Dieter was an officer in the German Air Force who was posted to Neatishead Radar as an Exchange Officer for three years 1983-1986 during the Cold War. He talks about his time in Neatishead and his subsequent career in the Air Force and as a Defence Attaché in Ethiopia and Korea.
Joining up and first posting
My interest in joining the armed forces began when I was about 13 or 14. Before that I had thought about becoming a Roman Catholic priest as I was very interested in peace. I wanted to join the Air Force like my brother – the Army was too smutty, and you were away too much in the Navy. I applied to become an Officer Cadet and, after a three-day examination, was accepted. Funnily enough, I was very fit and healthy in those days, and they recommended I should join as a paratrooper or a mountaineer but when I received the letter, I immediately wrote back and said, ‘If you are interested in me, I want to become a fighter controller or I won’t join at all’. They agreed and so I finished High School in June and joined the Air Force on 1st July 1975.
I then went through the normal process, first officer training, officer´s school and then to the German Armed Forces University for three years where I studied Business Administration. Then in late 1979, early 1980, I was posted to CRC Brockzetel. The Air Defence system in those days was divided into huge sectors each with Control and Reporting Centres (CRC´s) and a Sector Operations Centre on top which, by the way, in northern Germany, was always commanded by a British Officer. Since World War II, Germany had not had superiority over its own air space, so there was a British Air Commodore in command. The CRC did the operational bits, talking to pilots, sorting out interceptions and so forth.
I wanted to be a fighter controller because it was not only about flying aircraft, but I was more interested in organising the whole stuff behind. I was a fighter controller, the one who was actually talking to the aircraft and that was the job I still like most in my Air Force career. Not just identifying aircraft – yes, we had to do that, but my heart was always in controlling fighters and setting up the whole air defence system in order to reject all possible intruders or even hostile aircraft. My interest was triggered by my brother. He had joined the Air Force as a fighter controller in 1968 and I visited him at his station, and I was stunned and fascinated by the job they were doing.
Exchange to RAF Neatishead
I had been only three years at CRC Brockzetel when I was approached and asked if I would like to be an Exchange Officer with the RAF. I was surprised because I was fairly young, but immediately, I said yes. Funnily enough, my brother had been the first Exchange Officer from the Fighter Control branch with the Royal Air Force, serving at West Drayton 1974-76. The first three Exchange Officers served at West Drayton, the fourth, my predecessor, was posted first to West Drayton but then sent to Neatishead. So, I came to Neatishead in September 1983 and was the second German Exchange Officer there. RAF Neatishead always exchanged officers with CRC Brockzetel.
My tour was initially for two and a half years, but I felt very comfortable and I thought why not try to extend it. So, I wrote a letter to the German armed forces requesting an extension to three years and thankfully, the Station Commander, Group Captain Hopkins, supported me and wrote to the German MOD as well stating that I should be the factor of continuity in the move back into the bunker. The German MOD agreed. By the way, the move back into the R3 bunker finally took place in 1993.
Neatishead career
My main role at Neatishead was as a fighter controller. My predecessor had spent most of his time as a Track Production Officer but because there was a shortage of personnel, I got to be fighter controller which I preferred anyway. About a year later, I was asked if I would like to become a Fighter Allocator. There were five control positions organising the flights coming in during the day or night shifts. I became a Fighter Allocator, not doing the controlling any more but supervising the controllers. Then at the end of my tour, in the beginning of 1986, there was a dramatic shortage of Fighter Control personnel in England, and they asked me to become a Master Controller, the operational boss of the unit. I was very proud. The training and examinations were very tough. There was an air defence evaluation board and I always remember Gerry Dinmore who examined me: This exam was very hard for me; first of all, because of the language and also because the rules and regulations were all different to Germany. But I passed and in my last half year I was a Master Controller.
And on top of that, I had been elected to become a Flight Commander, that was in spring 1985. I owe this to Tony Vass, who encouraged and sponsored me a lot. In the Operations Branch there were two squadrons, each with two flights, when one was on duty, the other was off duty. I thought it was a great honour being a foreign officer. Later, when the shortage of personnel became dramatic in the aftermath of the Falklands War, the two squadrons were put into one squadron operationally but remained two squadrons administratively, I was the deputy to the commander of this joint squadron and commander of one. This was very unusual because I had to sign the Queen’s Regulations and could do everything apart from disciplinary actions which had to be undertaken by a British Officer. It was then in the wake of air strikes at targets in Libya 1986 (Operation El Dorado Canyon) when I as a German exchange officer signed the travel order for a British officer (FO Andy Wilkins) for his detachment to RAF Akrotiri (Cyprus). I think I am still the one and only foreign officer who ever had a command function within the Royal Air Force. It was perfect timing!
During my tour I was also promoted to Hauptmann (Flight Lieutenant). This promotion was done by the German Air Attaché in London, Oberst i.G. (GpCapt) Werner Geissinger. I never thought that I would be become a Defence Attaché later in my career.
