. We kids ran gleefully towards the soldiers one of whom lifted me up on his back and deposited me hard against his metal shield and even to this day I can still feel the impact of every cobble stone in the town of Dorpat on my tender back side. We later came to admire the horses and the assembled lancers of the cavalry. They were Death Head Hussars with little black and white pennants fluttering from their lances. From that moment on endless new and awe inspiring pictures abounded from transport of war material in the rail yards to my first glimpse of an airplane, a German machine that circled high over the town.

About this time, my parents were anxiously trying to return to their homeland in Courland (North West part of Lithuania) but, before making our way there, we had a stop in Riga because I had become seriously ill and was admitted to a hospital. Following my recovery, we finally arrived at Ringen, the large estate of my grandfather, mother’s father, who as I have said died in 1917 in Stockholm. The house was now occupied by his wife, my grandmother, who had in the meantime a change of heart and welcomed my mother and her family under her roof. It must have been sometime between April and June when I first set eyes on my grandmother and on my great grandmother who also lived there.

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Wilhelm, his Mother and Brother George

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Wilhelm and his

Brother George

Many happy hours were spent in the broad park like lands and the generous terrace overlooking the garden. The house had been built in the 1880s by my grandfather. Especially vivid are the memories of the preparation for the forth coming marriage of my mother’s youngest sister Tante Jutta to the Swedish Military Attache Graf Wachtmeister.Our time there was marked by long walks through pine forests bathed in the warmth of a summer sun during which a young girl or woman told us tales from the Nibelungen. Another delight were the trips with my father on the local carriage transport which boasted a long wooden board as seat together with foot rest on either side. We sat astride the board, and I recall to this day how snug and protected I felt in the closeness of my father.

For some unexplained reason a solitary German soldier was stationed at the estate until one day he hoisted his heavy kit on his back and with a cheerful wave said goodbye. From comments overheard by my parents I gathered he was an enthusiastic Communist, and I remember how much difficulty I had in reconciling the notion that a German soldier could also be a Communist.

That warm, sunny autumn was followed by an early winter and, even before Christmas we and the village kids could be found joyfully running a carousel on the frozen pond. Let me explain; a wagon wheel had been sunk in to the ice at the centre of the pond from which a long pole reached out and while someone cranked the wheel, the others flew around the edge of the pond on their sleds hanging on for dear life.

That Christmas was however spent under a dark cloud of uneasy premonition. With the armistice of November 11th 1918 and the collapse of Imperial Germany and with it the disintergration of the front, it was only a matter of time before the Bolsheviks were bound to return. Shortly after the last German troops had left, my parents made the decision to flee yet again. The planning for our departure had to be conducted in complete secrecy because one was never sure of being able to rely on the discretion of the local Lithuanian population some of whom regarded our sleigh and the two Panje ponies as belonging to the people while others, arriving with returning Russians, eagerly seized all German estates and property.

Sometime between Christmas and New Year in 1918, we quietly set off in the dark of the night. I can clearly remember the sleigh tipping over in a snow drift in some dark lane, a mishap that caused my mother even years later much amusement. We were joined that same night by a bachelor neighbour, a Baron Firke, who had likewise been a Russian officer. Next day there was a sharp rise in temperature bringing about a heavy snow melt but fortunately my father was able to trade the sleigh in for a cart and two panje ponies. Rapidly shrinking snow patches glistened in the warmth of the afternoon sun and were joined by a fast flowing stream of melting snow descending from the straw roof over our heads. There followed a number of other memories but of their sequence I am no longer certain except one night we were admitted to an estate owned by a Pole. The road up to the farm ran past an old tower. Well before dawn we were suddenly awoken by my father, ordered to dress quickly and ushered out to the waiting pony and cart following which, still surrounded by darkness, we hastened past the old tower. During the night my father had somehow learned that the word had gone out that we were German refugees and it was ordered that we be arrested.

My parents knew that German troops were about two days ahead in the process of pulling back. Since it was known that along that particular route the most number of bandits were to be found, my father was careful to use only side roads. When approaching a village late one evening, we found ourselves surrounded by a number of fires and in the flickering light we detected numerous dark figures either sitting or moving about. In response to my question, my father declared that the people in the village were shortly expecting the Bolsheviks and had quickly slaughtered their pigs to keep them from being stolen. Just then our two little panje ponies got tangled up in a telephone cable that lay coiled across the street. The telephone line had been cut and in the half-light my father had great difficulty calming the animals without drawing us to the attention of the dark figured villagers nearby.

