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

by Lee Strauss

The train arrived and Emil boarded. As he watched Katharina disappear into the distance, his heart stretched and tore like a rubber band and he thought he might vomit in the chair beside him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  AUGUST

  OFFICER SPIEGL looked strange. His broad shoulders slumped inward slightly and his brow crease was more severe. For the first time Emil sensed a certain weariness in him.

  “Men,” he began. With this small word, Emil knew there was trouble. Officer Spiegl always called them boys or at best, young men, but never simply men.

  “It is my duty to inform you that you will soon have the privilege of fighting in our great Fuehrer’s army. The battle in the east continues to rage, and you will go to serve the Fatherland there, as you should. Germany owes you nothing. The Fatherland has given you everything and in turn it requires everything from you.”

  A murmur rippled through the ranks. Everyone had heard the fight on the eastern front in the Ukraine was not going well. And that most men who went there, never returned.

  “Pack your things,” Officer Spiegl instructed. “And prepare to be transferred to Nuremberg’s army training camp.”

  Chairs scraped across the wooden floor, boots shuffled as their owners shifted in agitation or excitement, maybe both.

  “We can yet win this war!” Spiegl bellowed. “We must yet win this war! We will show the world the strength of spirit left in Germany!”

  Applause broke out timidly, first one then two, until the whole room had joined in, clapping. They cheered, “Germany, Germany, above all others!”

  They were flight students; they manned the Flak guns. Now they would be foot soldiers.

  If there was anything good about this news, Emil thought, it was that they were to be joined by a group of army youth from Passau. Emil would see Johann again. The bad news was he would be seeing Friedrich again, too.

  Emil went with Spiegl to meet them at the train station. They waited in the wing that hadn’t been blown out in the last raid. Men worked to clean up the rubble, but the once efficient running and pristine station reminded Emil of the many wounded soldiers that hobbled about, forced to function as before but without a limb.

  Being alone with Officer Spiegl was awkward. He stood still, shoulders back, legs apart, statue-like. Emil copied his demeanor, thankful that nothing inspired the officer to chat. Officer Spiegl requested that Emil join him because he was from Passau and could accurately identify the “men” who would be arriving from there.

  Emil kept looking at the station’s clock, willing the train from Passau to arrive on time. The once well-oiled-runs-like-clockwork transportation network could no longer be counted on. He heard the whistle before he recognized the mop of hair sticking out of one of the windows.

  “Emil!” Johann jumped off the ramp and gave Emil a strong handshake. “It’s so great to see you again!”

  If it weren’t for Officer Spiegl standing right there, Emil would’ve given Johann a bear hug. Maybe even a kiss on the cheek. Though it’d only been four months since they’d seen each other, it felt like years.

  Instead he heartily pumped his friend’s arm. “You’re looking, good, Johann.”

  They were accompanied by several other boys from their army unit, all greeting Emil and Officer Spiegl stoically.

  “Hello, Emil.” It was Friedrich. He punched Emil playfully in the shoulder like they were old friends. A little too hard, it stung, but Emil wouldn’t give Friedrich the pleasure of knowing so by rubbing it.

  “Friedrich, I didn’t believe it was possible, but you’ve grown.” He was still skinny as a whip, Emil thought, but taller, his legs and arms lanky appendages. Strong though, Emil reminded himself, as his arm pulsed from their greeting.

  Emil and Georg had built another set of bunk beds in their room to accommodate Friedrich and Johann. The room was barely large enough for the first set; now they could hardly walk between them, and certainly not two at a time.

  Georg and Friedrich claimed the top bunks, lying back with their hands behind their heads, as if they hadn’t a worry in the world. It took all of ten minutes for them to start talking propaganda and arms. Emil should have known those two would hit it off.

  “Emil,” Johann said, “Where are the toilets?” Emil gave him directions, down the hall to the left.

  “He’s such a pansy,” Friedrich said when Johann left the room.

  “What?”

  “Johann.”

  Friedrich didn’t know about their clandestine meetings, Emil thought, or the flyers Johann had delivered illegally. That took guts. Friedrich was an idiot.

