War diary of a young National Socialist

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In 2014 the German war diary Wolfhilde's Hitler Youth Diary 1939–1946 , written by the young Munich National Socialist Wolfhilde von König (1925–1993) , was published in Bloomington / USA in English translation . The diary was published in the meantime (2015) as part of a project “ The Private in National Socialism ” of the Institute for Contemporary History Munich-Berlin in the original language (German) with detailed scientific commentary under the title War Diary of a Young National Socialist. The records Wolfhilde von Königs 1939-1946 reissued.

Wolfhilde von Königs' Diary

  • Whatever may come, the German Reich, as it stands today, will no longer be smashed and no one will be able to tear it apart! Adolf Hitler

With this “motto” Hitler begins on August 22, 1939, nine days before the German attack on Poland , the diary in Munich , the capital of the movement . It ends there on November 8, 1946, the author's 21st birthday, and thus covers the entire duration of the Second World War and a year and a half beyond. The manuscript consists of five individual fonts, only the first three of which were decoratively bound by the author herself.

The war diary started by the Munich BDM girl at the age of 13 gives a comprehensive impression and overview of the events of the war from the immediate perspective of an adolescent with 634 entries, in particular the living conditions and work commitment of the Hitler Youth and the girls in the BDM. It tells, always under National Socialist indoctrination, of personal matters as well as international war events, as they were accompanied in parallel on radio and in the newspaper. She did not know anything about the background to the attack on Poland. Five years later, the motto for the 1944 drawings is:

  • Our only prayer to the Lord God should not be that He should give us victory, but that He should weigh us up justly in our courage, our bravery, our diligence and after our sacrifices. Adolf Hitler

Towards the end of the diary, Wolfhilde von König describes the bombing of the city of Munich that she witnessed . Her work assignments, under bleak conditions, were accompanied by media propaganda, the internalization of which Wolfhilde's writing style becomes clear. On October 23, 1944, when the air raid alert again, when the Total War had already started, the diary reads:

  • We hold up the enemy on all fronts, but he wants to force us to capitulate by all means, hence the intensified bombing war. We'll hold on because we have to.

On April 1, 1945 (Easter), after the Russians invaded Wiener Neustadt , it says:

  • One sees no holding and conquering. And the heart tells us: persevere. It is difficult to fight against the bad guys […].

There is nothing to be found in the diary about the Munich resistance group Weisse Rose and the Scholl siblings, as well as the negotiations about them in April 1946, although the author continued to write until November 1946 after the end of the war, whereby she went back and forth at the beginning of her medical studies under desolate Circumstances dealt with. She mentions the execution of the judgment of October 16, 1946 in the Nuremberg trial against the main war criminals briefly and without emotion four days later. It's her penultimate entry.

Again and again she worries about family and friends in her diary, especially about her brother Emanuel, the "Hitler Youth", known as Manü . The somewhat younger brother, in whose estate the diary was found in 2009 in the USA, to which he had emigrated, was LWH ("Air Force Helper ") and was drafted as a soldier in the total war at the age of 16. He himself describes this later in a supplement added to the diary by the editors of the American edition: Supplement to the Diary 1939–1946 by Emanuel Von König, as recalled in 2005 .

The war diary , written in Sütterlin script , is equipped with numerous photos of the Nazi and war years. These were all recorded, numbered and labeled by the editors of the American edition. The American print from 2014, which is provided with texts by the editors up to page 39, does not contain these, but many family photos are included.

In contrast, the German new edition from 2015 contains many of the original photo pages, plus the titles on the corresponding diary pages of the omitted ones. In addition to the detailed introduction, almost 600 individual scientific notes comment on the historical events referred to by the writer; there is also a list of sources and references, as well as an index of persons and a glossary.

In the BDM

Wolfhilde joined the HJ ( Hitler Youth ) in 1936, at the age of 10 and several months before the legal obligation , to which the BDM ( Bund Deutscher Mädel ) was affiliated, initially as JM ( Jungmädel ) up to 14 years, then in the BDM up to at the age of 18. Immediately after the start of the war, on September 4, 1939, the 13-year-olds first went to work to fill sandbags with Isar sand for fire protection .

As she repeatedly emphasizes, she completed the work that was done as a youth worker in the BDM alongside her school with great joy and commitment. On April 19, 1940, one day before the “ Führer’s birthday”, Wolfhilde von König, at the age of 14, received the young girl’s leader's badge of rank: a red and white cord on a kerchief knot. In early November 1940, it actively as JM-Schar leader, that promotion was on November 9, 1941 at Theresienhof ( Theresienwiese ) at a celebration for a total of 93 leaders by green cords confirmed after the annual ceremony followed the fallen. In addition to temporarily working in a factory, where the girls helped the workers so that they could have paid vacation, she signed up for the health service and was active in caring for the sick and wounded. In 1944 she was used in various places in the Alps, including in the auxiliary hospital in Berchtesgaden. She learned how to inject and took on other difficult tasks.

