13. Oktober 1949
| GEO INFO | ||||
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| Frankfurt/O., (Soviet) Horn Barracks | 
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| (German) camp Gronenfelde |
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| Field post letters/Red Cross cards | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ✉ Telegram to parents |
13 Oct 49. At 3 a.m. we reach Frankfurt/Oder and are led to a barracks[1] that is now occupied by Russians. It is the last Russian station for us. While the Russians look through our papers and complete other formalities in their offices, we shave in the barracks washrooms and then loiter around. At 6 p.m. it’s “fall in” again. The column is ready to march off, but the girls are missing. The Russian holds them back. Allegedly their papers are not in order. In reality, they now have to pass through the beds of the Russian officers before they are occasionally released. What a bloody mess! Actually, the whole column should have refused to leave until the girls came along. It would certainly have been successful. But who would have the courage to risk something literally at the last minute before the gate to the freedom they had longed for so many years? Certainly not German prisoners! I didn’t do it either, because I know from experience that German prisoners of war don’t show solidarity. Half of them wouldn’t have joined in, and the “ringleaders” would have had a bad time of it.
We march on foot to the German camp[2]. On the way, we meet a group of German women coming home from work. One of them jokingly exclaims at the sight of us: ‘Oh, so many men at once!’
Back at the German camp, formalities and payment of 50 marks to each of us. Then I go to the camp’s small post office, where there is a small queue of men in front of the counter, all wanting to send telegrams home. Next to the post office clerk is a pile of tip notes, which are generously given to him in the joy of returning home. Then he notes down my text: “Arriving Friday morning Friedrichshagen, Herbert!”
It’s already midnight. Although I’ve arranged to be released to West Germany, I want to stop off in Berlin for a few days first to stay with my parents. So I join the group travelling on to Berlin. After all, the subsequent transports were now leaving Frankfurt in various directions. They are still official transports. Gerd Maike, a likeable comrade from the Borissow camp, is also with the Berliners.
This transit camp here is a huge hall with various offices, food and drink stalls set up along the walls. There are also rows of 3-storey bunk beds here. Sheer, bare boards. But nobody sleeps here any more. I lie down anyway, because I haven’t slept for ages and am very weary. We still have three hours left and I try to sleep. But it’s too cold, I’m shivering, the boards are hard and no doubt I’m too excited.
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- ↑ certainly the Horn Barracks which acc. to Wolfgang Buwert (Hg.): Gefangene und Heimkehrer in Frankfurt (Oder) 1945 - 1950/56, Brandenburgische Landeszentrale für politische Bildung, 1998, p. 40, was a main discharge camp
- ↑ certainly the Returnee camp Gronenfelde (Buwert, op. cit. p. 45; here an indication of the location)