German army doctor traumatised by Afghanistan

Afghanistan! When army doctor Heike Groos got the order, she went and wasn’t worried. At the start, she had the impression she was in a scout camp. The camaraderie with her mainly male colleagues was unique. She was popular among them and among the Afghans with whom she was in constant contact.

“At the beginning of 2002, it was a very satisfactory task and I thought that we were being very useful, really helping,” she remembers. “We were ensuring that peace remained and were doing that with humanitarian work.”

Shocked by suicide attack in 2003

This positive feeling was short-lived. In June 2003, six German soldiers were killed by a suicide attack and 29 others were injured - some very seriously. Heike Groos was one of the first at the scene.

“After this first suicide attack in June 2003, we changed and became deeply distrustful because we couldn’t tell the difference. And to be honest I don’t know how to tell the difference today between who’s a Taliban insurgent and who isn’t? Who’s good and who is bad? That was never transparent, ever.“

She also became angry - against the Taliban, against Afghanistan and against Germany for sending her there.

“We withdrew into ourselves and didn’t want to have anything to do with the Afghans. They had attacked us although we were there to help them. This attitude changed of course and we realised that those we had been friends with before were still our friends but we remained wary. I was never as unprejudiced as I had been before.”

Mother figure needs comfort herself

Heike Groos explains that most of her younger male colleagues began to regard her as a mother figure. However, she also needed comfort and was no longer able to cope with the situation. She no longer saw the reason behind her work, which was becoming more and more dangerous. She went to Afghanistan for the last time in 2007 and then she quit.

But going home was not that easy either. Even though her close friends and family understood why she had gone to Afghanistan, many didn’t - especially her neighbours.

Her second husband didn’t understand either and eventually their marriage broke up. Heike Groos wanted to get away, to somewhere that was far away from Afghanistan and also far away from Germany.

Little emotional support from Bundeswehr

She emigrated to New Zealand with three of her five children. Still, however, she could not get rid of Afghanistan. She couldn’t sleep at night. Above all, she felt that she received very little support from her previous employer, the Bundeswehr.

“I had fulfilled my duty and found it very difficult. I would have hoped for some support and not to be left alone, but all I got was a psychiatrist who told me I was traumatised. And the German people who aren’t that close to the Bundeswehr say I wasn’t hard enough and soldiers have to be hard.”

Heike Groos says she has become harder but also weaker and thin-skinned. But she’s a fighter and will continue to tell her story - her first book is called “A Good Day to Die.”

Author: Melanie Riedel/Anne Thomas
Editor: Thomas Bärthlein