Last flight from Stalingrad

They came by night. Knocked harshly like urgently seeking assistance. The maid answered the door. Rough, menacing words.

They had just finished dinner and mother ordered him and his younger brother up to their bedroom. In the dark, however, he returned down the stairs to the long hallway, knelled in front of the door to the library. Through the keyhole he watched father seated behind his desk in his business attire. Dark suit, tie, a cigar in one hand, monocle to his eye. Two men in long leather coats were standing in front of him their hats on, one of them waving a paper in his hand. He could only see their large backs.

"Herr Baron, your son is stealing books," he heard him shout.

"Mhm," father said, pointing at the vast library with his cigar. "I'm surprised, and he can buy all the books he wants."

"He stole books that are written by degenerates, they are forbidden, they will be burned."

He listened silently, puffing his cigar, ignoring them.

"He stole books by Erich Maria Remarque, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Thomas Mann, Jack London, Sinclair Lewis, Hemingway, Wells, Helen Keller," from a list spit out like it was poison.

"How can I pay the damages?" father looked like he was under terrible strain leaning back in his squeaking leather armchair, heaving his chest displaying prominently his latest acquisition, the Hacken Kreuz in his button hole.

"He can join the Hitler Jugend!" came the barking answer. "Heil Hitler".

And he walked them to the door.

He returned, sat down and slowly raised the telephone receiver. He pushed the button, waited.

"Von Richthofen, bitte."

There was a long pause. And a whispered conversation.

He had been stealing books out of curiosity. They were hidden in bookstores or in crates to be thrown out and burned. He never believed it to be a crime yet someone had denounced him. A teacher hated him for pranks, so he felt targeted for what he had done.

***

Next day his life changed. He wouldn't return to the gymnasium of Stettin, he was driven to a Prussian cavalry school, interned to become a cavalry officer.

To keep him out of trouble.

The Prussian cavalry were field officers of long standing since Napoleon's times. They came from the Prussian aristocracy and did not embrace Hitler's ideas; they called him amongst themselves "der Gefreite" - lower in rank than any of their teenage officers. Hitler couldn't dismantle this aristocracy.

Hitler came up with an even more diabolical plan than the extermination of the Jews and Gypsies and other people he hated. He would sacrifice them to Bolshevism and perhaps come up with a winning hand. He was playing high poker with "his" people.

On September 29, 1939 Hitler signed a "friendly" non-aggression pact with Stalin whose Bolshevism Hitler ironically furthered. In other words, he would share Poland with Russia, and Russia was safe from Germany's megalomania while Hitler swiftly invaded Holland, Belgium, France and began bombing England.

On October 24, 1940, Hitler shook Pétain's hand, trusting him as friend and collaborator. The European fortress was being built and he was free to turn east. He was in a trance of Blitzkrieg success.

Hitler planned the imminent invasion of Russia code-named "Barbarossa" with General Friedrich Paulus. Paulus never contradicted his Führer's mad orders, except at the very end, when he refused to commit suicide.

On June 22, 1941, over 3 million German troops rode, walked, drove or flew into the Soviet Union under the banner of Nazi "freedom and democracy" and the aim of destroying their arch enemy, Stalin and the Bolshevists.

The Blitzkrieg failed before Moscow. The Germans had run out of supplies. It was winter and German troops were not adequately equipped.

On December 11, 1941, Germany declared war on the US expecting in return that Japan would conquer the Russians from the east. American Liberty ships instead started supplying Russia daily with vital nutrition and necessary "farming" equipment for their tank production.

On April 5, 1942, Hitler ordered the invasion of Stalingrad to have a stronghold on the shipping of oil, minerals and cereals into Europe and take the oil fields of Maikop and Grosny, and expand to Baku. And get rid of the Bolshevists he hated hysterically. He needed to muster more troops.

It was in June 1942 that Reichswehr Officer Nr. 5445, bloodgroup A, gasmask size: 2, Wehrnummer Stettin II 24/2/1/5 , carrying a 38 pistol, in command of his horse Ajax, his guard Max, moved to the Eastern Front. He was 18 years old. "Profession: student".

It was a romantic journey of initiation into the real world of battle, an extension of what he'd studied in the classroom. He was as proud, naive and innocent as one can only be at that age.

Stalingrad was a way to go. By train, tank or truck. Or on horseback.

Proud to be on a horse, and still believing his company could perform mostly necessary duties, he entered the devastated city.

The Germans came into Stalingrad through much sacrifice and stayed until the end. They mumbled "nach mir die Sintflut" on the hill in the ruined city on the Volga - Paulus particularly keen on keeping his attire straight and dusted.

