Hatto Georg Scheer

People who were clever didn't have such a hard time

My mother was, I think, an even worse Nazi than my father, although my father founded the Gau of Tyrol in 1926. My father was a Geometrician and had an office in Eisenstadt. There was a ...large picture... on the wall in which all the Gauleiter (Provincial Governors) were posing with Hitler. And naturally he was very proud of the fact that he was in that photograph. My father also wore the golden Party Pin, whereas my mother, who had also been with the party that long didn't. We (the children) often asked, "Tell us why you...", of course this was after Hitler came, "why don't you have the Party Pin? "Well, they missed it somehow," she said, "and my goodness, it isn't that important anyway. The main thing is that we've achieved what we wanted to achieve, and so on. Somehow it seemed funny to us. There was something in the air that we didn't understand.

(The explanation:) One had to present an ancestry card and all I know is that my mother once came back from what is the Czech Republic today, from Bohemia and Moravia and she was very agitated, because she had been searching a document at some parrish.

(She found out that her grandmother was a Jewess. That's why she couldn't prove that she was of Aryan lineage and was expelled from the party. Later I found a sealed envelope while going through her documents. There were appeals for a dispensation by the Führer in it, since my mother desperately wanted the expulsion to be revoked. After all, she had done many things for the party. But when it was a matter of Jewish blood, of hatred for Jews, Hitler was relentless, and you could do anything you wanted: It wasn't revoked and she was expelled from the Party.

But suddenly she joined the SS in 1944 and became a supervisor at the Hirtenberg concentration camp. Well, you can't say she was a supervisor, she was in a forced labour detention camp. The VOEST ammunition factory is still located in Hirtenberg today (and) women used to work there then. I was never there, I never saw how things were there. I only know that she went to Ravensbrück once for training. Later I asked her an innumerable amount of times how she didn't notice that many people died there and that they were supposedly destroyed there. No, she said, "they used to take a little wagon to the crematorium occasionally. After all, everybody has to die at some point, but otherwise there was nothing."

That's the way it was with us, one could feel the political commitment, very, very strongly. And there was all this secrecy! I experienced a number of house searches, how the Kiberer came and rummaged through all the drawers and how our parents were so happy that they didn't find anything. And well, it was mostly about propaganda material..

Then my father was suddenly gone for fourteen days, he was in prison. We went to bring him food, as I said one was aware of something! I knew what a Kassiber was because my mother had baked one into the cake she sent him. A Kassiber is a forbidden message, a little letter that one smuggle in or out. That's called a Kassiber, even today... The only reason he (my father) wasn't sent to Wöllersdorf was because he had four children. So they didn't send him to Wöllersdorf out of consideration for the size of the family and the four children. But it was known that there was a concentration camp in Wöllersdorf people always said, "Yes, he's in Wöllersdorf, and he is...". It was actually completely normal for someone to be locked away somewhere among our acquaintances. I was aware of it as a child. As my father always said, "Every decent person has been in jail once!"

My mother was (also) that fanatic. A friend who could work with sheet metal once made her a Swastika-shaped cookie baking mould. And my mother then baked the Swastikas and hung them on the Christmas tree. Instead of putting an angel or a star on the tip of the tree, my father sawed out a larger Swastika and put it on the tip. That was the occasion when my mother said Christmas had nothing to do with the Church, it is actually an old Germanic custom, the "Pfaffen" just took it over.

MB1, 07:05 The owner of the building in which we lived on the main street of Eisenstadt was a Jew, he was the "Tailor Jew". People called him the "Tailor Jew". He had a fabric store in the building and one day my father said, "My God, if I had a parrot I would teach it to screech, ‘Saujud’, ‘Saujud!’ (Jewish Pig, Jewish Pig). I would put it on the balcony and annoy the Jew..." Well, childish, but – I have to say this – before 1938, meaning before Hitler came.

My father was imprisoned briefly any number of times, since our parents worked

illegally. Whenever they played the Horst Wessel-Lied or the Deutschlandlied, my father would tear open the windows and doors and turn the radio up as loud as possible to anger the "Saujud". Then I asked once if he had done something to us that made them hate him so much and my father said, "You know, boy, this is the way it is: The Jews are the vermin of humanity. He didn't do anything to us, but every flee bites once (at some point) and if its isn't us, it will be somebody else. And you know, the Jews are too lazy to work. They're crooks and cheats, but they aren't even capable of doing real work."

