Private Svoboda

Private Svoboda

Hope Is The Last To Die

Steven R. Roberts

With

Alexander von Svoboda

Private Svoboda

Hope Is The Last To Die

"This is the story of survival by an Austrian boy soldier trained at 14 to kill or be killed in the brutal fighting on the Eastern Front of World War II. This is my story."

— Obergrenadier Alexander von Svoboda

Private Svoboda

Hope Is The Last To Die

Second Edition 2014

Copyright © 2013 by Steven R. Roberts

Smashwords Edition

All Rights Reserved

No portion of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or in any manner, (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission from the author, except for short quotations in reviews or essays.

ISBN: 978-0-9844028-7-8 (pb)

978-0-9844028-6-1 (dj)

Published by:

Rouge River Press

5 Gleneagles Court

Dearborn, Michigan 48120

Sculpture photos courtesy of Alexander von Svoboda

Drawings by Alexander von Svoboda

Steven R. Roberts’ books are available through most eBook retailers and the author’s web site: www.steverroberts.com

Acknowledgements

This is the story of a 14-year-old soldier in the German Wehrmacht on the brutal Eastern Front in the final days of WWII. The book is based on the actual experiences of Private Alexander von Svoboda during his war years of 1944 and 1945.

For me, this book started with a phone call in the spring of 2012. My good friend Hal Schaal had met an 84-year-old Austrian who had been drafted in the winter of 1944 out of his 8th grade school classes into Hitler’s Army. The boy and his classmates had been sent to fight on the Eastern Front where they faced the reality of a raging and brutal war. Based on Hal’s recommendation I agreed to meet with Alex to discuss his story. The results are captured in this creative non-fiction book.

The story was developed based on a series of interviews with Alex, exchanges of many materials on the war and my research. Alex wanted the reader to look over his shoulder as he struggled to stay alive another day during his year and a half of unimaginable hell. Alex and I met on Thursdays where I received his answers and reactions to lists of questions I developed from my research. With deference to my hometown author and media personality, Mitch Albom, this effort could have been called Thursdays With Alex.

The thread of the story has been verified with available research into Alex’s days in the war as well as the events and initiatives taken by the German, Russian and Allied armies during the final year and a half of the war. In some cases events have been combined and the dialogue has been created to fit probable real interchanges. The characters represent real individuals moving in and out of Alex’s life during the war.

In writing this book, I received considerable support and advice from many people including my editor, Sandra, as well as from readers Joan, Jane, the other Jane, Bob, Dixie and Jim. Thanks also go out to the members of the Naples’ Writers Forum who commented on early draft segments. Thanks to all of you the book has been greatly improved.

Thanks, of course goes to Hal, for the making me aware of Alex’s story. To the star of the book, Alex, I say, many thanks for the time you gave me, the courage you displayed in recalling your painful journey and for working to make sure I understood the details. Your story is a reminder of the inhumanity, futility and insanity of war and the impact on its participants. It is also an inspiration for those who fight to survive against overwhelming odds, especially for those caught up in battles they do not choose.

Foreword

"He who owns the youth, gains the future."

Adolf Hitler, creator of the Hitler Jungend in 1926 for boys 13 to 18 leading to the creation of Deutsches Junvolk for boys 10 to 13 and Bund Deutscher Madel for young girls.

On July 22, 1941, Hitler’s forces launched the largest, most powerful military invasion force in human history. On that date, German forces, in a campaign code named Barbarossa, crossed the Russian border on a broad front with the goals of capturing or destroying three key objectives: the port of Leningrad in the north, Moscow in the center and Stalingrad near the oil fields of the south. In the two years following the invasion, German forces successfully achieved or approached their goals. Such successes came with devastating losses of men and military equipment caused by a combination of the freezing extremes of Russian winters, attacks from revengeful partisans, as well as being outnumbered more than two to one by Russian soldiers and military machines.

