Morgens um 6 Uhr werde ich aus dem Bett geklingelt. Ein Postbote bringt den Gestellungsbefehl. Ich habe mich bei der Feuerwache in der Hansestraße zu stellen. Hier findet sich bald ein Heer von Männern in Zivil zusammen. Um 2 Uhr mittags geht es in geschlossenem Transport mit der Eisenbahn nach Friedrichstadt an der Eider über Oldesloe, Segeberg, Neumünster, Heide. Abends 11 Uhr treffen wir in Friedrichstadt ein. Wir werden sofort eingekleidet. Die ganze Nacht werden Sachen empfangen, darauf Geschütze und Fahrzeuge entladen bis 4 Uhr morgens.
6 'o clock in the morning I get woken up. A post man hands me over the draft notice. I have to report to the fire station in the Hanse Street. Soon, a crowd of men in civil clothing gathers. At 2 'o clock in the afternoon, a closed train transport takes us to Friedrichstadt on the Eider via Oldesloe, Segeberg, Neumünster, Heide. 11 p.m. we reach Friedrichstadt. We get dressed up immediately. The whole night we receive our equipments, then we unload artillery guns and vehicles until 4 'o clock the next morning. 
FRA
IT
6 'o clock in the morning I get woken up. A post man hands me over the draft notice. I have to report to the fire station in the Hanse Street. Soon, a crowd of men in civil clothing gathers. At 2 'o clock in the afternoon, a closed train transport takes us to Friedrichstadt on the Eider via Oldesloe, Segeberg, Neumünster, Heide. 11 p.m. we reach Friedrichstadt. We get dressed up immediately. The whole night we receive our equipments, then we unload artillery guns and vehicles until 4 'o clock the next morning.
AntwortenLöschenWelcome back, Dieter, wenn auch in bedauernswerten Umständen!
AntwortenLöschenI'm looking forward to picking up his story again. Sven, have you any information on how he got on between the wars, or is this another treasure trove you're holding back for our later enjoyment?
From a European history perspective, I'm especially waiting to see how much of his inner feelings he reveals. To use the slightly warped language of the era, like Ernst Jünger he "had a good war" in WWI, inasmuch as his morale generally remained very high and, although he went through some pretty alarming experiences, he doesn't seem to have been unduly traumatised by them. The fact that he was so young in WWI may have helped him.
British and French first-person accounts of WWI reflect a much more negative, miserable experience, and certainly in retrospect subsequent generations in both those countries focus on the suffering "in the trenches" (the fact that this term become the stock British shorthand for the WWI experience is revealing).
This difference may be due in part to the fact that, for strategic reasons, Germany was willing to dig in for a largely static war on the Western Front, and the accommodation and fortifications in which the German troops lived gave them a much better level of comfort than the British and French, both of whose generals wanted to maintain the "offensive spirit" and consequently condemned them to years of living in mud and inadequate, improvised shelters. Rear-area conditions are harder to judge, but Dieter's accounts suggest anecdotally that the German army may also have managed these with a higher level of concern for their troops' welfare. I'd be interested to know if other readers share this impression.
The attitude of the men concerned to the advent of WWII seems to have been shaped by these different experiences, even if it is difficult to be very sure of this given the very different political environments of the countries concerned in the inter-war years.
Appeasement by the British and French in 1938-39 went as far as it did because the politicians concerned had been through the Great War and wanted to do whatever they could to avoid a return to more of the same.
French public opinion in the run-up to WWII was also shaped by resentment on the part of those who had already been through "the other one", i.e. WWI. Possibly because of the continuity of conscription and a multi-layered reserve system in France, WWI veterans seem to have featured much more prominently in French than British units in 1939 and 1940 - again I'm relying on the anecdotal evidence of first-hand accounts. It would be interesting to know if their attitude contributed significantly to the collapse in 1940. It is certainly reasonable to assume that the French construction of the Maginot line was inspired by seeing the security and relative comfort that reinforced-concrete fortifications had afforded the German troops in WWI, and France's acceptance of the drôle de guerre/phony war/Sitzkrieg was inspired by a reluctance to avoid a repeat of the carnage and misery resulting from moving outside prepared defensive positions. Tragically, that meant that France lost the opportunity to defeat Hitler while his army was largely focused on the Eastern Front and his rear in the West was relatively unprotected.