My Luftwaffenhelferinnen Mother
I live in New Zealand and use an app called Press Reader which allowed me to stumble upon Iron Cross Magazine. I am glad that I did, because the article by Victoria Taylor was truly a very interesting read for me.
My mother, Else Walker, (nee Stollwerk) was a Luftwaffenhelferinnen during the 1939-45 conflict.
Born in Duisburg in 1921, her schooling was mainly at a boarding school in Austria. On leaving school, she went to Rosenheim to study communications. After that, she told me, there was little choice but to be conscripted into the Luftwaffe.
She was based in Paris, Norway, The Netherlands, and Italy but her final posting, in 1944, took her to the Eastern Front. While serving there, she was captured and spent over two years in a Russian internment camp near Moscow. Lucky to survive the brutality of this chapter in her life, she was finally released in 1947 and made her way back to Dusseldorf, West Germany.
She mentioned being based in Hilversum, Holland, where she was attached to what she called ‘fast-flying aircraft units’. (Editor: Possibly a ‘Schnellbomber’ unit, or perhaps a Messerschmitt 262 unit?) She also worked with the Enigma machine which she said was fascinating technology for its time. She also mentioned meeting Hermann Göring at various stages of her career.
During her time with the Luftwaffe, she was wounded three times. She was shot twice – once in Holland by a British aircraft, and then when in the hospital train taking her back to Germany the train was strafed. In this attack, she received yet another bullet wound. She also survived several bombing attacks!
She was unusual in being one of very few female recipients of the Iron Cross, although she told me that she traded the medal for food when she was in Russia. During her imprisonment, she lost the sight of one eye and suffered a smashed neck vertebra.
My mother died shortly before her 90th birthday. She was a true survivor.
There is little information available on Helferrinnen, and so this article filled in a few gaps for me. From accounts I have read, and from what my mother told me, they were initially treated with slight disdain by many superiors. They were regarded as women who somehow did not quite fit the mould of the National Socialists.
All the best for a wonderful magazine. There are so many fascinating articles to read. Roly Walker, New Zealand By email