Three miles from the border we encountered our first American patrol: a jeepload of young men led by a lieutenant. Clean, neatly dressed, and obviously well fed, they were sitting around the jeep with a mounted MG having dinner. Dinner with a record player in the grass blaring the "Stuka Lied," the lively march of the German dive bombers.
We had the Americans like sitting ducks, but I saw no reason for killing them the way we had killed every Russian who blocked our way. I decided to pay them a visit, alone and unarmed.
Leaving Eisner, Schulze, and an NCO to watch the development, I left the shrubbery and walked up to the group. The soldiers stared at me with astonishment and reached for their guns. The lieutenant turned off the record player. He was a handsome young man of about thirty, tall and blond, just like some of us Teutons. He wore sunglasses which he removed to have a better look at me.
"I see you are having quite a picnic here, Lieutenant," I spoke to him nonchalantly, gesturing toward their rifles that almost poked me in the belly. "You don't want to shoot me, do you? The war is over."
"Who the hell are you?" he blurted out glancing at
his men, then back toward me. "What are you doing here?" I thought God bless my mother who had always insisted that I should learn English.
"What could a German do in his own country?" I asked him in return. "I am on my way home."
"Who are you?"
"Only a German officer. Coming home from far away."
"How come you speak English so well?"
"We are quite civilized people, Lieutenant. As you see, some of us can even speak English."
I noticed that they were completely taken aback by my sudden appearance and for some time the officer seemed at loss as to what to say or do.
"Are you carrying any weapon?" he asked finally.
"Only a pocketknife."
"Hand it over!" he ordered me briskly. I knew he said that only to say something. I handed him my knife and he motioned his men to frisk me. The result set him at ease. He offered me a cigarette, lighted one for himself, then taking a notebook from the jeep he began to rattle off a number of questions.
"Your name, rank, and unit?"
"Hans Josef Wagemueller," I obliged. "Obersturmfuhrer, twenty-first special partisanjaeger commando."
"What's that?" a freckled, lanky soldier interposed.
"Guerrilla hunter," the lieutenant explained and I bowed slightly. "That's right."
"Your last combat station?"
"Liberec, Czechoslovakia."
"Have you killed any Americans?" a squat little corporal cut in.
I smiled. "If there were any American troops serving in the Red army, then I sure as hell did."
The lieutenant made a quick, impatient gesture. "He said he was in Czechoslovakia," he said to the corporal.
"Wehrmacht or the SS?" he now demanded to know. I could barely conceal my amusement. Only the SS had Obersturmfuhrers. The Wehrmacht had lieutenants. I shrugged.
"Wehrmacht, SS, Luftwaffe—what's the difference?"
"There's a helluva difference, buddy," he snapped. "The Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe go home but we hang them SS cutthroats good and high." He extended his hand. "Show me your pay book."
"I haven't got any."
"How come?"
"Well, I just figured that our paymaster's office might be closed for a while, so I threw my pay book away."
He frowned. "You like jokes, don't you?" he remarked curtly and turned to the squat little corporal who wore a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. "Joe, you had better call headquarters."
"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Lieutenant," I suggested mildly and lifted a protesting hand toward their guns, which were coming up once more. "Please do not threaten me. At this very moment there are at least a dozen rifles pointing at you. My men are expert marksmen and they are a bit nervous. I don't want to see you killed—unless in self-defense."
The soldiers paled visibly. The lieutenant ran his tongue over his lips but his confusion did not last long. My troops began to emerge from the woods with their guns providing the necessary dramatic undertone. Their chins dropped, then their weapons. The lieutenant began to unbuckle his holster but I stopped him.
"Oh, never mind your gun, Lieutenant. We don't want to shoot at each other. The war is over."
We took them, jeep, guns, and record player back into the woods. "Nicht schiessen, Kamerad," squat little Joe muttered in broken German. "Don't shoot."