About this time Baron Firke became very ill and, in his haste to get him to warmth and help, my father, if my memory serves me, drove us towards the lights of a guest house. Hardly had we pulled up at its door than we were surrounded by a group of Bolshevik soldiers demanding to know who we were and where were we going. I later discovered that for us and for Baron Firk those were some of the most dangerous moments of our entire flight to safety. Both my father and the baron greeted the soldiers warmly, congratulated them on their rapid advance and expressed their delight in the birth of the new Communist era and the end of capitalism. All was well. The two former officers knew how to handle simple Russian soldiers. Happily for me, I had no clue of the imminent threat but can clearly recall the rattling, jolting wooden bench upon which the poor baron must have suffered throughout his illness. One morning, to my immense surprise, we arrived at the edge of a wide and, from my perspective, deep valley which had to be crossed. It could have been the Dylissa valley. Whether it was the steepness of the decline or it was ice on the road I could not say but for the first time my father braked our wheels by placing blocks in the spokes. And then we reached the big road leading to East Prussia. It ran like a pale shimmering finger through seemingly endless thick, dark woods from which time to time we heard rare, bone chilling sounds first behind us and then off to one side from which the presence of wolves could no longer be denied. When my mother asked where the pistol was hidden, my father volunteered that it was concealed under the straw sack seat upon which he sat along with my mother’s valuable earrings. As if sensing the existence of our weapon, the wolves fell back and off to the left we spotted the outline of a brick works from which a dark figure appeared. Perhaps relieved to be rid of the wolf threat, my father first spoke in Lithuanian and then in Russian to which all we heard in reply was Nesse pruntes, nesse pruntes. This as far as I could make out was I don’t understand, none the less father quickly took up the reins and renewed our journey instructing us two boys to keep a keen ear open for further chilling sounds emanating from the dark surrounding forests.

Early one evening, all my parent’s fears and worries and the astonishing adventure for us in the light panje cart came to an end. Left and right of us ran barbed wire obstacles along a flat ditch at the edge of which stood a solitary German soldier in his steel helmet and some 30 meters ahead a house and a military vehicle with head lights full on. Here we had reached the German border where we knew my parents would have to go inside to identify themselves.

Was it the sight of the army vehicle with its bright headlights or was it perhaps a subconscious feeling of release knowing that the dangers were now behind us because just then my brother and I rolled around among the bundles and sacks with uncontrolled laughter until our parents returned.

The estates of East Prussia were to take in the lion’s share of the refugees from the Baltic States. The Schonewiese estate belonged to Frau Kruger, a lady my parents would remain in contact with right up until her visit to Wangeritz in Pomerania in the nineteen thirties. At the time of our arrival she lived with her retired father and daughter. Her father was the first bee keeper we had ever seen; covered from head to toe by bees he was never stung while collecting the honey from the many hives. As I recall, on the north side of the house stood the farm buildings and on the opposite side a large park complete with pond. On the corner of the house stood a broad wooden veranda which as the year unfurled increasingly became for us boys the centre of our lives. The stables also had a magnetic draw, and I was soon allowed to ride one of the horses when the wagons returned from the fields at midday. One day the horse I was on seemed to be in an unusual hurry and began to trot towards the low stable door where he would have wiped me off his back had not the estate manager suddenly appeared and scooped me off its back.

Set back from the farmyard stool a solitary shed in which just about anything that needed repairing was repaired. I attached myself to the estate carpenter or cabinet maker, helped a little or perhaps merely handed him whatever tools were required. Of course the carpenter knew I was a refugee kid, and we must have talked about many things. Unforgettable was his matter of fact statement claiming that the Communists will one day come and in time all of Germany will become Communist. To me it sounded as if he actually welcomed such an event.

It was also in Schonewiese where I witnessed my mother’s pain and tears for the second time; the first having occurred following news of her much beloved father’s death in 1917 in distant Stockholm. This time around the end of May 1919 came the news of the death of her oldest brother Mischa who on May 29th during the capture of the town of Riga by the Baltic Landwehr (Baltic Home Guard) was killed on the bridge over the river Duna. My father too, following our arrival at Schonewiese, had returned to to join the Baltic Home Guard.

