Father's recollection

[cgutierrez]

My father's company ended up near the German town of Hoff at the end of WWII pulling guard duty at the German/Czech border. During that time there were a lot of Germans - both military and civilian - trying to get to the American side. At somepoint a German SS group (I can't remember if my father said company or squad or what) managed to make its way across and surrendered to my father's unit. The SS soldiers were kept in an old school house until such time that they could be moved. A while after their surrender my father noticed that when the German women came with any food for the SS soldiers they always had the food covered with some cloth. One day my father stopped one of the German women binging in food for the German soliders and lifted up the cloth and discovered that there was mail from the soldiers' families. Apparently the SS soldiers where using the local German populace as an unofficial mail system. Anyway my father reported his find to his squad leader. The squad sergeant replied, "Let them keep their letters, were handing them over to the Russians tomorrow anyway." (or words to that effect)

The next day the SS soldiers were placed in the back of covered transport trucks. My father stated that he noticed that as the SS soldiers were being herded onto the trucks they appeared very nervous. After they were all on the trucks my father remembers hearing the OIC tell the lead truck driver to drive like hell until he reached the border and stop for nothing.

My personal assumption is that if the SS soldiers were eventually handed over to the Russians on that day none of them are alive today.