1935 The first paragraph of Article 1 of the German National Defense Law stipulates: "Every German man has the obligation to perform military service." At the same time, it is stipulated in the second paragraph: "Every German man and woman has the obligation to serve the country other than military service in wartime." This is a very bad legal expression. At least it should not talk about the different obligations of men and women together. Don't women have to serve their country in peacetime? How can a woman who has no obligation to serve as a soldier "exceed military service" with men in wartime?
Why do Germans, who have always been rigorous in their words, make such vague statements in such an important law? The reasonable explanation is that Germany, which is preparing for war, should reserve the largest legal development space for wartime human resources, and at the same time, it is unwilling to define the specific form prematurely.
Hitler, who had the experience of World War I, knew very well that with the number and scale of Germans, he could not be competent for a war to dominate Europe and expand its territory eastward. Once the war breaks out, Germany will put all its human resources into the whole country. On the other hand, all non-combat military posts that women are qualified for should be held by women, so as to release more men for front-line operations.
Four years later, with the outbreak of the Polish campaign, the form of German women's participation in the war was finally clarified: qualified women will participate in non-frontline military work as "Wehrmachtshelferinnen".
In the social welfare system of contemporary Germany, the years of service to the state are all included in the effective service years of pensions, which is not directly related to whether the national policy is correct during the period of service, whether the national organization served by the party is later convicted, and whether the regime served by the party continues. That is to say, no matter whether the person concerned was a female assistant of the SS, the Wehrmacht or the Wehrmacht during the Nazi period, his service time will be counted as the effective length of service for the Federal Republic of Germany to receive a state pension, unless the person concerned is defined as a criminal. In the Sixth Social Welfare Code of Germany (SGB6), the service period of "female assistant of the National Defence Force" is also within the range of retirement calculation years, and the concept of "female assistant of the National Defence Force" also covers "female assistant of the SS", which is misunderstood by many people.
During World War II, there were no women in the organizational system in Germany. Women are only assistants in the army, have no military posts or ranks, do not carry weapons, and are basically recruited only in the volunteer army. During the whole war, 500,000 German women were recruited as "female assistants of the Defence Force". After the war, these legendary women quickly evaporated from reality like water in the sand. They don't write books, gather, organize and make noise. These people are rarely mentioned in many historical books and literary works related to World War II.
During an interview in Huashan, North Rhine-westfalen, I came across a female assistant of the National Defence Force during World War II. She is Angie Chastrow, the wife of Mr Chastrow, a veteran of the SS.
She showed a photo of herself in the uniform of "Defence Force Assistant". From this photo, An Jie tells her story:
"I was born in 1925, and my hometown is in Weisstein, the northernmost German city of Schlais. My parents have five children. At that time, in Germany, many children won a medal, the mother of four children won a bronze medal, six children won a silver medal and eight children won a gold medal. My mother is a bronze medal mother. Many people in my last generation participated in two world wars, and my father was one of them. He was born in 1889, and was recruited to participate in World War I just after he was 19 17 years old. " Then Angie found a full-length photo of her father during the war in the photo album. The man in the photo is dressed in a neat military uniform, with a burly figure, chest and abdomen, and two beards tilted. He looks terrible and a little combative. Anjie stroked the yellow photos and continued.
"In the peacetime between the two wars, my father's occupation was a butcher, making a living by slaughtering cattle and selling meat. After World War I, the German economy was on the verge of collapse, few people could afford meat, and the supply was very tight, forcing my father to close his butcher shop. Seeing no future, he pinned all his hopes for German revival on the far-right party and joined the Nazi Party. 1944, under the situation that the Germans were losing ground from the Eastern Front, the 55-year-old father once again
He put on a military uniform, but not long after, he was captured by the Soviet Union while guarding Danzig (present-day Poland) and later died in a Soviet prison camp. A man who came back from a prison camp told my mother that your husband starved to death in the prison camp. Before he died, he didn't feel hungry. He just said over and over again that he was very, very homesick.
