Subject: Hubert Teschlade

born: June 24, 1921

Signalman

Interviewer: Franjo Hülck

Mr Teschlade: I will now talk about my time as an apprentice with my father. My father was a wonderful man. He refused to join the party. We had our workshop in Friedrich-Ebert Street, renamed Industry Road during the Nazi years. The union building was quite nearby and a little further along on the corner of Hafenstraße there was a tobacco products wholesaler and retailer run by Mr Alexander, who was Jewish and lived with his mother - just the two of them in the building. We got along with them very well and we always bought our tobacco there. It was the same with the union functionaries from the union building, who always brought their business to us. I should explain that a galvaniser's workshop is in the business of making nickel, chrome and above all copper plating as well as enamelling. So tube frames, car bumper bars and so on were processed. At that time, when motorisation was just beginning, old vehicles were often re-conditioned. It is true that our workshop was always fully utilised, but since it was large enough my father always had a corner which could be used by customers, who were having parts enamelled and chrome plated by us, to dismantle their cars and re-assemble them again. This included railway engineers as well as union employees and the interesting thing was, of course, that quite frank discussions about the growing power of national socialism took place. Most people welcomed the recovery of the economy but were politically opposed to the system and weren't afraid to voice their opinions, just as my father quite openly stated his opinion. He had belonged to the "Zentrum" (the party of political Catholicism in the era preceding 1933, translator), and nobody could understand how the political parties in Germany had capitulated so quickly. That was the spirit of the place there. We also had a Jewish tailor who came to our house. He drove his own motorbike and repaired it in our workshop and he was very well respected by everyone. It was just an atmosphere which gave a young man an understanding of the general spirit in the society. The German Work Front had moved into the union building and the former union officials, if they hadn't already been arrested, had gradually drifted to other jobs, especially the older ones, in order to make a living. Some had families. Most employees had swung over to the German Work Front and had even become party members so that they could support their family. There were extremely few Nazis in the proper sense of the word in Münster at the time of the take-over. At that stage the party was using the soft approach to attract as many people as possible and it actually worked. I remember how one day the blimp came over Münster and everyone streamed outside and there was great enthusiasm. A national consciousness was developing and along with that development Hitler won a growing approval. The group who opposed this for political, ideological, religious or whatever reasons was unfortunately growing smaller. That doesn't mean that everyone was involved in things you heard about such as concentration camps and so on, but when you spoke out in opposition and said, "Look here, we need to make sure that it doesn't continue like this," the answer often was came, "Hitler doesn't know anything about it. It is his subordinates who are doing it. Hitler doesn't want those things. He is a good man."

Then came the address to the nation. I have to say, my friends and I avoided it whenever we could. The little "people's receiver" (mass produced radio - translator) had been produced and of course it was used as an instrument of propaganda. This was the same as how the newspapers were all forced into line. No-one dared to publish anything critical, although I have to say that the one newspaper which did publish critical articles was the Young Men's Catholic Association newspaper, "Junge Front", later called "Michael", but that was for religious and moral reasons. They criticised the further growth of national socialism and above all the national socialist ideology.

In any case I was then called up for labour service and sent to the Emsland, but only for one month, after which we broke camp and were brought by train to Neuenberg in the Eiffel region, where we were set to work building bunkers on the Siegfried Line. We had to dig in cables manually, with a pick and so on. The following incident happened there: We had a field commander who had been decorated with the golden party emblem. He was an absolutely dedicated Nazi. The stupid thing was that I had been caught by a village policeman driving out to Gemen after the curfew, even though it was part of my job, and somehow this had been found out. I was interrogated and had to admit to it and I was sentenced to fourteen day's gaol or a 250 mark fine for driving after the curfew which already had been forbidden to our group. Probably due to the fact that I had reported for military service, I was granted amnesty in the spring of 1938 - on Hitler's birthday - which meant that the sentence was dropped. I received a letter from the secret state police in Münster to report for labour service, but the privacy of the post was not observed and when the letter arrived marked with the sender "secret state police", my national socialist field commander of course at once took an interest and opened the letter and read it without asking me. He had me brought before him and he said, "So, you are one of these fellows who support the Catholic 'Zentrum', at your young age. You'll need to be properly re-educated first and I am going to do my bit."

