Oral history interview with Luzie Geschwendt

Oral history interview with Waltrudis Becker

Oral History

Waltrudis Becker, born in 1917 in Villingen, Germany, describes her family and childhood in Karlsruhe-Forchheim, Germany; her father’s work as a farmer and how he came to support National Socialism; stories told to her by her parents about the first World War; her father’s antisemitism; traveling by bicycle with her mother to Nuremberg during the Nazi party conference in 1933; hearing Hitler speak; hearing about attacks on Jews; the persecution of Jews in her town, including the boycott of stores owned by Jews; her time in the Bund Deutscher Madel; joining the German Labor Service before it became the Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD); working on a farm in Schussenried, Germany; the death of her father in 1937; traveling to Forchheim to assist her mother; her engagement and marriage in 1939; her time in a women's labor school in Reutlingen; local complaints about the government; the role of her husband as the local farm leader; the different types of forced laborers on her farm during the war, including Polish, Russian, and French prisoners of war; stories about individual workers and how she and her husband treated them; her comfortable living conditions during the war; her support of the Nazi regime, including her membership in the Frauenschaft; sheltering family members during the war; the births of her children during the war; rumors that deserters from the army were hanged; American soldiers taking away their forced labor to a displaced persons camp in Coburg in 1945; American soldiers taking over her home at the end of the war; disposing of the evidence that she and her husband were Nazi Party members; forced laborers who defended her husband’s actions during the war; the arrival of refugees in her town; the trial of her husband which ruled him to be a minor Nazi supporter; her classification as a bystander; her understanding of Nazi policies; critiques of how the history of the Third Reich is taught; and her life after the war.

Oral history interview with Jurgen Boehlke

Oral History

Jurgen Boehlke, born in Dresden, Germany on April 10, 1923, describes his maternal grandparents, who lost their fortune in the 1920s and afterwards the family lived in Hosterwitz, Germany in very poor circumstances; his mother’s first marriage and her divorces after WWI; his father, Dr. Walter Boehlke, who was a professor of veterinary medicine; his early life in Danzig (Gdansk, Poland); his brother’s birth in 1927; his parents’ divorces in 1928 and returning to Hosterwitz; his mother joining the Nazi party in 1933 and working for the local Allgemeine Ortskrankenkasse; attending school and being expelled in 1939; being drafted in the army as a reserve officer’s candidate (stationed in Dresden) in 1942; being assigned to a truck battalion in Kamenz, Germany; the deportation of his girlfriend to Theresienstadt; being sent in April 1943 to Grimma; being sent in August 1943 to Hamburg, where he and concentration camp inmates from Neuengamme removed corpses from the recent bombing; being ordered to Italy for deployment with the Turkistan infantry division; being in a hospital in South Tirol because of psoriasis from the winter of 1943 until April 1944; returning to the front; being shot in the head on July 7, 1944; being hospitalized until the war’s end (in Riva, Italy; an air force hospital in Villa D’este; and Bad Harzburg, Germany); being released to Bad Harzburg and becoming a carpenter’s helper; entering the KPD in 1945; having a workshop for bookbinding and graphic arts; going to Dresden; studying bookbinding; joining the SED; getting married; being an independent bookbinder and later a bookbinding instructor at the Weissensee School of Art in Berlin; and retiring in 1977.

Oral history interview with Johanna Braunsdorf

Oral History

Johanna Braunsdorf, born on March 21, 1907 in Berlin-Kreuzberg, Germany, describes her father who was an architect; her mother, who came from a farm in Gera/Thuringia; her sister; attending school; studying electro-technology at the Technical University of Berlin from 1927 to 1933; a practical study in Paris, France; being an engineer from 1933 to 1942 at the Siemens Electrical Tube Factory (Röhrenwerk) in Berlin; moving with her family to Dreilinden in 1934; her mother’s death in 1942; being employed at the Labor Ministry in Berlin from 1942 to 1946; her friendship with a Jewish professor who died during the war; the Holocaust memorial in Berlin; her lack of political interests and commitment to equality; getting married to Otto Braunsdorf in 1946; legally moving to West Berlin in 1959; and her second marriage.

Oral history interview with Friedrich Grosse

Oral History

Friedrich Grosse, born on October 15, 1913 in Hesserode, Nordhausen, Germany, describes his three older siblings; his father and mother; attending school; being a barber’s apprentice 1930 to 1934 in Nordhausen; being drafted in 1939 into the Army Flak unit (anti-aircraft); being stationed until 1943 at air bases in Nordhausen, Koelleda, Espenhain, and Boehlen; being assigned to Dawision in 1943 then Ljubljana; being sent to Italy in the fall of 1943; getting married in January 15, 1944; participating in the battle of Monte Cassino; being wounded in the knee while transporting ammunition on June 18, 1944 and spending several weeks in a hospital; being awarded the Iron Cross, second class; defending a bridge in Ferrara between October 1944 and April 1945; being a prisoner of war from April 24, 1945 to December 1946; going to Zwenkau, where his wife lived; moving to Hesserode in 1949 then Nordhausen in 1985; and his wife’s death in 1992.

Oral history interview with Rolf Hoffmann

Oral History

Rolf Hoffman, born in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany in 1923, discusses his family life; his working class upbringing; his extended family’s political identification with both the extreme right and extreme left; his education; avoiding joining the Hitler Youth; being recruited for compulsory work service (RAD 2) in 1941-1942; being recruited to the military in April 1942; joining the military band; fighting on the eastern front in East Prussia in 1944; capitulation; crossing back into Germany from Russian territory; being demobilized by the American Army; joining the Social Democrat Party (SPD) after the war; becoming more assigned with the political left; his career as a policeman; working to control the black market; being promoted to chief of police in Halle; spending two years in Zanzibar; his marriage and children; beginning his civil career in a regional parliament; his knowledge of concentration camps during the war; and his feelings about the post-war government in the GDR.

Oral history interview with Erwin Huber

Oral History

Erwin Huber, born in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia in 1932, discusses his family life; growing up with a Croatian mother and German father; his education at a German school; prewar relations among Croats, Serbs, and Germans; joining the Hitler Youth; moving to Croatia in 1941 because of his father’s job; his father’s career as the director of a cooperative farm; his father being called up as an army officer in Macedonia; escaping from the American Army to Schärding, Austria in 1944 with his family; the consequences for his family when his father was denounced as an SS officer in 1945; crossing the border illegally; living in a refugee camp; settling in Tuttlingen, Germany; embarking on an apprenticeship; his marriage and children; his family’s feelings about being refugees after the war; his father’s and uncle’s roles in Nazism and the SS; and his memories of anti-Jewish legislation and a camp where partisans were imprisoned.

Oral history interview with Edgar Krämer

Oral History

Edgar Krämer, born in Berlin-Schoneberg, Germany in 1927, discusses his father’s membership in the Nazi Party starting in 1931; moving throughout Germany for his father’s work in lumber factories; settling in Königsberg; witnessing Kristallnacht; entering an elite Nazi boarding school known as NAPOLA; meeting gauleiter Eric Koch at school; working as an anti-aircraft assistant in 1943 in Danzig; being forced to quit NAPOLA in 1944 as a result of bad behavior; his father's membership in the Volksturm militia at the end of the war; moving into a Jewish owned apartment after his family’s home was destroyed by bombing; beginning his compulsory work service (RAD); joining the military in January 1945; participating in the last fight for Berlin; Germany's capitulation; being discharged by the British Army; his university studies; his feelings about anti-Jewish violence and Nazi efforts to indoctrinate people; and his feelings about immigration in contemporary Germany.

Oral history interview with Rolf Kreisch

Oral History

Rolf Kreisch, born in 1927 in the Pomeranian region of Germany, discusses his family life; his upper-class upbringing; being aware of the poverty around him; his father joining the army in 1939; his education; joining the Jungvolk in 1937; graduating to the Hitler Youth a few years later; attaining the highest nonprofessional position in the organization; partaking in SS recruitment efforts as part of his role in the Hitler Youth; resisting Nazi policies by continuing to attend church; routines during the war; joining the compulsory labor service (RAD) in 1944; volunteering for the army in late 1944; fighting in the trenches on the eastern front; feeling fearful and disillusioned; being wounded in combat; Germany's capitulation; his capture by Soviet forces on the Hela Peninsula; his imprisonment in a POW camp in Minsk, Belarus; being moved to a silver mine in Czechoslovakia; fleeing the prison camp in 1949; being discharged as a POW by American forces; returning to his mother and sister in Germany; learning his father was killed in action in 1945; reflections on his parents’ prewar Jewish friends; and learning about mass killings by gas.

