The Constructed Mennonite - History, Memory, and the Second World War by Hans Werner

Author:Hans Werner
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: World War II, Social Science, Emigration & Immigration, Biographies, Mennonite, 1939-1945, Christianity, Religion, Manitoba, Military, World War, History
ISBN: 9780887554384
Publisher: Univ. of Manitoba Press
Published: 2013-04-01T04:00:00+00:00

8

The 401

The aim of locating my father’s story within the bigger story of the events of the Second World War was easier to achieve for the period between when Johann became part of the Heeres Artillerie Brigade (mot.) 401 in September 1944 and his capture by Allied forces in April 1945. The 401 was the only unit my father had clear memories of belonging to. In fact, listening to his stories of being a German soldier, it seemed he was part of the 401 for all that time.

His memories of the period when he was active on the front were never specific with reference to the larger story of the war. Only a general sense of the battles, times, and places in which my father participated could be gained from them. He did, however, have a story about the process of the 401 being assembled and then becoming an active unit. As he explained it, when a soldier was sent somewhere, he had to report to the army reporting centre in that area. In the formal interviews, he conveyed the sense of losing the power to decide where one was going. As he put it, “they just told you when the train left for a certain place, gave you a card, and you packed your backpack, and away you went.”1 In his case, he arrived at Strassitz and then was sent to Pilsen, where the 401 was being assembled. The unit needed Zugmaschine drivers, and he was one of them.

After being transferred to Pilsen, Johann’s battalion was outfitted with new equipment, and they began a month of training together as a unit. Here Johann also met a fellow soldier, Zachada, with whom he participated in many adventures and occasionally trouble. When I pressed my father for this friend’s identity, he could only recall that he was from Czechoslovakia, that his family was somehow connected to the name of the large arms manufacturer koda, that they always called him Zachada, and that his last name could have been Miller or something like that.

Sometime in the fall, the newly assembled unit became active. They all assembled at the train station, where their equipment was loaded, and off they went. Ordinary soldiers were usually not told exactly where they were headed and did not travel in great comfort. It was already cold, and Johann and the others sat in their machines and kept warm by using Esbit heaters. They were headed toward France, and the train travelled only at night and was occasionally delayed for a few hours while the track was repaired.2

I recall my father telling a story about the process of loading the trains that had more detail than the above anecdote taken from the formal interviews. Entraining the inexperienced unit was a mass of confusion, and many of the Zugmaschine drivers were not up to driving their large machines up the narrow ramps onto the train cars. An officer was yelling and swearing at the delays, so Johann offered to drive all the remaining machines onto the rail cars.

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