So that meant that for the next three months, half of the duration of my labour service, I didn't get Sundays off anymore and I wasn't even allowed to go home, which the others were allowed to do at least once a month. My grandmother died in Spree and I wasn't even given time off to attend her funeral. Whenever the others had time off I was assigned to cleaning or some other job, mostly for the field commander himself, who didn't let up on me one bit. So of course I was pleased when my period of labour service finally ended in September. At the beginning of November I was called up to the army to the 46 N signal corps in MÜnster, where there was quite a different atmosphere. We all even got together socially there, officers included. From that time I recall something, because the synagogue here in Münster had burnt down in November and the Jewish demonstrations began. The interesting thing was that we were given our order of the day, related or read out to us and signed as far as I know by the General of the Pioneers, Mr Fürster, which stated that these demonstrations were unworthy of a member of the army and we were not to take part in such demonstrations. So at that time, prior to the war, there was a completely different atmosphere in the army which was quite reasonable, and I noticed this right up to the time of the war in Russia.

Interviewer: I must ask you this: Did you think that the war was already in preparation?

Mr Teschlade: Of course we didn't think that we were already in preparation for war, especially when the prime ministers of France and England came to Germany and the agreement was to keep the peace. We had always believed and still believed that at some point even the army might collapse. It was naive of course, but we believed such things. We also wanted to be good Germans. I believe that it is almost impossible for people today to understand how it was. The propaganda was all one-sided and the options available to inform oneself were very limited indeed. One probably needed an inner conviction which could be supported by the community. An individual could be very lonely and it was impossible, especially for a young man, especially without the necessary support from within the family.

Interviewer: We'll take a short break here.

Mr Teschlade: In about January of 1939, I, or we, who all joined up together in the autumn of 1938 had either partially or almost fully completed our training. We were trained in laying cables, in signalling. I must mention here that I belonged to the long distance section or company. We had a radio signalling company, but I belonged to the long distance company who also had to lay cables, including heavy field cables as well as the single cables which can be thrown up into trees, which is the light field cable. We set up signal exchanges, or rebuilt them, because everything used to be done by hand, so that various parties could be connected. I was also specially trained as a driver for cars, trucks and motorbikes which was specialist training and quite involved, since it entailed repairing engines and being able to recognise different engines - quite skilful. And again we had to undertake light repairs and we were trained in low voltage electrics, so there was little shooting practice or anything else. I was fortunate because I didn't have good eyesight and couldn't shoot well and so I was spared the shooting. In spring we were deployed to a large signalling training course and we suspected that something was up, that this was the lead-up to war. Germany was divided up into north and south and we travelled to the Rhön Mountains and had to set up military bases, or signalling bases, for a large area and our opponents were on the other side of the River Main. We were on this side of the River Main and the others were on the other side. It seemed to us that this was intended with a greater objective in mind, although we didn't realise that the war would come so soon. We still hoped that it would pass us by and that we would be discharged by 1940 at the latest after serving our two years, but it came sooner than we thought. In August we had to leave the barracks and were sent first to Bitburg and then Marlberg in the Eiffel area. Farmers had to clear their stalls and we were quartered there. Shortly afterwards the war against Poland began. Those of us who were in the know and had heard how it had started, knew that it had happened in the same way with us - there was great anger. Perhaps I should mention here that we had agreed amongst ourselves that when it came to swearing allegiance, which took place publicly in the courtyard of the barracks, and entailed raising our hands in oath, we would raise them, but we all agreed, "We will give our oath to Germany but never to Hitler". So this sort of thing also occurred, just for the record. If we had been found out, we would have been in trouble, but the strong camaraderie among those who had known each other for a long time made it possible and that was the case for a number of years. Should I continue?

