Many of the brass collectors, among them a large number of pensioners, couldn't speak English, which was
a big disadvantage for them. They had no way of asking the soldiers about old or new exercises and had to
leave everything to chance, unless they had a lot of time on their hands. My expeditions through the
Grunewald were, however, thoroughly thought through. Thanks to the information that I got from the
soldiers, I managed more and more frequently to beat my rivals to the action. With the aid of a few little
tricks, it was possible for me to speed up the point at which the Americans would open fire. For
"professional" reasons, I would of course always betray every unit to its enemy, under the cover of secrecy.
Both sides would prove to be particularly grateful for every relevant piece of information. Success was not
long in coming then, friend and foe found each other more quickly, and there was more brass for me. Without
a doubt, map reading turned out not to be one of the Americans' strong points. Despite the fact that on the
maps of the Grunewald, all of the blocks, with their dimensions of 400 x 800 yards, were arranged and marked
like a chess board, and although there were useful points of orientation such as the string of Zehlendorf
lakes, the Avus highway and the Havel River, the soldiers got hopelessly lost time and time again. They
often asked me how to find a particular "block" that they had only just crossed.
They had particular difficulties in telling the difference between Fischerhuettenweg and Huettenweg. These
two locations, central to many of their exercises, are roughly two miles apart. The soldiers were constantly
getting the names mixed up, which caused much confusion. Seeing as I knew the Grunewald like the back of my
hand, the long and unnecessary wait would make me impatient. The American times and distances were often
very strange as well. Five "American minutes" usually turned into half an hour. It was even funnier with the
distances. The soldiers were no doubt not trying to pull my leg when they told me, with a serious look on
their faces, that firing would begin in five minutes, two hundred kilometers away. Wow, that would be
happening then somewhere in West Germany! It was obvious that these two hundred kilometers would usually
turn out to be only a few hundred meters, or that if they had said fifty meters they often meant two
kilometers (more than 1 mile). Seeing as I couldn't understand their "miles" system either, I was
sympathetic towards this weak point of theirs and I was happy enough to be pointed in the right direction.
I left everything else down to my experience and so quite often, I found the enemy long before they did.
Sometimes, the long wait also got on the nerves of the troops who had to play the enemy and hide themselves.
To bring the exercise to a swift end they would sometimes fire some blanks into the air. Their enemy was not
long in coming then, having been lured by the noise. If that didn't work, the rascals had other tricks up
their sleeves. Setting off firecrackers near their positions produced a similar effect. As soon as one of
them started firing, the whole group would suddenly let loose. If the enemy then actually appeared, having
rushed to the spot after hearing the noise of shots again, the defender had sometimes already run out of
ammunition! Sometimes the opposing force never did appear, and if we were asked about "the enemy", we told
the troops that the aggressors had fled. Whether they always believed us or not is difficult to say.
As a sixteen-year old, I started to develop an interest for other things that lay around all over the
Grunewald after an exercise. In previous years, I'd hardly taken any notice of these things. These included,
among other things, the M18 Smoke Grenades, which were regarded as the most harmless of the Americans'
military pyrotechnics. They were the size of a soda can and bore the label "SMOKE". The top of these smoke
grenades were the color of that particular grenade's smoke, and the color was also written in English in the
side (e.g. Red, Green, Violet, Yellow or White). Screwed into the top was the detonation mechanism which was
comprised of a lever and a ring-pull. As I had often watched the Americans using these things, I thought it
was fun to pull out the ring with the safety catch and throw the smoke grenade. Colored smoke would pour out
of the smoke grenade for over a minute. I only let them off when there was wind so that the unpleasant smell
wouldn't bother me. If the lever with the ring-pull was missing on a smoke device that still looked intact,
then this meant there had been a failed detonation, something which occurred quite often. In this case, you
could hold a match to the opening where the smoke would normally come out. With a "puff" noise, the smoke
would be activated in this way also. You could hold the device in your hand right up to almost to the end,
but then it got too hot to hold onto. They left a bright paint stain on the ground.
The "simulators" that I have previously described were really dangerous. The smaller type was called
"Simulator Hand Grenade M116". The larger type (about double in size) were "Simulator, Projectile, Ground
Burst M115". On the side, they had a pull-out fuse that was in the form of a white plastic capsule hanging
from a thread. This had to be pulled with a sharp jerk. A few seconds, they detonated in a huge explosion.
With the larger variants, this would be heralded by a loud whistle. For a while, no grass grew wherever
one of these things had exploded. Even with these practice grenades, you found many a failed detonation.
Quite a few times, I had watched the Americans mess about lighting blank cartridge powder. This gray powder,
scattered lengthwise, would slowly burn up like a fuse. I never had second thoughts about cutting open any
unexploded simulators that I found and lighting a small portion of the silver-colored powder. The reaction
of this simulator powder was quite different from the cartridge powder. The first time I lit some of this
simulator powder, there was a bright tongue of flame which burnt my fingers and my forehead. Heavens, what
a ruckus my grandparents made back at home! I was even going to have to stay in hospital for a week. After
two days I climbed over the fence at the back of the hospital grounds and ran home crying my eyes out. I
couldn't stay there any longer, I was too homesick. I had to promise faithfully to keep my fingers well away
from everything other than empty brass.
Although I never played around with simulators again, I quickly forgot my vow. With ever increasing
enthusiasm, I pulled out everything that appeared to be a still intact fuse. The so-called "Booby Traps"
were especially good fun. This was what the Americans called the stumble traps that were installed near
their positions to serve as warning or signal devices. They were made of cardboard and were a little bit
bigger than a conventional lipstick. The GIs usually nailed them onto a tree at waist height or attached
them with a large green spring. At the front end, a very short, thin, white cord would be hanging out. It
was used as a pull-out fuse and was tied at the front end to a green trip wire that was almost invisible.
The soldiers carefully stretched these across the trail or fixed them to something else further along the
path, usually another tree.
Oh, many a time did I unintentionally trip over these wires, for in the Grunewald there were Booby Traps
galore. As soon as you stretched one of these wires even just a little bit, the trap was set off without
delay. You got a huge fright every time! Once you'd got caught in the thin wires, it wasn't rare for a chain
reaction of several similar warning devices to be set off. Even among these, there were different kinds.
The first kind was the most harmless. After having been lit, the Booby Trap briefly revealed a bright flame
of about 2 inches at the front end, and then it would go off like a kiddie fireworks, just some short
illumination. The second kind simply produced a shrill whistle. In both cases, the cardboard device would
remain in place, undamaged and just slightly blackened. The third type, the so-called "flash-bang", was the
most dangerous. Apart from the label, written in English, it looked just like the other two traps, but it
exploded with a loud bang, like a big firecracker. If you looked at where it had been set up, the
device would be gone. Any tinkering about with it could have had disastrous consequences.
Similarly, the "illumination traps" sometimes remained unexploded. These were called "Ground Flares", were
green in color, and looked similar to smoke grenades. Instead of smoke, these produced for a short while
an extremely bright light. The Americans fixed them onto trees like booby traps, in order to secure their
positions against unwelcome nightly visits. Especially after night exercises, you could find everything you
would need to set up a pretty New Year fireworks display. All of these things, even signal rockets and
flares were sometimes left behind after exercises, often seemingly just carelessly thrown away. The American
units had to be very careful about their exercise preparations, and us kids loved to dismantle the booby
traps behind their backs when they had only just set them up, to use for our own private purposes. Weren't
we cheeky?
I'm sorry