Her main place of employment was her hometown of Munich, where she attended school until she graduated from high school and often saw “her beloved leader” Adolf Hitler up close. Under the impression of the air raids on this city, she once noted in her diary the bombing of the cathedral and the “most beautiful Renaissance church in the world”, the Michael’s Church . Her missions in Munich after bombing raids were particularly stressful for her.

Culture

On the 1st of Advent 1940 the 14-year-old diary writer describes the 50th  request concert for the Wehrmacht in the presence of the high generals, Dr. Goebbels and the diplomatic corps , in which outstanding artists such as Marika Röck , Rosita Serrano , Zarah Leander as well as Italian and Japanese artists appeared whose names are not noted.

The girls themselves developed musical activity in the singing, which was intended to strengthen the feeling of togetherness during the marches, to accompany all of their work, but also to consist of demanding choirs (Bach, Gluck, Haydn) at concerts and festivals. On December 14, 1941 there was a concert in the Munich Odeon in front of a sold-out house , where, accompanied by winds from the Munich State Opera , they sang with great success from the creation of Joseph Haydn and others. Frequent participation of the groups in theater visits shows how intensively the cultural area was integrated into the entire " education under National Socialism ", mostly through the Hitler-Theaterring , but also through performances on city stages. Pieces with a classical claim such as Iphigenie auf Tauris (Goethe), Wilhelm Tell (Schiller), or - on December 16, 1940 - Friedrich Hebbels The Nibelungs, their life and death and others were on offer.

(Almost) private

WHW door badge 1936-37.jpg

Wolfhilde's style is very disciplined, “young girl feelings” can only be guessed at; the teenager writes very calmly, almost coolly with great seriousness and always careful to do justice to all events and to give all superordinate persons with honest praise. Once, on November 8, 1941, she briefly reports on the pleasure that her first dance lesson gave her. Since she did not have time to describe more details, she promised later, which was not done. This topic was brought up - this once only - at half an hour in the morning . She often writes out of a sense of duty, even when she is "dog tired".

On the other hand, she regularly describes the Christmas celebrations with devotion both in the family and in their groups, where they were staged as a National Socialist Christmas cult during the so-called Third Reich . On the Christmas tree picture from 1933 inserted in her diary, the swastika flag is attached to her brother Manü's play castle. The Christian Christmas Mass is mentioned for the last time in 1939, on December 24th at 12 noon. Every Christmas she talks about her handicrafts and making toys for the children; especially when the toy industry came to a standstill due to war events: doll clothes, stuffed animals, Christmas decorations, the proceeds of which went to the winter relief organization. Her particular craftsmanship and manual skills can still be recognized today by the hand-binding of the first parts of her diary, the last of which remained unbound.

Under the swastika

The style of writing in which she reports on the war events reflects Nazi propaganda in radio and newspapers. Their very first entries at the beginning of the war sound like verbatim propaganda:

“The decision has been made. The Führer has called his people to arms around German land, to protect their homeland and to defend them against their opponents. The Führer spoke in a tunic. In his great historical speech he said: “The German youth will solve the tasks assigned to them with a joyful heart. These words make us proud and confident for the time to come "."

Wolfhilde von König joined the NSDAP at the age of 17 , out of enthusiasm for the cause of Hitler, as her diary shows. One has to look for direct statements about it after the end of the war ; once, when she volunteered to clear the rubble of the war, she wrote that she did not do it voluntarily, but otherwise I am no longer allowed to study as a 'Nazi' . Afterwards, it makes a note of each member of the party receives a court hearing, his atonement in fines or personal imprisonment . On the subject of “ denazification ” on this passage in the diary, the editor makes a comment with literature evidence: Wolfhilde fell under the amnesty of youth. The attached photo from 1946, Fig. 21, shows female students clearing rubble within the destroyed walls of the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich.

meaning

[…] Wolfhilde von Königs’s complete records [are] an impressive and rare contemporary document , this is how the editor and publisher assess the war diary. One of the reasons for this is given by the immediacy of the writing down of the view of an enthusiastic young follower of Hitler, which was not only put on paper after the end of the war as memories in which the experiences could be presented from new perspectives. The degree and manner of indoctrination of National Socialist ideas with all entanglements in a “ believing ” young girl become visible. Also, only a few of the war records of girls and women published so far cover the entire war period, as in Wolfhilde von König's diary.

