Und einmal wieder auf die Insel Scharhörn….
Kurt Meinert from Krefeld remembers nine months of the war in 1942, on the lonely outpost in the mouth of the Elbe. (By Günter Rettmer from Duhnen / 2003)
During his vacation in Duhnen, Kurt Meinert from Krefeld kept looking longingly from the beach across the mudflats to Neuwerk and further to Scharhörn. He would have loved to take his wife on vacation to the island where he had to spend nine months as a naval artilleryman from January to October 1942.
The diaries he kept at the time were confiscated in his home town (he was born in Zittau in Lusatia), but his time on Scharhörn is still vivid in his memory. His unit at the time had its headquarters in the Cuxhaven seamen's home behind the dyke opposite the Sanftleben-Beckmann shipyard, and on the tower of the weather station. At Donners Hotel, as a simple rank, he was even allowed to train naval officers on the 2 cm anti-aircraft gun mounted there.
In January 1942 he was transferred to Scharhörn and picked up in Duhnen by a comrade who led him safely across the mudflats covered with a thick layer of ice past Neuwerk to Scharhörn. His "Knobelbecher" turned out to be truly suitable footwear for such a hike across the ice mudflats. His comrade made it clear to him that there was no "Cuxhavener Hof" on Scharhörn and no "Jonny Mann" with pretty dancers with whom one could flirt, but only sky, water and sand in abundance, which one had to deal with.
At that time, massive ice floes had piled up in front of Scharhörn as a barrier, giving the impression of an Arctic station rather than an outpost of a naval unit. At Scharhörn, the galley and a large crew barracks were on two-meter-high piles, a smaller barrack was four meters high, and the "headquarters" was even seven meters high.
All of the barracks were connected by stairs and ladders. The barracks for the diesel generator for the 60 cm searchlight stood on the sandy floor. The "lookout" could take shelter in a small barrack in bad weather; a large buoy hung there, which would sound the alarm in the event of danger.
A storm surge on December 8, 1941 had taken the winter supplies of drinking water and heating fuel. Due to the onset of ice, Scharhörn was now cut off and supplies could only reach Neuwerk. This meant that shaving and washing (except with snow water) were banned. Snow had to be brought to the galley in pots so that the cook could cook. At the fairway channel, every piece of wood for the heating stoves was fished out with grappling hooks, and kerosene lamps and candles provided light. There were no batteries left for the radio.
Kurt Meinert's first night at Scharhörn was sleepless because his locker neighbor had shown him the picture of his girlfriend on the locker door. The newcomer had the same picture in his pocket for his locker door, the photo of Ella from Sahlenburg, from whom he had had to say goodbye the evening before.
One day in February, the call rang out: "All hands to the ice edge, wood in sight." The water was full of wood, probably from a sunken ship, so that whole packages of planed boards with tongue and groove could be stranded. This meant that there was enough fuel for the cannon stoves. Bread was
in the icy weeks they were replaced by crispbread and rusks. The last rusk box was opened at the beginning of March. In desperation the Scharhörners made two large sledges out of the stranded boards, which they then used to travel to Neuwerk, where they were greeted with jubilation. This is how the Christmas mail finally arrived in Scharhörn in March. On the way back with the heavily laden sledges the soldiers encountered fog. They could have been back on the island by 5 p.m., but by 10 p.m. they had still not reached their destination. After a short break for food the fog broke up and the troop saw in starry sky how far they had strayed west from the course. On their new course they suddenly heard dogs barking: the island dog Bello had found them. They arrived back on Scharhörn at five in the morning, exhausted. They had neither heard nor seen any signal rockets fired by their comrades on the island. Gradually winter retreated and drinking water could finally be delivered in 200-litre barrels, and people were allowed to wash and shave again. The seabirds also showed that winter was coming to an end. Colonies of terns, oystercatchers, herring gulls and other species now kept the soldiers busy alongside their duty. Following instructions from the Heligoland bird observatory, they counted the various clutches of eggs and marked them. They collected eggs from some of the nests for their own use and defended themselves with a stick that they circled above their heads to ward off the particularly aggressive terns. "Their droppings hit the collectors with precision," the chronicler noted. On one occasion the island crew managed to shoot down one of the many bombers flying in. They did not find the plane in the mudflats, but they did find two dead English airmen who had materials in their bags that were supposed to help with emergency landings.
Of course, the troop support had not forgotten the Scharhörner and sent a writer with a companion from Cuxhaven. However, the soldiers were not enthusiastic about the children's stories of "Little Kathrin" and their guest was very offended. The companion asked for music and danced with all the soldiers one after the other, who found it "a wonderful feeling". The author's complaint about her stay at Scharhörn was rejected by a higher authority, saying that "soldiers' quarters are not a Königsberg reading circle!" At the end of September 1942, Kurt Meinert was allowed to return to Cuxhaven. After deployment in the 'Stand Heide' battery, the unit then went to St. Nazaire in France. He then attended a gun commander's course at the Ove-Ovens-Haus. At the time, they called their instructor "anteater". Air and sea target shooting were also part of their training. Many older people from Neuwerk, Duhn and Döser can certainly still remember the airplane that pulled the "target" behind it in the air, the barge on which the target for sea target shooting was set up and which was pulled by a tug.
