Berthold Schwabe [Reenacting Persona]

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Sturmgeist
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Berthold Schwabe [Reenacting Persona]

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My name is Berthold "Schnapps" Schwabe and I was born on June 22, 1927 in the small town of Weibeck in Niedersachsen.

My father, Jürgen Schwabe, was a firefighter for the city of Frankfurt an der Oder until a debilitating knee injury forced him out of work at the age of thirty. While hospitalized, he met my Italian mother, Rosalina Mazzella, and the two quickly fell in love and happily married in 1923. They lived in a small apartment together as my father attempted to restart his career as a musician. Although my parents were able to pull in money from my father's marginal pension and my mother's secretary salary, it wasn't enough. Desperate for employment, my parents travelled westwards to Niedersachsen to work for our family friends, the Bredemeiers. My father is very good friends with Herr Bredemeier, whom he had first met during his military service in the war.

In Weibeck, the Bredemeiers own an enormous farm from 1537 known as Rittergut Stau. Rittergut Stau is so big that it takes up the majority of the town's land and is surrounded by ancient barns and fields of golden wheat. The property is absolutely breathtaking. Extremely generous, the Bredemeiers offered my parents rooms, food, and money in exchange for their services as farm hands. It was the most beautiful opportunity. Eventually, the summer of 1926 rolled around and I was born, luckily for my parents, an only child.

Growing up on Rittergut Stau, I became very skilled in the farming trade and really enjoyed working with the animals. The Bredemeiers had two sons, Moritz and Fabi. Moritz is only a few months older than I and Fabi is two years younger. Today, I consider Moritz my brother - we were ALWAYS together. Probably our favorite chore was helping out during the harvest. We'd go out into the fields with the cows and Herr Bredemeier's new Lanz Bulldog tractor and we'd collect all of the grain. It was strenuous work and took weeks, but paid off well in the end. Being surrounded by food ensured full meals, too: there were huge beet fields, miles of crops, and tons of animals.

I don't remember much from my very early life, but I was six when the National Socialists revised everything. I remember my parents and the Bredemeiers getting together to listen to the Führer’s radio broadcasts. Being so young, I didn't really understand what was happening, but I remember feeling very positive vibes. Everyone was ecstatic and extremely patriotic. Although my father was (and remains) certainly supportive of his country, he wasn't really convinced by the National Socialists. However, he still voted for them; rationalizing that it was at least a step in the right direction and would, perhaps, solve our terrible depression. He was always a bit of a cynic and instructed me at an early age to question authority. He is a bit of an "unconventional" father, but he and I have a great bond.

At age ten, Moritz and I joined the Deutsches Jungvolk together, and later, at age 14, the Hitlerjugend. I thought it was fun but it wasn't really my thing - Moritz really liked the shooting and whatever we did involving aviation. I found myself too often rebellious and being scolded for stupid things. I much rather preferred to socialize with my friends and party. The war definitely hit my family hard, though. My mother's younger brother was killed in an automobile accident while stationed in Poland in 1940, so naturally she was very distraught and began to flip out at everything military-related. Regardless, I loved to look at all of the military equipment and always spoke to the local recruiters. The sharp look of the marching boots and fashionable uniforms really made an impression on me. My father held his tongue but I always had a feeling that he was a bit apprehensive about me signing up.

I went to Schiller Gymnasium in Hameln and failed terribly in maths and sciences, but really proved myself in history and linguistics. I studied English in incredible depth and became pretty good at it, once even attempting to keep in touch with some family we had in America. I really loved American culture and movies and it was once a bit of an obsession of mine, regardless of the turbulent politics going on at the time. My favorite eras to study at Schiller were the Renaissance and the Enlightenment - they were such great rebirths of beautiful ideas and really reminded me of what was happening in Germany at the time. Cultural revolution!

By age sixteen we had a pretty solid group of pals. Moritz and I and our other friends would always meet up with the local girls and relax by the local Kiesteich, hit up the Kinos, or go out clubbing. We had a great group in our wolf pack: Grosskurth, Holst, Lange, Koch, and Rohmann. Whatever we did, we always had a grand time and somehow found a miraculous way to survive all of our adventures. We frequently took trips together to Celle for the clubs - often returning home, barely alive, with the sun shining. It was beautiful.

The shitty part of these times was that the bombings were getting worse and worse, the death tolls higher and higher. I always thought that Germany was going to be protected during this period. Why were we again the victims? This was difficult for us to understand and we were all very frustrated…determined to enlist as soon as possible.

My passion was photography, but it was very hard for me to work this into my life professionally. I stole my two cameras from a damaged local shop during one of our more mischievous nights and was able to keep my mother oblivious by simply telling her I was borrowing them from a friend. I loved to shoot portraits and even once had a few rolls of color film, although those supplies have since completely dried up. It's even difficult to find normal film these days! One of the girls from the group we met with, Marie Schrader, often posed for me. She and I hit it off pretty well but I wouldn't quite say that we were in a relationship - more of a "thing", so to say. She was drop-dead beautiful and lived in Fischbeck, literally a five minute bike ride from Rittergut Stau. I was very grateful for her willingness to pose for the more "artistic" shots.