In the fall of 1943 and winter of 1944, however, the war’s momentum turned as the Soviets launched major winter offensives sending 2.5 million soldiers and 6,000 tanks and related artillery against the Wehrmacht Army Group Centre. Russian summer offensives would later result in colossal defeats on the northern and southern fronts putting the army of the Axis powers, led by Germany, on the defensive. By the early winter of 1944, the German military was desperate to replace fallen troops and reorganize fighting units for one last chance to stop the Red Army and turn the war again.

As a result, draft notices were issued for 14 and 15 year olds to leave their 8th and 9th grade school classes and join the cause. These young men, most of whom had attended the Hitler Youth camps, starting at 13 years of age, were quickly trained as killing machines. Draft notices to even younger children (as well as senior citizens) were issued by both armies in the final days of the war. Twelve-year-old boys were eventually drafted in Russia.

The conflict resulted in unspeakable losses of life on both sides. The massive number of deaths on the Eastern Front is still debated but several reports estimate the Soviets lost 10.6 million troops while the German-led Axis powers suffered 5 million lives lost. In its wake, the destruction of thousands of Russian cities and villages left 25 million Soviets homeless.

This book traces the journey of one of the young men drafted at 13 into Hitler’s Youth and at 14 into Hitler’s army and sent to the Eastern Front. His struggle to kill instead of being killed and to make sense of who he is, speaks to the wretched nature of war.

German Army Operation Barbarossa

Army Groups North, Centre and South, Launched June 22, 1941

This map has been released to the public domain worldwide by its author,

Carlisle-www.army.mil with no conditions.

Table of Contents

The Naked Truth

Stendal Air Base

The Eastern Front

Group Centre Army

The Reconstructed Sixth

The Steppe

Berlin

L’viv, Ukraine

Lost

Hungry

Captured Alive

Camp Novosibirsk

The Jump

A Thousand Steps

The Herders

The Hunters

Gypsy Brick Makers

The War Zone

Walding

Our Hope

Epilogue

Other Books by Steven R. Roberts

About the Author

The Naked Truth

Winter 1944 – Jumping down from the train, we line up outside the military induction center. The train station, done in polished oak, cut stone and glass, has historically received the wealthy and powerful of Europe to the mineral bath resort of Bad Ischl, Austria. The station has been converted to receive recruits headed for military boot camp, located on the side of the tracks opposite the station. This morning, my schoolmates and I are part of two hundred and fifty excited and apprehensive 14-year-old boys from three Austrian middle schools. Anxious and heroic, we are about to become soldiers in the war against the enemies of the fatherland. Nervous laughter takes our minds off the deep snow around our boots and the freezing cold of the morning.

A sergeant, stiff and creased, appears and shouts orders bullying us into four ragged rows. We stand in place tall and proud, feet together, skinny chests forward, our backs straight as we were taught last year in the Hitler Youth camps. The sergeant steps back inside the dull green-colored building and we stand without instructions for an hour. The windows of the one-story building with a snow-covered roof are blocked off with paper so we can’t see what is going on inside. The cold wind dulls our enthusiasm for this adventure a bit. Smiling and grinning at our friends, we stomp our feet to help circulation and rock side to side sometimes bumping into each other. A boy two down the row to my right is hit in the back of the head with a snowball, and a shoving match breaks out knocking two of the rows out of order. A kid somewhere down to my left has the nervous giggles and eventually falls to his knees. Teenage excitement. As for me, I need to pee.

The door to the large barracks-like structure opens with a bang against the outer wall and a different sergeant, this one short with glasses and the stepped-on face of a bulldog, struts out on the front deck and paces back and forth. His worn black leather jacket is creased like his face, his dark olive-colored helmet the shade of his pressed trousers.

Stillgestanden! (Attention) clips the sergeant. Dead quiet happens. My nerves are growing tighter. I confirm my alignment out of the corner of my eye.

