"It wasn’t easy to win a war with soldiers like me!"

Name : Erwin Rudolf Mayr

Birth Date : 17 February 1925

Birth Place : Vienna

Profession : OMR, Commendatore, Prof., Dr. med. univ.

Erwin Rudolf Mayr: „The most important message for me is the activation of tolerance in people so that one can recognise that all people have the same dignity and the same opportunity to live in peace, and to see that all people receive these chances. And this can certainly be fostered with the adequate methods – from the parents and family – through Kindergarten, Elementary School and High School. This seems to be the most important thing to me. Simply because the worst thing people can do and are still doing is to persecute, to seek conflict with others for political differences, their view of the World, or whatever other reasons. One can be of the opposite opinion; one can also have an enemy, but not an enemy to the death. If you have an enemy to the death you are more or less programmed to kill someone before you get killed yourself. And that is the most unacceptable thing, to threaten another’s‘ life. The life we have been given was a gift from above; we did not give it to ourselves."

Information on his life before, during and after the Second World War:

Erwin Rudolf Mayr was born in 1925 as the son of Rudolf Mayr, an official at the Austrian National Bank and his wife, Marianne Mayr. He attended Elementary School at the Piaristen School in Vienna before completing his secondary education at the Albertgasse Realgymnasium in Albertgasse in Vienna’s 8^th district. He joins the Hitler Youth voluntarily in 1939/40 and is then degraded from his position as Pack Leader in the Spring of 1942. He is expelled from the HJ and is never allowed to become a member of the German national Socialist party as a result.

Right after graduating from school, he is called up to serve in the Reich Labour Service in Laa a/d Thaya (April to July 1943). He joins the German Wehrmacht as a recruit in August 1943 (44^th Division, "Hoch- und Deutschmeister") in Nikolsburg and remains there until February 1944.

He completes his Reserve Officer Applicant (ROB) training between May and June 1944 in Znaim and is then assigned to Vergeretto (Via Emiglia, from Forli to Bologna) on the Italian Front as a Reserve Officer Applicant. From there, he is sent back to Vienna (Strebersdorf), where he trains recruits. He is assigned to the Russian front in St. Pölten (Spratzern, Völtendorf im Traisental/ Lower Austria). He then deserts. After an adventurous escape, he returns to his parents in Vienna in good health. He is then informed that he was promoted to Lieutenant on 20 April 1945.

Shortly thereafter, much to the dismay of his father who would have preferred him to become a bank official, he begins his medical studies. He intends to become a psychiatrist, but Primarius Dr. Otto Lutterotti – who he admires – dissuades him and convinces him to become a surgeon. He makes the Sisters of Mercy Hospital in Vienna his professional home. He worked there until his retirement and still works there today as a non-medical patient attendant and Ombudsman in the Pastoral Service of the Hospital.

Erwin Rudolf Mayr was the owner of a large collection of toys (it includes items from the 4^th century B.C. up until the present day), which he bequeathed to the Province of Lower Austria. It can be seen as part of a permanent exhibition at Schallaburg Castle close to Melk. He is also the honorary curator of the collection.

Autobiographies/Publications

"Fröhlichkeit allzumal" (Cheerful All the Time) – A compilation of amusing and contemplative episodes from my time as a hospital doctor. Volume 1, Nov. 1999, published by the Hospital of the Sisters of Mercy, Vienna.

Volume 2 will be published in October 2001

The book "Toy Tales" is in preparation. Is a collection of anecdotes on the subject of toys. It is scheduled for publication at the end of 2001.

A comrade: "Do you know why Hitler loves going to the toilet?" Me: „No, why?" He has the brown masses behind him there!" (laughs)

Naturally, I also experienced Hitler’s annexation. That time was defined by my mother’s enormous mental reserves; she was a deeply devout and faithful Catholic. She saw hardly any good for the Church in Hitler’s approach.

My father was a monarchist, an officer in WWI. He definitely had a certain German Nationalist attitude, but not in an exaggerated way. For us boys this was a Mordshetz, a great time, and I would be lying if I were to say that I hadn’t been swept up by a wave of euphoria.

