War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 264

Chapter 11

“I

t’s so incredibly booooooring,” Lotte complained. They’d arrived in Denmark a week ago and there was no indication they would ever leave this darned garrison and the makeshift barracks. “We can’t even go into town, because there is no town.”

“Just flatlands, wind and rain,” Agatha, an auxiliary of the

Kriegsmarine

, chimed in. “And I thought my work in Stavanger was dull.”

Right now every woman would have, in the blink of an eye, chosen the dullest work over sitting around in boredom.

“Let’s make a run for home. Nobody will even notice whether we’re gone or not,” Lotte whispered when she was alone with Gerlinde.

“You’re stir crazy, woman.”

“I have studied the map, it’s not that far. And we can probably catch a train somewhere,” Lotte said.

“Not far? It’s at least three hundred miles. This place is messing with your mind. What would you tell the conductor?” Gerlinde disguised her voice and said, “Excuse me, sir, we’re Wehrmacht deserters and would like to go home.”

Lotte couldn’t help but start giggling and elbowed her friend. “Of course not, I’d go about it more diplomatically.”

“Ah, and since when is diplomacy one of your talents, young woman?”

“If we stay here, I’m gonna die of boredom real soon.” Lotte sighed.

“Believe me, it’s better to die of boredom than being shot as deserters.” Gerlinde shook her head at the antics of her friend. “Hang on for a few more days, the war is all but over. Haven’t you heard?”

“Heard what?” Lotte pricked up her ears. Rumors of imminent surrender had been running wild for days, but nothing definite reached them.

In the next few days,

events happened thick and fast. In the late evening of the first of May, the garrison command announced that the Führer Adolf Hitler had committed suicide. The new chancellor was propaganda minister Goebbels and Commander-in-Chief of the Navy Großadmiral Karl Dönitz the new president of the Reich.

A murmur buzzed through the ranks and Lotte saw the expressions of shock on virtually every face. Relief, horror, betrayal, depending on the person, but always paired with shock. Even the most zealous Nazis couldn’t believe in a German victory anymore.

Her own expression probably reflected shocked cheer, for this was the end of an era she had hated with all her heart – so much, she’d become a traitor to her own nation.

She felt a collective swaying in the ranks, as if they’d been struck by a true tragedy. Almost like children who’d been orphaned and now looked at each other for a clue about how to continue with their lives.

“It’s not the end,” one of the soldiers murmured.

“It is,” someone else replied.

The next day the news of another suicide reached them: new chancellor Joseph Goebbels had preferred to follow the example of his Führer and evade accountability for the crimes he’d committed.

But what shocked Lotte to her core was that he and his wife Magda had first killed their six children before taking their own lives. She dropped to the ground, unable to fathom such cruelty.

“How could they? ... their own children,” she stammered helplessly.

“Such a vicious thing to do,” Gerlinde said, taking Lotte’s hand.

“Better than having to live under the enemy,” someone murmured.

Lotte stared at the offender and scolded him, “How pathetic you are! How can you approve of a man killing his innocent offspring just because he’s too cowardly to face the consequences of his doings?”

“Cowardly? Goebbels was a fantastic leader!”

Lotte pummeled into the soldier’s stomach to give him a well deserved trouncing. Not that she had any illusion about who would win a fistfight, but so pent-up were her tensions she longed for some physical violence to get rid of them.

If it hadn’t been for Oberführerin Littmann’s swift intervention, she’d be bloody and broken in some hospital by now. Instead, she was confined to the barracks building for an indefinite time.

But the flow of news didn’t stop, just because she’d lost her equanimity. The city of Hamburg capitulated; British-American troops reached Lübeck and Wismar, effectively cutting off the northernmost part of Germany bordering with Denmark from the rest of the Reich.

The commanders-in-chief of Holland, Denmark and Norway were called upon to meet with Großadmiral Dönitz in Flensburg. The same evening, the radio announced the partial capitulation of Northern Germany and the occupied regions in Scandinavia to the Western Allies.

“The war is over!” someone screamed outside and Lotte took this as the sign that together with the war, her confinement had also ended. She ventured outside to see men and women cheering and lying in each other’s arms, but only for a few short minutes until disenchantment settled amongst them.

“We survived,” Gerlinde voiced the common train of thought. “But what will happen to us now?”

“Prisoners of war,” someone said.

Those three words crawled down Lotte’s back making her neck hair stand on end. She’d never really given a thought to what would happen to her after the war. She’d somehow assumed she’d simply go home.

