by Heinz Kohler
“For one thing, we are at war with America,” he had said. “In addition, we shouldn’t glorify the non-Aryan races.”
Still, I liked my Karl May. “His book is filled with pearls of wisdom,” my mother had said, and I had marked one of them, right there on page 252:
“No soul ever came to earth unless it was first a spirit in heaven.
No spirit ever rose to heaven unless it was first a soul on earth.”
When I showed the passage to my mother once again on that New Year’s Eve, she said the strangest thing:
“Hansel,” she said, “Heaven is going to have a precious gift for us this year. In a couple of months from now, you are going to have a little brother or sister! Then you’ll have a playmate right in the family!”
What a surprise that was! To be honest, I didn’t like the idea at all and I put it right out of my mind in any case, because it was time to pour out the lead. As far as I could see, my personal lead sculpture looked just like me, with a pair of skates underneath. I would certainly get a pair of skates pretty soon, I figured, just like the one I had seen at the department store.
-----
Back in school that January, it was the fifth grade by then, Mr. Barzel focused our attention on chemistry and noted, with impressive logic, that all elements can be divided into two non-overlapping groups, metals and non-metals.
“Three quarters of all elements are metals,” he said, “and the most important one of these is iron, which makes up precisely 4.7 percent of the earth’s crust.”
He also told us about iron ore and coke and blast furnaces and the fact that Germany had had 175 of them at the beginning of the war. We drew a picture of a blast furnace, in great detail, just as we had of Egyptian pyramids and Christian churches some time ago, and we wrote formulas for all the processes occurring inside such a furnace.
“At 1,200 degrees Celsius,” Mr. Barzel said, “CO2 + C becomes 2 CO, while Fe2 O3 + 3 CO produce 2 Fe + 3 CO2.”
But that was just the beginning of a long story. We also learned about copper, mostly found in the Rocky Mountains of the United States, in Chile, in the Congolese province of Katanga, and in Japan.
“We have some of it, too, right here in Mansfeld,” Mr. Barzel said, “where it occurs in the form of CuFeS2 and Cu2S. But the Mansfeld mines do not produce enough copper to carry on the war, which is why you will see a lot of changes in the next few weeks. Many church bells will be dismantled and melted down. And so will all those copper tubs in the attics of your homes. And even statues will have to go.”
He was right. In the park near our house, I saw them take down the statue of Bismarck, using a large crane, and they took that of General von Moltke as well.
By the time we got to lead (melting point a mere 327 degrees Celsius), I thought of New Year’s Eve and the Gift from Heaven we were about to receive. And receive it we did. I had to stay with my grandmother and Aunt Martel for a while, which I didn’t like at all because all my possessions were under my bed at home, and then my brother came home. I knew instantly that life would never be the same and I wrote to my father, telling him that Helmut was much too small and, therefore, quite useless as a playmate.
My father wrote back right away and promised to investigate, as soon as the war was over. I saved his letter in my little suitcase with all the other important documents of mine, but my mother wouldn’t let me keep his stamp for my collection. She cut it from the envelope, put it in a bowl of warm water, and a miracle happened. The paper in back came off, but the cancellation mark in front came off, too. I had never seen that before, and I had been soaking a lot of stamps in my time.
“Surprised, aren’t you?” she smiled. “These are special stamps for mail going to the eastern front. We can have only one stamp a month, and I need several of them to send Vati some cookies and a sweater. When we mail something, we put glue on the back, and a thin coat of soap over the top. The soap is invisible and if you do it right, the cancellation mark washes off along with it. Thus, we can be like magicians!”
-----
This must have been the year for magic. Even Mr. Barzel was preoccupied with turning one thing into something else.
"From now on,” he said one morning, "we’ll spend one day a week fighting Wastefulness. And we will turn Wastefulness into crucial Raw Material, and Raw Material, in turn, into Victory for our fatherland!”
He took out a large map of the world and told us about the Anglo-American enemies. They were cutting off the sea lanes, he said, through which flow the iron and copper and lead our soldiers need to do their job. And through which flow the bananas and chocolate bars and oranges all children crave, he added.