I ask the young generation to imagine how they shake before a mathematics or Latin exam they are supposed to take the next day. And then, on the next day, when you know you aren’t prepared, you are told that there will be a school assembly in the ceremonial hall to hear the Führer give a speech from the Krolloper in Berlin.

Then it was actually hard to say he was a criminal. We were pleased, because we thought he was saving us from an exam.

This is the way things have to be looked at, on a small scale. We didn’t see the big picture, the crimes, and the persecution of the Jews, the Holocaust and all the other things. As young children, we didn’t know all the things that lay behind the events in our lives.

The man had a certain demonical, fascinating effect. That, I have to say in complete honesty, I’d be lying otherwise... I can still remember: I was in front of the Hotel Imperial. People stood there for hours chanting „Jetzt geht’s uns guat, da Kurt is fuart." ("Kurt is out of time, now we’re doing fine.") This was an allusion to Dr. Kurt Von Schuschnigg. Or they sang: „Nach Hause, nach Hause gehen wir nicht bevor der Führer spricht! ("Home, we won’t go home until the Führer speaks!") and other such chants... The children who could climb were hanging from the trees on the Ring and suddenly the door of the Imperial opened and he came out, his face bearing an earnest expression. He raised his hand in the German salute and, and I would almost say stiff and unmoved – demonically- accepted the acclaim of the masses until he went back in. It was this way, and I think it must have impressed women even more: He exuded a form of fascination that is hard to describe. Most of all, you shouldn’t forget the following thing: At a time in which unemployment was high, one suddenly had the feeling he would bring us food, bring new courage to our lives!"

MB1, ca. 01:19.35 I was at an event on the "Day of the German Wehrmacht" in Mödling. Armoured division personnel were performing a form of motor ballet, similar to the Lipizzaner Horses. They were performing with motorcycles, and naturally, I enjoyed it a great deal, but it ended very quickly when a true Viennese citizen said to my father: "Get lost, you Jewish pig, otherwise I’ll let you have one!" For totally incomprehensible reasons!

My father had a hooked nose, but he wasn’t at all typically Jewish, he also wasn’t Jewish. We then quickly left this terrain which had ceased to be pleasant for us. This is also a recollection from the year 1938.

This angered a good friend of mine. - I was separated from him becouse he had traces of Jewish ancestry and wasn’t allowed to remain in our school and was sent away to a different one. Today we are back together again, thank God.

It always made him angry that we were now the Ostmark, and that Germans from the Reich came as part of the Baierischen Hilfszug, the Bavarian Aid Campaign. They came to gorge themselves and then actually behaved as if they were bringing us destitute Austrians large amounts of food. And it also influenced me. I was on his side very often and drew red-white-red flags in my notebooks and so on, because I thought, we still actually exist.

But later, you shouldn’t forget the role of propaganda in the Third Reich. Goebbels’ steamroller, he was a seducer with God-given powers, if one is allowed to combine that word that way. It was so overwhelming that one thought, "There has to be an Endsieg (Final Victory), everything has to turn out alright, Hitler will do the right things."

Yes. I went to the Hitler Youth of my own free will. I even made it to the low rank of Kameradschaftsführers (Pack Leader) and then managed to end my time in the Hitler Youth dishonourably.

I think it was on13 March 1940 that a March was organised to commemorate the annexation on 13 March 1938. Since us three close friends got bored during the march and because it was cold, we began to sing a popular song everybody knew: "Du hast Glück bei den Frauen, Bel Ami." (You have luck with the ladies, Bel Ami). The song was from a famous Willi Forst film.

The Stammführer (Group Leader) heard us and yelled: "Company left, who started singing?!" Naturally we didn’t dare answer. He then threatened to drill the entire block – about 100 people – they would have beat us up, they knew we had sung. And so we spoke up voluntarily. We had to leave the company immediately and were sent home on the spot. A letter arrived three days later from our Bann (Group Command) Vienna 501 on Tuchlauben (a street in the centre of Vienna). It was a summons from our Bannführer (Group Commander). And so the three of us went there in full uniform with all our distinctions. He degraded us officially, tore the lace off, ripped our epaulettes off and yelled at us. He asked us what kind of German boys we wanted to be if we were capable of commemorating as fantastic a day as 13 March 1938 with a song as decadent as "You have luck with the ladies, Bel Ami", he then expelled us from the group. My School Director, whom I liked very much because he was a good person although he was a glowing National Socialist, said this would have horrible consequences, "Children, this will be entered in your character reports and you won’t be able to study at any German university."