While technically the female auxiliaries weren’t Wehrmacht soldiers, they still were Wehrmacht employees in uniform and as such would be treated the same as their male counterparts. Or so they said… although she’d heard horror stories as well.

Wehrmachtshelferinnen had been sent to perform slave labor in Russian Gulags, or worse, to brothels to “entertain” Red Army soldiers. Her entire being froze over even thinking about such a fate.

“Perhaps they’ll send us home?” Agatha said.

“Home? I don’t even have a home!” Gerlinde pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Where will they send me? My hometown now belongs to Russia.”

“I’m sorry.” Lotte wrapped her arm around Gerlinde’s shoulder. “If they send us home, you can come with me.”

“Thank you.” Gerlinde surreptitiously wiped a tear from her eyes.

But nothing happened. Not for days. Some parts of the Wehrmacht were still fighting, most notably in Berlin, and the first Allied soldier had yet to set foot into Denmark. So, they kept waiting.

A nervous tension settled over all of them, because General Lindemann had given orders not to surrender to the Danish Resistance, but only to the Allied troops. Both sides were sitting on a powder keg, waiting to explode, until the first British soldiers finally arrived one week later. To say they were surprised to find a bunch of females in uniform would be an understatement.

“From the frying pan into the fire,” said Agatha, who fought off sexual advances daily, like most of the other young women in the camp. Deprived of proper job descriptions and male line superiors who would penalize would-be suitors that stepped out of line, the Wehrmachtshelferinnen had lost their standing.

Despite Oberführerin Littmann’s best efforts, the soldiers in the garrison regarded it as their inherent right to conquer the women, and their insistent efforts became more annoying and even frightening by the day.

“We shouldn’t believe all the propaganda that is spread,” Gerlinde said. “Can’t be worse than what we have to bear now.”

“I’d be happy to see the back of this sorry place with its ghastly weather. Can you believe that we’re well into May and have yet to see a ray of sunshine?”

The next day, everyone in the garrison was put in open trucks and transported to a makeshift prison camp someplace inland. Men and women were separated along the way and the women were herded into the empty gymnasium of a school to be processed. A double row of coiled barbed wire surrounded the compound giving Lotte violent chills, as deeply stashed memories surfaced in her soul.

“Name?” a British soldier asked her.

“Alexandra Wagner.”

“Rank?”

“Nachrichtenhelferin, radio operator.”

“ID number?”

“589452,” she said, still captured in her memories.

The soldier stared at her with wide eyes. “Excuse me?”

For a moment she didn’t understand his concern and looked at him with a blank expression.

“That is not a valid number,” he explained.

Slowly, it dawned on her. She’d given him her prisoner number from Ravensbrück. With a quick glance at him she decided it was best not to let anyone know about her real identity as Charlotte Klausen – not yet. With no proof whatsoever they wouldn’t believe her anyway.

“Sorry.” She reeled off her Wehrmacht ID number for him.

The conditions in the new quarters were even more deplorable than before. This was a school that had long been used for storage purposes. And the sanitary installations looked exactly like that: abandoned.

The water tubes must have frozen solid during winter and when Lotte opened the faucet only drops of brown slime appeared. She sniffed with disgust and decided that washing would have to wait.

Never one to dwell on bad circumstances she grabbed a solitary broom standing in a corner and began sweeping the floor. Soon, the other women joined her, using scarves and kerchiefs to wipe the worst of the dust and grime from windows, floors and walls.

After several hours of hard work, Lotte’s back ached and she stretched out, handing her broom to Agatha. “Here, take over for a while, will you please?”

With a proud smile Lotte scrutinized the work they’d done so far. The place still didn’t look inviting, but at least it was bearable. In the evening Oberführerin Littmann returned from her interrogation and gasped in surprise. “Well,

Mädels,

you have done a great job!”

She waved at her subalterns, raising her voice. ”Gather around, girls, I have some news.”

Lotte was dying to know what would happen to them and she joined the others standing in a tight circle around the older woman.

“Frankly, the British are overwhelmed with the number of prisoners they have captured and it will take a while until they manage to process everyone. Apparently last week the supreme command gave the order to discharge all female auxiliaries, but due to the capitulation this order never reached us here. The British have promised to proceed and discharge as fast as they can. But they have to address more pressing issues first.

“For one, they need to organize transport back to Germany and they will have to set up collection camps for those who don’t have a home to return to.” Littmann’s gaze wandered over to Gerlinde and a few of the other girls from areas that now belonged to Russia, Poland or Czechoslovakia.

“Frau Oberführerin, how long will this take?” someone asked.

