A former Wehrmacht soldier’s perspective of WWII

A dentist had a patient for thirteen years. She asked him what he thought about the war. He didn’t say anything bad. He said, very cautiously, “If you look at the Führer’s daily bulletin, there’s this warning, there’s this warning. There’s the news from Stalingrad: our troops are retreating, and this and that. And every night another city goes up in flames from the bombing. The English by night and the American by daytime. It’s disturbing, is it not?”

And she gave him a look, which he immediately caught… “Wait a minute… Was it too much I said?” She said, “Yeah, but don’t worry about it. Our Führer is the greatest. He will save everything. We will win.” She want to the Gestapo. He ended up in court. And one of my classmates, we skipped one of our lessons when we were in medical school, going into the court to sit down out of curiosity. The dentist was accused of sabotage of the war effort and defeatism. “The accused has been found guilty as charged. The penalty is death.”

There, my friend and I, we sat, hearing. This poor guy is going to be killed because of what he said! […] And that is an unforgettable moment in my life. Say the wrong word and you’re dead. Then, come November of ’44, I get a draft notice to be taken into the Army.

:::spoiler Click here for events that happened today (March 15). 1974: Ferdinand Ďurčanský died. :::