Stuka Pilot

Some of the officers continue to scowl, but we are able to perform our ablutions in the mess room so copiously that we make something of a puddle. We make ourselves perfectly at home, why shouldn’t we? We are after all in Germany. We converse without embarrassment. Then we eat, and an interpreter comes and asks us in the name of his commanding officer whether we would like to have a talk with him and his officers when we have finished our meal. This invitation interests us as airmen and we oblige, especially as all mention of “the whys and wherefores of the winning and losing of the war” is taboo. From outside comes the noise of shots and rowdiness; the colored soldiers are celebrating victory under the influence of liquor. I should not care to go down into the ground floor hall; jubilation bullets whistle through the air on every side. It is very late before we get to sleep.

Almost everything except what we have on our persons is stolen during the night. The most valuable thing I miss is my flight log-book in which is recorded in detail every operational flight, from the first to the two thousand, five hundred and thirtieth. Also a replica of the “diamonds,” the citation for the diamond pilot medal, the high Hungarian decoration and a lot else are gone, not to mention watches and other things. Even my bespoke peg-leg is discovered by Niermann under some fellow’s bed; presumably he had meant to cut himself a souvenir out of it and sell it later as “a bit of a high-ranking Jerry officer.”

Early in the morning I receive a message that I am to come to the H.Q. of the 9th American Air Army at Erlangen. I refuse until all my pilfered belongings have been returned to me. After much persuasion in which I am told that the matter is very urgent and that I can rely on getting my things back as soon as the thief has been caught, I set off with Niermann. At Air Army H.Q. we are first interrogated by three General Staff officers. They begin by showing us some photographs which they claim to have been taken of atrocities in concentration camps. As we have been fighting for such abominations, they argue, we also share the guilt. They refuse to believe me when I tell them that I have never even seen a concentration camp. I add that if excesses have been committed they are regrettable and reprehensible, and the real culprits should be punished. I point out that such cruelties have been perpetrated not only by our people, but by all peoples in every age. I remind them of the Boer War. Therefore these excesses must be judged by the same criterion. I cannot imagine that the mounds of corpses depicted on the photographs were taken in concentration camps. I tell them that we have seen such sights, not on paper, but in fact, after the air attacks on Dresden and Hamburg and other cities when Allied four-engined bombers deluged them indiscriminately with phosphorus and high explosive bombs and countless women and children were massacred. And I assure these gentlemen that if they are especially interested in atrocities they will find abundant material—and “living” material at that—among their Eastern Allies.

We see no more of these photographs. With a venomous glance at us, the officer making out his report of the interrogation comments when I have had my say: “Typical Nazi officer.” Why one is a typical Nazi officer when one is merely telling the truth is not quite clear to me. Are these gentlemen aware that we have never fought for a political party, but only for Germany? In this belief also millions of our comrades have died. My assertion that they will one day be sorry that in destroying us they have demolished the bastion against Bolshevism they interpret as propaganda and refuse to believe it. They say that with us the wish to divide the allies against each other is father to the thought. Some hours later we are taken to the General commanding this Air Army, Wyland. The general is said to be of German origin, from Bremen. He makes a good impression on me; in the course of our interview I tell him of the theft of the articles already mentioned, so precious to me, at Kit zingen. I ask him if this is usual. He raises Cain, not at my outspokenness, but at this shameful robbery. He orders his adjutant to instruct the C.O. of the unit concerned at Kitzingen to produce my property and threatens a court martial. He begs me to be his guest at Erlangen until everything has been restored to me.

After the interview Niermann and I are driven in a jeep to a suburb of the town where an uninhabited villa is placed at our disposal. A sentry at the gate shows us that we are not entirely free. A car comes out to fetch us to the officers’ mess for meals. The news of our arrival has soon got round among the people of Erlangen and the sentry has trouble in coping with our numerous visitors. When he is not afraid of being surprised by a superior he says to us: “Ich nix sehen.”