Herr Potschies's Story
Life in Berlin during the War
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Herr Potschies started primary school at the age of seven. At this time his father was called up for the war. Hitler had been in power for six years.
At the beginning of the war, he joined the Hitler Youth Group. All other groups or clubs were closed, like the Boys Brigade. The children had no choice in the matter, whether they wanted to join or not. There were uniforms for summer and winter. The summer uniform consisted of black shorts, a brown shirt, an arm band with a lightning bolt design on it, shoulder pads and a haversack. The winter uniform consisted of a black boiler suit, shoulder pads, a military belt, and arm band with a haversack.
The
Hitler youth group was for 10 - 14 year olds. From 14 - 18 they would have
belonged to the Peoples youth group. These groups were used by Hitler to
brain wash the younger generation. They were marched, they had drill
practice, and even studied fighting tactics. Herr Potschies loved the
Hitler youth group when he first joined. They had barbeques and had
great fun. But when, in 1942, the bombs began to fall and it all became
real, it all changed and they had to work a lot harder. All the children
were evacuated into the middle of nowhere. In fact, Herr Potschies was
evacuated to East Prussia. In 1944, the Russians began to close in. Most
of the German children were taken to a camp in Czechoslovakia, which was
an old hotel. When they wanted to leave, like to have their hair cut, it
was all recorded in a book by a guard. It was all very strict.
In April 1945, all the children were put in a goods train to Bavaria. In the train there were 2000 children to go to Bavaria. In the morning they looked out of the window and saw a German fighter plane. Herr Potschies recalled: "We saw an American plane chasing the German fighter. Then the Americans saw the train and started firing at the train, all the children started jumping out. The boys saw the girls running across an open field. The boys knew this was stupid as they were making themselves an easy target, and the German pilot must have seen them and feared for their lives. The German pilot managed to distract the American and flew off, with the American following it. No one was injured, only the train". They walked over twenty kilometres every night to Bavaria. They stopped at a village held by the Americans, where they were taken captive. They were put in an old school, and given straw to sleep on, biscuits to eat, and water to drink. He managed to escape and make his way back to Berlin. There he was reunited with his family.
After the war, things were very hard in Berlin and a thriving Black Market grew up as a result. The black market was a place where all the Germans met and swapped their valuables for something like bread or potatoes. Herr Potschies knew the market trading was illegal but people would swap anything for food. Herr Potschies stated: "But if you saw an English policeman, someone would blow a whistle and everyone would run away but you could not miss them because they had a red hat and a white haversack around his chest."
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Page last updated: 25th February 2014