Subject: Gerhard Dingermann

born July 12, 1915

Medical Orderly / Priest

Interviewer: Franjo Hülck

Mr Dingermann: Those of us living on the Lower Rhine were always denounced as not being true Germans. This was unfair because despite the fact that we lived so close to the border we always had very Prussian qualities and were very connected to land and country. And so we were rather terrified when the empire ended and the emperor flew to Holland. The worst, however, was that he took what was really our money and in this way all our money was gone. Then inflation came. And during inflation our money became utterly worthless so that we had to start again from scratch. My father was unemployed at the time. And while he was on the dole I experienced first hand how hard we had to save to make ends meet. It was only once a week that our sandwiches were filled with something that might be mistaken for meat. Every Saturday I had to buy half a quarter of thinly cut bacon and each of us was given half a piece for all the sandwiches we might eat. My mother's comment usually was, "And now you can use this to make as many sandwiches as you like". Those were times of poverty, and so I was able to empathise with what unemployed people who were looking for jobs were actually seeking in those hard times. They were looking for an anchor to get a grip on their lives again. It was the same with the youth movement which began at that time. When I was a boy I saw the singers who passed through our village singing and playing the guitar. In principle it was a great time. There was nothing revolutionary about it. They were just young people keeping themselves occupied. And those times certainly weren't the worst. They were the happiest times. But everything gradually changed again when normality returned. And normality was inevitably linked to some people becoming wealthy. It was unavoidable that people always wanted more and more. As a result every government which came to power was expected to make it possible for people to have a little more. But that little extra people that people received was soon lost again, because all the promises simply couldn't be kept. And because the promises couldn't be kept people were longing for individuals whom they could trust. And this is also how nationalism re-emerged and became respectable again. It is true that deep down inside we didn't agree with nationalism because it didn't suit us in terms of faith, because it was belligerent. Yet the fight against communism was something that filled us with satisfaction. This was, after all, a time when clergymen were killed by communists everywhere in Mexico. Therefore we were obsessed with the thought, "The communists are the enemies of faith." Later, during the war, when I came into contact with Romanians, I was even decorated. As soldiers we had joint forces with the Romanians in a campaign called the "Crusade against Bolshevism". When the Romanians deserted us later on, we weren't allowed to wear this order any longer. But to begin with we imagined ourselves on a crusade against Bolshevism. This may also have been the basic principle which later determined our attitude towards national socialism. The fight against Bolshevism. The defence of religion. And we Catholics in particular shared this view which some people didn't like because they didn't credit us with being true Germans. They kept saying we received our instructions from the Vatican rather than from the government. Most people will remember, at least to this day, how during the empire, or rather the period following World War I, the ecclesiastical function was abolished and all the Church's assets confiscated. And this is probably why all this was again included in the Concordat - that the independence of the Church was restored, that it was once again authorised to collect taxes and live off them.

Interviewer: Please turn round a bit and look in our direction.

Mr Dingermann: It was in 1928 that a monk from the Order of St. Francis de Sales convinced me to join the Salesian order. I was still at school in the 8th grade, but they had their own school in Hesse, so I went to school there. And since you couldn't take your leaving certificate at that school, I completed the last two years at a grammar school in Essen. It was while I was in Essen that the street fights between the communists and the national socialists started. Right across from us there was a small street which we referred to as "Play Street". Only miners lived there, poor people - we called them communists then. And then these troops of national socialists emerged and there were fights out there. Our attitude was somewhat different. We were involved in the Catholic youth movement. I don't remember the names of all those groups and associations. In any case, we were also confronted with the nationalists because, of all religious orders, the Salesians were particularly concerned with youth work. The Salesians remained strictly neutral and didn't get involved in all the conflicts. It was our task to welcome young people. Later when I went to this grammar school for my leaving certificate, national socialism was already rife. And at that school there was already a strict division between those who had opted for national socialism and those who had not. Some of the pupils wore uniforms to school, and some of the teachers were strictly national socialist. The attitude to this was one of opposition right from the start. We didn't have anything against those people, but they set themselves apart because of their uniform. And the way young people are, it was our instinctive reaction to be simply anti Nazi right from the start. In a way I benefited from my status as an opponent because in my class I became the guy who made the others laugh. This is how we experienced the struggle of national socialism trying to win the souls of young people, so to speak. It reached such a stage that essays were being marked according to whether they betrayed a National Socialist attitude or not. And whenever I had written something bad I was summoned to the headmaster who said to me in his kind way, "Young man, this is something you may think, but must never write!"

Under national socialism sports was considered to be of paramount importance. Sports was never among my fortes though, because I wasn't very good at gymnastics, nor at the horizontal bar, nor at the parallel ones. I always failed. I would never have passed all the assignments for the sports badge in the proper sense. So instead of the proper one, I opted for another sports badge held in high esteem at the time, the storm troopers' sports badge which I was awarded without any real achievements. The sports teacher told me later, "Dingermann", he said, "You couldn't be given anything but good marks in physical education because you had that prestigious order." It is a big joke but this was the way you survived. And that's how we scraped through all the time.