And every Wednesday thereafter, dispatched by the bigger boys with the swastika armbands, we entered every house, climbed every last step, and knocked on every door in our streets. And out of the portals of every house emerged armies of little boys that carried, bit by bit, mountains of copper and iron, of textiles and paper, of bones and potato peels.
“All of these bits and pieces,” Mr. Barzel explained, “the copper penny from the days of Frederick the Great, the old abandoned hammer and claw, the ragged coat, the box of grandma’s letters, the pork chop bones, the potato peels–all of these will turn into ships and planes, new uniforms and soap, and even food!”
None of this made any sense to me, but I certainly wasn’t about to let Mr. Barzel know that. In fact, as he droned on about the Raw Material Campaign, my mind drifted to more important things. I was looking out the windows across the room, as inconspicuously as possible, of course, and I was mentally turning the pages in my Book of Clouds, trying to identify the transparent clouds that were just then producing a stunning halo effect around the afternoon sun. Nobody else seemed to be aware of it and just when I had found the answer—cirrostratus fibratus––Mr. Barzel made us stand and sing Deutschland Űber Alles [Germany Above All] and Die Fahne Hoch [The Flag Held High]. I was glad he didn’t watch too closely because I didn’t know the words. I merely moved my lips as in a pantomime, just as I did when my mother took me to church and everyone starting singing hymns.
-----
One Wednesday, though, was different from all the others. It all started when I ran into Mr. Joseph on my way to the collection point, which was a big truck parked around the corner and across from Mr. Meyer’s vegetable store. Mr. Joseph, as was his custom, was sitting on the sidewalk in front of the pub, holding a bottle of Berliner Kindl beer in one hand, while using his other hand to adjust his Viking cap with the horns on top.
“Collecting newspapers are you, kid?” he said. “I can give you a truckload of them. Come and see me at my place in an hour or so!”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll be there,” I said and when I got there, I was in for a big surprise.
He had a small apartment in our rear house, right on the ground floor, which we called parterre, and one of his little rooms was completely filled with dozens and dozens of bundles of newspapers! I didn’t even try to count them; there were so many of them that it was almost impossible even to enter the room.
“There must be about twenty-five years’ worth of news for you,” he said in a rather matter-of-fact way, as if this sort of collection was commonplace. “They are all yours. Carry them off! It’s time I made some room for myself.”
And carry them off I did, some that Wednesday, more on the next two days after school, and all the rest on Saturday and Sunday as well. Mr. Joseph was pleased and so was I. Not only did I earn precious “honor points” at the collection truck, but I also made a crucial discovery: Buried within Mr. Joseph’s mountain of papers, I uncovered fascinating stories about the past, stories that I had never encountered before, and many of which I quickly confiscated for my own purposes.
Every once in a while, I made a trip not to the collection truck, but to our apartment in the front house, where I deposited selected evidence under my bed for further inspection at night. My mother never noticed a thing; she was always busy wi
th Helmut–changing his diapers and feeding him and cradling him and singing to him as she had once to me–but my very best friend Ludwig, which is what I had named my new canary, didn’t miss a thing. He sat in his cage under the cuckoo clock, right next to my good old teddy bear, and he never failed to give me the attention I deserved.
But despite my occasional fits of jealousy, I can hardly have been an unhappy child in those days. In fact, I remember being very happy and excited about all the things I learned when I examined my newspaper hoard at night! The oldest paper I had kept was dated June 5, 1932. The front page talked about Franz von Papen who, it seems, was chancellor at the time. Inside, I found large ads by all sorts of political groups. One was called Stahlhelm [Steel Helmet] and it urged veterans of the World War to remember their “front-line experiences” and honor “German blood and soil” by fighting to restore the monarchy. I assumed they wanted the Kaiser to come back, just as my grandmother did.
