To Greet the Sun

by Claus von Bohlen

  ‘Seu Otto?’

  I opened my eyes and saw that Pietro was still beside my bed.

  ‘And the tank?’ he asked.

  Yes, the tank.

  Chapter 6

  THESE ARE the worst of times. I am in the Volkssturm barracks at Wulfen. The wind whistles between the planks of the walls. We have used up our allowance of wood; the fire in the grate is out and it is as cold inside the building as it is outside. I am cleaning my boots for the hundredth time. I would prefer to be cleaning a gun but there are not enough to go around. Herr Weiss is sitting beside me. He was my maths teacher. Technically, he still is my maths teacher, but he has given up trying to teach me. He knows that I cannot concentrate on numbers. But he has a gun, because he is older than me. He doesn’t even bother to clean it. He has no intention of ever using it, that is clear to anyone. He is like the other old men in this room: Herr Flach the retired chemistry teacher and Herr Seibert the baker. If the Americans walked into the barracks now, not a single one of them would fire a shot. They have no stomach for a fight. And yet they all have guns.

  Herr Seibert is fiddling with the radio. We pretend not to listen, but we are listening. We have not heard the Führer’s voice on the radio since Silvester. It is now February. That’s two months. Why has he not spoken? He used to speak every week. So long as he is in control, Germany is not lost. The Führer will have a plan to get us out of this mess. But I wish he would speak.

  The Volksradio reports small victories. Planes shot down over Köln. British airmen captured. But we also know that the Russians are advancing in the east. They want revenge. They are animals, raping women and murdering babies. And, in the west, the British have just crossed the Rhine. It has not yet been broadcast on the radio, but Max told me. He is a Flakhelfer and they know these things ahead of time.

  Perhaps it is fortunate that Siggi is not alive to see these days. He would have taken it very hard. The Rhine, Germany’s sacred river in which Siggi’s namesake hid the Rheingold, has been crossed by an invading army. What would Siggi have done? He would not have sat here polishing his boots, that’s for sure.

  ‘Otto, bist bereit?’ asks Herr Weiss. It is noon and we must cycle to the Flak batteries where Max, Sepp and the other boys work. Since they are still nominally part of the Hitler Youth they are still supposed to go to school. Obviously that is not possible at the moment – they are rarely allowed to leave the Flak batteries. Herr Weiss cycles out there to give a maths lesson during their lunch break. They pay no more attention than I do.

  It’s ridiculous that the Flakhelfer are still expected to attend lessons. The reason they signed up as Flakhelfer in the first place was because they were in a hurry to be done with the HJ. Siggi and I both wanted to join for that reason; we were impatient to be real soldiers. In the end we didn’t, but that was only because we were given the opportunity to climb with an élite HJ team last summer; neither of us wanted to give that up.

  Max and Sepp signed up as Flakhelfer as fast as they could, but I’m not sure they really knew what they were letting themselves in for. They knew they would have to load and fire the anti-aircraft guns, but I don’t think they knew how often the installations would get hit, and how little they could do about it. More importantly, they wanted to be real soldiers, but the other soldiers at the emplacements treat them like children. The officers refuse to give them razorblades and say they wouldn’t know how to use them anyway. Their ration packs contain sweets rather than cigarettes. I think that’s what annoys them most, and that’s why I always bring them some cigarettes myself. Cigarettes are not hard to get hold of in the Volkssturm; all we do is smoke.

  Herr Weiss and I get onto our bikes and start pedalling towards Borken. Our progress is slow – the dirt road is frozen in some parts and slushy in others. Herr Weiss’s rucksack full of schoolbooks bounces up and down on his back. He is already out of breath. He was not made for this. Imagine if he had to fight, what a joke.

  Briefly we cycle through the woods. The road is better here. The tall pines protect the surface from the weak winter sun and there is no thaw. Leaving the woods again, I can already make out the top of the Flak installations above the lip of the hollow in which they nestle. Once again the road is slushy and uneven. To the right and to the left of us stretch fields of snow.

