RESISTANCE IN THE GERMAN WEHRMACHT (LORENZ KNORR)

After the ‘Munich Agreement’ we had the 36 divisions, which marched into Czechoslovakia from all sides. Bohemia and Moravia were encircled by ’Großdeutschland’ from the north, west and south. At this time it was that for start you worked as a civilian and only when in 1939 the war began, the enlistments then started. I myself was not enlisted until the end of 1940, so that we had two years of time for the illegal work as civilians. Only then, when we had to join the ‘Wehrmacht’, where the only alternative would have been going to a concentration camp, the work in the ‘Wehrmacht’ started and the attempt to form anti-fascist cells, wherever you were standing in each case. Like many others of us, I was enlisted to the ‘Wehrmacht’ after doing illegal work for nearly two years, or the alternative would have been concentration camp. We discussed what we were going to do; either refuse to accept the enlisting order, meaning torture and concentration camp or agree that we have more opportunities as soldiers. That was our collective decision. So as a recruit I already had to do a probationary test as a soldier in the anti-fascist fight. My time as a recruit I was in Bayreuth and there was an illegal group. A commercial traveller, an anti-fascist who commuted between the borders, associated me with the anti-fascist group, there. For them I was a stranger, they wanted proof: How reliable is this man and what can he do? They said: “We need ammunition. Can you provide us with a box of hand grenades? We have explosives - not enough - but everything else is available!” It was a tough job, but during a transport I put aside a box of hand grenades at the risk of loosing my life and let them know. Three days later the district recruiting office in Bayreuth was blown up with the entire file. In the ammunition factory the most important machine was blown up and the most difficult: on the air field we blew up two out of three machines. It wasn’t me, that were the anti-fascists from Bayreuth, but I helped even as a recruit. The question was what you were able do as a soldier in an unfamiliar environment. We always tried to build anti-fascist cells and if it was one man or two. It was not easy to find out where somebody was, thinking the same as you. You had to proceed carefully with those questions. Sometimes somebody told a joke and you could tell by the kind of reaction: is he an opponent of fascism or is he disgusted when a joke against the Nazis is being told. Anyway tests were very often. Wherever I went, within short time I always had an anti-fascist cell in my unit, where I was as a soldier. That was a lot easier afterwards, after I was badly wounded and we tried as a small group to do what we could, like throw a spanner in the works a little bit; being aware that the single one cannot achieve a lot. But if something like that keeps happening frequently, it is not only a question of calming your conscience: I was against it; I have done something about it. On the other side you could show: “You cannot do what you want. We are here and we are keeping an eye on you!”

more clips: Contemporary witnesses of the Nazi-Regime • 1940 • Widerstand • Knorr, Lorenz
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