“A patient. I am in the ward next to yours.”
He pointed to a chair. “Sit. Tell me about yourself.”
Hans did so, pleased to see that he was happy for the company. “I am—I was a sergeant in a combat infantry unit.”
“A platoon sergeant?”
“Ja. I started out as a truck driver but was conscripted into the infantry at the Battle of Verdun.”
There was a soft exclamation of respect. “Ah, Verdun. Then you too served in hell.”
“Were you at Verdun?” Hans asked in surprise.
“No.” There was a touch of amusement in his voice. “I was in another corner of hell. I was a dispatch runner in the First Battle of Ypres in Belgium.” He pronounced the French correctly as ee-PRAY.
“I was still in training then,” Hans replied. “But we all heard about Ypres.”
The soldier was quiet for a moment. “In four days of combat, my regiment was reduced from thirty-five hundred men to six hundred. After that I bounced around from battle to battle—the Somme, Arras, and eventually back to Ypres, where we tried to stop the British advance.”
“Is that where you were gassed?”
“Yes. We were near the bottom of a hill when the British released hundreds of canisters. We could see it coming, the horrible river of yellow gas. It flowed right down on our position.” He spoke as if it had happened to someone else.
“I’m told it is unbelievably painful,” Hans said softly.
He sighed. “By the time I reached the hospital, my eyes felt like two red-hot coals stuck into my face.”
Hans didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing.
After a moment, the man went on. “But I am one of the fortunate ones. The doctor is confident that my eyes will heal. I already have some of my sight back. But you tell me. Why are you here? Were you gassed too?”
“No. We were trying to repel a column of American tanks when our own artillery opened fire on us. I was just a few feet away from one of our shells.”
There was a soft sigh. “Wounded by friendly fire. How terribly ironic that must feel.”
Hans shrugged and then remembered that the man couldn’t see him do so. “I too was lucky to not be left blind,” and he told him about his head wound.
“Then perhaps fate has spared us for some grander purpose,” the man said wryly. “So we must get better so that we can meet our destiny.”
Hans laughed. “I’ll be happy just to go home again.”
“And where do you live?”
“In a little village near Oberammergau called Graswang.”
He jerked forward. “But I too am from Bavaria. My regiment was the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry. I am actually Austrian, having been born just across the border, but I have been through Oberammergau several times. A place of great beauty.”
“As is all of Bavaria,” Hans agreed. They were quiet for a moment, so Hans decided to get to his purpose for being there. “I was very moved by what you said today.”
“I . . .” There was a self-deprecating laugh. “I am afraid that the good pastor stirred emotions in me that I didn’t know I had.”
“As he did in me,” Hans said eagerly. “I was greatly impressed by what he said.”
“As was I. What did he say after I left?”
“He talked about forces that are tearing our country apart.”
“Such as?”
“The government, of course. But also the Bolsheviks, the Communists, the Jews, the greedy industrialists.”
The man nodded but fell silent. When he began again, he was far away. “I was wounded in the leg in that first battle of Ypres. I was in another hospital here in Berlin, not far from here, but when I was released for convalescence, I returned to Munich, which is my home. I was shocked beyond belief at the scoundrels I found there.”
“Scoundrels?”
“Ja! Everywhere I went, I found people cursing the war and wishing for a quick end to it. When I would try to tell them that we fought for the Reich and for the Fatherland, they wouldn’t listen. There were slackers everywhere. People cheating the populace for profit. People who cared only for themselves.”
“I know.”
“And as I went around, I discovered something that I had not really seen before.”
“What was that?”
“Everywhere I went, I found that these cheaters and scoundrels were Jews.”
That took Hans by surprise. “Really?”
“Yes,” he exclaimed. “The offices were filled with Jews. Nearly every clerk was a Jew and nearly every Jew was a clerk. They were running our country. In that year, which was 1916, the whole production in our land was under the control of Jews. I realized that they were robbing our nation and putting it under their own domination. Haven’t you seen that?”
“I . . . I don’t think we had any Jews in Graswang, or Oberammergau.”
“Ah, not that you knew of. But turn over any prosperous business or enterprise and you will likely find a Jew beneath the rock.” He sighed, and some of the pain that Hans had glimpsed in this man earlier was there again. He went on. “It was then that I realized with some horror the catastrophe that was approaching our beloved country.” His voice choked up. “I could not bear what I saw and was grateful when I returned to the front to fight for the Fatherland.”
“And now,” Hans said, happy to change the subject back to what was on his mind, “the November criminals have betrayed us.”
“Don’t start me on that,” he growled, “or I shall not sleep for the rest of the night.”
Hans stood up. “Thank you for talking with me. What you did and said today affected me deeply. May we talk some more tomorrow?”
“I would like that very much. I am a little embarrassed at my outburst, but I feel it so strongly that I cannot contain myself sometimes.” A fleeting smile came and went. “And so now the war is over. What do you plan to do with your life, Sergeant?”
“I’m not sure. I had a scholarship to the University of Berlin before the war started.”
“Of a truth!” his friend cut in. “I am impressed.”
“I’m thinking of pursuing that, but for a time, I may just go home to my father’s dairy farm and milk cows.”
The soldier nodded, his face quite somber. “The simplicity of that has a great attraction, doesn’t it?”
“It does. And what are your plans?”
“I was lying here thinking about that very thing when you came to join me.”
“And?”
Very thoughtful now, he leaned back on his pillow. “I have just decided that if I am to do anything to help save the Fatherland, which I love with all my heart, perhaps I must go into politics.”
Hans laughed but then saw that he was deadly serious. “I wish you luck in that. You are right, of course, but I would rather go through another shelling than be a politician.”
“A wise man, Sergeant,” he chuckled. “A wise man, indeed. Tell me your name again.”
“My name is Hans Otto Eckhardt. And yours?”
He stuck out his hand. “My name is Adolf. Corporal Adolf Hitler. Come back tomorrow. Let us talk again.”
_______________
Chapter Notes
Hitler was caught in a British gas attack on October 13, 1918, and for a time feared that he would be blind. He was in the Pasewalk Military Hospital near Berlin when the war ended. There, a pastor came to the hospital to speak to the soldiers. No name is given for this man, nor does Hitler say that he was Lutheran, but since the Lutheran Church was the state-supported church in Germany, it is likely that he was. In his autobiography, Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”), Hitler described that day as a turning point for him.
Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf that “two million of his brothers in arms” had been lost. Other sources confirm that this was not an exaggeration. The Great War, as it was commonly called at the time, was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, with more than 10 million military and 7 million civilian deat
hs. The German Empire alone lost between 1.77 million and 2.04 million combatants. If you add in the countries allied with Germany, such as Austria, the numbers would be 3.38 to 4.39 million military deaths (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties). His rantings about the Jews that he found while he was in Munich also come primarily from his own words as found in Mein Kampf (ibid., 31).
Bibliography
Anderson, Jeffrey L. “Mormons and Germany, 1914–1933: A History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Germany and Its Relationship with the German Governments from World War I to the Rise of Hitler.” Master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1991.
Scharffs, Gilbert. Mormonism in Germany: A History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Germany Between 1840 and 1970. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1970.
Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. 30th Anniversary Edition. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990.
Trager, James. The People’s Chronology: A Year-by-Year Record of Human Events from Prehistory to the Present. Revised and Updated Edition. New York: Henry Holt, 1992.
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