Luftwaffe Fighter Pilot Read online

  Our route was to take us from Thansau, via Füssen, to Lake Constance. From there we would follow the Rhine Valley northwards before branching west through the Pfalz to our holiday destination in the Saarland; it was a journey of over 700 kilometres. Father had calculated that it would take us three days to complete the outward journey, and he was allowing two for the return trip. The first minor hiccup occurred outside Füssen where the engine, due perhaps to the combination of a not altogether adequate service and the warmth of the summer sun, overheated and simply died on us. Father didn’t take this too seriously. He wrapped the cylinder in fresh grass, which I then had to replace at regular intervals. This allowed it to cool off while we sat in the welcome shade of a large tree and tucked into our sandwiches.

  The ‘repair’ actually worked and we were soon able to continue on our way towards Lake Constance where, if memory serves me right, we stopped for the night. By about noon the next day, with the sun beating down even more fiercely, we had reached the district of Swabia and father was keeping an eye out for a source of drinking water as our supplies were running dangerously low. In one village he parked the machine and me beneath a linden tree and went from house to house to ask for water. But not a door opened. People simply watched us through closed windows. Nobody was prepared to give us a single drop. I could see the sweat pouring down father’s forehead. His face was getting redder and redder, the veins were starting to stand out and I knew exactly what was coming–he was about to fly into one of his legendary rages.

  The author’s father poses proudly next to ‘Schnauferl’ ready to set off on the expedition to the Saarland. The author is on the balcony behind (second left).

  Striding back into the middle of the village square, father drew himself up to his full height and began, at the top of his voice, to hurl insults at the entire community. A barrage of invective in his broadest Bavarian left the locals in little doubt as to what he thought of them. He was soon in full swing, “…and you can’t even spare us a single glass of water, you lousy Swabian skinflints, hiding there in those manure heaps you call home along with your chickens and pigs. Well, you can keep your filthy pisswater–and while you’re at it, you can kiss my arse sideways!!”

  It was at this juncture that several doors opened and four burly figures armed with pitchforks began to advance towards us. “Papa,” I said anxiously, “I really think we ought to leave.” Faced with this new development, father had little option but to agree. He kick-started ‘Schnauferl’. Fortunately the bike’s engine sprang into life immediately and we were able to make our getaway. At the next village we came to we stopped at an inn where we were given a very friendly reception. Our image of Swabia was restored in an instant. Not all its inhabitants were as dour and unwelcoming as those we had first had the misfortune to encounter.

  In the evening we arrived at Annweiler, a small town in the Pfalz nestling beneath the Trifels, the ruined fortress where England’s King Richard the Lionheart had been held captive in the twelfth century. Father had a weakness for historical locations and it was here that we stayed overnight. The next morning did not begin very well. Neither of us was unduly surprised when the DKW flatly refused to fire. After trying to kick-start it into life a good fifty times, father–never one to throw money around unnecessarily–next decided that we should attempt to hill-start our recalcitrant steed instead. We must have rolled down one of Annweiler’s steepest streets at least another twenty times, and pushed the machine back up to the top again puffing and sweating as it grew progressively heavier, before father finally admitted defeat.

  Luckily there was a garage-cum-workshop nearby. And inside it stood something on four wheels that, even in those faroff days, could only be described as an old crock. I noticed that father was eyeing this heap of junk covetously, no doubt fearing–with some justification–that our troubles with ‘Schnauferl’ were far from over. The dealer was also quick to spot father’s interest, stating that he could be persuaded to part with the thing for the princely sum of 300 Reichsmarks. I dared to protest strongly at this, declaring that no amount of money in the world would tempt me to climb aboard the prehistoric contraption. My unexpected outburst resulted in father’s deciding to drop the whole deal and instead invest two Reichsmarks in a new spark plug. Thus rejuvenated, our two-wheeled sledge conveyed us the remaining 150 kilometres to our destination, Mittelbexbach, without the slightest hitch.

  When the holidays were over we all set off home at the same time, mother and sister again by train so that they could be back in Thansau to prepare for our arrival two days later. Our first day on the road passed uneventfully–until the final kilometre before our planned overnight stop. This was somewhere along Swabia’s Jagst Valley; I can no longer remember the name of the place but, knowing father, I’m sure it had a historical connotation. The road was one long gradient down to the floor of the valley, where it made a sharp left-hand turn into the village street. We arrived at the top of the hill. It was a pleasant summer’s evening and we could almost taste the delicious home cooked meal that would be waiting for us at the inn below.

  As usual, father was wearing his traditional Bavarian headgear with its tuft of chamois hair back-to-front in order to prevent its being blown off his head. And below his lederhosen he kept his bare knees pointed slightly outwards to avoid getting burned by the engine’s single cylinder. It was his custom at the top of every incline to switch off the ignition and coast downhill to save petrol. This time was no exception and we had already picked up quite a speed when we saw ahead of us, just before the left-hand bend, two fully laden oxcarts emerging on to the road from fields on either side. The two women leading the ox teams were making for the middle of the road, clearly intending to have a good chat as they walked their charges back to the village. They remained completely oblivious to father’s frantic hooting as we bore down upon them. In their defence, it must be said that he was pressing the bulb of the horn so violently that it had broken and was emitting little more than the occasional pitiful squeak.

