Helmut Deckert

The First World War from a child's perspective
The diary entries of a passionate librarian: Helmut Deckert (1913-2005)

Every year, December marks the beginning of the season of everyday hassle, of snacking, but hopefully also of contemplation. Pausing and pondering over a cup of punch, we perhaps recall episodes from our early childhood, when Christmas time was still wrapped in wonderful splendour. Some of us even take out a pen to capture the memories on paper. Some such memoirs then find their way into the archives, such as the extensive biography of Helmut Deckert, which has been handed down to us in three volumes and begins with the First World War.

Born in Dresden-Klotzsche in 1913 into an industrialist family from Vienna, Deckert began his career at the Wettin grammar school before studying philosophy and German language and literature in Leipzig. Rejecting the Nazi ideology that was spreading there, he turned to library training. He then dedicated almost 50 years to his work as a librarian and deputy director of the Saxon State Library. After his return from American captivity as a prisoner of war in 1945, he worked hard to close the gaps in the collection that had arisen during the Nazi era and to establish the book museum. He was particularly passionate about old manuscripts. For example, he is responsible for the complex documentation of the Mayan manuscript (Codex Dresdensis), the library's most important treasure. On over 1000 pages, Deckert left behind a detailed review of his life, depicting personal pre- and post-war experiences of both world wars, providing illuminating insights into his character and describing, among other things, how he found a new home in our Niederlößniz from 1930 onwards.

Special experiences in extraordinary times are particularly memorable in retrospect, especially when it comes to a childhood during the First World War. He describes his earliest memories as follows:

"As a small child, I saw the soldiers marching up to the trenches for drill every day and ran through our garden with a wooden rifle on my shoulder shouting "heu-hia-heu" (which I can't explain) in a childish instinct of imitation. The behaviour of our cook, who made me believe that "evil Mosases" were hidden in the eggs we'd been hoarding. I called the French Mosases and they were enemies to be destroyed. So when the cook left the kitchen, I grabbed the big wooden meat tenderiser and smashed the eggs.

My earliest memories are of the arsenal explosion in 1916, which had such an impact in Klotzsche that I toppled off the cloakroom lid and crashed into the shop window of the Weidling bakery towards our maid. My parents fled with us to Radeberg. [] The food rations in the First World War were far worse than in the Second and were characterised by a range of extremely bad-tasting substitute products, of which a so-called morning potion as a substitute for cocoa remains a dreadful memory for me. I also have shuddering memories of dried vegetables and swedes, as well as tight shoes with wooden soles that always made my feet ache."

In 1917, his uncle had shot himself in Vienna because he had fallen in with bad company who wanted to blackmail him". He left 300,000 crowns to little Helmut, "whom he had taken particularly to his heart. [After years of back and forth between my father and the curator, I received a ridiculous inheritance of four (!) Reichsmarks as well as two oil paintings, a brass bed and three school books (an Austrian reading book, Pokorny's Natural History and Caesar's De bello Gallico). The oil painting and bed were later sold, the books were burnt in 1945 and with the 4 marks I bought a set of stamps for my collection, which I still have today." In the epilogue, Deckert sums up that despite many calamities in his life, such as "two murderous wars with subsequent times of hardship, bombing, imprisonment and TB", the "starry hours of professional and private happiness" nevertheless predominated.

The so-called "Christmas Peace of 1914", which has gone down in history and is charged with mythology, also represents such a great moment of humanity. Spontaneous fraternisation on Christmas Eve in the trenches between mostly German and British soldiers made it possible for people to come together. They shook hands, sang Christmas carols together and gave each other presents. A brief moment of peace and miraculous splendour.

With this in mind, we wish you a blessed Christmas season!

Maren Gündel, City Archive

Published in: Radebeul Official Gazette, December 2014