Every story has two sides – as does history. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to meet an interesting figure who saw the Second World War from the German perspective as a “Hitler-Jugend” or “Hitler Youth.”
Being an avid history buff, I find it imperative to examine both sides of history. Having contacted & conducted interviews with 200+ WWII German veterans, 78-year-old Lennie Cuje is one of many examples of the lesser-known sides of history. Today Cuje lives a modest life in a quiet residential neighborhood in Northern Virginia.
Born in January of 1933, Cuje was one of the first to have been born into what was going to be Hitler’s Thousand Year Reich – he was even presented with a medal from Hitler which he still has, inscribed “Under the Future of Adolf Hitler, In the Year of Germany’s Transformation, 1933.”
For every German boy, the Hitler Youth was mandatory and everyone was drafted as soon as they turned ten. It was a compulsory service ultimately aimed to indoctrinate the youth into the German military and to serve the Führer and the Third Reich.
Cuje recalls attending school throughout the week and having drills on the weekend, consisting of navigating with a compass, camping, backpacking, marching (which he insisted was no fun whatsoever), and even “war games” where they would create two sides to get into full-fledged fist fights with one another to toughen them up. “I saw no point in any of this” Cuje admits. “I would instead take my 10-12 man unit around the fighting, and try and capture their base.”
Cuje did not like the strict discipline that was practiced in the Hitler Youth. When I got in trouble at school (which of course was very rare), I was punished by missing out on recess. When Cuje got in trouble for speaking out against Germany winning the war he was punished by sounding the school’s rooftop air raid siren for a week. He recalls watching swarms of allied bombers overhead and their fighter escorts who would fly low to the ground, shooting at targets. He even remembers a particular instance where he observed from his rooftop post the aerial dogfights between P-51’s and ME-109’s.
Towards the very end of the war, the SS assumed control on Cuje’s unit, training them to fight against the approaching allied forces. Because Germany was running low on men to fill the ranks, the enlistment age was extended to include boys as young as 12 and men as old as 65 to fight. Called the “Volkssturm” or “People’s Army” this militia unit was trained with whatever was still left to combat a superior force for what already seemed lost.
It was now 1945. Cuje just turned 12 years old and was being trained as a MG-42 machine gunner, one of the most powerful automatic weapons of the time with a firing rate of 1,200+ rounds per minute. Nicknamed “Hitler’s buzzsaw” the MG-42 was notorious for cutting down troops as was the case with those on the Normandy beaches. Due to a lack of ammo in the late days of the war (remember that Germany would surrender in a matter of weeks), Cuje remembers being told to hold his fire until the enemy troops were closer to conserve their bullets and ensure that they would hit their targets. Cuje admits that this was total madness and he came up with a plan with his belt-feeder that, when the enemy was approaching, they would fire a quick burst then surrender. I can remember back when I was 12 and can’t imagine being trained to fight in a war.
On April 23, 1945, Cuje was captured by French soldiers who later released him, insisting he return home and find his family. He later reunited with his family in Frankfurt at a displacement camp, where he first heard American jazz on the radio for the first time. It was then that Cuje decided that he would go to the United States and become part of the jazz scene.
Cuje left Germany in 1950, Cuje arrived in the United States and was drafted into the U.S. Air Force two years later. He served with the Special Weapons Project, taking part in various nuclear tests in the Frenchman’s Flat in Nevada.
Today, he is a renowned Jazz musician, having personally played for President Clinton at the White House and throughout various clubs in New York, DC, and the East Coast. To this day, he continues musical engagements and keeps quite busy.
To learn more about Lennie and his life, please refer to this link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/interactives/jazz/
From Hitler Youth to American Jazz – what an interesting life!
KN
Being an avid history buff, I find it imperative to examine both sides of history. Having contacted & conducted interviews with 200+ WWII German veterans, 78-year-old Lennie Cuje is one of many examples of the lesser-known sides of history. Today Cuje lives a modest life in a quiet residential neighborhood in Northern Virginia.
Born in January of 1933, Cuje was one of the first to have been born into what was going to be Hitler’s Thousand Year Reich – he was even presented with a medal from Hitler which he still has, inscribed “Under the Future of Adolf Hitler, In the Year of Germany’s Transformation, 1933.”
For every German boy, the Hitler Youth was mandatory and everyone was drafted as soon as they turned ten. It was a compulsory service ultimately aimed to indoctrinate the youth into the German military and to serve the Führer and the Third Reich.
Cuje recalls attending school throughout the week and having drills on the weekend, consisting of navigating with a compass, camping, backpacking, marching (which he insisted was no fun whatsoever), and even “war games” where they would create two sides to get into full-fledged fist fights with one another to toughen them up. “I saw no point in any of this” Cuje admits. “I would instead take my 10-12 man unit around the fighting, and try and capture their base.”
Cuje did not like the strict discipline that was practiced in the Hitler Youth. When I got in trouble at school (which of course was very rare), I was punished by missing out on recess. When Cuje got in trouble for speaking out against Germany winning the war he was punished by sounding the school’s rooftop air raid siren for a week. He recalls watching swarms of allied bombers overhead and their fighter escorts who would fly low to the ground, shooting at targets. He even remembers a particular instance where he observed from his rooftop post the aerial dogfights between P-51’s and ME-109’s.
Towards the very end of the war, the SS assumed control on Cuje’s unit, training them to fight against the approaching allied forces. Because Germany was running low on men to fill the ranks, the enlistment age was extended to include boys as young as 12 and men as old as 65 to fight. Called the “Volkssturm” or “People’s Army” this militia unit was trained with whatever was still left to combat a superior force for what already seemed lost.
It was now 1945. Cuje just turned 12 years old and was being trained as a MG-42 machine gunner, one of the most powerful automatic weapons of the time with a firing rate of 1,200+ rounds per minute. Nicknamed “Hitler’s buzzsaw” the MG-42 was notorious for cutting down troops as was the case with those on the Normandy beaches. Due to a lack of ammo in the late days of the war (remember that Germany would surrender in a matter of weeks), Cuje remembers being told to hold his fire until the enemy troops were closer to conserve their bullets and ensure that they would hit their targets. Cuje admits that this was total madness and he came up with a plan with his belt-feeder that, when the enemy was approaching, they would fire a quick burst then surrender. I can remember back when I was 12 and can’t imagine being trained to fight in a war.
On April 23, 1945, Cuje was captured by French soldiers who later released him, insisting he return home and find his family. He later reunited with his family in Frankfurt at a displacement camp, where he first heard American jazz on the radio for the first time. It was then that Cuje decided that he would go to the United States and become part of the jazz scene.
Cuje left Germany in 1950, Cuje arrived in the United States and was drafted into the U.S. Air Force two years later. He served with the Special Weapons Project, taking part in various nuclear tests in the Frenchman’s Flat in Nevada.
Today, he is a renowned Jazz musician, having personally played for President Clinton at the White House and throughout various clubs in New York, DC, and the East Coast. To this day, he continues musical engagements and keeps quite busy.To learn more about Lennie and his life, please refer to this link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/interactives/jazz/
From Hitler Youth to American Jazz – what an interesting life!
KN
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