9. März 1944
| GEO & MIL INFO | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liberec | 
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| Prague |
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| Karlovy Vary |
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| Mariánské Lázně |
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| Cheb |
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| Hof |
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| Regensburg |
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| Hospital Train 827[1] | ||||
| Army Medical Inspection | OKW/ | |||
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I’m back in the military hospital train[2]. We are already on Reich territory. At the moment we are just crossing the Sudetes. The landscape is winterly bare and desolate. The dark ground with the scattered patches of snow looks like a dirty cloth, on which the defoliated trees stand like dry skeletons. Then the train rolls down from the heights of the Sudetes into the Bohemian Basin. In Liberec the train stops for the first time to unload some wounded. Many onlookers have gathered at the ramp. Medics lift the stretchers out of the train and place them on the ground or push them straight into the waiting ambulances. Red Cross nurses run back and forth, bend down to the wounded, look at their lists and talk to the medics. The civilians take a warm interest in the wounded. It is mainly women and girls who are visibly impressed by our white bandages and plaster casts. This raises our pride quite a bit and is balm for our pain.
The train continues. We travel round Prague in an arc. From a steep height, we look down on the city, which is nestled in the wide basin of the Vltava. The spring thaw has robbed the golden city of its splendour, and the surrounding landscape with its damp, brown, bare ground is barren and unattractive.
Karlovy Vary - Mariánské Lázně - Cheb - Hof[3]. We stopped everywhere to unload the wounded. I asked the transport doctor if I could be unloaded here in Hof. (Because it would only be a stone’s throw from here to Berlin!) But the doctor doesn’t give me any hope. Too many people are now pestering him with special requests. Everyone wants to be accommodated as close to home as possible. If the doctor wanted to fulfil all these wishes, he would be hopelessly confused with his occupancy plan. I understand that and no longer pressurise him. The sensible people always give in and often get the short end of the stick.
Now the train is rattling southwards and doesn’t want to stop at all. It’s getting further and further away from Berlin. In Regensburg[4] it stops again. Once again, the orderlies search through the carriages, picking up a wounded man here and there and taking him to the platform. Again, it’s not my turn. Now I don’t care about anything. It can hardly get any further away. I lie back comfortably in my bed and look through the window at the passing landscape. The train rattles southwards at breakneck speed. It seems to be flying. The rolling thump of the wheels is absorbed by the suspension and transmitted to my bed as a swaying swing. But this time I’m not enjoying the speed as it takes me further and further away from home. It’s getting dark. Tired from all the peeking, I roll over and fall asleep.
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- ↑ acc. to pay book p. 21
- ↑ Lazarettzug 827 acc. pay book p. 21
- ↑ In the original, Hof is missing here; it is only mentioned later. However, the favourable train connection to Berlin mentioned is from Hof, not from Cheb. The following long journey south also fits with Hof, but not with Cheb
- ↑ In the original, “Hof” only appears here; however, due to the description of a long journey southwards, it must have been Regensburg.