Oral history interview with Gudrun Kubler

Oral History

Gudrun Kubler, born December 28, 1911 in Sindelfingen, Germany, discusses her early life with her parents; her father’s anti-Nazi sentiments; meeting her husband; having children; the difficulties of childbirth; her husband’s career during the war; flying around Germany in 1934 on free flights for her honeymoon; attending Göring’s wedding and other Nazi Party functions; the pressure to conform to Nazi platform as a result of fear; her memories of Kristallnacht and the persecution of Jews; raising her children while her husband was at war; the destruction of her home during bombing raids; the threats of violence by French soldiers after the war; her husband’s return after the war; her postwar relationships with Jewish people; and not knowing what her husband did during the war.

Oral history interview with Helmut Kübler

Oral History

Helmut Kübler, born in Göppingen, Germany in 1906, discusses growing up in a Protestant family; his father's expierences in World War I; moving to Stuttgart in 1922; studying engineering; joining a Protestant fraternity known as "Wingolf"; meeting his wife; finishing his doctorate in civil air traffic in 1932; having a difficult time finding employment; delaying his marriage as a result of financial hardship; accepting Hitler's government because of improvments he saw in Germany; moving to Berlin to work at the Ministry of Aviation in 1933; being recruited for the military in the engineering corps in 1936; joining the general staff of the air force in 1938; living away from his family; being posted to the front in Saloniki, Greece; visting the concentration camps Mittlebrau-Dora and Nordhausen in 1943 and 1944; believing the prisoners to be well cared for; being called to the front in 1945; his capture by American soldiers; his discharge from the military; the penatlies imposed on him during Denazification; his postwar career at Statistical/Regional Council of Stuttgart, the German Federation Ministry of Traffic, and Lufthansa; training for the military reserves in 1956; retiring in 1969; and the death of his son in 1990.

Oral history interview with Fritz Moses

Oral History

Fritz Moses, born in Strelen, Germany in Silesia in 1929, discusses his childhood in Strelen; his family life; relations among Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish people in Strelen; his father's pastry shop; the reasons his father joined the Nazi party in 1931; changes in his town under the Nazi government; difficulties his family experienced because of their last name; the Aryanization of local Jewish businesses; watching his grandmother buy formerly Jewish furniture from the bank; his education; his memories of a Jewish schoolmate; the disappearance of Jewish neighbors; becoming a leader in the Jungvolk and the Hitler Youth; his memories of the Nazi boycott against Jewish businesses; joining a research institute in August 1944 instead of the military; returning to his family and being conscripted to dig trenches on the eastern front in September 1944; wanting to join the militia (Volkssturm), but not being allowed to by his father; being expelled from Silesia as an ethnic German with his mother and sisters; being in Dresden during its bombing; working on a farm in Lower Bavaria; herding cattle and seeing death marches passing from Mauthasen to Melk; the arrival of American troops and the end of the war; his father's return from an American prisoner of war camp; his postwar career as an accountant; working with a Jewish man in the 1960s and confronting the history of the Third Reich; his largely Jewish clientele; hearing stories of the Holocaust from his clients; deciding to name his son Daniel; and his book Strelen: Memories of a Small Silesian Town and Her Jewish Citizens.

Oral history interview with Gunter Siemeister

Oral History

Gunter Siemeister, born in 1921 in Neuwied, Germany, describes his family and childhood, including his membership to the Jungvolk beginning in 1933 and his education; how two of his Jewish classmates did not return to school one year, and his assumption that they had emigrated; his friendly relations with a Jewish family who owned an animal feed store; how the family’s furniture was thrown out of windows on Kristallnacht; joining the military in 1939; his appointment to lieutenant in 1941; his encounter with Jewish slave laborers in Minsk, Belarus who were assigned to renovate a block of housing for his army unit in 1942; the soldiers’ treatment of the laborers; receiving orders to participate in the defense of the surrounding area of Auschwitz; his encounter with a group of Jews in Auschwitz after officers abandoned the camp; being present in Auschwitz during the camp’s liberation by the Russian Army; his view that aspects of Auschwitz had been constructed to discredit Germany; his belief that people from Poland, Russia, and the Ukraine came to work in Germany voluntarily; his argument that a documentary about Buchenwald was created to make Germans look like criminals; his time as a Soviet prisoner of war from 1945 to 1949; and his life after the war. Frau Siemeister, born in Germany, describes seeing Hitler during his visit to Weimar; her father who took a tour of Buchenwald and claimed that the camp was clean and well run and that there were no prisoners from Weimar there; her understanding that only political prisoners were sent to Buchenwald; a Jewish family who lived in her town and managed to immigrate to Argentina; her father’s assistance to an elderly Jewish couple; the internment of her parents after the war; and her anger about a brochure about her hometown which describes the persecution of Jewish there during World War II.

Oral history interview with Friedrich-Karl Scheibe

Oral History

Friedrich-Karl Scheibe, born in 1931 in Suhl-Heinrichs in Germany, describes his family and early childhood; his father’s membership in the Nazi Party; his father and uncle’s service in the first World War; the night of Kristallnacht during which the town’s synagogue was destroyed; antisemitic propaganda in Nazi-run newspapers; the reaction of his parents and others to the outbreak of war in 1939; the pride his parents took in lands gained under Hitler; an incident in which three bombs fell in the forest outside of his town; the increasing number of death announcements during the war; the sight of a column of Jewish people guarded by SA soldiers who shouted commands; the presence of hundreds of onlookers who watched the column pass; the Jewish families in his town who emigrated from Germany; his membership in the Hitler Youth in 1941; the focus of the Hitler Youth on preliminary military training, not antisemitism; encountering concentration camp inmates being marched to their deaths; the inhumane treatment of the prisoners by the SS and his resulting disillusionment with the Nazi Party; the defeated German Army withdrawing through his town; the arrival of American soldiers who were admired, and the arrival of Soviet soldiers who were disliked; his understanding of Buchenwald and the belief that it was used for the punishment of dissenters; not being aware of extermination camps; his contact with foreign workers; his assessment that the treatment of Russian prisoners was inhumane and militarily pointless; and living under repressive measures from the Soviets postwar.

Oral history interview with Herbert Schroder

Oral History

Herber Schroder, born in 1923 in Hohengorsdorf, Germany, describes his family background; his membership in the Hitler Youth; joining the SS in 1941 as a member of a fighting unit of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler; his infantry training in Berlin and training as a motorist in Sennelager; his stationing in France in 1942; his stationing in Kharkov, Ukraine in January 1943; gathering women for forced labor in Germany; disarmament in Italy in July 1943; fighting Yugoslavian partisan groups and Soviet soldiers in October 1943; members of his unit giving their lives to rescue Wehrmacht soldiers; stationing in Belgium in 1944; fighting against American soldiers at Caen, France in 1944; fighting in Hungary; his war injury and time in a military hospital in Dresden, Germany; surviving the bombing of Dresden; his attempt to find the SS administration outside of Dresden so that he could return to his unit; traveling to Berlin and visiting his parents; arriving at his unit in Hungary; his arrest at the river Enz; his imprisonment in the former concentration camp of Ebensee by American soldiers; conditions of the camp; his transfer to Mittenwald, and then Grafenwohr in the winter of 1945; his release in 1945; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Dieter Schutze

Oral History

Dieter Schutze, born in 1934 in Angermünde, Germany, describes his family and childhood; his father’s draft into the German Army in 1939; beginning school in Angermünde in 1940; the establishment of a prisoner of war camp in the garden of his parents' resort, and the French and Soviet inmates kept there; his entry into the Jungvolk; the bombing of his town in 1944; hiding during the bombing in the basement of a neighbor who was rumored to be Jewish; attending a Nazi-run boarding school in Feldafing, Germany from 1944 to 1945; the arrival of American troops in Feldafing; fleeing to the British occupation zone; locating his grandparents and siblings in Mücheln, Germany in 1945; the Red Army taking his mother; the internment of his father in the American or British occupation zone; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Wolfdieter Skottke

