The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

"A creepy beautiful event"

2020-04-20T16:40:16.838Z


This year marks the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. The Americans marched into Starnberg on April 30, 1945. In a series, contemporary witnesses remember the days when peace replaced war in today's district of Starnberg and freedom dictated dictatorship.


This year marks the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. The Americans marched into Starnberg on April 30, 1945. In a series, contemporary witnesses remember the days when peace replaced war in today's district of Starnberg and freedom dictated dictatorship.

Starnberg - It is the same house as 75 years ago that Hildegard Schneck from Starnberg still lives in today. It was in this very house that the then 13-year-old experienced the end of the war: "It was just a creepy and beautiful event," she recalls on Monday, April 30th, when US troops came to Starnberg.

"It was noon and my mother was not at home because she got food for the dog from her aunt," she says. "So I was all alone, and then suddenly my friend Edith came running. She told me the Americans are coming. I should look out the window. ”The news had already got around and white flags were already hanging out of the windows in Schnecks Straße. "I was very excited and didn't know whether I should hang a white flag now," says Schneck. She watched the tanks of the Americans approaching Tutzinger-Hof-Platz via Hanfelder Strasse. "Now something is stirring. Our neighbor said to us, let's all go to Tutzinger-Hof-Platz, ”recalls Schneck. Three young Americans later moved from house to house with guns and searched all the apartments: “In any case, they were very friendly. They stubbed out their cigarettes outside before entering our apartment. And in the house they waved to me, looked at everything and left. ”

+

13 years old at the end of the war: Hildegard Schneck on a passport photo from 1945.

Hildegard Schneck also remembered the days after that as very exciting. “Edith and I went for a walk to the main street,” she says. "And it was snowing. They were nice, big flakes. On the way back I had to walk a bit on my own. ”On this bit, Schneck met dark-skinned people for the first time. "I was a little scared," she recalls. Her father came back to his family. From January to the end of the war, he had accompanied a hospital train from the island of Rügen to Constance as senior paymaster. Hildegard Schneck often spoke later with her friend Edith about the war and the end of the war. "Afterwards we always thought what an event it was," she says. "It was like climbing a mountain and not knowing if you could come back down."

Vanessa Lange

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2020-04-20

You may like

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.