Description
Object description
German airman served as armourer with German Air Force in Germany, France and Netherlands, 1942-1945; prisoner of war in Netherlands, Belgium, France and GB, 1945-1948
Content description
REEL 1 Background in Hamburg, Germany, 1920-1936: family; education; father's experience in First World War and membership of Nazi Party; membership of Air Sport Club. Recollections of period as engineer in aircraft factories in Harburg and Graudenz, Germany, 1936-1942: improvement in factory working conditions; work as aircraft builder apprentice; types of aircraft built in factory; effects of colour blindness on chances of becoming aircrew with German Air Force; reasons for father's death, 1937; father's attitude to Nazi Party after 1933; relations with Jewish employer; transfer to aircraft factory at Graudenz, 1942; reaction to declaration of Second World War, 3/9/1939; question of persecution of Germans in Poland, 1939; question of how Socialists and Communists becoming political turncoats in Hamburg after 1933.
REEL 2 Continues: start of Allied bombing of Hamburg, 1942; character of air raid shelters in Hamburg; quality inspection role in Graudenz factory; incidents of aircraft sabotage; living conditions in workers barracks at Graudenz; relations with Polish civilians and British prisoners of war in Graudez area. Recollections of period as armourer with German Air Force in Germany, France and Netherlands, 1942-1945: story of working on armament of Messerschmitt Me 262 in Saxony, Germany, 1944; role as armourer, 1942; drill training in Cambrai-Douai area, France, 1942; period training as armourer at Dresden; servicing weapons at Berlin-Doberitz, Germany, 1943; transfer to coastal defence duties with German Air Force Field Divisions at Dunkirk, France; attempts to get dance band music on British Broadcasting Corporation radio broadcast; trip wire defences on beach.
REEL 3 Continues: defences at Bray-Dunes, France, 1944; attack on position by Royal Air Force Supermarine Spitfire, 1944; move to training camp near Bordeaux, 4/1944; move to Arles, France for air defence duties, 7/1944; transfer to Germany for work on Messerschmitt Me 262, 1944; regrouping camp at Bergen, Germany and reaction to not being sent to Eastern Front; move to Arnhem, Netherlands, 11/1944; danger from faulty V1 Flying Bomb; airborne training in Germany, 12/1944; stationing at Emmerich am Rhein, Germany, winter 1944-1945; under artillery fire Rees on River Rhine, Germany, 1945; period in nunnery at Kaifenheim, Germany; capture by British Army troops, Winnekendonk, Germany, 2/3/1945. Recollections of period as prisoner of war in Netherlands, Belgium and France, 3/1945-5/1946: confinement in cellar at Tilburg, Netherlands; nature of interrogation methods.
REEL 4 Continues: period in prisoner of war camp in Brussels, Belgium; work parties in Caen and Audrieux, Normandy, France; change in level of treatment of German prisoners of war after VE Day, 8/5/1945; business he started selling lighters; camps in Ranville-Bayeux area, Normandy, France; move to prisoner of war camp at Jabbeke, Belgium; policy of camp commandant to feed German prisoners of war on diet German Jews in concentration camp had been given, 1946. Recollection of period as prisoner of war in GB, 5/1946-12/1948: arrival in Tilbury, 19/5/1946; building up of strength of prisoners of war at Leicester, 6/1946-8/1946; anti-German behaviour of civilians in Leicester, 1946; farm work in Yorkshire Dales; relations with civilians in Yorkshire Dales; shooting rabbits with farmer; contact with home; clock and watch repairs carried out for civilians, 1946-1947; nature of relations between German prisoners of war and civilians.
REEL 5 Continues: job as interpreter in prisoner of war camp at Withernsea; story of meeting future first wife in Withernsea, 1947; banning of prisoners of war from port of Kingston upon Hull; clock repairing business; transfer to prisoner of war camp at Kilnsea; sea defence work, 1947; advice from South African officer about prisoners of war learning English language; learning English language; farm work in East Yorkshire; German prisoner of war disbelief about conditions in concentration camps; quarry work at Skipton, 1/1948; winter conditions, winter 1947-1948; release from captivity 12/1948. Aspects of period as former prisoner of war in GB, 1949-1951: farm work in Rugeley; return to East Yorkshire; problems ex-German prisoners of war had obtaining employment in industry; settling down in GB and naturalisation, 1951; attitude to having served in Second World War; prior recollection of how he got into trouble with authorities in Germany for playing English dance music.
REEL 6 Continues: attitude to having settled in GB including sense of now being an Englishman and his contributions to English life.
