Policing Germany: an Interview with Walter Lowell

Arriving at the Canton Golf Course at 10:00 on May 30, 2002, I patiently waited in the Pro Shop for Mr. Walter Lowell. The women behind the counter paged him and within a few minutes, he came downstairs to greet me. Mr. Lowell did not want to be interrupted, because of his busy schedule that he still deals with everyday at the course, so he brought me to the top floor of the building where no one would come in. I set up the recorder at a table and was ready to begin. The following transcript represents only a piece of the overall interview.

Mr. Lowell had served in the Korean War, and since I was not too familiar with a soldier’s life during this time, I was curious to learn about his experience. I was nervous because I have never been in a situation that required me to interview someone I have never met before, but that also brought interest and excitement.

Q: Where did you begin your training?

WL: I trained for Korea, I went in the service in ’53, I went through basic training. The weekend after we graduated and got our orders, I had orders for the Honor Guard in New York City. I was never in the shooting Korean War. I was in Port Jay in New York Harbor. I was in the Armed Guard for four months and then I went to Special Services. I got a military standing in the military police. We called it MOS. I changed that to Special Services, and soon as my MOS changed from Military Police to Special Services, in five days I had orders to Germany

WL: …he turned to the German policemen, saluted him, and said in perfect Germen, ‘Merry Christmas, Happy New Year.’ He turned to me, said ‘thank you, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year’ in perfect English. So all this three hours we were with him, he understood just what we were saying, we didn’t have derogatory comments, but he thanked me, he was on his way, and we never saw him again.

Q: Did you think the person in the back was important?

WL: Very important, yes. I don’t know who it was, we couldn’t really get a very good profile, but it was somebody important enough that they didn’t want us to recognize him, and he wasn’t going to let us get close to him so you could recognize him.

But another time we had a Russian general come from the Russian zone of Heidelberg, it was the main headquarters for the American military. Their general was coming to see our general and they were coming on the Autobahn, so our company was suppose protect and close off all the intersections so the convoy would go through. It was hush hush and the whole bit. So, we went out and I went out on the Autobahn when the first vehicle came by. I was suppose to radio in that they came through Heidelberg. The first intersection it was determined that police would be on one corner and I’d be on the other corner and we’d stop all the traffic. They had about eight helicopters, and you saw the machine guns out of the helicopters, so if anyone tried to stop them they had firepower on them. So I stopped my jeep, got out, went over to some ladies who were walking one old lady with a basket and a cane across the street. I told her to halt. She says ‘is the Russian general coming?’ I said ‘what?’ ‘well the Russian general’s coming, everybody knows that.’ I said to myself, this is top-secret stuff and the civilians know the Russian general’s coming. So, I said, ‘okay’, but I had to stop her and the convoy went by. Here it was top secret but all the civilians knew about the Russian general coming.

Q: What is the Autobahn?

WL: That is like I-95. Hitler made a four lane highway, limited access, from one side of Germany to another where they could go through with all their military, so they could bring troops form one end of Germany to the other very quickly, going through cities. Its like if we ever had to go on maneuvers you would see some of the infantry and the artillery pieces trying to go through a village, it would take half an hour to go around some of the bad corners. This Autobahn was just a main thoroughfare. If you had to go from Heidelberg to Kapertohlon, you would use the Autobahn.

The big thing was if it was foggy don’t be the last vehicle because there was no speed limit. They would go 120 miles per hour. If you are going 30 or 40 miles and they come up behind you, they will smash you into pieces and this is what they did. They drove 120 miles on the Autobahn, if their vehicles could do it, and it was pretty much straight.

Q: Was your main job to patrol that area then?

