European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

Mobilization into the Wehrmacht

We were recruited while serving in the Arbeitsdienst.

I was assigned to the German infantry.

By the time I got home in December 1942, I was recruited into the German army, forcibly mobilized.

I was an 18 year old youth at the time and had no idea what the army was or what a weapon was.

I came to the German army at Brno in the Czech Republic; it was called Brünn in German.

I was in the army December 1942, and January and February.

We had what they call in German Ausbildung, which was a drill using German weapons.

We were given an assignment of which I knew nothing about: to fight against the Russian soldiers.

We were sent in February 1943, Germany was suffering

from hard times due to the Soviet troops conquering German troops in Stalingrad,

up in Leningrad, and we were sent to the eastern front.