The first big...
[Q] Crash.
... interruption of this life came when I was fifteen. At that time the bombing of the cities had started and, of course, they got their first... they were not successful any more in the war, and they were short of people, so they drafted the school classes for the anti-aircraft guns.
[Q] What was the limit of age?
Yes, I was a little bit younger in my class.
[Q] So fifteen was the...
Usually the people were sixteen years old when the school class draft, but I was only fifteen, at least for another half a year. And so we were drafted to the outside of Bochum to the anti-aircraft gun, were trained there, and since there were many air attacks during the night, and finally also during daytime, there was not much school we had.
[Q] Did you stay at home at that time still, or did you..?
No, no...
[Q] You slept in a military barrack?
Barrack, yes, and it was... yes.
[Q] So it was a soldier life.
It was a soldier life, and it was rough, I didn't like that!
[Q] Depressing.
Yes, is the words we were...
[Q] It was a crude time.
Yes, it was. Of course there's also some enthusiasm about young people first, but that soon...
[Q] Decayed?
Decayed and disappeared, yes. And, well, finally with seventeen I was also drafted to the airforce, but that was only in the last months of the war.
[Q] But you didn't know at that time that it were the last months of the war.
No, it was a terrible time I can tell you. At that time we were very clear about the system, and with a friend we said we prepare to escape. But we were finally over...
[Q] Rolled?
Rolled, yes, by the war. I remember that in April '45 I was a prisoner of war at the Salzburg airport.
[Q] So that means with the... as a soldier you were put down to the south of Germany, Austria, as it was Germany at that time.
Yes, and the war was over.
[Q] And what was your task at that time? What to defend and what to do?
Nothing. I mean, it was airforce. We were supposed to be trained on planes but there were no planes left then.
[Q] But you were just still in training.
Oh yes. I mean I was a few months only in that...
[Q] So you were not an active soldier in the sense? Whether indirectly...
What do you mean by active?
[Q] I mean you were still in the...
Fortunately we didn't have to shoot.
[Q] Ja, that's what I meant.
Could go back and in Salzburg at the airport we got imprisoned.
