Maria, Pull the Trigger and Kill (a World War II adventure)

Me P1099.C

On Tuesday that same week, a civil servant came to Johanna's house. He pointed out, that I was not registered and that I had to get registered. It was the law in Germany. In order to do that, he needed my passport or birth certificate. I could not produce my passport, because it was in my locker in Le-Bourget. I could produce my US Army Air Force ID, but I was sure, it would not have helped in registering with the German municipality, rather in registering for a PoW prison. Johanna had an excuse though, she said my papers had gotten lost when I arrived and was attacked by a bull on the platform. The civil servant, urged me to get a new passport very quickly, or at least some type of paper from the Spanish embassy. They had to provide the names of all Jews, Sinti, handicapped and all unregistered people to the GeStaPo, the political police.

Johanna wondered and asked: "Und was macht die GeStaPo dann?"

The civil servant replied: "Die holen die Leute ab und dann kommen die in Zwangsarbeit."

So, the municipality provided the GeStaPo with a list of people and those then got deported into forced labor or the KZs. Great mechanism. They knew what evil they were doing. The civil workers from the municipality and even more so the GeStaPo.

Wilhelm came early Wednesday morning, because from Weilrod, it was a three-hour trip to Kassel by car.

During the drive, we had plenty of time to talk. He told me about Stalingrad and how atrocious it had been. The Luftwaffe, had bombed Stalingrad entirely to smithereens and the Wehrmacht believed, they could take it with flying colors. It became their worst nightmare, however. The rubble gave the Russians much better options to build hidden seats and strongholds. Every building had to be taken at a high blood toll. Russian snipers lurked in many elevated points, but even ordinary Red Army soldiers were dangerous enough. They did not surrender, but kept on shooting, until there bodies were too mutilated to continue. When the Wehrmacht had finally taken about 90% of the city, the Russian winter came mercilessly and relentlessly. Entirely missing heavy winter clothing, they were freezing 24/7. And many were freezing to death. After each night, there was at least one comrade, who had turned into an ice block. In January, it was not possible to properly sleep anymore. The soldiers had to stand around a fireplace during the nights. Whoever collapsed and fell asleep on the ground would never stand up again.

The Red Army had excellent snipers and many of them. Now when the German soldiers were lying in their seats, they had to pay attention, that the helmet did not stick out too far. Bringing one's eyes over the barrier one was hiding behind, was the very maximum. Often however, they did not pay enough attention on their heels. If the snipers could shoot at the heels, they did so and when one bent back to grab it because of the pain, the next shot went right through the head. One day, his group was advancing on a building, when a Russian sniper tried to take them out. As fast as possible, they were taking cover. In those few seconds, they already lost 3 comrades to the sniper. Bad for him, the cover he had picked, did not cover his leg well enough. In turn, the sniper ran 5 bullets through his leg in something like 15-20 seconds. The only reason, he did not fire more bullets was, because the Russian Mosin-Nagant rifle only held 5 rounds. While the sniper was reloading, he could bring his leg entirely behind the cover. That was the end of the war for him and he came home. He had been tired of the war. It had been a dire mistake even starting it. The Red Army was now standing at the river Oder and all the territory, all the land, which the Wehrmacht had gained in the beginning, was lost again. The stupid idea had cost millions of people their lives and had left nothing but scorched earth behind. Now, he had gotten orders to hunt down people, like young soldiers who had left their units to go back home or that Indian pilot, who was just trying to save his butt. He was tired of the whole nonsense, but he could never say it openly, unless he wanted to get executed.