Mercy in the mud: the German nurses and the American soldiers who saved them

In the spring of 1945, as the Third Reich crumbled under the Allied advance, a group of 43 German nurses marched westward across the routed Western Front. These women, clad in blood-stained Red Cross uniforms, had endured months of unimaginable hardship: tending to wounded soldiers with dwindling resources, witnessing massacres, and surviving on scraps. Hunger had etched their faces, exhaustion had broken them, and the relentless march had left their feet bloodied and infected. When they finally encountered American troops near the village of Eisenach, southwest of Bad Hersfeld, Germany, their plea shocked even the most hardened GIs: “Please, end our suffering.” They were not begging for mercy; they were pleading for death. But the Americans, led by Sergeant Thomas Martinez of San Antonio, Texas, chose compassion over cruelty, offering life rather than oblivion. This forgotten story of World War II reveals how humanity can persist amidst the horrors of war.

The nurses’ ordeal had begun weeks earlier. Oberfeldarzt Greta Hoffman, chief physician in Stuttgart, Germany, led the group from Sanitäts-Abteilung 247. Her diary entry for March 28, 1945, bears witness to the chaos: “Order to evacuate the field hospital in Fulda. 370 wounded, 12 trucks, half of them without fuel. Six nurses too sick to walk.” What followed was a grueling forced march that lasted nearly three weeks. The women carried what they could: bandages rolled up in their pockets, vials of morphine concealed in their uniforms, surgical instruments wrapped in cloth. But it was never enough. Along the way, they encountered German soldiers abandoned in ditches and farmhouses, pleading for their help. Nurse Anna Kle, only 22 years old and from Kiel, later testified: “We couldn’t abandon them. We cleaned wounds with water from streams, shared our bread until we were exhausted. We saw men die who could have been saved with basic supplies.”

By April 10, the unit had dwindled to almost nothing. Some nurses were separated from the group during Allied bombing raids, others collapsed from exhaustion. The 43 survivors pressed on, taking country roads to avoid the American-controlled highways. The cold April rains turned the paths into quagmires, and their worn boots—many with cardboard soles—left bloodstains. Food became an obsession. For eight days, they subsisted on raw turnips, wormy apples, and, once, the meat of a dead horse. Nurse Elizabeth Schneider, from Munich, recalled: “Our stomachs stopped hurting after the fifth day. That was even worse: it meant our bodies were giving out. The younger ones talked incessantly about food, about their mothers’ Christmas dinners. It was torture.”

On April 18, they heard the unmistakable rumble of American artillery: 105mm howitzers. The sound grew closer each day. The next day, they crossed a bombed-out town and found a makeshift aid station with five wounded soldiers and a medic, running low on morphine and hope. The medic warned them, “The Americans are 10 kilometers to the west. If you continue, you’ll run into them.” Hoffman chose the west, hoping the Americans would respect the Geneva Convention. Nazi propaganda portrayed the Allies as ruthless, especially toward women. Rumors of executions and camps circulated, although no one knew of the recent liberation of Buchenwald.

On April 20, Adolf Hitler’s 56th birthday, the nurses encountered their first American patrol at dawn near Eisenach. They had spent the night in a barn, watching the American vehicles pass by: jeeps, trucks, Sherman tanks with their glittering white stars. At daybreak, the engines stopped, voices spoke English, and boots crunched on the gravel. Hoffman was the first to get up: “Stay here. I’m going to talk to them.” Pushing open the door, she found about twenty soldiers surrounding the building, rifles in hand. Raising her hands, she declared in broken English: “We are nurses, Red Cross. We surrender.”

Sergeant Thomas Martinez of the 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, later wrote to his family in San Antonio: “At first, I thought they were soldiers trying to trap us, but then I saw their faces. I had never seen people so broken.” The other nurses appeared, their hands raised, some weeping, others staring at the ground. Many trembled with fear, exhaustion, and hunger. Then a 19-year-old nurse whispered, “Please, put an end to our suffering.” Her voice was hoarse, her expression one of utter despair; not a plea for mercy, but for deliverance from this unending pain. Another collapsed, repeating, “Please, please.”