Then the Russian army encircled the VI German army in Stalingrad. It was called "der Kessel".

"We'll win, jawohl." Hitler slapped his whip on the oaken table and Paulus clicked his heels like a trained dog: "Jawohl mein Führer." He returned to Stalingrad with Göring's promise that the Luftwaffe would supply daily provisions by air.

They did not. Food started lacking. The daily battle to survive began for the army. At a certain point everybody was saying Mansteim - Generalfeldmarschall von Manstein would release them, but his panzer troops were stopped 30 km outside Stalingrad and Paulus refused to budge claiming he had no order from Hitler and his men weren't ready.

He entered the bunker and dusted the snow from his uniform. He went past the emaciated guards saluting like lackeys. He crossed the tunnel to the main room Paulus standing behind a large table with the sandcastle of the ruins of Stalingrand. Paulus looked up at him raising his right arm to the salute.

"We need your horse. We need to slaughter your horse."

It was like a dagger into his chest. They had recently slaughtered 6000 Romanian horses to feed the famished troops.

"This is an order."

It was the betrayal of the honor of being German.

"These men will convince you."

Two men dressed in black uniforms stood up. One of them produced a folder.

"You're facing court marshal once the Stalingrad battle is over; you failed to join the Hitler Jugend. Your Aryan certificate has been rejected."

Behind him Hartmann, head of infantry, broke in: "He's been decorated and promoted for heroic actions rescuing comrades. "

"That won't save him from justice."

Pickert marched in: " The Condor is ready in 30 minutes."

They rushed to catch the flight out of the Kessel from Pitomnik. It was 30 degrees below zero and the engines were warming up. Visibility was close to nothing. The 4 engine Condor was loaded with over 50 wounded, the two SS and some higher staff officers leaving the Kessel. The overloaded HE-111 took off and would've climbed well beyond the reach of the Russian guns. It never made it further than the front line and went down in nomansland due to flak.

Next day Ajax was slaughtered and he had to sign a receipt for the Reich, they would pay for Ajax.

He sat around his Cossack and Romanian comrades and drank vodka until he passed out. Max carried him back to his bunker, a room that measured the size of his body lying down. The next night the Cossacks taught him how to drink. You take the first gulp and spit it out, the second gulp and spit it out and when they force you to drink it, you cough and spit it out or you go outside into the cold and put your finger down your throat and vomit.

The lice, dysentery, cold tea, one piece of bread a day; he rubbed himself with snow every morning, freezing the lice off his skin.

He went out inspecting the mine fields of the ruined city. By a culvert a Russian was lowering his pants. He leaned his Mauser on the parapet aiming. Shooting a man in that position was easy. The Russian saw him and quickly tore up his pants staring at him. He smiled, and the Russian smiled back and ran.

Sharpshooters waiting for starving German soldiers walking round in circles, hallucinating from undernourishment.

It was the longest winter of his life. Life on the Oder, a river that had been his childhood playground, had been paradise.

At Christmas he walked to the command. Everybody pretended to live normal life thinking of their families back home in der Heimat. They received small gifts of chocolate and cigarettes, and the evangelical officer priest held a sermon about "sacrifice" after they sang solemnly "Heilige Nacht".

The Russians dropped leaflets with a picture of a young boy crying "my father is dead" and "it's Hitler's fault". Leaflets calling for surrender, promising German prisoners would be treated kindly, be given warm food, shelter, drinks and girls.

Hitler ordered that anyone who would ever think of surrender should be shot. But soldiers were thinking of suicide.

He read Faust while artillery hit his bunker.

Hartmann walked out on the road and stood still until shot by a sniper.

Helping his wounded on the plane he heard a swish and a head-less soldier by the propeller fell over. His head smeared over the fuselage. He returned to his bunker thinking of Schicksal, destiny and how come.

The daily landings of Ju 52s diminished. The Russians raised their artillery guns against the descending planes shooting down dozens a day through the gray impenetrable sky. Hope of rescue faded.

One armed major Seydel playing saber games crying how he'd kill that bastard. Joking how "der Gefreite" who'd signed their death sentence by keeping them encircled in the Kessel would die in hell fire.

He went out with his company to see what he could do about it. Knock out some artillery with the rest of his ammunition? He was close to it. Too close. He didn't see the Russian tank covered by snow, the flash and the boom and his chest ripped open and he went blank.

They carried him in a blanket to the overcrowded field hospital.

An assistant doctor stuck his hand into the pulp of his left shoulder. "Lost too much blood, put him back there," pointing towards the room with heaps of corpses and a thousand other soldiers wailing like slaughtered pigs.

The evangelical staff priest said, "can I see his papers?"

