[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] conscription age

[Ray Bloch]

My father remembers watching the Volksturm marching down the road to Berlin 
and as they passed, the kids joked, "Da gehen die alten Affen mit die neuen 
Waffen."

Loosely translated as "There go the old apes with the new weapons."  It's a 
funny rhyme but the truth is that these soldiers had very little in the way 
of armaments.

Later my father found out that his father had been conscripted into the 
Volksturm and captured and returned to the Soviet Union.  My grandfather 
fought in the Russian Army against the Turks in  WWI in the Caucuses.  He 
originally was assigned to the front against the Germans but so many Russian 
German soldiers were defecting that the Russian generals moved many of them 
to the Turkish front.

Ray Bloch

----- Original Message -----
From: "Donna Schultz" <dschultz120 at gmail.com>
To: <ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2007 9:55 AM
Subject: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] conscription age

> Greetings:
>
> I have a source that states the upper age limit for conscription into the
> German Army during WWII was age 54. I have a relative who lived there 
> during
> the war years and believes that men as old as 65 were conscripted.
>
> Comments?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Donna
> Michigan
>
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