European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

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.

I would have done so like many others if the option had occurred.

Using codes

In the summer of 1938, before the Nazis marched in,

we agreed that we not only want to keep in touch,

but we wanted to develop a secure code in which we were able to correspond politically.

It was a cipher which the Gestapo was not able to figure out until the end: