Unlikely Warrior. A Jewish Soldier in Hitler's Army

268 Pages·2015·2.55 MB·English

by  Georg Rauch

In my dress uniform in Vienna before departing for Russia.

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To Phyllis
For steering me away from mediocrity
and sharing forty years of dreams
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
List of Illustrations
Foreword
Major Events on the Eastern Front
Map
Prologue
Part One
Secrets in the Attic
The Journey East
Introduction to the Trenches
The Hardest Thing
Marianovka—The First Battle
According to Haas
A True Russian Winter
Into Romania
Long Hot Summer on the Dniester
Romanian Respite
The Iron Cross
The Last Battle
Part Two
In Russian Hands
The Events at Balti
Kiev—Pushkin’s Request
Encounter with a Spoon
The Reluctant Spy
The German Plot
Part Three
Homeward
Vienna
End of the Odyssey
Author’s Note
Glossary of German Words
Glossary of Russian/Ukrainian Words
About the Translator
Copyright
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
All drawings by the author are from his wartime letters, unless otherwise noted.
In Vienna before departure to Russia
Map of Campaigns and Captivity
“Marching to battle” (drawing by the author)
The author shortly before being drafted
With fellow recruits
The author’s mother at seventeen
The author with Mutti in 1933
The author’s great-great-grandfather
Luise Tauber, Moses’s daughter and author’s great-grandmother
Luise Tauber and husband, Josef Samuel Tauber
Melanie Tauber with her two sisters in Vienna
Author’s grandmother Melanie Amalie Tauber
Melanie Tauber Wieser with author’s mother in 1891
Maximilian Rauch, “Papi”
Map of the Ukraine, hand-drawn by author’s father
“Russian village hut interior” (drawing by the author)
“Two socks, two holes” (drawing by the author)
“A holiday in Russia” (drawing by the author)
The communications squad
Konrad, Baby Schmidt, and the author
“Endless journey” (drawing by the author)
“Prisoners’ march” (drawing by the author)
“Sleeping methods” at a POW camp (drawing by the author)
“Self-portrait” (drawing by the author)
“Marching west” (drawing by the author)
“Man with bird” (drawing by the author, 1989)
FOREWORD
In 1984, exactly forty years after my husband’s Russian experience, he began
writing this memoir. A chance event led to Georg’s opening the letters that he
had written to his mother all those years before. Soon thereafter, Georg left his
art studio (a rare event) and began to write. He wrote seven days a week, by
hand on yellow legal pads, and read each day’s pages to me as we sat on the
terrace of our home in Mexico, overlooking Lake Chapala, every afternoon. The
next day I translated them into English.
Georg was a total extrovert who loved to laugh and joke. He was a tireless
raconteur and easily the center of attention at most social gatherings. Some of his
war experiences also figured in his dinner party stories. I had heard the tale
related in the early chapter “The Hardest Thing” a number of times before. But
the afternoon he read this part of the book aloud to me on the terrace, he began
to sob. It may have been the only time I ever saw him cry.
Obviously, the ten years he spent after the war creating expressionist
paintings featuring sad men, clowns, and harlequins had not quite achieved the
cathartic results he had believed. There were still memories as well as feelings of
grief, shame, guilt, and despair to be confronted and dealt with—this time not on
a canvas, but in words. Only in retrospect do I understand that Georg’s intense
days of writing were not just another example of his disciplined nature. He had
to get it out. And he had to get it over with.
Had I understood this more fully, I might not have chafed so much under his
constant demands to see the English translation. Although I am fluent in
German, I purchased two fat German dictionaries in order to deal with a
completely new vocabulary, words about battles and weapons, uniforms and
ranks. It was slogging, intense work, and sometimes we quarreled when he told
me I wasn’t translating fast enough. Now, more than thirty years later, I
understand much better what was fueling his demands.
Georg sometimes gave an additional explanation for why he wrote the book.
Many of his art collectors were Jewish. When we met these people,
conversations often led to Georg’s history. He sensed that some people were
perplexed, or worse, when they heard that he had been in Hitler’s army. He said
he hoped by writing the book, he could set the record straight. Georg identified
as Jewish. He knew and often quoted the fact that Jews adhere to the maternal
line—which in his case was unbroken. His family members were treated as
second-class citizens, and it was only the fact of his Aryan father’s prior war
service that kept him and his mother out of the camps.
The book in manuscript form was passed on to scores of friends and visitors
to our B&B in Mexico. Many told us that Georg’s story needed telling more
widely. We finally agreed, and in July of 2006, twenty-two years after he wrote
the manuscript, we self-published a first edition of it ourselves. Georg lived
another four months, until November.
Seven years later, on the exact date of his passing, I was lighting the candles
on my Mexican Day of the Dead altar, when the phone rang. It was my amazing,
indefatigable literary agent, Emmanuelle Morgen. I heard her voice for the first
time as she said, “I have some news for you.” I replied, “It has to be good.” Thus
I learned that thanks to Emmanuelle, my thirty-year dream had come true. Our
book was on its way to the world and the readership it deserved. My affection
for my editor, Wesley Adams, began with his wholehearted (and continuing)
enthusiasm for Georg’s book. I have come to appreciate his perfectionism, but
also his willingness to compromise. He is a true gentleman, but best of all, he
makes me smile. Could an author be any luckier?
Georg Rauch believed that as long as you could laugh at something, its
power to harm you was reduced. In his letters home from Russia, he often tried
to find the funny side of things in what were, in reality, very unfunny situations.
He takes the same approach in these pages, and the result is a unique tale of one
clever, multitalented nineteen-year-old who rose above his situations, put his
many wits to use, and survived to tell it all.
—Phyllis Rauch