Sniper at Monte Cassino: "Sometimes I hear them still screaming." (eBook)

Sniper
at Monte Cassino:
"Sometimes I can still hear them screaming"

Africa, mid-March 1943

Between bouts of fever that alternated with chills and blissful heat, I lay awake, at least if you can call that state awake. I was somewhere between reality and delirium. It smelled of urine and feces, carbolic acid, pus, and death. The air was stuffy and hot during the day. At night, however, the freezing cold crept into the unheated rooms and one froze despite two woollen blankets. When there was a rumble at the front, the detonations of the shells could be heard from here. They drowned out the constant moaning of the severely wounded.

A nurse dabbed at my forehead with a damp cloth. A doctor wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it to a medic standing behind him. He mumbled something I didn't understand and then walked away. The look the medic gave me didn't bode well. The nurse tried to pour me some tea. She gently helped me lift my head.

"Just a little sip," I heard her say.

The brown brew was lukewarm. I first moistened my lips and then greedily tried to empty the cup. But as soon as I had taken two small sips, she took the cup away and set it aside.

"You must drink slowly," she warned as she stood up. "I'll be right back."

She walked over to the next hospital bed. Her body instantly became a silhouette. I collapsed again.

It was not my first time in Africa.

I come from a family of artists. My parents owned a small traveling circus that toured Europe from May to October. After more or less successful tours, we returned to the Saarland in late fall. There was our village, which was also our winter home.

We are originally from Alsace. My grandmother was French and my grandfather German. Towards the end of the First World War, in the summer of 1918, they moved to my great-uncle in the Saarland in the German Reich, more by necessity than by choice. We have been German ever since. I grew up bilingual, learning English as a third foreign language on our travels.

Because we were always on the road with the circus, I had never joined the Hitler Youth, which I found very disadvantageous at the time. When we made guest appearances, there were always young boys in Hitler Youth uniforms in the audience. I envied my peers and would have loved to slip into one of those uniforms myself. Especially when we talked before or after the performances and they told me about their adventures in the HJ. The older ones were even allowed to shoot.

I didn't know then that the Nazi regime was training them to become soldiers at a very young age. Both physical and ideological training were on the daily program of the Hitler Youth. The children of today were being molded into the soldiers of tomorrow. One of the slogans of the HJ was: "What are we? Little Boys! What do we want to be? Soldiers!"

My parents were very liberal and avoided talking about politics. My grandfather, on the other hand, raved about Adolf Hitler and his appearance, while my grandmother, understandably, felt more attracted to France and viewed political events in Germany with suspicion.

I was always in the middle and wasn't really interested in politics. It was something else that attracted me. It was the military. Fascinated by uniforms from all over the world and with a thirst for adventure in my belly, I had only one goal: I wanted to be a soldier. Despite my young age, I was already very self-confident and open-minded thanks to my travels and performances in the circus. For me, being a soldier was synonymous with heroism, missions in faraway lands, and pure adventure.

I had been training my body since I was a toddler.

My two older brothers and I swung on trapezes and helped put up and take down the big top. I was way ahead of my biological age, and people always thought I was two or three years older than I really was. I took advantage of this fact during a tour of Alsace-Lorraine in 1938.

I was clearly too young for the Wehrmacht. I didn't see any possibility of being accepted early by forging my papers. I couldn't imagine fooling the German bureaucracy. That's why I kept thinking about enlisting in another military unit. I was attracted to a unit that was already shrouded in legend.

The Légion étrangère.

It was said that everyone was accepted into the Foreign Legion without being asked about their papers. It was the place for adventurers and the gateway to the big wide world. And if you got in trouble with the law, they would give you a new identity. All you had to do was sign up for five years.

Naive as I was, this thought manifested itself in my head, and stubborn as I was, I put my plan into action a short time later.

