View Full Version : Former Waffen-SS soldier donates £400,000 to Scottish town
PrinzEugen
10-01-2009, 03:13 AM
Interesting story.
Caked in mud in a Normandy field, Nazi stormtrooper Heinrich Steinmeyer clambered out of his foxhole, handed his rifle to a Scots Guard and surrendered.
It was 1944 and, says Heinrich: “I was one of Hitler’s elite soldiers and was expected to die at my post in defence of the Führer and the Fatherland.”
Instead he gave himself up…and was treated with the kind of extraordinary humanity he found almost impossible to believe.
Heinrich was asked to empty his pockets – containing a hand grenade and two apples. Then the soldier he surrendered to gave him back the fruit, saying: “You’ll be needing those.”
And so began Heinrich’s long journey to Cultybraggan PoW camp in a remote corner of Scotland – and a lasting bond between the former stormtrooper and the villagers of Comrie, Perthshire.
Now, 65 years later, he has bequeathed his home and life savings – worth a total of £430,000 – to the elderly residents of the tiny Highland village in a remarkable act of gratitude for his treatment there.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/09/26/nazi-pow-bequeaths-400-000-to-the-british-town-where-he-was-held-115875-21702869/
T-5 Killer
10-01-2009, 03:30 AM
Wow great story!!!
rgjbloke
10-01-2009, 03:43 AM
As an aside, solved a puzzle for me. I went there back in about 1972 on a training exercise when I was a boy soldier for 2 weeks. Over the years, I remembered the beauty of the area but could never remember the name of the place. All of a sudden, read this thread and there it is. We have a caravan now and we are planning a trip up to Scotland next year. I'm going to book in a few day's near there to have a look around. I remember the camp accommodation particularly well. They were all the old semi circular nissan hut's and the only heating was the big iron stoves in the middle of each block and the bunk beds. We had been told at the time that the place was an old prisoner of war camp and you could tell!
RIPTIDE
10-01-2009, 04:37 AM
Scottish Hospitality. Good show.
Nice read, thanks for sharing :)
Breerman
10-01-2009, 06:40 AM
Pretty heart warming story.
I don't get what British equipment he was so impressed by though.
Oneto15
10-01-2009, 07:12 AM
Perhaps he was referring to the sheer volume of equipment and supplies that were being brought forward.
Evolv5
10-01-2009, 07:51 AM
Good story, nice to read.
nemowork
10-01-2009, 01:21 PM
Pretty heart warming story.
I don't get what British equipment he was so impressed by though.
By June of 44 the Wehrmacht equipment was getting to be pretty bad by reputation, thin leather for boots, then cut down boots and retreat gaiters instead of jackboots, anything else probably had an ersatz in front of its name or had been economised.
So he might not be talking about the weapons but clothes, food, support stuff like trucks or just build quality.
Awesome story, thanks for the post. :)
Corrupt
10-01-2009, 08:02 PM
Finest drills that man
A beautiful story. I read about another former german prisioner in GBritain, don`t know if in Scotland, that was a good goalkeeper before the war and while being a prisioner he retook again football and after being free he chose remaining in GB and he played many years in premier league, I don´t know his name. Another good prisioner´s story it´s that of Reinhard Mohn, the owner of Berstelmann, when he was prsioner in USA he and other inmates worked in the town close to their camp and had the chance of seeing in person the "american way of life" and he got there the idea of selling books by catalogue, a selling method more popular in USA than in europe I think even today. He was very known in Spain since he founded the "Circulo de Lectores"(filial of his company) in Spain in the postwar.
click
10-02-2009, 01:37 AM
Cool! Such men are worthy of respect
Billy No Mates
10-02-2009, 05:23 AM
A beautiful story. I read about another former german prisioner in GBritain, don`t know if in Scotland, that was a good goalkeeper before the war and while being a prisioner he retook again football and after being free he chose remaining in GB and he played many years in premier league, I don´t know his name. Another good prisioner´s story it´s that of Reinhard Mohn, the owner of Berstelmann, when he was prsioner in USA he and other inmates worked in the town close to their camp and had the chance of seeing in person the "american way of life" and he got there the idea of selling books by catalogue, a selling method more popular in USA than in europe I think even today. He was very known in Spain since he founded the "Circulo de Lectores"(filial of his company) in Spain in the postwar.
The goalkeeper your thinking of is probably Bert Trautman a former Paratrooper who after a bit of controversy (ended in part by the Chief Rabbi of Manchester) signed to play for Man City,he famously played on in a Cup Final after sustaining a broken neck .
dredger14
10-02-2009, 01:08 PM
A gentleman.
wildcat
10-02-2009, 11:35 PM
Pretty heart warming story.
