Hans-Ulrich Rudel - Stuka Pilot

This answer provokes a general murmur of consternation and I am asked excitedly how I reconcile it with my former attitude towards Bolshevism. Hitherto I have not been allowed to say anything disparaging about Russia—their ally. But now I am told of the mass deportations to the East and tales of rape and atrocities, of the bloody terrorism with which the hordes from the steppes of Asia are martyring their subject peoples… This is something new to me, for previously they have been most careful to avoid these subjects; but now their views are an exact reflection of our own often enough proclaimed theses, and expressed in language which is frequently copied from us. Formation leaders of the R.A.F. who have flown Hurricanes on the Russian side at Murmansk tell their impressions; they are shattering. Of our crews which were shot down there hardly one was left alive.

“And then you want to work for the Russians?” they exclaim.

“I have been very interested to hear your opinion of your allies,” I reply. “Of course I have not said a word about what I think, I have only answered the question you put to me.”

The subject of Russia is never brought up in my presence.

I am flown back to the camp in France where I continue to be interned for a short time. The efforts of German doctors are finally successful in effecting a transfer to a hospital camp. Niermann has been released some days before in the British zone. He has several times wangled it so that he can stay with me, but he cannot put it over any longer. Within a week of leaving the French camp I am on an ambulance train which is supposed to be going to a hospital on the Starnbergersee. At Augsburg the engine turns round and steams into Fürth. Here in a military hospital in April 1946 I succeed in obtaining my release.

As one of the millions of soldiers who has done his duty and by the grace of providence has had the great good fortune to survive this war, I have written my experiences of the war against the U.S.S.R. in which the youth of Germany and many convinced Europeans laid down their lives. This book is no glorification of war nor a rehabilitation of a certain group of persons and their orders. Let my experiences alone speak with the voice of truth.

I dedicate this book to the dead in this war and to youth. This new generation now lives in the frightful chaos of the postwar period. May it, nevertheless, keep alive its faith in the fatherland and its hope in the future; for only he is lost who gives himself up for lost!

Read Reach for the Sky , the story of Douglas Bader’s triumphant courage that overcame the peacetime loss of both his legs so thor oughly that when his country was attacked, he became an R.A.F. Wing Commander fighting the Battle of Britain. Another great book in the Bantam War Book Series.