Goodbye, Transylvania: A Romanian Waffen-SS Soldier in WWII

By Sigmund Heinz Landau

A Romanian soldier details serving for Germany on the Eastern Front during World War II in this memoir, featuring firsthand accounts of combat.

German by ancestry, born and raised in the ethnic welter of post-World War I Romania, Sigmund Heinz Landau left his home to volunteer for the Third Reich during World War II. Serving on the Eastern Front, he saw nearly six years of continuous fighting with a Luftwaffe Flak unit and eventually in the Waffen-SS, from sentry duty to desperate attacks against Soviet T-34s, from the siege of Budapest to the final campaign for Berlin in 1945. Landau’s memoir, written from a unique perspective, offers rare insight into what motivated soldiers to fight—and die—for Nazi Germany.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9780811762120

Book preview

GOODBYE, TRANSYLVANIA

The Stackpole Military History Series

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Europe in Flames

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The Germans in Normandy

Germany's Panzer Arm in World War II

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Goodbye, Transylvania

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Hitler's Final Fortress

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Hold the Westwall

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Luftwaffe Fighter Ace

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Luftwaffe Fighters and Bombers

Massacre at Tobruk

Mechanized Juggernaut or Military Anachronism?

Messerschmitts over Sicily

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Michael Wittmann, Vol. 2

Mission 85

Mission 376

Mountain Warriors

The Nazi Rocketeers

Night Flyer / Mosquito Pathfinder

No Holding Back

On the Canal

Operation Mercury

Panzer Aces

Panzer Aces II

Panzer Commanders of the Western Front

Panzergrenadier Aces

Panzer Gunner

The Panzer Legions

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Panzers in Winter

Panzer Wedge, Vol. 1

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The Path to Blitzkrieg

Penalty Strike

Poland Betrayed

Prince of Aces

Red Road from Stalingrad

Red Star Under the Baltic

Retreat to the Reich

Rommel Reconsidered

Rommel's Desert Commanders

Rommel's Desert War

Rommel's Lieutenants

The Savage Sky

The Seeds of Disaster

Ship-Busters

The Siege of Brest, 1941

The Siege of Küstrin

The Siegfried Line

A Soldier in the Cockpit

Soviet Blitzkrieg

Spitfires and Yellow Tail Mustangs

Stalin's Keys to Victory

Surviving Bataan and Beyond

T-34 in Action

Tank Tactics

Tigers in the Mud

Triumphant Fox

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Twilight of the Gods

Typhoon Attack

The War Against Rommel's Supply Lines

War in the Aegean

War of the White Death

Warsaw 1944

Winter Storm

The Winter War

Wolfpack Warriors

Zhukov at the Oder

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Cyclops in the Jungle

Expendable Warriors

Fighting in Vietnam

Flying American Combat Aircraft: The Cold War

Here There Are Tigers

Land with No Sun

Phantom Reflections

Street without Joy

Through the Valley

Tours of Duty

Two One Pony

WARS OF AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST

The Rhodesian War

GENERAL MILITARY HISTORY

Carriers in Combat

Cavalry from Hoof to Track

Desert Battles

Guerrilla Warfare

The Philadelphia Campaign, Vol. 1

Ranger Dawn

Sieges

The Spartan Army

GOODBYE, TRANSYLVANIA

A Romanian Waffen-SS Soldier in WWII

Sigmund Heinz Landau

STACKPOLE

BOOKS

Dedicated to my wife, Freda, and my daughter, Rosemary

Copyright © 1985 by JMD Media Ltd.

Published in 2015 by

STACKPOLE BOOKS

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Mechanicsburg, PA 17055

www.stackpolebooks.com

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Stackpole Books, 5067 Ritter Road, Mechanicsburg, PA 17055.

Printed in the United States of America

10   9   8   7   6    5   4   3   2   1

STACKPOLE FIRST EDITION

Cover design by Wendy A. Reynolds

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Landau, Sigmund Heinz, 1920–

Goodbye, Transylvania : a Romanian Waffen-SS soldier in WWII / Sigmund Heinz Landau.

      pages cm. – (Stackpole military history series)

Originally published: Derby, England : Breedon Books Publishing Company Limited, 1985.

Summary: Rare memoir of a foreigner serving with the Germans on the Eastern Front. Firsthand descriptions of combat at the siege of Budapest and the final battle for Berlin in 1945. Insights into what motivated soldiers to fight for Nazi Germany—From publisher's website.

ISBN 978-0-8117-1582-9

1. Landau, Sigmund Heinz, 1920– 2. Waffen-SS—Biography. 3. World War, 1939–1945—Personal narratives, Romanian. 4. Soldiers—Romania—Transylvania—Biography. 5. Soldiers—Germany—Biography. 6. World War, 1939–1945—Campaigns—Eastern Front. 7. Budapest (Hungary)—History—Siege, 1945—Personal narratives, Romanian. 8. Berlin, Battle of, Berlin, Germany, 1945—Personal narratives, Romanian. 9. Brasov (Romania)—Biography. I. Title.