In the autumn of 1919, my mother and us two boys settled in to the more northerly neighbouring Lugowen where a Herr von Below took us in while my father was away. Our accommodation at Schonewiese had been in a simple yet comfortable country house however the house at Lugowen was another matter; one could only call it a chateau built out of some sort of red coloured stone and standing elevated and dignified at the end of a wide drive way. Especially impressive for us kids was the high ceiling of the entrance hall and the curved wooden stairway leading to the landing above. Herr Paul von Below (nicknamed Pulle) was at the time a bachelor and had been a well-known horseman before the Great War. Of course the place was filled with countless pictures of horses, and I especially remember a photo of a huge water jump taken near Liverpool, England.

My first real recollection of Lugowen was a walk with my mother through the orchard (it must have been September) because beneath the trees lay a carpet of fat ripe delicious plums, and we had been given permission to eat as many as we cared to. In the autumn there were also peaches and, to this day, whenever I see a peach, I still picture in my mind the wide stone terrace where I sank my teeth in to my very first one. I also made an unhappy acquaintance with another very ripe, dark red berry called the Holland Berry the consequence of which was an overwhelming desire to die, a condition that lasted all day.

The Lugowen estate provided a wide range of fascinating memories although some were of a darker, depressing nature. The ploughing of fields was accomplished with the use of two huge steam driven tractors between which hung a plough shear connected by a long cable. Time and again we had to be pulled away from the dangers of this fascinating contraption. About this time I was given a pony to ride and sometimes I would accompany the adults on their ride. On one occasion, I failed to tie the girth sufficiently tight and, in the middle of a brisk trot in the wake of the big horses, much like butter on a hot potato, I found myself sliding off. We also loved to build small harbours and canals in the sparklingly clear water of the small river that separated the estate from the village and which flowed in a wide curve around the hill upon which the castle stood. It was especially painful to be dragged away from this idyllic playground when summoned for the drudgery of school lessons. Yes, life had begun in earnest because I was enrolled in a school two kilometres away where being somewhat naïve and clumsy, I was often set upon by the village kids and on more than once had to be rescued by a teacher.

On another occasion Herr von Below wanted to test a new car out on the open road, and I was allowed to accompany him. I can clearly remember my astonishment when the speedometer pointed to sixty kilometres per hour.

Then came winter, and I was given a pair of skis. Although they were much too long, I spent every free moment outside in the snow. Another attraction was ice fishing on the frozen river. We beat the ice and so rendered the fish unconscious following which we cut a hole and pulled them out. The river below the castle had also spilled over its banks and now presented us with a wide open sheet of ice. My mother, who was a passionate ice skater, had us sweep the surface following which she taught us how to skate. With all of these marvellous distractions it was small wonder that the teacher saw me as an unlovable, lazy foreign interloper.

During this period, the German government was officially prohibited from assisting the various units defending the Baltic States which with the Baltic Home Guard and the Iron Division were trying to protect Courland against the Bolsheviks. It needed private initiative therefore to get guns and ammunition assembled and secretly shipped across the border which was undertaken in part by a Herr von Platen. I thought of the old man again when encountering a blue eyed, fair haired young cavalry officer by the name of von Platen while attending my first year at the Dresden Infantry School.

In the spring of 1920 my parents bought a farm called Adamswalde from where my next collection of memories originate. My father had still not returned and my mother worked the farm alone although she had the help of the youngest daughter of Baroness Hahn who was then about 17 or 18 and called Babettchen. It must have been a very difficult time for my mother even with the help of the always cheerful, very brave hard working Babettchen who shrank back from nothing and threw herself tirelessly into her work. The nearest railway station was about 9 kilometres away, and I was often entrusted with the task of driving the wagon and pair to deliver or fetch someone from the train. Once, when it was already dark, I lost my way but even as a young nine year old boy I knew the horses could be relied upon to find their way home so I lowered the reins and let them have their head. Among the horses on the farm was an old brown animal that had clearly seen better days and was there to see out her life. It was my job to lead her each day from the stable to the meadow. Someone lifted me up on to her back and off she calmly went perhaps somehow in the knowledge that she had a small boy on her back however as soon as she climbed the steep bank on the far side of the creek above which lay her field she, despite her age, broke in to a full gallop. I hung on and experienced for the first time the pure joy of galloping although was grateful when she came to a full stop at the gate allowing me to remove her bridle before trotting quietly in to the meadow. This same routine must have gone on for weeks or even months until one day I found my father, who had in the meantime return from Courland, bending over the lifeless carcass of the old brown one. It must have been a heart attack, he declared.