Somewhat bitterly I acknowledged that even the SS cutthroats could quickly turn into comrades when the business end of the submachine gun had turned the other way. The face of the lieutenant revealed sheer agony. He must have thought that we were going to kill them right then and there. I motioned the Americans to sit down on a fallen log and told them briefly about the surrender of Colonel Steinmetz and our odyssey across Czechoslovakia. They seemed impressed.
"Are you telling me that the Russians just gunned them down under a flag of truce?" the lieutenant asked. "It is a helluva way of treating prisoners of war."
"Indeed, Lieutenant?" I queried him sharply. "Do you consider hanging more sophisticated?"
"We aren't going to hang anyone without a fair trial," he protested.
"Can you call a trial of the vanquished by his victors a fair trial, Lieutenant? I presume you will be holding your fair trials in some neutral country to ensure their fairness ... in Geneva, for instance. We had been listening to your broadcasts and know your intentions about the so-called war criminals. A new class of the doomed; everyone who served in the SS now belongs. ... If you speak of the Jew-haters or those who preferred to guard concentration camps instead of fighting the Red army, you might make a point. But do you know that on Hitler's order every German soldier serving in the rear was free to choose front-line duty. And if a man demanded to be sent forward, his commanding officer had no right to turn him down. Do you think we front-line soldiers did not sneer at the swine who wanted to survive the war by flaying Jews a thousand miles from the trenches? I was an officer of the SS, Lieutenant, and I was fighting terrorists whose mere shadows would have sent you screaming into the nearest mental institution. They were not concentration camp inmates but armed insurgents who spat on all the game rules. Now just tell me, you immaculate American lieutenant, what will you do to guerrillas captured in your rear, wearing civilian clothes, guerrillas who blow up bridges, derail trains, stab your buddies in the back, or toss hand grenades into your officer's mess? Won't you hang them, Lieutenant?"
"But the SS ... during the Ardennes offensive...." *I've heard of them, Lieutenant," I cut him short. "Some bastards murdered a group of American prisoners at Malmedy. If it is true, then hunt them down. Hang them for all I care. But then go and hang some of your fellow Americans who gunned down German prisoners with their hands in the air. Just look around a bit and you will find them too. You shouldn't play the holy man here. You had your Chicago and AI Capone long before the SS was born. In the meantime, you had better remember that among us were thousands of enlisted men, ordinary people who had been drafted and put into SS uniforms. Or do you think they should have protested against their uniforms? How about the SS tank drivers, the signal men, the artillerists? Would you consider them war criminals? Would you hang them all, American lieutenant?"
"They will be examined . . . each individual," the lieutenant stated feebly.
"Sure, Lieutenant, every one of them. A half a million individuals or more."
A long pause followed. I knew that my violent outburst would be of little use but it made me feel better to have set the record straight for at least five American servicemen. Again they appeared ill at ease.
"What are you ... up to now?" the lieutenant finally asked. He spoke hesitantly, as though fearing to hear my answer. I knew what he was thinking.
"We are up to—home, I hope." I told him.
"You will never make it. We have roadblocks at every village. Every bridge is guarded by the MP's and Germans need passes to travel from
one place to another."
"The Russians had roadblocks too, Lieutenant," I answered firmly. "They couldn't stop us."
He stepped to the jeep and withdrew a carton of Camels, trying to smile. "Do you want some cigarettes?"
"You don't have to bribe us, Lieutenant."
"We have plenty."
"So I have heard. You Americans seem to have plenty of nearly everything—except common sense and political wisdom. You keep your cigarettes. We have come a long way without smoking."
His face clouded. My refusal sent him back to his former worries about their immediate future. "What do you intend to do with us?" he asked hesitantly.
"It depends. I hope you understand that you could be of great peril to us with your jeep and radio. Having come this far, we wouldn't like the idea of ending up in one of your jails, waiting for the rope."
"We won't give you away!" he said quickly. "Honestly we won't!" The others nodded in consent.
"That, Lieutenant, we will have to make pretty sure of!"
