War Brothers

by Patrick Slaney

  ‘Markus you have answered my questions extremely well and I believe all that you have told me. It will not be necessary to question you again or for you to attend court. I have enough evidence now to put Herr Schmidt away for a very long time and make sure that he doesn’t abuse any more HJ members. The party is trying its hardest to get rid of all homosexuals out of society. They are the scum of the earth. We will not tolerate any leaders who exhibit homosexual tendencies. You can go back and join your friends now.’

  And that was it. Stefan Mulder called me into his office a few days later and said that Kurt Schmidt had been arrested and imprisoned based on the evidence that had been collected by the SS officer, and that was the end of the matter. My life returned to normal, and all the gossiping stopped. Boris had also been interviewed by the SS and had been told, in no uncertain terms that he must stop spreading malicious rumours, or they would arrest him and lock him up far away from Lubeck.

  ‘Mum, that whole matter with the regional director of the Hitler Youth has been sorted out,’ I told her when I got home that evening. He has been arrested and put in prison. I have also been told that I won’t have to give evidence at his trial.’

  ‘Is Herr Mulder still the leader of your group?’

  ‘Yes it was him who told me what happened. So he is still around.’

  ‘Do you still trust him Markus after what happened?’

  ‘Yes Mum and I am sure that it will never happen again while he is around. I still look up to him as my leader. It’s also terrific that I am now back at the stadium like before. In fact, there is a stronger bond between us now than there was before this whole unpleasant event took place.’

  ‘Just be careful the next time that you go to a camp Markus, and don’t go to late meetings in the leaders’ tents.’

  ‘Yes Mum I have learnt my lesson, but there is not much that I can do if they order me to attend.’

  Chapter 6

  Life settled down again in Lubeck and my week resumed its usual pattern. The only difference was that I lost my non-blood brother. Walter moved out of our house and went to live with his parents in Munich. His father’s job had worked out well, and he had managed to secure an apartment that would accommodate Walter and his sister, so he left us in September of 1931. I missed him as there was now nobody with me going to and from school every day and when I went to the stadium. His chatter and constant questions had been irritating at times, but, now that he wasn’t around, the silence was hard to endure. He had been a true brother to me, and a strong bond had formed between us. Little did I know at the time that Walter would prove to me, later in my life, what a true brother he was.

  As the thirties progressed, the Nazi party increased its control of the country, and a law was passed making it mandatory for all young people to join the Hitler Youth. The numbers coming to the meetings increased significantly, and it became a lot less personal. Because of the large numbers all we did most of the time was parade around the town singing Nazi propaganda songs with the drums playing. It became quite tiresome, and there were a lot of disgruntled members unhappy with having to attend.

  The meetings moved from Friday evening to Saturday displacing our football matches, and they lasted most of the day. On a Friday evening, smaller groups used to meet in people’s houses and the leaders used to go around giving propaganda talks. Our heads were filled with what the Nazi authorities felt we should know.

  The members of the Hitler Youth were also used to carry out certain tasks for the party such as distribute leaflets on the street or push them through people’s mail boxes. It was also compulsory to go to the annual mass meeting and celebration in Nuremberg where Hitler used to address us with his spine tingling rhetoric. We would have done anything for Hitler; he was our idol.

  In 1935, when I was eighteen, I decided to join the Flieger-HJ which was the flying section of the Hitler Youth. I left the mainstream Hitler Youth, which still met at the local stadium, and joined another group that met in a large field beside the aerodrome just outside the town. It was an extremely sad day leaving Stefan Mulder and the group I had been part of for so many years, but doing the same old routine every day wasn’t keeping me interested.

  The Flieger-HJ was much better fun and actually involved learning to fly in gliders. Under the conditions the allies had imposed following the First World War, Germany was limited in the number of aircraft the Luftwaffe was allowed to have. Hitler got around the restrictions by having masses of gliders built. These were not classified as aircraft and were the best method of training pilots.

  The first task that we had to do when we joined was make model gliders, and these had to be able to fly. By making the gliders, we started to understand the principals of flight. At every meeting, there were competitions between the members to see whose glider could fly furthest. If we lost, we would go away and make modifications to our glider to make it stay up longer and fly further.

  After a few months, we were told to buy the materials to make a full sized glider capable of being flown by the builder or in my case builders. A number of us didn’t have enough money to pay for all the materials required to make a glider, so three of us clubbed together to raise the money to buy the necessary materials. We then took it turns to be taught how to fly our glider.

  It was only the older members of the Flieger-HJ who were allowed to pilot the gliders, the younger members, and those without gliders, manned the catapults that were used to launch them. I loved the flying, and, after a few months training, was classified as a competent glider pilot and ear marked for the Luftwaffe, if and when war came.

