Stuka Pilot (36 page)

“In my opinion at this moment the war can no longer be ended victoriously on both fronts, but it is possible on one front if we can succeed in getting an armistice with the other.”

A rather tired smile flits across his face as he replies: “It is easy for you to talk. Ever since 1943 I have tried incessantly to conclude a peace, but the Allies won’t; from the outset they have demanded unconditional surrender. My personal fate is naturally of no consequence, but every man in his right mind must see that I could not accept unconditional surrender for the German people. Even now negotiations are pending, but I have given up all hope of their success. Therefore we must do everything to surmount this crisis, so that decisive weapons may yet bring us victory.”

After some further talk about the position of Schörner’s army he tells me he intends to wait a few days to see whether the general situation develops as he anticipates or my fears are justified. In the first case he will recall me to Berlin for a final acceptance of the assignment. It is nearly one o’clock in the morning when I leave the Führer’s bunker. The first visitors are waiting in the anteroom to offer their congratulations on his birthday.

I return to Kummer early, flying low to avoid the Americans, Mustangs, four-engined bombers and Thunderbolts, which soon infest the upper air and are above me almost all the way back. Having to fly like this alone below these enemies and constantly on the
qui vive
“have they spotted you or not?”—is a greater strain than many an operational flight. If Niermann and I occasionally get rather hot under the collar with the suspense it is not to be wondered at. We are glad to set foot again on our home base.

The slight relaxation of the pressure exerted by the Russians west of Görlitz is partly due to our daily operations which have inflicted heavy losses. One evening after the last sortie of the day I drive into Görlitz, my home town, now in the battle zone. Here I meet many acquaintances of my youth. They are all in some job or other, not the least of their activities being their home defense duties with the Volkssturm. It is a strange reunion; we are shy of uttering the thoughts that fill our minds. Each has his load of trouble, sorrow and bereavement, but at this moment our eyes are focused only on the danger from the East. Women are doing men’s work, digging tank traps, and only lay down their spades for a brief pause to suckle their hungry babies; greybeards forget the infirmities of age and labour till their brows are damp with sweat. Grim resolution is written on the faces of the girls; they know what is in store for them if the Red hordes break through. A people in a struggle for survival! If the nations of the West could see with their own eyes the happenings of these days pregnant with destiny and realize their significance they would very soon abandon their frivolous attitude towards Bolshevism.

Only the 2nd Squadron is billeted in Kummer; the wing staff has its headquarters in the schoolhouse at Niemes, some of us live in the homes of the local in habitants who are 95 per cent German, and do everything possible to meet our every wish. The business of getting to and from the airfield is not altogether plain sailing, one man always squats on the mudguard of every car as look-out for enemy aircraft. American and Russian low-flying planes scour the country at every minute of the day, actually criss-crossing one another in this region. The more unpleasant visitors come from the West, the others from the East.

When we take off on a sortie we often find the “Amis” lying in wait for us in one direction and the “Russkis” in another. Our old Ju. 87 crawls like a snail in comparison with the enemy aircraft, and when we approach the objective of our mission the constant aerial combat strains our nerves to snapping point. If we attack the air is instantly alive with swarming foes; if we are on our homeward course we have again to force a passage through a ring of hostile aircraft before we can land. Our flak on the airfield usually has to “shoot us a free path.”

American fighters do not attack us if they see that we are headed for the front and already engaged in aerial combat with the Ivans.

We generally take off from the Kummer airfield in the morning with four or five anti-tank aircraft, accompanied by twelve to fourteen FW 190s carrying bombs and at the same time acting as our escort. The enemy then waits for our appearance in overwhelming superiority. Rarely, if we have sufficient petrol, we are able to carry out a combined operation with all the formations attached to my command, and then the enemy in the air outnumbers us by only five to one! Yes indeed, our daily bread is earned with sweat and tears.

On the 25th April another wireless signal from the Führer’s headquarters reaches me, completely jumbled. Practically nothing is intelligible, but I assume I am again being summoned to Berlin. I ring up the air command and report that I have been presumably ordered to Berlin and request permission to fly there. The commodore refuses, according to the army bulletin fighting is going on round the Tempelhof aerodrome and he does not know if there is any airfield free of the enemy. He says:

“If you come down in the Russian lines they will chop my head off for having allowed you to start.”

He says he will try to contact Wing Commander von Below immediately by wireless to ask for the correct text of the message and where I can land if at all. For some days I hear nothing, then at 11 P.M. on the 27th April he rings me up to inform me that he has at last made contact with Berlin and that I am to fly there tonight in a Heinkel 111 and land on the wide east-to-west arterial road through Berlin at the point where the Brandenburg Gate and the Victory monuments stand. Niermann will accompany me.

The take off with a Heinkel 111 at night is not altogether easy as our airfield has neither flares round the perimeter nor any other lighting; it is, besides, small and has good-sized hills on one side of it. In order to be able to take off at all we have to partly empty the petrol tank so as to reduce the weight of the aircraft. Naturally this cuts the time we can stay in the air, a serious handicap.

