“We knew it was now just a matter of time before the war arrived on our doorstep. And when it did, it did so with a fury that I will remember until the day I die.”

By Tim Heath

THE CITY OF Aachen, located on Germany’s border with France, was the first major urban centre in the Nazi homeland to fall to the Allies.

The task of capturing it would belong to units of the United States First Army comprising the 1^st and 30^th infantry divisions with a strength of some 100,000 men.

Facing the American forces were 13,000 German soldiers augmented by 5,000 Volkssturm or “Peoples Storm” fighters – little more than armed civilians. Also among the ramshackle defenders were a number of girls and boys from the local Hitler Youth establishment, mobilized by orders from the Nazi authorities.

Local resident Wiener Katte was just 14 years old when her troop of the Bund Deutscher Madel, the girls’ league of the Hitler Youth, was ordered to help defend the city. Enrolment in the BDM was compulsory for German girls aged 14 to 18.

With the Americans fast approaching, the city was transformed into a fortress, complete with barricades, gun emplacements and anti-tank ditches. The contest for Aachen would become one of the fiercest and largest urban battles fought by the U.S. forces in the Second World War.

Wiener recalled vividly the events leading up to and during the battle for the city in a series of interviews I conducted with her back in 2005 for my book In Hitler’s Shadow.

Here, Wiener described the situation:

I had been in the girls Hitler Youth since my 10^th birthday in 1940 where I had to join the junior girls’ Hitler Youth for 10 to 14 years olds, which was the Jungmadelbund or “young girls league.”

When I turned 14 in 1944, I was enrolled into the senior girls Hitler Youth organization, the Bund Deutscher Madel (BDM).

At first, the war did not really affect me, my parents or my older brother. It was only after the Allied landings at Normandy that we knew it was now just a matter of time before the war arrived on our doorstep. And when it did, it did so with a fury that I will remember until the day I die.

The battle for our city lasted almost three weeks from Oct. 2 to 21, 1944. Before the city was even in artillery range of the American forces, it was turned into a fortress with perimeter and inner defences.

I remember before the battle had begun how the American artillery bombarded the city, which was also bombed from the air. It was an intense shelling and bombing which went on for over a week.

The Volkssturm were made up of mostly men considered too old or unfit for frontline duty, though there were women in the Volkssturm too. We young people of the Hitler Youth were also expected to arm ourselves and fight. Most of us had by this time been trained how to throw grenades, fire a pistol or rifle, use a Panzerfaust (anti-tank rockets) even machine guns.

I remember when we were called together one evening before the battle began, some girls were issued with rifles and told where they should go and report and some of the boys were told the same. It was a case of ‘go with this soldier and he will tell you what you have to do.

I was sure I would be going with my friends from the BDM, but they stopped me. They told me that I should report to the main medical aid post in the city. I had always excelled in

first aid and didn’t faint at the sight of blood as some girls did.

When the battle started it was indescribable. Artillery fire came into the city centre day and night and soon many wounded soldiers and civilians started to come into the medical post.

I recall a soldier that was brought in with a serious leg injury. They had to amputate it and I had to hold the tourniquet around his leg as the doctor cut and sawed through it. As the severed leg came away it was thrown to one of the boys who was simply told “he will not be needing this again. Get rid of it.”

A woman came in carrying the lifeless body of her child in her arms. The child had a piece of metal sticking out of the side of [her] head. I had to coax the woman to hand over the body of her child to me. I had to tell her there was nothing we could do and that she was dead.

I was also sent out on message runs around the city. The soldiers would show me a map ask me if I knew where this place or that place was. I would tell them ‘yes’ and they would give me documents to deliver. The idea was that any American snipers that were watching wouldn’t shoot at a child.

The worst that happened to me was being blown over by a shell blast once – my only injury a grazed knee.

My war ended when the Americans broke the defences and the city surrendered. Allied soldiers poured in and I remember one young American soldier pointing his rifle with bayonet at my face. I looked up at him and slowly raising my hand I put my fingers around the blade of the bayonet and I said “nein, nein” (no, no) while shaking my head from side to side. I just wanted to reassure him I was no threat to him. After that he stepped back.

Later, the German garrison commanders came around telling everyone “the war is over for us” and we must now comply with all Allied wishes and not to do anything stupid.

I just wanted to go home. Before these German officers left, one of them came over to me and handed me a small packet and told me he was very proud of all I had done through the battle not only to help save the lives of his men but civilians in the city too. He told me to keep the packet out of sight as someone may try and steal it for a souvenir. Only later did I take it out of my skirt pocket to look at what it was.

Inside was a pencil written note with an Iron Cross 2^nd Class and a War Merit Cross 2^nd Class. The note had been signed by four senior German officers who had each offered ratification for their award to me.

As our war was now over, they could not be officially approved which is why they gave me the letter. I never wore those crosses and I don’t believe I deserved them anymore than anyone else.

Today I still suffer nightmares and re-live the battle in my sleep, I see the dead child, the soldier having his leg cut off, the old woman blown to pieces as she crossed the street. Yes, even all these years on I still suffer the nightmares of Aachen.

At the final meeting I had with Wiener in 2005, she gave me the two crosses that the German officer had presented to her after the Battle of Aachen.

She passed away not long after that final meeting.

Tim Heath is the author of In Hitler’s Shadow – Post War Germany and the Girls of the BDM. Wiener’s story appears in it. The book was published by Pen & Sword in 2018. It’s a follow-up to Heath’s earlier work Hitler’s Girls – Doves Amongst Eagles, also from Pen & Sword.