In July of 1943, with the help of Herr Bredemeier's connections, I was able to score an amazing job as a waiter at a nightclub in Hameln known as the Mosquito. The place was really stingy but was a great place to work, any sixteen year old couldn't complain. It was the most popular joint in the city and there was always a great show with very heavy Cabaret influence. Before every show, our MC would introduce the many scantily-clad girls, at which point the crowd would go wild. Most of these girls were prostitutes and we also offered private rooms above the establishment for their clients. A lot of additional illegal business went on under the tables at the Mosquito, mostly related to drugs and firearms. In 1943 alone there were two shootings in the club, one of which was fatal. I had a special hiding place under the main bar for these scenarios, although not even that offered enough protection; my hand was once injured from a piece of wooden shrapnel during one shooting for which I was unfortunately present. I was also able to make some extra money under the table from my boss for delivering sealed parcels to local addresses. I never knew the contents.

In August of 1944 a returning Allied bomber flying westwards dropped the rest of its pay load near our property, with a bomb actually hitting one of our barns. A fire started, which quickly spread to the horse stalls. As hard as we tried, we weren't able to put out the flames fast enough and many of the horses burned to death before our eyes. Mortified, Moritz and I agreed to enlist in the armed forces. The only problem was that we both weren't eighteen yet, and our parents refused to sign the paperwork. A series of intense arguments broke out at Rittergut Stau over the course of the following week, ultimately resulting in Moritz and I running away together. We grabbed a ride with a friend to Hameln, and purchased two tickets for the next train to Berlin with the idea that we could temporarily stay with family there.

Traveling through the larger towns, the effects of the war seemed to grow greater and greater. In Berlin, we slept outside the Hauptbahnhof and were astonished by how war-torn the once-beautiful city really was. We then quickly switched trains to Frankfurt an der Oder, where we stayed with a cousin of mine for a few days. We forged our paperwork and voluntarily enlisted. Moritz wound up in some obscure air signals regiment, likely due to his love for aviation. After my medical examination, I trained with 1. Kompanie, Grenadier-Ersatz-Bataillon 337 at the Hindenburg Kaserne and was later transferred to 9. Kompanie, Grenadier-Regiment 8. (mot.). While in training, I reopened contact with my parents and we began to exchange letters. My father actually sent me 120 roll film and his wristwatch, figuring I would have more use for it than he.

I was sent straight to the front and arrived in Metz, France in October. My new division was now on reserve and consisted of a mix of many battle-hardened soldiers and new recruits, such as myself. Although I was trained in the textbook aspects of being a soldier, I knew nothing about actually being at the front. I was given a scrap metal insignia and was instructed to sew it to my hat, it was our unit emblem! Later, I received the nickname "Schnapps" when, during the procurement of some beverages in an abandoned fortress, an Obergefreiter by the name of Marek encouraged me to drink a bottle of the sweet liquor. I soon became very drunk and it was (apparently) a great laugh. The nickname stuck and luckily the hangover didn't. While on reserve, I also caught my first glimpse of American POWs. This was incredibly intriguing for me, and I gave an attempt at my English. The prisoners didn't respond, though; I figured they were too in shock or my English was simply atrocious. I resorted to simply taking pictures of them.

Later on, we withdrew to Aachen where I experienced combat for the first time. I was absolutely terrified, at once almost blacking out under the stress. However, the engagements seemed more and more natural as they became further rhythmical. The first American I killed was a husky fellow. He fell immediately after I fired my rifle at his burlesque figure from about a 400 meter distance. When the fighting had ceased, a few friends and I ventured out to find the man. He had crashed through a doorway and onto his stomach, and when we attempted to turn his body over, his lifeless head fell back and a grotesque combination of black blood and saliva drooled from his mouth and across his face. We immediately turned, I vomited. It was horrifying and plagued my dreams for the next week.
Several weeks later, while on a night patrol with a comrade of mine (no one I personally knew, thankfully), we accidentally ventured into our own mine field. We were suddenly stuck in our own defenses and had no idea of how to maneuver ourselves. We were luckily more distant from each other when he triggered a landmine. The explosive sprung into the air and suddenly detonated at the height of his chest with a deafening boom. The terrible flash, which briefly exposed his tearing limbs in the deep darkness of the night, seemed to light the entire field for a split second. A hunk of steel struck me in my right elbow, and in my terror I threw my rifle into the air, my gear to the ground, and ran as fast as I could in the direction from which we came, totally ignoring the danger which surrounded me. Primal instincts had overcome my body and when I eventually got to the dirt road which marked the safety zone, I uncontrollably fell to my knees and sobbed. Another patrol who had heard the explosion soon rescued me from my torment and got me to an aid station where I was treated for my wound. I was able to have my lost weapon and equipment secretly replaced by a few buddies of mine while still recovering. I was also told that I had been recommended for the Verwundetenabzeichen, the Infanterie Sturmabzeichen, and a promotion. However, these things haven’t come yet as there has been little time for award ceremonies.

My record was reviewed by Gefreiter Stahl, an odd clerk who keeps rambling about artifacts in the ground and lights in the sky, and I was reassigned to field kitchen duty. Apparently, this reassignment was based off of my professional background as a waiter, or so I was told. That is where I find myself today, working under Unteroffizier Speiser and happy to be away from the constant fighting. I feel a bit saddened that I have somewhat abandoned my comrades, but I am still prepared to pick up my rifle and join the fight when need be.

The rumors are that we will soon be moving to the Ardennen. It's getting colder.
Brendan
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erikbozwo2
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Re: Berthold Schwabe [Reenacting Persona]

Post by erikbozwo2 »

Takes a while to read but I think it's one of the better posts in this sub forum. Looks like somebody really put some effort in :wink: .
CDB taking it way too serious!
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