Ch10: British Army.

My new job was with the British army, the 617 Tank Transporter Unit located in Hamm, North Western Germany. We were part of the British Army of the Rhine [BAOR]. I served two years in the Czech army, so now I would be able to compare the life in the British army with my experience in the Czechoslovak army.

Could it be a fair comparison?  I spent the first ten months in a school for non-commissioned officers.  But army ways are unpredictable.  I was then assigned to a unit called the “Auxiliary Technical Regiment” or ATR, but we were better known as the “Black Barons”. Czechoslovakia was part of the Warsaw Pact and the government had a problem with conscripts that were branded “politically unreliable”. Into that category belonged recruits whose parents were ”capitalist”, kulaks (big farmers), politicians, religious people, petty criminals and many more. 

They were all conscripted into the ATR and after basic training served at the government’s pleasure. When the Communists nationalized the coal mines, coal production plummeted and the country entered an energy crisis so the ATR was sent down into the mines to dig coal. It was not a smart decision. They were soldiers, not convicts, and their output was pathetic. They were working beside coalminers that were amongst to the highest paid workers in the country. Some big brass got an idea to pay them like the coalminers. It worked and their production went through the roof. 

                                                         

But there was a problem, ATR members’ were at the bottom of the army ladder and other ranks looked at them with contempt. Suddenly they had tons of money, flashing it in pubs, buying everybody drinks, getting into brawls with ordinary, money-poor soldiers. They were behaving like medieval barons and were called, first in derision, “Black Barons”.  That name stuck and became a badge of honour. The army had a solution. Most of their pay went into their bank accounts and it could be cashed only after completing their military service. Many blew through their money after putting on civvies, further contributing to the fame of the Black Barons. I was assigned to the ATR long after their heyday. We built roads, prepared SAM sites and took on projects no other company would touch.  I saw the worst of the Czech army, how would it compare with the BAOR?

To an outsider 617 was a split and polish unit.

The first impression of 617 was favourable. The guards at the gate were spit and polished, and in the yard were twenty large trucks towing trailers some loaded with tanks. I reported to the Duty Officer, was assigned a room and sent to pick up an army outfit. The uniform was a scratchy WW II Battle Dress. Two of my roommates from Zirndorf that had arrived a couple of weeks earlier gave me the low-down what to expect.

“This is an eight-to five, five-day outfit. Weekends are free except when on maneuvers. Food is lousy….It is a pathetic army. Wait for the weekend”, they told me.

I had six roommates, all Lithuanians. None of them spoke English and we talked with each other in a kind of German-Polish-Russian polyglot. There were perhaps 300 men in our unit, many were married and stayed in the barracks only during the week. The weekend arrived and there were only about 80 people left. Some gathered in our room, each bringing a couple bottles of vodka. They drank, gossiped, argued, sung their songs, played cards and did whatever alcoholics do. Some left our room, others came, and a few fell asleep. 

I found an empty room and spent the night there. When I came back to my room in the morning it was full of snoring drunks. Empty vodka bottles, beer bottles, cigarette butts and papers littered the room. They were up by noon and the drinking started again. There were more parties in other rooms, each gathering its own nationalities, most of them from the Baltic States. By Sunday evening barracks were quiet, most drunks were sleeping. Only the piles of empty bottles and garbage littering hallways were evidence of their weekend drunkenness. The next morning like a miracle, hallways and rooms were clean. My roommates each with a hangover reported for work - driving trucks! 

Learning to drive the big truck was a challenge.

The following week the ten new hires started basic training, or rather we went through the motion of training. “You are with the army, you are not in the army” the Polish instructor told us. “The main thing is to remember how to properly salute officers, especially British officers.

One of my roommates was called Czar Ginka He had a leathery face full of deep wrinkles and half of his teeth were missing. He could finish a bottle of vodka and wouldn’t show any signs of being drunk. Every evening he would polish his boots, uniform brass buttons and the belt buckle. I asked him why he did it. 

“I am used it. This unit was much different when I joined after the war. It was run like a Polish army. Everything had to be perfect. You forgot to button your pocket and you were fined. Boots were not shiny, another fine. You didn’t properly salute, fined again. Some sergeants were real SOB’s.” 

 “Why did you not leave?” I asked.“After the war there was no work in Germany. I had no place to go. I couldn’t go back to Lithuania, the Russians would kill me. This is my home, my family is all dead. I will show you.” He opened his locker and got out a shoe box full of documents, letters and pictures. “This is my older brother. The Russians shot him. My younger brother joined the German army and was killed. My parents died in the war. I was too young to be in the army and I escaped with my sister to Germany. She lives in Australia. This army is my life.”

The English language school was a disappointment. We were taught the basic English that I already knew. Our teacher was from Yugoslavia, a good teacher but he spoke with a strong accent. One day our class was visited by the Commanding Officer of 617. 

He was a Scotsman and gave us short lesson about the English language. “…..If you have trouble understanding my English don’t worry, I speak Scottish English. There are even native Englishmen that don’t understand me. So don’t worry about your accent…..”   

I was not keen on spending my weekends with drunks. The other two Czechs were lucky; their roommates went home to their families so I moved to their room for the weekend. George was my age. He had been a member of a Czech equestrian team competing in Germany. He spoke good German and some of his German competitors help him to skip out on his team. He had already applied for emigration to USA and had big ideas about how to strike it rich in the horse racing business.

The other, Luboš, was about thirty and at one time had been on the Czech Olympic swimming team. He liked to brag to new arrivals in the camp “I swam to freedom from Yugoslavia to Italy. It took me fifteen hours. How did you get here ? “Apparently he was touring Slovenia with a group of tourists. They were staying in a hotel close to the Italian borders and one evening he gathered all his belonging, made a float and swam to Italy. He didn’t like the refugee camp in Italy and like Franta and I had made his way to Germany.                                                                                                

It was time to register with the Landratsamt , the German immigration office in Hamm. I took my Fremdenpass to the office, the clerk or the officer questioned me about my work and residence and after telling me that I could not stay in Germany, gave me a 90 day permit.

Christmas season came and it was a very strange time for us. For a year my life was moving fast, continuously changing, full of surprises and suddenly everything seemed to stop. There were Christmas decorations in stores, people shopping, the usual last minute rush but we were not part of it. We were pretending that everything was fine but it was the first time I missed home and my family.

Three months went by and were back at the Landratsamt for another 90 day permit to stay. We got it but a few days later I received a letter from the office. It was in German so I took it to George. He had received one too, and so had Luboš. “It says that your permit to stay in Germany will not be further extended and if you don’t leave Germany in 90 days you will be deported to your home country.”

“That’s crazy, it must be some misunderstanding, they know we have already applied for emigration.” We decided to go to the Landratsamt   to find out what was going on.  We were received by the same man that had issued us the 90 day permit, an older, stern-looking bureaucrat. George was our spokesman. Their talk suddenly turned into an argument, then a heated argument, and finaly the man yelled “RAUS !!" and threw us out of his office.

“We are in deep shit” said George, “He lived in Sudetenland and was kicked out after the war. Now he is trying to get even." He told me "Czechs gave my family three days to pack. I lost everything. I am giving you six months."

Sudetenland was an area along the Czech border mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. In 1938 the land was annexed by Hitler under the Munich agreement. After the WW II more than 2 million Sudeten   Germans were forcibly deported from Czechoslovakia to Germany. 

Next chapter #11: Emigration or deportation? 

617 preparing for maneuvers.