"1943 18 in February, Germany declared a total war, and all social activities and all human and material resources were devoted to one goal, that is, war! In order to make up for the loss of front-line troops, most soldiers of local air defense units were transferred to strengthen the front-line infantry divisions, resulting in a large number of positions that can be replaced by women and students. In this case, my brother and I took to the air defense position. My brother was born in 1929, and was less than 15 when he joined the war. In order to enable these middle school students to study during the war, my brother's teacher joined the army to teach them during the war.
1943, I was recruited into the navy assistant series of the national defense forces, with the task of supporting the coastal anti-aircraft artillery units. I was just 18 years old. Our uniforms are gray, but the real navy uniforms are dark blue, which is a difference between naval land support personnel and maritime combat troops. I have operated three kinds of air defense equipment: searchlight, air defense monitor and director, mainly to guide enemy targets for 10 cm caliber anti-aircraft guns. It is impossible to manipulate these big guys without hard work. This used to be done by male soldiers. So the girls who replace them must be strong. "
In the old photo album, I saw a photo of Anjie and several girls in front of the searchlight. Sure enough, they are all strong. I put down the photo and asked, "During World War II, Germany and the Soviet Union recruited women to join the army on a large scale. I remember that the Soviet Union recruited 800,000 and Germany recruited 500,000. Do you know the difference between Soviet women and German women in the form of participating in the war? "
An Jie replied: "There is a big difference. Russian women in the war are real soldiers. In addition to routine medical and communication work, many of them are snipers, scouts, tank soldiers and even dry pilots like male soldiers. There are no real female soldiers in Germany. Until the last moment of the war, Germany did not send women to the front to fight. This is the bottom line and the tradition of western European countries: frontline combat troops can only be composed of men. Therefore, in World War II, Soviet female soldiers suffered heavy casualties, while German women suffered little. I read a statistical material, which said that in June of 1944, German women * * * undertook the task of 350 searchlight companies. By March of 1945 (that is, more than a month before Germany surrendered), 500,000 women like us directly participated in military activities, accounting for almost 20% of Germany's remaining total forces. But the official never regarded us as soldiers of the regular army, but called us female assistants of the National Defence Force. We are distributed in the fields of air defense, communication and equipment maintenance. In addition, more than 654.38 million paramilitary women are in charge of field affairs.
"But this doesn't mean that the Nazis didn't have the idea of letting women fight on the front line. Jutta, a former president of the German Women's Association, said in her memoirs:1At the beginning of 945, Ackerman, director of the Imperial Youth Bureau, intended to put forward a proposal to Bowman, director of the Nazi Party Office, and he asked Jutta for advice. Uta said: Absolutely not. If our war reaches the point where we want women to save us, it will no longer make sense anyway. Women are physically unfit to fight with guns. Jutta saved many people with this sentence.
"Among all the women who participated in the war, the risk of taking anti-aircraft gun positions is the greatest. Fortunately, the place where I am stationed is not the focus of the allied air force. Our air defense forces are stationed near the northwest coast of Germany, and the anti-aircraft guns are located next to a river between Hamburg and Kuxhaven. This river is a tributary of the Elbe River, and air strikes are not frequent. This makes us female soldiers like this life very much, because this life is exciting enough but not too dangerous. In addition, the living supply is relatively adequate. God, we are all fat. During our service, we often have the opportunity to go home. Every time we go home, we change into colorful clothes because we don't think the uniforms look good.
"My memory of the war is not as terrible as my husband's, because I have never experienced real terror. This is directly related to where I served as a soldier. If I go to war on the Eastern Front, my fate will be different. After Hitler committed suicide, Deng Nici, the admiral who succeeded him (he should be said to be the national leader with the shortest term in German history) surrendered in Lubeck immediately. As soon as we gave the order to surrender, a group of female soldiers were immediately sent home. This is the decision of an English gentleman, which is not difficult for a woman in a defeated country.
While speaking, Angie dug out another photo album, which was full of photos taken during her trip to the Soviet Union. She kept introducing me one by one, so it took about half an hour before she closed the photo album. She said, "That was 1989. Soon after we came back from there, the Soviet Union disintegrated. The Germans didn't defeat them, they collapsed. "