  “He’s no such thing!” Emil snapped back.

  Friedrich wouldn’t relent. “Johann’s a weakling. A weak link.”

  A slippery smile crossed Georg’s face. He loved confrontation.

  Emil stood as tall as he could and thrust his chin out. “You mess with him, you mess with me.”

  “Whoa, slow down,” Friedrich said, chuckling. “We’re on the same team. We’re from the same town, practically brothers.”

  Brothers? Emil thought. Over my dead body.

  Rifle and machine gun practice, sprints and pushups, map reading of the eastern targets, basic Russian, panzer tank mechanic instruction, grenades; for the next three weeks they trained from dust to dawn, pushing their minds and bodies with little sleep in between. It made their Hitler Youth exercises seem like kindergarten.

  The last night before they left to fight, Spiegl took them to the local bar so they could drink beer and smoke cigarettes.

  “You were right, Johann,” Emil said, resting against the bar, so tired he could barely keep his head from dropping onto the tabletop.

  “About?”

  “Here we are, off to battle. I thought we were too young, that we’d be spared. But you were right. You knew they were going to make us fight.”

  “I didn’t know,” Johann said. “I just hoped I’d be wrong. Maybe saying it aloud cursed us. I should’ve just kept my mouth shut.”

  “So, you’re trying to take responsibility for this, now?” Emil said, a small grin forming. “I hate to be the one to break it to you…”

  “I know I didn’t cause this to happen. You know what I mean. I’m just tired.” Johann laughed a little strangled laugh, like he was choking. Only Emil saw his eyes, red and watery.

  “I’m not ashamed to say it,” Johann whispered. “I want my mother.”

  Emil laughed. “Me too, Johann. Me too.”

  Georg and Friedrich sidled up beside them. Emil and Johann exchanged a worried glance. They didn’t just hear them talking about wanting their mothers, did they? If they had, Emil and Johann would never live it down.

  “Well, boys,” Friedrich said, toasting them with his beer. “Tomorrow we will be men.”

  Emil and Johann let out a breath.

  “If sitting for endless hours on a less than luxurious train ride to our next stop, which will not be the front, makes us men,” said Georg.

  “But then we will fight,” said Friedrich.

  “No, then we will wait. Believe me,” Georg continued, “we’ll see more boredom than action for a long time.”

  “How do you know so much?” Emil said, shaking his head.

  Georg took a long drag of his cigarette. “I watch. I listen. I read between the lines.”

  It crossed Emil’s mind that Georg may have been recruited by the Gestapo. He and Johann had to be careful what they said around him, and that included more than talk about missing their mothers.

  Georg and Friedrich drank freely and when they walked back to their bunkers, they had their arms around each other, singing old folk songs, each keeping the other from falling flat on his face.

  Emil planned to stay far away from them the next morning.

  He and Johann had to help them up onto their bunks.

  “Come, on, Georg,” Johann said. “You can do it.”

  Friedrich flopped over on his stomach, his arm pinned underneath. Emil c
ouldn’t stop a smug grin when he thought about how much that was going to hurt when he woke up.

  Before Emil could get under his covers, there was a knuckle rap on the door. He opened it and a courier handed him an envelope. His mind went immediately to Father. Please, let him be okay. He opened the wire transcript.

  ONKEL RUDI DIED STOP PLANE SHOT DOWN IN RUSSIA STOP LOVE MOTHER

  Emil wondered why his mother thought it important enough for Emil to know about Onkel Rudi that she would bother to send a telegram? He felt bad for him, sure, but it’s not like they were close. He’d only met the man a few times in his life, and most recently here in Nuremberg.

  Was it a message? A sign? Her way of telling him that the war would not end in Germany’s favor as Onkel Rudi believed and to try really hard in the meantime not to get killed?

  His mother didn’t know he was about to leave to fight on the front. At least Emil hadn’t told her. He didn’t want to worry her more, with Father fighting as well.

  The next day, they were on a train. And Georg was right again: dirty, hard benches, windows so smudged with grime they could barely see out, cold, no luxuries, long and boring.