The job
In our daily work, there were two systems, one was shift work – two days on day shift and two night shifts and then four days off. While the rest of the squadron did the day work, usually from seven or half past seven until the end of day’s flying which was about six o’clock at night. But, if we were short of controllers and there was a lot of flying going on, the controller would stay there until eight, nine or even ten o’clock at night. So that is what I did for the first one and a half years and then I swapped over to becoming a Flight Allocator (FA) and then later on Master Controller.
Remember it was the Cold War. The UK was basically an aircraft carrier and we had lots and lots and lots of flying, all day and into the night until about midnight. There were nearly permanently five positions, and every position would usually control two to four aircraft, although in certain circumstances they were responsible for eight or ten. Then we had the Americans with us as well. So, we were controlling aircraft all day long in numbers you couldn’t even imagine. That was very tough. It was different from Germany as in the UK we didn’t control aircraft over land, we only controlled over sea. In Germany we had a system where we were not allowed to control over the sea if the waves were over a certain height or the water temperature was too low because it would have been too dangerous if a pilot had to eject. But that did not apply in England. Aircraft were sent out for hours and hours and when the Russian planes came over, they sometimes went out two hours away from the nearest coast, flying in dark night in rough weather knowing an ejection would mean certain death. Thankfully in my time, although we had some crashes and some ejections, all of them survived.
A close shave
In England and in Germany as well, we had a number of crashes, and we had a very famous ejection. During one of the exercises, one of our chaps had gone up in a Hawk aircraft – they were smaller jet aircraft used mainly for training but also as a last line of defence. They were not long range, not very fast and not very powerful. On the way back to base, suddenly the pilot shouted ‘Mayday, mayday, mayday. I’ve lost my back seater. ’Actually, what had happened – I won’t say his name although I can still see it in front of me – he was in the back seat of the aircraft and then next thing he was out in the sky with a parachute above him. It was very cold, I think it was November and he had ejected at a very high level, at about eight or nine kilometres up. He fell, of course, for the first couple of kilometres and then he saw the cold sea approaching. His lifeboat inflated and he got into it. The weather was not very nice. We sent out some choppers, but it was hard to find him. He had a signal pistol with him to signal to searchers, but he said, ‘I was so scared to fire this pistol because I thought, I didn’t know what to do and I was so scared I’d shoot into my rubber boat and sink it.’ He finally got picked up, it took about an hour before we had him on board a helicopter. That was a real eject! He said it just happened and that he had never pressed the button. We have to believe him. But the Hawk aircraft were grounded for quite some time. They tried to find the ejection seat but fortunately for that guy, he had ejected in a very deep area of the North Sea. So, they never really established the reason why it happened.
Russian incursions – testing the systems
In those day, we had many reconnaissance flights from the Russian Air Force. We were linked into a radar chain which started in the north of Norway so we could see their aircraft as they became airborne and we knew that when they passed a certain point, their long-range Bear bombers would come towards us down the North Sea. So first the Norwegians as part of NATO, then the Americans from Iceland or the Danish Air Force and then when they came to the North Sea, we had to take over and escort the Russian aircraft. The worst thing was, if they decided to go west of Ireland and down towards France. After the first contact with the French Air Force they would turn back and we Fighter Controllers would be sitting there with HF radio on our ears. HF radio is awful, it is very noisy and hard to understand. We didn’t have radar in Ireland so we couldn’t see them and we had to do dead reckoning – we had to guess they were flying at about 320 knots or so. These incursions required quite a number of fighters and tankers to always escort them. Such missions could take up to eight hours with you sitting there for hours and hours in front of your console. We tried to be as silent as possible on the radio because the Russians would, of course, try to figure out what we were doing from our talking, but it was interesting and very hard for the controllers to survive these hours. Thankfully in those days, we could still smoke.
The Russians knew heading towards Ireland, as a non-NATO, neutral country, made it very difficult for us. Also, once in a while, they came down close to the Channel, off Great Yarmouth trying to figure out how the Royal Air Force would react. They did it much more often here in the North Sea and England than towards Germany. In Germany, they targeted the Iron Curtain borders to find out how we would react. It happened fairly often, many times a year and it was stressful for the whole Air Defence system.
It was particularly stressful for the operators monitoring them, it could take up to eight hours and while sometimes we could hand over to a colleague, many times we could not. The person controlling the mission knew exactly what was going on and to hand over could have caused mistakes, so as much as possible, we kept with one controller who would sit there for hours and hours staring at the radar console which was not as bright or as good as radars are today. That was what we trained for and what was asked for. The Royal Air Force was very professional in those days, and they didn’t ask whether it was dangerous or stressful, they said do it and we did it – full stop. No one was complaining.
