There were nice, quite new, barracks; in contrast to most firs year people I lived in the barracks. I was surely the fattest in the battery, but there were no fitting uniforms even for much thinner ones. [299] I could not get one of may own made, so for several months I was running around in fatigues, which was quite pleasant in the summer heat, but not socially presentable, so I stayed in the barracks and felt rather well. Military wisdom [weisheit] was not difficult, and we had good camaraderie. We were a group of about 150 men enlisting, over half volunteers. Our room was quite specially put together. Among us were judges, lawyers, notaries, a senior judge [landsgerichtpraesident], and Iwo Hauptmann, a painter and son of Gerhart Hauptmann (1912 Nobel prize for literature). Most of the men were older than me, married, and sleeping at home, so I and a few comrades had the room to ourselves. I stayed in the recruit battery until the end of September 1915. It was a beautiful, rain-free summer, the exercises and training on the training fields of by Lurup and Ostdorf did me a lot of good after years of sedentary activity at the institute laboratory. In spite of shining appetite and plenty of food [msp 300] - the barracks food at the time was still first class and tasty - I lost so much weight that when I was transferred to the 4th replacement battery I could fit into a standard uniform.

In the replacement battery we were taught the knowledge of horses, which I found more difficult than the knowledge of cannons. I was to learn to ride, but could participate for only a few days because I was much too heavy for the horses used in training. As soon as the recruits were barely trained in cannons and horses they went into the field. That went quickly and did not suit the battery leaders, since no older staff was left to train the young ones. So they held me back for a half year, as follows: when people were required I was marked as a Russian interpreter, when interpreters were needed I was marked as failing. But one day there was a clerk who did not know this trick, [301] and happily listed me as interpreter when such a request came along, and I was transferred to the POW camp at Gutrow, Mecklenburg. In Gutrow there was a camp for 40 to 50 thousand prisoners, mostly Russians. But at most one tenth of these were in the camp, the rest were housed with peasants [bauern] in Mecklenburg. First I was working on letter censorship, then as a roving court interpreter [Gerichts-dolmetcher unterwegs], but I had to give that up due to my varicose veins which made long bicycle trips difficult. The time in Gutrow was very nice. We interpreters dressed in civilian clothes and lived in Gutrow. For duty one went to the camp early in the morning and returned in the afternoon. There was enough food, the work was easy, and once off duty one was free. The season was wonderful, the spring and summer in the birch-woods and lakes surroundings of Gutrow were beautiful. Several months went by this way. On 1 August I was transferred to the east as interpreter. I travelled alone, [302] over Berlin, Warsaw, Brestlitowsk, to Pinsk. I was in the Pripjets swamps for a few days, an uncanny memory, since we were separated from the nearest troop location by miles of light wooden bridges running over the swamps. From there I went to Lida to the A. O. K. 9 and was attached to the Arendt section 12.

If you should ever see my military pass you will see in it records of action in battle [gefecht], trench warfare, etc. you will see it mentioned that I was promoted to private first class, corporal, and was awarded the Hamburg Hanseatic Cross and the Iron Cross II. Don't imagine any nonsense that your father was some kind of brave war hero. I always performed my duty, but nothing more. None of my comrades was wounded or killed nearby. [302]. I saw blood only in hospitals. I shot my carbine only once during the campaign, and that was at a tree. An unexpected inspection was imminent, the barrel was a bit rusty, and it was a lot easier to clean after a shot. The designation Arendt section was a code-name for listening stations. In those years there was already wireless telegraphy, but radio was an unknown concept. The telephone was the usual means of communication. A wire was strung over field or trees, the return current going through the ground, for which a wire was wrapped around a bayonet and it was stuck in the ground. From those locations waves were emitted that could be received with rather primitive vacuum tube equipment. The listening posts used so-called "earths" [erden] which were hidden wires [304] that were buried in the no-mans-land as close as possible to the enemy positions. These were antennas that picked up waves in the ground, rather than in the air. An Arendt station consisted of a listening device and the "earths" which would sense several kilometers of enemy front. Each army corp had many listening stations. The personnel in each was half interpreters who listened, and half communication specialists who laid the wires and maintained the batteries and other equipment. The living quarters were a few kilometers in back of the first line, connected to the listening stations by telephone. The German telephone lines at the time used two wires, the Russian ones only one. Thus when the Russians spoke by telephone the listening posts could hear them easily and send all important news immediately to headquarters. [305] At first the events were fantastic. The Russians prepared an attack, an we would find out which troops, at what strength, at what time. with what artillery support would attack. Accordingly the german side would work to counter it with trenches and reinforcements. Then the Russian attack would dissipate [verpufte] in emptiness, and the well-prepared german counter attack would start, and the Russians were driven back. Naturally the Russians soon smelled a rat [rochen den braten] and forbade telephone use except for emergencies, or just before an attack, or for troop release [truppenablosungen]. Even then the results of the listening stations were rather successful. We were in the Beresin section, between Smorgon and Nowogrodek, and belonged to the army section Scheffer. North of us was the 10th army under Eichhorn, who was later murdered in Kiev. To the south, if I remember correctly was Wogrsh. The stations changed their location often. [306] There was a great lack of Russian interpreters for the enormous front. All sorts of people were used, former border residents, hotel employees, who could understand a little, though they often could not read or write. So in that context, with a Russian graduation, I was practically a professor.

