Schmedemann was born in Junction City, Kansas where he grew up and attended high school. He went to Kansas State University where he enrolled in ROTC advanced [Annotator's Note: Reserve Officer Training Corps] which ended with a reserve commission as a second lieutenant. His class was in the infantry and 42 of them that graduated in 1941. They were told to go home and pack their foot lockers because they would be called to active duty in one month. Schmedemann was called to active duty 1 July 1941 and stationed at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, at the time the home of the 2nd Infantry Division, the Indian Head Division. Schmedemann arrived there with a lot of other second lieutenants. The complexion of the division changed. It had a bunch of brand new shave tails [Annotator's Note: slang for a newly minted second lieutenant]. It ended up that the division had more second lieutenants than the table of organization allowed for.Since Schmedemann was the most junior of the group in F Company 38th Infantry [Annotator's Note: F Company, 2nd Battalion, 38th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division], his company commander had to find something for him to do. He was assigned as mess officer. A couple months later he became a platoon leader.General John C. H. Lee [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General John Clifford Hodges Lee, CG of the 2nd Infantry Division from November 1941 to May 1942] took command of the division.They did a lot of training and maneuvers.General Lee asked for a junior officer to be his aide. Since Schmedemann was from the same town Lee was from he was selected. Lee suggested that Schmedemann go to Fort Benning to learn how to be a soldier. He did and as soon as he was eligible by length of service, General Lee promoted him to first lieutenant. Schmedemann was four days senior to all of his classmates for the rest of the war and for most of the rest of his career.After Benning, Schmedemann returned. General Lee had left to become a deputy to General Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: US Army General of the Army then 34th President of the United States, Dwight David Eisenhower] in Europe and to command the Services of Supply, SOS.Upon his return Schmedemann was made executive [Annotator's Note: executive officer or second in command] of a company, then commanded a company for a while.He was selected to be regimental adjutant and promoted to captain before they shipped out and remained a captain through the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge].They moved from Fort Sam Houston, Texas to Camp McCoy, Wisconsin to train to survive in extreme cold winter conditions.They arrived at Camp McCoy on Thanksgiving Day 1942. He had been placed in charge of the training cadre. They went up into upper Michigan where they learned to survive on snow. They had to qualify as skiers or with snow shoes. Schmedemann chose skies. They tested a lot of winter gear like mummy bags, arctic tents, and boots, and from that testing the results were used in equipping the 10th Mountain Division. That experience served them well during the Battle of the Bulge.

They left Fort Dix in October 1943. They sent their families home.They went to Europe on a liberty ship. The whole regiment was on the ship.They got to Belfast, North Ireland where they were billeted. In May 1944 they were all shipped to the southern coast of England where they were loaded on transports for the cross channel invasion [Annotator's Note: D-Day, Normandy, 6 June 1944]. They were at sea on 4 June. There were thousands of ships massed for the invasion. After they were aboard ship they were issued maps which showed their destination.The 38th Infantry Regiment went ashore on D+1, 7 June. Their landing spot was not where the map showed that they were supposed to be. They went ashore without their heavy weapons. They only had their individual weapons, emergency rations, and a few jeeps and a few radios. On 8 June the 38th Infantry was committed to expand the beachhead. They fought from one hedgerow to another until they reached Hill 192. That area was heavily fortified because it controlled the Saint Lo road junction.They did a lot of digging in and massing of artillery. Eventually they took Hill 192 and the 38th Infantry, Schmedemann's regiment, was a major participant in the battle. After 192 was taken it opened up Saint Lo and there was a breakout towards Paris.The 2nd Division and two other divisions were diverted to reduce Brest because the temporary harbors that had been constructed in Normandy had suffered from a big storm