  Arriving at the installation, Herr Weiss and I let our bikes fall into the snow. There are soldiers standing around, stamping their feet and blowing into their hands. They look tense. Many are wounded veterans from the Eastern Front. They have thin, haggard faces. Faces marked by suffering. Max spots me from a distance and waves. His boyish features and curly blond hair could not be in greater contrast to these hard grey men.

  One of the officers spots us.

  ‘Jungs!’ he shouts. ‘Das Kindermädchen ist da!’ The other soldiers laugh. Max hears it too but he merely smiles. He has learnt the hard way that it is best to pretend he doesn’t care.

  I give Max the cigarettes I have brought. He claps me on the back. Other boys arrive in twos and threes. Some of them I know from the HJ at Borken. Others I know from the summer camp in the mountains. Some I have met through Max. A few I do not know at all.

  ‘They say it will probably come tonight,’ Max whispers to me.

  There have been rumours of the advance of the 7th Armoured Division for a number of days now. That’s why the atmosphere is so tense. There will be air raids to prepare the way for the column. Borken is a gateway to the Ruhr and there is little doubt that this installation will be in the thick of it. What’s more, the information which the Flak installations receive is usually reliable. If they think there’ll be a raid tonight, then it will probably happen.

  ‘But you have an important game of dominoes tonight, I have no doubt,’ says Max, elbowing me in the ribs. For some reason everyone thinks that the Volkssturm just play dominoes. It’s true that we don’t do a lot, but I have never played dominoes. Not once. I usually have to shine my boots.

  ‘No,’ I say.

  Sepp chimes in: ‘So Otto, what will you be doing tonight? Shining your boots?’

  I look at Sepp. He has dark rings under his eyes. I know he barely sleeps when he is at the battery. He is very frightened. I feel for him. He was with us at the summer camp; he was a good friend then. Now he channels his fear into sarcasm. But really, it is not right that he should be here fearing for his life, terrified of the next raid, while I shine my boots. That is never how it was supposed to be. It is not what I want. Not what Siggi would have wanted. But what would Siggi have wanted?

  ‘Or maybe you can climb the Volkssturm flagpole tonight?’ says Sepp. That is a cheap shot. A few of the better climbers at the summer camp once shinned up the flagpole for a dare, but that’s not why we were chosen for the elite team. And I certainly did not join the elite team in order to avoid the Flak batteries. But Sepp knows that.

  Herr Weiss calls us. We go over to him. There are about twelve of us. He knows we won’t pay attention to the lesson. In fact, we could just walk off if we chose. But we don’t walk off. Herr Weiss is not a great teacher, and the subject is tedious, but it reminds us all of better times. Other classrooms in warmer, sunnier places. Times when the breaks between lessons were filled with excited chatter about the latest victories. Even back then the Führer said there would be dark days ahead. Well, they are here now. And this is the real test of our courage. We must not be found wanting.

  Herr Weiss attracts our attention as best he can, but we are all daydreaming. Most of the time we dream of food. But I have smoked three cigarettes and I feel a little sick. I think about the summer camp, high in the Bavarian Alps. I think about the hot summer sun and the cold, clear waters of the lake. I think about Siggi. Then I have an idea.

  Herr Weiss collects our books. The other boys return to their stations. I grab Max by the sleeve. Sepp is next to him.

  ‘Listen,’ I say, ‘I need your help. I can’t shine my boots tonight. There is something I want to do.’
<
br />   ‘What?’ asks Max.

  ‘Something big,’ I say. ‘Something that would make Siggi proud. But I need your help. Will you meet me by the edge of the woods when you come off duty?’ I know the Flakhelfer get four hours off to go home and sleep before the night shift.

  ‘What do you want to do?’ repeats Max.

  ‘I want to dig a foxhole in the Heiden-Borken road,’ I say. ‘So if the advance comes tonight or tomorrow, I will be ready.’

  Sepp narrows his eyes as if he doesn’t believe me. ‘You’re crazy,’ he says.

  Max also looks at me quizzically. There is silence. They are both waiting for me to reply.

  ‘The harder a task is, the greater its value as a dedication and an offering,’ I quote from the Führer’s speech at Nuremberg. Still they are silent. ‘So, at five o’clock, at the edge of the woods?’ I say again.

