War diaries: The memories of German nurse Elfriede Schade-Bartkowiak of her time in German military hospitals on the Eastern Front between 1941 and 1945 (Published on 24/10/2025)
Political leaders in Germany are beating the drums of war as if there were no tomorrow and as if World War II and its dramatic consequences had never happened. In response to the increasingly hysterical calls, now heard almost daily, that Germany must once again become “fit for war,” it is worth taking a look at the experiences of those who have lived through war.
Particularly impressive are reports from doctors and nurses who were working in military hospitals at the time and were confronted daily with the horror that “fitness for war” produces. In addition to the report by Lilo Weinsheimer, which was published here some time ago, it is worth taking a look at the book “Sag mir, wo die Blumen sind…” (“Where have all the flowers gone…”) from 1989, in which the former Red Cross nurse Elfriede Schade-Bartkowiak wrote down her war memories from the Eastern Front.
Some descriptions from it are reproduced here.
In her introduction, the author describes the mood among the German population at that time, especially among young people (source: Schade-Bartkowiak, Sag mir, wo die Blumen sind, p. 8 f.; all citations translated from German language):
“At home, there was nothing else to do at first. Alarm and emergency drills, refreshing the Red Cross course. Euphoric mood everywhere among the young, seriousness and thoughtfulness among the old, after the initial surprise had subsided.
But an adventurous frenzy had gripped the city’s youth. (…) The Polish campaign had actually been a picture-perfect war. It was exactly as I and thousands of other young people had imagined it in our adventurous imaginations: fanfare, special victory announcements, marches, blitzkrieg. One success story followed another.
The first wounded soldiers arrived. Only minor injuries, home shots [wounds not too serious, but serious enough to send the soldier home for recovery]. They were housed in the reserve hospital in the mother house of the convent, where I was assigned as an auxiliary nurse. They were welcomed at the train station with triumph, flowers, and honors, and they laughed and let themselves be pampered. (…) It was a pleasant job! Rooms densely packed with exuberant soldiers, who were duly admired by the girls of the town for their home front wounds. Very becoming, such a head bandage or an arm in a sling. All my school friends suddenly appeared and practiced caring for the wounded. (…)
My goodness – we were so young and carefree back then, and proud to belong to a great and victorious nation! The war was very far away and soon over, and for us it did not yet hold any of the horror of the years to come. We had enjoyed a sheltered, wonderful small-town childhood in our little town. In a world that, when you think about it, was very narrow at the time. But that didn’t bother us. For us normal Germans, the world ended at Germany’s borders. Everything beyond those borders remained largely unknown to us and was completely beyond our imagination.
The radio – the Volksempfänger with its limited range – the local newspaper, and the Völkischer Beobachter were the only sources of news here. People went on vacation to the Harz Mountains, the Black Forest, or the Baltic Sea, or – for some time now – to Austria, which had been brought home.
Our world was small and manageable, and we loved it. But that didn’t stop us from dreaming of the big, wide world and longing for adventure – like all young people, I suppose.
And now it was here – the great adventure!
A victorious campaign, planes storming the skies, rolling tanks advancing inexorably into enemy territory, the rousing rhythm of the navy’s »… and we’re sailing towards England …«, waving banners, victory fanfares…
All of this mingled in our imagination with the heroic deeds of our ancestors.
Like most children of that era, I had absorbed the epics of Germany’s past: The Nibelungen, Old Fritz and Blücher, the flying aces of World War I. I had read Flex and Rilke, Eggers and Dwinger… They were all the idols of our youth. And with these rose-colored glasses on our noses, we were ready to experience the adventures of our time.
And then, of course, there was Hitler, the Führer, who taught us pride and confidence in our own strength in his Hitler Youth. Daring, bravery, and love for the fatherland were considered the highest virtues.
The small sacrifices demanded of us in return – discipline, obedience, conformity to the national community, »guns instead of butter«, and the fact that coffee often tasted more like Muckefuck [coffee substitute] – were unimportant.