  They passed the time by talking about girls, ammunition, and home, but then they just got homesick and everyone grew quiet. They nibbled on their rations, not wanting them to run out, since they didn’t know when the next meal would be.

  Every once in a while the train would stop to load up another unit of men. Usually it was a mix of fresh freckly-faced boys and leathery wrinkled senior citizens. They’d have a few minutes to stand up and walk around.

  Eventually they stopped in a small town with one insignificant church steeple silhouetted in the near darkness of dusk. Disembarking the train, they followed their commander, walking noiselessly like a family of rats through a ghost town.

  Where did all the inhabitants go? Emil wondered.

  Except for the odd call of distant wildlife, it was eerily quiet. No one dared to speak.

  Finally, they reached the church. The pews had been removed, probably to burn for heat over the winter. The commander lit a candle; its glow bounced off the stained glass, reflecting eerie shades of red and blue.

  They were instructed to bed down on the ground. Emil and Johann found a spot, laid out their bedrolls and tried to make themselves comfortable. Emil fell asleep in an instant.

  A couple hours later he awoke, his body stinging. He scratched. The fire in his skin flared more. And he wasn’t alone. Others had joined him in the battle of the itch.

  “What is it?” Emil said.

  “Fleas,” said Johann. “Try to ignore them. We need our sleep.”

  In the morning, the regiment looked worse than they had the night before. No one had gotten any sleep. After a small breakfast of toast and barley coffee, they got back on the train, still hungry.

  Emil noticed the train had three empty flat-decks on the front.

  “That’s in case the partisans planted land mines on the track. The flat-decks blow up, not us,” Georg said.

  “What’s a partisan?” Emil said, scratching.

  “A partisan is a member of an irregular army, one that opposes occupational rule.”

  Emil frowned. “An irregular army?”

  “Yes. When we fight the Reds, we’ll know who they are by their uniforms and their battle formations.” He looked around to make sure everyone was listening. “But partisans, see, they’re sneaky. They look like civilians, and they track you like animals, sneaking up on you from a ditch or a bush. Then, ‘POW’!” He slapped his hands together. “You’re dead. You have to watch your back.”

  Great, another thing to be nervous and worried about, Emil thought. Thanks, Georg.

  Emil rubbed a spot clean on the window. A vast plain of bare earth brushed with snow, stretched out as far as the eye could see. Occasionally, they’d pass a village, but Emil never saw any people.

  After a number of days on the train, they landed in a small town in Ukraine, and set up barracks in an abandoned village. After four years of war, the paint had peeled off the walls and the yards and gardens had overgrown. Faded flower boxes beneath the windows were empty.

  Rations waited for them, so at least they had a decent meal, and for the first time in weeks. They ate like kings at a feast–shaved ham, potatoes, cabbage. They could go to bed with a full stomach.

  Afterward, Friedrich walked in with a bag of white powder. Along with fleas, they all had lice.

  “That stinks!” Emil said. He was joined by a chorus of groans.

  “It’s insect powder,” Friedrich said, sprinkling it over them. “It was developed by Dr. Theo Morell, the Fuehrer’s own personal physician.”

  How thoughtful of him, Emil thought. He could put up with the stench if it actually worked, but it didn’t. Everyone was all the more cranky the next morning, for not only were they still itchy, they stank.

  The fact that they didn’t have a proper cleaning facility or clean clothes didn’t help the matter. Bad smells came with war.

  Emil put on his helmet, boots, and uniform. It was his turn to do guard duty. He stuck a small collapsible shovel in his belt, then strapped on a Mauser rifle. He turned to Johann.

  “So, how do I look?”

  “Like you’re ready for the opera.”

  Johann was polishing his boots with a small brush that made soft swish sounds.

  “Are you scared?” Emil prodded.

  “Yes.”

  Emil shifted under the weight of the gun. “We are going to have to kill people.”

  Swish, swish. “Maybe.”

  “Johann, there is no getting around it, now.”

  Swish, swish, swish.

