Transcript of an interview conducted on 28 March 1985 by Burt Speidel, Walter's son, for the Ray Hillam military history project. Walter was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and was raised in Germany. He told about the Mormon missionaries that had to leave the country in 1938, and he was afraid that Germany and the United States would have to fight each other. He was in the Hitler Youth that had meetings on Sunday which made it difficult for him to go to Church. He was 16 when the war started in 1939 and joined the army when was 18 to avoid being drafted. He did not have to shoot or kill anyone, and he was sent to Afirca in 1942 to serve with the signal corps under Erwin Rommel. Walter had to make sure that all the phone lines were intact. He talked about Rommel losing favor with Hitler and about Rommel's replacement. Walter was taken prisoner by the French, but he escaped and later surrendered to the British who turned him over to the Americans. He was held in Alabama until the end of the war. He talked about life in the prisoner-of-war camp and about picking cotten. He returned to Germany in 1945.