A tired expression etched itself into Littmann’s face. “I cannot say. A few days, maybe a week, or two. All we can do is stay put and cooperate as much as possible.”

The women started whispering, and the Oberführerin didn’t stop them. It seemed she herself was too downhearted to keep up discipline.

What Lotte hated most about their new quarters were the toilets. Since there was no running water, they had to go outside to relieve themselves in a makeshift latrine – always at risk of running into one of the guards, who embarrassed the women with their prying eyes and obscene talk. She soon learned to never go alone and always have another woman stand watch to block the men from

accidentally

catching a glimpse.

Every morning a delegation of women was sent to collect water from a nearby river. Under the scrutiny of their guards, who never moved a finger to help, they filled rusty steel barrels with water and lugged the heavy containers to their quarters.

The prisoners had long since forgotten the luxury of a bath, but Lotte delighted in doing a cat’s lick once a day, washing her face, hands and neck. Since there was no privacy, she never dared to open her blouse or push up her skirt to wash the bare skin beneath.

After one such trip Lotte decided to come out. She didn’t have illusions that they’d treat her like royalty if she told them her secret. But maybe she didn’t have to suffer those deplorable conditions anymore.

So, she went to talk to the base commander.

“What do you want?” he asked her in a rather harsh tone.

“Sir, I wanted to inform you about my work for the Norwegian resistance.”

“We’re in Denmark.” He looked at the papers in front of her.

Cleary, he wasn’t interested in her story, but she tried again. “I know, but the British SOE—”

“Tell this to someone else. I have work to do,” he said, dismissing her.

With sunken shoulders Lotte returned to her friends. It had been worth a try.

Food was scarce and irregular.

As the Oberführerin had warned them, the Allies had more pressing issues to attend to than feeding their prisoners. In some way Lotte could understand. Everyone had been suffering from the rationing and just because the war was over didn’t mean that food supplies miraculously multiplied and shortages disappeared.

Without the well-oiled machine of requisitioning and commandeering the best things for the German occupiers, they now switched places with the Danish population, who claimed most of the food for themselves, leaving only scraps for the hated oppressors.

Actual food lacking, the women resorted to talking about it – all the time.

“To celebrate the end of the harvest, my father would have a pig slaughtered,” Gerlinde dreamed. “The

Erntedankfest

was a gluttonous good time of fine wines and delicious food. My granny used to make the finest bloodwurst and liverwurst far and wide.”

Lotte’s mouth watered at the vivid descriptions and she could actually smell the vinegary scent of sauerkraut that usually accompanied these traditional sausages.

“And the beer, don’t forget the beer,” a woman from Munich said, licking her lips and making a gesture of wiping foam from her mouth. “The golden liquid with the bitter taste.”

“I remember how we had to spend our summer vacation picking hops in the Holledau region. It was some damned exhausting work,” a blonde, thin girl said.

“You were there too? When?”

A conversation ensued about the advantages of picking hops versus collecting potato bugs or any other of the

voluntary

agricultural work schoolchildren had been forced to do.

Lotte’s mind drifted back to her Aunt Lydia’s farm, where she’d spent many summers with her family, helping with the harvest, playing with her brother Richard and her many cousins. Once the war started her mother had sent her to live with Aunt Lydia for almost two years to keep her away from Berlin and out of trouble.

That had worked only until Rachel, a Jewish neighbor about the same age as Lotte, had shown up in the barn with her three younger siblings. Lotte willed the memories away. They were too sad.

“Hey, Alex, what are you thinking about?” Gerlinde elbowed her.

“What? Me?”

“Yes, you. You had an expression on your face as if you’d stepped into purgatory.”

She shrugged, fighting back her tears. Having to think about the death and suffering she had caused with her impulsive actions would be her personal hell for the rest of her life. Ever since, everything she’d done had been an attempt to make up for her well-meant but ill-conceived acts that had caused her friends to die.

Dark clouds invaded her soul as the dank reality sank in. As much as Lotte had yearned for the war to end, she now became aware that things would only get worse – for her and so many others. In Norway they’d been in a very comfortable position, far away from the theaters of war where the real action happened.

“Oh, goodness, Gerlinde,” she suddenly whimpered. “Do you think there will even be a Berlin left to return to?”

“Why would you even want to go there? Didn’t your family live in Cologne, before… you know… they died?”

Lotte choked on her slip-up. “Well, I know for sure there’s not a stone left intact in Cologne so I thought the capital might be a good place for me to start my new life.”

“Quite the adventurous type you are, Alex. What I wouldn’t give to be able to return to my home.”