And it is interesting, I can still remember, I was nine or ten years old and there was a Nazi song. I don't know if you can still find it in an archive - it went something like this:

"Ho Ruck nach Palästina, (Ho, Ho, off to Palestine)". So, the thought of sending the Jews was already there. The people imgined that State and the song continued:

„Ho Ruck nach Palästina,

dann kommen sie nimma (nimmer) rein."

("Ho, ho, off to Palestine,

we'll tear their legs out

and then they can't get in.")

And then in my childish innocence, I said, "Papa, are you also going to go and tear some legs off?" That is way it was with hatred for Jews. If you think about it later - horrible.

Only very few could be recognised with caftans and Bejkeles (very few Jews wore caftans and Bejkeles, which made them identifiable). ... But our father did explain very well to us how one could recognize a Jew: You only had to "draw a bunch of sixes" and one (a Jew) was certain to emerge. He had a sixer nose, sixer locks and I don't know what else. There was also some sixer aspect to the chin. So, Jews could be recognized by sixes. My father could draw very well and so could my brother, my second brother Helge was a gifted caricature illustrator. And he (my father) knew how to draw. He drew a Jew, and you could tell right away, aha, that's a Jew!

We were raised to be "Herrenmenschen", members of the master race. Every German was supposed to be a "Herrenmensch"...Other races, the Slavs most of all consisted of "Untermenschen", racially inferior persons. We were raised with this awareness. It was clear to me that some Krowot (Croat) never had the same status as us.

Hitler himself wasn't Nordic. He was perhaps more of a Dinaric person... This is the way it was in our awareness: We didn't feel like Austrians anymore. Austria was a bad word. We were Ostmärker now. Germany was the "Altreich" the ancient empire, and we were the Ostmark. The Piefkes were from the ancient empire. (laughs).

Hitler on Heldenplatz Square

I can tell you the whole Heldenplatz story. It started when we left Eisenstadt. Boy it was cold in my short pants! We chugged to Vienna in an old truck.

And I can still remember very well: We were all unloaded at the Votivkirche and many people were already on Heldenplatz Square. They didn't all come from Vienna, they had been drummed people together from all the surrounding areas.

One truck came right after the other at the Votivkirche - and everyone gathered and then we all took a couple of hours and walked slowly to Heldenplatz Square. I was mortally afraid of the Square already being too full and us not being able to get in. You have to imagine. Everything was draped with flags! The people were lined up along the Ring and everyone chanted "Heil!" Everyone was waiting for Hitler and the atmosphere was amazing! Nazi songs were sung, think about (imagine) it, such a young soul and already enormously fanatic. Then you're standing there on Heldenplatz Square and there was this...cult now. Hitler was god-like, he was a God to us!

And then he drove past me, maybe two or thre metres away (from me). I was the smallest, so I was standing in the front row. You can't get over that kind of thing, it really was an amazing experience. And the slogans we chanted:

(One People, One Reich, One Führer!)

Or:

(Not Zitta, Not Otto

Hitler is our motto!)

Or:

(One People, One Reich, One Führer!

the people are getting skinnier,

while the Jews get fatter,

Heil Hitler, our saviour!)

Yes, the Nazis won massively, I think 99 per cent were in favour. Yes, but I don't think that there was aan electoral scam. You have to consider the following: Hitler came to power in 1933 and wham bam, everybody had a job in Germany. There were millions of unemployed, much more than today. And Austria also had unemployment and was in need.

And then Hitler came, now you could see the economic recovery in Germany. Was it a miracle that all the people chanted "Heil!"?

They (the enemies) also screamed, but that was a minority. Of course it was the Jews, the gypsies an the declared enemies that were fanatically opposed, but there were only very few. Maybe they also voted "Yes", because nobody could imagine what was to come. At first, prosperity set in.

And then, when I was around 14, I was naturally already a very important scout leader. We had a wonderful youth in the HJ. We were already somebodies, we were Leaders, we had a say in things. Later it seemed odd to me that our teacher, who was a loser, had to apologise to me if his son didn't attend the Dorm Night, but it was a matter of fact then.

Yes, there was a lot of celebrating in that time... we had a map at home with pins to mark the daily changes of the front. First in Poland and then eastwards - how else could I know where Crakow and Lemberg and all those cities are? I still know that today from the Wehrmacht Report, the map and the placement of the pins. And then they were on the western front. It was a pleasure everyday. Sometimes we also took some yarn and fastened it to the pins to create a nice curve. Interestingly, that didn't happen during the retreat.