Then I took up my studies and witnessed how Austria was annexed by Germany. In the course of this I also saw how the soldiers who had come from Austria wearing flamboyant uniforms, Hussars that they were, had to change into plainer battledress. The soldiers had changed. I realised that you had to change, that the plan was to make you change, and there was an inner rebellion which grew. Time and again I admired the old-fashioned soldiers, but not the new ones. Later I became a soldier myself inasmuch as they made me a medical orderly. This was during the war, but then in 1940, 1941 I was able to take up my studies again and was ordained as a priest. I returned to the front where we all ended up sooner or later, and I remember asking myself, "What are you now, are you a soldier or a priest?" I wasn't a priest, I was a soldier. Nobody looked on me as a priest. And what could I do as a priest? I didn't really know what to do. I didn't even know how to celebrate Mass. I felt extremely awkward until, a year or two later, I had an experience in the field bandaging area which made me change. I was crossing the bandaging area on some errand when suddenly a wounded soldier came up to me and said, "Comrade", he said, "you are a minister, aren't you?" I looked at him and I no longer knew why I couldn't fulfil the role of priest and how he knew I was one. But then he said, "If you’re a priest, I've got to tell you something." Then he unburdened himself. I don't want to mention here what it was all about, but he got it all off his chest. And so I realised what my task in the war was. It was my duty to be open for my fellow soldiers so that they could tell me everything that weighed on their minds, because they needed to vent their feelings so that these things would no longer haunt them. The things they confided in me ranged from domestic matters to their thoughts about the war and all the other worries they had because they didn't know what was going to happen. In our units most of the soldiers showed a fairly neutral attitude. At that time my officers virtually never expressed any opinion for or against national socialism. But I always had the feeling that at the bottom of their hearts they were anti Nazi. It is true that they loved their country and those who were religious were also opposed to communism, more or less like myself. But they certainly didn't love the war. More than one officer confided in me and told me what they thought was particularly cruel about the war. Especially if they had witnessed it, seen it with their own eyes.

Darlowo (Romania) is a small village I won't ever forget because it keeps coming back to mind. A freight train arrived at the station in Darlowo while we were waiting there. It was hot and people were locked into this freight train. We later learnt that they were Jews. The train was escorted by Romanians. And while we were still watching from afar, we witnessed for the first time that the people on the train were lowering handkerchiefs they had tied to shoestrings from the small windows high above, those barred windows. They lowered them to the ground to where a puddle was and hoped to at least absorb a little bit of water in this way. But the people on the train were forbidden even to do that. Romanian officers armed with sabres came and stopped them. Anybody who dared to stretch out a hand was hit by their sabres. So we learnt that this train was crammed with Jews. Our officers knew beforehand because they had more immediate access to information. We also learnt that many of them had already died on the way because they were denied water and that the survivors had to stand on the dead bodies of their fellow prisoners. We urged our officers to do something, and after some discussion the officers had decided among themselves to go over to the Romanian guards and tell them, "People mustn't be treated in this way." They forced the guards to at least open the doors and remove the dead bodies. And I saw with my own eyes how truckloads of corpses were taken away. There must have been an awful lot of them in the carriage. The dead were taken away. I don't know what happened to them afterwards. That was the only thing we could do, we were quite helpless after all. We kept thinking, though, that this couldn't really happen to us. Afterwards we were so terrified that we kept asking ourselves, "What's going on here? Who would do such a thing?" And it had not been Germans, but Romanians. We were still convinced that the Romanians were the ones who were prosecuting the Jews. At that time we would never have believed that anybody else was responsible. That we were the ones responsible. Such a thing could only happen with those Romanians who were to become our allies and join us later. This was why I was awarded the order "Crusade Against Bolshevism" like all the other soldiers marching along with us. And somehow we were still inspired by the feeling that we were of the same opinion and fighting against bolshevism. We didn't know what was really behind it all. We didn't care about national socialism, the only thing that mattered to us was what we, as soldiers, were supposed to do. But we were taught better on the Crimean. There I witnessed how an officer was admitted to our medical camp, an officer of the SS. This SS officer didn't come to terms with his life any longer. He wasn't outwardly injured, but emotionally. And he told us that he was forced watch how Jews were rounded up, how they had to stand in front of a large ditch, stripped down, and how they were shot, one by one, through the base of their skulls. It was then that I believed that all the rumours which were being spread in this secretive and vague manner were true. As the war continued this belief turned into knowledge. And such knowledge meant that we were caught on the horns of a dilemma. I find it hard to express what our feelings were. I often discussed the problem with fellow soldiers, "What are we to do now? Should we win or lose the war? If we win then we'll remain soldiers forever, if we lose then we are in a bad way, the Russians will finish us of."