and a deep water port was needed to support the actions in France.They took the port. They moved from Brest through Paris to the Schnee Eifel sector which was supposed to be a very quiet sector. They arrived there in September and were deployed out on a very wide front.It was beautiful country. There were a lot of woods. It was thought that there would be no offensive action there because it was so heavily wooded. They developed positions and did some patrolling.They remained there until 12 December.They were to reduce the damns over the Roer River. If the Germans opened the damns it would flood all of the lowlands around the Roer which would have made it impossible to break out and attack across Germany.On 14 December the 2nd Division attacked in a column of battalions in an effort to capture the damns.On 16 December the 38th Infantry had been committed [Annotator's Note: entered combat] and had made some penetration through the Siegfried Line when they learned of some activity to their rear. On the evening of the 16th there was word that the unit that had replaced them on the Schnee Eifel, the 106th Division, had been cut off and that the situation was fluid. Late on the 16th and early on the 17th the service company at the tail end of Schmedemann's regiment was under heavy pressure. They got orders to pull back out of the attack, turn around, and defend the crossroads at Rocherath-Krinkelt on the border of Belgium and Germany. That maneuver had never been done. The troopers had to fight their way back. They were successful in getting to the crossroads. In the meantime the panzer units were penetrating. The 99th Infantry Division on their right was under orders to withdraw to the west.They had a battle there for three plus days. The regimental headquarters was in Krinkelt and the battalions were to defend around Rocherath and Krinkelt. Casualties were very heavy. The road supplying Krinkelt was cut so the engineers had to build a road for supplying the troops.By that time they knew it was a major offensive on the part of the Germans. The crossroads at Rocherath-Krinkelt were key to the German plans because the road led up to Liege and if they had gotten up there they would have had access to multitudes of supplies. If they got to Antwerp they would be behind the American and British forces.

Their strategy didn't work because they couldn't bend around Rocherath-Krinkelt [Annotator’s Note: During the Battle of the Bulge]. The 2nd Division, largely the 38th Infantry Regimet, held there for three days. They had Tiger [Annotator's Note: German Mark VI "Tiger" heavy tank] tanks and other tanks along with German infantry infiltrating through their headquarters. They had some house to house fighting. It all boiled to small unit actions.The Tiger tanks had a hard time negotiating the streets of Rocherath-Krinkelt. They tried to bypass the town. One went down the street that Schmedemann was billeted in and caught his friend's jeep. His friend was the regimental S-4 and he, at the time was the regimental adjutant, S-1. The tank rolled over his friend’s jeep and crushed it like a sardine can, destroying much of his personal gear. The man was mad and had a Tommy Gun [Annotator's Note: Thompson submachine gun] and ran after the tank and shot at it.On 18 December the division was ordered to establish positions on Elsenborn Ridge. Elsenborn was a natural defensive position. It was also the location of most of the division artillery. The two towns on the Belgian-German border were not defensible but the ridge was a good place to defend. They did and denied the Nazi forces from heading up to Liege.The division commander and regimental commander were able to recover and reorganize their battalions and regiments as a division front. There had been a lot of improvisation early on to keep their position from being overrun.By Christmas 1944 they were breathing a sigh of relief. Their artillery was back in position, they were getting supplies, and the weather cleared so aircraft could fly over. During the Battle of the Bulge the weather terrible - fog, cold, snow - visibility was a couple hundred yards, if that.One time as regimental adjutant it was Schmedemann's job to form a straggler line. He grabbed the guys coming out of the woods. Most of the men he encountered were from the 99th Division who were well organized and had been ordered to pull back.Schmedemann credits the 2nd Division being a regular army division with a solid cadre of troopers and that they had been together since D+1 [Annotator's Note: 7 December 1944] in over 70 days of constant combat as the reason they held together.