Turning slowly, the bulldog stares at us in disgust, clicking the heels of his long black boots. Squinting, as if fixing his gaze on me alone, he stands and pounds his swagger stick over and over into the palm of a leather glove.

You will now undress! he shouts. You will remove everything, fold your clothes and set them on top of your boots. We will dispose of these items in the village. Those who survive screening will be issued uniforms of the Wehrmacht, the greatest army in the world.

Already trembling in my clothes, I turn and look down the row to make sure I’d heard the command correctly. There is a moment of mutual hesitation followed by a flurry of activity as we all stand in place and undress. Naked and shivering in the freezing winter wind, the snow oozes between my toes. I am surprised at this initial lack of civility. Finding the situation so bizarre at first as to be amusing, some smile broadly and stretch their arms toward the sky then fold them tightly against their chests. Most of us hold our arms straight down and tight to the body, clasping our hands in front of our privates. Standing between Hans and Karl, two friends from my 8th grade class at school, I sneak a nervous smile as the sergeant goes back inside the building, letting the door slam shut.

Wow, Karl says through his teeth, we will soon become naked statues. Hope they don’t make us sit down out here. A frozen butt is hard to thaw. I smile as unwelcome wetness comes to my eyes and starts to freeze on my eyelids. Our breath hangs frozen in the air as we stare at the door of the building, suddenly the focus of our hope for relief. To our left snow has drifted two meters high against the west wall of the building and icicles hang a meter long from the roof’s edge. Behind the building and to the right is a snow-covered mountain with tall evergreens at its base. Sergeant Bulldog emerges several frozen minutes later and we are relieved to be ordered inside.

Filing into a large room I see officers sitting at tables along two walls. The room is only slightly warmer than outside, minus the wind. The sergeant assembles us in rows down the middle of the room. I can hear soldiers outside scooping up our clothing and boots, throwing them into a moving truck. Inside, there are quiet discussions by those sitting at the tables while not much happens for a half hour. Despite the cold, my friend, Gunther, is one of three boys whose nerves cause him to get aroused. The bulldog, ever vigilant, steps quickly down the lines and brings his swagger stick down, causing thin, high-pitched screams from the three victims. Gunther groans and falls to his knees in a fetal posture, raising his wire-rimmed glasses to his forehead. He blinks madly at his tears. Hunching his shoulders, he dries his face with sleeves that aren’t there.

You will get used to the cold, the sergeant shouts, more as a command than as helpful information. Gunther struggles to stand and remains bent over, hands on his knees, straight blond hair hanging over his face. You will learn to survive in the wilderness on your own. You will train your mind to be indifferent as to temperature. Your body will respond to killing opportunities in the bitter cold or you will be an enemy’s dream come true.

Two days earlier, February 7, 1944, my classmates and I were in our wood-carving class at the all boys Hauptschule for the Arts in Hallstatt, Austria. The school was for boys interested in the art of carving, sculpting and design, mostly in wood. It was located on Lake Hallstatt, a 100 kilometer ride south from Linz and around 50 kilometers east of Salzburg. Like many of my classmates, I had been enrolled to get me away from the Allied bombing targets of the German and Austrian weapons manufacturing cities. Before being transferred to Hallstatt, I had been attending school in Linz where my family maintained an apartment.

As Hallstatt 8th-graders rooming together on the third floor of a sparse dorm, my friends and I were mostly concerned with homework, teachers, homesickness, rationed food, and sledding down the mountains on weekends. The teacher, Master Schnell, was lecturing on sculpture design that day when the school’s headmaster knocked and came into our class. The headmaster was a tall, imposing man with a stern voice and demeanor. Standing at the teacher’s desk next to Master Schnell, he called each student forward to receive a long brown envelope. He said all 18 of us had been drafted into the German army. He gestured for us to open the envelopes.

