LIFE IN GERMANY.

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 51, 22 February 1944, Page 5

LIFE IN GERMANY.

ALL HOPE OF VICTORY LOST GORDON TIPPETT'S REMARKABLE STORY FROM KALAMATA TO LAMSDORF 4< From what I saw and heard from the average German civilian during my two and a half years as a prisoner of war, I . know that they have now given up all hope of ultimate victory and! are only hoping for theconquest of their own country by the British rather than by their Sworn enemies the Russians from whom, they fear the ghastliest reprisals." This was the considered opinion of Pte Gordon Tippett, of Whakatane, who by virtue of his position in a dental unit was employed in a •semi-civilian capacity in Silesia • and was thus enabled to contact the rank and' file German to a far greater extent than was the prisoner of war. Hisi story is an amazing _ one and brings home very forcibly to the reader, the helplessness of the German masses who were first driven into war by the spur of pagentry and eternal victories and now when the tide has turned, faced With the terrible prospect of capitulation or annihilation. This with the fear of the vengeance of the peoples s'he Was for so long held in thrall, provides a grim prospect for the people who sold their souls, in order to adopt the hypnotism which taught them 1 to click heels and 'Heil Hitler.'

Battle of Kalamata Gordon Tippett's story opens with the great retreat from Greece, when the scattered remnants of the British Army thronged, the bcachcs of the 'jagged toe of the Grecian peninsula. Outside the township of Kalamata, New Zealand and English troops lay several days under cover of the olive groves awaiting naval transport at might to take them to the safety of Crete or of Alexandria. "There were some 4000 men in this •sector and the eternal straffing from the air made movement during the day impossible. Word went round one morning that the 'Huns' hall entered the ruined and deserted town. Immediately there was a rough reorganising of the troops and a counsel of war decided to attack at dusk and. drive the enemy out in order to enable further drafts to leave by the warships which Avere expected at night. From out of the ditches and scrub slilters arose this decrep:it army of determined men. Nearing the town they moved into formations and at a given signal charged. The shout that went up set every German gun firing wildly into the night. It Avas mainly hand to hand fighting and. it was here that Sgt Jack Hinton carried out his celebrated exploit by storming machine gun posts singlehandcd, which later Avon him the V.C. The Germans couldn't stand the shock and retreated after having suffered, enormous casualties. Three days later however the Avails of the A 7 alley Avere. bristling Avitli the 'heavy .stuff' and those who remained Avere called upon to surrender or submit to intensiAe bombardment. The outlook being hopeless and Avitli no further prospects of naval craft approaching the shore, capitulation followed. Corinth Prison Camp "Never Avill I forget, the. trip to Corinth," said Ptc Tippett. "We were packed into a single train— 3000 of us. The carriages were chock-a-block and I) Avitli hundreds of others sat. on the roof. The Germans were tough at that time, bus they had to be, bacausc the countryside Avas alive Avitli Greek guerillas who sprang out from any cover and. knifed stragglers. Prison Riot At Corinth, a large barbed Avire prison camp originally erected by the Greeks to confine Italian prisoners, was' the destination of the Allied prisoners. Thousands of them, drawn from all quarters of the Empire Avere thrust into the cages.. Here, surprising to relate were found Italian prisoners still under guard. It transpired that •after being released by the. German •advance, these followers of T1 Duce fjad so plundered the countryside that the Germans had decided that the best course was to incarcerate them again. The give and tako between these

