Children to a Degree - Growing Up Under the Third Reich (10 page)

“Karl, I almost forgot. Your friend Harold is back from the Napola. He reported to me last week.”

“Harold is back? Do you know why?” Karl perked up. He had only received one a short letter from Harold during the past six months while Karl had written to him several times.

“I think that he expected something else. When I asked him about the cadet school he answered that he would rather have a female teacher than Nazi instructors,” Rudy remembered.

Karl snapped a salute and walked out. He went to his old school building in the Pfalzburger Strasse, which was in full swing of the transition. He could find neither a teacher nor a student. He did however read a notice on the principal’s office that the KLV headquarters was now also transferred to the school in the Brandenburger Strasse. It was already late in the day and he decided to go home. He hoped that his father might be home early.

***

“I wondered when you would get here,” his mother greeted him when he knocked on the door. “I cooked you your favorite pudding soup. Eat it before it gets cold. Pappa should be home any minute. He wants to talk to you.”

Pudding soup was indeed Karl’s preferred soup. He liked everything sweet. He had missed the soup in the last few months because the KLV camp woman who did the cooking thought that it was horrible to eat something sweet for dinner. Instead she served plenty of cabbage. Whenever the smell of the cooked cabbage penetrated the facility Karl ran away to the other house hoping that they served potatoes. Any potatoes, in any shape or form, were better than the floppy green leaves.

“Karl, we have to have a talk. Keep your seat at the table,” Herr Veth announced after dinner. He took some blue letters from his briefcase. The blue envelopes indicated that they were sent from the school administration. “Frankly I am puzzled. The principal from your Pfalzburger school has been drafted but he is still available during the next week. He wants to meet with me and with you while he is still in charge of the school. According to his letter you passed some graduation tests in Usedom.” Herr Veth looked up from the first letter. “You never wrote me about these tests. Why not?”

Karl moved around on his chair. “There was no reason for me. I passed some tests. That’s all. There was nothing to write about.” Karl added some explanations about why he took the tests in the first place.

Herr Veth listened while he sorted through the other communications he had received from the KLV headquarter.

“Well, Karl, it seems that the principal from Usedom was sufficiently impressed to send several reports to the KLV officials and now they also want to meet with us. Do you know what these meetings will be about?” Karl’s father had a tight work schedule which did not allow him to take a day off but it looked like it could not be avoided. In any event, he wanted to be prepared for the meetings.

“Maybe it has something to do with the things I complained about to the KLV.” Karl speculated.

“What did you complain about, besides the things you already wrote to me about?” Herr Veth was curious to know.

Karl had to think for a moment because there had been plenty and he only wanted to tell his father about the ones which had bothered him the most.

“Many of the 8-year-old kids did not have sufficient underwear. Our laundry facility could not keep up with the demand. Either we needed additional help or the children needed more clothing to tide them over between the wash days. Also, their parents need to write more often. You should have seen the disappointment in the faces of the kids during mail call. Some boys received a letter every week. Some of the other ones waited every day for three weeks without so much as a postcard from home.” Karl was still upset as he thought back.

“So, you reported to the KLV officials about parents who did not write to their children?” Herr Veth wanted to be sure that he understood correctly.

“Not at first,” answered Karl. “When I saw the boys crying I started to write short postcards myself to their parents asking them politely to write to their children. Only when some of the parents ignored my cards did I report the situation to the school officials.”

Karl’s father considered the answer. “I would think that it would have been the responsibility of the teachers to report about these things.”

Karl shook his head. “No, Pappa, I don’t know, but I don’t believe that teachers know what it feels like to be a kid and away from our parents. All they ever say is: ‘
Don’t worry, your parents are alright. They will write when they get to it. Don’t be such a Mamma's boy.’
I don’t think that we need more caring adults in the camps, although it would help. I think that the parents should know that we feel terrible when some of our friends receive mail while we stand there helpless with empty hands.”

Karl looked up to his father and when he received no answer he added: “The adults who dreamed up this idea of separating the children from their parents because of the air attacks were probably thinking correctly, but they missed explaining to the parents of the need to write. Because they missed it I took it on myself to report about it.” Karl thought that he had done the right thing but was afraid that he had meddled into some adult behavior. “If they did not like what I conveyed they could have stopped me. The only answer I received was always the same:
Keep on reporting
.”  Karl saw that his father was stuffing the letters back into his briefcase.

“Nothing to worry about, Karl. We go and see your principal tomorrow.”

The night was interrupted by a three hour air raid and the Veth family took shelter in the basement of their apartment building. The air raid warden was controlling the orderly retreat of the tenants to the cellar and Karl was holding his little brother Willy close to him as they listened to the crackling of the exploding anti-aircraft shells. His father was sitting by his mother on a bench and his little sister was soundly asleep in the arms of her mother. Karl could not help but notice that this was one of the very few times the family had ever spent time this close together. He looked along the dirty basement hallway and saw that all the other families were also huddled together. While he wondered why none of the families spoke to each other, he fell asleep with his brother’s head in his lap. When the all-clear signal sounded there was a sigh of relief among the tenants as they shuffled up to their apartments.

***

The meeting with the principal went totally different than Karl or his father had anticipated. The principal, Herr Nordweg, was not expecting them. The Veth family did not own a telephone and had not announced their visit. But, Herr Nordweg was none-the-less happy to see them. He made several phone calls and within a few minutes a soldier showed up announcing that he had a car waiting for them. This was the first time that Karl rode in a private car, other than a taxi cab, and he admiringly touched the soft seat cushions.

It was a very short ride to the Ferbelliner Platz where they entered a fairly new government building. It was built in the modern architectural style with grand tall entry doors topped by an imposing bronze eagle. Karl was duly impressed while his father did not pay any attention to the Nazi décor along the hallways.