They proceeded on and went to the Rhine River, in the town of Remagen. Troops ahead of them had secured the Remagen Bridge and had gotten a bridgehead across the Rhine. They were ordered across and crossed on the pontoon bridge.Things got good. They were rolling through towns. In the towns people would hang out sheets to indicate that they would not object to their advance.A German woman with a shopping bag in one of the towns caught Schmedemann's arm. He spoke a little German. The woman pulled a German Luger pistol out of a bag and told him that her son was in the SS. When he left he forgot his pistol. She didn't want it around so she gave it to Schmedemann. That was Schmedemann's loot from World War II.Bad Kissingen was one of those towns with natural hot water. They ran the whole regiment through the hot bath. That was a big treat for the troopers.On 1 April [Annotator's Note: 1 April 1945] a vacancy occurred in the Fifth Corps which was the corps that commanded the 2nd Division for most of their time in Europe. The opening was for a major to be the deputy G-1. Up until that time Schmedemann had been the regimental S-1. His division commander saw that the war was coming to an end so he gave him the choice to take the position. On 1 April he transferred from the regiment to the headquarters, Fifth Corps.The duty of the G-1 was to take care of recovered allied prisoners of war. They learned that there was a small party of allied prisoners of war at what they thought to be a German prisoner of war camp at Buchenwald. Schmedemann was sent with a jeep, a French, a Polish, and a British liaison officer to the camp because it was understood that there were Poles, French, and Brits there. When they arrived at the camp they discovered only eight or ten allied prisoners of war there. The gates had been taken down. There was a high fence with concertina wire all around. It turned out that the place was a concentration camp where the Germans incarcerated the Poles that had been driven out of Poland who were Jews. There were a lot of other Jews there too. The inmates were all very emaciated. They told Schmedemann that they were dying by the hundreds each day. The first thing Schmedemann saw was a German farm wagon stacked with bodies that had not been disposed of. It was a shock.They looked over the place and took care of the allied prisoners of war. Schmedemann took a few pictures with his Brownie camera. He reported to the G-5, civil affairs, and to the medics that there was an emergency at Buchenwald. At one point Buchenwald held 32,000 people.The people he saw in the barracks were lying on shelves too weak to move.Schmedemann had a hand in the liberation and delivery of humanitarian assistance to the camp.It got a lot of publicity when General Eisenhower visited the camp then ordered all of the towns people to come out and see the horrors that were there.That memory of the holocaust stayed with him and caused him to be a founding member of the Holocaust Museum as well as the local mid America education center for holocaust education [Annotator's Note: Midwest Center for Holocaust Education]. It was only a couple of days but it's a memory.That was the middle of April. There wasn't much publicity because the following day President Roosevelt passed away. That hit the newspapers and over shadowed any news of the holocaust. 

They moved on and Schmedemann ended the war in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia with the Fifth Corps. Pilsen was undamaged so they were able to live in barracks where they had hot water and were able to eat at tables. They were welcomed very warmly by the native Czechs.Soon word came down to consolidate their positions. The Fifth Corps was alerted since it was one of the corps that had landed in Normandy to return early to the United States, reorganize for 30 days then head to the Pacific to take part in the invasion of Japan.The men were given the option to stay with the corps or remain in Germany and be replaced.Schmedemann chose to stay with the corps. They left Germany in June or July [Annotator's Note: 1945]. When they got to Fort Dix they were all sent home for 30 days with orders to reassemble at Fort Jackson, South Carolina for final shakedown then on to Japan.They assembled at Fort Jackson the first week in August 1945. VE Day had been declared on 8 May 1945. They were getting ready to ship out. They were at Fort Jackson when the atomic bombs were dropped and on VJ Day. The war was over.Schmedemann stayed at Fort Jackson and when the option to integrate into the regular army came up he applied for it. He liked the army. After a three day examination he was accepted and was in the first group to be integrated into the regular army.A friend of Schmedemann called him and asked him to come to Washington to help oversee a secret project. He told him that he didn't want to go, but when he was told he was asked for by name he went.The project was Operation Paperclip. It was the project under which German scientific personnel had been found, removed from Germany, and brought to the United States under military control. This was done to exploit their scientific knowledge for the United States and so they didn't come under the control of the Soviets.The scientists were under military control and were not here legally and asked to be allowed to be here legally. One of those scientists was Wernher von Braun, the rocket scientist, and his whole team. There was also the German scientist who created wind tunnel technology.Schmedemann's routine was to go to the various departments requesting that these scientists be allowed to become legal immigrants.It was approved and they were allowed to legally immigrate to the US. History shows the wisdom of that.