Italians and the British prisoners, who were only a lew yards'distant •'was only a sliame." One day the German guards formed up, ami the watching Now Zealanders .saw a tall grim figure move forward to address them. This was the blue-faced llimmler himself, head of the dreaded Gestapo who was following up the army to control and. terrorise the defeated Greeks. "He was just like a great blue eagle," said Pte Tippett. English Swine Through a Palestinian interpreter it was learnt that he referred to the British as 'Swine who having once fallen into the hands of the Fuehrer would never be allowed to cscapc back loi (.heir home land.' lit was here also that the famous 'liable, of the barbed wire' took place. Italian standards and colours which had. been recaptured. from the Greeks Avere formally handed back to the Fascist soldiery by the Germans. At a special parade in the Italian compound the colours were made over with accompanying ceremony after which the Italians marched past "the watching British troops singing the" praise of Mussolini and the destruction 6T--hls enemies. This was too much for the New Zealanders who promptly gave them the 'raspberry' to such an effective extent, that the Italians broke ranks and with sticks and, stones charged the waiting British mass. . Then was started a free-for-all in which thousands took part. To quell the riot the German guards on the outskirts levelled their rifles and pumped lead, into the struggling mass, firing liaphasard at friend and foeman alike. When finally it died down the New Zealanders. were elated to see. an overwhelming number of Italian wounded carried oil' to the hospital.

Transferred to Austria The prison camp remained intact at Corinth for seA'en Avccks during which time the men received just enough food to keep body and soul together. However the boys remained in great spirits and marched over the canal Avium they Avere once again herded into cattle trucks and taken this time to the La Mia Pass, and then marched -twelve hours before being entrained again for Salonika. At Salonika they remained three weeks. The food was so pitifully short that the men were glad to buy sparroAVS, which were shanghaied by small boys who sold 1 to them raw 10 drachmas*, and cooked 20 drachmas. A long miserable train journey then took place, once again in the draughty cattle truc'ks to Stalag 18A Avhich Avas situated in Wolfgang, Austria. This Avas a model camp Avhere French cooks turned out splendid meals and Avhere the prisoners Avere only expected ■ o do small jobs. Repatriation Fiasco Speaking - of the. first attempt to repatriate prisoners of a non-.com-batant or Avounded status, Avliich ended in such a fiasco two years ago, Ptc Tippett said that as one of the 'lucky ones' he Avas taken with .some J ">OO others to Badsolza in the Tyrol Avhicli is also l the Red Cross distributing centre in Germany. From there to Kouen, France, where they camped on a beautifully appointed racecourse. They actually Avere issued Avith their ship tickets before the Avhole scheme Avas cancelled, as a result of German suspicion. There was bitter disappointment in the camp and at least fifteen New Zealanders escaped from camp and to his knowledge Avere not recaptured. It w T as during this period that the celebrated Dieppe raid occurred, which the German High Command gave out as the signal failure of the British sccond, front. There Avere many British and Canadian prisoners from this raid and they Avere brought through the I!ouen camp where they contacted and conversed with the older prisoners giving them the latest iicavs. French People Starving The French civilian population at that time were on the brink of starvation. They Avere shot out of hand for giving shelter to escaped British soldiers and yet managed to keep their morale high. The German invaders knew the heat of the French hatred and Avere. constantly on the alert, Avith an elaborate spy system, allied to the infmnous Gestapo. In. spite, of all this the French ciA'ilians continued to show kindness and open palriolism to the Allied cause Avhenever the prisoners were seen in public. When all hope of repatriation faded the prisoners were then entrained for Germany. Their destination

was this time Lamsdorf in upper Silesia where a camp numbering J,(j,000 had been established. Headls Shaven All prisoners had thc:ir heads .shaven, as. a safeguard against typhus and were then released into their compound which bordered men of every conceivable racc lighting l'or the Allied cause. There were representatives of the BritisjSi and French. Empires, together with Czechs, Russians, Poles, Belgians and Yugoslavs. A tremendous staff of Germans were required, to maintain the strict discipline and order' required in the camp, and here- Pte Tippett drew attention to the tremendous difference lie twee a a German conducted prison camp and an Austrian. The Germans insisted on absolute strictness and discipline, while the Austrian.s were inclined to make friendly overtures. As the war tide swung over to the. Allied side however the German attitude changed perceptably and there were many guards who actually asked prisoners to put in a good word for them when the British invaded the Reich. So strong did the conviction grow amongst the Germans .that victoru was now out of. the question, that llicy made no secret of their desire to be friendly during the latter part, of Pte Tippett's stay. Football Incident Organised sport was looked fori ward to by prisoners and goalcrs alike. Thousands attended the international Soccer Gup matches, and when Scotland challenged England, the crack band of a famous Highland regiment (captured at Dunkirk) played the Scots on to the field. On this occasion so many men climbed to the roof of the stand that the German commandant feared its collapse and sent guards to bring them down. The troops however refused, to budge and as the game had started, the guards themselves sat down amongst the law breakers and cheered with the rest, in spite' of commandants furious gesticulations.

