Nigel Cawthorne by Japanese Reaping the Whirlwind: Personal Accounts of the German, Italian Experiences of WW II Page B
Authors: Japanese Reaping the Whirlwind: Personal Accounts of the German, Italian Experiences of WW II
Ads: Link
already revealed that this rolling steel mine is not a bad product. It was captured by a German Panzer regiment.
But defeat was inevitable. On 7 March 1943, Rommel was recalled to Europe to prepare the Atlantic defences against the Allied landings the Germans knew would come, and on 6 May the remaining Axis forces in North Africa were overrun.
AFTER STALINGRAD
Things were little better on the Russian front. In June 1942 Herbert Winckelmann had been with General Friedrich Paulus’s 6th Army as it prepared to advance, fatefully, on Stalingrad, but he had fallen ill with trench fever and had been sent back to hospital in Germany. On 30 January 1943, Paulus surrendered at Stalingrad, so Winckelmann was not sent to rejoin his unit. What remained of the 6th Army mustered at Savenay in the Loire Valley and celebrated their survival with ‘good red wine’. While his regiment was being reconstituted, Winckelmann was offered a command and a commission, but refused.
To become a commissioned officer one had to swear allegiance to Hitler, which I was not inclined to do. I have never regretted this.
Rebuilding the regiment took five months.
We filled our leisure time with sight-seeing. One of the more relaxing trips was one taken to LeBaule … Now all this was boarded up and the seawall was spotted with bunkers and other obstacles to hinder the possible landing of the Allies. At any rate, the miles of beaches, although now deserted, were beautiful and it was peaceful to lie in the sand and forget the ugliness of war … I had longed to visit Paris before the war but had to postpone it several times because it was too expensive. However, now with the devalued franc I could patronize the most luxurious hotels and restaurants with their exquisite cuisines.
The first thing Winckelmann did in Paris was catch up with his old school friend Goetz Bannay, whom he had not seen for four years. Bannay was now a staff officer in Field Marshal Kesselring’s headquarters there. He had lost a brother on the Russian front, who had written in his last postcard, ‘Just today I saw through my binoculars the towers of the Kremlin.’
The following days were filled with sight-seeing. Although we were on our feet from morning till night, we were only able to see the highlights of Paris. We strolled along the wide avenue of the Champs-Élysées from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde. Here and there we stopped for some window-shopping. It was too bad that we did not have more money on us as these stores offered goods that were already scarce in Germany. When our feet were tired we rested them in one of the many sidewalk cafés and watched passers-by while enjoying a café au lait with some delicious petits fours . Paris was still bustling as though the war did not exist. It was regrettable that the Louvre was closed … There was a special order in effect that groups could not split up at night. Being an opera fan, I would have loved to have seen a performance there, but I was overruled by my comrades and instead we visited the nightclub Folies Bergère. Although they were practically naked, the performance was artistic and not vulgar. A woman’s body does not exist for man’s lust alone … On the last morning in Paris we went to Montmartre where the artists lived, viewed some of their exhibits, had lunch at one of the bohemian restaurants … It was like a vacation except that our spouses could not be with us.
Back on the coast in LeBaule, there was serious business afoot:
We occasionally had to hunt down spies who worked amongst us like moles, mostly at night, except for one who made a daring daytime appearance and almost succeeded … One day while my friend Achim Peglau was on duty, an officer unknown to him but in a very snappy staff-officer’s uniform demanded, in a very commanding tone, to know the location of certain of our units. Achim who was only a private was intimidated by his forceful manner and went on to show the
But defeat was inevitable. On 7 March 1943, Rommel was recalled to Europe to prepare the Atlantic defences against the Allied landings the Germans knew would come, and on 6 May the remaining Axis forces in North Africa were overrun.
AFTER STALINGRAD
Things were little better on the Russian front. In June 1942 Herbert Winckelmann had been with General Friedrich Paulus’s 6th Army as it prepared to advance, fatefully, on Stalingrad, but he had fallen ill with trench fever and had been sent back to hospital in Germany. On 30 January 1943, Paulus surrendered at Stalingrad, so Winckelmann was not sent to rejoin his unit. What remained of the 6th Army mustered at Savenay in the Loire Valley and celebrated their survival with ‘good red wine’. While his regiment was being reconstituted, Winckelmann was offered a command and a commission, but refused.
To become a commissioned officer one had to swear allegiance to Hitler, which I was not inclined to do. I have never regretted this.
Rebuilding the regiment took five months.
We filled our leisure time with sight-seeing. One of the more relaxing trips was one taken to LeBaule … Now all this was boarded up and the seawall was spotted with bunkers and other obstacles to hinder the possible landing of the Allies. At any rate, the miles of beaches, although now deserted, were beautiful and it was peaceful to lie in the sand and forget the ugliness of war … I had longed to visit Paris before the war but had to postpone it several times because it was too expensive. However, now with the devalued franc I could patronize the most luxurious hotels and restaurants with their exquisite cuisines.
The first thing Winckelmann did in Paris was catch up with his old school friend Goetz Bannay, whom he had not seen for four years. Bannay was now a staff officer in Field Marshal Kesselring’s headquarters there. He had lost a brother on the Russian front, who had written in his last postcard, ‘Just today I saw through my binoculars the towers of the Kremlin.’
The following days were filled with sight-seeing. Although we were on our feet from morning till night, we were only able to see the highlights of Paris. We strolled along the wide avenue of the Champs-Élysées from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde. Here and there we stopped for some window-shopping. It was too bad that we did not have more money on us as these stores offered goods that were already scarce in Germany. When our feet were tired we rested them in one of the many sidewalk cafés and watched passers-by while enjoying a café au lait with some delicious petits fours . Paris was still bustling as though the war did not exist. It was regrettable that the Louvre was closed … There was a special order in effect that groups could not split up at night. Being an opera fan, I would have loved to have seen a performance there, but I was overruled by my comrades and instead we visited the nightclub Folies Bergère. Although they were practically naked, the performance was artistic and not vulgar. A woman’s body does not exist for man’s lust alone … On the last morning in Paris we went to Montmartre where the artists lived, viewed some of their exhibits, had lunch at one of the bohemian restaurants … It was like a vacation except that our spouses could not be with us.
Back on the coast in LeBaule, there was serious business afoot:
We occasionally had to hunt down spies who worked amongst us like moles, mostly at night, except for one who made a daring daytime appearance and almost succeeded … One day while my friend Achim Peglau was on duty, an officer unknown to him but in a very snappy staff-officer’s uniform demanded, in a very commanding tone, to know the location of certain of our units. Achim who was only a private was intimidated by his forceful manner and went on to show the
Similar Books