When we made a guest appearance in Metz, I wandered around the city during the day. I found an advertising office of the Foreign Legion and knew what I had to do. I had made a decision and my mind was made up. After the circus had moved on and the tent had been set up, I packed my few things, left a letter for my family, traveled back to Metz and applied at the office of the Foreign Legion.

I found everything in the Legion, but not what I was looking for. It was a hard and hardscrabble man's world. We were in a fort in the middle of the Moroccan desert and everyday life was dull, boring and dreary. The water smelled of tin, was warm, and always sent one or another of us to the infirmary.

People often lay there with malaria, diarrhea, or if they had contracted a sexually transmitted disease in one of the cheap Arab brothels.

Violence was common among the legionnaires. They drank a lot of alcohol and homosexuality was widespread, probably due to the seclusion of barracks life. Occasionally there were rapes among the legionnaires.

Those who were too weak were disbanded from the legion. Anyone who ended up in a group with the wrong comrades had nothing to laugh about. The physically strong ruled and the weak obeyed, unless they were ice-cold and quick with a knife. Then they were feared.

The military hierarchy was strictly enforced, and discipline was paramount. There were draconian punishments for even the most minor offenses. For example, it was enough to wear unkempt equipment or uniforms, or to sloppily peel potatoes during kitchen duty, to which one was regularly assigned.

Even if they were at odds and hated each other in everyday barracks life, things were different on deployment. Once they marched out of the gate into the desert, everyone stuck together. The troop stood as one man. Everyone gave his life for each other. Nationality or religion did not matter. The German stood next to the Spaniard, the Italian, the Russian and the Swede. The Muslim fought next to the Jew, and the Jew next to the Christian.

Without exception, we adhered to the Foreign Legion's seven-point code of honor.

1. Legionnaire, you are a volunteer who serves France with honor and loyalty.

2. Every Legionnaire is your brother in arms, regardless of nationality, race or religion. You show him your closest solidarity at all times, as if he were your biological brother.

3. You respect your traditions and are loyal to your superiors. Discipline and comradeship are your strengths, courage and loyalty your virtues.

4. You show your status as a foreign legionnaire by your impeccable, always elegant appearance, your behavior is dignified and reserved. Your barracks and quarters are always clean.

5. As an elite soldier, you train tirelessly, you treat your weapon as if it were your most precious personal possession, you constantly strive to improve your physical condition.

6. An order is sacred, you carry it out until it is fulfilled, respecting the law and international conventions - if necessary at the risk of your life.

7. In battle, you act with prudence, coolness, and without hatred, respecting your defeated enemies. You never leave your fallen and wounded comrades or your weapons behind.

When we marched through the desert and sang a song, the inhabitants of the surrounding villages trembled with fear. France showed strength through toughness.

The motto of the legionnaires was then as it is now: Legio Patria Nostra (The Legion is our Fatherland) and Honneur et Fidélité (Honor and Loyalty).

I was lucky in two ways. First, I joined a platoon whose hard core consisted of eleven Germans, for whom everyone had respect, and therefore I was never the target of same-sex love attacks. Second, thanks to my good knowledge of foreign languages, I soon found myself in the typing pool, which meant that I only had to take part in a few excursions against rebellious Berbers.

With the outbreak of war between Germany and France, the German and Austrian legionnaires were caught between two stools. For the French, we were half enemies; for the Germans, we were considered traitors to the fatherland, even though we had taken our oath on the flag of the Legion and not on the flag of France. In keeping with our position between two stools, we remained silent and waited to see what would happen.

In 1941, when the German Reich had to help its Italian brothers in arms in Africa, we Legionnaires were remembered. A door to our homeland was opened by offering us the opportunity to join the Wehrmacht.

The motives of the 2,000 or so Legionnaires who accepted the offer were varied. Some wanted to serve their country and fight for the German Reich, while others identified with the regime's nationalist ideas. But most of the comrades I knew, like me, saw it as a quick way to leave the Foreign Legion. It was a way out of the Moloch of the wasteland, where we did...