![]() The instructors were decorated front-line soldiers. This was a military style camp run by the regular army. Training was done in the Wehrertüchigungslager. For students like us we had 6 weeks in the summer and 2 weeks skiing in the mountains in the winter. ![]() I was in Stalin's prisons for a long time.ĭid you have any pre-military training? Were you in the HJ? The Americans picked me up and took me to the Russians and dumped me off. Ah! History has us as criminals, but we were not criminals, we were soldiers!Īt the end of the war we tried to surrender to the Americans, but as I was crossing a beet field I was heavily wounded. Our Divisional name was " Totenkopf", this was from our emblem which was the traditional emblem of the German Cavalry. We were equipped with Panzers that had no Turm (turret). I went to the Ostfront at the end of 1944 and joined the 3rd SS Panzers, I was in the Panzer-Jägers. My commanding officer presented them to me. After a total of 5½ months, I bought my first set of shoulder-boards they cost me exactly 2 Marks and 80 Pfennig. ![]() I got training for armored officers in Posen-Treskow. You were supposed to go for 6 weeks, but I stayed for only 3. This is where you went to the front to prove that you had the right stuff. About 2 or 3 months into the schools I went to the front for my " Zwischen-Prüfung". Basic training lasted about a month, maybe a little longer. But late in the war, it was made much faster. Early in the war it took 2 years to become an SS officer, and the older officers never let us forget it. This was in June of 1944.įirst I had basic training, then NCO school, then officer school. A little while after that I was sleeping on the couch in my family's home in Upper Silesia when my father wakes me up saying, "Karl! They are coming to arrest you!" He had seen an SS man walking up our walkway, but they were only coming to take me to the induction physical! This NCO and 3 others escorted 22 of us to our examination. They took me to Hamburg and gave me a ride in a U-Boat and a minesweeper. During the fifth year of Gymnasium, male students had to pick one of the services to be inducted into. Like many things in life, it was not planned. ![]()
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