Of Another Time and Place

by Brad Schaeffer

  “Apparently so,” grunted Seebeck, the envy seeping through his gritting teeth. “It seems that you’ve been awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross. You go to Berchtesgaden the day after tomorrow. You are to then proceed to the Führer’s villa, where you, along with other Wehrmacht personnel, will have an audience with him and the high command.”

  I was dumbstruck. The Knight’s Cross and its higher levels of oak leaves, swords, and diamonds was Germany’s highest award. It was the equivalent of the coveted Prussian decoration Pour le Mérite or “Blue Max” from the Great War. Usually the Knight’s Cross was awarded only after receiving the Iron Cross. Then one was incrementally awarded the oak leaves, then swords, then diamonds. Although since it was Hitler’s medal, he could issue it as he pleased. This put me in an elite company of our most celebrated fliers. Men like Werner Mölders, Adolf Galland, and Hans-Joachim Marseille. Legends in my mind. And now I was to be among them. I could feel the ghost of Manfred von Richthofen, the “Red Baron,” staring down at me.

  I’d be a liar if I claimed not to be thrilled at the prospect. Still, at that moment I was thinking mainly of how I could possibly manage to get home to Stauffenberg before my meeting. The town was the halfway point between here and Salzburg, which was right near Berchtesgaden. I began computing flight schedules in my mind. It could be done.

  “May I go home then tomorrow, sir?” I asked. I tried to appeal to his soft side. But when it came to me, it was a side that didn’t exist. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen my family. And Amelia.”

  He looked up at me. “You’re grounded, Captain. No more flying for you until then. We wouldn’t want our little star to get inconveniently killed.” His contempt was palpable. But I was used to his petty jealousy. He and I had never seen matters from geopolitics to the running of the air group through the same lens.

  I was in the Wehrmacht because I was compelled to serve, as were all German boys. I joined the Luftwaffe because if I had to fight, I would fight on my own terms. I would do it alone and high above the mud and the shelling and the flames. Although I admired some of Hitler’s accomplishments—it is indeed true that the trains always ran on time—I had no zeal for National Socialism. I’d seen the movement transform the friends of my youth from frolicking, silly boys into fanatics, razors. But I was a member of the New Order. I did my duty, as my victory baton grimly testified.

  And so, I thought, was it too much for me, a German officer and patriot who’d been singled out for special honors, to ask leave to see a woman who, after we had spent two years apart, utterly consumed my peaceful thoughts? A woman whose vision sustained me in the air as I carried out the Führer’s bidding by massacring handfuls of boys like me over and over again until they came to me in my nightmares? My intellect told me the apparitions were not their true visages, as I never saw those I killed. But my mind cruelly substituted the faces of my own friends from home, and this made the crime so very real to me. Air combat was supposed to be an impersonal duel of machines wherein their human drivers are forgotten in the melee. A convenient moral shield permitting me to squeeze the trigger. When my hapless victims remained in my gunsights, unable to shake my pursuit despite all the violent, body-slamming maneuvers, I was immune to their panic and terror and desperation and even cries to a mother far away, carried in the air as I zeroed in and ripped them apart. But later, when I was alone, their terrifying ordeals at my hands would come to me. Phantasms of shame.

  The major could not understand this. When he was wounded, ironically on his first mission by friendly anti-aircraft fire mistaking his ME-109 for a British Hurricane fighter, he’d had enough. Using his Nazi Party connections, Seebeck managed to secure a permanent ground station, a promotion, and command of Three Group of JG 32 here in Andeville. That he had me and three comrades transferred here from the Russian front was evidence of his family’s influence in Berlin. That it was me, Mueller, Gaetjens, and Borner who turned his mediocre command into a fierce fighting unit was a secret that he jealously guarded from the high command. I could take liberties with him because my coming to Andeville was the best thing to have happened to him—and the worst. I made him feel so very small.

  Which is why I was curious about one thing that didn’t add up in the least.

  “You recommended me for this honor?” I asked skeptically. The nomination had to come from a commander at Wing level or higher.

  His answer was succinct, but uncharacteristically honest. “No. Your former group commander. Before you ever got here.”