Oral History

Wolfdieter Skottke, born in 1920 in Stettin, Germany (Szczecin, Poland), describes his family members and their political affiliations; joining the Jungvolk in 1930; attending the Berlin Olympic games in 1936; the burning of the synagogue in Stettin; his friendly relations with his Jewish neighbors; his enlistment into the Wehrmacht; moving to Dessau, Germany to attend a military school; being stationed in Africa; receiving military decorations; participating in the war in Crete, Greece; attending training in Dessau to become an officer; his participation in the invasion of France; being wounded while placing landmines; returning to his hometown in Germany where his mother cared for him; his promotion to first lieutenant in 1944; entering the Fuhrerrserve Zossen; passing by the concentration camp Sachsenhausen; his arranged marriage; his promotion to captain in 1945; his imprisonment by the United States Army in Stettin; his transfer to a camp in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany; denazification in Bremen, Germany in 1946; and his professional and family life after the war.

Oral history interview with Wolfgang Halang

Oral History

Wolfgang Halang, born in 1925 in Leipzig, Germany, describes his family background and education; antisemitism in the classroom; the election of Hitler; the construction of the autobahns; the flight of Jewish families from Liepzig; the deportation of Jewish families, who were marched through the streets of Leipzig; anti-Jewish pogroms such as Kristallnacht; his entry into the Waffen SS in 1942; his time at a training camp in Debica, Poland; the concentration camp in Debica; his assignment to the Eastern Front with the SS Wiking Division in Ryszow to help rescue a surrounded army unit; his deployment to the area around Maslowitz, Czechoslovakia (Málovice, Czech Republic); being wounded and staying in a hospital in Warsaw, Poland; crimes committed by Soviet soldiers; fighting partisan units; fleeing Soviet forces to Bernburg, Germany; crossing illegally into the American occupation zone to escape the Soviets; his work as a truck driver for American occupation forces in Kassel, Germany from 1945 to 1947; his views on Russians and Eastern Europeans; his early misunderstanding that concentration camps were only for labor; and his life after the war, including his time in South Africa.

Oral history interview with Samuel Brand

Oral History

Samuel Brand, born in 1914 in Kraków, Poland, discusses supporting his family by taking over his mother’s hardware store after the death of his father; the order for Jews to report to a central depot; his refusal to obey the order, resulting in a family argument; his illegal residency in the Kraków ghetto; fleeing the ghetto; his arrest for possession of counterfeit Aryan documentation; his imprisonment in the Korczyna concentration camp; his work detail as part of the camp’s disinfection squad; the brutal treatment of camp inmates; his escape from the concentration camp after he faked his suicide; his arrest and imprisonment in Poland; receiving harsh treatment from the Poles; the death of his family members in the Holocaust; and his life after the war, during which he lived in Israel, Vienna, Belgium, and Frankfurt.

Oral history interview with Egmont Fortun

Oral History

Egmont Fortun, born in 1921 in Arnstadt, Germany, describes his family and their political beliefs; living in Grossbreitenbach, Germany and then moving to Berlin, Germany; the disappearance of his two Jewish classmates; his membership in the Young Folk of the Hitler Youth from 1934 to 1939; joining the army in 1940; volunteering for the position of cadet officer; being stationed in Bamberg, Germany in the substitute armored troop division; his fighting in the Russian campaign; getting wounded and then being stationed in France; volunteering to fight in the Africa Corps; being stationed in Naples, Italy for three months; being stationed in Tunisia in 1942; being held as a prisoner of war in Egypt in 1943 by British soldiers; his release from a prisoner of war camp in Munz in 1948; his decorations of honor; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Eduard Galonska

Oral History

Eduard Galonska, born in 1921 in Gleiwitz in Poland, describes his family background; his initial enthusiasm for national socialism; his membership in the Jungvolk (German Youth) until his induction into the army in 1940; his reasons for joining the military; his apprenticeship in a technical branch from 1937 to 1940; studying for one semester at an engineering school in Kattowitz, Poland; being deployed in 1941 as an anti-tank specialist; serving on the Eastern front, his unit advancing close to Moscow, Russia; being sent to a hospital in Breslau, Germany (Wroclaw, Poland) as a result of low body weight; his order to open a safe in a concentration camp where he worked quickly and did not notice anything about the circumstances of the camp; attaining the rank of cadet and then non-commissioned officer; being discharged at the end of the war and going to Harsum; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Gisela Gneist

Oral History

Gisela Gneist, born in 1930 in Wittenberg, Germany, describes her parents’ unemployment and the appeal of the Nationalist Socialist government for them; her membership in the Jungmaedel youth organization from 1940 to 1945, including her leadership role; her arrest in 1945 by Soviet forces on suspicion of founding a counter-revolutionary organization; her time in prison from 1945 to 1950; and her life after the war, including her release from prison, her time living in Hamburg, Germany, and her role as chairman for the Working Group for the Sachsenhausen Camp from 1945 to 1950.

Oral history interview with Hans Hirschfeld

Oral History

Hans Hirschfeld, born in 1920 in Hamburg, Germany, describes his family history and their business making women's clothing; growing up as the son of a Jewish father and Protestant mother; initially favoring National Socialism until he was discriminated against for being half-Jewish; leaving school to pursue a trade; problems with the family business as a results of boycotts organized by the SA; rejection from job training positions because of his half-Jewish status; the destruction and expropriation of the family business; machinist training for motors at the Borchwart Works; completing his apprenticeship in 1941; his employment at the Daimler-Benz Aircraft Engine Plant in Granitz; concealing his Jewish heritage; the arrest of his father by the Gestapo in 1941; the release of his father from Brunsbuettel concentration camp because of his mixed marriage; the arrest of his family and imprisonment of his cousins in Sachsenhausen concentration camp; his time in Oslebshausen penitentiary; the arrest of his father in 1943 and his imprisonment in Auschwitz; writing a petition for the release of his father, which was denied; delivering a package of food and a pair of boots to his father in Auschwitz to show that he and his mother had not forgotten him; his transfer to Hamburg to work in the single engine aircraft department; his transfer to work in the fighter aircraft program; evacuation in 1943 from Auschwitz to Buchenwald; the death of his father in Buchenwald; the imprisonment of his brother in the Hamburg Neuengamme concentration camp; his brother’s death in the camp; attributing his own survival to his profession; working for the restitution of the property of his family after 1945; and his life after the war, including his work, marriage, life in the United States, and return to Hamburg.

Oral history interview with Hans Rudolf Meyer

Oral History

Hans Rudolf Meyer, born in 1921 in Giessen, Germany, describes his family history; his membership to the Jungvolk where he held a leadership role; his early understanding that the concentration camps were for reeducation; the sight of burning synagogues on Reichsprogromnacht; his graduation from high school in 1940; joining the army in 1940; being stationed in Africa; feeling fortunate that he did not have to go to the Soviet Union; his status as a prisoner of war under the British from 1943 to 1948; his life after the war; and his encounters with Jews that shaped his understanding of the Third Reich and the Holocaust.