The scientific accompaniment of the diary entries in the notes contributes to the importance of the German edition. The entries and editor's comments on the year and a half after the war are also revealing. An example: Wolfhilde von Koenig's admission to medical studies after previous rejection is commented on by the editor with the following facts, which he substantiates with literature: Women should only make up 10% of the students , since the proportion of women had risen sharply during the war and those returning from the war and war invalids should be given preference . This was corrected in 1946 to the effect that all applicants were accepted who had not been rejected for political reasons.

Author, finding the diary, publication

Wolfhilde Oktavia Emma Elisabeth König von Paumbshausen (* November 8, 1925, † November 16, 1993) from Munich studied medicine at the Ludwig Maximilians University after the war (Dr. med. 1952 or 1951). As a practicing specialist in anesthesia , she was most recently chief anesthetist at the Maria Theresia Clinic in Munich. She is buried in Munich's Ostfriedhof .

She mentions her family again and again in her diary, especially her younger brother Emanuel von König ( Manü ), in whose estate the diary was found in 2009. Both editions, the English (2014) and the German (2015), provide information about the König family; the German edition scientifically evaluates the family information about the Munich family in relation to the National Socialist topic in the chapter Wolfhilde von König and her family .

In the American edition of the Hitler Youth Diary Wolfhildes, a few pages by her brother Manü (1927–2009), which he wrote afterwards, are attached. In it he tells of his experiences in the Hitler Youth and of his time (April 1945 to June 1946) as a Russian prisoner of war.

expenditure

German:

  • Sven Keller (Ed.): War diary of a young National Socialist. The records of Wolfhilde von Königs 1939–1946. ( A publication of the Institute for Contemporary History Munich-Berlin. Series of the quarterly books for contemporary history ) De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin / Boston 2015, ISBN 978-3-11-040485-2 .

English:

Remarks

All quotations and the passages in italics are taken from the war diary. They are provided with a date display instead of a page number.

  1. ^ Sven Keller (Ed.): War diary of a young National Socialist. The records of Wolfhilde von Königs 1939–1946. ( Series of the quarterly books for contemporary history , vol. 111. Commissioned by the Institute for Contemporary History Munich-Berlin . Ed. By Helmut Altrichter, Horst Möller, Andreas Wirsching).
  2. ↑ Before the beginning of the diary is a (this) quote from Hitler, as well as at the beginning of 1941 and 1942, 1940 and 1943 Hermann Göring's , 1945 from the DRK head nurse Hermine Stolz, which according to the entry of March 19, 1945 in the hospital with one Attack died.
  3. ↑ Bound: 1939/1940, 1941, 1942, Kladde 1943, individual parts 1944/1945/1946. Illustration in: War Diary 2015, p. 3.
  4. ^ According to the editor's number in the introduction to the German edition, p. 26.
  5. ↑ This includes, for example, a note from San Francisco, where members of the US Navy tore up the German flag at the Consulate General to the applause of a cheering crowd (January 18, 1941).
  6. ↑ Wolfhilde's Hitler Youth Diary , 2014, p. 283 ff.
  7. ↑ Wolfhilde's Hitler Youth Diary , 2014. Darin Prelude Years 1927–1938 by Emanuel Von Koenig as recalled in 2005, p. 25 ff .
  8. ↑ Book reference for sources and documents on the BDM: Gisela Miller-Kipp: You too belong to the Führer. The history of the Association of German Girls (BDM) in sources and documents , Weinheim / Munich 2002. Karl Heinz Jahnke: Youth under the Nazi dictatorship 1933–1945. A documentation , Rostock 2003.
  9. ^ War diary , German edition 2015, September 4, 1939, p. 32.
  10. ↑ Entry under this date. The Association of German Girls (BDM) (chapter in introduction ), p. 11.
  11. ↑ Introduction pp. 11 and 12.
  12. ↑ See entries from February 15, 1944
  13. ↑ Edition 2015, Fig. 4, Introduction p. 6.
  14. ↑ Entries from September 1 and 3, 1939 f.
  15. ^ War diary, entry from April 18, 1946.
  16. ^ Introduction pp. 1 and 2 and p. 26. In: Sven Keller (Hrsg.): War diary of a young National Socialist. The records of Wolfhilde von Königs 1939–1946. ( A publication of the Institute for Contemporary History Munich-Berlin. Series of the quarterly books for contemporary history . Project The Private in National Socialism ) De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin / Boston 2015, ISBN 978-3-11-040485-2 .
  17. ↑ German edition 2015, introduction p. 1.
  18. ↑ Entry in the diary January 22, 46, commentary by the editor with reference to the literature, Note 583, war diary p. 222.
  19. ↑ See introduction to the war diary (2015), pp. 4–8.
  20. ↑ Hitler Youth Diary , pp. 283 ff: Darin Supplement to the Diary 1939–1946 , Postlude years 1947–1952 .
  21. ↑ Hitler Youth Diary , pp. 284 ff.
  22. ↑ Hitler Youth Diary , pp. 288 ff.

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