Writer Uwe Timm on the End of World War II: "Then the GIs came and pounded on the door"
"Military personnel, identified as GIs, approached and rapped on the residence's door"
In a candid interview, 85-year-old author Uwe Timm shares his memories of World War II and the end of Nazism in Germany. As a young boy living in Hamburg during the war, he experienced bombing raids and the Occupation by American soldiers up close.
ntv.de: Herr Timm, you experienced World War II as a child in Hamburg. What do you remember?
Uwe Timm: I recall one of my earliest distinct memories being in a pram at the age of three, covered with wet towels, being pushed through the Osterstraße. There were fires on both sides. That's something I remember very clearly. There were little flames in the air everywhere. Those were burning curtain scraps. The other memory is that I wasn't allowed to look at the street. That's where the dead were.
Your family's apartment was destroyed in a bombing raid in 1943.
My father was on vacation by chance, he was in the Luftwaffe. He could estimate from the radio news that it was a big attack. He got the people out of the apartments very early. Then a firebomb actually fell on our house. It caught fire immediately. People carried what they could still grab quickly. A table was saved from our apartment, which now stands in my apartment. Along with it, a few porcelain figures, some damaged. Another memory is of us sitting in the cellar. That had a depressing feeling. The adults were afraid.
What do you remember about the end of the war?
I experienced that in Coburg. That's where we had been evacuated, we had relatives there. First, there were still German soldiers digging trenches by the Itz River. I fell into one and couldn't get out. I screamed until a soldier found me and helped me out. They had pushed a circus wagon with stones onto the bridge as a barricade. When the Americans came, they just pushed it aside with their tanks. There was also shooting. But then, suddenly, the American soldiers were there. As it happened, it was a brigade of the Black Panthers.
Had you ever seen black people before?
No, they were the first. We were initially afraid of them because we had been told terrible things. People also didn't understand them, even the women were afraid. But they behaved very correctly. Then the GIs came and pounded on the door. The Americans went upstairs and searched the house. Up there, they found the uniforms of soldiers who had deserted. They were furious, wanted to know if there were still German soldiers in the house. Later, I saw the adults burying Hitler pictures in the garden. Suddenly, it was: "Don't say 'Heil Hitler' anymore and don't click your heels!" I had just learned that, and just a moment ago, everyone had thought it was funny.
Politics "I Have Looked into the Abyss" The Nazi Death Camps How Did People React to the Americans?
The adults, especially the men, who had previously been shouting around in that nasal tone, suddenly became very small and said: "I knew nothing" or "We had nothing to do with it." The local leader of the NSDAP, Veitmeier, who was feared, was a very important and dangerous, brown figure. He suddenly stood in the street and had to sweep it. If it rained, the GIs drove by in their car and splashed him. He would then jump onto the sidewalk.
Were You Still Afraid of Him?
Not anymore. My entire generation experienced that authority suddenly meant nothing. After a few months, the men returned from captivity, and then it relativized again. But before that, the men were very, very weak, and the women were very strong. They had been practicing professions. I knew a woman who had been a crane operator in the Hamburg harbor. She thought that was great. Then, at some point, the old crane operator returned, and she had to give up her post again.
The Time Is Also Called the Zero Hour. What Do You Think of That Term?
It's questionable because it wasn't quite zero. What came after that in West Germany was a reconstruction of old relationships. People who had property could do business again, establish themselves again. The denazification became increasingly lenient, also because of the fear of communism, the East-West conflict, which became stronger and stronger. At some point, there were judges again who had issued death sentences during the Nazi era. One of them, Hans Filbinger, even became Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg. He had - after the capitulation! - still sentenced an 18-year-old to death.
What Was That Country Like in May 1945?
The weather was brilliant, unusually warm. Thank goodness, because many were on the run. But there was an enormous uncertainty, people were afraid. You could tell, they spoke softer, no longer in a commanding tone. Some had to leave their apartments because Americans were moving in. The prisoners from the concentration camps, the forced laborers, then called foreign workers, were freed and took the things they needed. There was looting. The women were afraid to go into the woods. It was a time of transition. The old order was not yet completely gone. The new one wasn't there yet.
Politics The Last Days of the Nazi Regime April 1945 - The Red Army Storms Berlin Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker said in a famous speech in 1985 that May 8th was not just a day of defeat, but also of liberation. Is that true?
Absolutely. That's the great thing about that Weizsäcker speech. It was a turning point. Today, it's hard to imagine how the Nazi era was still being glossed over back then. There were still Nazis in the offices everywhere. I had Nazis as teachers who still said, "the thing with the Jews" wasn't that bad. And even in 1945, there was indeed a feeling of liberation. A liberating act in Coburg, for example, was the looting of a military camp. My mother was also involved and had taken some cans.
