Unlikely Warrior (20 page)

Your Georg

I spent seven sweltering days at the main dressing station. While I was there, a request that I had filled out months earlier for orthopedic arch supports was approved. When my general condition had improved slightly, I was sent by Red Cross truck to Kishinev, the largest city in the area, to get the arch supports made and to receive additional treatment for my shingles.

Three-quarters of Kishinev was in ruins, but the streetcars were still running. Not a shot could be heard, and I began to feel as though I were on vacation. Kishinev boasted movie houses everywhere, as well as swimming pools, restaurants, and markets. I could see, for the first time, how good the soldiers had it who were stationed just a few extra kilometers away from the front.

I spent the mornings running around to various doctors, but my afternoons and evenings were free. The city street scenes struck me as very strange, sometimes even humorous. The remnants of the population were going about their business through the ruins, some clothed quite properly for the city, others in rags and tatters. Anything could be purchased in the markets or bazaars for lei—rusty watch springs, fruits, trouser buttons, wagon wheels, fabrics, even a sick horse with three legs. The sellers simply spread everything out on a rug in the middle of the street.

Bargaining was loud and fierce. I saw two women giving each other bloody noses, while nearby someone fiddled Oriental tunes on a violin and two drunks clutched each other in a dusty dance. The local costumes and fiery temperament of the people combined to make the setting very colorful.

The dour-faced Germans, exhausted from fighting, provided quite a contrast. Some, like me, admired every little thing as though they were coming from another world, as though they had just escaped from hell. Others looked indifferent or disgusted—repelled, evidently. Finally there were the sick and wounded, who merely observed the entire passing scene as the first station on the lovely trip home.

After a few days it was decided that although the arch supports could be made in Kishinev, there was no place to attend to my shingles, so I was ordered to take a 150-kilometer train ride to Galatz, the next big city, still farther to the rear. My vacation was becoming even longer than expected, and that was certainly fine with me. I enjoyed the train ride and the beautiful summer weather, while I tried to ignore the pain I still had and the pus-saturated bandages around my chest.

In Galatz I discovered a hospital bed but no orthopedic station for the arch supports, so my journey rearward continued for twenty additional kilometers, until I finally reached the beautiful city of Braila on the delta of the Danube.

July 24, 1944

Dear Mutti,

I’ve been here in Braila now for three days, and I am forgetting the war. Nobody reminds you here. It is a very pretty little city, directly on the Danube, with a large and beautiful harbor, streetcars, parks, movies, variety shows, etc. Everything, everything can be found here.

The most beautiful cars are steered by a variety of males (young and civilian), the type that are dying out at home. Add to those the pretty, well-dressed women and a sense of gaiety that we don’t know at all anymore.

In the stores you can get whatever you want: cars, refrigerators, clothing, everything, everything, everything, but only for lei. I managed to exchange a few, so I’m living like a god.

I’m systematically enjoying all the things I’ve always revered. After eight and a half months, what a delight to partake once again of ice cream,
Cremeschnitten
, movies. I bought a piccolo harmonica for 360 lei (my old one was already battered), a neck scarf, pocketknife, and flashlight.

The men and women are completely different from those at home. Everybody deals in everything, even if his profession doesn’t have anything to do with commerce. If you are talking with someone, he will ask you, seemingly offhand, “Do you have anything to sell?” In this way many used items, for high prices or low, end up in the hands of the Romanians. The soldiers like to sell their blankets, shirts, whatever they have, but this is severely punished. Because of Frau Blaschke, I’ve never done this. [Author’s note: See explanation
here
.]

I also bought a phrase book, and I cause a lot of amusement everywhere with my few scraps of Romanian. Eighty percent of the soldiers don’t understand a word. Right away, on my first day here, I managed to find a cute little girlfriend who has a good deal of sympathy for my limited finances. So I’m able to have a good time while acquiring my fruit and ice cream inexpensively.

I’m living at the Recovery Company. Here one is obliged to be in attendance from 4 a.m. until 6 p.m., but by 4:30 p.m. I’m already out of the house (theoretically to have my dressings changed), and I’m not to be seen again until the following morning at 10.

Tomorrow the arch supports will be finished, and so all this splendor will soon be over. Unfortunately. But one mustn’t be presumptuous. When I imagine that I might have spent this period in a hole at the front, I’m certain it wouldn’t have been so lovely.

They are really giving Vienna a good working over it seems. I hope they don’t knock the whole city down. Maybe it will be over soon. But thinking is forbidden.

My movie begins in half an hour.
Ich vertraue Dir meine Frau an
, with Heinz Ruehmann. Write me about the bombs. My post number is still the same and, when I get up to the front again, I’ll receive my mail. Pardon the writing, but I’m sitting in the park and writing on my knees. Many good kisses,

Your Georg

When someone tells a Viennese a story that he doesn’t believe, one of his answers might be, “You can tell that to Frau Blaschke,” thereby referring to a dumb old gal from the Naschmarkt who believes everything, or at least pretends she does, for business reasons.

When I mentioned Frau Blaschke in connection with selling pieces of my uniform, I wanted to let my parents know that yes, I definitely was selling my things, but of course I couldn’t write this directly because of possible censoring. After nine months in the cold and filth, in a lost war staged by people who first classified me as a member of an inferior race and then forced me to fight on their side, I had no inhibitions whatsoever about selling my uniform or my rifle to the Romanians.

