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was his first day in camp and he caused quite a pleasurable stir when he refused point-blank to put on a uniform. His mate – an ex-housebreaker, as I subsequently discovered – did his best to coax him into it, but the chap stood his ground and they couldn’t budge him. It seemed he had some sort of religious objections to uniforms in general and the German Army uniform in particular. Someone asked him why he’d come to Sennelager in the first place if he had no intention of becoming a soldier. It turned out that like so many others he’d had no alternative. It was either volunteering to fight for the Fatherland or standing by to watch while they strung up his crippled brother. Not unnaturally, he volunteered. But now that he was here, not wild dogs nor Prussian NCOs could force him into wearing that uniform.
    They threw a pile of clothes at him, but he let it fall to the ground, only picking up the green working overalls. The rest of it, the grey overcoat, the steel helmet, the cap, the cartridge belt, the rifle, the gas mask and all the other thousand and one bits and pieces we were supposed to hump about with us, he left in a heap where they had fallen. Simply rolled up the overalls, stuffed them under his arm and set off towards the stairs. The Quartermaster-Sergeant stuck his big red head through the hatch and stared with bulldog eyes at the discarded pile of arms and uniform. I thought for one delightful moment that he was about to burst a main artery. He caught my hopeful gaze upon him, and sadly tapped his head with a finger.
    ‘Now I’ve seen the lot,’ he said. ‘So help me, I never thought the day would come when they’d start opening up the bleeding loony bins and recruiting the nuts.’
    He came to the door and bawled across the room at thelegs of the Jehovah’s Witness as they disappeared up the stairs.
    ‘Hey, you! You with the bleeding halo! Where in hell’s name do you think you’re going?’
    The man paused at the head of the stairs. Slowly, he turned back to look at the outraged sergeant. Before he could say anything in reply, Sergeant-Major Matho came lumbering up with all his usual doglike devotion. Any duty which might possibly involve a few quick karate chops or a kick in the guts delighted him.
    ‘What’s going on, Sergeant? What’s all the noise about? Who’s making trouble?’
    The Sergeant pointed an accusing finger.
    ‘We’ve got a bleeding nutter on our hands. Thinks he’s already flapping about heaven playing pat-a-cake with the angels. Says he doesn’t want to put his uniform on.’
    The Jehovah’s Witness clicked his heels together.
    ‘Only the overalls,’ he said. ‘I have no objections to wearing the overalls.’
    ‘No objections to wearing the OVERalls?’ repeated Sergeant-Major Matho, outraged.
    The whole room had by now come to a standstill. In all my years in the German Army, I had never met anything quite like it. I began to have a sneaking respect for Jehovah’s Witnesses. They might have belonged to the lunatic fringe, but it seemed they could hold their own with a Prussian NCO.
    ‘No objections to the OVERalls, did you say?’ Matho suddenly picked up the discarded greatcoat and shook it as he would a rat. ‘What’s the matter with the rest of the uniform? Don’t you like the colour or something? Don’t you care for the cut of it? Great balls of fire!’ He tossed the coat back to the floor and sent it flying across the room with one almighty kick. ‘What do you think this is, a Paris bleeding fashion show? You’re here to fight a war, not ponce about the place complaining the clothes don’t suit you! You’re willing enough to sit on your great fat arse all day long, guzzling the Führer’s bread and sausages, and then youhave the bloody nerve to start grizzling and bloody moaning because you don’t like the look of the bloody uniform!’
    ‘Sergeant, it’s not the look of it. It’s the whole principle of warfare.’ The Jehovah’s Witness