As we studied the notifications, Master Schnell raised his hand to quell the chatter. A train was to leave for boot camp at 6 am the next morning. We were directed to leave class immediately, clean our rooms, and pack. We were also told to attend a special church service that night and write a letter home to our mothers. The letter was to say we would be home as soon as the war was over and that we would be careful. I gathered my materials including the small linden wood box I had been carving as a class project. I had just finished carving a design in the four sides of the box the previous evening. It was regrettable not having a chance to get a grade on my work.

No more school, Wolfgang shouted, as our boots crunched though crusted snow on our way to the dorm.

Goodbye school, Karl said. May a landslide dump you into Lake Hallstatt. Now maybe we can get a good meal. We laughed and started running toward the dorm.

Sorry, Hallstatt, Karl said, but we must go now and save the world.

We had been following news about the war for four years. Radio reports out of Berlin indicated the campaign was going well for the Axis powers but apparently it was in need of our services to keep it that way. The honor of fighting for one’s country and the glory of victory had been drilled into us in the Hitler Youth camps during our sixth and seventh years of school.

Most of us were anxious to join the war, especially my friend, Hans. We had met at Hallstatt on my first day as he was coming down the dorm stairs and I was going up. Ever since, we had been good friends. Hans, a romantic dreamer, was the most excited about this chance to change the world. Unlike most of us Hans kept his hair cut short, more of a shopkeeper style. His high cheekbones and narrow blue eyes made him look skeptically at the world even when I think he wasn’t.

Raised by strict parents, his father was a Munich surgeon until the war and his mother worked in administration at the St. Peters Catholic church. As the only boy in our class fluent in English, he was relied on for the status of the war according to the BBC. The problem was that reception from Britain was intermittent or not at all. Hans frowned at Karl and me as we did a mock military march to the old church at the foot of the lake for the six o’clock service.

In church Karl, Hans and I sat with classmates Kurt, Wolfgang, Manfred, and Gunther for the special mass. The congregation read passages of the Bible and prayed for us. We sang along as the organ played low and the six-woman choir did The Austrian Hymn –Glorious things of thee our spoken city of our God… Wolfgang sang the loudest, wavering off and on pitch most of the way. Mother had always said those most in need of forgiveness and salvation had to sing the loudest to make sure they got God’s attention.

The group was quiet on the walk to the dorm. I pulled my scarf close around my neck against the cold of a light snow. Back in my room, I took a blank page out of my sketchbook and sat down at a small oak table to write to my mother. I assured her that I would be careful, keep my clothes neat and do what I was told. With the excitement of the adventure of going to war, I struggled to keep my nerves in check well enough to write.

Actually, my school friends and I felt like veterans of this war business after a year of training in the Hitler Youth camps. Being a nature lover, I had been eager to learn the ways of warriors trained to be always alert to danger, always ready to jump, to attack at a moment’s notice, and live off the land. I excelled at the camps due to early experiences roaming the woods and streams near my house with my friend, Loisl. Before I was ten years old he taught me how to build a fire that didn’t smoke, fish in the stream with my hands and carve hunting tools out of branches. Loisl’s family was very poor and he made me realize how blessed I was. During the winter he and his family slept in a loft over the sheep and pig stable to keep from freezing in their shack. Loisl taught me more about life than the camps could ever teach.

I packed my Hitler Jungend knife and scabbard and graduation certificates into my bag along with my first-place sharpshooter recognition badge. Training aside, I wondered if I would be up to the task of real war. I was nervous about killing a real target. Shooting a drawing of Ivan the Russian enemy near the heart every time was easy but would I hesitate to kill for real? Would I fight as a soldier or run? The anxious days ahead would tell.