  “Trautloft,” I said with a satisfied grin. Major Hannes Trautloft had been my commander in Russia before I came west. He was a good man, that one.

  “I suppose Germany needs its heroes these days,” Seebeck said. Then he glared up at me. “Stay out of the air. Do I make myself clear, Captain?”

  I drew myself to attention. “Clear, Herr Major. Heil Hitler!”

  “Heil Hitler,” he replied. I donned my visor cap and turned to leave.

  “You will mention me to him, won’t you?” he said, belatedly realizing the opportunity to advance his own career.

  I looked back over my shoulder and smirked. Without saying another word, I blew through his outer office past the now returned and somewhat tipsy Lieutenant Thomson, and into the frigid night air.

  Mueller was waiting for me. A half-drained wine bottle in his hand. He danced back and forth as if he had to piss in the worst way.

  “Did you follow me?” I said.

  He smiled wryly. “Maybe.”

  “Are you my mother or something?”

  “I knew you couldn’t have fun for too long.” He motioned unsteadily towards the door to Seebeck’s office. “Besides, as your wingman I don’t like you going into combat alone.” He took a swig of wine. “Well?” he said with chattering teeth.

  “Seems that I’m to meet the Führer. In Berchtesgaden. To receive my Ritterkreuz.”

  “Knight’s Cross!” Mueller beamed. “Congratulations!” He staggered and shook my hand vigorously. “Bavaria, eh? So you’ll get to see that girl of yours finally?” My heart drained, and the look of disappointment betrayed my attempt to seem pleased. Mueller frowned. “What? No Amelia?”

  I shook my head. “Just straight there and back.”

  “I swear if he wasn’t group commander…” His sympathetic voice faded into the cold air. “Oh well. This war can’t last forever. Can it?”

  I thought about home and Amelia, and the stirring in me was like a maddening itch that had but one soft and supple five-foot-three, one hundred fifteen-pound cure. The surge of desire sent a crazy idea racing through my young mind. “There’s an overnight train that heads to the Oberfranken from here at midnight, yes?”

  He nodded. “They run by night, to avoid the Jabos…why?”

  I knew that train ran right through Stauffenberg. Maybe I could actually see Amelia, despite what that political officer had said. After all, I was being summoned by Adolf Hitler himself, wasn’t I? Oh yes, I had my orders. But technically he’d only grounded me. Stay out of the air, he’d said. He’d not actually quarantined me to base. Not in so many words at least. German soldiers were trained to obey orders, not interpret them. I could go to Oberbayern right from the Oberfranken. Seebeck might not even know I’d gone, though that was unlikely. I weighed in the balance the cachet of being one of the Führer’s chosen warriors with the wrath of a bureaucrat Luftwaffe commander who’d requested his own wings be clipped.

  “Meet me by my quarters with the staff car in ten minutes,” I said.

  “Harmon,” cautioned Mueller, his sobriety suddenly returned to him, “whatever you’re thinking, stop.”

  “What?” I said with feigned innocence. “He said ‘no flying.’” Years of training and indoctrination would have prevented me from leaving had he specifically ordered me to stay on the base. But he’d unwittingly left a loophole I intended to
slip through. I simply could not be so close to Amelia and not see her. Not after two years apart. Little did I know what she had in store for me.

  “You know what he meant,” Mueller said gravely.

  I suddenly grew annoyed. “No. I don’t know, Josef. And neither do you. Now get the car. That’s a very clear order, Lieutenant.”

  “What if I refuse?” he said guardedly. “What if I say I’m too drunk to drive…sir?”

  “Then I say that would be a first.” I softened. He was just looking out for me, as he always did. And I didn’t want him to get in any trouble. I put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Josef, I know you’d never disobey a command.”

  He nodded. “Well, it’s your hide. And an order’s an order…sir.”

  Even in pitch dark with just slits for headlights, the slurring Lieutenant Mueller managed to avoid wrapping the ’39 Horch around any trees on the drive to train depot. I was on the train and heading south to Stauffenberg through the blacked-out countryside by midnight.

  13

  I can still see my teenaged brother’s face beaming with pride and excited curiosity. Paul was almost eighteen, but his baby face made him younger in my eyes.

