Playing with Matches: Coming of age in Hitler's Germany.

by Lee Strauss

  “Father,” Emil said. There was so much he wanted to tell him, so much he needed him to know.

  “Yes, Emil?”

  “I, um,” Emil couldn’t help but steal glances, watching for others around them. No one must hear what he said, but this could be his only chance to tell Father. To confess.

  He leaned into his father, laying his head on his shoulder. It was an uncustomary act of closeness between them, but Emil did it more out of a sense of protection.

  “I’m not, you know,” he couldn’t quite say it out loud. Nazi. “Moritz, when he died, he wasn’t alone.”

  “No?”

  “I was there. We did it, all of it, together.” Emil didn’t think it necessary to bring Johann and Katharina into this. It was his confession to his father, not theirs.

  “I see.”

  “So, you and me, we’re the same in a way. We’re fighting on the outside, but not the inside.”

  Emil sat up and looked into his father’s eyes. Did he understand what he’d just said? Really understand?

  Father nodded slowly, his eyes filling with emotion. Relief? Pride? A smile tugged at Father’s lips. “I’m happy to hear that, son.”

  Emil smiled back. Sharing his burden with Father had lifted the guilt he’d felt from lying to him, to everyone, about Moritz’s death that day. Some of it, anyway. Emil could breathe again.

  In a blink, Father was gone. They took the bus together to the train station, all bravely waiting for the whistle to blow. Emil had flashbacks of the younger, well-dressed, plumper family they once were. Now Mother and Father seemed old to him; shoulders stooped over, burdens so heavy to carry. This version of his family wore clothes with fabric too thin and repeatedly patched over and shoes scuffed with holes breaking through. Even Father in his “new” uniform was poorly dressed.

  They were all thinking the same thing. Would they see him again? Dead or alive? If he died, the chances were great they would not. The war deceased were no longer shipped home for family burials but simply buried where they fell.

  The warning whistle blew. Father hugged Helmut first.

  “Be strong, Helmut. Help your mother.”

  “Yes, Father.” Helmut wiped a stray tear, turning so we wouldn’t see him cry.

  “Emil, you are a man now. I want you to know I am proud of you. Please be careful in Nuremberg.”

  Emil’s eyes burned. His throat tightened. “Yes, Father,” he could hardly speak. “Thank you.”

  He was proud of him?

  The last whistle blew and Mother cried unashamedly. Emil turned away as they kissed good-bye. He wanted to give them their privacy and quite frankly, it was embarrassing.

  Father boarded the train and sat by a window, stretching his arm out to them. Good-bye, Father.

  The train inched forward and Emil, Helmut and Mother, with a sea of other people saying good bye to their loved ones, ran after it.

  “I love you, Peter!” Mother shouted. “God be with you.”

  Yes, Emil thought, please God, be with him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  KAISERBURG IMPERIAL Castle was perched on a low hill, and overlooked the plains that embraced Nuremberg, watching over the city like royalty. An ancient stone fence surrounded the well-populated, old-town center which was divided into two sections by the river Pegnitz.

  The air force base sat on the northern outskirts in the middle of farmland. It included a row of one-storey bunkhouses, a larger structure with a dining hall and a meeting room where the newly inducted met for classes. Four Flak stations situated to the south and east of the bunkhouse were close enough the youth could reach them in minutes. The guns—massive, leaning canons— much bigger than the single-man ones Emil had trained on in Passau, were each surrounded by a wood and concrete wall as tall as a man. A vegetable garden grew immediately south of the guns. Guns and gardens. Not a natural pairing like salt and pepper, but Emil hoped it meant they would eat regularly.

  When Emil arrived at his room, a blond, blue-eyed youth was already there, unpacking.

  “You’re my bunkmate?” the boy asked him.

  “Looks like it.”

  “Name’s Georg.” He held out his hand. “Georg Stramm. From Regensberg.”

  “I’m Emil Radle. From Passau.”

  “I hope you don’t mind, I took the top bunk.”

  “Not at all,” Emil said.

  “You fly?”