Another page was “paid for by the Communist Party of Germany.” The writer made fun of Hitler’s “interminable speechifying, wild gesticulations, foaming at the mouth, shifty staring eyes, and monstrous fantasies.” He also called him a “hoodlum representing the cesspool of humanity.” And he urged everyone to buy copies of the Rote Fahne [Red Flag]. Wow! I was quite aware of the fact that my teachers wouldn’t have liked that!
The next paper I had kept was dated December 6, 1932. I liked the date, because it was St. Nicholas Day, which is the day on which all German children discover how they will fare on Christmas Eve. When going to bed on December 5, one puts a large red Santa Claus boot next to one’s bed; mine was made of soft cloth and had white fleece inside. The next morning when they wake up, all the good children find their boots filled with cookies and other gifts. This is a sure sign that they will get mountains of toys and such on Christmas Eve. All the bad children, however, find their boots filled with coal or just plain empty, perhaps even with a Yellow Uncle sticking out of it. That is a sure sign that they will be punished by getting nothing for Christmas at all!
But that never happened to me. My mother said that it was a cruel thing to do, sticking a rod into the boot. In any case, that paper talked of a still different chancellor, Kurt von Schleicher. I had never heard of him. And the paper was filled with interesting notices, such as these:
The KPD [Communist Party of Germany] said: “Voters Decide: Hitler Dictatorship or Dictatorship of the Proletariat?”
The Federation of Jewish Veterans said: “Christian and Jewish heroes have fought together and are resting together in foreign soil. 12,000 Jews died in the war, but now blind hatred does not stop even before the graves of the dead. German women, don’t allow them to make a mockery of the pain of Jewish mothers.”
And right next to a most unflattering cartoon of Dr. Goebbels, the Bavarian People’s Party said: “According to the Nazi leader Dr. Goebbels, ‘the Nordic race represents the original and purest strain of humanity.’ Bavarian kinsmen, have a look at this Nordic man! Then give this Superman and all his brown followers a clear Bavarian answer!”
I was tempted to cut out the Goebbels picture and paste it on the Goebbels Snout in our living room, but then my mother would have known. So I did the next best thing and pasted it on the flyer about the People’s Receiver that the Street Warden had left with us. It turned out to be a beautiful work of art, I thought, and stored it under my bed as well.
I also found old issues of our current paper, the Völkischer Beobachter [People’s Observer], published by the National Socialist German Workers Party. They were equally interesting. I selected crucial pages and put them in chronological order. Then I copied front-page summaries to my notepad to make everything look just like Mr. Eisler’s bulletin board. I made one page for 1933 and a second one for 1934:
1933
January 30
President Hindenburg asks Hitler to become chancellor
Hitler swears oath of allegiance to Weimar Constitution
February 27
The Reichstag in Flames! Torched by Communists!
That’s how the whole country would look if the Communists and their Social Democratic allies came to power even for a few months!
A cry of anguish goes through Germany: Crush Communism! Smash Social Democracy!
February 28
Marinus van der Lubbe, Dutch Communist, arrested in Reichstag fire
March 5
Reichstag elections a Hitler triumph!
The distribution of the 648 seats:
National Socialists/Nationalists 341 = 52.6 %
Social Democrats 118
Centrists/Bavarian People’s Party 91
Communists 31
Others 67
March 24
Reichstag meets in Garnisonskirche, Potsdam cathedral
With Communists absent and Social Democrats voting against it, two-thirds majority passes Empowerment Act, giving Hitler unlimited legislative powers
May 2
Trade unions outlawed; Social Democratic union leaders arrested
May 10
Communist Party of Germany outlawed!
Social Democratic faction in Reichstag unanimously expresses confidence in Hitler, joins him in singing Horst Wessel song to unending applause and cheers.
Jubilation in streets, SA bands march with drums and trumpets, flags held high, swords raised in salute, torchlight parades and fireworks at night
June 15
Social Democratic Party of Germany outlawed!
Stahlhelm group merged with SA!
October 13
Reichstag dissolved! Führer holds all legislative and executive powers!
National Socialist German Workers Party is sole legal party
1934
June 30
Seven Storm Troop Leaders Shot! Response to Coup Attempt!