Oral history interview with Alfred Neumann

Oral History

Alfred Neumann, born in 1922 in Kirschweiler, Germany, describes his family, childhood, and education; his membership in the Jungvolk and air wing of the Hitler Youth despite his father's rejection of Nazi ideology; the immigration of a Jewish family in his village to Luxemburg; the death of his father in 1939; enlisting in the Wehrmacht in 1941; his training in Neuruppin, Germany as a tank grenadier; his promotion to Corporal in 1942; his officer training in Cottbus and promotion to the rank of non-commissioned officer; his promotion of Sergeant O. A., and then lieutenant in the reserves; training enlisted men in Cottbus, Germany; his deployment to the front in the summer of 1943 as an officer; his assignment as a company officer to a training battalion in Guben in 1944 after being wounded; his transfer to Koenigsberg (Kaliningrad, Russia) at the end of 1944 and his participation in the Russian offensive; his promotion to First Lieutenant in the Reserves in 1945; an incident in which he almost threw a grenade into a house until he saw a child in the house; his war decorations; his discharge from the Wehrmacht in August of 1945; avaoiding the denazification process; his recognition that his faith in the Third Reich was wrong; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Kurt Noack

Oral History

Kurt Noack, born in 1930 in Gross-Koelzig in Germany, describes his family and his education; his membership in the Jungvolk and preliminary military training by the Hitler Youth; his membership in the Volksturm in 1945; his arrest by the Red Army in 1945 under suspicion of belonging to the Werwolf organization; his imprisonment in the concentration camps of Jarnlitz and Buchenwald; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Kurt Schaefer

Oral History

Kurt Schaefer, born in 1926 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, describes his family and education; his family’s anti-Nazi orientation; a teacher requiring that he and his fellow students participate in the Reichsprogrom night (Kristallnacht); seeing Jews being marched through the Niederrad city borough on the way to labor; his membership and leadership roles in the Jungvolk of the Hitler Youth; his role as a helper at an anti-aircraft battery in 1943; being drafted into the armed forces in 1944; entering the navy at Kiel, Germany; being stationed in Denmark; his training as a radioman on the island of Sylt; his stationing in Istria for maintenance of radio contact on the Adriatic; hearing stories on the radio of the atrocities committed by German forces; being a prisoner of war until 1946; and his life after the war during which he has taught about the Third Reich to schoolchildren.

Oral history interview with Ruprecht von Poncet

Oral History

Ruprecht von Poncet, born in 1929 in Gross-Koelzig, Germany, describes his family’s political orientation; his membership in the Hitler Youth and attendance at a Hitler Youth pre-military school; his promotion in 1944 to platoon leader; his recruitment to a military preparatory camp in Guben, Germany for Operation Werwolf; applying for entry to the navy rather than the SS; his membership in the Volkssturm in early 1945, including his stationing in Gross Koelzig, and then Tschernitz, Germany; his arrest in 1945 by Soviet soldiers under suspicion of Werwolf involvement; his imprisonment from 1945 to 1948, and then flight west; and his life after the war, including his employment and family events.

Oral history interview with Rochus Misch

Oral History

Rochus Misch, born in 1917 in Altschallersdorf, Germany (Starý Šaldorf, Czech Republic), describes his family life and background, including his apprenticeship as an interior decorator and sign painter; being sent to Berlin, Germany to paint one of the Olympic sites during which he saw Adolf Hitler and his military entourage; his work as a painter; being drafted in 1937 to the Waffen-SS; his deployment to Austria during the annexation; training in Berchtesgaden, Germany in 1939; his deployment to Poland; being wounded near Warsaw; returning to the barracks in Lichterfelde, Germany; being recommended by his company commander to work as a courier for Hitler's personal staff; his work contacting personal guests for Hitler and acting as a supplementary bodyguard; not being in the room with Hitler during dinners or meetings; the constant presence of a military escort; the technologically advanced nature of Hitler's telephone; the flight and capture of Rudolf Hess in England in 1941; traveling with Hitler; a conversation regarding Russia between Hitler and General Field Marshal Paulus, in which Hitler insisted that Paulus remain in Stalingrad; his marriage in 1942; the incarceration of a family friend in Sachsenahusen, for whom he was able to secure a release; the construction of a bunker to withstand an air-raid at the Reich Chancellery in 1943; the plan to assassinate Hitler in 1944; conditions in Hitler's bunker; attempting to get his wife and daughter out of Berlin in 1945; his realization that the war was lost; hearing about Hitler’s suicide; the sight of Hitler and Eva Braun’s dead bodies; fear of death by the Gestapo; being ordered by General Krebs to call the Soviets; receiving permission to leave the Reich Chancellery; attempting to flee west to escape the Soviets; his capture by Soviet soldiers and transfer to Moscow for interrogation; his refusal to testify in the Nuremburg trials; and returning to the Soviet Union for hard labor until his release in 1954.

Oral history interview with Heinz Beck

Oral History

Heinz Beck, born in 1925 in Stuttgart, Germany, describes his family and childhood; his membership in the Jungvolk of the Hitler Youth; his time in the Reichsarbeitsdienst in Tannheim, Austria; his military assignment to the infantry in 1943; his deployment to Fontainbleau, France; his stationing in the Ukraine in 1944; the experiences of the average soldier; his promotion to the position of corporal; retreating on the Eastern Front; antisemitic speeches made by a sapper; witnessing the bombing of Dresden in August 1944; his realization that Germany would lose the war; the German withdrawal from the Soviet offensive in 1945; receiving a head wound and staying in a hospital in Berlin, Germany; leaving Berlin because he knew it would be attacked; being stationed in Marburg, Germany to defend villages; his capture and imprisonment by American soldiers; receiving help from a Jewish man; working as a plate washer in the American camp near Nuremberg, Germany; his release and journey home; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Hans-Georg Borck

Oral History

Hans-Georg Borck, born in 1921 in Germany, describes his family background; his membership in the Scharnhorst-Jugend in 1931, which became integrated with the Hitler Youth in 1937; results of the Reichskristallnacht, including the broken windows of the local synagogue; joining the military as a pioneer; taking part in the first attack on the Soviet Union in 1941; the death of a lieutenant from a partisan; good contacts with civilians in occupied countries; helping villagers repair damage to their homes; his time in a school for pioneers and his promotion; receiving decorations for the risky destruction of two Russian armors; becoming an adjutant of the commander; disliking this job and becoming sick; recovering at home for six weeks; becoming a company commander and leading a troop of older and more experienced soldiers; receiving a severe injury in 1943 and spending a year in military hospitals; hearing about Jews in concentration camps, particularly in Dachau; being posted in an educational training camp in Silesia where he stayed until March of 1945; a special assignment that resulted in his surrender to American forces in Arolsen, Germany; his release in September 1945; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Marguerite Brüggemann

Oral History

Marguerite Bruggemann, born in 1921 in Bruges, Belgium, describes her family background and education; meeting her future husband, a German sapper; becoming engaged to him and moving to Germany in 1942; being placed by the local labor bureau as an interpreter for the French workers and nurses in a forced labor camp; the lack of medicine in the camp; her assignment to give encouragement to the workers; the camp containing laborers from France, the Netherlands, Belgium, the Soviet Union, and Poland; the western and eastern workers being kept separate from one another; being denounced for saying that the Allies would win the war and receiving punishment from the mayor; the execution of three Soviet prisoners of war by local policemen; testifying about the forced labor camp in postwar trials; and her life after the war.

Oral history interview with Karl C

Oral History

Karl C., born in 1924 in Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), describes his family and background; joining the Marine Hitler Youth in 1938 after the German invasion; volunteering for the Marine in 1940; enlisting in the army and going to Eckernförde, Germany in 1941; his ship sinking in 1942 and then in 1944; captivity by British forces in 1945; traveling to Bavaria; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Georg Diers

Oral History

Georg Diers, born in 1921 in Wiefelstede, Germany, describes his family background and education; his membership in the Scharnhorst-Jugend, the youth organization of the Stahlhelm, later integrated into the Hitler Youth; volunteering for the Waffen-SS in 1939; his assigment to the Eastern Front in the Caucasus in 1941; being wounded near Grozny, Russia in September 1942 and staying in a military hospital in Vienna, Austria; returning to the front in Yugoslavia; his marriage in 1944; fighting at the Eastern Front against the Soviets, including the Soviet ring around Berlin, Germany; taking orders from Joseph Goebbles after the suicide of Hitler; assisting in the destruction of Hitler's body after his suicide; breaking through Soviet lines into the center of Berlin; disguising himself as a civilian and walking to the west; his imprisonment and sentence to death by Soviet authorities; joining another group of prisoners to go to a work camp; forced labor in Moscow, Russia; his return to Germany in 1949; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Klaus D

Oral History

Klaus D, born in 1916 in Silesia, Poland, describes his family background and education; moving to Danzig in 1935 to study engineering science; joining the SS Heimwehr Danzig (Gdańsk, Poland) in 1939; his deployment to France in 1940; returning to Germany to the Ersatzbatallion in Breslau (Wroclaw, Poland); being assigned to Auschwitz as a guard; serving on the ramp; working in the political department; his marriage in 1943; working in a factory after his time at Auschwitz in 1944; fleeing to Munich, Germany in 1945 under a false name; and his life after the war, including his work, second marriage, and children.

