Personal statement of Otto Ernst Duscheleit
Otto Ernst Duscheleit participated in a panel discussion at UMass Amherst in April 2005,
commemorating the Office of Jewish Affairs' tenth anniversary—"One By One:
Descendants of the Third Reich and the Holocaust in Dialogue"
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I am a member of “One by One,” a group which brings together children of victims and perpetrators from the United States and Germany. I myself do not belong to that second generation. During the Second World War, I was a member of the Waffen-SS. As a soldier, I participated in the German withdrawal from the Eastern front between 1943 and 1945.
I was born in East Prussia, joined the Hitler Youth at age 10, and became a leader in the Hitler Youth at age 16. In January 1943, at the age of 17, I joined the “Arbeitsdienst” (labor service), a Nazi organization with the purpose of furthering war production. Two months later, along with the other members of the labor service, I was pressured into signing up for the Waffen-SS. If we did not sign, we were told, we would be sent to a penal battalion from whence few returned.
My mother, who was active in the Confessing Church, a group of religious resisters, condemned my choice. She told me: “You should never have signed, even if they put you in prison.” But I was not strong enough.
I joined the SS-division “Norland” as a tank communications specialist. This newly created division was deployed in January 1944 at the Leningrad front and was supposed to prevent the advance of the Russian troops together with units of Wehrmacht.
However, the German withdrawal started during the first night of my deployment. The very first night, I saw Russian villages burn, a scene I saw every night thereafter. These villages were burned by escaping Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS troops. My tank comrades and I compiled with the order of the Fuhrer to leave nothing but burned soil in Russia.
When my tank was shot in Estonia in Spring 1944 and I was able to save myself miraculously, I said to my tank commander: “Now I deserve the Silver Panzer Storm Medal, don’t I?” Back then, that was important to me!
By 1932, my brother Ulrich, 12 years my senior, had become a follower of Hitler. Several years later he took pictures of gentiles in Insterburg when they shopped in Jewish stores. However, after the beginning of the war, he began to distance himself from the Hitler regime and voiced his views in his unit. He was an idealist. He could not imagine that Hitler would simply invade one country after another. He felt abused and betrayed in his ideals. He wanted to live and not sacrifice his youth to a madman. Two years later, he was sent to a penal colony in Russia. When he thought he was about to be deported to another penal colony in 1944, he shot and killed himself.
In my mind, I again and again asked myself this question: Why did I follow orders so unquestioningly until the end of the war? Why did I not have the courage of my brother, Ulrich, and of my mother?
I had a dream ten years ago in which people screamed “SS-Pig” at me. Afterwards, I neither wanted nor could evade discussing my past any longer. I spoke before my parish and to peace groups. I wanted to encourage more people from my generation to talk about the past. I wanted to help children, who once again might be led astray, to understand.
The response was mixed. “You are not guilty. After all, you were forced to join the SS at 17; what could you have done? You did not commit any crimes. You did what all soldiers did then. You were not part of the Holocaust, did not participate in executions.”
My answer was often: guilt? I obeyed until the end of the war. I saw the houses burn in Russia and I did not comprehend. I did not think of the people who burned or froze to death in the cold winter of our retreat in 1944. Hitler was well served by soldiers who took orders as well as I did. With the help of such soldiers he dared to start his war, dared to raid one people after another. Can I really speak of innocence? Was there really only a handful of evil doers and an army of innocents?
I became an independent businessman, and talked to my employees about my past. I told the story of my brother Ulrich. When he was released from the penal camp he said to my mother: “One thing I have learned: how to say ‘Jawohl, jawohl, jawohl!’” To which my mother replied; “But Ulrich, that is terrible!” “Yes, mother, but what can one do, the truth cannot be spoken in this country.” Hearing this, a man who is a confirmed Nazi to this day, said: “But at least they had order then. If we had this kind of order in Germany today, things would look differently in this country.”
Then an older former soldier in the Wehrmacht began to tell his story. He had witnessed members of an “SS Special Unit” who rounded up the Jewish population of a Russian village and shot them. He spoke haltingly and tearfully: “Often I wake up in the middle of the night and I hear the screams of women and children. Sleep is no longer possible.”
Once, when I spoke about my past in Nuremberg, a few Neo-Nazis screamed “Traitor!”
The organizers of a gathering of children of victims and perpetrators of the Nazi era had heard about me and wrote to me from America: “We believe it is important that you join us for our next meeting in Germany.” Both the organizers and I, however, were unprepared for the fact that my participation would be upsetting and difficult for the children of the victims.
During the first morning of our gathering in the Black Forest I told my story. An oppressive silence spread over the circle. Anna, a Jewish woman, whose mother had survived Auschwitz, represented the feelings of the group when she said sharply: “Have you come here to tell your stories [to make yourself feel better]?” But after I told my story and spoke about my feelings of guilt, the tension slowly began to dissipate. At the end of this session, some people pressed my hand.
Once, during a group meeting in Berlin, an elderly Jewish woman said: “So far, I have only spoken to the victims. It took us many years until we were able to talk about our past. That someone from the other side speaks about his past and his guilt is new for me.”
After all these conversations it has become obvious to me that the past will always return.... I have to live with my past and accept it.... But dealing with my past has given my life new meaning. I have become open to new experiences and new ways of thinking. This has enabled me to renew my relationship with the younger generation, to have honest dialogues with young people [in Germany and elsewhere].
When I turned 70, my children wrote me a letter in which they encouraged me to continue this work. They wrote: “...Victims of the Holocaust, who have been suffering torment ever since the war and who are haunted by nightmares frequently, are wondering how the perpetrators can continue living with a clear conscience. You are one of the few exceptions among the former fellow travelers who have begun to face your history. You do not burden your relationship with us [Duscheleit’s children] by silencing the past. This makes us glad.”
Zella Karen Brown was born on April 29, 1947 in a displaced persons camp in Heidenheim, Germany to Barbara and Wolf Kaplansky, both survivors of the Holocaust.
She is a founding member of One by One, Inc., a non-profit organization founded by those whose lives have been deeply affected by the Holocaust. Since its incorporation in 1996, Brown has served as an active Board member, its Speakers Bureau Chairperson, and co-liaison for its New York chapter.
As a professionally trained actress, Brown fine-tuned her storytelling skills specifically for the One by One audiences. With her speaking partner, Marga Dieter, a German child of the Second World War, she offers a rare glimpse into the life of the eldest daughter of two Polish Holocaust survivors and what it took to overcome her painful legacy.
Dialogue and peacebuilding is an art that needs to be taught and cultivated in the schools and in the hearts and minds of all of us, especially children. Brown is most proud of the stories of transformation that inspire young people to take action and see “the other” from a different-colored lens. As a result of her dedication to this transformative work, she sees herself as a peacemaker and is proud to serve as one in our still-troubled world.
Brown has lived with the daily reprimand, “Write it down so you shouldn’t forget” and swore on her soul that she wouldn’t forget. It was only natural that she developed hatred towards the German people after hearing stories from her father that defy description. After noticing that her father was starting to tell the same stories to his grandson (her son) and that he remained full of rage, she knew the hatred was not going to end with her.
To get beyond the legacy of hate and its bitter consequences, Brown had to confront this past with the hope of finding a way to heal her own personal wounds. And so her journey of transformation began in the town of Neuenberg, Germany, where One by One first met in February 1993.
In photo at top: Otto Ernst Duscheleit and his translator. Photo by Rebecca Reid.
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