weykeahsttee

aymgertccos

ar ae

AA

ete sec PaaS

The re-unification of East and West 1 Germany into one nation has been
one of. the most significant international news stories of this year.
Although it kas been covered thoroughly by news organizations around

_. the world, there is aiso a Terrace connection to these events, Terrace
_ Review reporter Tod Strachan spoke recently to local resident Willy —

Schneider, a well-known figure in ihe community and chairman of the-

in his home country in this two-part series.

by Tod Strachan

An August sun quictly dawns through the mist: peeking between gars
of architecture from another era. It’s early. It’s Peaceful. Tree-lined

_ Streets drip in morning dew and commerce has not yet begun to disturb

the solitude of distant hills. Rolling hills, which have already in this
new day begun to capture the imagination of its lone witness. A young

boy, alone, ready to challenge the world.

The boy wouldn't normally be on
the street at this hour. It was
August. Schools were closed for
the second holiday of a school
year which began in mid-April.
And every young boy knows that
holidays are for sleeping late,
exploring long, and ayoiding
chores. But this is Germany. The
year is 1933. And young boys
don’t idle their youth away like
those in other lands, Here, there is
purpose. Exciting purpose. —

Germany’s youth had been half-

lured, hhalf-dragged into ‘the
countryside with a promise of Boy
Scoit-style adventure. But,
dragged or lured, few complained.
By comparison, Boy Scouts were
for mindless cowards. Hitler's
youth were men. With no matches,
they learned how to light a fire;
with compasses, to read a map;
with rifles, how to aim and shoot.
- A boy doesn’t ask why he shoots
a rifle at a target. It’s exciting,
fun... grown up. He simply shoots
at the paper, probably with dreams
of some heroic conquest, but not
with any vision of killing his fel-
low man.

_ Still, a boy reveres his teacher,
and learns. He listens to the nro. .

fessional soldier who shows him
how to match the rhythm of his
breathing with a careful aim. How
to squeeze the trigger slowly,
gently, with great sincerity.... as

_ though caressing the hair of a girl

or shaking the hand of a friend.
And he listens intently when he is
told how. to put these skills
together in order to reap the
greatest profit from the expenditure
‘of a single round, A boy doesn’t
question these things. It’s exciting,
fun... a grown-up game,
Thousands of young German
boys played these innocent but
deadly games for nearly a decade,
playing along the banks of nearby
rivers, the same rivers where they
often played and laughed like other
boys in the world. Rivers where
they swam with their friends,
fished with their fathers, and in the
winter, skated with the gang.
Country hill sides. Running and
playitig with loaded riffes at the
ready. The same peaceful hill sides

where they hiked and picnicked '
fathers,

with their mothers,
brothers and sisters,
But then they were drafted into
Hitler’s army and it was no longer
a game. Boys became unwilling

men, shooting other unwilling men

in foreign countries. Knowing how, |

_ but not really why.
But. if: ‘they didn’t understand, -

these: boys playing war wore Iub

Willy Schneider: Saw what
was in store from behaviour of
Russian occupying forces.

lant nevertheless. State-owned
radio, the only radio they could
hear, broadcast report after report
of victory upon victory. The Ger-
man people were the masters of all
people, Hitler had told them, and
they were making their mark on
the world.

- By 1942,- though, things were
beginning to change. Young sol-
diers were beginning to ask ques-
tions, Their Jewish uncle, or Rus-
sian aunt, had disappeared and no
one could tell them why. Least of
all the feared Gestapo, the
Geheime Staats Polizei, who knew
everyone but answered to none,
There were only rumours. Some
people, it was said, were a threat

to the state; and no one dared talk |

openly to friends.

A year later, the German dream
began to collapse. German soldiers,
young boys, were dying. Their
sightless staring eyes and blood-
soaked bodies testament to the
simple fact: Germany was no
longer winning the war. Young
men, scared: men, no longer
defended the state. They defended
their lives... until they were either
killed or overrun by enraged allies
determined to end the unwarranted
and heartless assault of Germany
on the rest of world.

On May 8, 1945, the suffering
ended. The allies had taken Berlin

and were beginning to divide the [

spoils of war. German boys who
once played with rifles, then went
to war, were glad. The fighting

and killing had’ stopped. And,

although they would have no part
in deciding their fate they looked
towards the future with great opti-
mism.

Hitter was dead. They would
‘make friends with the allies.

Rejoin ‘the world. Finally, things
would be ‘as they" were. Young
boys. — their sons — playing on.
quiet river banks, Tunning over
gentle country hills... Without any

. Tifles to tarnish their dreams..
Terrace Public Library board of directors. Schneider recalls his youth -

. in East Germany and offers some reflections on the new developments

But for. many, it- was a dream

with little promise. A.dream that"

would outlast their own brief lives;
possibly even the lives of their
children. For them, there would be

_ ho friends, no rejoining the world.