Schmedemann's career was in his hands. He wanted to go to the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas but was too young.He applied for civilian schooling and got a master's degree. That led to a job at the Pentagon doing organizational management studies, but by that time there was a police action going on in Korea [Annotator's Note: more commonly referred to as the Korean War].In 1951 he made lieutenant colonel. It was time to become an infantry commander again so he went to Fort Benning, Georgia to refresh his infantry tactics and skills then went to Korea and commanded the 2nd battalion of the 27th Infantry Regiment, the Wolfhound regiment. Schmedemann spent half of his tour commanding this outfit and the other half as the regimental executive of the Wolfhounds.He came back and spent about a year at Fort Benning then attended the Command and Staff College, first as a student then on the faculty for three years.Schmedemann was selected for full colonel in 1956. He went to the industrial college and then was deployed to Germany to command the 15th Infantry battle group. He then went to Heidelberg to be the deputy chief of operations for about six months during the Cold War and the reinforcement of Berlin.He came back and had a tour as chief of the colonel's assignment management division at the Pentagon, then was chief of manpower for the build up for the action in Vietnam. He retired as the deputy chief of manpower in the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He retired as a colonel two years ahead of his 30. He wanted to get out before age 50 so he could pursue a civilian career. He did so and had a productive civilian career in Kansas City. After 20 years he retired totally in 1990.The organization of the regiments staff officers was – S-1 the adjutant and in charge of personnel, S-2 the intelligence officer, S-3 planning and training, and S-4 logistics. Schmedemann's primary role was to make any required reports. In combat he wrote all of the after action reports. The after action reports would show where they were, who was in command, and any changes that had been made within the regiment. His biggest role was in processing all of the replacements who came to the regiment. There was a master plan that provided a flow of replacements of all specialties including a lot of lieutenants, NCOs [Annotator's Note: Non-Commissioned Officers also referred to as Non Coms], and a lot of private and private first class soldiers. They were fed ashore a week or 10 days after the invasion.When they were in Normandy they were in constant contact for about 70 days. Their rifle companies that normally had 200 odd as their table of organization strength were fighting with only about 80 people. Schmedemann's job was to feed the replacements into those platoons and companies whenever they would get a pause. He would assign the officers to a specific position and would assign the enlisted personnel to a company and the company first sergeant would assign them where needed. The reason they were assigned during a pause is because the commanders didn't want new green troops to come in while they were under fire. At one time Schmedemann had over 850 replacements. He had more men in the replacement group than they had in the battalions. That was a very active time.The other main role that the S-1 has in combat is to select a physical position for the regimental headquarters when they displaced. As they advanced, the regimental headquarters advanced with them.The third role was if there was an event in which an officer or enlisted man exhibited some heroic action; it was his job to write up a description of that action. He wrote the recommendations for decorations like silver stars, Distinguished Service Crosses, bronze stars, and they even had one or two that they thought qualified for the Medal of Honor but got Distinguished Service Crosses.They learned early on that the documentation to get an award had to have two witnesses. One of the officers with Schmedemann was a recent law school graduate. Schmedemann made him his decorations officer, even though there was no table of organization position for it. The routine they established was quite successful and

Back in the United States the main role he had was to see that everybody's personnel records were in order before they deployed. He also had to be qualified as an infantry leader just like everyone else in the regiment. He took a 25 mile hike in full field equipment and all of the tests that the infantrymen took before they deployed. The qualifications for the combat infantry badge were limited at regimental level. Schmedemann was with the regiment in combat for over 30 days in World War II and in Korea with the Wolfhound regiment [Annotator's Note: US 27th Infantry Regiment] so he got the award for both. During the Battle of the Bulge everyone forgot their duties and took up shooting positions. Their headquarters was in a bombed out house. Schmedemann had a room in a stone walled house. He had one enlisted man with a portable typewriter who wrote up the after action reports. A mortar round came in and landed on the opposite side of the wall and turned his sleeping bag into Swiss cheese. During the Battle of the Bulge they never knew enough about what was going on to be scared. When they saw the Tiger tanks they knew it was for real. Then they saw the German infantry walking along beside the tanks. When Schmedemann tried to establish a straggler line to catch guys he encountered a company of the 99th Division that had been ordered to pull back to Elsenborn Ridge. They told him that they were being driven out. As the day wore on into the night they could hear the tanks. The shooting was all over. It