Ellie Midwood - Of Knights and Dogfights

“I do. A wife and a son. Two sons.”

“See? More reason to survive, for them.”

Johann stared at the rudder for a very long moment. “Do you have a family, Sasha?”

“I do. My wife, Lida and a daughter, Nina.”

“Would you give yourself up?”

“I did.”

“No. You were downed. Would you give yourself up if you were in your base and I was your prisoner and I would offer you the same deal?”

Sasha smoked in silence, working things out in his mind. “No, I suppose not. I’d fly till the bitter end.”

“So you have your answer.”

It was a quiet day. Even American Mustangs that usually amused themselves with harassing them, flying from their bases in Italy, spared their little piece of the Front their attention that day. Sasha, Johann, and Lutter sat in the field, making planes out of their hands to demonstrate different maneuvers to each other. They drank Hungarian wine and smoked, smiling longingly as they showed each other photos of their wives.

Sasha started saying something to Lutter again, to which the latter only shook his head vehemently. To Johann’s inquisitive look, his loyal crew chief only waved his hand but finally gave in. “He says, if I’m any sort of a friend to you, I should paint the markings on your fighter white and talk you into flying to the Soviet airbase. He says, he’ll even write a note for you and they will treat you like a dear guest there. He was a base commander, if he’s not lying.”

Johann glimpsed his guest’s markings. A Captain, like he was . “I don’t think he’s lying.”

“You aren’t actually considering it, are you?”

“Of course not. Don’t worry.”

“He says, it’ll be much worse after the capitulation. He says, after that, there won’t be anything he would be able to do for you. He says, we’ll all be treated like criminals after. He says something about the camps…”

Johann rose to his feet and walked away to clear his head. It all made too much sense and was too truthful to dismiss as quickly as the leaflets that their Soviet counterparts were drowning them in. Now, he knew about the camps too. He flew over one, dangerously low and slow and returned home to his base, weighed down with what he had witnessed, the last of his illusions shattered. And now the Soviets saw them too, their common German shame, after liberating Majdanek and throwing a new rain of leaflets down on their shamefaced heads, to show them what exactly they were fighting for. This is your regime. This is what you’re protecting. You can’t pretend that it doesn’t exist anymore. Lay down your arms; if you don’t, you’re all complicit in this unthinkable atrocity. You’ll all be prosecuted and served what you deserve .

It was all fine and well, Sasha’s desire to help and all but it just so happened that Johann had his comrades to consider and the unbroken baby pilots who wouldn’t survive without his guidance. He couldn’t quite up and send all of his Staffel to the Soviet side, could he now?

“I did nothing wrong,” he said calmly and clearly the day when a truck came to pick Sasha up and transfer him, together with the rest of the POWs, to a Stalag . He was holding the Russian’s hand in his and smiling openly and without any regret. “I will stay and fight till the end. And when the end comes, I’ll face it like a soldier, not a cowardly deserter. And if they do find me guilty of any crimes, so be it. I’ll accept the responsibility. I’m not afraid.”

Sasha shook his hand firmly and smiled. He understood.

Berlin, May 1945

The truck rolled along the rubble filled streets and came to an abrupt stop next to a hastily erected barricade. It was a burned-out tram trolley, with We Won’t Surrender written on it. The slogan looked more like a mocking now, instead of its intended purpose to instill fighting spirit into Berliners. Harald had just about had it with that fighting spirit.

Their commanding officer herded them outside with his loud Los, los, los! Harald took his position at the beginning of the line; it should have been the tallest cadet’s place but the tallest one◦– Heini◦– was lying somewhere in Wannsee missing his head, just like the other next few “tallest ones” in line. Harald’s turn had come to be the adult◦– everyone else next to him was hardly thirteen.

After a short roll-call, ensuring that no weasels had leaped off the truck along the way, the commander instructed two youngsters to open the crates with ammunition. Harald was already leading his small squad to a position behind the tram, a heavy anti-tank Panzerfaust resting on his shoulder. With a grim smirk, he wondered, how many tanks he’d be able to take out before one of them took his head off, much like they did with Heini. They were rumbling somewhere in the distance. He could hear them already.

The shootout lasted well until the evening. As soon as the Soviets started pressing, the commander suddenly straightened full length in his foxhole, pulled at his disheveled tunic and, after a snappy salute to no one in particular and a loud Heil Hitler, shot himself in the head. Harald stared at his body for a few moments, then threw the Panzerfaust down and began fashioning a small white flag out of some metal rod that lay nearby and his grubby handkerchief.

The kindergarten, which the commander had left in his charge, stared at him with uncertainty on their young faces. Far too many corpses they saw hanging from lampposts◦– the traitors of the Reich, who wanted to surrender as well. But who would hang Harald now? The only adult that was there, now lay dead on the ground, with a bullet hole in his temple. They started dropping their rifles as well.

The Soviets poured through the barricade as soon as Harald climbed on top of it, waving his makeshift flag. They looked at the children in disbelief for a few moments, kicked Harald in the backside and with that, the defense of Berlin was dismissed. Harald was only too pleased with such a turn of events.

Not knowing where to go, he wandered around the ruins, ignored entirely by the Soviet troops, then remembered his brother’s letter that he still carried on his person. “I think it’ll be over soon, Harald. We’re stationed in Austria now; if you’re somewhere near her, please, try to find Mina and make sure nothing happens to her. Frau von Sielaff is in the country with both children, but Mina stayed in Berlin as far as I know and perhaps she won’t have time to leave before they surrender the city entirely…”

It was dated a month earlier. Harald wondered how it made its way to him without being censored. But then again, if children were the ones left to fend for their Fatherland, most likely all the censors were put to use as well, wielding a rifle instead of their black ink pen. Harald found his way into a building that still stood among the rubble and made his way to the second floor, feeling with his hands in the darkness. There was a body on the stairs; he stumbled upon it and carefully moved it out of his way. In one of the apartments, where he was fortunate to find a decent bed, a boy of his age◦– Hitlerjugend ◦– was half-lying on the windowsill, where a sniper’s bullet had gotten him. Harald pulled him down carefully, studied a surprised look on the boy’s baby-face, soaked with moonlight. Clean shot, straight into the forehead. He didn’t even understand what hit him . Harald considered something for a moment and started undressing the corpse. The uniform was good, clean, no bloodstains whatsoever. Just what he needed. He wrapped the boy in a tablecloth and left him near the window, which he left open for the night, with the same white handkerchief hanging off of it. This way, no one would bother him till tomorrow.