Personnel shortages
We also had shortages of qualified personnel. The Royal Air Force had aircraft despatched down to Port Stanley and the Fighter Control branch had to post about six or eight or probably ten Fighter Controllers at any one time to the Falklands. Training Fighter Controllers took time – you could not do it in a week or a month or a half year, it took much longer. Just before I left in the summer of 1986, the other Squadron Commander Tony Vass and I told the Station Commander Gp Capt Don Read that due to the lack of personnel we could barely do the day-to-day work required and he to our surprise decided to stop night flights, not accepting any flights after 17.00 hours which meant that half of the Royal Air Force could not fly because half the flying was done at night. It caused the MOD and the higher commands within 11 Group Strike Command serious problems but in the end, we got more personnel and went back to normal flying.
I remember when I left Neatishead, I asked him what made him take that decision. He said, ‘it was necessary’. That was the sort of attitude: ‘I need to take a decision whether my superiors like it or not’ .That was something I must admit that was really shaping me for the future. I am absolutely sure that without the Royal Air Force and the time at Neatishead, I wouldn’t have made such a career in the German Air Force.
Joan Hopkins – Station Commander at RAF Neatishead
When I was posted to Neatishead, I served under Joan Hopkins, the most stunning woman officer and superior officer I have ever met in my career. It is hard to describe her, but I think you will not find anyone in the whole Air Force who has anything negative to say about Joan Hopkins. We called her Auntie Joan when she wasn’t listening. She led by example, she put a lot of pressure on her subordinates without them realising, because she was always smiling. She had this impish sense of humour and she never raised her voice to her subordinates – I don’t know how she spoke to the higher command. But she knew exactly what she was doing, what she wanted to achieve, and she put the right people into the right positions in the right places. She had this great loyalty, not only to England, towards the Royal Air Force but also to her subordinates regardless of whether they were Wing Commanders or Airmen. We all looked up to her. Unusually, at least in those days, she invited junior officers, like me, to her house, just to sit down, have a coffee or sometimes have dinner and just talk. She regarded you, first of all, as a human being. Of course, she was the boss, but she never let you feel it. She was stern, she could be official but always with a smile and always with a cigarette. She even smoked during NATO evaluations which we had to undergo every two years. Later, we were not allowed to smoke at all, but she always had her cigarettes in some hidden places, spread around the bunker and she always knew where they were.
Joan Hopkins was the first female commander of an operational station, an amazing person. The BBC even made a documentary on her which was shown on TV and is still available on YouTube. There was no equivalent to her in Germany. The German armed forces were only opened to women in 1975 and then only for medical doctors. Then in 1991, women were admitted to the medical branch and the military music service, but it was only in 2001 that the Bundeswehr, the German armed forces, opened all branches to women. So far, we don’t have a female operational general although we have two or three female medical generals but no-one to compared to Joan Hopkins. I must admit I fell in love with her immediately (but not in love as with your wife) and I loved her until her death.
She died in 2010 from a heart attack. I am still a member of the Royal Air Force Fighter Control Association and if you look at the comments people made when she died, you get a feeling of how people thought about her, how they followed her. Even in her younger days when she was a Fight Commander, Squadron Commander, people were talking about her the same way I am talking about her, she was unbelievable. And for me as a German, she treated me no differently than English officers or officers from any other nation, which helped me a lot because, as I have said, I was only the second German officer at Neatishead.
As a German in the Royal Air Force
My predecessor had some problems with history, so he never attended the Battle of Britain party. I, of course, did. I still remember in my first year in England, the Battle of Britain party came up and I was asked if I wanted to attend, and I said yes. Then all hell broke loose because I was a German at a Battle of Britain party, and I got four or five briefings on how to behave in case certain things might be said or certain things might happen. I said I thought I would be guest of honour because without us, you wouldn’t be celebrating the Battle of Britain. In my second year, I even was asked to host a member of the Royal Air Force Association Coningsby during the party which I will never forget and I am sure: neither will he.
There were other aspects of my time at Neatishead which shaped my future career. In Germany we have a problem with our past especially in the Armed Forces. It is understandable, talking about the past, specifically World War II is always very difficult for us. Formally the traditions of a German Officer start in 1956 when the Bundeswehr was founded and not before. As a military officer, I think you look at history from a different perspective than politicians – so not every soldier automatically was a Nazi and not every soldier killed innocent people. In England, especially in our branch, people talked openly about the Battle of Britain which was regarded basically as a fight between two equal air forces. That was unusual for me, and it took me quite a while to get adjusted to it. I mean, Fighter Controllers always sang ‘The Flag’ at reunions. I don’t know whether you know ‘The Flag’, it’s probably better not to know it, but it was a nearly word-by-word translation of a German song sung when they marched against England. They sang it on various occasions but not aggressively towards me; it was part of their tradition, part of their history. They accepted me and my role which was a great experience for me.