After I spent several months in the Russian primeval forest with duty on different stations, where the most exciting things were the daily artillery bombardment and the total louse infestation, I only wished to get out of the primeval forest before the snow melt started. It was the awful winter of 1916-1917. For months the high temperature was as low as minus 35 degrees Celsius. We did not freeze; daily we cut down century old oak, birch and ash trees, cut them into fire-wood, and heated our quarters. [307] But when I thought of spring, and the melting of the many-meter deep snow cover, I felt very uncomfortable. But before late spring arrived I was transferred to Lida, the supply center for all the stations. It was at least a small town, with a large Jewish population. There were family acquaintances where one would get invited occasionally, the postal connections were better, one did not have to do ones own laundry, there was a good tea room, the "Hops-blossom." In short, I became a humble [etapenschwein] (base wallah?). The chief interpreter was a lieutenant Walther, who in peacetime sold English fabrics in Russia for his Berlin firm. He was not a bad person, but very conceited about his rank. If he is alive today he is surely a leading Nazi. We got along well, though I could not be promoted further because at that time the anti-Semitic tendency was already so strong that a Jew who was not [308] in the infantry had no chance of becoming an officer candidate. Then the supply base at Lida was dissolved by the AOK (Armeeoberkommando, or general staff) and transferred to the division at Bogdanow, about 40 km closer to the front.

There I experienced the Russian revolution of October 1917, the fraternization with the Russians at the front. In march 1918 I was transferred to the Group Information Command Grukonach 627, south of Lida. After the collapse of Brest Litowsk the great forward march into Russia started, which I did not participate in, since in April 1918 I was assigned as Russian interpreter to the geological section of the ordnance survey at the general staff in Berlin. I stayed in Berlin till the beginning of July 1918. It was very pleasant duty; after 4 one was free and could attend theater and concerts, and make a quick trip to Hamburg. [309] We in the geological section lived in civilian quarters. All officers in the section were geologists or mineralogists. My Chief was Lieutenant Schiller, with whom I became very friendly. He is now, and was then, museum director in La Plata, Argentina, and although I corresponded with him often I never saw him again.

In July 1918 Grukonach 627 requested me back urgently as interpreter. There was nothing to be done. I had to leave beautiful Berlin, where I had changed apartments three times due to bedbug bites, and return to the Russian front. Grukonach was somewhere near Minsk. It was one of the usual reshuffles. Gukonach had to release people to the west, so one gave up detailed people to protect ones own. So, instead of sending me to the west from Berlin, I had to go to Minsk first. From there I went to the troop assembly point of field recruits of the 10th army in Wilna. It was a totally backwards way of doing things. [310] I was there only a week, until 21 July 1918, and those were my most awful days with the Prussians. First, since I was a corporal in the telephone troop, they tried to make me into an infantryman, which did not succeed at all, since I had never learned to use a weapon. Second, quarters and nourishment were already very bad. Third, and that was the worst, during this week my parents celebrated their silver anniversary. I had received a pass to go to Libau from the ordnance survey. When I was sent back east the vacation was imminent. I was given recommendations so that the vacation would be allowed from there, but nothing helped. I could easily have reached Libau from Wilna, and could easily have caught up with the slow troop train in Germany after the festivities. But none of my pleadings had any effect. [311] As the festivities at home were going on, every time the doorbell rang, people yelled "Robert is here!" and ran to the door, while I was being shipped to France.

When we reached the border we were thoroughly de-loused, then it was 8 days zig-zagging through Germany. Three times a day there was warm travel food, almost always either blue henry [blauer heinrich](rice soup) or calf teeth [kalberzahne] (barley broth). Just once, in Mecklenburg pea soup and a bit of sausage. We were ten to a third class compartment, and slept however we could - two on the benches, 2 on the floor, two in the luggage nets, and the rest on suspended field cots [aufgespannten feldbahnen]. One managed to stand it. We came to the field artillery depot in Belgium, and from there to field artillery regiment 505. That was on 9 august 1918. The Germans had been defeated in the second Marne battle and retreated from day to day. The 505 field artillery regiment was a new formation, the personnel were full strength, but we had neither cannons, nor horses, nor equipment. [312] Meanwhile one performed stupid duties and waited for supplies from Germany. This lasted over a month. I had long been fed up with it, and during these weeks diligently wrote letters to uncle Dodo in Berlin describing the whole situation. He undertook what he could to get me back. When our regiment finally got new weapons, horses, wagons and munitions it turned out that everything had changed since my training at Barenfeld in 1915/1916. Instead of the familiar cannons there were field howitzers, different munitions, in part with poison gas, other commands, in short, I saw myself as completely useless. Fortunately uncle Dodo's connections worked. Just as we were ready to be shipped to the front the command came calling me back to the interpreter school in Berlin. I arrived there on 6 September, did stupid duty, [313] and finally on 25 September I came back to my friends in the geological section of the ordnance survey.

