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I was born in Wattenscheid, Hunsrück. My parents came from the Moselle area. My father worked in a coal mine in the Saar area. He was a manager. Then he went to the Ruhr area to another coal mine and so I was born there in 1921. My father had wounds from the First World War and he died when I was 8. We went back to the Moselle area where we had a lot of family. I had one brother and 2 sisters all older than me. I learnt to be a carpenter and furniture maker and we had 2 factories there. When I was 18, the war broke out. I volunteered for the paratroopers but they didn’t take me because I had a flying licence and they said I must go to the Luftwaffe. I was in the Hitler Youth and I was very fond of flying and I got my licence in the Hitler Youth. Started on gliders and progressed. When I was old enough I was taken into the flying corps which was part of Hitler Youth. I wasn’t interested in the party; I was interested in flying! So I got my licence and was sent to the Luftwaffe. But I wasn’t happy there. I was in Ghent and Calais and our machines were being used to rescue pilots who were shot down in the channel. It wasn’t bombers and fighter pilots; it was only for rescuing and I wanted to be a fighter pilot. Then I volunteered for the paratroopers. I was here in Brunswick at Paraschool 3. This was in late 1941; September/October I think. Then I passed the training to become a fallschirmjager. Because I had been a carpenter, they ordered me to the Engineers. I went to the training base near Stendal and was a paratrooper/Engineer and I liked it very much. We trained for the jumps at Wittstock. You are trained highly and you don’t think of anything else; you are trained to go out as fast as possible. So I didn’t think about being nervous. Altogether I did about 200 jumps. When you’re young, you think you’re indestructible. The commander ? wanted to take the whole company to Africa and I wanted to go with him and I asked him and he said he couldn’t do anything; I’d have to talk to my captain. The captain said to me I had to be an instructor and I said I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to fight the enemy. He told me I’d see the enemy sooner than I would think. My comrades went and I was alone there. I was very unhappy about this. I went into the paratroopers to be a fighter, not an instructor. Then suddenly, the new director of recruits ‡° this was the battle before Moscow ‡° and suddenly we went to Russia. It was the 1st Paratroop Division; the 7th flieger division. It was very, very hard. The Russian war was much more difficult than all the others. There were thousands of men coming at you at once and you had to shoot them of course. It was terrible and a deep shock. This was my first time in action on the front line. I said to myself ‘If I had Stalin, Hitler, all the 4 in front of me, I’d shoot them.’ It was just terrible. There were trenches full of corpses. Out of our whole company only 20 were left; the rest wounded or killed. In the end, I came through with just one comrade. All my life I wonder why I came through that alive. I had so much luck, it was impossible. We hid in small foxholes. They all had shoulder mounted mortars that they shot at us; also heavier mortars. Our company went to take this hill and the paras came after to relieve us and we were supposed to leave but we couldn’t because no-one could get through, so we had to stay there for 2 days and 2 nights. All of our comrades killed until it was just the 2 of us. A company is 150. These 2 paras came and sat one on each side of me and I had a fast firing weapon like a machine pistol. It wasn’t normal army issue; I was testing it. A heavy mortar landed in the trench by us and I lost consciousness and when I came too, both paratroopers were (dead?). My gun was destroyed. Another time, I was in a foxhole with a comrade. It was ice below us and my hand gradually melted the ice and suddenly I realised that my hand was in the mouth of a corpse. You cannot imagine it. The war in Italy was paradise compared to that. The Russians took no prisoners from the paratroopers; if they got one, they shot him.