Stuka Pilot

I am very lucky again in the first days of May. I have an appointment with Field Marshal Schörner, and before keeping it want to look in on my way at Air Command H.Q. in a castle at Hermannstadtel, about fifty miles east of us. I fly there in a Fieseler Storch and see that the castle is surrounded by tall trees. There is a park in the middle on which I think I can land. My faithful Fridolin is behind me in the plane. The landing comes off all right; after a short stay to pick up some maps we take off again towards the tall trees on a gentle rise. The Storch is slow in gathering speed; to help her start I lower the flaps a short distance before the edge of the forest. But this only brings me just below the tops of the trees. I give the stick a pull, but we have not sufficient impetus. To pull any more is useless, the aircraft becomes nose-heavy. I already hear a crash and clatter. Now I have finally smashed my stump, if nothing worse. Then everything is quiet as a mouse. Am I down on the ground? No, I am sitting in my cockpit, and there, too, is Fridolin. We are jammed in a forking branch at the top of a lofty tree, merrily rocking to and fro. The whole tree sways back and forth with us several times, our impact was evidently a bit too violent. I am afraid the Storch will now play us another trick and finish by tipping the cockpit over backwards. Fridolin has come forward and asks in some alarm: “What is happening?”

I call out to him: “Don’t budge or else you will topple what remains of the Storch off the tree into a thirty foot drop.”

The tail is broke off as well as large pieces of the wing planes; they are all lying on the ground. I still have the stick in my hand, my stump is uninjured, I have not knocked it against anything. One must have luck on one’s side! We cannot get down from the tree, it is very high and has a thick, smooth trunk. We wait, and after a time the General arrives on the scene; he has heard the crash and now sees us perched up aloft on the tree. He is mightily glad we got off so lightly. As there is no other possible way of getting us down he sends for the local fire brigade. They help us down with a long, extending ladder.

The Russians have by-passed Dresden, and are trying to cross the Erzgebirge from the north so as to reach the protectorate and thus outflank Field Marshal Schörner’s army. The main Soviet forces are in the Freiberg area and southeast of it. On one of our last sorties we see south of Diepoldiswalde a long column of refugees with Soviet tanks going through it like steam rollers, crushing everything under them.

We immediately attack the tanks and destroy them; the column continues its trek towards the south. Apparently the refugees hope to get behind the protecting screen of the Sudeten mountains where they think they will be safe. In the same area we attack some more enemy tanks in a veritable tornado of flak. I have just fired at a Stalin tank and am climbing to 600 feet when, looking round, I notice a drizzle of bits and pieces behind me. They are falling from above. I ask:

“Niermann, which of us has just been shot down?” That seems to me the only explanation and Niermann thinks the same. He hurriedly counts our air craft, all of them are there. So none of them was shot down. I look down at my Stalin and see only a black spot. Could the explanation be that the tank exploded and the explosion flung up its wreckage to this height? After the operation the crews which were flying behind me confirm that this tank blew up with a terrific explosion into the air behind me; the bits and pieces which I saw raining down from above were from the Stalin. Presumably it was packed with high explosive, and its mission was to clear tank barriers and other obstacles out of the way of the other tanks. I do not envy Niermann on these operations, for now flying is certainly no life insurance; if I am forced to land anywhere there is no longer any chance of making an escape. He flies with an incomparable placidity; his nerve amazes me.

18. THE END

On the 7th May there is a conference of all Luftwaffe commanders in Schörner’s army zone at Group H.Q. to discuss the plan which has just been released by the Supreme Command. It is proposed gradually to retire the entire Eastern front, sector by sector, until it is parallel with the Western front. We perceive that very grave decisions are about to be taken. Will the West even now recognize its opportunity against the East or will it fail to grasp the situation? Opinions among us are divided.

On the 8th May we search for tanks north of Brüx and near Oberleutensdorf. For the first time in the war I am unable to concentrate my mind on my mission; an indefinable feeling of frustration suffocates me. I do not destroy a single tank; they are still in the mountains and unassailable there.