They were led to a meeting room and within a few minutes they were seated among maybe 12 or more school and government bureaucrats. To Karl’s astonishment, the presiding white-haired school administrator seemed to have all of Karl's letters to the KLV administration in front of him. There were also copies of the ‘Jugendburg’ and ‘Hilf mit’ school and Jungvolk periodicals which featured some of Karl’s reports.

Herr Veth was impressed when he realized how much Karl had written within the six-month period.

Principal Nordweg opened the meeting by reading aloud each and every one of Karl’s letters. In addition he read also the letters from principal Groneberg. When he was done he asked the group for comments.

“We should form a task force to deal with the individual problems,’” declared the top school administrator. “There seem to be many areas which obviously need improvement.” While all of the officials agreed and asked for volunteers, Herr Nordweg addressed the meeting once more.

“Hold on, we can do this later. At this time I'd like to discuss the idea from principal Groneberg. He suggested that we should assign Karl Veth to visit various camps and to report back to us about their conditions as seen from the children's perspective. While this is a new and bold idea, we have to consider that within a few months from now the evacuation of our students will become mandatory.” He wanted to add something but was rudely interrupted by an SS Lieutenant.

“Principal Groneberg was a traitor. He advised his students how to evade Junkvolk and HJ duties and he spoke out against our beloved Fuehrer Adolf Hitler...” He also wanted to say more but was interrupted by the school administrator.

“Where is Principal Groneberg? We have not heard from him lately. And, what are you doing here? I don’t remember sending an invitation to SS officers.”

The lieutenant did not back off. “I have been ordered to attend because we arrested your swine Groneberg. Before he was sent to hard labor he confessed that there are traitors in this school administration.” He pointed to a teacher sitting at the far end of the table. “Herr Weinert, one of your teachers and a ranking member of our party reported your teachings to us.”

He turned to face principal Nordweg. “How dare you declare openly that the evacuation of students will become mandatory? This is outright inflammatory. Have you not read and studied Herr Hitler’s proclamation that we will employ wonder weapons? Even our beloved leader of the German air force, Hermann Goehring, has declared that the Berlin airspace cannot and will not be penetrated by enemy aircraft.”

He walked to open the door and four more SS men entered the room. “I could arrest all of you. But for now, I only take this stinking weasel Nordweg with me. But I promise that I will be back.” The four SS men formed a circle around the helpless principal and pushed him out of the room.

Before he left, the lieutenant turned to look at Karl. “Good writing, Jungschaftfuehrer. I read every one of your articles in the ‘Jugendburg’. Keep it up, but beware of the traitors, they are all around you.” He snapped a salute in Karl’s direction which Karl did not return. He was too stunned that his principal had been arrested.

The school administrator got up from his chair and walked towards Herr Weinert, a member of his school board and now a disclosed Nazi member. “I would have never suspected that you informed on us. We are not conspirators. We are supposed to serve as an example for our students and we are supposed to protect them from harm. The arrest of principal Nordweg is a direct result of your ill-advised reports to the SS.  Whatever happens to him is on your conscience. You are dismissed from the school board. Get out!”

Herr Veth wanted to leave the meeting but the school administrator needed his signature on a prepared document. It was in essence, consent from him as a parent to allow his son to undergo an elementary school graduation test. After Herr Veth signed the document, he asked when this test would be conducted.

The school administrator smiled. “Don’t worry, Herr Veth. There will be no more tests for your son. He demonstrated to our satisfaction that he is capable to assist us with the school evacuation program. You should be proud of him.”

He wanted to shake hands but Karl’s father was confused. “If there are no more tests for Karl, why did you need my consent?” he asked.

“Just a formality, Herr Veth. We don’t want you to come after us for interrupting your son’s schooling. Believe me; he will learn more during the next two years than we could possibly teach him.”

The old school official had no clue at that time how true his comments would turn out to be. Herr Veth wanted to finally leave but was still forced to wait for Karl, who could not get away. Every one of the teachers and officials had questions and suggestions for him and it took over another hour until Karl and his father were back on the street.

“What do you think, Pappa?” Karl asked.

“Think about what, Karl?”

“About the arrest of Herr Nordweg and of the meeting.”

Herr Veth shook his head. “I don’t allow myself to think about something until I have all the pertinent facts in front of me. But I surely learned something and I hope that you learned it too.” He turned to Karl. “Guess what it is.”

“Not to trust the teachers who might be Nazi members?’’ he ventured a guess.

“No, Karl, much too complicated. We should learn from this incident to keep our mouth shut. Let’s see what will happen to the administrator. I hope that he did not make a mistake by throwing Herr Weinert out of the room.”

Herr Veth was right. It was a mistake. The administrator should have kept his mouth shut.

Two months later the administrator was arrested. Nobody ever heard of any charges being leveled against him. All the school board heard was that he was awaiting trial in a concentration camp. He was temporarily replaced by Herr Weinert, who was shortly thereafter drafted into military service.

Nine

A few days later, when Karl attended the weekly Jungvolk meeting he saw Harold again.

“What happened at the Napola and why are you back in Berlin?” Karl wanted to know as they started walking home.

Harold answered with his typical grin. “Well, I really liked the discipline and the ambition of the students. There is not a single slacker or slob around. You would like it.”

“Sounds inviting,” remarked Karl. “What was it that you did not like?”

“Several things,” answered Harold. “Most of all I did not like that we were manipulated to report about our relatives and parents.”

“What do you mean by manipulated?”

“Well, first they asked us to name and list all our close relatives like uncles and grandparents. Then, a few days later we were instructed to write essays about their jobs and about their discussions and the discussions your parents had at home. If you failed to write about some relative whom you had previously mentioned, you were questioned about him.”