I don't get what British equipment he was so impressed by though.
the kettle.
Respect is deserved here for this man.
Hollis
10-02-2009, 11:40 PM
^^^ what they are saying, Great post, thanks for posting it.
timetraveller
10-03-2009, 02:11 AM
Has/does anyone know if the local Council and the people that live there now have to say on the donation left to the village ????
PaulClift
10-03-2009, 05:13 AM
Nice story. My grandads best friend was Afrika Korp and ended up in England as a POW, he was allowed out to work on farms in this area and ended up staying after the end of WW2, lovely guy with some great stories, he passed away last year at a very ripe old age.
Corrupt
10-03-2009, 07:18 AM
the kettle.
Noones tank has one but ours
Sousuke
10-03-2009, 08:46 AM
Thanks for the post. Interesting story and an interesting man. Respect.
commanding
10-03-2009, 08:52 AM
Very interesting story. Waffen SS troops were human too, they had feelings, gratitude, and all the normal emotions everyone else has. I say good work to the man, and RIP.
Ned72
10-03-2009, 03:42 PM
This is a great story. Of all the horrors you read about in war, the sinister reputation of the Waffen SS, and the brutally efficient reputation of the Waffen SS soldier, it is fantastic to read about the humanity that can come out of war and the generosity that is returned in kind.
Irbis
10-07-2009, 04:01 PM
Interesting story, and a nice gesture, but seeing how his unit was guilty of war crimes in exactly that area I can't help but wonder if he had completely clean record. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12th_SS_Panzer_Division_Hitlerjugend#War_crimes)
Also, they were fighting mostly Canadians at the time, so I wonder from where these Scots (Scottish Canadians?) came from.
As for quality - I was under impression that German BDUs and weapons were almost the best (at least counting their design, usability, if not materials) then, seeing how they were widely copied after the war. Was I wrong?
And the gesture would be a lot nicer if he gave that money to one of the Hungarian or Belorussian villages destroyed by his colleagues, IMHO, instead.
cbiwv
10-07-2009, 04:10 PM
Very interesting story. Waffen SS troops were human too, they had feelings, gratitude, and all the normal emotions everyone else has. I say good work to the man, and RIP.
I would say 80% of them were very noble men.
Stormz_STA
10-07-2009, 04:39 PM
Very interesting story. Waffen SS troops were human too, they had feelings, gratitude, and all the normal emotions everyone else has...
I would say 80% of them were very noble men.
I'm sure you two had first hand experiences with those humane, noble Waffen SS soldiers :roll:
Interesting story, and a nice gesture, but seeing how his unit was guilty of war crimes in exactly that area I can't help but wonder if he had completely clean record. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12th_SS_Panzer_Division_Hitlerjugend#War_crimes)
And the gesture would be a lot nicer if he gave that money to one of the Hungarian or Belorussian villages destroyed by his colleagues, IMHO, instead.
x2
B_706K
10-07-2009, 04:52 PM
^Well lets not mud sling, eh chaps?
The guy is making a great gesture now, perhaps to try and make ammends for whatever wrongs he may have commited over that tiny fraction of his life, you don't know what he's dones since he may have lived like a saint for all you know. How the hell are we ever supposed to move passed these bits of our collective history when this is the reception things like this get?
Hats off to him I say.
cbiwv
10-07-2009, 09:49 PM
I'm sure you two had first hand experiences with those humane, noble Waffen SS soldiers :roll:
x2
You'd be surprised.
Hollis
10-07-2009, 10:10 PM
You'd be surprised.
Surprise me. I wonder that 60 years from now, some one may be saying things about the Taliban, most where Ok. What this one man did was great.
BTW, the SS as a whole was not so great. Not all SS were like Himmler or followed as Himmler would have lead them. Unfortunately a lot of SS did and a lot more SS sat back and did nothing to stop the barbarity. I have a lot more empathy for the Wehrmacht.
This one person is just one person, as it was noted, did not live up to the expectation a SS soldier was too. "To die for hitler".......... Bully for him.
cbiwv
10-07-2009, 10:24 PM
Surprise me. I wonder that 60 years from now, some one may be saying things about the Taliban, most where Ok. What this one man did was great.
BTW, the SS as a whole was not so great. Not all SS were like Himmler or followed as Himmler would have lead them. Unfortunately a lot of SS did and a lot more SS sat back and did nothing to stop the barbarity. I have a lot more empathy for the Wehrmacht.
This one person is just one person, as it was noted, did not live up to the expectation a SS soldier was too. "To die for hitler".......... Bully for him.
They were men just like you and me. They had a conscience. Well most of them did. Taiban is poor comparison. Taliban are soft.
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