Oral history interview with Dietrich Elsner and Hannelore Elsner

Oral History

Dietrich Elsner, born in 1924 in Halle an der Saale, Germany, describes his family background and childhood; joining the Jungvolk in 1936; his reasons for wanting to join the Hitler Youth; the disappearance of three Jewish classmates in the late 1930s; his training in his uncle’s construction business which used British prisoners of war as labor; his uncle renting out machines and workers for the construction of what became Auschwitz III (Monowitz); the construction of Nebenlager; the use of inmates at the construction zone; the shooting of those inmates unable to work; building roads; how the Nazi youth organizations trained members to be brutal and accepting of violence; his draft into the army in 1942; his deployment to France; experiencing his first attack, living in huts, and dealing with lice in 1943 and 1944; becoming a lieutenant in 1944; preparing to fight partisans on the Eastern Front; his role as a company leader while withdrawing from the Eastern front; being wounded in the head in 1945; returning to his company in Czechia, where he was taken as a prisoner of war by the Czech military; a Soviet officer who prevented Czech soldiers from shooting him and his crew; his time as a Soviet prisoner of war; his life after his release; and his flight to West Germany.

Oral history interview with Wolf-Heinrich von Finckenstein

Oral History

Wolf-Heinrich von Finckenstein, born in 1918 in Lower Silesia, describes his family and childhood; his membership in the Hitler Youth in 1930, against the wishes of his parents; passing his Abitur in 1937 and deciding to become an officer; starting officer school in 1938; his deployment to France and Yugoslavia in 1940; the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 as a tank officer; being wounded near Dynaburg, and then spending two years at home as an adjutant; returning to the front in 1943 and receiving another injury; his imprisonment by the Soviet forces in 1945; his time in internment camps in the Ukraine near Kiev; his release in 1949; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Günter Halm

Oral History

Günter Halm, born in 1922 in Elze, Germany, describes his family background and childhood; his membership in the Deutsche Jungvolk and the Hitler Youth; his apprenticeship as a machinist in 1939; passing his examination as a schlosser geselle (journeyman) in 1941; volunteering for the tank grenadiers and joining them in 1942; receiving decorations for his performance in a battle with the British; taking an officer course in 1943 and 1944; his promotion to lieutenant; his deployment to France in 1944 to fight the D-Day invasion; his capture in August 1944 by American soldiers; being brought to the United States where he was held in a camp near Alpha, Oklahoma; being brought to La Motte to work in 1945; his release and return home in 1946; finding his parents alive; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Theodor Jakubowski and Katharina Jakubowski

Oral History

Theodor Jakubowski, born in 1924 in Dortmund Hörde, Germany, describes his childhood in Dortmund Hörde; the profession and political leanings of his father; joining the Hitler Youth against his father’s wishes; his apprenticeship as a toolmaker; his drafting into the marines in 1941 as a radio operator; seeing the father of his Jewish best friend laboring in the harbor in Latvia in a concentration camp uniform; his capture by the Red Army in 1945; laboring in several internment camps; returning home in 1949; and his life after the war. Katharina Jakubowski, born in 1929 in Dortmund-Aplerbeck, Germany, describes her family background; the denunciation of her father in 1941 which led to his imprisonment and beating in Dortmund; her father’s sentence to jail in Werdohl, and then in the Esterwegen concentration camp; financial difficulties of her family; Reichspogromnacht; the brutalities of the Gestapo and the SS; the liberation of her father by the American Army; and her life after the war.

Oral history interview with Paul Korte

Oral History

Paul Korte, born in 1921 in Lüchtringen, Germany, describes his family background and education; the beating and torturing of a Jewish doctor on Kristallnacht; being drafted into the armored regiment in 1940 and training as a radio operator in Hamm and Herford; his experiences on the Eastern Front where he found support from Ukrainian and Russian townspeople; his imprisonment by the Red Army in 1945, including his time in different concentration camps in Lithuania and the Soviet Union; his release in 1948; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Vagner Kristensen

Oral History

Vagner Kristensen, born 1927 on Fyn Isle, Denmark, describes his family; joining a Danish right wing youth organization in 1937; volunteering for the Waffen SS in 1943; traveling with his Danish unit to Hamburg; fighting in France; being wounded; fighting on the Eastern Front; withdrawing from the Eastern Front to Germany; suppressing the Warsaw ghetto uprising; the initial Danish support for German policy, which shifted during occupation; going into hiding at the end of the war in Germany; his sentencing in Denmark in 1945 for treason; his parents cutting off their relations from him because of his support of Germany; his time in prison from 1945 to 1947; joining an illegal group called Stille Hilfe, which helped condemned Nazi war criminals leave Germany and go to Argentina; his life after the war, during which he founded right-wing organizations; and an Israeli radio station that revealed his pro-Nazi work.

Oral history interview with Klaus-Christoph Marloh

Oral History

Klaus-Christoph Marloh, born in 1923 in Hamburg, Germany, describes his father’s support for National Socialism; attending a boarding school in Plön, Germany, which became a Nazi affiliated institution; moving to Celle, Germany in 1939; leaving the Hitler Youth and joining the local SS in 1939; participating in searches at night for escaped prisoners and army deserters, and punishing Polish slave laborers in surrounding villages; volunteering for the military in 1941 and becoming a cadet officer in the navy; serving on a submarine until 1944; experiencing the bombing of Hamburg; witnessing the sinking of the MV Wilhelm Gustloff by a Soviet submarine; serving on a second submarine in 1945; surrendering to the British Army in 1945 in Norway; his internment as a prisoner of war; his return to his home in Berleburg, Germany in 1945; the arrest and internment of his father by the British forces; avoiding arrest and internment by concealing his past activities with the SS and Jungvolk; and his life after the war, including his work helping the relatives of imprisoned Nazi war criminals.

Oral history interview with Hans Mehrle

Oral History

Hans Mehrle, born in 1922 in a Swabian village in Germany, describes his family and childhood; joining the Jungvolk in 1933 and then the Hitler Youth in 1934; joining the army in 1940; his basic training in Brno, Slovakia (Czech Republic); his deployment to the Westwall and participation in the invasion of France; serving on the demarcation lines in France on the border between occupied and Vichy France; his assignment to the occupation regiment in Paris, France; his assignment to the Eastern Front in November of 1941; being wounded in Gotenhafen (Gdynia, Poland) in 1945; his evacuation by ship to Denmark; becoming a prisoner of war under the British forces; his release and return home in 1946; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Kurt Meyer

Oral History

Kurt Meyer, born in Germany, describes his experiences as an SS officer; the wartime actions of the Third Reich; his positive impression of Dachau concentration camp, where he visited as a cadet; the Riga ghetto; fighting partisans in the Balkans by driving an armored car through villages; gratitude from Croats and Albanians for protecting them against the Serbs; fighting in France and in the Slovakian mountains; and his point of view that the Holocaust was a British invention.

Oral history interview with Meinhard von Ow

Oral History

Meinhard von Ow, born in 1922 in Germany, describes his family background and education; his Catholic upbringing; his family's dislike of Hitler; joining the Marianen Studenten kongregation, an organization of Jesuits; his father being fired from his job after making anti-Nazi remarks; joining the Hitler Youth in 1936; entering the military in 1940; his assignment as a radio operator and his time in Reims, France, where he saw many refugees; his transfer to the Eastern Front in 1941; being wounded near Charkov and staying in a hospital; attending military school in Vienna, Austria in 1943; his deployment to Greece; the withdrawal of German forces; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Albert Petig

Oral History

Albert Petig, born in 1929 in Brügge (Bruges), Belgium, describes his family and childhood; his father who was a communist; his membership in the Jungvolk in 1939; his membership in the Hitler Youth for a short period in 1943; his apprenticeship in 1943 which he was unable to finish because of the war; working as an unskilled laborer in construction firms; his deployment into the military reserves in 1944, and then the fire department of the Hitler Youth; and his life after the war, including his involvement in the Communist Party.

