Roland Hering

"For him it was… he always differentiated and said, “In prison, it was much… it was much easier for the prisoners to survive. In comparison to concentration camps. But”, he said, “in the concentration camps, it was easier to communicate, to organise living together.” This was not possible in prison, especially in Straubing, as he said. There, he worked in different workshops. They made things there for the airplanes, for Messerschmitt, if I remember correctly. They had the possibility to work slowly, to organise something, to build something incorrectly, but it was very complicated. There were criminals and political prisoners. And you had to differentiate, “With whom can I speak?” He tried to get by. Sometimes, he was punished and had to pay a fine. I have all these documents and reports. But… he sometimes was put in solitary confinement, where he had to stand for a day or two in a dark cell. This is how they tried to isolate political prisoners. He never mentioned that it was especially severe but it was… well it was the imprisonment of political prisoners."

"And these heavy machine guns… they needed… water cooling, back then. As I already mentioned, my father was sometimes quite impulsive in his decisions and actions. And this was in a time, in ’38, where the tide of war turned against them. There was this… He participated in the Battle of the Ebro and during this battle, as I said: heavy machine guns, water cooling. Now the machine gun needed water. Ignoring the enemy fire – he was warned, “Arno, don’t go! Stay here! Don’t go!” There was water nearby and he tried to get water. And he was wounded by a shrapnel, his thigh and head were severely injured. The scars were visible for the rest of his life. Yes, and this was his… this was the end of his service in the Edgar-André-battalion. His comrades retrieved him from the line of fire at the risk of their own lives. Then he was brought to Mataró, to the central military hospital of the international brigade. And then there was this… this… there was this horse-trading by the League of Nations, that the international brigades were supposed to surrender their arms and that the war was supposed to end. Some fighters from the international brigades did this but neither Franco’s troops, nor the Condor Legion, which was the German troop, surrendered their arms. And so it was decided to try and defend Madrid and later Barcelona. Even though my father’s wounds had not completely healed yet, he went to the front again where he was until the end, at the last try to defend Barcelona. He participated in the final parade of the international brigades in Barcelona. And then there was this… the arms were laid down and then the surrender, or internment in France. And there, he was detained in several camps."

"And, yes, this was in ’33. Yes, the seizure of power by the NSDAP, the Nazis. The next step, as he was on the very top of the list, was first going into hiding and then later emigration. There was one episode that he… or that affected me. I had asked him, “Tell me, dad, where were you when you went into hiding? You weren’t abroad yet.” And he said: no, he stayed in Struppen with the housekeeper of the local minister in the rectory. And I said, “How was this possible?” He said, “She was, this woman, it was… she was not in any political organisations. She was simply a good person.” And I noticed this often in later conversations with my father, also concerning what happened later in the GDR. He always looked for the unifying, the humane, to say, “Solidarity is important.” He stayed for three or four days with her in the rectory, without the minister knowing about it."