It is remarkable how mothers and wives were so proud of their mourning for their fallen men. That of course means, and we've heard the same of Iran and those areas, or in Yugoslavia, that they fanaticised the people. If somone fell in the war he died as a hero of the Fatherland and people were proud. When my brother fell, I think that was in 1942... in Russia, close to Moscow I think, on 12 September. My mother didn't shed a tear when the news came. She went into so-called "proud mourning".

I volunteered for the Luftwaffe and joined up after the others, who hadn't volunteered. However, that wasn't of any particular importance. I had always been sly and I thought: It'll be nicer if I go to the Luftwaffe. There wouldn't be any long marches like at the infantry, (or) I wouldn't have have to put up with insults. I would just get in my aeroplane, shoot down a couple of planes and go home. Then I'd be the big man, go home and be wearing a nice uniform to top things off! That was pretty much the idea. Of course we didn't think of the fact that only very few survived, you didn't think of that as a young person.

You can only fight a war with young people. It works wonderfully with young, dumb boys. They'll go to their deaths with their heads held high. I didn't have any ambitions as far as getting killed was concerned.

My brother Helge completed his Reichsarbeitsdienst (Reich Work Service) (RAD) before me and when he was discharged he said: "What a "Sauverein"! (bunch of pigs)" That expression stuck somehow because that's what it was, really.

You weren't a human being at the RAD, whereas you were treated like a human being in the military. Maybe that was also because one was in a more or less elite group as an aspiring officer. At the Work Service they had drummed together people from all over the place. You couldn't walk a single step there, you had to run every step.

It was a camp with barracks on the outskirts. There were commandant's barracks, an officer's barracks, team barracks and latrine barrracks as well as kitchen barracks.

When we bathed on Friday evening, or Friday afternoon everything followed the peal of a whistle: Whistle, "Unit this or that form up!" Whistle, "To the washroom barracks!" Of course this was all done running. Whistle, "Undress!" Whistle, "Under the showers!" Whistle: "Warm Water!" Whistle: "Cold water". No, whistle, "Warm water" Whistle, "Soap up!" Whistle, "Warm Water!" Whistle: "Cold water!", "Out, you pigs! Get dressed! Back to the barracks! Step to it!" That was our Friday evening bath.

Of course there was an examination to check whether we had washed properly... the "Dick Parade". Lights out was at ten, we had to sleep then. At eleven they came around with the whistle again and pulled us out of our nice warm beds We had these long nightshirts, really nice ones like the Darmol man. We had to line up in a row and then he said, "Pull up your nightshirts!" Then each us had to pull back our foreskin, and...it had better be clean. If one of us hadn't washed properly there, he received exemplary punishment. He had to clean latrines. That meant wallowing in deep shit. It was unworthy.

I was in Seyring for my Work Service. I think five of us were commanded to dismantle field train railroad tracks. The Seyring Airport was not going to be expanded any further. We were given Englishmen to complete the task with. We managed to communicate (rather well) with our school English and soon we were (almost) friends with them. There were severe penalties for that! They gave us chocolate. They were very well supplied with Care Packages. They received a lot of packages from the Red Cross and were treated very well in prison. They were from the Royal Airforce, pilots no less! And I said, I also want to become a pilot...

So, yes, those really were friendships. We also treated them that way, we said, "You know, work up until there and then you don't have to do anything!"

But then the aeroplanes came and they (the British) were happy to see bombs being dropped over Vienna. Then they said, "We're going to win the war." and we said, " We're going to win the war - and so everyone held their own. But that's the way people were! And I also thought: Adolf Hitler would like it if he saw these guys! They were blonde, handsome fellows, not any different from us.

I saw a truck full of Jews for the first time when I was working on the tracks in Seyring then. They had the star (Sound problems, Hatto Georg Scheer reaches for his microphone) men and women were being transported somewhere. So I figured: Oh well, they' re being sent to work somewhere. I didn't think about it much The Jews in Austria had all vanished already, somewhere, the emigrated. Most of them, the ones who had money, were allowed to emigrate.

And there was a train with cattle wagons at the train station. I approached it then. There were a few fingers sticking out. I noticed that it was a human transport... That was definitely a transport to one of those camps. But you couldn't see what was inside. You could only hear whimpering and a few fingers stuck out of a slit once. That stunned me. But you just didn't know what the reason was and why they were being locked up and transported.