  I was standing in the car door as the train hissed to a stop at the little Stauffenberg station. Before my arrival I’d changed into the freshly issued field blue with pleated pockets and black epaulettes with gold insignia, a long mantel greatcoat, and topped off with a new visor cap. Clean Gamaschen were stretched above my pristine low boots. A Luger sidearm at my waist. I must have made an impression on Paul, because he gazed at me with awe as I stepped off the train. I was happy to see him at the station. It meant Mueller had gotten through to Papa at the police station, as per my orders after the train pulled out of Andeville.

  “Harmon!” He hugged me with a force that nearly knocked me back into the car. Then he stepped back and tried to compose himself. “Heil Hitler!” he said with a salute.

  I squinted at him, mildly amused. “What are you doing?”

  He slowly withdrew his hand to his side, staring at his palm as if it had dirt on it.

  “Oh. I figured with you soon to be a decorated hero, I’d make you feel at home.”

  “I felt at home when you hugged me, you silly sniper!” I laughed and ruffled his hair.

  He returned the smile. “So good to see you, Brother.”

  “And you, Pauli,” I said, using my term of affection for him.

  “Can I take your bag?” he offered.

  “You can take me home.”

  We made our way down the platform steps and into the station house. It was a charming stone building befitting the ambiance of the little Bavarian hamlet. Grizzled old Herr Grossmann, with his speckled skin and piercing blue eyes, still manned the ticket counter. He grimly stared as I walked past his booth. He still carried with him the images of boys in gray tunics and Pickelhauben (spiked helmets) pressed into service, like cattle led to the slaughter, in the Great War. His presence gave me pause, for he reminded me that Germany had known nothing but one conflict after another. A national grievance without end. Each generation of boys prodded forward to stand in the firing line and decimated. Who was I to him but more grist for the mill?

  We exited the building and stepped onto the cobbled lane. I paused for a moment just to take it all in. The depot was situated at the north end of an arched stone bridge built by the Romans to span the sluggish Main River. The waters swirled and tumbled over a weir that diverted part of the flow to provide power for the munitions factory in Adelstatz three miles downstream. The river was devoid of traffic now, due to the growing threat of Allied bombing, but I remembered when tugs battled against the currents, towing heavily loaded barges, while unwieldy rafts and pleasure boats drifted down the valley, passing long quays and tidy promenades on the riverbank. But today not even a toy sailboat disturbed its indifferent waters.

  At the far end of the bridge stood the old brownstone Rathaus watchtower, seven stories high, which in medieval times had served as the point of the ramparts that defended the town from marauders. Beyond the arched gateway through the tower base was the village of Stauffenberg. It rested on the water’s edge at the foot of gentle slopes and wooded heights. Off in the distance, the hills rolled to the northwest, painted sporadically with the white dust of the previous snows.

  I breathed in the fresh country air, untainted by the acrid octane fumes of my airbase. It was a poignant moment for me.

  As we crossed the pedestrian walkway on the bridge, Paul studied my face. I’d changed. My smile never lingered.

  “How are you doing, Harmon?” he asked, with a hint of maturity in his voice.

  “I’m alive,” I responded.

  “And you’re home,” he said. “The war is far from here.”

  Maybe that was the problem. As we left the bridge and crossed through the Rathaus gate, I realized that the town hadn’t changed at all since I left it. I should have been relieved, considering the destruction being visited upon unluckier cities in the Allied bombers’ paths. But instead it bothered me. I’d fallen prey to the common soldier’s outlook that tends to see the world as “us” and “them.” Combatant and spectator. It was not fair to the people of Stauffenberg, who’d sent many of their young men to fight and die for the Reich. But I couldn’t help my sense of alienation as my brother and I entered the town.