Suddenly it occurred to me that I might not see my mother or grandmother, who lived with us, again. I got up from the table and paced in the chill of my small room. Warming my hands by rubbing them together, I held them under my desk lamp, the only heat. Mother’s letters had told me she and grandmother had moved to the family cottage in the small town of Walding where living off the land was more possible than in Linz. Her last letter said they were down to eating a diet of soup and bread. Rationing had caused her to sell pieces of jewelry and other assets for food and basic supplies. She complained of hurrying to the basement several times a day when the sirens warned of approaching Allied bombers. I can only imagine how hard this must be for my mother. Other than the hardship of having a husband off to war, mother had lived a rather easy life, one historically bestowed on European royalty.

Both mother and father had come from long royal lineage in Germany, Austria and Russia. They had been used to the life of castles and servants their whole lives. My father had gone away to war in 1939 and would eventually rise to the rank of General, winning the Knights Cross along the way. We received only infrequent visits from father during the war. He usually brought a gift, too small to be noticed or too large to be practical. I was thirteen when he stopped over at the house for a couple of days and presented me with a tiny tiger cub. Of course, I grew to love the tiger which grew to chew and become a real danger to all of us. As a result the tiger was given to a zoo and I was left with a broken heart. When my father gave us a visit, he would often send me outside to play. I could hear my parents arguing even clear down at the stream behind our house. Soon after that, father would be gone again. At times it seemed my parents didn’t want the work of having me around and so I developed a life communing with nature.

In my letter, I took care to spare mother from my current anxieties. One of mother’s earlier letters mentioned that father, serving as a general in the German army, had met on more than one occasion with Adolf Hitler. I guessed I would be working for Herr Hitler on this adventure. At the time, I hadn’t heard from my father or known his address for over a year.

I folded the letter and slipped it into an envelope.

7 February 1944

Dear Mother,

I just received the news that I have been drafted into the army, so I don’t know when I will be able to write again. Don’t worry about me, everything will be fine. I promise to be careful.

Before I leave I wanted to write to thank you for being my mother as you were when I was growing up. Thank you for shaping me into the person I am and for letting me believe I could be whomever I wanted to be, do whatever I wanted to do. Thank you for making me able to be a soldier going off to war for the fatherland.

Tell grandmother, "Ich liebe dich, Oma, Bin bald zuruck fur einige kuchen. (I love you Grandmother. I’ll be back for some of your cake.)

Thank you Mother for taking care of me when I was sick, even though you were sick too.

Thank you Mother for always having hope in me and telling me not to give up when I said I couldn’t do any more.

I am so proud to tell people you are my mother.

Your son, Alex

At 5:30 the next morning Master Schnell, bundled in his long brown coat and striped scarf, was at the dock collecting the letters and seeing that we got on the ferry boat crossing the lake in time for the train. He gave us a thin smile from the dock and a wave as we left Hallstatt for the last time. Some of the boys from the area said goodbye to their mothers. I had no one to see me off to war.

Goodbye Hallstatt, I whispered into the cold mist and fog of Lake Hallstatt.

The train was crowded with boys and men on their way to war but Hans, Karl, Wolfgang and I found seats near each other. We settled in for the ride bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, hugging our worldly possessions in tan canvas school bags on our laps. Around us quiet whispers of nervous laughter could be heard over the sound of the rails. Somewhere near the front of the car I could hear a boy crying. Hans and I tried to nap but Karl and Wolfgang rattled on about nothing. Karl repeated jokes we’d heard a million times. Wolfgang, a good-looking Berliner with long wavy black hair and gleaming black eyes, whispered a tale of his love exploits. He yawned and claimed to be tired after meeting a girl in the town on our last night in Hallstatt. We’ve heard Wolfie’s tall tales before and we’re well aware of what we privately call his romantic illusions.

I opened my eyes long enough to catch Karl’s grin. Yea, sure Wolfie, Karl said, and did this latest beauty have a name?

Putting two fingertips to his forehead, Wolfgang said, Oh yes, Eva Marie. I must say she had it all and in the right places. First thing I remember was that she looked across the room and gave me a wink. She walked right up to my table and asked if she could sit down. I gave her a smile, you know, and I said…

"You boys planning to join us on