lit was during one ol' these major games that two German 'planes manoeuvring over the sports area, collided :in mid air and crashed. Cheers from 10,000 British throats, threw the Germans into a frenzy but, could not quell the commotion. "For that," said Ptc Tippett, we had our Red Gross parcels cut out for a fortnight—and that was pretty tough!" Work in Laboratory With three other Kiwis (the. Germans called it Ky-wy) our narrator was transferred to work in a dental laboratory in the town. Leaving the main camp they were billeted in a llour mill where other men were quartered. Each day under a friendly German guard they were marched to their new place of employment. The German civilians took little or no notice as they stepped through the streets, though they seemed friendly enough. At the laboratory, there were eighteen German girls also employed and, were it not for the war bar which had to be observed, the friendliest atmosphere prevailed. There was plenty of work to do but on the main it was congenial and there was never any absence o[ fun and banter. It was during this, period that Pte Tippett had his greatest insight into German character. He soon picked up .sufficient of the language to converse fairly freely and found, that the average German civilian appreciated a joke and a little innocent fun. They could not however understand any person voluntarily going to war. Their own system was compulsory- almost from the time a boy could walk and the army was automatically fed from the oncoming generations. They bore no marked illwill against, the English (with the exception of the straightout Prussian or Nazi) and failed to comprehend why we were fighting each other. Individual Outlook Providing a man was prepared to behave himself in the camp, he could, be assured of a reasonably good time. lit was largely a question of individual outlook. He only saw one case of sheer brutality towards a British soldier and that was when a young airman Avas shot in cold blood, for reaching up to get a piece, of wood from u shed with which to make a fire. These inci-. dents were isolated however as far as the British were concerned. Not so the Russian prisoners however, who were treated worse than dogs. Starved and bullied they were given no quarter and, when the puzbJed New Zealander enquired the reason, he was to id of the Russian atrocities on ths German soldiery. Many however were in deadly feav of having to go and serve on the i Russian front from which salient ilowed a dismal tale of misery and

suffering enough to make even \lxe prisoners shudder. The Nazi propaganda, still continued to pour out a fabricated mass of lies for home digestion, but the Germans themselves, had grown tii> ed of it. and now held the forlorn outlook of a helpless people unable to think for themselves. When the same propaganda, was turned into the prison compound from loud speakers, it was received with such an uproar and jeering that it was promptly discontinued. Bombing of Leipsie There was genuine regret in the laboratory when the New r Zcalanders took their departure in October of last year. There had been so much fun and innocent pranks that the staff was more- like a large family. • The repatriation, this time really took place and with only two guards (old soldiers who were incapacitated) (500 men boar/led a splendidly equipped, train and. headed south for France.. The: prisoners were placed oil their honour not to attempt to escape and as they lay in the Leipsie station one night a full scale British bombing raid took place. "The boys were jittery," saidl Pte Tippett, "but there was a genuine excuse for that. The raid l was terrific. Whole blocks of buildings seemed to just go up into the air, while the fires that were started stretched 9 for miles and' miles." He wondered how the German civilian population stood it. Passing through Frankfurt lie adds that the boys were horror struck at the devastation. Hundreds of acres of buildings were just laid in ruin. The loss of life must have been enormous. France, Spain and Home Passing through France the French peasantry supplied them with wine and comforts. They arrived in Marsailles without further incident and set sail for Barcelona, where units of the Australian Red Cross met them and showered them with good things. The trip from Spain to Alexandria and finally to New Zealand was commonplace, enough after all his previous experiences, but Pte Tippett adds that while- every New Zealander in Germany would wish to be home again, relatives can rest assured that the treatment afforded them is really good and that tne me a themselves are lit and well.