WL: It was to patrol Heidelberg and take in robberies like car thefts, and drunken soldiers. Heidelberg was pretty good because we didn’t have too many. So, we patrolled it for traffic violations, and accidents, a lot of car accidents. The Germans were the worst violators on that because there were no speed limits, but they just go like a bat out of what, and if they hit something, they were usually dead. They had all these motorcycles, they would go crazy, and they didn’t have helmets and of course I told the German police, ‘If we knew you were this crazy with motorcycles, we could have given you motorcycles in 1939 and all the gasoline you wanted, you would have killed yourself and we wouldn’t have had a war.’ He said ‘that’s not nice.’ But on slippery days, you had trolley tracks on most of the streets, and these guys would come down and hit a wet trolley track with their motorcycle and they were thrown off, especially in the spring when you had the sand on the road. They would hit the trolley tracks and they were just gone. But my main job was just to get people from accidents, and break-ins, and things of that nature. It was just to keep the place safe, while working with the German police, cause they had to do it, too. I got to know a lot of the German police, and if I needed something they would do it for me, and if they needed something they would ask me, and I would get it done.

Q: Why did you enlist?

WL: I was actually drafted. I was up in UMass at the Turfs school. I could have deferred until June, but I said if I go in the first of March I’ll get out the first of March. I would get drafted for two years or as the war went on, and I figured I would get out in

February or March in time for the golf season to be starting. I could have stayed in college and gotten out of the draft completely, but I decided to take my chances. I was very fortunate that I got sent to Germany. I was just a country boy before and I am a country boy now. What you see over there and the devastation of Manheim, you just can’t comprehend block after block after block it’s all just bombed out.

Q: I didn’t realize that even though this was for the Korean War, it went past Korea and into these European countries.

WL: Yeah, I mean they have nothing. I went to England to visit relatives I knew I had. There was dinner for five of us and there was a little cottage ham about this big (makes a small circle with his hands) and I was cutting out all the fat and everybody stopped and looked and I saw them. They took the lean, the fat and the potato and ate it. Being an American, you don’t have to do those things. So I said why not and I cleaned my plate. This is their good food and yes if you don’t eat, if you don’t want it, you don’t comment on it.

Q: While you were in Germany did you feel resentment because of that?

WL: No, they wanted the American soldiers to come in. They wanted to surrender to the United States. No, they were very thankful they were in the American sector, not the British sector, Russian sector or the French sector. I once saw an American soldier mistreat German civilians because they were Americans and they could get away with it to a point, and the Germans didn’t like them, but I never had any problems. The police, they always helped me when I had a problem.

Q: Did you make a lot of friendships there, like the people in your unit, and do you still keep in touch?

WL: Yeah, we still keep in touch. I keep in touch with some of my buddies from the service. Overseas I kept in touch with German police for a number of years. I used to send them “care” packages.

Q: You were a corporal during that time, but what did you start out as?

WL: A private.

Q: How did you work yourself up?

WL: Well I went to the Honor Guard then to the Special Services then went overseas. If you stay in a unit for so long, and you don’t get court-martialed, and you don’t have a problem, then you go to PFC. Finally over in Germany I got to be PFC. When I came back from leave in England, they said you are corporal, you have a unit under you…he agreed that I could have a pistol and a rifle, and he said ‘oh yeah and you will get $17 extra a month.’ I jumped out of my chair and saluted and said ‘Corporal Lowell reporting.’…Then I got to work with German police that could speak good English and they used to say to me ‘you speak English, we’ll speak English, don’t try German you’ll just destroy our language.’

Q: Did you ever have to take lessons in German, or did you just pick up words?

WL: Oh yeah you could pick up stuff, but no lessons or anything.

Q: When you were talking about the rifle and everything, did you have to use them a lot?

WL: No, we would just go out to the rifle range and shoot.

Q: Did you ever have an experience where you did have to use them?

WL: When I was on town patrol, I just had to load our weapons three times. They didn’t want you to carry a loaded one. You would have your clip in the gun, they didn’t want you to have a clip in the chamber because you could brush the safety and it could go off, but there was only those three times. We had to be alert to the fact that someone could be shooting at you, because you would always have to be aware to return the fire. We were happy we didn’t have to shoot someone…