D757.85.L3536 2015

940.54'1343092—dc23

[B]

2014048768

eBook ISBN: 978-0-8117-6212-0

Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1:     My Beloved Kronstadt

Chapter 2:     My Youth

Chapter 3:     Indoctrination on the Eastern Front

Chapter 4:     Holland and the Gestapo

Chapter 5:     Russia Again

Chapter 6:     Best Forgotten

Chapter 7:     Rediscovering My Unit!

Chapter 8:     Leave!

Chapter 9:     Mission—Save or Destroy!

Chapter 10:   Treachery

Chapter 11:   Eastern Front Retreat

Chapter 12:   The Western Front

Chapter 13:   Heading East Again!

Chapter 14:   Last of the Mohicans?

Chapter 15:   Prisoner of War

Chapter 16:   Freedom!

Chapter 17:   Goodbye, Transylvania

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Transylvanian Hungarian saying: The only virgin sheep and goats in the Carpathians are the ones that can outrun the Romanian shepherd.

Foreword

The first 19 years of my life were spent as a tolerated foreigner in Transylvania, Romania, yet my ancestors had settled there 1,200 years before. Romania on the other hand only exists since the later period of the nineteenth century. Makes the 140 years of the Falklanders look rather insignificant, don't you think?

By the outbreak of World War II, millions of us Germans and Hungarians had spent twenty years under the Czechoslovaks, the Romanians, Yugoslavs, Poles, and Italians. At last, the young men could no longer put up with it all and left their homes to volunteer for the German or Hungarian armies. I was among these unfortunates.

I had lived through nearly six years of almost nonstop fighting, most of it on the dreaded Eastern Front, fighting to regain my country, my freedom. Alas, freedom is for some but definitely not for others.

Forty years after the war, I am still a foreigner. I have now spent thirty-seven years among the English, have tried and I hope succeeded in becoming a model citizen. I am now sixty-five years old and have never known, never will know, what it is like to live in one's own country. Not as an eternal foreigner in someone else's land.

My past, and especially my war record, have been investigated time and again by the authorities of three independent countries:

Interrogation by Austrian police (denazification), 1946–47.

Investigations by British Field Security Service, 1947.

Second British investigation, prior to engagement in the capacity of draftsman with Zone HQ BTA Carinthia, Intelligence Service, 1947.

Investigations by British government before entry into the UK, 1948.

Final investigations in Britain in 1952, prior to naturalization.

Investigations carried out at my request by the West German government, 1970–72.

As regards Romanian behavior? Just ask anyone from that part of the world.

The atrocities of the Red Army in Eastern Europe and especially in Germany? There are countless books on the market written by unbiased international authors confirming every word.

Most of the names in this book are genuine, apart from a few which, for very good reasons, I decided to change.

I criticize freely, whenever criticism is called for, regardless of the recipient's nationality, but I assure you I mean no offense, no harm to anyone.

SHORT INTRODUCTION TO TRANSYLVANIA

Transylvania, roughly the size of Switzerland, is inhabited by three ethnic groups.

1. The Székely-Magyar (Transylvanian Hungarian) arrived at the Carpathians 1,000 years ago at the very spot where one century later they started to build my hometown, which they named Brassó and the Romanians eventually called Braşov. The only tribe of Attila's Hun-Magyars to travel south of the Caspian Sea, the Széklers found themselves subdued by the powerful Ottomans, and after endless trials and tribulations reached Transylvania under the leadership of Árpád and his seven vezérs (leaders) circa 989 AD, one century after the Hun-Magyar invasion of Europe. Being natural horsemen, they chose to settle in the less mountainous and flatter regions of the country, which were also more suitable for the black buffalo they brought with them from the Ottoman Peninsula. Eventually they made quite a name for themselves with their Székely Hussars, who excelled in a number of historical battles all over the world. Three hundred and fifty of them formed the bodyguard of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico. Deserted by their French and Mexican allies, they fought to the last man and were buried by the Mexicans, under Benito Juárez, with full military honors.

2. The Transylvanian-Saxons came to Transylvania circa 1100 AD at the invitation of one of the first Christian kings of Hungary. Their ancestors came mostly from various parts of the Rhineland, but were joined by others along the endless trek. On arrival they swore allegiance to the Hungarian crown. They renamed the country Siebenbürgen according to the seven regions in which they settled. Their villages and towns were fortified by thick walls and towers, but should these fall they could retreat to the church in the center of the settlement, built like a fort. Some of the towers contained huge stores of smoked hams, bacon, sausages, and other types of meat. Considering they were mostly peasants, their architecture was excellent and their talent for organization first class. Not very warlike, they fought very bravely in defense. They developed a sound educational system and were for centuries the only literate community, as well as the best farmers, of Eastern Europe. From the days of Martin Luther and Gutenberg on, every Saxon village had its own ever-increasing library.