Interviewer: Feel free to continue telling us about the war.

Mr Teschlade: We were given a lot of freedom there. The Saar region had been cleared and we met many of the people who had been evacuated from there. We came into contact with some nice families. We could even wander in to the St Thomas monastery and in the spring of 1939 we attended a church service there and met up with a number of people. We were not kept on a tight rein - an indication that there was no idea that the Western countries would attack, even though Germany was aggressively pursuing its war agenda. Then in May it became stricter. I remember we were confined to barracks and holiday leave was cancelled and around the beginning of July it got to the stage where German tanks advanced via Luxembourg into France. I recall coming in via See [?? Eine Stadt namens See gibt es wohl, aber in Österreich!] and the whole city was destroyed. Some friends and I witnessed how whole lines of refugees had been bombed by dive bombers, perhaps not intentionally - I'm not sure - and how horses and civilians were lying on the road, dead. It was gruesome. Many of us said, "It is madness to wage such a war." On the other hand things happened quickly and when we got as far as La Charité on the Loire a ceasefire was declared. Things were made easy by the fact that we very quickly established contact with the French there, although we were told that our orders prohibited contact with the enemy. The Loire formed the demarcation line and the southern part of France had not been occupied by us, so our unit was transferred to a barracks in Poitiers. There were also Moroccans there from the French Foreign Legion who were allowed to roam freely and weren't a threat since the war was over. As far as I remember a ceasefire had been agreed on under Marshall Pétain (French prime minister from 1940 to 1944, translator). We were assigned to repairing our vehicles and equipment and it didn't take long before our unit, the N 46 Signals Corps, was sent to the coastal navy on the Channel coast. That, of course, was actually a pleasant time for us. At first we went to Calais and Boulogne and then we were assigned to our main base in Trouville-Deauville, where we were housed in a hotel. The individual troops were spread around from Brest to Cherbourg, Fécamp, Caen up as far as Boulogne and even on the English Channel Islands. It was our job to switch the French postal service over to using the same system so that it could be utilised by the army and especially by the coastal navy and at the same time carrier frequency equipment was apparently installed, making it impossible to listen in. I don't know whether or not this always worked. I wasn't involved in those operations, since I was a truck driver. I was given the delivery vehicle and had to look after provisions for those still together in Trouville. I had to deliver materials all along the Channel coast and I had the opportunity to become familiar with the area. That was very pleasant, of course.

Maybe I can tell you about something else at this point. The army had its own bookstores at the front and the crazy thing was that the army also had its own book dealers who had been selected or else invited - I'm not sure where from - by the officers. This meant that we had a wonderful bookstore in Trouville, managed by a man by the name of Walter Giekelhorn who had been a book dealer in Dresden. This was a man who did not like the Nazis at all. The interesting thing was that those war front bookstores, each book bearing the militant sword on its cover, looked quite the part from the outside, but inside it was a different story. We had access to books and art books which were blacklisted in Germany. Modern painters - I was even able to get a book there by Heinrich Heine, who had been completely banned in Germany and there were also books which had been burnt in Germany. One asks oneself, how did they get them? The book dealers were free to order books from French publishers in Paris or Alsace Lorraine. It was all done "under the counter". It was crazy. In the same way we were able to look at modern paintings in galleries there and we were exposed to Picasso and Maillot and other native painters. We really felt like gods in France and we thought, "Damn it all, hopefully this won't continue, hopefully the war will soon end in peace."

Interviewer: Could you tell us now about your own personal experience with the attack on your vehicle and how you were shot at?

Mr Teschlade: That came later. In between times I was in Russia.

Interviewer: You went to Russia in between?