While the hay on the slope in front of the farm was being harvested, my mother suddenly let out a terrible cry. My younger brother George had fallen down a hitherto undiscovered well shaft. Only after my father had assembled all strong hands and applied all his skill did they succeed in bringing him to the surface relatively uninjured.

In overhearing my parents in conversation, I learned how Adamswalde was perhaps the most demanding of farms for, aside from numerous other burdens, the soil was a heavy clay which, considering the limited equipment of the day, made life unusually hard. As a consequence, my father acquired a small farm of about 100 acres in the Masurian Lake district immediately outside the gates to the tiny town of Rhein. This purchase was, I believe, accomplished from the sale of my mother’s valuable ear rings which she had secreted away under a sack during our flight from the Bolsheviks.

Not until September 1932 did I return to Lugowen. I was there for three days shortly before receiving orders from Reichswehr Infantry Regiment No. 3 to report to the infantry school in Dresden for an officer’s training course. Herr von Below’s face had in the meantime become pale and drawn but his eyes were still as penetratingly blue as ever. In the garden, once so familiar from my childhood skiing and riding days, three children were happily romping around. One day I took Herr von Below to the races at Trakehnen where I happened to spot Reichs Chancellor von Papen in the crowd engaged in a lively debate.

During those three days stay at Lugowen there were more than enough opportunities to hear the political views of people living in a province cut off from the rest of Germany. Herr von Below spoke with unreserved bitterness about that man Koch who would later become the Gauleiter for the region under the Nazis. Today Lugowen is part of the Soviet Union, the castle was burned to the ground, and it’s highly unlikely that any graves remain bearing German names.

Rhein was a little town on the furthest end of a long arm of Spirding Lake. In the centre stood (and still stands) a castle built by, I believe, Ulrich von Jungingen, a member of the Teutonic Knights. There was also a brick coloured church shared by Protestant and Catholics for their respective services. The town boasted a protestant pastor and a catholic priest as well as a court house (in the castle) and a large school. Our farm lay about two kilometres west of Rhein just off the main road to Sensburg. My class teacher was a Herr Stopka, a big pale faced man who walked with a stick perhaps as a result of a war wound. Apart from him, we also had an older but energetic lady who taught us geography and from whom we learned a lot about the Kaiser’s family. Here too, I remember getting into scraps principally with the loud mouthed son of the butcher who greatly outweighed me.

I was at the same time subjected to private Latin lessons from the protestant minister and, in his rooms across from the brick church, I first laid eyes on a spittoon and learned of its peculiar use. His lessons were augmented by my mother who while digging turf, picking vegetables or guarding cattle tested my Latin vocabulary…amo, amas, amat…….

Summer and winter we walked the two kilometres to school or to after school tuition classes. The ’we’ consisted mostly of a small group of children including the daughter of the Mullers, Marta Widlewski and Bialla, the daughter of the local road house owner. When not at school, my brother and I were put to work on the farm mostly guarding the cattle. There were of course countless other tasks we put our hands to such as attending to the horses especially during threshing time, or stacking hay bales, unloading the harvest from incoming wagons, planting vegetables and digging turf.

My brother, age eight or nine, was asked one day to lead a bull to the slaughter house, a task he had no objection to. The butcher rewarded him with a big sausage, and I clearly remember our delight because in those days meat was near to priceless. We boys began to develop a need for pocket money, and we had heard that mole skins were in high demand and moles we had many. So we caught one and tried to skin it but all our efforts resulted only in a messy failure. Then we discovered a pile of bottles in the cellar and began one by one to smuggle them in to Rhein for the deposit money until my father stumbled upon our endeavours and swiftly closed down our commercial enterprise. After that we must have been given a small amount of pocket money because I cannot recall resorting to any further commercial endeavours.

Happily our parents also allowed us some time on our own and even to this day I can recall the wonderful, welcoming woods behind the farm. There I built forts, roads and bridges and at the edge of the wood there was a former lime quarry offering thrilling landscape of hills and valleys in which to erected small towns and villages. I must have expressed a wish for toy soldiers because one day I was presented with a box full of led French toy soldiers in blue tunics and red trousers. Oddly, German toy soldiers were not manufactured or sold at the time.