The mood was depressed, but I concerned my self only with my work and my leave. Finally, on 5 November, I was allowed to travel home. I stood on the railways platform, waiting for my train. On the other side of the station the Soviet ambassador Joffe and his staff boarded a train in which they would leave Germany, since they had been expelled due to Bolshevik propaganda. In the mean time the sailors revolt broke out in Kiel. The major cities had already been occupied by mutinous sailor divisions, though the Berlin newspapers did not write a line about it. Perhaps victories were happening everywhere, though supposedly things did not look great in Austria. We had not bothered to read the army reports for a long time, and we dozed slowly toward my home. It was a great joy to [314] be reunited with parents, brothers, and relatives after so many experiences. The world was completely forgotten. The weather was dog miserable [hundsmiserabel], drifting snow and storms, but at home it was warm and there was no lack of any delicacies to cheer up the poor soldiers.

Suddenly one morning news arrived that shook the world. The Kaiser and crown prince had fled to Holland, declaration of a republic in Germany, and a cease fire. The first world war was over. In Libau though not much changed. The German administration continued. The Germans hoped to stay there and continue working with the nobility party. Only a year later were they expelled and Latvia became independent. My leave was not extended; at the end of November I was in Berlin again.

The Germans had entered Libau in the summer of 1915. [315] Had they come a few days earlier, the entire Jewish population would have been forcibly evacuated to inner Russia, as had happened with Jewish congregations in all other places in Kurland. Only the Jews who had capital, banks, and factories in Russia moved voluntarily. so practically all of the Jewish first families of Jewish Libau: the Luries, Eliasbergs, Katzenelsohns, Halperns, etc. Only the middle class remained, including our numerous family, and father advanced to the first line of the congregation. The Baltic Germans welcomed the invading Germans with jubilation and flowers. They were also welcomed by the Jewish people, who had already packed their travel bundles, but instead of evacuation saw the entire Russian administration, little loved and much hated, [Russian word] fleeing the city. The joy and jubilation did not last long.

The Germans during the first world war [msp 316] were not such infamous devils and murderers as those in the Nazi world war, but they were definitely no angels. The day after the occupation the requisitioning began. At father's business the entire stock of Linens, Blankets, and bandage material was confiscated in exchange for a requisition certificate which was not worth the paper it was printed on, since no one ever collected on the obligation. When the upstanding Germans tried to requisition the rugs, furs, and similar items father complained to the military administration that rugs and furs did not seem to be necessary for war, and was successful. Then came confiscation of metals, food, cloth, and so on. Various ways of persuading the people to trade in their gold money were tried, e.g. a rumor was spread that due to conversion of cavalry into infantry the horses would be sold for gold rubles. [317] There were nice horses, and there were many buyers. When the horses were to be delivered the order was reversed, and the boasting Kurlanders were repaid with scrip [oberost-papiergeld] Naturally such a fraud happened only once. Soon gold, silver and other valuable metals like copper and brass disappeared from the face of the earth, among which were mother's beautiful samovars which were dug up after the Germans left. The treatment of the inhabitants by the conquerors was always getting worse, while the corruption of the German administration kept getting bigger. Very few residents trusted the Germans now, among them the uncle and guardian of Grinja Falk, Herman Landau, who invested all of Grinja's inheritance, which was substantial, in paper marks. When the crazy idea of offering the crown of Kurland to Kaiser Wilhelm came up, [318] there were a few Kurlandish Jews who were very low on the intelligence exchange, a very few "dumkopfe", who participated in this nonsense. Most again longed for the Russian times, and hoarded Czarist rubles, among them unfortunately also father, whose beautiful but worthless 500 ruble notes were only good for wallpaper. Later, when there was no more hope of the return of Czarist Russia, and before Latvian money was available, one saved Mark notes and lost these savings in the German inflation.

So, at the end of November 1918 I was back in Berlin. It was the wet, gloomy, overcast, November weather. A wet, red, rag hung from the castle; with the best of will one could no longer call it a flag. I came to my duty location at the Geological section of the ordnance survey in the Molktestrasse. The uniforms had vanished, the officers were running around in civilian dress, [319] because they would otherwise be attacked on the street and their epaulets ripped off. I was sent back to the interpreter school, and demobilized from there. On 29 November 1918 I was discharged from the army and went back to Hamburg.

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