He was right, I was allowed to study at an Austrian university, in Vienna, and so I managed to navigate past that cliff. Do you know what the consequences were? That I was not named HJ-Führer Parteianwärter (Hitler Youth Führer Party Candidate) on 20 April 1943. I was even considered unworthy of being allowed to join the German National Socialist Party and that spared me all the things those went through after the war who were named candidates. They had to report to the De-nazification Commission. They then had to clean up the rubble and other such tasks, while I was spared this by paying tribute to Forst (Actor Willi Forst) with "Bel Ami" (laughs).

After completing my elementary school at the Piaristen School (traditional Viennese Catholic school) I joined the HJ in the 8th district. Disruptive HJ exercises were always directed at the Church. These took on the form of disturbing the May masses at the Piaristen Church. They would sing national songs, empty the holy water wells and so on.

Then my mother took my aside and said: "You are never allowed to do that." And I never did such a thing in my life I disappeared whenever such assignments came up. I couldn’t stand up against them; I was too scared to. I was also possibly too uncertain. I don’t want to say that this was a heroic deed. But it was my loyalty to my mother, thank God. I never denied my belief during the war and the National Socialist era. I never did that. And I have to say that I am also happy about that, since it was ultimately my parents' influence, especially that of my mother.

Weyer an der Enns - that’s where we were vacationing. I can only remember that trains with military equipment, cannon, anti-aircraft guns, entire staff cars full of soldiers travelled towards the Ennstal Valley on the Western rail route. They probably headed to Poland then and naturally, that was incredibly fascinating to me as a boy. I used to run to the train station all the time because no one had ever seen such amassing before.

I was at the Reich Labour Service for three months, was discharged and immediately called up to join the German Wehrmacht infantry in Nikolsburg, where the 131st Infantry Regiment was stationed. There we were asked if we would like to become officers after completing our training as recruits. It didn’t mean much to me, but I did know one thing: If I became an officer, the reserve officer applicant training courses would keep me away from the front for anywhere between three months to half a year. And so I volunteered and completed my reserve officer training in Znaim.

After the courses were over and I had passed the exam, I was sent to the Italian front as a reserve officer applicant. I became seriously ill with dysentery there and was sent to a number of different military hospitals until I finally returned to Strebersdorf. I was in charge of training recruits there for a short time.

In April of 1945 I was due to enter the military school in Fürth, close to Nuremberg in order to be discharged as a Lieutenant and complete my service in the infantry of the German Wehrmacht.

I arrived on the Italian front in July 1944, as a reserve officer applicant who was designated to prove himself on the front. This meant that I was expected to return to the War Academy with an Iron Cross 2^nd class, at least. 1^st class would have been even better. The first flaw that bothered my sense of justice deeply was that I had to go to the very front of the lines in the Etruscan Apennine mountains, in a village called Vergeretto.

I was ordered to board a truck that would take me there with my rifle, ammunition, pistol, all the things a non-commissioned officer has. The truck was a SanKar, an ambulance, white with a Red Cross. And I knew exactly that it is absolutely forbidden to transport able soldiers, ammunition and equipment in an ambulance according to the Geneva Convention! Thus I was brought to the front lines in an ambulance! When I asked the driver why we were being transported in an ambulance, he replied, " Yes, this is the only way we can avoid getting shot at by American fighter bombers." So it was completely unjustified and violated all the laws of war!

And I now I have to tell you, although it is unpleasant for me because I do not like to talk about high strategy and combat, but I say: My highest commander, who I never met in my life was Field Marshal Kesselring. Kesselring managed a brilliant military feat on the Italian front, the command of which had been returned to him. It was the kind of feat that actually should make military history. Every night, he showed the highest regard for human life by pulling back the German front by 100, 200, 300 or 400 metres.