I know, I know! By today’s standards, that sounds very much like propaganda slogans and rather simplistic. But, honestly, what young person wouldn’t be seduced by slogans and sectarians and intoxicated by their own strength if they were persuaded long enough?
And what young person researches the background and questions things when they want to believe and have faith? Why should we? We were doing well, our parents were finally doing well again, we were strong and confident and ready to create a new world – whatever we understood that to mean at the time.”
After Ms Schade-Bartkowiak’s boyfriend was killed in combat, she came to the conclusion that she could better honor his memory by actively participating in the war and trained as a military nurse shortly before the German attack on Russia began. She writes (ibid., p. 12 ff.):
“And once again, there was a new war. It seemed inevitable to us at the time. This time against Russia. Only the elderly, who had experienced not only the hell of the Battle of the Somme but also the endless expanses of the battlefields in Russia, looked very serious.
My father, too! I was irritated and disappointed in him. When he came home from military reserve exercises in peacetime, wearing his smart uniform, I was always so proud of him. But on the day war was declared on Russia, he turned pale as a ghost and muttered:
»Oh my God!«
The fear in the parents’ eyes seemed incomprehensible to me. But now I was there and would stand my ground, even if – God forbid – I wasn’t a boy.
Nine months later, I stood at the window of a train carrying soldiers on leave and looked out into the twilight. (…) I was young and inexperienced back then, brimming with ideals and expectations. By then, I had grown accustomed to being called »sister«, as well as to the dress, apron, and cap. Only the hard rubber collar, which rubbed my neck raw, and the uniform with its collar patches and Red Cross armband were new. And then there was the field equipment with bread bag, canteen, gas mask, and the dog tag I wore around my neck in a small leather pouch.
Finally, I had made it! I was on my way to the front. The war would not end without me having been there, without me having done my best to serve the Fatherland.”
Her deployment was not long in coming and radically changed her view of the war (ibid., p. 21 ff.):
“»A few kilometers to the south, there is another military hospital that urgently needs help«, a staff doctor announced one day, and I immediately volunteered. (…)
After a day of driving on dusty, bumpy roads, the bus arrived in a small town that stretched out between endless sunflower fields.
The houses, small and old, spread far apart, lined a wide, unpaved street that led to a large square. In the middle of the square stood a huge block of buildings, a former Russian barracks. Next to it was a cubist monument base without a monument. The barracks were the military hospital. To the left were long rows of soldiers’ graves with wooden crosses and small nameplates. The sight of them hit me like a shock, even though I should have expected it. Where there is a military hospital, there is also death here in the field. But so many!
Two- to three-story stone houses surround the square. On a street corner, within sight of the military hospital, stands a formerly grand apartment building, rounded at the corner: the accommodations for the hospital staff.
Now the house was no longer grand. Some of the window panes had been replaced with cardboard or straw mats, the light pipes were dead, and the only furniture I found in the room I was assigned was a straw mattress on the floor with a mosquito net over it.
My shift as a night nurse in the »major surgery« ward was due to start that evening. (…) I trembled with excitement at the thought that my lack of experience might be noticed. Lack of experience! Ridiculous! No experience at all with freshly wounded patients. Would I even be able to make the beds properly without hurting the patients? Would I carry out the orders correctly and not forget or do anything wrong? Surely I would only accompany an older, more experienced nurse at first. Hopefully she would be nice and let me do something other than just making beds, cleaning, and carrying stretchers! Surely the soldiers here weren’t as cheerful as those in the hospital back home; they must be tired from fighting.
Yes! That’s what I thought at the time. Foolish thoughts, stupid and simple-minded. Only at that moment did I not yet know h o w foolish they were.”
Without warning, Elfriede Schade-Bartkowiak is immediately confronted with the horror of war (ibid., p. 22 ff.):
“In a gloomy, huge, stone stairwell, I waited for the ward nurse who was supposed to admit me.