Martinez lowered his rifle. “Damn it, Jim, look at them,” he said to his medic, Corporal James Wright, from Columbus, Ohio. Wright approached slowly, his hands visible, his Red Cross armband prominently displayed. “Are you hurt? Does anyone need help?” Schneider stared at them, stunned. This wasn’t the cruelty they had expected. “Can you walk?” Wright asked gently. One by one, the Americans lowered their weapons. They didn’t see enemies, but starving, exhausted women.

Martinez radioed headquarters: “We have over 40 German female doctors. They are in bad shape. Request an immediate medical evacuation.” A few minutes later, more vehicles arrived. Captain Robert Sullivan, a doctor from New York, got out of a medical jeep. “Take these women to the aid station immediately. Get them something to eat. Nothing heavy, they won’t be able to handle it. Soup, bread, water.”

The advanced aid station, set up in a requisitioned German school 3 km to the west, was ready. The nurses were led inside, into classrooms converted into shelters with clean beds, blankets, and tables laden with supplies: new bandages, penicillin, morphine, surgical gloves—an abundance they hadn’t seen for months. Nurse Kle stood frozen in the doorway. “I thought I was hallucinating,” she later wrote. “For months, we had reused bandages, boiled instruments in dirty water. Here, there was more equipment than in our entire hospital at the beginning of the war.”

Nurse Lieutenant Mary O’Connor, originally from Boston, Massachusetts, approached gently. “You can sit down. You’re safe now.” “Safe?” Kle murmured. In another room, doctors were examining them. Most were malnourished and had untreated foot infections. One checked Schneider’s vital signs. “How long has it been since you last ate?” Through an interpreter—a Jewish refugee from Berlin who had fled in 1938 and enlisted in the U.S. Army—she replied, “Eight days, maybe nine.”

Then came the meal: a hot stew—beef, potatoes, carrots—and fresh bread. The smell brought tears to several people’s eyes. But many hesitated. “We can’t,” one stammered. “We’re prisoners. We don’t deserve this.” “You’re hungry,” Wright said. “That’s all that matters. Eat.” Some hid bread, fearing it would be all they would receive. O’Connor remarked, “No need to hide it. There’s more. As much as you need.” The words crushed them. Nurses collapsed, sobbing as they ate their first real meal in weeks. One of them, Margaret, from Munich, asked Sullivan, “Why are you treating us like this? We’re the enemy.” “You’re nurses,” he replied. “You’ve cared for wounded soldiers. It’s not a crime. It’s the work of medical personnel.” “But we are German.” “And you are human beings,” he said. “That comes first.”

For three days, the nurses recovered. Their faces flushed, their dark circles under their eyes brightened. They slept without fear. The Americans were amazed by their skill: emergency surgery under enemy fire, improvised care. In turn, the Germans were astonished by the abundance. One of them exclaimed, amazed, upon seeing a discarded syringe: “You throw them away after a single use?” “We have more,” replied the doctor, shrugging.

On April 26, they were transferred to a women’s prisoner-of-war center in Bad Neuheim, set up in a former hospital where they received sanitation, meals, and medical care. The interviews were administrative, not interrogations. Most were released within six weeks, with papers and permits. Hoffman returned to Stuttgart to find her house destroyed and her family gone. Kle resumed her nursing career in Kiel, where she worked for 40 years. Schneider immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1953, married a former GI, and kept an American flag as a tribute. Not all of them recovered; some suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. But that April morning near Eisenach, 43 women learned that compassion can endure in wartime.

For Martinez, Wright, Sullivan, and O’Connor, tending to the wounded was routine, in accordance with their training. But for the nurses, it was a life-saving act. Years later, Margaret wrote to the First Infantry Division: “You fed us when we were hungry, gave us water when we were thirsty, you treated us like human beings when we had forgotten how.” In the darkness of war, these soldiers chose the light, reminding us of the strength of humanity.

Note: Some content was created using AI (AI and ChatGPT) and then reworked by the author to better reflect the historical context and illustrations. I wish you a fascinating journey of discovery!