occurred to them that this was not a stable situation. They were a tight knit outfit who had been together since Camp McCoy. They stayed cool. They knew what their job was and they were doing it. They had great faith in each other and that kept them stable. Schmedemann learned later that other units without that experience really had a difficult time. The 99th Division was a pretty good division. It was new to the sector. It had not been through Normandy. They did their duty and performed their mission under the circumstances. They had less experience but they were under control. The 106th Division was in the Schnee Eifel. They had no chance. They were new and were on a great wide sector. They had members that were totally cut off and surrounded. The regiment in the sector where Schmedemann was located was surrounded. He doesn't know what they would have done in that situation. He believes that they would have fought their way out because they had plans for situations like that. The interviewer reads to Schmedemann an account that he wrote of an action during the Battle of the Bulge stating that two American soldiers had been killed after they were captured by the Germans. Schmedemann states that the incident he is talking about was not at Malmedy. It was in the Rocherath-Krinkelt area. The incident had not been authenticated; he was just stating what soldiers had reported that they had seen. There was a lot of turmoil and trauma. They lost hundreds of troopers in the Bulge. Schmedemann could not list a certain time and place where the incident happened but is sure that there was plenty of alleged evidence. Schmedemann states as an example, one battalion from the 9th Infantry was eventually assigned to the 38th Infantry because it had been attacking toward the Roer dams. The 38th Infantry takes over Rocherath-Krinkelt. When they [Annotator's Note: the battalion from the 9th Infantry Regiment] went into the attack they had about 850 men and after the attack they had about 275. That just goes to show how bad casualty rates were at the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge. Back in the United States the main role he had was to see that everybody's personnel records were in order before they deployed. He also had to be qualified as an infantry leader just like everyone else in the regiment. He took a 25 mile hike in full field equipment and all of the tests that the infantrymen took before they deployed.The qualifications for the combat infantry badge were limited at regimental level. Schmedemann was with the regiment in combat for over 30 days in World War II and in Korea with the Wolfhound regiment [Annotator's Note: US 27th Infantry Regiment] so he got the award for both.During the Battle of the Bulge everyone forgot their duties and took up shooting positions. Their headquarters was in a bombed out house.Schmedemann had a room in a stone walled house. He had one enlisted man with a portable typewriter who wrote up the after action reports.A mortar round came in and landed on the opposite side of the wall and turned his sleeping bag into Swiss cheese.During the Battle of the Bulge they never knew enough about what was going on to be scared. When they saw the Tiger tanks they knew it was for real. Then they saw the German infantry walking along beside the tanks. When Schmedemann tried to establish a straggler line to catch guys he encountered a company of the 99th Division that had been ordered to pull back to Elsenborn Ridge. They told him that they were being driven out.As the day wore on into the night they could hear the tanks. The shooting was all over. It occurred to them that this was not a stable situation.They were a tight knit outfit who had been together since Camp McCoy. They stayed cool. They knew what their job was and they were doing it. They had great faith in each other and that kept them stable. Schmedemann learned later that other units without that experience really had a difficult time.The 99th Division was a pretty good division. It was new to the sector. It had not been through Normandy. They did their duty and performed their mission under the circumstances. They had less experience but they were under control. The 106th Division was in the Schnee Eifel. They had no chance. They were new and were on a great wide sector. They had members that were totally cut off and surrounded.The regiment in the sector where Schmedemann was located was surrounded. He doesn't know what they would have done in that situation. He believes that they would have fought their way out because they had plans for situations like that.The interviewer reads to Schmedemann an account that he wrote of an action during the Battle of the Bulge stating that two American soldiers had been killed after they were captured by the Germans. Schmedemann states that the incident he is talking about was not at Malmedy. It was in the Rocherath-Krinkelt area. The incident had not been authenticated; he was just stating what soldiers had reported that they had seen. There was a lot of turmoil and trauma. They lost hundreds of troopers in the Bulge. Schmedemann could not list a certain time and place where the incident happened but is sure that there was plenty of alleged evidence.Schmedemann states as an example, one battalion from the 9th Infantry was eventually assigned to the 38th Infantry because it had been attacking toward the Roer dams. The 38th Infantry takes over Rocherath-Krinkelt. When they [Annotator's Note: the battalion from the 9th Infantry Regiment] went into the attack they had about 850 men and after the attack they had about 275. That just goes to show how bad casualty rates were at the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge.

