Stuka Pilot

In order to leave no doubt in his mind that I mean what I say:

“I must fly back to my squadron right away.”

Now the doctor really is angry; he opens his mouth, snaps it shut again, and finally delivers himself of this vehement protest:

“I accept no responsibility—you understand, no responsibility whatever.”

He is silent for a moment, then he adds energetically:

“Moreover, I shall make an endorsement to that effect on your discharge sheet.”

I pack my things, I get my discharge sheet from the office and—off to the aerodrome. Here there is working a fitter who has often overhauled aircraft of my Wing. One only needs to have luck on one’s side. An aircraft has just this moment come out of the repair shop; it so happens that it has to be flown up to the front to the Wing at Karpowo, ten miles from Stalingrad.

I cannot say that I feel very strong and fit, I bumble around as if I were walking in my sleep. I do not, however, attribute this so much to my illness as to the sudden fresh air.

Exactly two hours later I am on the airfield at Karpowo after having flown past Tazinskaja—Surwikino and lastly Kalatsch on the Don. The runway is packed with aircraft, mostly Stukas of our Wing and those of a neighboring squadron. The airfield itself offers no opportunities for camouflage, it lies right in the open country. It slopes away gently on one side.

After landing I go off to find the signboards. Exact orientation within the unit area has always been one of our special fads. Even if nothing or very little else indicates our presence the signboards are certain to be there. So I very soon discover the Wing orderly room. It is bang in the centre of the aerodrome in a hole in the ground, described in military parlance as a bunker. I have to wait a while before I can report to the C.O.; he has just gone out on a short operational flight with my friend Kraus. When he comes in I report my return; he is more than surprised to see me back so soon:

“You do look a sight! Your eyes and everything are yellow as a quince.”

There is no talking myself out of this without a white lie, so I brazenly reply,

“I am here only because I have been discharged as fit.”

It works. The C.O. looks at the M.O. and says with a shake of his head:

“If he is fit, then I understand more about jaundice than all the doctors. Where are your medical papers by the way?”

A ticklish question. On the aerodrome at Rostow I had had desperate need of some paper and had put my doctor’s cunningly worded certificate to a more profitable and appropriate use. I have to think quickly and reply in the same tone of voice:

“I understand that the medical papers are being sent by courier.”

In accordance with the promise made to me ten days before, I take over the command of my old flight.

We have few operational missions; they have been out only once over a Volga harbour in the vicinity of Astrachan. Our main task is to deliver attacks within the city area of Stalingrad. The Soviets are defending it like a fortress. My squadron commander gives me the latest news. There has been practically no change in the ground personnel. From armorer Götz to Sen./Fitter Pissarek all are still there. The flying personnel necessarily presents a different picture because of casualties, but the new crews I have trained have all been posted to the reserve squadron. Living quarters, offices, etc., are all underground. In a very short time I have found my feet again and feel at home. The next day we fly a sortie over Stalingrad, where approximately two thirds of the city is in German hands. It is true the Soviets hold only one third, but this third is being defended with an almost religious fanaticism. Stalingrad is Stalin’s city and Stalin is the god of these young Kirgises, Usbeks, Tartars, Turkmenians and other Mongols. They are hanging on like grim death to every scrap of rubble, they lurk behind every remnant of a wall. For their Stalin they are a guard of fire-breathing war-beasts, and when the beasts falter, well-aimed revolver shots from their political commissars nail them, in one way or the other, to the ground they are defending. These Asiatic pupils of integral communism, and the political commissars standing at their backs, are destined to force Germany, and the whole world with her, to abandon the comfortable belie f that communism is a political creed like so many others. Instead they are to prove to us first, and finally to all nations, that they are the disciples of a new gospel. And so Stalingrad is to become the Bethlehem of our century. But a Bethlehem of war and hatred, annihilation and destruction.