^{He. 111}

We make a start at 1 A.M.—a pitch dark night. We fly over the Sudeten mountains into the battle zone on a north north westerly course. The country below us is illumined eerily by fires, many villages and towns are burning, Germany is in flames. We realize our helplessness to prevent it—but one must not think about it. On the outskirts of Berlin the Soviet searchlights and flak already reach up at us; it is almost impossible to make out the plan of the city as it is enveloped in thick smoke and a dense pall of vapor hangs above it. In some places the incandescence of the fires is so blinding that one cannot pick out the landmarks on the ground, and I just have to stare into the darkness for a while before I can see again, but even so I cannot recognize the east-to-west arterial road. One conflagration next to another, the flash of guns, a nightmare spectacle. My radio operator has made contact with the ground; our first instructions are to wait. That puts the lid on it, especially as we have only so much petrol. After about fifteen minutes a message comes through from Wing Commander von Below that a landing is impossible as the road is under heavy shell fire and the Soviets have already captured the Potsdamer Platz. My instructions are to fly on to Rechlin and to telephone to Berlin from there for further orders.

My radio operator has the wave length of this station; we fly on and call Rechlin, not a minute too soon, for our petrol tank is nearly empty. Below us a sea of flame, which can only mean that even on the other side of Berlin the Reds have broken through in the Neuruppin area and at the best only a narrow escape corridor to the west can still be free. On my request for landing lights the Rechlin airfield refuses; they are afraid of instantly attracting a night attack from enemy aircraft. I read them in clear the text of my instructions to land there, adding a few not exactly polite remarks. It is gradually becoming uncomfortable because our petrol may give out at any moment. Suddenly below us to port a niggardly show of lights outlines an airfield. We land. Where are we? At Wittstock, nineteen miles from Rechlin. Wittstock has listened in to our conversation with Rechlin and decided to show its airfield. An hour later, getting on for 3 A.M., I arrive at Rechlin where the V.H.F. is in the commodore’s room. With it I am able to get in touch with Berlin by telephone. Wing Commander von Below tells me that I am not now to come into Berlin as, unlike me, Field Marshal Greim has been reached in time by wireless and has taken over my assignment; moreover, he says, it is momentarily impossible to make a landing in Berlin. I reply:

“I suggest that I should land this morning by daylight on the east-west arterial road with a Stuka. I think it can still be done if I use a Stuka. Besides it is essential to get the government out of this danger point so that they do not lose touch with the situation as a whole.”

Von Below asks me to hold the line while he goes to make enquiries. He comes back to the telephone and says:

“The Führer has made up his mind. He is absolutely decided to hold Berlin, and cannot therefore leave the capital where the situation looks critical. He argues that if he left himself the troops which are fighting to hold it would say that he was abandoning Berlin and would draw the conclusion that all resistance was useless. Therefore the Führer intends to stay in the city. You are no longer to come in, but are to fly back immediately to the Sudetenland to lend the support of your formations to Field Marshal Schörner’s army which is also to launch a thrust in the direction of Berlin.”

I ask von Below what the feeling is about the situation because he tells me all this so calmly and matter-of-factly.

“Our position is not good, but it must be possible for a thrust by General Wenk or Schörner to relieve Berlin.”

I admire his calmness. To me everything is clear, and I fly back to my unit forthwith to carry on operations.

The shock of the news that the Head of State and Supreme Commander of the armed forces of the Reich is dead has a stunning effect upon the troops. But the Red hordes are devastating our country and therefore we must fight on. We shall only lay down our arms when our leaders give the order. This is our plain duty according to our military oath, it is our plain duty in view of the terrible fate which threatens us if we surrender unconditionally as the enemy insists. It is our plain duty also to the destiny which has placed us geographically in the heart of Europe and which we have obeyed for centuries: to be the bulwark of Europe against the East. Whether or not Europe understands or likes the role which fate has thrust upon us, or whether her attitude is one of fatal indifference or even of hostility, does not alter by one iota our European duty. We are determined to be able to hold our heads high when the history of our continent, and particularly of the dangerous times ahead, is written.

The East and West fronts are edging closer and closer to each other, our operations are of increasing difficulty. The discipline of my men is admirable, no dif ferent from on the first day of the war. I am proud of them. The severest punishment for my officers is, as it has always been, not to be allowed to fly with the rest on operations. I myself have some trouble with my stump. My mechanics have constructed for me an ingenious contrivance like a devil’s hoof and with it I fly. It is attached below the knee joint and with every pressure upon it, that is to say when I have to kick the right rudder-bar, the skin at the bottom of the stump which was doing its best to heal is rubbed sore. The wound is reopened again with violent bleeding. Especially in aerial combat when I have to bank extremely to the right I am hampered by the wound and sometimes my mechanic has to wipe the blood-spattered cockpit clean.

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?”