Mr Teschlade: Yes, the following happened then: In the spring of 1941 this pleasant time for our unit in France was over. We had to assemble in Rouen. We were a fully motorised unit and had to load all our vehicles and equipment onto a long freight train. For us there was a passenger carriage at the front of the train and we travelled via Paris and Saarbrücken. The whole journey took ten days. We had a field kitchen and got provisions along the way. We travelled right across Germany through Saarbrücken, Frankfurt and Berlin and ended up in Allenstein in East Prussia, where we stopped for four weeks. That would have been about March 1941. We were able to explore the city and we had a lot of free time, but before long we were sent closer to the Russian border, to Treuburg. At the time I was the driver of an officer, a lance corporal. Maybe I can tell you something interesting here. We were stationed on a farm estate in Treuburg, not far from the Russian border, and the wildest rumours were circulating. There was this treaty with Russia, and Russia had already occupied half of Poland. The talk among us went like this: "Russia is going to give us permission to travel through to the Arabian zone." The craziest ideas surfaced, but none of us thought that we would soon be attacking Russia. I also remember visiting East Prussia with one of our company's majors.

Interviewer: Königsberg.

Mr Teschlade: Excuse me, it was Königsberg I visited with the major. I'm still thinking about Easter. That was a crazy thing, too. The farm landowner was also the commander which meant that the man who owned the farm was at the same time the boss in a political sense. He was also a party member, a storm trooper, as well as the minister of the German Christians, and he tried to get us to attend the church services at Easter. We ignored this of course and didn't go. There were very strange things going on which we didn't understand at all. And then it all happened very quickly and we had to move off to the Russian border and the following was read out to us, "We are facing an enemy who has a similar outlook to us," or something in that vein. "We don't take prisoners, we fight to the death. We are going to attack Russia." That was such a shock for us, although as the signalling corps we weren't immediately affected, because the tank division had to advance first. And so it continued, although not as quickly as expected. We went via Lithuania where many people even decorated our vehicles with flowers and greeted us as liberators. It was the same in White Russia. We then arrived in Welish and that was a terrible time, that is, at first it was good. There was a wooden bridge over the Duina and the weather was fine there. We erected our tents right next to the Duina and we had two chaplains, one catholic and one protestant, who got on well together. They also found a pope of the orthodox church. The Russian people greeted us as liberators. They were mostly older people, of course, though there were some young people and many women and children. A large church in the township which was a grain store was cleared out. The icons and crucifixes were brought there and then one Sunday the pope and two chaplains, one catholic and one protestant, held a church service which was filled to overflowing, half with Russian civilians and half with German soldiers. Songs were sung together and of course we believed, "Yes, now it's time for something else and a form of freedom will come. Maybe it's a good thing. Maybe national socialism will be put in its place." It was all an illusion! But in the way one is, we tried to be optimistic. We had not seen any real combat at that point and then the following occurred three or four weeks later. We belonged to the general staff of the 6th Army Corps with our General of the Pioneers, General Förster, under whose command we had been in Germany during our recruitment time, and in France, and now as well. The SS security forces came and they brought this group of people - some young people, allegedly Russians, allegedly Communists and Jewish civilians. They approached and were only fifty or sixty metres away on a field where a large ditch was dug out by the prisoners. We were supposed to cordon off the area, but our officers said straight away, "We don't have anything to do with this," and they kept us out of it, but we saw it all. Clad in tracksuits, one after the other people were brought forward by two others and then, one by one, with a shot to the neck, they were thrown into the ditch. We were furious but couldn't do anything to stop it. We then complained to our officers. Our General of the Pioneers got in touch with the top commandment of the army in Berlin to inform them and ask, "How is this possible without our knowledge? The army is the occupying force but there is peace with the population." That something like this should happen instead of trying to maintain peace within the areas which we had already occupied almost without force! And that people were being killed now. The General of the Pioneers received a warning from Hitler's headquarters that it was none of his concern and that "he" himself had given the order. Amongst us there was great anger and we asked ourselves what could be done. Could we have protested? None of us had the courage. What can you do? I remember there was a young farm labourer from Telgte in my tent who slept near me and in the night he cried out, "We are going to lose this war. If we win it, there is no such thing as a just God." That was coming from a German. I guess this happened at the end of July or the beginning of August, 1941.