In spite of the easier soil, the Rhein days must have also been a very hard life for my parents, a situation made more difficult by my mother’s illness and the loss of a trusted, much loved horse to colic. Not unexpectedly my father was very often tired none the less, each Sunday afternoon, weather permitting, my mother insisted on organizing a family outing of either a rowing trip on the Spirding Lake or a swim from the many sand bars in the bay all of which was always followed up with a picnic. During one of the rowing excursions with my father, a storm came up and we nearly sank when swimming in the bay. I clearly remember being on his back as we traversed a deep spot.

Every Sunday evening a big pot of water was set on the wood burning stove and then we boys were thoroughly scrubbed. One winter day in 1921 or 1922 a car with numerous passengers got stuck in the snow in front of our farm. They were of course given refuge in the house, and I can still see our kitchen floor covered with coat and blanket covered sleeping figures. The next day father retrieved the car with the help of our two horses and towed it in to Rhein.

It must have been that same winter when we feared greatly for the safe return of our father who had set off with a cart and two horses in search of fire wood. His destination was Nikolaiken about twenty kilometres to the south. The journey there and back was to be over the ice on the lake but on that day, a Saturday, I believe, there was an unexpected warm spell and we ourselves could see how, within a short period of time, inches of melted water had suddenly covered the ice. To our delight he however returned next day safe and sound.

During the summer of 21 or 22 when my parents decided to venture out for a couple of days to cut hay in a wooded area east of Rhein. I was to join them after school and the delight in the forthcoming adventure was huge. When having turned my back on Rhein on that warm afternoon, great was my disappointment when only a few kilometres down the road, I spotted the horse and cart bearing my parents coming towards me churning through deep white sand that flowed like water between the spokes. What was the matter? Evidently while my parents went to work they had hobbled the horses in the trees and when my mother approached one to either give it water or feed, the animal, perhaps in protest over its unpleasant restriction, lashed out and kicked her savagely in the thigh.

While at school, I among others, was given flute lessons. For some reason the entire class marched as a band through the town one day. Although I was well known for my lack of musical talent, I was placed in the centre of the group where I blew enthusiastically into the flute content in the knowledge that from where I was no one would notice my lack of harmony. Another memorable occasion was the school excursion to the town of Lotzen where class by class we were introduced to Field Marshal von Hindenburg.

Another lasting impression were the celebrations following the election in the summer of 1920. According to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles the Masurien Lake district and the southern half of the province of East Prussia were required to hold a vote to determine if the population wished to remain part of Germany or join Poland. The Polish government hoped that the larger number of non-German residents would elect to join Poland but, as it turned out, the vote was in favour of remaining part of Germany. I think it was as high as 92%. To mark this overwhelming outcome, a torch light parade took place and several sporting clubs put on special events in the Rhein market place under the shadow of the big castle. It was there I first heard a brass band playing old German marching songs from the days of Frederick the Great

In that same year and on that same steep Church Hill I remember running alongside a company of grey clad Reichswehr infantry and to this day I can still picture the face of the mounted officer. It was a war weary, sunken, weather beaten face with a faraway look.

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Wilhelm and his two brothers

About 300 meters below us was the home of the Mullers whose daughter Karla walked to school with me and from time to time was my second love - the first having been a little girl from the neighbouring estate Gurkenfelde who had come to Schoenwiese for a visit. Our best and most helpful neighbour, according to my father, was farmer Guderian whom we called Gudderjahn who lived on the far side of a long ridge where every summer solstice wood piles were set ablaze creating a line of fires as far as the eye could see. On the North West side was the farm of Bogdan with whom however we had little contact.

While living in Rhein, my mother’s youngest sister came to stay. She was Tante Jutta from Sweden, and one day she came to the school to fetch me. We walked up the steep incline past the cemetery up to the road, and she spoke to me as if I were already an adult asking a lot of questions and patiently listening to my replies. I don’t remember much about her following her wedding in Mitau in 1918 but on that walk home she was the dearest of aunts for this ten year old.

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Wilhelm’s brother Ernst

Our life in Rhein was soon to come to an end when father accepted a position as manager of two estates called Janikow and Golzengut in Dramburg in upper Pomerania, a job he was to start at the beginning of January 1923. Of the move I don’t remember much except we were told that pets couldn’t come with us. On a cold, dry morning we crossed over the Polish Corridor which had once been part of West Prussia. It was a dreary, treeless landscape with only an old woman dressed all in black in view who was perhaps on her way to early mass. The next big impression was the busy border station at Scheidemuhl where we encountered Polish soldiers all armed to the teeth. The Poles, at that time, had the right to set up sentry posts on the platform, and we boys tried to speak with one who however abruptly turned his back on us. Next day the train took us through Tempelburg, Falkenburg and then finally to Dramburg and the start of a new chapter in my life which would cover the next five and a half years.