He paled again and ran a nervous hand over his face. "You aren't going to shoot us, are you?"
Then squat little Joe said in a shaky voice, "You have just disassociated yourself from the war criminals. You want to go home, you said. Hell, man, so do I."
I took Schulze and Eisner aside to discuss our next move. We agreed that it was about time to break up. A couple of men together might have a better chance to get some papers and make it home. If we stuck together sooner or later it would have come to fighting the Americans too, which I wanted to avoid.
Our low-keyed conversation only increased the consternation among the Americans and they could not stand our whispering for long.
"Listen, officer!" the lieutenant exclaimed, stepping forward. "We will not hinder you in getting home. You have taken our weapons and having been a soldier you surely know that I cannot return to base and report to my commanding officer that we were disarmed by a group of stray Germans. I could lose my rank for that."
"You may have a point there, Lieutenant," I conceded.
He seemed relieved. "Why shouldn't we call it quits?" he insisted. "You let us go and we saw nothing of you."
We stood for a while facing one another, then on a sudden impulse I motioned him to follow me. I walked to the edge of the woods. Pointing inward to the forest line about two miles away, I handed him my binoculars. "There is a wooden tower there," I said. "A shooting stand for deer hunters."
"I can see it," said he.
"We shall leave your weapons in that tower, so that you won't lose your shoulder bars, Lieutenant. Is it a deal?"
"It's a deal!"
I ordered my men to remove the jeep's distributor cap and some wires of their radio set. "I am afraid that you will have to walk all the way there and back, Lieutenant. We will leave the parts with your guns. And don't walk too fast."
I gave them a brief salute and we began to move. I was a dozen paces from the jeep when the lieutenant suddenly called.
"Officer!"
I turned.
"Keep away from the highways and don't go toward Bayreuth," he yelled. "The commander of counterintelligence there is a Jewish major whose entire family was killed by the SS in Poland."
2. THE TARNISHED FATHERLAND
We ate our last supper together in an abandoned stone quarry near Cham, in the Bavarian forest. Some of the men were talking in low subdued voices, discussing the pros and cons of their long trip home to the various parts of the battered Fatherland. Men who had lived in Bavaria or in the Schwaben could be more optimistic than those who were to traverse the entire country if they wanted to rejoin their families in Hamburg or in Aachen. None of us could anticipate what might come on the way or what to expect at home. Whether there was a home at all or a family to embrace.
The thought that we were dispersing lay heavily on everyone's mind. Together we had come a long way and together we felt strong. Now with our weapons at the bottom of a pond, wearing civilian clothes after so many years, we felt defenseless and exposed.
I gave them my last advice. No more than two men together, I told them, and remember that you are supposed to be Czech refugees looking for brothers, sisters, and friends in Germany. Should someone shout an unexpected command at you in German, do not freeze but keep on going. Or just look around confused. Forget that you un-de/stand German. Not many Americans will speak Czech. You will have a fair chance of getting away with it. Behave innocently and submerge among the people, I told them. The peasants will always help you but you should beware of the cities where the occupation troops are probably quartered. There might be many turncoats who would betray you for a tin of beef or a loaf of bread.
Whenever you see a chance disguise yourselves by pretending to be engaged in some peaceful activity. Carry a shovel or a log on your shoulder and cut across the fields. The enemy will think that you belong to the next farm. Get hold of a wheelbarrow, load it with hay or manure, and never mind if it stinks to high heavens. The more it stinks the less eager the Americans will be to embrace you. They are clean boys. You should never try to get hold of a vehicle but you may thumb a ride on an American army truck. A genuine Czech refugee would do it.
And should you find life impossible, come to Konstanz, my hometown. It is on the Swiss frontier. We shall have people there to help you. I gave them my address.