Germany had made at least one
enemy who had yet ‘to level its
revenge. Russia, the Bear, had
been mortally wounded — sixteen
million had died at Germany’s
hands — and they weren’t about to
let anyone forget. .

Willy Schneider returned to his
home town of Plauen, Germany, in
November 1945, The memories of
war were fresh. He had been

‘drafted into the German Heavy

Mounted Artillery on April 16,
1942, spent a few months at boot
camp in East Prussia, and on June
25 was sent to war. First in the
Crimean Peninsula; and | four
months later, to northern Russia
where Germany held Leningrad
under siege for more than two
years. On January 14, 1944, how-
ever, Russia began their march,
their great offensive, and within 15
months met their allies in Bertin,
ending the war.

But as Schneider neared his
home town, more distant memories
began to surface as well. That
early moming August sun in 1933,
Heading into the country to learn
how to shoot a gun. The 1920's,
the Prosperity Years, had faded
into depression. By 1932, there
were 5.6 million unemployed in
' Germany alone. President Hinden-
burg named Adolph Hitler as the
German Chancellor in January
1933, and in March, the Reichstag
gave Hitler dictatorial powers.
Opposition parities were. dis-
banded. The Nazis alone were in
control of German lives, but-

. Terrace Review — Wednesday, October 10, 1990 AIS /

EST... again

Schneider was only 10 and: the

significance of these events were.
-not a part of his young mind.

For Schneider, there was only the

exuberance of youth. The promise:
and optimism of a future, which,

for any 10-year-old boy, is never
much. further away than tomorrow.

There was the excitement and .

challenge of Hitler’s version of
Boy Scouts. Learning how to shoot
a gun.

It was a time when days lasted
forever and no detail was worth
wasting a moment of life on point-
less worry. Playing on the banks
of the Weise Eister River. Hiking
swimming, picnics. But for many
German boys, Schneider's boy-
hood friends, those days would be
the final happiness of their lives.
Early morning walks to the coun-
try, lured by Hitler’s fate. Shot
dead by an angry world who re-
fused to accept Hitler’s will.

Much of. Plauen had been
destroyed, As in the rest of Ger-
many, about 60, perhaps 70 per-
cent of Schneider’s home town had
been bombed or levelled by allied
artillery. Yet, there was hope.
True, Hitler’s promise of German
rule for a thousand years had been
dashed. But their homeland, Ger-
many, was still whole.

And it was with acceptance, with
the knowledge that there would be
no more war, that Schneider and
his countrymen watched in silence
as the allied forces drew a line on
their map. This line began near
Lubeck on the Baltic Sea, headed
south to the Elbe River, which it
followed in a southeasterly direc-
tien to the smail
Schnackenberg, swung sharply
westward and travelled nearly to
the town of Bodenteich, zig-zagged
south along the Ohre River and
Weser-Elbe-Kanal to Hdtenslebin,
Elirich, Lauchréden and Spahl, and
finally swung southeast past Um-
merstadt and Hirschberg to meet
the Czechoslovakian border near

” Bverything to the west of this

- line was to be administered by:the
western allies, primarily the United

States, Great’ Britain and. France,

and. everything. to the east of the
line was to fall under Russiait rule.

Why such 2 a ‘division? According

to Schneider, World War II had -

cost. Russia dearly, and half’ of
Germany was their reward. Berlin,
the capital of Germany, was
located well within the Russian
sector, but it was agreed by the
allies that Berlin would also be
split between cast and west, and
that a corridor between Berlin and.
the western world would ‘be
granted to the western allies.

West Germany soon began to
recover from the war and eventual-
ly showed signs of renewed pros-
perity. But it was different in the
east. Russia annexed large portions
of East Germany and it became a
much smaller version of what had
existed before.

"I began to see what was in store
for East Germany," Schneider
tecalls from the few months he
remained in his East German home

in Plauen, “when I saw. the beha-
viour of the Soviet occupation
forces and the behaviour of the
German puppet government.”

At that time, travel between cast
and west was relatively easy and
Schneider, not liking what he saw,
moved to’ West Germany in the
Spring of 1946. Until 1990, he
only returned once, for a single
day in August, 1947, And already,
the "decay was setting in", he
recalls. "It was clearly visible."

town of -

The challenge: a building i in an East German community that still bears bullet holes and destroyed
windows from the war. Rebuilding East Germany will be a formidable task tor the reunified nation.

toate eo oaet