»Come quickly, sister, I’ll show you what’s most important. I’m sister Hedwig. I don’t have much time; a military hospital train is at the station and is currently being unloaded. First, help me fill up the dressing cart … «
Turning swabs, cutting plates, rolling up washed bandages, taking cutlery and syringes out of the sterilizer. The dressing room was simple but well equipped. By the time we were finished, it had already gotten dark, and the first ambulances were pulling up in front of the building.
Suddenly, the lights went out.
»Damn! No power again! Here, take the candle. I’m sorry, but I have to go to the delousing station. But you’ll find your way around on your own! Downstairs are the jaw injuries, here in the hall are those with traction bandages, next door are the abdominal injuries and amputations, and upstairs are the lung injuries and the others … «
»Yes – but – sister Hedwig! Am I alone?« “Of course, didn’t they tell you? Oh – don’t worry! I’ll be here for a few more hours if anything happens …” And then she was gone.
With trembling hands, I lit the candle and set off.
And so began the most horrific night of my life.
In every corner, in every room of the large house, there were moans and cries. Pale, pain-contorted faces appeared and disappeared again into the darkness. Hands grabbed at my apron and voices begged:
»Sister – water!«
»Sister – help me!«
»Sister —my stomach! It hurts so much!«
I couldn’t come to my senses, ran from room to room, up and down the stairs with my little candle.
A candle. The small, pitiful light of a candle. How little – how much it can illuminate!
The truth! The naked truth about »my war«!
The candle’s light is so small, and when you carry it in your hand as you rush through corridors, stairwells, and rooms, the light flickers, distorting and undistorting, and you can only see what is immediately in front of you.
This is both helpful and harsh. There is no big picture, but instead, as if under a magnifying glass, each individual figure is starkly visible in all their misery.
Brutal and ruthless, the beast of war dragged me from bed to bed, mercilessly exposing the wounds it had inflicted, polluting the air around me with the smell of pus, sweat, blood, and feces that took my breath away. Red seemed to seep into my brain as it dripped onto the floor of the great hall, and I thought I would suffocate, like the jaw shots on the ground floor, gasping for a breath of air.
The candle’s light showed me only one individual case at a time, extinguishing it again when I moved on to the next bed.
Only the accompanying music remained. It even penetrated the cellar, where I had crawled away, my eyes wide with horror, into the furthest corner, shaken with fear, while my hand anxiously tried to protect the small candle flame from going out.
Then I was driven back upstairs. I wished I had a thousand hands, a thousand feet. Why couldn’t I run faster! Here a syringe, there a cup of water, the bedpan, the vomit bowl. The bandage was off, and a black hole grinned at me where an eye had once been. At the window, someone was bleeding so profusely that a dark pool had already formed under the bed.
In every corner, in every room, there were moans and cries, pale faces contorted with pain appeared and disappeared again into the darkness, feverish eyes begged for help.
The house was large, and I often got lost. There were supposed to be 200 wounded, and now new ones were constantly arriving. The stairwells and corridors were crowded with stretchers carrying covered figures.
Three dying people lay in the X-ray room, their makeshift beds set up next to the perpetually dripping faucet. Eerie equipment stood around, causing me to stumble over it in the dark. The darkness was filled with rattling breaths.
I didn’t want to have to go there! I had never seen a dying person in my life. At least not today, not on this night, which was already so terrible!
But I had to. Sister Hedwig just shook her head in incomprehension and hurried on to the operating room.
I fled the place, hid somewhere in a corner, and was afraid there too. I felt sick. Something was screaming outside, and I could hear the moaning from here.
When morning dawned behind the gloomy windows, I had survived that too. The three of them were dead. I no longer knew how the night had ended. I knew nothing at all, except for o n e thing: I would never be able to do that again! I would never be able to spend another night in that horrible house!”
Nevertheless, she did so (ibid., p. 24 f.):
“Of course, sister Hedwig did her duty the next day, despite having been up all night. And of course, I also returned to the house at seven o’clock the next evening, received an apron pocket full of morphine ampoules and heart medication, the syringe set, and the tourniquet, which I hung around my neck – like everyone else – for convenience, so that it was immediately accessible.
Sister Hedwig showed me what there was to see, then the light went out again. The candle and its magic ruled the night once more.
