The post war denazification was brutal to say the least, the stories today are molded into tales to show a life that didn’t exist, and they always want one to see the Reich as bent on war and conquest, killing civilians and persecuting Jews and opponents, this is false. Jews either left or learned to be loyal, that was all that was asked. In some areas mass deportations did happen, just like in the Allied nations with people viewed as a foreign threat. Hardline National Socialists wanted them all gone, since they were not Germans. [Julius] Streicher was very popular with some in the Reich, but his words were tempered with compassion and common decency that most Germans showed. I will say that the Jews in Germany did not help themselves much.

I paid attention to it all; everywhere you turned there was either a rich Jew in power, or a criminal Jew making a dishonest living. Hitler stopped this and thus incurred the wrath of Jews abroad. They tried to kill him a couple of times, but they always blame the communists. My father ranted about a popular artist named J. Mandel from Paris, who was a Jew. He sold dirty pictures of young girls and got women to take nude provocative photos that were not meant to be art. He pushed viewing women as sexual idols to be taken advantage of and conquered in a evil way. My father would say this was to temp married men to ruin their marriage.

What about all the stories of Germans killing partisans and civilians, isn’t that a crime?

Richard: No it is not in most circumstances, it is war, and if a civilian takes up arms and gets caught, they can be punished. Let me tell you an example, one of many that is lied about. In the Polish city of Premissel, which was taken in 1939, it is claimed German forces murdered hundreds of Jews and Poles. I knew a comrade from this town and I remember he was very proud of it. One day we saw an Allied flyer that was dropped during the war telling of crimes of the regime going on, which we knew to be false. He brought up that he saw killings in his town and how they were twisted by anti-Germans into a false crime.

He was there in the town in 1939 and told of the seething hatred against Jews who were accused of aiding Stalin, forgery, and other crimes. The Poles have never got along with Jews, and often attacked them. When war started and German forces approached the city, some civilians were armed by the Poles. They shot at, attacked, and killed some German forces and Jews. After the Police investigated, they found out Polish civilians, and military in civilian clothes, had done this. It was even found that some Jews had participated, and then later became victims themselves. The guilty were sorted out and punished by firing squad. Many accused fled to the Soviet side, and if caught later they were likewise punished in the same way.

This comrade said the Poles blamed the Jews; the Jews blamed the Poles and they turned in each other. Many of the family members who hid or helped them were sent to camps or ghettos. There is no way this was any type of crime. It is indicative of the situations I believe we were forced into; attacks by rear area partisans that were punished were made into war crimes by the victors. Our enemies take every opportunity to turn these incidents into crimes that in all truthfulness were nothing of the sort. The criminals were the ones who were punished who are now called victims and martyrs. These attacks were nothing new, the elders who were in the First World War reported the same things.

One story I remember was of Katharina Countess von Schulenburg, she was murdered by Belgium partisans in 1914. The family story was she detrained and was on her way to a field hospital, where she was attacked by Belgium partisans and killed during a bloody ambush. This set up reprisals against the guilty to stop any further acts of terror, which the Allies aided and encouraged. It was the same in the Second World War, agents were sent in to arm and train civilians, then when they were caught and executed as spies, it is called a crime without equal today. The press is owned and controlled by those who have a political agenda and work against us and the truth.

You were on the Russian front, and in Stalingrad, can I ask what that was like?

Richard: I was late into the war, and came to the front in mid 1942. Before then I was in France on occupation duty. My first thoughts of Russia were how vast the country was, I remember seeing the burnt out wrecks and destruction. Stalin ordered the Red army to destroy everything to deny it to us. The towns we entered were being repaired, and I saw collection points for destroyed enemy vehicles, hundreds of them to be sent to steel mills. It was a surreal vision what we all saw, for many completely new. A funny thing I will tell you, I saw Germans and Ukrainians working together to repair roads, buildings, bridges, and infrastructure. The press says we were there to enslave and kill the “inferior” Slavs, but all I saw was cooperation and friendship.

On all areas of the front, and even in France and Italy I saw nothing but compassion and friendship with the locals. In fact, in France my platoon saved a town when the flour mill caught on fire, we knocked down sheds to stop it from growing. The town’s people were very grateful. The same in Russia, we aided the people any way we could. There was no race hated or bigotry. We knew we were the liberators and the people adapted to us, and we treated them fairly and gave help when needed. They had issues with food due to scorched earth, and we handed out bread, eggs, and soup to many of them. Even the soldiers were decent in the beginning. I saw many prisoners that summer and they were grateful to be done with the war. Many came over to our side and fought on all fronts. Of course there were some who were bastards, but for the most part they were just men like us but who were forced to fight.

Stalingrad I do not like to speak of much, it was a hard fought battle that made inhuman demands on us all. Many good men fell in that city, and even more never came home from the abuses of the Soviets. What started out as a warm campaign, with much promise ended in disaster for us. It was lucky for me that I was sent on leave for health reasons, and not able to return to the pocket. I was only on the east front for a short time, mostly around Stalingrad. I can attest to the extreme bravery of my comrades, and the determination of the Soviets. We lost many comrades trying to take mere houses from the enemy. The Soviets seemed to have unending reserves of men and ammunition.

I remember we were always short of both, on some days our artillery could not support us, and Panzers sat idle. We were forced to use Soviet equipment and weapons many times as the ammunition was plentiful. For food, we had to not only feed ourselves but we had prisoners and civilians to care for. The Soviets bombed a camp we had for POWs, killing many, and a friend of mine died too. I felt sorry for the civilians, and we pushed them off to the west as best we could but many refused to leave the city. They ate what they could, even sharing with our men at times. The Soviets tell these stories that we starved, shelled, and killed the civilians, but this is utter shit. I saw them shoot their own men who were trying to surrender to us, or who we released as we could not care for them. Utter insanity.