Oral history interview with Dorothea Petrikowski

Oral History

Dorothea Petrikowski, born in Oberhausen-Sterkrade, Germany, describes her family background and Catholic upbringing; her apprenticeship in a Jewish-owned textile store in 1935; antisemitic graffiti on the walls and windows of the shop; the destruction of the store during Kristallnacht in 1938; how some of the shop’s employees assisted in the destruction; her attempt to help the store’s owners; the flight of the store’s owners, some of whom were later killed in Auschwitz; the flight or arrest of other Jewish business owners; the Aryanization of Jewish-owned businesses; her conscription as an assistant to the Wehrmacht in 1943; returning home in 1945; and her life after the war.

Oral history interview with Irmgard Raymann

Oral History

Irmgard Raymann, born in 1926 in Oberhausen, Germany, describes her family and education; the political leanings of her family, including her father’s membership in the Communist Party; not being permitted by her father to join the Bund Deutscher Mädel; the sentencing of her father to hard labor in a forge in 1940; her father’s death in 1941; working as a housemaid in 1941 because she could not finding an apprenticeship; working as a seamstress in 1942; being drafted in 1945 to the Wehrmacht to work as a radio operator; returning home in 1945 after the war; and her life following the war, including her work and marriage.

Oral history interview with Heinz R

Oral History

Heinz R, born in 1923 in Willemsburg, Germany, describes his family and education; his draft in 1940 to the labor force and serving in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany; his transfer to the Todt Organisation in France, where he built barracks on the Weser River; his draft into the Wehrmacht in 1942; his training as a telephone worker and assignment to the Eastern Front; his participation in the Battle of Stalingrad; the amputation of his leg after being wounded; his assignment to work in a Wehrmacht administrative office and his promotion to a non-commissioned officer; his release from military service in 1945; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Heinz R

Oral History

Heinz R, born in 1926 in Wriezen, Germany, describes his family and education; his membership in the Jungvolk and the Hitler Youth; the death of his brother during the Battle of Stalingrad; enlisting in the Reich Labor Front in Austria in 1943, and then in the Wehrmacht; his enrollment in cadet school in Kolberg, Germany, and his assignment to the 5th Jäger Division in Ulm, Germany; stories about the brutal means of combat employed by both sides; his transfer to the Eastern Front in 1944; the retreat of the Wehrmacht to East Prussia; crimes committed by Soviet soldiers; fighting at the Elbe River in 1945; getting wounded and being treated in a hospital in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany; being taken prisoner by British forces; his release three months later; his return to his parents’ home in Wriezen, Germany; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Max Rehbein

Oral History

Max Rehbein, born in 1918 in Cologne, Germany, describes his family and education; his parents’ many Jewish friends; the political leanings of his parents; joining the Hitler Youth in 1933; joining the air arm of the Hitler Youth in 1936; enlisting in the Reich Labor Front in 1938 in Bavaria, Germany; volunteering for the Wehrmacht; his training as an army engineer; taking part in fighting in France in 1940; participating in exercises in the north of France in connection with Operation Seeloewe; his transfer to the Eastern Front in 1941; his assignment in 1942 as an instructor at the Engineering School in Dessau, Germany; losing some of his enthusiasm for the Nazi party upon learning about concentration camps and the disappearance of his Jewish friends; his promotion to captain; returning to the Eastern Front in 1943; participating in the retreat to Koenigsberg, including being wounded and receiving decorations; his transfer between military hospitals in 1945; becoming a prisoner of war by British forces; his release and return to Berlin; and his life after the war, including his work and marriage.

Oral history interview with Remy Schrijnen

Oral History

Remy Schrijnen, born in December 1921, describes his family; his life after WWII began; meeting a soldier who had a great influence on his life; volunteering as a laborer when Belgium surrendered; Being sent to Kempten im Allgau, Germany, where he worked for the railway and lived with a German family; his efforts to join the Waffen-SS and finally being accepted in 1942 as a messenger; his unit fighting on the eastern front; details about his unit’s movement and combat with the partisans; being injured several times; being in a Belgian prison until 1951 for being in the Waffen-SS; being imprisoned from 1953 to 1955 because he had taken part in a demonstration; going to Germany in 1962; working as a laborer in Hagen; and his thoughts on politics and the Holocaust.

Oral history interview with Margarete S

Oral History

Margarete S, born in 1921 in Essen, Germany, describes her childhood and family life; her father's membership in the Social Democratic Party; the burning of the synagogues in Essen in 1938; the destruction of Jewish stores by German soldiers; her work in a furniture store in Essen; the bombing of her home in 1943; the arrest of her father in 1944 and his deportation to Sachsenhausen concentration camp and then Bergen Belsen concentration camp where he died; and her life after the war.

Oral history interview with Lotte Schwab

Oral History

Lotte Schwab, born in 1922 in Essen, Germany, describes her family, childhood, and education; working at the Krupp Company in a personnel office beginning in 1939; the persecution of friends; her marriage in 1944; and her life after the war.

Oral history interview with Reinhard S

Oral History

Reinhard S, born in 1924 in Stuttgart, Germany, describes his family, childhood, and education; his membership in the Jungvolk; not being permitted to join the Hitlerjugend because of his asthma; enlisting in the work service in 1942; joining the Wehrmacht; his assignment to an anti-aircraft unit in Hamburg, Germany; the bombing of Hamburg in 1943; participating in the Ardennes offensive in France in 1944; his capture by American forces and time as a prisoner of war; his release in 1946 and return home; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Jürgen Stech

Oral History

Jürgen Stech, born in 1921 in Jena, Germany, describes his family and education; his participation in the Reichsarbeitsdienst; his enlistment in 1941 and participation in the war on the Eastern Front; the German withdrawl from the Eastern Front in 1944 and 1945; his capture by Soviet forces and escape to territory occupied by American forces; his movement between Soviet and American occupied territory; and his life after the war, including his work in a German-Israel friendship organization.

Oral history interview with Alfred Wenck

Oral History

Alfred Wenck, born in 1921 in Marschacht, Germany, describes his family and childhood; his membership in the Jungvolk and Hitlerjugend; his enlistment in the Wehrmacht in 1941; fighting on the Eastern Front in the Ukraine and in Greece; his role in the Battle of Leros; his wounding and time in hospitals in Vienna, Austria and Lüneburg, Germany; his work at the end of the war, including his positions as a guard and a teacher; returning to his parents' home in Stove in 1945; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Konrad Wilden

Oral History

Konrad Wilden, born in 1918 in Köln (Cologne), Germany, describes his family, childhood, and membership in the Social Democratic Party; his enlistment into the Reichsarbeitsdienst in 1936; volunteering for the paratroopers and being wounded during a military exercise, resulting in his discharge from the military; his drafting into the Wehrmacht in 1940 and his refusal to join because of his wound; his refusal to work in an armaments factory; going into hiding because of the threat of arrest; living under false names in hotels and working as a boxer in a fairgrounds; his arrest in 1944 and time in several concentrations camps, including Natzweiler-Struthof, Treis, Mittelbau-Dora, and Bergen Belsen; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Heinz Jander

Oral History

Heinz Jander, born in Germany, describes his studies in medicine and time in the United States prior to WWII; his experiences in the United States as a German citizen; his decision to return to Germany in the event of war; his draft into the German army; his role installing telephone wires in Posen (Poznań, Poland); the poor treatment of Polish civilians by German soldiers; professors of medicine from his medical studies in Strasbourg, who conducted human experiments in the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp; his graduation in 1944 and order to report to the village of Mühldorf, Germany for defense against American forces; his transfer to Chieming, Germany by American forces; his reactions when first confronted with the cruelties of the Holocaust; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Bruno Klose

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ursula Kreft

Oral History

Ursula Kreft, born in Germany, describes her family; completing elementary school in 1939 and receiving training as a cook in a convent school between 1939 and 1941; the political affiliations of her parents; her experiences during the war; curfews for civilians; thinking that Auschwitz was a work camp during the war; her work as a cook in an iron factory; her work as a cook in Bad Bruckelheim; her fear of soldiers in the streets; the persecution of the Jews; the disappearance of sick children; and her life after the war.