I didn't know what context to put it in. I just thought, "They must be a bunch of saboteurs or traitors or something like that... I was simply very quiet... and I didn't tell the others what I had seen. Some Work Service men were still there as well. That was the only time I was confronted with something like that.

I Received my orders to report to duty after having been discharged and attaining my "Luftfahrerschein" (Air Licence), which meant I could fly gliders at the beginning of November 1944.

We were merely canon fodder in Quappendorf. I was the signals messenger so I had a bicycle. I tied two bazookas to it because I thought, "It'd be nice to destroy a tank. It would be a great story and I would get a big medal and all that. But when the time came, I threw away the bicycle and the bazookas. We lay in the forest and they poured so many rounds into it that the woods began to burn. There wasn't any fighting whatsoever involved There wasn't anything we could do. What are you supposed to do with a naked gun and a bazooka? Not much...! (laughs)

Well, yes, that's the way I pushed my way directly into the war. And... when we were lying there in Spreewald Forest, firing into the woods nobody remained unfazed. You were lucky if you got out of there alive. I was in there from six in the morning to half-past one in the afternoon. I survived (laughs) and then I got the "Heimatschuß", I got "shot home".

I was lying there under heavy fire and I thought to myself, where would it hurt the least if I got hit? And then suddenly I got hit on my hand and I thought: "Aha, now my left is gone," and then I thought, "Now my right is gone too." Fortunately, only my left was damaged, not my right. That was on my Birthday, 17 April 1945. I was injured on the Oder Channel, at Oderbruch bei Quappendorf.

They rode me about it afterwards: "You stuck your hand out of the foxhole to get hit?!" Oh, well, that's the way it was.

You have to imagine the damage Goebbels had done with his propaganda. I was worth pitying, I was a boy, not even 17 years and a half old. I had a bloody dressing and was running around in a worn Luftwaffe uniform. I walked through Berlin. A grenade hit a garden that was close by. And then an old man came, he had an old delivery truck... He ran over to me because he wasn't sure whether something had happened to me and then said, "What's it look like outside, can we still win the war?" You have to imagine that! And then I said, "No, definitely not here. If Goebbel's miracle weapon really does come and we can destroy London or New York with one strike we might be able to win the war still. But it doesn't look like that's the case."

On 1 May 1945 I arrived in Travemünde, I remember that and there were fog boats in the harbour of Travemünde. Those are little boats which accompanied convoys and fogged everything up when there was enemy danger. And the crews were abandoning ship already. The war ended on 8 May and I returned home on 1 May. I went burglaring on 2 and 3 May. We stole from the ships, the crews were gone already. There was food! Cheese and bread and God knows what else. There was sparkling wine, a lot of sparkling wine. And so I plundered a bit. The British arrived on 3 May and I was late to hand in my weapons because I was busy stealing (laughs). But I didn't mind since I felt the position was discriminating after being defeated. I didn't have any weapons anyway, but you had to stand there and let them frisk you. I didn't like that. I didn't have to out up with that...

(sighs) I have to be honest, I couldn't feel the disappontment my parents felt, it wasn't there! Maybe that was also because everybody had to see how they could save their own hides. My mother had to see how she could get out of Ebensee. The concentration camp inmates weren't gentle (with the guards after their liberation). Whether she had done something or not, they would have lynched her! I don't know how she managed to get out of there unharmed. She never told us either. And my father... I don't know what happened there either. But I thought: the people haven't only lost their possessions, they've lost their ideals as well! ... We didn't talk about it. The only thing I noticed about my mother was that she simply denied all the horrible things or things she said were horrible, that were reported. It all didn't happen.

My father, the obedient, honest person, registered after the war. That's when the wonderful de-nazification period began. Every party member had to report to the Americans and admit to what he had done. But membership was enough, even if he hadn't done anything. That made my father a National Socialist offender.

My mother was more clever, she didn't even go register. She had been a member, but she didn't go. I was also that smart. I didn't go either. But of course our father went, and the result was that he spent almost two years in jail. He spent a year and a half in Glasenbach There was an Amercian camp for National Socialist offenders and then almost half a year at the Regional Court in Vienna.

I visited him once, he was completely destroyed. My father didn't really cope with the end of the war and the collapse. I think it broke him. My mother got over it, but she was never surprised that we weren't surprised that now she said she had never belonged to the party.

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Copyright © 2001 by Ruth Deutschmann, Wien

Ruth Deutschmann

Vienna, 31 July 2001