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interview // german // 2:49 Min // 18.06.2008
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It was a bagatelle that brought me in front of the court martial in Africa. If they had known what I really did, I would have been summarily executed. But as it was, I was taken to the court martial and condemned to the punishment battalion in Africa. That was horrible because you were totally isolated and because you were often sent out in front of the tanks – as cannon catch, so to say; near the Highfalla Pass, near Tobruk. I was seriously wounded after six weeks in the punishment battalion. I was unconscious for two days and then came to Athens and there my eye had to be removed. The one side of my face is paralysed because of this one injury. I was not fit for war any more and was then retrained as a radio operator. In spite of all my bad luck, this was the best that could happen, because radio operators were not only privileged. Due to their occupation they were able to listen to what BBC or the station ‘Freies Deutschland’ were broadcasting. Every radio operator did that, regardless whether he was a Nazi or an anti-fascist. Everyone did that, when searching for his remote station he had to contact as ordered to. If he came across any other station he listened into that. But that wasn’t the only thing a clever radio operator could do. He could also get in touch with another radio station where a comrade sat. My big advantage was that I gave and received the highest speed when I was retrained, that is to say 140 characters per minute, which was the police radio. The highest speed that was generally used in the ‘Wehrmacht’ was 120 characters, giving and receiving. Because I gave 140, I was of interest to the generals. They knew, the police radio was not intercepted by the ‘Gestapo’ and the ‘SS’. The generals who did not agree with Hitler, also wanted to correspond with each other via radio. For that they needed people who gave 140 characters - and I was one. Insofar I got to the highest post and had contact to generals, who were anything but anti-fascists. But they were objectors to Hitler for many reasons. As a radio operator I was able to do a lot more illegally than before and that went on until the end of the war.
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