European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

“It is your fault that innocent people got shot by the ‘Wehrmacht’!”

It had to be weighed up: Which side has to take the higher blame?

If you don’t do anything against this criminal regime,

if you join in silently, how much are you then to blame?

War costs so many deaths - don’t you have to consider

that even innocent people loose their life in the fight against fascism?

That is already a difficult question in civil life, it was the same under war conditions.

We said the fight against the fascist regime had to come before anything else;

a very difficult ethic decision.

Well, the question of desertion was obviously discussed between all the people who were active as anti-fascists.

Only in Africa there was no front which’s lines could have been passed.

In Africa warfare was mobile.

You could only change fronts if a unit was enclosed by the English.

Then it was possible to say: “I would like to run over”. Or to say: “I’ll run away”, then you avoided captivity.

When I came to Poland and Russia, that did not work because,

as a radio operator, you were too far away from the front.

As a radio operator you are relatively far behind where the general staff sits.

And they sit 50 to 60 km behind the front.

Most of the time I was with the army, at the higher posts.

We were away from the front, so it did not work there, but the opportunity had to be taken.