Once again, owing to my height, I went “from the frying pan into the fire.” When the company was being divided up, I was assigned to the heavy mortars. In the first fortnight we did not see much of the weapon itself. We heard the other comrades talking about it. What mattered most to us was that every single part weighed about 40 pounds and always had to be carried. That could turn out to be quite a job.

Our Corporal Pfefferle drove us hard around the barracks yard and the drill ground. By today’s standards one could probably call him a hardened militarist. I don’t want to dwell any further on everything he put us through. One should let the dead rest. As far as I know, he was killed in action in 1941. Every evening we fell into our bunks dog-tired[1]. When we came back from the drill ground, we looked like pigs, dragged as we were through the mud. Then came the business of putting our clothes back in order, cleaning the room and the corridor, and so on. Anyone who has himself been a soldier knows what that means. There was hardly ever enough time left to write a letter home.

Next came the medical induction examination. I overheard the doctor say to a non-commissioned officer: “I know there are people among them who are not fully fit, but the regulations today are such that they have to be passed as fit — the men simply have to manage to keep up. In eight weeks they have to be fully-fledged soldiers.” That was in early June 1940, at a time when we were still winning. What must the ‘human material’ have looked like if the war had gone on for two more years, or longer? 

 I should add that everyone who was called up together with me belonged to the year 1908 or 1909. We were thus about 32 years old, and the training staff called us the “old men.” As time went on, as the war dragged on longer and we grew older, that was to change again. We suddenly became “young” once more, and the catchphrase became: “Class of ‘06 and younger to the front.” How times change! 

On the 3rd of June, that is after fourteen days, we were sworn in. For us this brought the prospect that we could now go out, provided we were off duty — although, for the first two Sundays, only in the company of our squad leader, since we were apparently still so “small” that we could not yet be trusted to move about in public alone! And this although we already had children at home and were family men — but to the army, that made no difference at all. 

To celebrate the swearing-in, we were promptly introduced to our new weapon. Carrying the individual parts of the heavy mortar (bipod, base plate, barrel) as well as the ammunition boxes which, for training purposes, were filled with sand — we marched out to the drill ground. By the time we arrived we were already half done in from the hauling. The rumours had not lied: the parts really did weigh as much as we had been told. So did the ammunition boxes. 

All the same, I did in fact like the company I ended up in. I was with the 4th (Machine Gun) Company, and compared to a rifle company the duty there was not quite so rigid. I was, however, never to find any pleasure in the German military. Everything always ran according to the motto: “In the army there is only one way, and that is the roundabout way, and only one kind of sense, and that is nonsense — and above all, the guiding principle: ‘Stubbornness prevails.’” Common sense got you nowhere. 

For the benefit of people who were never in the army, here is a brief account of a recruit’s day. I shall pick out my wedding anniversary, the 4th of June: 

6 o’clock — get up. 

Wash, have breakfast, room duty, clean the dishes, put the uniform in order, get ready to fall in.