There was this fascination for the Americans. It was a completely different way of life. You could always hear the German soldiers marching, the stomping of their nailed boots. Suddenly, the Americans arrive, quietly on rubber soles. That casualness that came with it. You didn't click your heels together anymore. The language changed, became completely different. I still have those commands in my ears, "Come here", "Leave that", "Do this, do that", always in a commanding tone. That disappeared.
Did the Americans also distribute chewing gum?
Yes, they did. You can't imagine what tobacco meant. Cigarettes were highly sought after. In the fall of 1945, we received our first care package. The pants, the suit, those leather shoes, everything was excellent. The food was excellent. Then there were the jeans, a functional, simple, great pair of pants. That's how the Americans also convinced with their consumer possibilities. It was such that the adults could only stare foolishly. Later, I also heard jazz, although my father wanted to forbid it. And the chocolate tasted simply incomparable.
PoliticsChildren and Elders against Tanks - Hitler's Last ResortAfter 1945, a new identity began to grow in Germany. Your novella "The Discovery of the Currywurst" is also about that. Why was the currywurst so important?
The Berliners claim that they invented the currywurst, and I believe that's true. But I remember eating a spicy sausage on the Großneumarkt in Hamburg in 1948, served with tomatoes. Some inventions are made simultaneously in several places. When this typically German sausage meets an exotic like curry, it shows how things are changing. My mother didn't even know what curry was before that.
In your book "Am Beispiel meines Bruders", you try to understand why your brother volunteered for the Waffen-SS. He died in a field hospital.
How does one come to want to shoot others and also let oneself be shot? What's going on in an 18-year-old who writes: "75 meters, Ivan smoking a cigarette, a feast for my MG." What happened? I wanted to write about it for a long time, but kept putting it off because it was so hard. As long as my mother was alive, I couldn't. She had a different relationship with my brother. She was one of the few adults who took responsibility. She asked: How can it be that I never asked what happened to my Jewish neighbor?
What answers have you found?
I have no final answers. But what was clearly lacking was civil courage. One of the important things is being able to say no, to object, to express one's opinion. To ask questions. You have to learn that. Where does this conditioning come from, to willingly carry out orders? That really was part of the German mentality, which was only broken down by 1968. Suddenly, there was a term for professors: "To question". "Herr Professor, I would like to question that." They were completely speechless. Those who engaged in it had a discussion on their hands. And that was good. It was a long process that is now being reversed again.
Panorama80 Years After the War's End - May 8, 1945 - Day of Liberation from National SocialismWhat do you think when the defense minister says we should be combat-ready?
I find this alarming. The goal has always been to become more peaceful. But it's really complex. Of course, Putin is also involved in this. I used to be a Putin apologist myself. I never thought he would start this war. If someone says in such a situation: "One must defend oneself against this," I can't argue with that. And if someone goes ahead and does it, they also have my respect. But it's also a question of proportionality. Now spending 500 billion euros on defense, when there was never enough money for everything before, is incredibly unbelievable. Mr. Merz got a slap for that.
"Never again war" has long been a guiding principle for the Federal Republic. But since the Russian attack on Ukraine, there apparently is a legitimate war, the war to defend freedom.
I understand everyone who wants to defend their country against an aggressor. Like the Poles against the Germans, like the Swiss are ready to do, and of course like the Ukrainians are doing against the Russians. But the question must also always be: Whose freedom are we talking about here? The freedom of the rich with a house on the Côte d'Azur? That's a central question: Is the society we are defending just? Does it also include the poor and the disenfranchised? Is there a patriotism that applies to the whole country? Or is it just about the freedom to drive 180 km/h on the highway?
Politics The last summer in peace? "Putin fears democracy more than NATO" And is society fair?
Our society is not fair. There are courts that rule justly, yes. But socially, it's a different story. Why should someone defend the villas? A fair society defends itself more easily. That's a task for politics.
Volker Petersen spoke with Uwe Timm
Source: ntv.de
- World War II
- History
- 80 years since the end of the war
- National Socialism
- Attack on Ukraine
- Hamburg
- Remembrance
In the interview, author Uwe Timm recounted his experiences during World War II as a young boy in Hamburg. He recalled distinct memories of bombing raids, the destruction of his family's apartment in 1943, and the end of the war in Coburg. He described the arrival of American soldiers, particularly the Black Panthers, as a significant event. Timm remembered the fear and initial mistrust initially felt towards the soldiers, but later expressed admiration for their behavior. He also spoke about the transition period after the war, highlighting the uncertainty and fear among the population as well as the relocation of prisoners from concentration camps and the looting of material goods. The interview also touched on the term "Zero Hour," the relationships between politics and general news, and the impact of the Americans on post-war German society, including the fascination with their consumer possibilities and the distribution of chewing gum.
