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[WW] [DAK] The Beginning
Ok. Regard this as the mouth-watering period: Until we move to our own
list, I'll post here (or until somebody strongly objects). Whoever is
not there yet, better hurry up in order to avoid a court-martial.
__T_T__M
------\______/------- *for anybody wondering, that's the Bremen* ;-)
March 7th, 1941
The passage from Cartagena in Sicily on the Hapag Lloyd Freighter "Bremen" was
dreadful. 84 hours of high seas, three air raid warnings and the ever present
threat from british submarines had you cheer happily when you disembarked in
Tripolis.
There the Feldjaeger (Military Police) pointed you to the office where to present your
"Marschbefehle" (movement orders). The Feldwebel (sergeant) on duty told you
to hop on the LKW (truck) with the canvas top and off you are through narrow,
winding streets full with noisy, brown, unshoed children. They run up from behind
the LKW and try to sell fruit, mostly dates, whenever the truck has to stop for a
corner or a traffic jam.
Finally you arrive at a two-storied white-washed complex, obviously a small barracks. As you
dismount the truck and approach the entrance in the face of the structure you
notice that there is a desk in the shadow of the entranceway (which is large
enough for a drawn cart, but not a truck). Sitting behind it is a bored looking
Unteroffizier and half sitting on the table is a barrel chested Feldwebel.
"Kowalski" your driver yells. "Here is your platoon". Chuckling he takes off.
The barrel-chested man raises an eyebrow and surveys the small troupe that
hastily gets into line in front of him. When everybody has straightened their
jackets (which are way to warm) he approaches the line. Involuntarily you come
to attention.
"This must be a MISTAKE" the Feldwebel bellows. "I was expecting an infantry
platoon, not a sorry bunch of Pfadfinder (boy scouts)! Now tell me, where is
my platoon?"
You do not dare look around, but from the conversation on the truck you know,
that there were only ten soldiers, all Schuetzen, on it:
Ulrich Meilwes, a history student from Celle near Hanover,
Johannes Kaufmann, a wiry law student from Frankfurt,
Emil Piechadzek, a butcher from Dortmund,
Gregor Behning from Duisburg on the Rhine,
Xaver Freising, bearded farmer from Upper Bavaria,
Bodo Schmidt from Hamburg,
Karl Lavczek from the Sudetenland (part of Czechoslovakia),
Gunnar Koenig from East Prussia
and finally
Joerg Guenther and Christian Meyer.
What do you do now?
Mit freundlichen Gruessen,
Arne Reuter
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