  The central thoroughfare of Wilkestrasse began at the base of the Main Bridge and ran the length of the little village like a spinal cord until it terminated at ancient farm lanes that fanned out into the hills west of town. Stauffenberg was a picture-postcard collection of thirteenth-century gingerbread buildings that housed shops, stores, little Brauhauses, and quaint cafes. To the south rose the Gothic church of Saint Gerard of Toul, built between 1215 and 1402, renowned for its twin ninety-foot-high bell towers and the twenty-foot-diameter indented rose window on the western facade. Rows of attached three- and four-story homes formed the alabaster stucco boundaries of the narrow lanes of the residential neighborhood that enclosed the Von Himmel Marketplatz, or just the Himmelplatz for short. The white or yellow pastel facades were accented by heavy wooden shutters painted in vibrant colors. From every sill, charming window boxes spilled over with arrangements of spruce, fir, and holly, interspersed with winter flowers and Christmas roses. The low-pitched overhang roofs were capped by terra-cotta tile shingles. It could have been Christmas season in any year here, with the many displays of holly wreaths and the colorful Tannenbaum at the north end of the square. Even the fountain erected to honor Charlemagne was still spitting water as if the world was as it had always been. Although the air was chilled and patches of snow were still visible on the cobblestone streets, the sun was strong enough to prompt beer hall owners to set up tables along the Wilkestrasse.

  The wide lane itself was sparsely populated by puttering trucks, horse carts, a few men in uniform (armed SS among them), occasional amputees, and small groups of civilians in fine clothes on leisurely walks enjoying the break in the weather. As we continued our stroll into the square, I asked Paul about our parents.

  “They’ll be relieved to see you looking so fit,” he said. “And they’re very proud.”

  “Parents are always proud.”

  “But you’ve achieved something great, Harmon. I envy you.”

  I looked at him. “Don’t envy me.”

  “Why shouldn’t I?” he protested. Then he paused to collect his thoughts, as if he were girding himself to say something important, which he was. “In fact, I intend to follow your example.”

  When I heard that, I wheeled around and grabbed him hard by the biceps as if by reflex. The visceral panic of my reaction surprised me.

  “What? What on earth are you saying, Pauli? Tell me.”

  My brother looked around, embarrassed. “Harmon!” I took a breath and let him go. Rubbing his arm, he looked at me w
ith subtle defiance. “I’m joining the Luftwaffe. I’m old enough now. I want to be a pilot like you.”

  “Are you crazy?” I said through clenched teeth.

  “Are you?” he retorted.

  “Do you understand what the hell goes on up there?” I said, cocking a finger to the sky for emphasis. “Death, Pauli. In its most loathsome forms. Falling from great heights, being riddled with bullets the size of your thumb…or fire. Have you ever heard the screams of a man burning alive, trapped in his cockpit?”

  He was unfazed. “You look alive enough to me.”

  “My number’s coming,” I said. “If this war goes on much longer, I won’t survive it. And a new pilot now has almost no chance. Petrol’s in short supply. You’ll get minimal training at best. Don’t do this, Pauli.”

  “But it’s my duty.”

  “Your duty is to Mama and Papa.”

  He looked at me with consternation. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this from a Ritterkreuzer. No, Brother. My duty’s to the Fatherland. To the Führer. What would you rather have me do? Join the infantry? Maybe drive a Panzer? Ah, how about a U-boat? Now there’s a guaranteed black note.”

  I shook my head. “There must be some rear echelon post for you. I’ve written too many letters to too many parents. Don’t have me write yours as well.” I took a deep breath. “We’ll talk more of this later,” I said.

  “No, Brother. We won’t.” As far as Paul was concerned, this matter was closed.

  “Deluded boy,” I said.

  In chilly silence we moved on through the center of town in the direction of a narrow lane called the Lieslestrasse. I stared down the road towards a quaint three-story rococo house of soft yellow and stained wood trim surrounding windows framed by forest-green shutters. My anger over Paul’s death wish suddenly evaporated in a wave of giddy excitement. My brother looked at the house, then to me, then at the house again.

  “I suppose a soldier has immediate needs. I’ll take your holdall and tell Mother you’ll be home for supper. I have a meeting this evening, but we’ll catch up in time. Harmon, hello?” He laughed and waved his hand in front of my face. Then he adjusted my uniform and visor cap, wiping off the dust like a manservant. “Let’s have a look at you.” He smiled as I stared straight at the house. “Atrocious. I still don’t get what she sees in you. Perhaps she’s blind.”