European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

I would have been disloyal to my own convictions, if I hadn’t joined the resistance.

My grandfather was jailed in the KUK Empire,

Emperor Royal Monarchy of the Habsburgs, because he fought for socialism.

My father was jailed because he fought for socialism.

It was obvious, that I would work in the same track,

therefore would not passively let it wash over me, but work against it.

I was not alone and we had learned not just to back off when the enemy attacked, but to think about where to start a counter-attack.

If you were sure about being needed in the time after Hitler, to that time this was an important sentence: “…for the time after Hitler.”

So you would work illegally but do not take unnecessary risks.

It was obvious that you would deliberately throw a spanner in the works,

as long as you could and as long as you could breathe.

It was the same with many others.

End of war

Towards the end of the war I was seriously wounded another time.

I was buried by a British aircraft-bomb for a short time and then unconscious for two days.

The 8th May I witnessed in an auxiliary military hospital in British captivity.

Only few who were pleased like me. Some just did not care.

Some, mostly young officers that were in the military hospital with me, were set really hostile towards the change.

Like this: “Now it has to keep on going, we have to keep on fighting!”

Some of them played a role in the so called ’Werewolf’