  “Johann.”

  Johann threw his boot to the floor. “What do you want me to say, Emil? You know how I feel.”

  Emil hushed him, glancing over his shoulder. “Shh, I know. I’m sorry. We have to keep our voices down.”

  Johann whispered, pleading. “Please. I can’t think about it right now.”

  “Okay, okay.” Emil held his hand up. “Let’s not talk about it anymore today.”

  He ran outside fearing repercussions if he were to be late for his post. He spotted Georg and a tall dark haired boy standing alongside the lieutenant and sighed.

  “Come on, Radle,” Georg said with a nod of his head. Apparently the lieutenant had informed him of where they were to stand guard, on the edge of the town near the main road they had come in on.

  Georg took his command seriously, standing stout and still like a statue. Emil mimicked Georg’s posture, ignoring the growing pain in his lower back and the pinch in his shoulder from the weight of his rifle. If Georg could do it than he could, too.

  The other boy’s name was Joseph and he looked as incompetent and inexperienced as Emil felt. Reluctantly, Emil admitted to himself that Georg’s take charge presence comforted him.

  Sweat began to trickle down Emil’s forehead, catching in his eyebrows before dripping into his eyes. He swiped his face with the back of his coat sleeve, desperate to strip himself of the senseless jacket in the growing summer heat. He glanced at Georg, stoic, with barely a shimmer of sweat on his brow. Emil frowned and wondered if his fellow soldier was even human.

  Suddenly, Georg dropped to the ground and for a fleeting moment, Emil thought he might’ve fainted, and pushed back a feeling of delight at that thought.

  Then Georg spat, “Get down, idiots!”

  That’s when Emil a dark shadow move through the trees in the forest beyond. He was on the ground beside Georg before he could breathe out his next breath, his heart racing.

  “What is it?” Emil said. Probably just a deer.

  “Partisans.” Georg let off a shot and it echoed between them. Adrenalin laced fear shot through Emil’s body as he cocked his own rifle. A shot was returned, and Emil flinched. He felt Joseph shake with nerves beside him.

  Georg shot again, then threw them a sideways glare. “Shoot!”

  Emil
shot aimlessly, forcing himself to keep his eyes open, wishing they were better hidden than just laying flat on the ground. He continued to fire along with Georg and Joseph, hoping their shots would warn the partisans away, and give them an opportunity to get better cover and to retreat.

  More shots rang out overhead. They sounded like they had come from behind. Emil risked a look over his shoulder. His company had heard the fighting and several soldiers were creeping in behind them. Emil’s eyes settled back on the trees. A partisan screamed out as he fell to the forest floor.

  Then it was over. An eerie quiet fell. Emil felt deafened by the sounds of gunfire that still rang in his ears and the blaring roar of his own breath in his ears. Once his heart began to slow he dared to look around him. Georg was on his knees, his brow furrowed as he assessed the situation. Joseph lay on his stomach and didn’t budge. Emil prodded the boy’s shoulder as bitter dread filled his heart. A patch of red blended in with the boy’s dark hair. Emil pushed him over onto his back. Josef’s eyes were open and turned upward, and a dark bullet hole marked his forehead.

  Emil scuttled backwards, pushing back at the urge to vomit.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  THEIR COMPANY had recently joined two others, and Emil felt comforted by the swell of men, now numbering over eight hundred. They were like a small town, and perhaps there would be a way to get lost in the midst, that he and Johann could survive.

  Because he now knew what Georg had known all along. The war didn’t start on the front. It was being waged every step of the way there. Emil had thought his enemy would be a clearly marked Russian soldier, but it was in fact more insidious. He couldn’t get Josef’s blanched and lifeless face from his mind, or how Georg had removed his identification tags while reciting, “Fallen like a hero on the field of honor for Germany and the Fuehrer.”

  Their commander had received word a day ago that the crumbling line in the front was in dire need of supplies, especially food, and soldier re-enforcements and that they had to make haste.

  Examined another way, Emil thought, it meant that the soldiers on the front were dying in battle and starving while doing so.