  “Not yet. That’s why I’m here, though.” Emil unbuckled his suitcase and mimicked Georg, putting clothing in the bottom drawer of the dresser, and hung his jacket on a hook.

  “Me, too. I’m eager to spread my wings,” Georg spread out his arms in demonstration. “And take on those nasty Reds.”

  The Red Army. After Stalingrad, the words put fear into Emil’s heart. The Reich tried to keep the truth from getting out. They didn’t want the common person to know about the terror and torture. But word got around. It was hard to keep that kind of thing a secret.

  There was a bell, kind of like school, and all the new recruits were rounded up and split into three groups. Emil and Georg ended up in the same group, led by SS Officer Spiegl, a tall, bulky no-nonsense looking man.

  He took them on a tour of the city. Seven youth piled into the back of an army vehicle.

  They drove passed the double steeples of St. Sebaldus Church, along the front side of the block-long four-storey brick and stone City Hall.

  They had just crossed one of the many stone bridges over the Pegnitz when the alarms went off.

  Emil spotted dark flecks in the sky.

  Allied planes. Dropping bombs.

  Emil stared, mouth open wide as the Flak towers on the west side of the city started shooting into the sky. Bright orange streaks of light. And then one hit! The target spun earthward, and out of sight. And then another bomb dropped and another. Great, brown cylinders, noiselessly falling. The sun was blocked out by the mass.

  Prickly shivers of fear, like little pins, poked at him, leaving him in a paralyzing stupor. He gawked at the Luftwaffe circling around, having lifted off for a counter attack.

  Yes, the Luftwaffe! But, so few planes. Where was the rest of the fleet? The Luftwaffe was clearly outnumbered. “Quick,” shouted SS Officer Spiegl, pointing to an underground tunnel entrance that led to a shelter.

  Emil’s body responded to the urgency in Spiegl’s voice. There was no time for them to return to their stations, and only briefly did Emil wonder if they would be arrested for defeatism or cowardly acts, by not returning and retreating into a bomb shelter instead.

  Nuremberg was famous for its system of underground cellars, built originally for the storage of beer, but now used to shelter citizens from bomb attacks. Several sections had been fortified as shelters. Civilians raced to the tunnels including the marked shelter Emil and his group entered.

  “There’s eleven feet of brick and concrete above us,” one man said, comforting his frightened wife. “We will be okay.”

  “As long as it’s not a direct hit,” another man said, not so sensitive. “Otherwise, we might be trapped and suffocate.”

  “Please!” the first man said.

  “I’m only stating the truth. Ostriches are not better off by sticking their heads in the sand.”

  The argument was cut short by a loud whistle, the loudest yet. Emil covered his ears to ease the pain. Then the earth shook. Large chunks of debris fell from the ceiling. The women screamed, babies cried. The one light that lit the bunker died, throwing them all into total blackness. More screaming. Everyone ducked for cover, arms over heads, waiting for the explosions to cease.

  And then it was over. Stillness. Quiet sobbing. SS Officer Spiegl climbed out of the shelter and pushed the door open, letting in a welcomed surge of air. Dust swirled throughout the tunnels, and out in the street; everything was coated in it. Emil brushed his sleeves, but that just created more dust. He stumbled around in a daze.

  All the buildings up and down the block were destroyed;
walls peeled away exposing the private lives of ordinary people. Beds, tables, cupboards ripped open.

  Muffled cries grew into unbridled wailing.

  “Help!” someone cried. “Over here!”

  Not everyone had been lucky enough to make it to a shelter.

  The youth from the Flak unit started hauling bricks away from a collapsed building. Someone was alive inside. Like worker bees, the people snapped to life, looking for survivors.

  A shoe.

  “I found someone!” Emil shouted. He dug madly to remove the bricks and mortar around the foot sticking out. Then he exposed the head and jumped back. A young boy, like Helmut, was crushed under the weight of the wall. Emil’s eyes locked onto the boy’s grey and bloodied face. His chest tightened and his stomach churned, pushing bile up this throat. The boy was dead. Crushed and bloody and dead.

