We now unloaded our many packs in the building assigned to us, and afterwards we were called to a meal.
It took place in a very large and beautiful dining hall, and we were served a fine dish of split pea soup with pork, and beer.
We could buy all sorts of other things there as well, and we certainly did not hold back, for we had not forgotten that we had lived on meagre rations for eight months in Poland, so it was a kind of paradise for us, and it was a long time before we left the hall. <\/p>\n
In the afternoon we gathered on a lawn, and von Schalburg gave us a short speech.
He said that he still did not know where we were going. That was never disclosed for reasons of espionage, but that we were to fly from here at the airfield and out to the front.
We were to unload all weapons before boarding the aircraft, because\u2014as he said\u2014it had happened before that aircraft landed with the Russians instead of the Germans, and then we would have to be prepared to fight and show that we were worthy of our old Viking blood and fight to the last.
I think most of us cheered, for we had all been waiting a long time to get out and put into practice some of what we had learned, even though it was undoubtedly a rather \u201cpleasant\u201d piece of news for a group of inexperienced soldiers like us, who had never seen an enemy before.
And although we cheered, I think it was with mixed feelings that we received this message. <\/p>\n
Already that same afternoon, 3rd and 1st Company departed from the airfield in several large, black Junkers 52s, while the rest of us remained with 2nd Company and the pioneers.
4th Company had, however, been split up, with one platoon attached to each of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Companies. The old 5th Company, now renamed 4th Company, had been trained on heavy weapons: infantry guns (I.G.) and anti-tank guns (P.A.K.).
The entire vehicle park, with its many fine cars, motorcycles, and kitchen wagons, we had to leave behind in Poland (Treskow), except for a few motorcycles.
They could not be flown; instead, they were to follow later by rail. <\/p>\n
In the evening we had our last cheerful night in civilisation, and it became a truly festive occasion.
We celebrated it in a large, very beautiful and tastefully arranged canteen, and we ate and drank up all our money. We would no longer need it anyway, and hundreds of bottles of red wine and other alcohol, as well as beer, were consumed.
I had to borrow 5 marks from Niels Skjoldsholm to get into the proper mood\u2014something I would later come to regret.
It turned out that the red wine could not withstand flying, and the atmosphere gradually became more than lively.
It lasted far into the night\u2014singing, revelry, and music\u2014and it was very late before things quieted down enough to sleep.
That night, no one was thinking of home or the front, or anything else at all.
It was the numbing emptiness of intoxication we were all in. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2273,"template":"","personer":[104],"class_list":["post-2723","litteratur_og_kilder","type-litteratur_og_kilder","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","personer-aage-mariegaard"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fkdanmark.simsoft.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/litteratur_og_kilder\/2723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fkdanmark.simsoft.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/litteratur_og_kilder"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fkdanmark.simsoft.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/litteratur_og_kilder"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fkdanmark.simsoft.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fkdanmark.simsoft.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"personer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fkdanmark.simsoft.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/personer?post=2723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}