  As yet there weren’t the motorised planes available to teach us in, but one day they took the better pilots from our group across to the other side of the airfield where we were taken up in a proper plane for a twenty minute flight. I loved everything about flying; the roar of the engines, the sudden calm when we left the ground, the overwhelming smell of fuel and hot oil, the bird’s eye view of the ground. I was totally hooked, and I decided that when war came, I would fly for Germany. This was appearing more and more likely as the rhetoric from Hitler became increasingly warlike.

  In April 1936, when I was nineteen years of age, I applied to the Engineering School at Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel, and I was extremely excited when I passed all the examinations required to be accepted for the semester that would commence in September of that year. Unknown to me, Walter had also been accepted by the university in Kiel to study the Sciences. When we realised that we were both going to be in Kiel, we agreed to share digs together when we commenced our courses in late September. Before term started, we both travelled to Kiel to look around the University and to find suitable accommodation close to the University that was in our price range.

  One of the strict conditions we had to follow in being allowed to attend University was to remain an active member in one of the sections of the Hitler Youth, which in my case was the Flieger-HJ. In fact, because it was a mandatory condition for all students, there were branches of all the different sections of the Hitler Youth available on the University Campus. Walter joined the section that was associated with the SS.

  To give us something else to do Walter and I joined the University rowing club where we both became competent oarsmen.

  One outcome of all the physical training and development that we had done in the Hitler Youth was we both had considerable strength in our upper body. This now aided our rowing. I was a few centimetres under 2 meters, with broad shoulders and well developed biceps, and had no difficulty in being included in the University racing crews.

  I settled into University life surprisingly quickly and found myself fully occupied in my studies and social activities. Walter and I attended the same lectures for six hours per week in our first year, so that helped in the settling in process. I had to study Mathematics and Physics as part of my engineering course while he also
had to study these subjects as part of his Science course. The other twenty eight hours a week of my time table were spent in the Engineering Block studying subjects such as engineering drawing and mechanical skills. I loved it, and every day proved to me that I had chosen the correct discipline. I also made a whole new group of friends.

  Partying and socialising was also an essential part of the curriculum and one that I enjoyed more than Walter did. At a social event to celebrate the start of the year, I met a very intelligent and attractive female student called Susie Rothenburger who was studying Modern Languages. She lived at home in Kiel with her parents as her father was a naval officer based at the dockyards in Kiel.

  The first love of my life swept me off my feet and gave me an education in relationships with the female of the species. In Lubeck, I hadn’t had the opportunity of getting to know the fairer sex as I had been so tied up with my activities, and looking after my mother. Walter, who was very shy and kept away from women, wasn’t too impressed, but we tried to include him in our activities on as many occasions as it was feasible. Life was good, and I grew in confidence on a daily basis, thoroughly enjoying life as a University student.

  In March of 1937 I saw a notice on the Rowing Club notice board:

  THE CLUB IS SENDING TWO CREWS TO THE HENLEY ROYAL REGATTA

  VENUE: THE RIVER THAMES JUST OUTSIDE LONDON,

  DATE: 20th. - 27th. JULY.

  ANY MEMBERS INTERESTED PLEASE CONTACT THE SECRETARY etc.......

  ‘What do you think of that Walter,’ I asked him as we stopped to read the notice.

  ‘That would be an exciting trip, but it probably would be too expensive?’ He didn’t look as enthusiastic as I felt.

  ‘I imagine that the Club will provide some financial help to the crews that go, so it may be affordable.’

  ‘I would love to go Markus. Let’s find out more about it.’

  After various negotiations with the Club and our parents, we managed to get the money together and set off by train for England in the middle of July. Walter and I were selected in a crew that was entered in the Visitors Challenge Cup which was an event for coxless fours. The College had arranged to borrow boats when we got to Henley, so we didn’t have to go through the drama of taking them with us. The train took us as far as the port of Rotterdam from where we caught a boat to Harwich on the east coast of England. After a rough voyage across the North Sea on an ancient ferry, we disembarked at a very grey and misty Harwich, feeling the worse for wear. From there, we travelled by train to Liverpool Street station in London where we transferred by underground to the University of London residences in Bloomsbury where we were staying.

  Chapter 7

  To the approval of all in our group, we discovered that the student residences for London University, where we were staying for the duration of the regatta, were within walking distance of all the main tourist attractions and restaurants. On the evening of the day we arrived, we searched locally for a low cost place to eat that was within our students’ budget. Exhausted from the long journey by boat and train we decided to leave the tourist sites for another day.

  The following morning we had to travel out to Henley-on-Thames so as we could try out our borrowed boats and become acquainted with the river. It was warm and clammy with the smell of sweaty bodies pervading the air in the tube that we caught from Russel Square underground station to Paddington where we had to take a suburban train to Henley-on-Thames. Just over an hour later we were getting off the train at Henley station, very close to the area of the riverbank used for the regatta. As we came out of the station, we saw rows of large white tents lined up in the fields that bordered the river. The green grass, the white tents and the colour of the river made a truly impressive picture. The dank, heavy air of the city had been replaced by the fresh air of the countryside. We followed the signs to the boating park, and a short time later both the Kiel crews were muscling their oars on the river.