There were other differences: the English soldier, regardless of rank but especially the officers were very, very proud, but they were first officers and then citizens. In Germany, following huge discussions about the foundation of the Bundeswehr, is was the basic principle that soldier are citizens in uniform, so first a citizen and then an officer – which had a great effect on our rules and regulations of all kinds
The British had a different view of their profession as an officer, a different way of looking at history and tradition and that certainly helped me in my career. As an officer, you had a great responsibility for your subordinates and this sense of responsibility and this pride in service for Queen and Motherland had a great impact on how the British saw themselves as officers. Had I not been posted to England, I think my whole attitude towards armed forces, towards history, towards tradition, towards being a subordinate, being a superior, would have been different for sure. Again, Joan Hopkins was my idol. When I later was commanding a squadron or a battalion, I always thought, ‘What would Joan Hopkins do now?’ I don’t want to say that I copied her but I always had her at the back of my mind – how would she have approached this situation?
We had a different attitude towards subordinates – NCOs and airmen and especially senior NCOs. In Germany, the senior NCOs are the backbone of the armed forces, they have much more responsibility than in the UK and I was quite shocked at the beginning at the strict boundaries existing between the ranks – between the officers, the senior NCOs and airmen. In Germany, it was much closer especially between officers and senior NCOs. Initially I had problems with this situation. I remember, in one of my early days, I went into the airmen’s crew room – you have to understand we had different crew rooms for the different ranks in Neatishead. I walked into the airmen’s crew room, there were not many people around as it was the night shift, and everyone went dead silent. I thought, oh, what the hell is going on here? Later on, I found out they thought it was their right, it was their group, their place and an officer had no right to be there. They thought they couldn´t talk freely anymore because the officer is always there spying and listening. In the end, they figured out this was not the German way and afterwards I was quite welcome in the crew room.
I think that was the influence or the impact I had on Neatishead because for example, I invited my whole flight to my house for a party including airmen. Wing Commander Jerry Newton lived opposite, and he couldn’t understand. I said, ‘Well I’m having a party for my flight, to say thank you to my flight, and my flight is not only officers, it’s airmen and airwomen as well’. So that was very unusual for them, and I still have contact today with some of my airmen.
Life in married quarters
The officers’ and married quarters at Horsham were great and I got a very beautiful house. Norwich, for me, is still the second most beautiful town or city in England and I liked the Norfolk Broads, it is a beautiful area. I now live in the area I was born, which is situated in the northwest of Germany close to the Dutch border and it is very rural too. There are a lot of similarities between this area and Norfolk. So, I felt at home immediately. I would never have liked to go to London or a bigger city, I liked it over there. I would say, basically it was a perfect match.
My two children were born while I was at Neatishead. We had the privilege of a private doctor in addition to the National Health Service. I always remember him; his name was Dr Simon Crocker and all the check-ups before the delivery and so forth were done at his private house. In his living room, he had a special bed so my wife could lie down and have all the check-ups and she only went to the hospital for the delivery. In Germany, in those days, my wife would have spent seven to ten days in hospital. In England, it was quite different, three days after delivery, she was back home with the first child, with the second, she only stayed there overnight, and she was back home the next morning. And it was very cheap, probably a quarter of the cost we would have had in Germany. You know we got free health care as an officer in Germany but this cost had to be paid to the doctor by a benefits office so they always asked: ‘When will you send the final bill?, when everything had already been paid. I tried to get dual citizenship for them as my brother had done with his daughter who was born in England as well. Unfortunately, immigration laws had changed just before and not even a letter to the Home Secretary could convince him to make an exception.
Most of our social life took place in the married quarters. English officers in those days, up to the rank of Pilot Officer/Flying Officer didn’t have much money and it was a way of keeping them off the streets – off the women, let’s put it that way. In those days I think they even had to ask the Station Commander for permission to marry. But in the married quarters, we all had houses and there were, of course, a lot of functions going on. The junior officers couldn’t afford much, it was even hard for them to heat the whole house in wintertime, so there was this system of bring-a-bottle parties. This system might be more common in England but it ensured that everyone, even a married Pilot Officer could give a party at home. Everyone would come with a box of beer and something to eat. We had long working hours and there was a very great feeling of community between all the officers living there. There was no week when there wasn’t a party at someone’s house and of course, everyone was always invited. There were always parties and festivities going on and that included the whole family so my wife (my first wife – I am divorced from her now) felt very comfortable over there as well. Although, the first night she arrived was Bonfire Night and we had been invited to a Bonfire party. When we left the house, a young chap jumped out from behind a big bush – ‘boom, boom, boom – I killed the bloody German’. So that was quite a shock for her but the dad of this kid excused him and I said ‘Don’t take that too seriously, it’s just the way they sometimes act’.
Formal social functions
The other side was, of course, the formal functions at Neatishead or at the officers’ mess in Coltishall. When there were foreign officers present, the Mess President always offered a toast to all the Heads of State that were represented there. I remember that not all did know who the German Head of State was. We didn’t have this kind of mess dinners in Germany, and they were very formal. You were not allowed to leave your chair at the table, not even if you needed to go to the toilet. If you did it nonetheless something disastrous could happen e.g. your chair was missing. Have you ever tried to formally dine kneeling instead of sitting at the table? The formal part, the dining, lasted about four and a half hours – and afterwards at the dinner party you got rid of your number one kit and played rugby or other silly games in the mess hall with quite some effects on your clothing, so I came back home quite often with blood on my shirt.
