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00:17:09
00:19:13
00:17:09
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Transcription: [00:17:09]
{SPEAKER name="Karl Heimberg"}
So what was quite interesting something completely new in the German army and the old non commission officers didn't like that at all
[[Laughter]]

[00:17:22]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld "}
So I gather that the rank didn't mean much of anything once you got there.

{SPEAKER name="Karl Heimberg"}
No, no. Once. It didn't. There was some, where you could feel, OK, he's a buck private, so, there cannot be much with him, otherwise he would not be drafted into the army.

[00:17:47]
But the idea was, this were only some, very few. Only those who were superfluous on the mechanical, on the industrial side were drafted into the army. But this were only very few.

[00:18:08]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld "}
The tension, you said some NCOs didn't like it. These were people who were not engineers, who were just assigned military administration, or something?

{SPEAKER name="Karl Heimberg"}
Yes, right, right.

[00:18:17]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld "}
And they found the whole situation strange, I assume.

{SPEAKER name="Karl Heimberg"}
Yes, yeah, yeah.

{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld "}
Because you had assigned jobs without any regard to rank, so that you could have a private over a lieutenant, or something like that.

{SPEAKER name="Karl Heimberg"}
Right, right.

[00:18:34]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld "}
Had you?

{SPEAKER name="Karl Heimberg"}
It was interesting, you know, in that Peenemünde, I was ahead of two lieutenants. They were in uniform, and I was in uniform too, but, you know, on the official side, I was ahead of them.

[00:18:59]
And, maybe, I'm a little bit too early, in mentioning that. You know, when war broke out, Von Braun went to Goering.

[00:19:13]


Transcription Notes:
Goering is Hermann Goering Von Braun is Wernher von Braun