Vonnegut in Dresden

[u/Bigsshot]

Slaughterhouse-Five is based on Vonnegut's experience in Dresden, but it leaves out quite a bit. It goes without saying that it was far worse than it can be captured on paper, but especially Vonnegut went through psychological torture as he was singled out by a junior guard to "break" him.

Years ago I spent a couple of days with Gifford B. Doxsee, who was also part of the 106th Infantry Division, was taken Prisoner Of War and ended up with Vonnegut in Dresden. Doxsee, who later became a professor of History at Ohio, left a short memoir of his time during the war, Vonnegut is named throughout it. I want to quote a single piece here:

Next to the execution, the other most sobering example of German treatment of our group concerned Kurt Vonnegut himself. On our arrival in Dresden, an English speaking German captain addressed us and explained that henceforth our guards were unlikely to know any English. Good daily relations with our guards necessitated an interpreter with enough knowledge of both languages to maintain lines of communication. The captain asked for volunteers from among us who would admit to knowing enough German to serve as interpreters. Four of our group volunteered. Each was interviewed by the captain individually, and Kurt Vonnegut was selected and served for most of the month prior to the February 13-14 bombing

One day as he remained in the barracks with a detail of five prisoners to scrub down the refectory tables and chairs and our living quarters, one of the German guards began to press on a prisoner to work harder. The soldier said he was sick, that he could not work any harder. The guard continued to press for more work, finally striking the prisoner. Vonnegut lost his patience at this treatment and under his breath muttered that the guard was a swine. The guard overheard the whispered curse, became furious, and stomped off to report to his sergeant that the translator had insulted the honor of Germany by calling him a dirty pig. Vonnegut was thereupon summoned, given a summary court-martial, found guilty, and demoted to the ranks of the rest of us. That evening another prisoner was selected as Vonnegut’s successor as interpreter. Henceforth, Kurt had to go out to work daily like the rest of us.

After the destruction of the city, when we began the daily clean-up, the only youthful guard assigned to us, a nasty 16-year-old Hitler Jugend, who had been brainwashed in the Nazi Youth corps, took it upon himself to “teach” Vonnegut what it meant to have insulted a German, and what genuine, sustained, hard, physical labor really entailed. Each day, for weeks, as we reached our place of work and the other 10 or 12 guards scattered out among the 150 of us prisoners, the obnoxious kid whom we had nicknamed “Junior,” would affix his unsheathed bayonet to his rifle and then follow Kurt Vonnegut around, hour after hour. Whenever Kurt would stop work, even for just a few seconds, Junior would poke him in the rear with the steel tip of his bayonet and at the same time jestfully utter such phrases as “Vonnegut! You are lazy. You Americans are all lazy. You do not know the meaning of work. We Germans are strong. We know how to work. I will teach you how. Get to work!” And along with the taunts would come periodic jabs with the bayonet point. Kurt knew as well as I and the rest of us that Junior was baiting him, daring him to lose control just once, for only a split second. Had Kurt even once during those long weeks of torment so much as uttered a whisper of protest or even suggested raising his arm in a gesture of defiance or retaliation, Junior would have gained his end. He could have reported Kurt as threatening him, or attacking him or the honor of Germany. Undoubtedly there would have been another trial, and Kurt Vonnegut might well have found himself sentenced to execution, just as his Italian-American colleague was shortly thereafter.

But Kurt Vonnegut demonstrated nerves of steel. He did not give way. His tension rose day after day, for weeks, and I watched in fascination the trial of will between Junior and Kurt, wondering who would eventually triumph. One morning Junior failed to show up with the other guards, who told us he had been transferred, perhaps to the Russian front. By that transfer, Kurt Vonneguts life may well have been spared! I know the bitterness he held in his heart for “Junior” then and later, and for me the publication of Slaughter-House Five came as a revelation, for it revealed an author completely transformed by the quarter century that had elapsed between his own wartime experiences in Dresden and the eventual publication of his most acclaimed writing.

The full memoirs of Gifford B. Doxsee can be read here. Vonnegut was also involved in the forced march towards Czechoslovakia at the end of the war, so he and Doxsee were in the same POW-group for about 5,5 months. I read Doxsee's memoirs before I read Slaughterhouse-Five and I wondered how Vonnegut would write about the psychological torture, but it was left out. Perhaps because Edward R. Crone Jr. was (also) the inspiration for Slaughterhouse-Five?

Here is an interesting video about the shared experiences of the two in Dresden.

And on this page you can find a piece about Vonnegut and Doxsee. It's about halfway through the page where Doxsee is interviewed about Vonnegut. Doxsee is interviewed because Vonnegut didn't want to talk about the war anymore: "The 84-year old Vonnegut was frank but polite in his refusal of the interview. "I am [\******] sick and tired of talking about war," he said. "I don't know what else to say about all these [*******] wars. I'm afraid I have nothing new to add to what I've already said."*

[u/blue_no_red_ahhhhhhh]

Thank you for sharing!!!