On the table, there were always model military aircraft in silver and they always put a Spitfire in front of me. It was an absolutely no go to touch these silver things. When I left, I thought what do I give them as farewell presents, silver I couldn’t afford, but \i got hold of a silver-plated model of a Bf 109 (a Messerschmitt) and handed it to the Station Commander and Mess President. I said, ‘This is my farewell present to the mess, but it always has to be placed behind the Spitfire’, so it always looked as if the Bf109 was chasing the Spitfire. And as far as I am aware, as long as Neatishead existed, they always did it. That was the English approach which never would have been possible in Germany – a great sign of acceptance.
Language difficulties
I had learnt English at school, so that was typical Oxford English, and I was not very safe and secure using a foreign language. But at Neatishead, it was not real English being spoken, there were lots of different dialects. I had three instructors in fighter control, Dick Ivers, he spoke good English, Harry Taylor, he came from Wales, and it was okay but my main instructor was a guy called Eamon Dougherty from Ireland and he had a terrible Irish accent. When you are training, you wear a headset and on the one side, you hear the pilot and on the other the instructor in the bunker. There were quite a number of occasions where Eamon Dougherty told me something and I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, the only thing I could say was ‘Roger’ and then I asked my assistant, ‘What the hell did he tell me – I couldn’t understand a word?’ Now, it’s different, I am fairly happy even with the dialects.
Also, at the beginning we were discussing what to call each other, I mean, in German ‘Sie’ and ‘Du’, a completely different system of how to call another person, so I said, ‘If I was in Germany and somebody I didn’t know spoke to me, he would call me Herr Dreyer, Herr is for Mr’. One of my assistants must have heard this and some people called me for fun ‘Hair Dryer’. Herr Dreyer sounded a bit different, and Dreyer in German is nothing to do with dry, the translation would be ‘turner’.
Then in the operations room, there was a big screen in the front with details about the missions and the abbreviation for the controller allocated to do the mission. I sat down and I saw the abbreviation for myself was HAI and I asked my assistant, ‘I thought this was my mission, I don’t even know who HAI is’. He replied, ‘aren’t you Oberleutnant (Flying Officer) Hairdryer’. I said I’m not Hairdryer, my name is just Dreyer. Ever since a lot of people called me Hair, my wife, for a while, was called Spin and my daughter was called Tumble – very funny I thought!
Driving too fast
I remember one evening coming from a day shift, it was dark, and we had a social function planned at the married quarters. I was driving the car, and I took three or four officers with me. I was always known for driving fairly fast, some might still remember my roaring bike!! It was the road between Horning and Norwich, there’s not much traffic at night, at least not in those days, so I was speeding quite heavily. I saw two lights at my back, and I thought that if anyone else is going as fast as me, it’s a great chance it’s a police car. So, I slowed down and as sure as hell, a police car came up right behind me. He followed me and as you come into Norwich there is a right turn to take a short cut to Horsham St Faith. I took that and the police car went on. Then at the next traffic lights towards Horsham, he suddenly popped up again and he followed me all the way into the married quarters and then, right in front of the Station Commander’s house, about a hundred metres from my house, he blew his horn. The policeman came up to me and said, ‘Sir, you have been speeding’. I said, ‘No way’. He said `You thought you took a short cut, but I even know a shorter short cut. But when I saw you again you again were in front of me´. He asked for my driving licence and so forth and then he said, ‘Through your speeding, you gained about two minutes, I’ll take those minutes back’. He went back into his car and sat there for a quarter of an hour, and I was left standing there in front of the Station Commander’s house – the Station Commander, of course, knew exactly what was going on. The other officers left the car and went on to the party and I arrived late. I thought that was a great way of educating people about not speeding too much.
Another story about British officers’ attitudes
Again, referring to the attitude of British officers. The first reconnaissance electronic aircraft from the United States had just been posted into the UK – the so-called EF-111 Raven aircraft, a very highly sophisticated aircraft. They had to do the first missions in English air space to get comfortable and we were to do the controlling, but before that a group of American officers came to give us a briefing about what the aircraft could do and so forth. They stood up in the front of the briefing room, looked around and saw me as a German officer and said, ‘No, we can’t do it. The information is for the Five Eyes only – US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and UK – and he is a German. Then the Wing Commander Ops took him outside and explained, ‘If you don’t accept the German officer, you won’t be able to fly because half the time he is in charge of the ops hall. I thought that was great – many people would have said, ‘Okay German, you leave, this is too secret for you.’ But he said, ‘No, operationally it’s required’. I thought that was great leadership.
Back to Germany and the German Air Force
After I finished my tour as Exchange Officer, I went back to Brockzetel. However, the Master Controller qualification which I did in England was not accepted by the German Air Force because I was too young and it was thought that qualification had been given to me as sort of a gift. Jerry Dinmore was furious about it. In the end, they figured out that it usually took about nine months to a year to do this qualification in Germany and they decided they would give me six weeks and then I would sit another examination, which I passed, but it cost me quite a bit of hard work.