3. In pre–Roman days, Transylvania was inhabited by a small swarthy race known as the Dacs. They were almost wiped out by the Romans, the survivors intermarrying with Roman and Byzantine convicts banished to the, for them, harsh climate of Transylvania as slave labor. They were joined by an increasing number of deserters from the legions, and a new nation emerged out of these ingredients, known as the Wallachs. Century after century these people kept crossing over the borders and, left by the Hungarian authorities to settle, mostly as shepherds and laborers, proceeded to multiply at an alarming rate. By the turn of the century, the Wallachian countries of Oltenia, Muntenia, and Moldova united and assumed the proud name of Romania.

Romania, as it is now known, entered into a nonaggression pact with the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, yet in 1916 invaded Transylvania without a declaration of war, looting and raping. Some Austro-Hungarian and German units were hastily transferred from Italy and Russia, and the Romanians were speedily dispatched back to Romania. A peace treaty was signed at Bucharest, but the Romanians renewed their undeclared war in 1918 only to be routed, this time clear across their own country into the Russian province of Bessarabia.

In 1919, however, due to treacherous cooperation of some bribed Saxon politicians, French and British politicians handed Transylvania to the Romanians. The Treaty of Trianon was signed and overnight some 3 million Hungarians and 800,000 Saxons became somewhat dazed and bewildered Romanian citizens.

CHAPTER 1

My Beloved Kronstadt

The airplane was slowly descending toward the airport, now clearly visible in the bright Romanian sunshine. My heart was beating like mad, my duodenal ulcer hurting. I looked at my wife and daughter. My God, I was only twenty-two years old when I last saw Bucharest. Now here I was, back after thirty years in exile, with an English wife and a daughter of twenty.

The sergeant was studying my passport. Eşti român? (Are you Romanian?)

Da, sûnt un sas ardelean. (Yes, I am a Transylvanian Saxon.)

Are your parents in Braşov still alive?

Yes, they are.

Is this your English family?

My wife and daughter.

He continued to study my passport, then without looking up, sotto voce: Have you any English cigarettes?

Some. One packet changed hands.

Drum bun. (Pleasant journey.)

Mulţumesc. (Thank you.)

I gathered my worried little flock, used a soggy handkerchief to wipe my brow, and boarded the tourist bus for the three-and-a-half-hour journey to Braşov, my hometown.

After a pleasant ride through some beautiful scenery and one stop for refreshments—peasant bread, cheese (no butter), wine, and beer—we arrived at Braşov at about five thirty in the afternoon.

My heart leapt with joy, but then my eyes could not believe what they saw. Was this my beloved hometown, my Kronstadt, as it was known for 800 years? The once-sparkling little Hungarian-Saxon town, high in the Carpathians, had turned into a nightmare of dull, untidy neglect.

Half an hour later, we arrived at the mountain resort Pojana-Braşov and alighted at the Brad, a large, modern dormitory hotel. After a shower and a change of clothes, I went to the change desk, manned by a well-dressed, graying gentleman who visibly thawed when I addressed him in Romanian. He told me that he had a Saxon mother, studied at a Hamburg university, and was an officer in the German army during the war.

After dinner in a typically Romanian country inn, we sat carefully sampling the Romanian national drink, the Tuica—a type of plum brandy with a unique flavor. It was far too late to go visiting my elderly parents, and in any case, we were rather tired. We went to bed quite early, but I was unable to relax and soon realized that there would be no sleep for me that night. A Saxon wedding was in progress at a neighboring hotel, and I listened with growing incredulity to all the old, so well-remembered German songs.

Meanwhile, my nervous system went on the warpath and five o'clock in the morning found me kneeling in front of the toilet, hugging my stomach and bringing up blood. Was this to be the end, after all I had been through, only a couple of miles from my poor parents? And what about my wife and daughter? It must have been sheer willpower that got me on my feet and under the shower. I felt better by breakfast time, but looked rather worn.

You didn't get much sleep, did you? Those bloody Germans. The man at the next table gave me an understanding smile, not realizing how wrong he was.

We caught a bus to town. We had to stand all the way, getting jostled and pushed by these new locals, the reek of garlic and other spices of the East nearly suffocating us. Having survived the journey to town, we resolved never to use another bus, unless it was for tourists only.

We got lost. I had to pocket my pride and ask for directions. Complete streets, parks, and fields, so clear and alive in my memory, had vanished. The original town, nestling among the hills and mountains, was badly neglected. In fact, absolutely nothing had been done in the way of maintenance. Every empty space, no matter how unsuitable, had been used to put up new blocks of flats, completely at odds with their environment.