In the early morning hours, an incredible barrage of American fire would hit the then already vacant German positions. Then the Americans would storm the site yelling "Hooray" and shooting, but the yelling and shooting died down once they saw nobody was there anymore.

We were sitting 400 metres back and got to watch this like a film almost every night, because we had moved back again. This is what a General should make the highest guiding principle for his actions in a war that is already lost! His duty should be to return home as many young, able persons with their lives still ahead of them uninjured, and most of all, alive. That is what Kesselring did with us in an almost brilliant fashion. This only became clear to me much later, but that is the way it was!

A friend of mine who is a lawyer in Webgasse (a street in Vienna’s sixth district) passed a house with a non-commissioned officer during a communications reconnaissance trip, an Italian farmhouse. It was in the summer, in August and it was hot. They were thirsty and maybe also wanted to have a piece of bread or some bacon. They could speak tolerable Italian and went inside. They told a young, pretty Italian daughter or maid what they wanted and she said, "just a moment, you’ll get it in a minute!" and oddly began sorting through the drawer of the table. She then quickly disappeared.

The sergeant, an incredibly smart man, grabbed and threw my friend out of the house and dove out himself. My friend was about to say, "Are you stupid? We were going to..." At that moment, there was a bang and the pineapple grenade she had activated exploded in the drawer. Half of the house sank a half metre into the ground. She came, filled with hatred, and assuming that the two would be lying there dead or fatally injured and was shocked to see that both were still alive. She was willing to wreck her own home in order to erase two hated Germans. Naturally, she was handed over to the military authorities and convicted. She definitely did not survive. She was shot.

The front against the Americans and British in Italy was a "noble" front because you knew that you would be treated like a human being if taken prisoner. What is probably less well known is that the US Army issued orders to pay black soldiers a bonus for bringing back a German prisoner alive. This was intended to keep the hunting and base instincts which are still extant in African persons in check. So he was not to be massacred, killed or anything. That would have been about the most horrible thing that could happen, more or less.

To make it short, the Soviet Army attacked us and we had to retreat to the West Bank of the Traisen river. We could still take up positions on the edge of the banks. We were roughly, I would say maybe less than 70, 75 men.

None of them was injured. Then I gave the order: "Blow up the bridge!" We had placed three explosive charges on the Traisen Bridge. I wanted to blow up the bridge, but the Resistance Movement had cut the wires in the night, which I understand, because they wanted to preserve the structure.

However, they were life saving for us because we knew the Russians would be there right away if the bridge were left standing. I have to say that I had a non-commissioned engineering officer serving under me who placed a Geballte Ladung, an extremely powerful charge on the bridge, hoping that it would also detonate the first charge as well and destroy the bridge. That didn’t happen, all the railings and everything else fell off the bridge, but the bridge itself remained standing with a small, maybe 20cm hole in it.

With a heavy heart I gave the order to group up on a 500 metre broad field behind the Mariazellerbahn Bahndamm , (Mariazell Train Dam). This was the next possibility we had to take up positions. And the Russians came over immediately and started shooting at us. I managed to gather 20 soldiers from my unit at the Mariazell Train Dam. 50 were either shot or severely injured.

No one went into captivity because something horrible happened before: The Waffen SS - I only found this out later – launched a counter strike and captured a Russian General staff including 60 Generals and Colonels. Instead of keeping them as a bargaining chip (smacks his hand with his fist) and offering an exchange, they shot, poured petrol over them and burned all 60 officers when the Russians started their next attack and it was clear they had to flee. And so the Russians found their dead Generals burned or burning in part and the Russian General said: "No Germans will be taken prisoner in this sector anymore. It doesn’t matter whether he is a child, a woman, a man or whatever! No one will survive, everybody will be shot! So I assume that none of the fifty poor devils (my men) that were found lying there with severe injuries survived. The Russians shot them afterwards.

Erwin Rudolf Mayr was able to desert immediately after this experience and returned to his parents in Vienna – in April 1945 - in good health after an adventurous escape. He is then informed that he was promoted to Lieutenant on 20 April 1945. Shortly thereafter he begins his medical studies.

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Copyright © 2001 by Ruth Deutschmann, Wien

Ruth Deutschmann

Vienna, 31 July 2001