He studied them carefully. "Morphine?"

The field doctor shook his head, he'd taken the morphine himself. The priest turned to the soldiers, with authority: "get him ready for Ausflug."

The only airstrip still usable, Stalinskaja, was way out through artillery fire. Nobody knew whether another plane would ever land.

On January 22 a thousand wounded were waiting for rescue. But only planes dropping off ammunition and food went beneath the cloud cover unable to land.

Von Richthoven was standing at a table over the map of Europe with a pencil in his hands. Stalingrad. "impossible." His secretary called him to the phone. On the phone he played with his pencil in his fingers until he broke the pencil in two, softly saying: "Jawohl!"

A two-engine He 111 was loaded with enough provisions and ordered to land in Stalingradski at night to pick up wounded. Tod oder Leben.

The plane descended on the phosphorous lit ice and snow covered airstrip littered with shot-down planes, artillery pot holes, in blinding snow fall, turned around and stopped, leaving its engines running. The Russians began dropping bombs from U2s.

Soldiers quickly loaded 6 wounded onto the plane. Artillery fire opened on the field, the pilot screamed: "Los!" The He 111 suddenly bounced off in the night at Stalingradski like a stumbling phoenix in the darkest night.

It was the last flight out of Stalingrad.

***

Months later Von Richthofen, senior officers, nurses and his excellent surgeon were standing by his bed. His head and body were in a bondage of plaster from neck to toe. Only his right hand was free. He couldn't move his head, but he slowly moved his eyes to watch von Richthoven. He raised his right arm and took his hand. He sputtered incoherent words. He couldn't hear. He was thankful for the surgeon who came every day and looked after him. He was feeling fine. No pain. No, there was plenty of morphine.

Von Richthofen opened a square velor covered box and gently raised the Iron Cross to put the sling over his neck, then retreated, seeing the obstacle of the plaster cast, and handed it to the surgeon for safe-keeping.

Once he started walking he was given a new uniform, a coat and hat, and left the lazaret with his Iron Cross tied around his neck. He was hurting and needed to return to the hospital for injections of morphine, until one day he couldn't get any more.

The war was over but the pain increased each day.

***

He stepped off the train at Franfurt am Main and walked down to the bombed out industrial quarter by the river where the black market was thriving.

He was professionally useless, handicapped for life and hurting. His vision of the future had been wiped out. He and his comrades had been sacrificed by a maniac so low that it was hard to imagine how he'd betrayed the German people, lied to, subjugated them and finally had them sacrificed. Was this human sacrifice necessary? Was it part of a wider scheme? Schicksal?

The small room was lit by a single petrol lamp, acrid smell of strange cigarette smoke hung in the air. He could hardly distinguish the group seated around the table covered by US dollar bills, bottles of whiskey and schnapps.

"Oh boy," Jackson cried. "Teddy, he needs help."

Sam and Jackson were US soldiers, they'd come to liberate and kick ass, as they liked to say jokingly, Nazi ass. They were his friends.

"You a former Nazi?" Sam teased, sucking his cigar. He couldn't shake his head, it hurt too much. He presented his Certificate of Discharge.

Sam was impressed. "So tell me something, lieutenant, how was Stalingrad?"

Teddy was cooking beans and sausages on a gas stove. A curtain separated the room from a bed that filled the rest of the room. On the floor Russian icons, sculptures and works of art stacked against the walls. Stolen during the war, now the hottest items on the market.

Teddy had spent the war in prison for forging stamps and money. His prison was bombed and most prisoners escaped. He got a press to make passports for prisoners and anyone willing to pay. He gave Americans leads and they protected him. He had a bright future ahead.

His woman Hannah, a buxom brunette who sang Lilly Marlene for US troops from time to time had an official activity as nurse for the Red Cross.

After cutting his onions and wiping the cockroaches from the cupboard Teddy squatted and rolled one of his cigarettes with his fat fingers.

"What you need, lieutenant?"

"Morphine," he said.

Teddy leaned down and pulled the wrapped vials out of a cardboard box.

"Expensive. Very expensive. How do you want to pay for this time, Herr Leutnant?"

He produced the Iron Cross.

"Phew," cried Jackson, "never seen something."

While it went around the table for inspection and praise, he stepped behind the curtain to get a fix from Hannah.

And walked away with enough morphine to last him until he could regain his wits.

Families asked him for news of their fathers, husbands, sons, lovers, school mates. Some asked why it was he who had survived and not them. He didn't know the answer. It was more painful for him to answer for the human sacrifice than the physical pain from the wounds of his agonizing and maimed body.

copyright 2005 einar moos

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Stalingrad