Comrade X - My 3 Years Inside Russia

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Text originally published in 1958 under the same title.

Eschenburg Press 2017, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publishers Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Authors original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern readers benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

MY 3 YEARS INSIDE RUSSIA

BY

COMRADE X

AS TOLD TOKEN ANDERSON

Based on the true story of a German soldier, taken prisoner after World War II by the Russians, and banished to Siberia

Contents

I must not tell you my name, and you will wonder why. Please do not think it is because I am ashamed to do so, or that I am a person of note who does not wish to be made further vulnerable to the prying curiosity of the public. The fact is that I am a man of simple tastes and of humble background, You have not heard of me, and if I were to tell you my name, you would soon forget it.

You see, it is not who I am, but what has happened to me, that makes anonymity necessary. Even those of us who wish to inflict no harm upon another, who want only to live in quietness, must keep our guard lest we by a careless act bring upon others a fate they do not deserve. So, you see, it is not that we fear for our own security, but rather that we must be careful for our loved ones who have already suffered much because of us.

We live in a cruel world, across whose face there falls a deepening shadow. To those without hope, without the sure faith in a God who cannot fail, it sometimes becomes mockery to live. I have seen such faint hearts, faint though they beat in the breasts of strong men. I have watched hope die completely, and no death you have ever witnessed is so cruel as the death of hope in a living human being.

I am a German, born and raised in the Ruhr Valley. I could tell you of my childhood, of my parents and my friends, but you would find most of it commonplace. As I have already said, I stem from a humble background.

The early years of my life saw little beyond the commonplace. So perhaps it is best to begin my story in February of 1943, when I was inducted into the German Wehrmacht , the infantry of Adolph Hitlers military machine.

I remember how I went alone and poured out my heart to God, Was this His will? Was He leading me, even in this strange way, to a place of service for His glory? Or was I a slave of circumstances over which even the power of heaven had no control? God gave me peace in my heart as I prayed. It was a radiant peace, like the soft breath of evening on a Bavarian hillside. For God told me in those moments that no child of His is ever out of His sight. I had never realized that before.

Without that peace in my heart, I do not know how I could have broken the news to my dear wife. I remember how she looked at me and how the peace of God came also into her heart as it had come into mine.

There is no choice we can make, I remember telling her, except to resign ourselves completely into the will of God.

Due to my advanced age, so far as military requirements are concerned, I did not fight as a combat soldier, and I am grateful to God for this. I realize that in Gods sight no soldier is guilty of taking a mans life. I realize, too, that although I was not in a combat unit, I contributed as much as any infantry man to the toll of lives taken from those who opposed us. Yet I am grateful to God that it did not fall my lot to engage primarily in combat warfare.

In my country, it is not everyone who drives an automobile. So the fact that I had a drivers License and had considerable experience as a civilian transporter, resulted in my being assigned to what you might call a quartermaster corps as a truck driver.

Though optimism yet dominated the scene In Germany, now we realize that the Nazi leadersthose who had not completely gone madread the handwriting on the horizon. Through effective propaganda, however, the severity of the situation was kept from most of the people.

So in reality, when I entered service, the dark cloud of defeat had already begun to move across Germany although few realized it. The emphasis was on defense. One seldom heard the Nazi hymn, Today Germany is ours; tomorrow the whole world. Behind us lay the glory of the occupation of Czechoslovakia, the Polish campaign, the conquest of Norway, the Blitzkrieg.

The reality of the present now was that Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox, had been driven by the allied forces out of North Africa, a considerable blow to us German people, who considered Rommel a truly great man. Not only had the Allies conquered North Africa, but they had crept up into Italy and were expected at any moment to launch a second front across the channel from England.

Nazism still held its firm grasp upon the people and few dared to speak out against the Fhrer and his program. I do, of course, recall those who did venture their opinions, some of whom suffered the consequences. As far as I was concerned, like so many of our people, I realized the futility of speaking my heart, so I kept quiet. I firmly believed that if Hitler was wrong, his evil would become his own destruction. For I believe with all my heart that evil destroys itself. This is not only true in the passing situations of time, but in the long expanse of eternity.

So by the time I got into the army, it was quite obvious that a good deal of the glory which had been associated with the identification of ones self to the military was gone.

As you recall, Germanys great emphasis in 1943 lay on the Russian front, where disaster threatened. The German command had believed it necessary to completely eliminate the threat of the Russian armed forces, in order that there might be freedom of action against any threat which might come from the south or the west or the north. Then, too, successful conquest of Russia would result in the acquisition of the industrial areas west of the Urals, as well as opening the way to all the supplies in the east in the rich agricultural areas of the Ukraine Donetz Basin.

So such a conquest, in addition to the elimination of the Russian military threat, would furnish materials for continuing the war over an indefinite period of time. And, needless to say, it would provide much needed morale for the German people.

Reflecting now, I sometimes wonder what would have happened had Germany brought about the defeat of Russia.

Please do not misunderstand. I did not defend, nor by any means condone, the thought of a Europe occupied by Hitlerism. But sometimes, as I sit in quiet reflection, I find myself wondering which is the larger of the two evilsNazism or Communism? Would Nazism, if given the chance, have spread its influence worldwide as rapidly as godless Communism has done?

I personally feel that Nazism, for all its nefarious ways, was the lesser of the two evils. Surely it was least prepared for world domination. True, bunds could be found here and there around the world, but surely nowhere in the abundance of the Communist cells which began manifesting themselves so soon after the close of World War II.