By order of Adolf Hitler, the supreme conscience of the German people.
Ernst Röhm, SA leader, personally arrested by Hitler in Munich, a suicide
Other traitors killed include General Kurt von Schleicher, the Führer’s predecessor as Chancellor, while resisting arrest, and Heinrich Klausener, chief of Catholic Action
Viktor Lutze, new Storm Troop Chief of Staff, urges blind obedience and unquestioning discipline, exemplary behavior, end of moral debauchery
August 2
President Paul von Hindenburg dies at 86.
Hitler takes Presidency!
I put my notepad under my bed, but not before carefully folding up a leaflet and hiding it inside. Issued on May 10, 1933 by the Communist Party of Germany, it condemned that day’s actions of the Social Democrats as “a total betrayal of millions of followers.” It equally condemned Adolf Hitler for having “betrayed the constitution and put an end to civil liberties.” Examples included
1) Nazi raiding parties to arrest left-wing deputies, as well as numerous literary figures, doctors, lawyers, and government officials
2) Emergency decrees abolishing freedom of speech and the confidentiality of mail and telephone, while giving police unrestricted right of access to search, confiscate, arrest
Concluded the leaflet:
“As brown-shirt robbers and murderers act as police, enjoying the full panoply of state power, we can look forward to living in a world in which wild mobs break into our homes at night and drag defenseless victims to torture chambers.”
That scared me and I regressed as usual, turning to Ludwig and Teddy to help me fall asleep. My mother came in, too, to say good night, and said she was proud of me for working so long and hard every evening. But I didn’t tell her what kind of homework I had just done.
-----
On the next day, Mr. Barzel had a surprise. He gave me an award for having collected more newspapers than any other boy in our school! I was the best by far among 851. My reward was a book, entitled Cabin Boy Werner Franz. It told the story of the Hindenburg airship that had gone up like giant torch while trying to land at Lakehurst, New Jersey, in May
of 1937.
“I know you like history,” Mr. Barzel said, pointing to my prize. “You’ll find it interesting, and in more ways than one. The zeppelin was a wonderful German invention and it’s fun to learn how it worked. But one cannot help but wonder: Did the Americans sabotage it?”
I hardly knew the answer and focused on the book’s title instead. “Werner” and “Franz,” I thought, were common first names; could “Franz” be a last name as well?
I asked Dieter after school, but he didn’t know. He asked me to join him at the corner when we got home. I knew what he meant. Even though it was summer, he was collecting money for Mr. Eisler’s winter campaign. In fact, after school each day, every corner, every trolley stop, every subway station in the 19th district was secured by Mr. Eisler’s army of little boys. They shook their red and white collection boxes at every passerby.
“Won't you give for the Winter Auxiliary? Your pennies mean sweaters and gloves for the brave men on the eastern front!”
And they rewarded those who gave money with little wooden figures out of fairy tales, like Hansel and Gretel or Puss’n Boots.
While Dieter was shaking his box, I took a look at the poster column across the street. Such columns stood all over town—at street corners, at subway stations, in the middle of market squares. They carried important announcements by the government or the latest news about the war or even an occasional commercial ad. Like the others, this column was a giant cylinder, 1 meter in diameter and 3 meters high, which, I figured, provided space for 1 times pi = 3.14159 meters (the circumference at the base) times 3 meters (the column height), or well over 9 meters squared. Yet most of that space was wasted on that day. I found only three items pasted to the column. One was a government order, dated February 10, which commanded all Jews to turn in luxury items, to wit bicycles, electric stoves, gramophones, hand mirrors, radios, and typewriters. And an April addendum banned Jews from using public transport. Then there was a news report, dated June 7, which told of the siege of Sevastopol, the Crimean fortress about to be captured with the help of our Dora gun, the world’s largest mortar. And another report, dated June 22, told of the fall of Tobruk, Libya, to General Erwin Rommel’s Africa Corps. There were 25,000 prisoners, it said, and Suez was next!