Oral history interview with Heinz Kummel

Oral History

Oral history interview with Peter Lachmund

Oral History

Peter Lachmund, born in 1927 in Schwerin, Germany, describes his family and education, his father's dismissal from his law post in 1933 and the declaration that he was an opponent of the Nazi regime; his father's interrrogation by the Gestapo; his membership in the Hitler Youth; subversive activity by one of his teachers; his mother's aid to Jewish civilians; visiting a ghetto in Lithuania; the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war; his work in the Reicharbeitsdienst and German Armed Forces; German soldiers attempting to avoid capture from the advancing Soviet Army; his father's imprisonment; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Helene L

Oral History

Oral history interview with Maria Nestler

Oral History

Oral history interview with Frieda Reinhardt and Adolf Reinhardt

Oral History

Frieda Reinhardt, born in Germany, describes her mother not allowing her to joing the League of German Girls; her reluctant participation in the Frauenschaft; her husband's draft into the military; knowledge of transports to and executions at nearby concentration camps; a concentration camp near Marbach, Germany for disabled persons; the extermination camp Grafeneck; the behavior of prisoners of war; the treatment of German civilians by Moroccan soldiers in the French army; her work during the war for food; her brother and his service in the German military; her knowledge of the Holocaust; and her life after the war. Adolf Reinhardt, born in Reutlingen, Germany, describes his apprenticeship and work; his work in the voluntary labor service; being drafted into the army; his military training and assigment fighting partisans in the Soviet Union; his capture by Soviet forces and treatment as a prisoner of war; his release in 1945 and return home; his knowledge of the Holocaust; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Rašela Knežević Levi

Oral History

Rašela Knežević Levi, born in 1926 in Visegrad, Yugoslavia (Bosnia and Hercegovina), describes her childhood in Visegrad and Sarajevo, Bosnia and Hercegovina; her brother's imprisonment by the Italian forces; the death of her father during a bombing raid; the death of her sister from yellow fever; her evacuation by Italian soldiers from Pljevlje, Montenegro in 1943; her transfer to Podgorica, Montenegro; her imprisonment by German soldiers in 1944; her time in Sajmiste and Bergen Belsen concentration camps; her deportation to Terezin; liberation by Soviet forces; her time in a displaced persons camp; her return to Belgra; and her life after the war.

Oral history interview with Maria Seidenberger

Oral History

Maria Seidenberger, born in 1927 in Germany, describes the political affiliation of her father; living near Dachau concentration camp and details of conditions there; her service as a courier for prisoners; her membership in the Bund Deutscher Madel; training as a photograph laboratory worker; her employment in Munich, Germany; secretly developing photographs of the prisoners in Dachau; the mass shootings of Soviet prisoners of war; taking photographs of death marches; and her life after the war.

Oral history interview with Michael von Cranach

Oral History

Michael von Cranach, born in 1941 in Germany, describes his travel and education; his work at the psychiatric clinic of the University of Munich; his appointment as director of the district hospitals in Kaufbeuren; his investigation of the crimes committed at Kaufbeuren, a euthenasia site during the Nazi era; his writings regarding psychiatric crimes committed during the Nazi era; his efforts to memorialize these events; and his work to include this history in the National Socialism Documentation Center in Munich.

Oral history interview with Hans-Henning Crome

Oral History

Hans-Henning Crome, born in 1933 in Germany, describes his childhood in Hamburg; his father's position as an officer in the Reichswehr and Wehrmacht; the imprisonment of his father in Stalingrad; his work as the chief internal investigator in the Bundesnachrichtendienst; his duties identifying and purging the organization of former Nazi perpetrators; the Gehlen Organization; and the collaboration between the BND and the Zentralstelle.

Oral history interview with Annette Schücking-Homeyer

Oral History

Annette Schücking-Homeyer, born in 1920 in Westphalia, Germany, describes her family background and the pacifist political leanings of her father; her law school attendance under the Third Reich; her graduation from the University of Muenster in 1941; discrimination and challenges she experienced as a female lawyer; her forced labor service for the German Red Cross in the eastern territories; her disapproval of the treatment of the Jews in Zviahel and Rovno; her management of the nourishment and cultural activities for German troops stationed in Ukraine; her transfer to Krasnodar in 1943; her experiences in becoming one of the first female judges in West Germany; her testimony regarding war crimes committed in the Ukraine; her assistance to prosecutors and investigators in the West German Central Office for the investigation of Nazi war crimes; and her personal life after the war.

Oral history interview with Hermann Weissing

Oral History

Hermann Weissing, born in 1935 in Vreden, Germany, describes his family and childhood; the burning of the local synagogue in 1938 during Kristallnacht; a bombing raid in 1945; his family's awareness of euthanasia programs in Hadamar; the involvement of his uncle in hiding Jews in the Vreden hospital where he worked; his law career, including processing National Socialist crimes; and his thoughts regarding Holocaust survivors and Nazi perpetrators.

Oral history interview with Eberhard Hanweg

Oral History

Eberhard Hanweg, born in 1933 in Germany, describes his childhood in Marburg; his family's involvement with the local German occupation society in Lida, Belarus; his interaction with Jewish laborers; the evacuation of his family in 1943; the capture of his father in Metz and his trial and execution by Soviet forces; his mother and sister’s testimony against Nazi officials; and photographs of his family during the war.

Oral history interview with Benno Gantner

Oral History

Benno Gantner, born in Percha, Bavaria, on the Starnberger See, presents a personal photograph album, including photographs of his hometown and of his family; photographs he took between 1939 and 1941, which included a death march from Dachau Concentration camp; his original Wehrpass; and politics in Starnberg, Germany after the war.

Oral history interview with Walter Beham

Oral History

Walter Beham, born in 1931 in Bad Tölz, Germany, describes the military service of his father during the war and his postwar profession; hearing gun shots and seeing corpses from a death march; the November Pogrom; antimsemitism in his village at the end of the war; his mother hiding a Jewish prisoner; and housing American soldiers.

Oral history interview with Brigitte Dinev

Oral History

Brigitte Dinev, born in 1938 in Kiel, Germany, describes her parents' membership in the NSDAP; her father's activities during the war and his death in 1949; a death march during which prisoners asked for food from local townspeople; and her life after the war, including her participation in the creation of a memorial for the victims of the death march.

Oral history interview with Magdalena Enzmann

Oral History

Magdalena Enzmann, born in 1930 in Dachau, Germany, describes her family's devotion to Catholicism and refusal to join the NSDAP; her father's military service during the war; assisting a few prisoners of Dachau concentration camp; an uprising in Dachau in 1941; attending events in the concentration camp; the deportation of the Catholic clergy in 1943 and 1944; the mistreatment of concentration camp prisoners; a death march; her father-in-law's imprisonment in Dachau; and the death of her father's cousin in 1945.

Oral history interview with Johann Grossbuchberger

Oral History

Johann Grossbuchberger, born in 1930 in Germany, describes his family; his father's military career; the location of prisoners of war in Tutzing, Germany; an influx of Sudeten Germans; and daily life after the war.

Oral history interview with Albrecht Herold

Oral History

Albrech Herold, born in 1934 in Munich, Germany, describes his family's political affiliation; his father's military career; living in Solln, Germany; and his neighbors and friends of the family, including a professor who married a Jewish woman.

Oral history interview with Otto Ernst Holthaus

Oral History

Otto Ernst Holthaus, born in 1931 in Germany, describes his family and childhood; his membership in the Hitler Youth and the disapproval of his mother for the lessons taught there; witnessing a death march in 1945; the end of the war; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Konrad Huber

Oral History

Konrad Huber, born in 1934 in Germany, describes his family and childhood; his membership in the Hitler Youth; witnessing a death march; the end of the war, including the arrival of American forces; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Ludwig Huber and Erika Huber

Oral History

Ludwig Huber, born in 1933 in Beuerberg, Germany, describes his father's military service; the sight of a death train; a mass grave; a death march which passed through his village; local townspeople committing murders; the imprisonment of his uncle in Dachau concentration camp; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Helmut Kramer

Oral History

Helmut Kramer, born in 1930 in Germany describes his childhood and membership in the Hitler Youth; his education and life after the war; and his work on restitution cases from victims of Nazi persecution.