After three years as a Master Controller at Brockzetel, I was selected to become a Squadron Commander, that was in 1990, right on the inner German border at Faßberg where we had a low-level mobile radar system. By chance of history right after the Wall came down, I was based only a few hundred yards away from the inner German border. I was one of the first to cross into the former GDR after reunification on the 3rd of October 1990, without permission I must admit. But because of the reunification, that unit was disbanded, and I had to do another tour as a Squadron Commander at Brekendorf.
To become a Group Captain, you have to work your way through various postings and higher commands, spend time with Staff and the Ministry of Defence. So, after Brekendorf, I was at the German General Staff Academy, Hamburg and then the German Air Force Command in Cologne.
Then in 1995, I was Deputy Station Commander in Lauda in the south of Germany, and then Station Commander at Freising, even further south. I finished that when I was 43 and I thought, damn, that was the highlight of your career and there’s still twenty years to do. I must admit that that was a weak point for me because I didn’t want to spend twenty years around the Staff in the German armed forces. Then I went through other higher commands – Section Chief German Air Force Tactical Command North, Kalkar, then Section Chief German Air Force Command, Cologne, before being posted to the Ministry of Defence between 2002 and 2005 when I was elected to become a Group Captain.
NATO
But before promotion I had to do a tour at NATO in Brunssum dealing with policy and concepts and from there with great support from certain people in the German Air Force I was chosen to become a Defence Attaché which was very difficult in those days for a guy from Operations usually they took from the Intelligence branch. It took both the Deputy Commander and the Commander in Chief of the German Air Force to get heavily involved, to get me through to that.
Defence Attaché in Ethiopia
I did three years in Ethiopia, very, very interesting because it was the time of all those pirate attacks off Djibouti in the Gulf of Aden. I was responsible for Djibouti and the African Union as well as for South Sudan after it became independent in 2011. Somalia and Eritrea were additional countries of interest, since Germany didn´t have a Defence Attaché in those countries. And the tour was very interesting, I got a deep feeling for the African continent especially through the time I spent with the African Union. It was the time when the decisions were made to send German armed forces to Mali.
My wife did a lot of social work, specifically supporting a hospital run by a German medical sister somewhere out in the country – one doctor for about one million people!! – and an orphanage in Addis Ababa. Overall, it was a very interesting time and a very strange experience to live in a country like Ethiopia.
Defence Attaché in Korea
When my posting to Ethiopia ended in 2013, Immediately I said I wanted to do another tour as a Defence Attaché. I was fairly sure this would be possible because a German Defence Attaché had to know the language of the country you are posted to. So, to be Defence Attaché in Africa, I had had to learn French for Djibouti and Amharic which is a language nobody else speaks apart from in Ethiopia. Therefore, I thought that because I could speak English and French, they would post me to another African country, but some wise people decided I had to go to Korea which was absolutely out of my focus.
First of all, it meant I had to learn yet another language which no-one else speaks but Koreans. That was quite difficult for me because although I love to learn languages, I was fairly old by then, in my mid 50s, something like that. So for every Korean word I had to get rid of three other words since my brain was not only full but not as flexible as in younger age any more. You have to understand, those language courses, it’s a one on one – one teacher, one student – five hours every day, 15 – 18 months. That’s tough.
So, I went to Korea and it again proved to become a very interesting time. It was 2016, the time the nuclear testing in North Korea started with rising tension between North and South Korea and then the big moves around Trump and his `big buddy´, Kim Jong Un.
The German understanding of the role of a Defence Attaché is to act as a sort of mediator between the German Ministry of Defence, the German Foreign Office and other ministries on all things to do with defence policy, and defence includes armaments in relation to the country to which you are posted. So, I was always with the MOD on the Korean or Ethiopian side and the various ministries on the German side. You are attached to the Foreign Office so the Ambassador can give you a sort of an order, but your boss always remains a General in the German armed forces. So, it is a strange position, because in the German Embassy, only the Ambassador can write, can sign formal instructions or advice to a ministry or whatever, but as the Defence Attaché I could write or sign on my own behalf. Although, of course, I showed things to the Ambassador and though it never came to that point he could say, Dreyer is writing rubbish. The position within the German Embassy is quite unique, but that made it more interesting, because you had the chance to write directly to the Foreign Ministry or to whatever ministry you wanted to write to. As in many countries, Foreign Office and MOD do not always have the same approach to a situation, which made it even more interesting!
The Blue Barracks
At the end of the Korean war, there was no peace agreement. There is no official border but just a certain area which once was supposed to be a weapon free area belonging neither to the North or to South Korea – called the demilitarized zone (DMZ). In the 1970s, they put up four Blue Barracks where the talks about a peace treaty were supposed to happen. They started but there was no outcome, no peace treaty. So those Blue Barracks are still there– one part is in the South Korean area and the other in the North Korean area. You can actually go into North Korea while you are in the barracks, and these are very famous and every politician who comes to Korea always wants to go to these barracks and have their picture taken.