It was really quite hectic, especially while the battles were on (at the military hospital). During military action everything had to happen in a hurry. There wasn't time for anything out of the ordinary. Patients were operated on non-stop. I saw a medical officer once who had been assigned to our unit with the sole purpose of earning him another decoration, so that he could be awarded the Iron Cross. Before he was sent to us he hadn't been anywhere but at home. We once had to operate on someone with an abdominal bullet wound. So he said, in the middle of the operation, "This one's been dealt with, if there are any more bullet wounds or lesions, he'll die anyway, we'll just stitch him up now." Many were just as reckless. But that wasn't even the worst. We felt very sympathetic towards the young people. And whenever it was possible the officers went out of their way and said: "Dingermann, please join us! In principle it was not part of my job to be in the operating room. "Come along!", they said. So I was there more and more often when the soldiers were being operated on and I administered the holy sacraments on the ones that were dying. Somehow this went almost unnoticed. Unless they had to undergo surgery, the injured soldiers stayed in a large room we had requisitioned once, a former class room or whatever. At that time we were already on the retreat and had almost moved out of Russia. At that stage there were so many casualties that soldiers had to help each other. There was one in this room who kept reciting the Lord's Prayer very loudly. And as soon as he had finished he started all over again. Some of them told us to shut up. But this one kept saying his prayers. What mattered to me was that I was a point of contact. I had learnt a lot about this in the meantime, that I was the person to turn to if people wanted to unburden themselves. I couldn't heal any real wounds, but ease emotional pain. With me they could complain of their plight, because there was nobody else there to listen. And they trusted me, even the officers did.

Interviewer: Do you know what is it like? If someone is severely wounded, will his memory wander back to childhood, will he talk about his mother, his parents? What are the images that are evoked in such a situation?

Mr Dingermann: I don't know anything about the images that might be evoked. In many cases it's the quest for the meaning of life. But what mattered most to them, their primary concern was, time and time again, to be cured. In another case they called me to a young fellow soldier whom they had already written off. They told me: "This one is going to die, there's nothing we can do about it." I went to over him and asked, "Listen, comrade, I am a priest, is there anything I can do for you? Can I administer the holy sacraments?" He began to scream silently, "I don't want to die, I don't want to die!" I finally convinced him to accept his imminent death because he knew he couldn't go on. But in most cases they were gone too soon. They underwent surgery and were sent away again, one after the other. They never stayed for long, so there were only brief moments I could be with those people and talk to them. And the most important thing for them always was, "What do you think, am I alright, will I recover? The others won't tell me anything." Or they mentioned that they would like to tell me something, that some problem still was on their mind. I can't really remember what those problems were and I don't want to talk about them either. All of them confided what they had on their minds. They wanted to get it all off their chest so that they didn't have to die with this burden. We couldn't really do anything but adapt to the conditions as they were. Towards the end of the war things were so bad that we saw all the people who had to flee while we were retreating. We had come all the way from the south where we had invaded the Crimean to the region up north here, near Gdansk, then Königsberg. On the way from Gdansk to Königsberg we already saw how all those people had to leave.

Interviewer: The refugees......

Mr Dingermann: They were refugees, or rather they became refugees, because they were forced to leave with their vehicles. This went on until we ourselves couldn't do anything but flee and see for ourselves how we could return home. It was so bad that we even had to leave the dead behind on our way. I passed trenches where the dead soldiers were lying. And sometimes I tried to at least change their identity discs. They all had those small discs with the numbers on them which I could detach so that their mums and dads would at least be informed sometime later. But that wasn't much help either. We had to leave them lying there since we were on the run ourselves.

Then we reached Hela towards the end of the war. I remember that on May 1, 1944, or 1945, we spent the night on Hela and that we set out again the following day in one of those pioneers' landing crafts, those small boats. We sailed to Copenhagen via Bornhom where we were arrested. That's where our flight came to an end and our feeling was one of sheer and utter relief. If I may express it with the words I said later when I was released from the P.O.W. camp to go home and my brother had come to meet me in Weeze, "Now all this shit has come to an end!" We were quite euphoric. But this feeling was increasingly undermined by what we were confronted with. It had quite a lasting influence on me that were again and again questioned by officers (US citizens), interrogation officers, before we were released from the camp. And those interrogation officers who had all left Germany at some time in the past, some of them being of Jewish descent, were now the ones to examine us. They asked us all kinds of questions about things I didn't know anything about. I remember that one of the officers asked me to lift both my arms and show what I had underneath. I said, "What do you think is in my armpit?" "Well", he replied, "there should be a tattoo of your blood group if you were a member of the SS. I said: "I've never heard anything like that." I just wanted to point out that there were a lot of things people hadn't even heard of, they were, after all, quite ignorant. I told that officer later why I was so annoyed. "I've come here and you keep asking me questions. I had hoped that I would be free at last. I thought I could enjoy life again. And you", I went on, "could have told me just that: freedom has come for you too." But to them I was nothing but a Nazi.