It was pretty clear to me that these things were being purchased for the partisans. If I had wanted to follow the thought to its logical conclusion, the same rifle I was selling might eventually be used to shoot at me. But after three-quarters of a year on the front lines, I now suddenly found myself for ten days in a peaceful city with elegant inhabitants and full stores where, if you had the money, you could buy whatever your heart desired.

So I sold my uniform jacket to the first one who asked. It was summer, and I knew I could get another. For ten days I had everything: the best food, a girl to take out and to hold on to, whatever I wanted to buy. I went by taxi to concerts, knowing that in a few days I’d be back under fire and that I’d possibly never see a city again.

When they stopped me on the street with their
“Haben Sie nichts zum verkaufen?”
I gave them first whatever parts of my uniform I could get along without, then my bayonet and my blanket. When I found out how much they were willing to pay for my rifle, I could see the seductive delights of Braila becoming even more affordable and hesitated only for a moment.

The money disappeared quickly from my pockets. No problem. I went to the train station, where hundreds of soldiers were sleeping and waiting for the next train to take them home on leave. Their duffel bags lay next to them on the ground; their rifles leaned against the wall. For a while I sat down and also pretended to sleep; then I got up, automatically taking the rifle next to me as though it were mine, and left. The other guy would probably miss it, but I was sure he wouldn’t be needing it on his furlough.

On my last day of wandering through Braila, I stopped in front of a bookstore display and discovered, attached to the inside of the window, a map that aroused my interest. It was one of those beautiful maps published by Freytag & Berndt, and it showed all the countries of southeastern Europe. The mountains were brown, the plains shades of green, lightening in tone as the altitude dropped. The roads, railway lines, rivers, all were drawn in. I was able to pick out the cities I had neared during the retreat and the place where my battalion was probably still holed up.

With my finger I traced a route south from Romania, through Bulgaria, to Greece, all countries occupied by the Germans. Along the very bottom edge snaked the Bosphorus, the channel dividing neutral Turkey from the European continent.

If I could only make it to there,
I thought, instinctively looking over my shoulder to see if anyone was observing my traitorish thoughts. Actually, there were masses of people in the streets, but of course no one was paying any attention to me.

I sought the map’s scale and gauged the distance from Braila to Greece at nine hundred kilometers. My fantasy was obviously impossible. I would have to cover most of the route by night, steal my food from the fields, and, above all, not get caught. If captured, I would be shot immediately as a deserter. Definitely too risky, I decided, but during a brief pause, when there were no other clients, I entered the store and bought the map.

It felt bulky in my pocket. Just owning a map of this sort seemed to point me out as a traitor. After all, why should a simple soldier, interested only in a German victory over Europe and the rest of the world, have need of such a map? Later I hid it in the bottom of the cloth shoulder bag where I always carried my personal possessions.

THE IRON CROSS

The East, July 31, 1944

Dear Mutti,

I’ve been back with my old division for a few hours now, after three very beautiful weeks. The return trip was wonderful. First I traveled by ship down the Danube, which was really blue, then 150 kilometers on the roof of a railway car until Kishinev, and from there by truck. I have the arch supports now, and the shingles are also healing slowly. Yesterday they removed my festering left thumbnail with anesthetic. Now I have four days’ garrison duty. During this past period my knowledge of Romanian increased considerably.

I’m certain the political events are absorbing you the same as us. For us it is, after all, a question of survival, because our little corner here is quite unpleasant. You needn’t worry about me, though. I’ll find the right way. Enough for now. In three days I’m heading up front again. Will write more then. Many loving kisses, also for Papi,

Your Georg

August 2, 1944

Dear Mutti,

I just heard something on the radio about “decisive measures for recruiting pensioners and laborers.” According to that, things should start getting really crazy in the future. Will this affect Papi also?

We are following the course of the war on the radio with great interest, map at hand. Obviously a lot is happening, but here reigns only a ghostly quiet, with not a shot all day long. Deep trenches give us good protection, and we don’t leave them or the bunkers all day long because of possible Russian firing. No one wants to get his at the final hour! A lot of guys are coming down with malaria and spotted fever. I seem to be a type, with my dark skin and hair, who is resistant to that.

Compared to the other German cities, the bombing of Vienna doesn’t seem to be so bad. That reassured me, for one does get a funny feeling when the report of a bombardment comes over the radio.

I have a very nice friend, Konrad, with whom I spend most of my time. He is from Cologne, twenty-five years old, and had begun to study engineering before the war. We play chess, follow the news, and talk about everything imaginable that I haven’t discussed with anyone since last fall. Please excuse the hieroglyphics, but the light is almost nonexistent here in the bunker. Otherwise I’m fine. Many good kisses,

Your Boy

The contents of the following letter, written a few days later, were not of any great import, but they were to be the last words my parents would receive from me for a long time.

Romania, August 6, 1944

Dear Mutti,

I’ve just received my first mail in four weeks. So good to hear that everything at home is fine. The medicines won’t be necessary anymore. The shingles are okay now, except for a few festering spots. I’m sure there will be a lot of scars, because it festered very heavily. My thumb is also getting better slowly, but I’ve had diarrhea for three weeks. I can’t keep anything down; it just comes right back up undigested. For that reason I’ve become pretty weak. But nothing can be done about it since the rations consist solely of bread, cheese, beans, and fruit. It will be all right again. Right now I’m fasting; maybe that will help.