The postwar admonition ‘Never again should a German pick up a rifle’ had long been smoke and mirrors. The danger was enormous that a mistake or a false alarm could turn all of Europe into an atomic desert in minutes.
At the same time, as in our family, the wounds of the last war were far from healed. Father’s youngest brother Edmund was still considered missing in action since the brutal winter battle for Stalingrad. No one believed he was still alive. But since there was still no official confirmation of his death after 18 years, the uncertainty kept the last spark of hope in a miracle from fading.
Father’s second brother Otto was still in Russian captivity. In the early fifties, my aunt Reni had received a card in Cyrillic script on which my uncle confirmed in handwriting that he was still alive. Where and under what circumstances was not clear from the meager message.
This unusual sign of life made my father suspicious. He seemed to suspect something bad but did not talk about it. When Chancellor Adenauer, on a visit to Moscow in 1955, secured the release of the last German prisoners of war, my uncle was not among those returning home. Aunt Reni finally lost hope of ever seeing her husband alive again. During this tough time, she lived with her two children in her parents’ home.
My cousin Helga was two or three years younger than me and could still remember her father. My cousin Helmut, however, as a so-called vacation child, had never seen his father, and his father also knew nothing of his son’s existence. In this situation, Uncle Otto suddenly and completely unexpectedly returned home from the Soviet Union 15 years after the end of the war.
After the deprivation-filled, interminably long camp life, the returnee found it difficult to adjust to his newfound freedom and to find his way in his changed family. Like himself, his wife had grown older. His daughter, whom he had last seen as a schoolchild, had matured into a marriageable woman. He learned of his son only when he returned home, and for Helmut his biological father was an unknown man.
For my cousin, grandpa was the paternal caregiver, for an intimate relationship had developed between grandfather and grandson over the many years. This unusual situation demanded a lot of patience, consideration, and empathy from all family members. Of course, my father also wanted to see his brother again.
We drove by car to my grandmother’s house, where the brothers were to meet. On the drive, my father was unusually silent and seemed depressed; there was no sign of joy at seeing him again. In front of Grandma’s house, I had to stay in the car, and Dad went into the apartment alone. I no longer understood the world and found no explanation for this peculiar behavior.
After what seemed like an eternity, Dad came out of the house, red-faced and shaking all over, and told me to drive off. In the excitement, I didn’t get to see my grandmother or my uncle. When father had calmed down a bit, he told me in a brittle voice what had happened and what I had not the slightest idea about. Uncle Otto served in the field gendarmerie during the war.
When on duty, the military police officers wore large oval metal plates on a chain above their uniforms, with the word ‘Gendarmerie’ stamped on them. Because of the necklace, front-line soldiers disdainfully referred to the field gendarmes as ‘chain dogs,’ and for good reason. The field police operated mainly behind the front and hunted down soldiers who had deserted the flag.
On behalf of the SS and the Gestapo, they tracked down Russian Jews, deported civilian labor slaves to the Reich, and participated in interrogations and shootings of partisans and other suspected civilians. My father knew about all this, and he had already warned his brother during the war to stay away from such atrocities.
Obviously in vain. After his capture, his brother was brought before a Soviet military court, which found him guilty of participating in crimes against humanity. For this, the Russians sentenced him to 20 years in the camps. After 15 years, Uncle Otto was pardoned and released to his hometown. 𝓣𝓸 𝓑𝓮 𝓒𝓸𝓷𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓾𝓮𝓭…
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