Oral history interview with Friedrich Kuntswald and Freya Kuntswald

Oral History

Friedrich Kuntswald, born in 1928 in Bad Tölz, Germany, describes his encounter with a train carrying prisoners to a death camp; his acquaintances with survivors of the transport; and his education.

Oral history interview with Regina März

Oral History

Regina März, born in 1938 in Bad Tölz, Germany, describes living in Reichersbeuern, Germany during the war; her family; her father's military service; a death march; the burial of the dead from the march in the village cemetery; and the moving of the victims' bodies at a later date.

Oral history interview with Ingeborg Michlbauer

Oral History

Ingeborg Michlbauer, born in 1937 in Germany, describes her family; the Nazi leanings of her mother; a death march in Wolfratshausen, Germany; camp Föhrenwald; the bombardment and explosion of a bridge in Wolfratshausen; and the arrival of American forces.

Oral history interview with Eleonore Neugebauer

Oral History

Eleonore Neugebauer, born in 1935 in Ravensburg, Germany, describes her father's military service; moving to Geltendorf, Germany after a bombing in Munich, Germany in 1944; her teacher who was a member of the Nazi Party; a death march; the distribution of food to prisoners; and the treatment of German civilians by American and French Moroccan forces.

Oral history interview with Sieglinde Saudmeier

Oral History

Sieglinde Saudmeier, born in 1932 in Munich, Germany, describes growing up in Dachau, Germany; her father's membership in the Nazi Party and work in the city administration of Dachau; a death march from Dachau; the forced labor of the prisoners of the Dachau concentration camp; and her father's denazificaiton.

Oral history interview with Helene Schimpf

Oral History

Helene Schimpf, born in 1919 in Germany, describes the death of her father in 1935; her lack of Nazi sympathies during the war; not joining the Bund Deutscher Madel; utilizing the forced labor of French prisoners of war; witnessing a train full of passengers on its way to a death camp; the murder of prisoners; and how her husband was a Soviet prisoner of war.

Oral history interview with Hans Schmid

Oral History

Hans Schmid, born in 1928 in Landsberg am Lech, Germany, describes his family, including their move to Munich in 1937; his father’s refusal to join the Nazi Party; his education in Munich; the treatment of the Jewish community in Munich, including harassment and pogroms of November 1938; his time in the Hitler Youth; being sent to Oberlausitz (Upper Lusatia) as an aid to the Luftwaffe in 1944; Soviet prisoners of war; returning home in 1945; witnessing a death march; staying in a discharge camp in Pilsenhofen-in-Allgaeu in 1945; his father’s involvement in the denazification process after the war; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Josef Schmid

Oral History

Josef Schmid, born in 1935 in Graefelfing, Germany, describes his family history; his father membership in the Nazi Party in 1933; his mother's anti-Hitler stance; his father's work; living in Krakow, Poland; his father leaving the NSDAP in 1944 upon discovering the mass murder of Jews; moving to Munich, Germany; the sight of a death march; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Fritz Schulze

Oral History

Fritze Schulze, born in 1928 in Munich, Germany, describes his family and childhood; his entrance into a military training camp in 1943; his work in the Mittenwald Reich Labor Service in 1944; traveling to Bad Tölz, Germany; witnessing a death march; his attempt to pass as a civilian; and returning to Munich.

Oral history interview with Herbert Schuster

Oral History

Herbert Schuster, born in 1923 in Munich, Germany, describes his family and childhood, including the political affiliation of his family; his uncle's return from a concentration camp in 1941; the construction of a concentration camp; witnessing a death march; his draft into the military; his service on the Eastern Front; his injury in 1943 and stay in different hospitals; the end of the war; and his partial paralysis because of his injury.

Oral history interview with Leslie Schwartz

Oral History

Leslie Schwartz (b. Laszlo Schwarc), born in 1930 in Baktalórántháza, Hungary, describes the deportation of his family in 1944 to the ghetto in Kisvarda, Hungary; their transfer to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he was separated from the rest of his family, who were murdered; his transfer to Dachau concentration camp; his work at Dachau and its subcamps; a death march to Tutzing, Germany; surviving a massacre at Poing, Germany; liberation by American forces at Poing; returning to his village after the war; immigrating to the United States in 1946; and his life after immigration.

Oral history interview with Hans Steinbigler

Oral History

Hans Steinbigler, born in 1934 in Munich, Germany, describes his family and childhood; moving to Poing, Germany during the war; witnessing a death march in Poing; his mother throwing bread to the prisoners in the death march; and his research regarding death marches and massacres of prisoners in Poing during the war.

Oral history interview with Lina Haag

Oral History

Lina Haag, born in 1907 in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, describes her work for the Communist Youth League; her arrest after Hitler came to power; her incarceration and torture in different prisons and concentration camps; her contact with communist resistance fighters; her release, and securing the release of her husband from Mauthausen concentration camp; living in Berlin, Germany during the war and then working in a hospital in Garmisch, Germany, where she was liberated; the imprisonment of her husband by Soviet forces; and her life after the war.

Oral history interview with Walter Harrer

Oral History

Walter Harrer, born in 1936 in Bad Tölz, Germany, describes his family; his father's occupation; his father's membership in the Nazi Party; his father's wartime employment; and a train of prisoners that passed through his town on its way to a death camp.

Oral history interview with Albrecht Herold

Oral History

Albrecht Herald, born in 1934 in Munich, Germany, describes his family and the military service of his father during World War I and II; the flight of local Jews from Germany before and during the war; the arrival of American forces in 1945; and his father's return home in 1945.

Oral history interview with Herbert Hinzmann

Oral History

Herbert Hinzmann, born in 1920 in Nikolaiken, Prussia (present day Mikolajki, Poland), describes his family and education; his military service on both the Western and Eastern fronts; witnessing mass shootings; his time in Soviet captivity; his realease and move to Mainz, Germany; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Max Mannheimer

Oral History

Max Mannheimer, born in 1920 in Neutitschein, Czechoslovakia (Nový Jičín, Czech Republic), describes his family, childhood, and education; fleeing to Hungary in 1938; his marriage in 1942; the deportation of his family to Theresienstadt concentration camp; his transfer to Auschwitz-Birkenau; the murder of his family; his transfer along with his brother to Warsaw, Poland in 1943; their forced labor there; his transfer to Dachau concentration camp in 1944; surviving a death train in 1945; liberation by American forces in Tutzing, Germany in 1945; returning to Neutitschein after the war; his marriage and return to Germany; and his work in Holocaust education.

Oral history interview with Walter Taus

Oral History

Walter Taus, born in 1922 in Uhersky Brod, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), describes his childhood and work; the deportation of his family in 1940 to Theresienstadt concentration camp; their transfer to Auschwitz concentration camp, where his family was murdered; his forced labor at Auschwitz; being transfered to Warsaw, Poland in 1944, where he performed forced labor; his transfer to Dachau concentration camp; surviving a massacre; escaping and hiding until the arrival of American forces; returning home in 1945 with his future wife; and relocating to Munich, Germany after the supression of the Prague Spring.

Oral history interview with Ludwig Baumann

Oral History

Oral history interview with Arno Hamburger

Oral History

Arno Hamburger, born in 1923 in Germany, describes his family and childhood in Nuremberg; antisemitic violence in Nuremberg; his parents' decision to send him to Palestine in 1939; his trip to Palestine; obtaining British citizenship in 1941 and enlisting in the British Army; his military service in North Africa and Italy; reuniting with his parents in 1945 in Nuremberg; the deaths of family members in concentration camps; and his work in Nuremberg after the war.

Oral history interview with Paula Rid

Oral History

Oral history interview with Gabriel Meltzer

Oral History

Oral history interview with Josef Ringhoffer

Oral History

Oral history interview with Leontine Freifrau von Richthofen

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ute Hilf Strub

Oral History