The gate was locked. I knocked on the window, feeling rather sick again. I heard my mother's never-forgotten voice. Coming. Just one moment.

A trembling hand could be heard trying to insert an outsize key into a suddenly shrinking keyhole. At last the gate opened and a terribly lined, shriveled old lady emerged rather timidly. We took turns hugging and kissing her, taking great care not to damage this delicate little Dresden china figure.

Mother was attempting to speak, but could not manage one single word. I was desperately holding myself under control. The last time I saw my mother, she was still a beautiful woman.

At last, Mother put a trembling finger to her lips: Father is in bed. He's completely blind now. His mind wanders sometimes. Up to three weeks ago he could see rather dimly out of one eye. But not anymore.

Hello, Dad.

My son, my son, my only child. He was struggling to sit up, staring, unseeing eyes wide open, trying to speak, choking on his emotions.

Lie back, Dad, please. Calm yourself. Everything is all right.

Father settled down. Presents were unwrapped and admired. Our flight from London to Bucharest on a British Comet jet had to be told again and again.

Only three and a half hours, and over 100 passengers? Sehr interessant, sehr interessant.

We had a cold lunch at about one o'clock, and I mentioned to Mother that we had also brought a large bottle of wine. At this there came a flurry of movement from Father's bed and we all jumped up in alarm, thinking that he was having a heart attack. We found him sitting bolt upright. Did I hear someone mention the word ‘wine?’

Yes, Dad, would you like some?

Yes please, came the very definite answer.

Mother handed me a glass.

About half, Dad?

Just keep pouring, son.

At a later visit one afternoon, Father fell asleep and Mother had the opportunity to tell us a few things that they could never write about in all these years. One day in March 1944, Father was arrested and accused of being a Soviet spy. It took the help of the local Wehrmacht Kommandant and the SS welfare officer to have him cleared of this malicious accusation.

In August 1944 the Romanians did what I always predicted they would—changed sides. Hundreds, possibly thousands of German soldiers were murdered in their beds by their brave allies. The Dnestr and Prut front, held now by only a few regiments of Germans—who were not only deserted by their comrades at arms but actually attacked by them in the usual Romanian pattern with no declaration of war—collapsed. Kronstadt was approached by the Soviet hordes like a gigantic flood.

My parents were frantically destroying my Hitler Youth and SS uniforms as well as all my photographs, including some irreplaceable action pictures. They need not have bothered. The Romanian police and population willingly supplied the Russians with all they wanted to know, and a lot more besides. On the third night of Russian occupation, my parents were awakened by the sound of loud knocking and shouting, followed by several shots. Father opened the gate and was immediately knocked cold. Mother ran screaming to Father's side and was also knocked unconscious. When she came to, she was propped up on a kitchen stool; a huge, young Russian corporal, Tommy gun in hand, was towering over her.

Where is my husband?

He's in bed. A couple of your friends are keeping him there.

If you mean the Romanians, they aren't our friends.

Where is your son?

I don't know. Fighting somewhere.

"You are lying, babushka. He's hiding."

If my son were here, you and your Romanian friends would not be so brave.

The interrogation went on, but the blows and brutal behavior died down. How come you speak Russian?

I speak nine languages. All Slav languages are very similar.

Tell me about your son, babushka.

What do you want to know?

How did he grow up? Are there any brothers or sisters?

While my mother was wondering where all this was leading, the Russian burst into tears, sobbing gently (one really has to be familiar with the Russian character to believe this behavior). He unexpectedly turned on the Romanians.

Get out, you scum, he yelled, ushering the terrified police out of the door with some well-aimed kicks and blows. Father, who was now free, came down into the kitchen and put his arm around Mother's shoulder.

Don't be afraid, said the Russian. You'll not be molested as long as I'm in this town.

May I ask what brought on this sudden change? asked Mother.

I, babushka, am an orphan. A son of the Soviet state. But from now on, the words ‘mother’ and ‘family’ will have a new meaning.

Months later, my father was once again arrested. This time he was charged with being a Nazi spy. The accusations were made by the same people who, a few months previously, had claimed that he was a Soviet spy. Fortunately, some of the old police officers were still in charge and, knowing my father personally and remembering the previous unfounded allegations, managed to free him after two weeks in police custody.

My wife and I sat in a quiet corner of the Hotel Brad one evening when our dining room neighbors came over.

Do you mind if we join you?

Not at all. Please sit down.

They were Londoners and were both employed by the Greater London Education Authority.

This country has more than its fair share of foreigners.

You mean tourists, surely? I asked, somewhat puzzled.

No. Haven't you noticed? Nothing but Indians and Pakistanis.

My wife and I