That night, I moved as if in a trance, as if under a hypnotic spell. I still had the same fear and the same feeling of horror, but I ran through the house, doing my duty as if it weren’t me, as if this sister were a complete stranger. I didn’t run away like I did last night, but stayed with the dying patients of my own accord. This time there were two again whom the doctors had declared »in faust« [a very poor prognosis, the death of the patient is generally to be expected].
There was no rest, no time to sit down. I didn’t even touch the food that was waiting for me downstairs in the cafeteria. That night, I was alone with 300 seriously wounded soldiers and four Russian women who didn’t understand a word of German.
I weaved my way through the extension poles without bumping into anything, climbed over mattresses on the floor, balanced my candle through rooms, corridors, and stairwells like a marionette, mechanically and as if I myself had died last night.
In the early morning, I crawled under my mosquito net like a wounded dog, laid my head on my crossed arms, and bit my index finger, as I had always done as a child when something hurt terribly. I wanted to scream or cry. I longed for someone who could assure me that none of this was real, that it was just a nightmare. Then I lay on my back for hours, thinking of nothing but »No – no!«
Until the Russian twilight suddenly fell. Then I got up, realized that I had been lying there with the bonnet on my head all day, took another one out of my suitcase, tied it on, smoothed out my apron, and went over.”
The very first nights completely changed her worldview when she realized that, contrary to everything she had been taught, dying as a soldier was in fact not heroic at all, but often a miserable death (ibid., p. 25 ff.):
“They died every night after that. Almost all of them, the ones I found in the X-ray room in the evening, plus others from the wards. I always had to wake up the paramedics and call the doctor to certify the deaths, hand in the fever charts and belongings to the office, and make the entries in the ward book.
My God – they died so differently! H o w differently! Did I know how people died in war? Had anyone at home told us what it was like out here? Black block letters on white pages, the casualty reports in sober figures in the Wehrmacht report, the shyness and helplessness at the sight of a woman dressed in black on the street, a few lines from the company commander to an unknown girl: »… he was killed instantly.«
Nothing of the poverty and desolation on the straw mattresses here in the gloom of a gray Russian barracks. Unheroic and miserable, and without »glory and splendor«.
Walter Flex! Is it really true that this no longer belongs here because it is ugly and not heroic at all – not »bathed in light and proud«?
And I was ashamed. I was ashamed because I was afraid. I had never been afraid before, not even as a child, in the basement or in the dark. But here I was afraid. Afraid of the house and of the nights. Afraid of the X-ray room and the noises. Afraid of dusk and the hour when I had to go over there.
And I was ashamed because the smell in the room still made me feel sick, because it took all my willpower to wipe the bloody mucus from my throat after a shot to the jaw and to clean the straw mattress stained with blood, pus, and feces after a shot to the stomach.
And – I was ashamed of my enthusiasm for war and my thirst for adventure, and of the pride with which I had announced that I was finally »getting out«, and of my gullibility and lack of critical thinking and false ideals and … and …
Now none of that was left. Now I was small and pathetic. And when I tossed and turned sleeplessly on my straw mattress hour after hour, unable to shake the images of the station from my mind, when the fear of what was to come shook me, I tried desperately to remember what we had once been taught: a sense of duty, bravery, toughness, responsibility…
Responsibility for this, too? Yes, for this too. Whether I wanted to or not, the responsibility was there. And it drove me back to the big house every evening, made me do things that horrified me and that I didn’t want to do! The responsibility for the large number of helpless people who lay there on the rock-hard, thin straw mattresses, struggling with pain and the passing hours, waiting only to see my footsteps and the glimmer of my candle light up the hallway. For their sake, I had to become hard on myself, on the fear, the thoughts, and the feelings.”
When Germany once again seeks to restore its “war readiness,” testimonials such as that of Elfriede Schade-Bartkowiak are invaluable in reminding us what war means.
May people remember this and say “No!” this time.
(Head picture: Grave stones on the German military cemetery Sandweiler/Luxembourg,
September 2024)
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