Some Unusual British Soldiers

[Calilasseia]

World War II is, of course, a gold mine for those seeking tales of heroism by men and women in uniform, and I have recently posted a little account covering the action of a member of my own family, in an appropriate thread. However, I have alighted upon accounts of some unusual British soldiers. Unusual, because ... they were Germans.

No less than ten thousand refugees from the Nazi régime arrived on the shores of Britain, and enlisted as British servicemen. Two particularly poignant accounts are covered in two pages on the BBC news website, namely here and here.

First of the two individuals featured is Herman Rothman. He had good reason to flee Hitler's government - his parents were Jewish. They sent him to England in the belief that he would be safer there, a prescient decision on their part. He became an intelligence officer, and history placed him in a unique situation - interrogating Hitler's press secretary Otto Dietrich in 1945. During that interrogation, it was revealed that a document was hidden, sewn into Dietrich's coat, that transpired to be Hitler's last will and testament, complete with the dead Führer's signature. Rothman was given the task of translating this document as part of the process of collecting evidence for Nuremberg.

Another refugee, Claus Ascher, was raised as a Protestant, but his father, Curt Ascher, was an outspoken opponent of Nazism. Claus, who upon arrival changed his name to Colin Anson, choosing the surname because an Avro Anson reconnaissance aircraft flew overhead as he was advised to change his name for security reasons, survived the war. His father, tragically, did not - the last piece of writing by his father, poignantly, is a postcard, sent from within Dachau concentration camp, and only a week after the postcard was sent, Curt was dead. Claus, now Colin Anson, became a commando, and saw action against German forces in that role. He was wounded harrowingly in the Sicily campaign, and not expected to live, his head injuries leaving part of his brain exposed. He proved to be tough, however, and recovered sufficiently to resume fighting in Yugoslavia and Corfu. Valuable courtesy of being a native German speaker, and able to interrogate prisoners of war in their own language, his recollections of the era are telling.

Both men bear no bitterness toward those they left behind. Both men consider that many of those they left behind had no choice, and were well aware of the fate that awaited those who stood up to be counted against Hitler, a fact brought home forcefully by the hideous manner in which the July Plot conspirators were murdered, and filmed in their death throes for Hitler's entertainment - indeed, film footage of Field Marshal von Witzleben struggling, naked, in a strangler's noose of piano wire, was played at Nuremberg, and even more gruesome atrocities were perpetrated against others. Rothman and Anson, now 85 and 88 respectively, are content to have played a part in showing the world that better ways exist to govern other than terror and brutality, and harbour no desire for revenge.

Truth is indeed, sometimes stranger than any fiction.

[Link]

Great men to read about, thanks for posting them Cali

I think the bravery of these people is incredible some of the stories you hear really make you think about how you would handle that situation.