  “Come on, soldier,” SS Officer Spiegl said. “They’re moving the bodies over there.”

  He pointed to a row. A row of people. Dead.

  Spiegl wanted Emil to touch it. He couldn’t do it.

  “Quickly!” he shouted. “Obey now!”

  Emil forced himself, his hands shaking, to grab one of the boy’s feet, then the other. He dragged him like a bag of flour, depositing the boy’s crushed body in the row.

  Tears threatened, and he bit his lip, forcing himself to focus. Crying was the ultimate weakness, and would not be tolerated.

  He turned away from the bodies to search some more. It got easier after a while. More survivors, more casualties. More rows of corpses. They said it wasn’t a bad hit. Berlin and Cologne had been worse.

  But it was bad enough for him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  FOR DAYS afterward, instead of learning to fly, they cleaned up debris in the city. They did Flak training in the mornings, but what Emil really wanted was to be in a plane. He wanted off the ground, away from the nightmare below. He’d have to wait a little longer.

  Georg turned out to be a walking encyclopedia. He loved to talk and he found great enjoyment in flaunting the fact that he knew more about a lot of things than Emil did.

  “We won’t go back to school. From here, it’ll be the army.”

  “We’re too young.”

  “We get older every day. Before you know it we’ll be on the front, killing Soviets.”

  “You think we can win?”

  “Of course. The Fuehrer has secret miracle weapons.”

  “Secret miracle weapons?”

  “Yes, the Fuehrer is just waiting for the right time to use them.”

  Georg liked the sound of his own voice, Emil thought. He was always going off just when Emil was falling asleep. Sometimes, he wanted to climb to the top bunk and punch Georg in the stomach.

  “You got a girl, Emil?”

  “I’m trying to sleep.”

  “Is that a yes or no?”

  Fake loud snore.

  Georg laughed. “That must mean no. I got a girl. Nice sweet thing in Regensberg. I mean to marry her one day. Her name is Elisabeth Kramer.”

  “Kramer? Isn’t that Jewish?”

  “It’s not always Jewish, you imbecile!”

  With that, a pillow missile, hard across Emil’s face.

  “What? What’s the matter with you, Georg?”

  “You think I’d go with a Jewish dog? Besides, there’s no Jews left in Germany. They’re all dead. Dead in those concentration camps.”

  “What are you talking about?” Emil was awake now. “The Jews were resettled in Poland.”

  Georg laughed from the gut. Loud.

  “Shut up, Georg.”

  “You are so gullible, Emil. I’ve never met anyone like you. The Jews are not resettling in Poland. That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. As if Hitler would give them anything. No, this is what they do to the Jews.”

  Georg dropped his head over the side. His face was upside down from Emil’s perspective, his eyes wide and shaped like small rounded pockets. He reminded Emil of a demon. Like fireside ghost stories they used to tell as children, only then it was a pretend fear.

  “They work them until they drop. Until they’re bone skinny. Then they gas them and burn them in a furnace.”

  The image repulsed Emil. Georg was a storyteller, a liar, and he hated him for saying something so awful. “I don’t believe you.”

  “It’s true.”

  “How do you know? Who told you?”

  His head disappeared. “Give me back my pillow.”

  Emil flicked it up. “How do you know about this, Georg?”

  “I know people. Be quiet, Emil. I’m trying to sleep.”

  Now Emil really wanted to punch him in the stomach.

  He thought of Anne and her family, of all the Jews who boarded the trains in Passau, so long ago, it felt like a whole other lifetime. Emil was afraid to fall asleep. He was afraid of what he might dream.

  Except for the weekends at glider camp, Emil had never been away from home. Homesickness was a strange thing, he thought. You’re not actually sick. You can’t go to the nurse to get medicine for it. But it hurts. It hurts your stomach, it hurts your heart. And it’s heavy, like a sack of flour on your back. It doesn’t go away.

  Small relief came in the form of letters from home. It proved to be just a teaser though, because the moment Emil finished reading, all the ache and heaviness came back, worse than before.

  Bitter sweet. Like the first letter he’d gotten from Katharina.