Schmedemann felt that the enemy they encountered [Annotator’s Note: during the Battle of the Bulge] were far superior than those they had begun to believe were left of the German forces. They had no appreciation that the Germans had that many high class tanks - Tiger tanks, well maintained effective tanks. They had tank-infantry training. Their soldiers in the Bulge were superior to those in Normandy.Schmedemann had a high of regard for the Germans, not only as professional soldiers and fighters, but because they were of good moral qualifications. They were dedicated to their homeland. They were trying to defend their country and were following their leadership. He would have been happy to serve with them in his side. There were a lot of casualties on both sides. Schmedemann had great respect for them and he thinks all of the people he knew had great respect for them.When Schmedemann entered the concentration camp [Annotator's Note: Buchenwald] the people he saw were so emaciated. He feels that they were resigned to the fact that they had no future. He saw very little expression of relief except for the people who had more recently been incarcerated and had a little more physical vitality.There is a well publicized picture of Buchenwald showing Elie Wiesel [Annotator's Note: Eliezer Wiesel, Jewish-American writer] who was a 16 year old at the time just laying there with a blank stare. That is the way they were. Whether they comprehended that they were free or not can only be answered by them. Schmedemann thinks that they knew who he was.They had been told not to give them any rations. Their bodies were so deteriorated that couldn't handle it. When the medics came in they had to give them liquids.There was a man standing by a chain link fence with his hands up who nodded at Schmedemann when he walked past. It was all he could do. Schmedemann's reaction was not immediate because he didn't know what he was seeing. He saw all of the people in striped uniforms with a Star of David. It took him some time to reflect on what he had seen.Schmedemann later learned that there were 32,000 people in Buchenwald but he didn't see that many. He saw wagons piled up with bodies.Schmedemann breaks down the makeup of different units within a US Army regiment.They had a cannon company attached to them at Camp McCoy. The cannon company had cannons with a shorter range and was more mobile than the artillery batteries.The cannon company gave the battalion artillery capability other than mortars.Mortars lobbed a shell up and it came back down. The cannons could aim. It was a closer support weapon than artillery and they had immediate communication with them. The cannon companies were a very valuable transition.A lot of times the cannons were used for direct fire [Annotator's Note: firing directly at a target in the line of sight of the gun] missions.

Schmedemann doesn't exactly remember where the cannon company [Annotator's Note: Cannon Company, 38th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division] was positioned on Elsenborn Ridge. They had been ordered back across a temporary road build by the engineers. The Germans had captured the main road. The temporary road was a corrugated wood road. He guesses that the cannon company was a couple of hundred yards behind the rifle companies. The company was probably placed as a platoon of guns behind each battalion for protection purposes.Schmedemann states that regrettably, many people he knows and has spoken to in public, are unaware of The National World War II Museum because its existence is not well known except by those who participated in World War II.There is a very definite need for education and teaching on World War II and how it came about. It was a result of a few militarists thinking that they could conquer things. Nations didn't talk to each other or understand each other.There needs to be more communications and understanding between peoples and nations.Schmedemann is a native German. His grandparents emigrated from Germany. He supports the Holocaust Museum [Annotator's Note: in Washington DC] because he has seen it firsthand.Schmedemann hopes that there will be courses, perhaps in middle or high school levels, to teach the war in total context.