  Max places his hand on my shoulder. ‘Bis dann,’ he says.

  *

  I cycle back to the barracks at Wulfen with Herr Weiss. I think about what I have just committed to. I know all about digging foxholes. I have dug more foxholes than I can remember. It is a central part of HJ training. Even the Volkssturm instructors have us digging foxholes. The foxholes they make us dig are designed for grown men. They are far too wide. They would cave in if a vehicle passed anywhere near them. If the situation were different, the incompetence of the Volkssturm would be funny. As it is, it is tragic.

  In the HJ we were trained to dig a foxhole no wider than fifty centimetres. It is lucky that I am thin – I can lie in one of them without any problems. But I have never put the training into practice. I know that the 12th SS Panzer Division under Panzermeyer had many successes with foxholes in the defence of Caen last summer. It is not surprising – the regiment is composed entirely of Hitlerjugend. The boys on the Eastern Front have been using them too, but the Russians have grown wise to them. They now travel in closely packed convoys so there is no room to spring out once a vehicle has passed overhead. In the past, the drivers were more frightened of landmines; they used to leave larger gaps. At least, that is what I have heard. I have also heard that some HJ boys have started destroying tanks by firing the Panzerfaust vertically upwards, out of the foxhole. Often this kills the boy too. They are very brave on the Eastern Front.

  Panzermeyer. Now he is a real hero. Strange that we have heard so little of him, of late. His real name is Kurt Meyer. SS BrigadeFührer Kurt Meyer. They call him Panzermeyer because, when he was training to be a policeman before the war, he wanted to play a prank on a friend and climbed onto the roof of a two-storey building to empty a bucket of water on his friend’s head. Meyer slipped and fell, landing on his feet but suffering over twenty fractures. The doctors did not expect him to survive, but he did survive. They called him ‘Panzermeyer’ because he was as tough as a tank. He went on to fight in the Balkans, in Greece and at Kharkov, proving his bravery time and again. He was awarded the Swords to the Knights Cross with Oakleaves – that is very rare. He was one of our heroes in the Hitler Youth. Now he commands the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend, composed entirely of HJ boys born in 1926. What an honour it would be to serve under him! But instead I am in the cowardly Volkssturm, cycling down a muddy road with an old schoolmaster. Well, tonight I will show them.

  We return our bicycles to the bicycle storeroom. Herr Weiss makes his way to the mess tent. I pretend that I have to fix a puncture. I get the keys to the storeroom from Volkssturm main office. No one can be bothered to accompany me, as I expected. I take three spades and just about manage to tie them to my rucksack. ‘Guns of Peace’, we used to call them before the war. Then I break open one of the rectangular wooden crates at the back of the shed and remove a Panzerfaust-30. It is one of the earlier models, but it is the one I have fired most often. I remove my leather belt and strap the Panzerfaust to the horizontal bar of my bicycle. I return the keys to the main office. Now I just have to wait.

  I am not hungry. I am too excited to sleep. I smoke one cigarette, then another. It is only four o’clock but already the washed out winter light is fading from the sky. There is a faint red glow in the west but it is nothing like the spectacular sunsets of autumn. Just a tentative reminder of how gloriously the sun can set, no more than that. Everything these days seems like a reminder of past glories.

  I get on my bike and cycle back towards the Flak installations. I am weighed down by the three spades and the Panzerfaust. The poor light makes it hard to see the ruts and holes in the road. My progress is slow, but the fact that I have to concentrate so hard means that I do not think about the task ahead.

  I arrive at the edge of the Teutoburger woods a little early. The tall pines rise up either side of me. If I stare at their tops the whole world appears to spin. I look across the snowfields towards the hollow where the installations are. I see two small figures on bicycles cycling towards me.

  Max and Sepp have brought their rucksacks. I give them a spade each. We continue through the woods, towards Borken. This is the road along which the advance is predicted. Coming out of the woods we can see a long way in every direction. The road itself is not wide but the land either side is flat and firm; good terrain for an advancing division. Though we are out in the open now, the woods continue to flank the road fifty metres away on the right hand side. We stop where a small finger of trees sticks out closer to the road.