Within the Blue Barracks in the demilitarized zone. A North Korean soldier is taking pictures.
I was there some 80 times or so, just because every time we had visitors from Germany, regardless of who they were, they had to do it with me. I had to accompany them through all the administration and security things. The DMZ is actually guarded by a mix of American and South Korean armed units. It was very interesting. This is where Trump actually crossed into North Korean territory, which I think he should not have done – but he did.
It’s a no-man’s land now. There is still no peace treaty, what many people don’t know. There is only an armistice. It is also exciting to go to other parts of the boundary, where the two countries are only divided by a small river. you can stand at the border and look into North Korea – there’s not much there. You can actually watch people going to school or harvesting or doing work in the fields. It’s a very moving experience.
Key issues in South Korea
I got to know South Koreans, but I never met a North Korean, although I would have loved to, and obviously I was not able to go to North Korea. There are a number of North Koreans who fled to the South, but they have difficulties in settling into South Korean society as people are wary of them thinking they might be spies or similar.
South Korea is in a difficult situation. Because there is only an armistice, the United Nations and in effect the Americans (because, by order, there is always an American Commander) are basically still in control of the South Korean armed forces. The American forces are running the show down there. They are in charge of a strip of about a mile on either side of the inner Korean border, initially supervised by four neutral countries out of which only two have survived. Swedish and Swiss officers are 24/7 present in the no-man’s land, but they have no rights; they can watch; they can report all sorts of incidents or possible mistakes which have been made on the North Korean, South Korean or the American/UN side direct to the United Nations; but they have no military or political powers. That’s all in the hands of the Americans. It’s a bit of a problem for the South Koreans because you wouldn’t like to have, as we had in Germany until the early 1990s, foreign countries telling you what to do in your own country. It’s not easy to accept so there is always a bit of tension.
Furthermore, the countries which had sent troops to fight on South Korea´s side are always a bit better regarded by South Korea than others. Germany didn’t have an army in those days, but thankfully right at the end of the war, we sent a military hospital to Korea which had a tremendous impact and which, during my time, allowed us to be accepted as a contributing nation to the war effort. There were about three thousand Korean children born in this hospital and it was the base for the first university hospital in South Korea.
It is a forgotten war, not many people know anything about the Korean War, most specifically about the implications it has for today – the friction between Korea and Japan and between Korea and China and China and Japan about some islands and other controversial topics in the area.
It was so interesting to first go into Africa, where people and officials had a completely different mindset, and then to go to Korea with again a completely different mindset. You had to learn everything basically from scratch again. I wasn’t an expert in the Korean War and if you don’t know what happened you wouldn’t be able to understand what’s happening there today. And politically, in every decision they take, it is always referring to the Korean War. So, it was interesting, and it was again hard work, hours and hours but very interesting and very rewarding.
I am grateful that afterwards I could retire because it would have been, I think, very difficult to re-adapt into a post at any staff or MOD.
Here I can refer back to Neatishead, and my love of international employment, that certainly did arise from Neatishead. It’s the only thing I miss now I am retired, the exchange with the international community. We still do it via media, but personal exchange has been more difficult and here, where I live, no-one is really interested in what is happening in Ethiopia or Korea or anything like that. That is the one negative aspect of being retired. But I still have my brother who served in England and also in Hungary and we talk a lot about international politics.
Reflections on 44 years’ service in Bundeswehr
I was an active soldier for exactly 44 years and six months. In Germany, we don’t have long service medals, but you get a special payment after 25 years, something like £400-500 but you have to pay tax on it, and then at 40 years, you got a certificate thanking you for your service. When I joined, officer cadets either committed themselves for 12 years of service or for their whole professional life. It meant slightly different duration depending upon your rank; senior NCOs stayed until they were about 53; when I started a Wing Commander would usually leave at 57 and a Colonel at 59 or 60. However, it has changed over the years and so today, a full Colonel leaves generally at 63. I was very young when I joined so that was how the years added up. Looking back, it is unbelievable that 40 years ago, I was at Neatishead, and it is as if it was yesterday. But, yes, time passes.
The biggest change over this time, was, of course, reunification and everything which went along with it. To think about 1990, there were 1.2 -1.3 million soldiers stationed in Germany, if you talk about German, East German, Russian, American and NATO troops. From 1990, in the mind of people, we were surrounded by friends, military conflicts seemed to be a thing of the past, so we disbanded most, too much perhaps, of the armed forces. In 1990, the Bundeswehr had 470,000 soldiers and now we are down to 180,000 and I am not talking about the weapons systems which we got rid of and which we will never be able to regain without a very very significant monetary contribution. Germany even paused compulsory military service. I think we have dramatically lost the abilities the armed forces had if you compare 1990 with 2024. I if you look into your own armed forces, they went through the same fate, and I think, politically there were some dramatic mistakes. I doubt we will be able to recover from that. We don’t have the money, we don’t have the abilities, we don’t have the facilities, we don’t have the weapon systems to regain all that. Only two years ago Germany did commit an extra hundred billion euros to the armed forces on top of the official budget, which is a lot of money – but certainly not enough to regain substantial military power.