I was the only one among them who could be sure of still having a home. Konstanz had never been bombed and its lucky inhabitants had suffered less hardship throughout the war. It was located only a few dozen yards from the Swiss town of Kreuzlingen, and the frontier actually ran across the center of a built-up area which, from the air, appeared a single, undivided unit. Konstanz was one of the very few German communities which never experienced blackouts. Throughout the war the city had been kept fully illuminated just like the nearby Swiss towns and villages, to confuse the enemy bombers.
The sun had dipped beyond the horizon. Our farewell was a brief one. We shook hands and those who had known each other for years embraced. "Glueck auf! . . . Good luck!" When dusk set in, the men began to leave singly or in twos and threes; one after another they melted into the woods, the darkness. I embraced Eisner and Erich Schulze. They had a long way to go to Frankfurt and to Miinster. "You have my address," I reminded them. "My people can always tell you where to look for me." I knew they were still carrying their parabellums, and cautioned them to be careful.
"Don't worry, Hans." Eisner gave me a quick, reassuring squeeze. "We will arrive home, if only for an hour. We will get through."
A few minutes later I was alone, a fugitive in my own country.
I sat on a tree stump for a long time studying the map of the route I was to take and tried to memorize it as best I could. Then I tore up the map for it bore many markings related to our trip across Czechoslovakia. I decided to follow roughly the course of the Naab river, cross the Danube at Regensburg if possible, then continue toward Augsburg where I had some relatives—provided, of course, that they were still alive and around.
Such "ifs" had become constant companions of every homecoming German soldier. If I can cross the river. . . . If I can take that road. ... If I arrive home. ... If they are still alive. ... If ... if ... if. ...
The man sat on a small boulder overhanging the water's edge. He was a tall dark man maybe in his late twenties but his bushy moustache and beard prevented me from guessing his age exactly. He wore Tyrolean leder-hosen and a high-necked pullover; an old hat was pushed high on his forehead. Puffing away at a curved clay pipe, he seemed to concentrate on a floating cork that supported the line of his improvised fishing rod, a long cane. Beside him rested a wicker basket with six small Karpfen, some of them still wiggling. He was perfectly hidden in the riverside meadow and had I not decided to have a quick wash-up, I would have bypassed the place where he sat without ever noticing him.
"I see you are having luck," I spoke to him. He glanced up. His eyes measured me for a while, then he gestured me to sit d
own.
"Pfirstenhammer's the name." He gave me a casual hand.
"Hans Wagemueller," said I. "Just call me Hans."
"Likewise," he nodded, "just call me Karl. Are you coming from far?"
"Quite far."
"You hungry?"
"I wouldn't mind having some fried fish for a change, Karl."
"You may have all you want. I am sick of it. Do you have any bread?"
"Only some biscuits. But I have some margarine."
"Splendid!" he exclaimed, taking the small container from me. He tossed it into the air and caught it with one hand, playfully. "Where are you coming from, Hans?"
"Past Liberec, Czechoslovakia . . . some two hundred and fifty miles from here."
"Fighting all the way?"
"On and off. It took us almost eight weeks to get here."
He nodded. "I reckon the Munich-Prague express isn't running yet. Where are you going from here?"
"To Konstanz, on the Boden See. Say, you aren't from the Gestapo, are you?"
"Not lucky me." He laughed, tugging at his fishing rod. "But you had better watch your steps, Hans. The Americans are hunting for the SS all over the place."
"Who told you that I was with the SS?"
"Who else would have come back all the way from
Liberec? Only a bloody SS or a paratrooper. I have been walking since March."
"From where?"
"From Poznan, Poland."
"I know the place, been through there twice."
"Filthy, isn't it? I was already on the POW train. Headed for the Ukraine."
"And?"
"I had seen the Ukraine before and wasn't particularly keen to visit Josip's paradise again. I did what a good paratrooper is expected to do. 1 jumped. Right off the moving train, and not only myself but the whole bunch of us.
"Wait!" he exclaimed suddenly, jerking at the cane. "I think we've got one more." He flung the fish ashore, coiled the line onto a bit of wood, then tucked it into his pocket. "We have enough for two. Let's collect some twigs."
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