  ‘Here is good,’ I say.

  I look at Max and Sepp. They are very quiet. It had crossed my mind that they might try to dissuade me, but they are too tired for that. What is more, they have to be back at the battery in a few hours for the nightshift. If the advance happens as predicted, then the bombardment tonight will be heavy. And if they are discovered away from their posts after the appointed time, then there is a chance that they will be shot as deserters. We have all heard stories of HJ boys who have been shot as deserters.

  Max and Sepp leave their bikes by the side of the road. I hide mine under a bush, just a few metres from the woods. Then I mark out a rectangle in the middle of the road. We begin to dig. The Heiden-Borken road is narrow; that is good when you dig a foxhole. If the road is wide you don’t know exactly where the vehicles will pass. A lot of HJ boys have died when a tire or tank track went directly over a foxhole and collapsed it. Of course, the narrower the hole, the less chance of that. Fortunately, I can fit into a very narrow hole.

  From time to time one of us shovels the earth into a rucksack and carries it to the nearby woods. Here, behind a tree, we empty it. Important not to leave any traces. When the hole has been dug, I climb in. I lie on my back with my arms folded and my hands touching my shoulders, like a young Pharaoh. I practice sitting up quickly and climbing out; the hole is just wide enough. Then I lie down again and Max places the Panzerfaust on top of me. Max and Sepp cover the hole with sticks, then cover the sticks with earth. The occasional small clod falls on me. I think to myself that there must be skeletons interred like this all round Germany – boys who were buried alive when the hole collapsed. It is not a good thought and I try to banish it from my mind.

  Max and Sepp continue to scratch around on the surface for a while. ‘Cover the tracks well,’ I say.

  ‘Keine Angst,’ says Max. His voice comes to me muffled through the sticks and the earth above me. Then they both wish me good luck. ‘See you tomorrow,’ I say. ‘Na klar,’ they reply.

  *

  It is very cold in the foxhole. Water starts to gather beneath me and to seep into my overcoat. I’m wearing all the clothes I own but it is not enough and I soon start to shiver. It is impossible to sleep. Nor can I tell the time, though after a while I hear the drone of aircraft high overhead. They must have begun the bombardment. I think of Max and Sepp in their snowy hollow, sitting ducks for the big American bombers.

  Now I am afraid. I remember the speech given by the wounded Officer who presented Siggi and I with our daggers after we won the climbing competition. ‘Only a fool does not feel fear,’ he had said. I am afraid o
f pain. I am afraid of dying in this little hole. But even more than that, I am afraid of doing nothing. Of watching while Germany falls. I am afraid of being ashamed of myself. I am afraid of being unworthy of Siggi’s memory, of being a coward, of ending up like Herr Weiss. Or like my father.

  My mind begins to wander. I try to think pleasant thoughts. I remember standing pressed against the granite of the Drachenwand, the hot sun on my shoulders. I remember the sweat trickling down my back. I remember the false route I took, and having to track back. I remember hauling myself onto the ledge beside Siggi. There is no reproach in his eyes, though my error might have cost us the competition. Rather, he beams at me before setting off to lead the last pitch. He is in his element. How naturally he moves on the rock, his hands merely flitting over the craggy surface. The smell of morning dew and moss still in the shady cracks. The smell of pine growing stronger as we near the top of the cliff.

  There is no way for me to measure the passing of time. The aeroplanes continue to drone overhead. From where I am lying, it is impossible to tell whether they are coming or going. My teeth are chattering. It is bitterly cold in the foxhole but I have long since ceased to feel my limbs. I have tucked my gloved hands beneath my armpits and the Panzerfaust lies heavy on my chest. More droning, then silence. Utter silence. The silence of the grave.

  *

  I notice the merest hint of a grey triangle between the sticks above me. The triangle solidifies; the pale dawn filters through the cracks. And now, in the distance, I hear the sound of machinery; a menacing hum, like a beehive high in a tree. Minute by minute the hum grows louder. The hum becomes a roar and the earth around me begins to shake.