  May 16, 1943

  Dear Emil,

  How are you? Is life exciting for you in Nuremberg? I am doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances. I get up before dawn to work on the farm, and work until dusk. Not a lot of time for fun. I haven’t gone to the theater since you left. Once a week my mother and I go to the spoiled food depot hoping to get a bag of sugar or block of margarine with our food rationing coupons. Those things are really worthless, but I will refrain from saying more. We get up very early to stand in line because if we’re lucky enough to get something, it’s better than a bucket of money. We can trade with a bag of sugar for weeks.

  Johann is at an army base in Regensberg. We don’t hear from him enough, and I worry about him. I worry about you, too. I wish you were here.

  Please be safe.

  Love Katharina.

  Love Katharina? Love? Well, there are all kinds of love, Emil reasoned. She probably just loved him like a brother, a friend. Could it be more? She was worried about him. She wished he were there.

  He was being stupid. She was worried about Johann, too. He was nothing special. Was he? He was very confused. How should he write her back?

  Emil sat down at the desk and removed a clean sheet of paper from the drawer. With pen in hand, he began:

  June 11, 1943

  Dear Katharina,

  It is so good to get a letter from you. I miss everyone so much. We work hard here, too. Up early for breakfast and exercise and then to train with the Flak guns. In the afternoons, we study flight training. Haven’t flown yet. It’s surprising how few planes are actually stationed here.

  Emil knew his letter could be censored and considered scratching the last line out. But, he left it in. Let them scratch it out if they don’t like it.

  Mostly, it’s the agony of just waiting for something to happen. We were bombed the first day…

  Should he write details? He didn’t want to scare her. Probably not. For sure the censors didn’t want him to spread word about the fear and carnage of that day.

  …but I’m fine.

  Just leave it at that. He didn’t want to lie to her either.

  Chances are we won’t get hit again, but that’s why I’m here. To man the Flak. Just in case. So every day I get up wondering, will it just be training today, or the real thing?

  I wish I were there to go to the theater with you, or just be together.

  Was that too obvious? Too sentimental? Should he tell her how he really felt? What if he died in the next bombi
ng without telling her that he liked her more than a friend?

  Next letter, he decided. He would wait for her reply; maybe she would give him more clues as to her true feelings for him.

  My best regards,

  Emil

  My best regards? My best regards? After she said love? What if she interprets that as his not being interested in her? Only friends?

  He decided to squeeze in a small “with love” above his name. He hoped it didn’t look silly.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  “EMIL!”

  Emil spun on his heel, shocked to see the man who walked up from behind him.

  “Onkel Rudi?” A smile spread across Emil’s face. “Hallo.”

  Onkel Rudi grabbed his hand with a confident shake. “Mein Gott, Emil, you have grown into a man!”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  Onkel Rudi, on the other hand seemed to have shriveled. Emil remembered him from his visit to their house long ago, so strong, assured, and virile. Now he looked as if someone had punched him in the stomach. He slouched, his shoulders slumped forward, the skin on his face hung loose.

  “So, you are here to man the Flak guns?” Onkel Rudi asked.

  What was that expression on his face? Emil thought. Concern?

  “I am. And to train as a pilot for the Luftwaffe,” Emil added proudly.

  “Yes, I see,” Onkel Rudi said. “For the Fuehrer.”

  “For the Fuehrer.”

  Gone was the enthusiasm Onkel Rudi had exhibited back in Passau, when he told tales of amazing adventure and danger while bombing Poland. He just stared at Emil for a few seconds; Emil scrambled for something to say. “Are you here long?”

  “Just a day.”

  “Oh.” Then an idea. “Can you take me for a ride in your plane?”

  Onkel Rudi laughed. “It’s too dangerous, Emil. If the enemy didn’t shoot us down, our own Flaks would. For wasting the Reich’s fuel.”

  He was right. Emil offered a rueful smile back.

  “It was good to see you again,” he said.

  Emil shifted his weight then looked the older man in the eyes. “You, too.”

  Onkel Rudi clicked his heels and saluted, “Heil Hitler!”