  Our club house in Kiel was situated on the edge of the large harbour, an inlet of the Baltic Sea. We rowed in the shallower waters of the harbour well away from the main shipping; however, the water often was quite rough which endangered the boats. Of course, it was also salt water and icy cold being so far north. There were many times during the winter when it was too cold to take the boats out as the harbour was frozen. At such times, we had to do all our training in the club house.

  Henley was heaven compared to what we were used to. The biggest advantage was that the Thames was a fresh water river, and the course was also well protected from the wind and calm as a duck pond. Another plus for us was that the sun was out, so it was lovely and warm. My crew got used to our boat remarkably quickly. Looking around we saw a lot of other crews out on the river getting in their practice for the races which were due to start the following day. Most of the crews we saw seemed to exceptionally talented and fast.

  After an hour on the river, we left our ‘four’ in the boat park and went to have lunch in one of the marquees that we had seen dotted along the river bank. I was able to practise some of my English on the people serving and found that I could get on extremely well. The biggest problem I had in understanding was when they talked too fast. I also had difficulty in picking up the words because of their accents. All through my schooling my mother insisted that I learn English as one of my subjects. She said that I would need to be able to read the language when I qualified as an engineer. Being in England I was now able to practice what I had learnt on real English speakers.

  In the afternoon, we went out for another test row, and we did a lot better. The problem with borrowing a boat was that every shell has its own idiosyncrasies, and we had to get used to this one extremely quickly if we wanted to be competitive. Near the end of the time given to us for acclimatisation, our Coach was happy that the shell was going as fast or even faster than we had gone in Kiel, and he terminated training for the day. We packed up and caught the train back to Paddington and from there we returned in the cauldron of the tube to the hostel. Nerves started to hit me as I thought about tomorrow’s race. It wasn’t just the fact that we were up against crews that we had never met before, it was also that it was such a grand occasion and so different to the scene back in Kiel. I was starting to realise how large the world was and how different it was to the places I was familiar with, my home town of Lubeck and the university town of Kiel. The people that we had met so far in London seemed to be so much more relaxed and there was a lot of colour around which added to the splendour of everything. My eyes had been opened.

  ‘What do you think of London Walter?’ I asked him as we walked down Tottenham Court Road towards Leicester Square. We were looking for a restaurant we could afford for dinner.

  ‘I love it here Markus. There is such a bustle about the place, and there are all these cars, buses and taxis around.’

  ‘The people look happier here than in Germany for some reason. Back home everything is a dark grey and people are going around with long faces. They are also dressed in an old fashioned way compared to London.’

  ‘I could get used to it here,’ Walter said looking around him, taking in all that was going on in the street.

  ‘I would love to have the money to go to a theatre. There are so many fabulous shows advertised outside the theatres that we walk past,’ I said as we passed the Lyric Theatre in Shaftsbury Avenue.

  ‘Would your English be good enough to understand what was going on Markus?’ Walter asked me.

  ‘I think that I would follow what was going on, provided it was a musical or something like that, and it was not too deep.’

  ‘We are only here for a few days so we won’t have time. Keep your money for beer as we will need plenty of that after our races.’

  We had a delicious meal and then walked back to the hostel to spend the night. The following day we left at just after 11:30 am and made our way to Henley-on-Tha
mes on the train. Our event wasn’t until 3:15 pm, so we didn’t want to get there too early and have to spend a lot of time hanging around.

  We excelled ourselves and won our race by half a length which meant that we would be racing the following day, which was the Thursday, against a crew from Oxford University. We had a couple of beers in a tent set up as a bar before catching the train back to the hostel. After bathing and relaxing, the members of our victorious crew, went out together to celebrate our win with a meal, and not with more beers. The other Kiel crew had lost, so they were drowning their sorrows. Our coach came along too to keep an eye on us and make sure that we didn’t break his rule on drink.

  Our race on the Thursday was against Oriel College, Oxford, one of the better crews in our section of the regatta. The assessment of Oriel proved to be correct as they beat us very easily, coming in a full boat length ahead of us. That was the end of our participation in the Visitors Challenge Cup. Rather than ‘celebratory’ beers, we went for some ‘forget the race’ beers. In fact, we were invited by our victors, the members of the Oriel crew, to join them in the Watney’s beer tent.

  Chapter 8

  That invitation unexpectedly changed the rest of my life.

  I was sitting having a quiet drink in the group which now contained members of the Oriel crew that had beaten us. Walter poked me in the ribs and pointed to one of the Oriel crew sitting three away from me.

  ‘That’s your twin over there Markus. Look at him; he actually looks your double.’

  ‘There is a strong resemblance I must admit,’ I replied, looking more closely at him.

  ‘If he didn’t come from England and you from Germany, I would suggest that you were the offspring of the same window cleaner,’ Walter added.