I was to twice revisit Rhein during later years. The first time was in the fall of 1932 when I was a young officer cadet. The farm had been sold years before so I circled it from a distance. Farmer Guderian and his family were still there and his daughter accompanied me to the Rhein bus station. The second visit occurred in March of 1941 when Infantry Regiment 58, straight from Paris, was unloaded in the town of Sensburg and set off on a night march towards the borders of East Prussia. My 7th company of the 2nd battalion approached from the heights overlooking the old, familiar lake shore with family Biallas little road house to the left and the mill to the right. Here I climbed off my horse and while the company stamped its way down the hill, I slipped away in the dark. A thin layer of snow still covered the ground as I wandered around the old, much loved farm with its countless memories. Nothing much had changed. The little family house, the horse and cow stalls, behind which stood the workshop which my father had built soon after acquiring the farm - were just as I remember them. Even the garden was unchanged although the fruit trees had grown. Rhein was the end of that day’s march and the company’s lodging just happened to be my old school on the rise overlooking the lake. Following a few hours of sleep, I set off to explore the empty class rooms. Some of the pictures on the wall were the same and later that morning I took a stroll through the town where the only visible change was the burned out big red brick church which had accidentally caught fire several years earlier. The little sweet shop where we as boys had bought our liquorish allsorts (worm shaped, black, sticky and bitter sweet) was still there and no sooner had I entered than the door flew open and in strode a young woman who I immediately recognized as a class mate from twenty years before.

Now let me get back to Janikow. The Janikow and neighbouring Golzen estates belonged to a Doctor Reichert and were both managed by my father although at the Golzen estate there was a seventy year old assistant manager, Herr Bernd who with his deep gravel voice soon became familiar to us boys. The Janikow estate and the village stood high above a deep valley. Immediately beyond the farm buildings and the castle terrace the ground dropped off sharply into parkland embracing a number of trout ponds. At the far end of the park marked by a lush, level meadow stood the remains of an ancient fortress surrounded by a stand of silver birch trees. We boys were never quite certain that anything of importance had ever happened there but could easily imagine from the steep incline, the clear view and the surrounding marshes that the location would have once been an ideal site for a wooden fort.

During the first few weeks, we lived with Doctor Reichert in the castle before moving in to the administrator’s house standing opposite at the end of the long stable building. Between us and the manor house in the centre of the gravel driveway stood a beautiful old walnut tree. The gravel driveway and the huge trunk of that tree soon became our favoured playground.

Our house or more precisely, our apartment, at the end of the long stable building was of a two story post and beam construction with red tiled roof. On the ground floor was the kitchen, the pantry and a guest bed room while above, up wide wooden stairs, was the dining room, the living room, the latter known as the ’salon’, my parents’ bed room overlooking the yard and our bedroom looking over the orchard, a few buildings in the village and the little house belonging to the railway level crossing attendant. Trains ran promptly at eight and again at four eliminating the need for us boys to own a watch.

My parents were, I think, much relieved when I was accepted into the sixth grade of the Dramburg high school while my brother first attended the elementary school there. We were entrusted with a uniquely intelligent Hungarian pony by the name of Fontana. Each morning the coachman brought the pony and cart to the house following which we would set off for the Golzen estate where, unaided, we would unlimber Fontana before depositing her in her stable. From there it was a short 900 meters across the heath to both schools. With school over, we would re-harness Fontana and drive home. Fontana was the most trustworthy and splendid animal I have ever encountered. We never had to urge her on, and she was absolutely reliable in traffic which in those days had less to do with cars but more to do with trains which often had the nasty habit of puffing up huge clouds of smoke and steam as they passed atop the underpass just as we were in it.

Sometime later we were given a lighter cart with a very unpredictable pony who detested the increasingly frequent appearance of automobiles leaving me with a clear memory of many an adventure with that little devil. Sitting up front -George always chose the back seat - I found I had nothing to brace myself against when the pony took it in to his head to bolt. A memorable occasion was when we encountered a car on the way home near the dairy. Our cart shot straight towards a recently planted tree and, expecting a terrible crash, I was astonished to see the young tree