Fresh meat into the fray

[alaric99x]

Alaric99x, do you also have relatives who served in the german side?

My family is originally from Germany, it seems that every male relative who was an adult during WWII served, usually on the Russian front. My father is from Schlesien (Silesia), from near the city of Breslau, now it's called Wroclaw and belongs to Poland. He was 14 when he was "called" to serve in the Volkssturm, for a few months, when the Red Army got close to his city. When the front collapsed, he got rid of his uniform and headed for Bavaria. There he met my mother, who is from some tiny village (Reichertshofen, where I was also born), near the city of Ingolstadt. My grandfather was up in Latvia, somewhere safe, repairing boots. His holiday ended when he was captured in the Courland pocket. He spent some years in the camps and came home to find his wife with another man, so he went up into the attic and hung himself. I recently met my uncle after many years. He served from '42, mainly on the Russian front. He was captured in Czechoslovakia. He told me that he had been wounded, recovered, sent back to the front and then collected by some officer who was gathering returnees for an improvised unit. He said one night, a few weeks later, they could see the Soviets shooting every possible weapon for no reason. The next day they learned the war was over. He spent most of his time in camps in the Crimea, and wasn't released until 1951. I don't know why they kept him so long, he was only a junior lieutenant, just promoted from sergeant, in the Wehrmacht, but he had very positive memories of the Russians, he said they treated him very well. My other grandfather, on my mother's side, also served as a Wehrmacht officer and spent some years in the camps. Another uncle I was very close to served as a Wehrmacht sergeant and spent some years in the camps. There were many other relatives in similar situations, but I never got to talk to them about their experiences. My father left Germany when I was very young and most of them had died before I returned to Germany.

My father took us to Calgary, where I spent my first 3 years in North America. After that we lived in several places in the US. I joined the US Army at 18 and they returned me to Germany in 1973 for the first of 3 tours of duty here.