Another factor certainly is the public. The German people always had a very sceptical approach towards the armed forces, which is understandable because of World War II. Following 1990, I think there was not much interest in the armed forces because, as I said, we were surrounded by friends. But following the terrible attack on the Ukraine by Russia a change in public opinion can be seen. Suddenly people realise it could be wise to have a little more military power just in case the Big Brother from the East might come and have a go at us. To be honest, I would not have expected to see a war of the scale of Ukraine in Europe. I had not expected it, I must admit. It came as a surprise, and I think we were all unprepared. I think we still are still unprepared for what might happen. Because we can’t look into the eyes or the brain of this Mr Putin we don’t know what his aim is and what the implications for us could be.
I don’t know whether we will be ever able to come back into the mindset of the Cold War. We were prepared and everyone knew that if you took the first step, that was the end of your country regardless of whether you were American, European or Russian. Today it’s different, none of our countries is able to defend itself, neither UK nor Germany, I mean. I am not talking about the Americans who could at least defend their own country but here in Europe, it is difficult. This is a massive change, and I am glad that I am retired and not in the middle of the massive changes and restructuring of the Bundeswehr. There may be some hope because people are beginning to realise the difficult situation, but I doubt it will be sustainable unless very bad things that no-one wishes to happen come about.
Personal career highlights
I am lucky to regard 43 ½ out of 44 ½ years as highlights filled with experiences I would not have liked to miss. Outstanding were certainly the time at Neatishead and the Defence Attaché posts and – of course – my command tours. Neatishead created a base for the later highlights; without Neatishead it might have all gone differently. So, I had fun, I enjoyed my career from day one to the last day. I would not have minded continuing for another two or three years which was possible but now I am glad to be retired and enjoy life as a retired officer which is quite comfortable.
Retirement
I do get together with former comrades and other retired officers but it’s difficult because they are spread not only around Germany, but around the whole world. I think it’s like that for English officers as well. When you retire, you basically put an end to your life, at least, mentally. You suddenly realize that the number of real friends in your vicinity is rather low, certainly mainly owing to the number of removals through your active time. I moved some 17 times with my family.
I am glad that my wife decided, (it was not me), that we should retire to where we now live. I was born three miles from here and all my family – I still have six brothers and sisters – live here and we have a very close feeling of family community. We play cards together, spend time and even holidays together. That has helped me a lot, because coming back after more than 40 years to the place where you grew up is difficult. When I knew I was retiring to this area, I met up with my oldest friend from the old days – we used to play music together and so forth. I tried to start a conversation and then realised that forty years is just too much, there is no common basis anymore. So, that is difficult. I enjoy it here now and we have settled down and know a good number of people, I don’t want to use the word friends, but acquaintances and neighbours,
The transition to civilian life is difficult. I must admit, I was scared that day when I formally put my uniform off. My family was even more scared than I was – it was very emotional. Thankfully, a friend from my tour as Deputy Station Commander gave a huge party the month I retired. There were about 150 people I had served with from all over Germany including a rock band. I still had twenty days to do before my formal retirement but that was the point when I said, ‘That’s the end of my career, of my profession.’ And following this event I did not have a problem to put off my uniform, I felt as if I had done my job. I always thought that I would put my uniform on a mannequin in the house – but finally I didn´t. I realised when the time is over, it’s over.
I’m still very much interested in the armed forces and the politics around them, but I have never had the feeling I should come back as an officer. They asked me a while ago to do a six-month tour at Headquarters with responsibility for Afghanistan – I thought about it a minute or two and I said: no. Once it’s done, it’s done, and it’s gone and gone for ever. I cherish my time, I’m glad and happy and thankful and grateful I’ve had this time, but it’s over. I don’t feel sorry, not at all.
With my brother Burkhard and our wives in the mountains
One thing I regret is that I haven’t had the chance yet to visit the RAF museum at Neatishead, that’s a place I would like to go. Quite often, we did spend our holidays in England and Scotland, travelled with our camper van from Land´s End to John O`Groats. I even went across a couple of times to attend the RAF Engineer´s Walk with my wife Gabi being the first German woman to finish it! But the next time, I will definitely stop by there.
Finally, this February marked the 79th anniversary of my uncle getting sunk in a German U-boat (U 1208), four miles south of Land’s End. There were no survivors.. Haven’t we gone a great long way, specifically in Europe, with former enemies who were killing each other becoming friends? I think that is a great achievement that we have made over the last seventy-eight years. Just hoping that it remains like that.
‘Vielen Dank’
Dieter Dreyer (b. 1957) talking to WISEArchive on 21st February 2024 by Zoom from Germany. © WISEArchive 2024.