  “Papa,” I yelled in panic, “now we’re for it!” “Just hold on tight to me, son,” he shouted. I hunched down behind his broad back in the forlorn hope that, when the inevitable collision occurred, I could cling on to him as we sailed through the air and perhaps land fairly softly. An absurd idea, I now freely admit, but one that I’m sure helped me survive the next few seconds. But we actually made it! There couldn’t have been much more than a metre separating the two women as we flashed past between them. The moment we had done so I looked back over my shoulder and caught a glimpse of the two pairs of oxen galloping back into the fields–one to the left, the other to the right–with the two screaming women chasing after them. Now on the flat, father laid the DKW elegantly into the left-hand curve and braked to a stop in front of the inn. I was shaking like a leaf, but father still seemed remarkably calm. In an uncharacteristically tender gesture, he ruffled my hair. As a father myself now, I can appreciate how he must really have been feeling.

  Things were much quieter the following day. The weather was near perfect and the DKW purred contentedly along the country roads–the autobahns had not yet been built–as we headed towards Munich. There we suffered yet another sparkplug problem. Although there was a garage close by, father of course insisted on trying to sort it out himself. We had stopped for a brief rest by the peace monument up on the right bank of the River Isar, and he decided that the long straight slope back down to the Luitpold Bridge would be ideal for getting ‘Schnauferl’ going again. However, after the fifth attempt had failed to achieve the desired effect–“I told you so, Papa”–father had to admit defeat and we wheeled the DKW to the garage we had seen earlier.

  Some expert assistance, plus a replacement plug, soon had our motorbike back in full working order. Before we continued on our way, father declared that he needed a quick mouthful of brandy from the bottle granny had given him when we left Mittelbexbach and which, he was sure, had been stowed in the toolbox between th
e two saddles. Unfortunately he was wrong in his assumption and instead took a hefty swig from the brandy bottle in which he kept his emergency supply of engine oil. His reaction can be imagined. But with the home stretch now beckoning, his good humour was soon restored.

  After a good two hours we had passed through Rosenheim and were humming along the road leading to the turn-off for Thansau and home. We bumped across the railway tracks and headed for the little bridge across the stream that bordered our property. Mother and Rada were standing on the balcony waving excitedly and we waved back with equal gusto. Maybe father overdid it, or perhaps he should have paid more attention to the bridge. We started to wobble, father couldn’t regain control of the machine, and we went into the water with an almighty splash. Father and I scrambled clear of the motorbike, which sank, hissing, spitting and gurgling beneath the surface. Father’s hat started to float off downstream, but I quickly retrieved it. He gave it a couple of shakes and defiantly placed it back on his head. But the effect was no longer the same. The once-proud tuft of chamois hair now looked more like a bedraggled paint-brush.

  I had been dimly aware of the horrified shrieks coming from the balcony as we went into the water. Mother and Rada rushed across to us, followed by several neighbours who had also heard the commotion. Luckily, the stream below the bridge was not very deep and the DKW was soon dragged on to dry land with the aid of some ropes. Father tipped it from side to side to get rid of most of the water, but it had to go into the local garage for seven days to be fully repaired–a well-earned week’s rest for ‘Schnauferl’ after its recent gallant performance.

  CHAPTER 2

  GROWING UP IN THE ‘NEW AGE’

  Unlike my father’s generation, I had been too young to understand the turmoil and unrest that had plagued the Weimar Republic. And so, although I became increasingly aware of the political changes that occurred after Hitler’s assumption of power in 1933, I was in no position to form a balanced judgement on them, as I had nothing to compare them against. My peers and I–the generation coming of age under the new dictatorship–saw no reason to question the status quo. Our families, indeed the whole country, seemed to be prospering. Living standards were improving. We couldn’t imagine anything different; but then we weren’t being offered any alternatives.

  In fact, my father had established a small group of likeminded nationalist supporters at Waldthurn as far back as 1922. Their aims closely paralleled the views later propounded by Hitler. They wanted a revision of what they considered to be the iniquitous terms of the Versailles Treaty, and the formation of a nationalist social state strong enough to counter the rising tide of Bolshevism, whose threats of a ‘world revolution’ were the stuff of nightmares for the bourgeois classes of central and western Europe.

  But father’s beliefs were not unconditional and his outspokenness proved not just detrimental to his advancement; on occasion it would pose a very real danger to his continued well-being. His attitude towards national-socialism was so positive at the outset that he had no qualms about joining the party. But after 1933, with the regime becoming ever more totalitarian, he in turn became–if not entirely ‘anti’–certainly increasingly disaffected. He disliked the loud-mouthed posturing of many minor officials, or ‘party jackasses’ as he called them, and was appalled at the discrimination being shown against the Jews, which he feared would have severe political repercussions abroad. But what stretched his loyalty to the limit was the infamous ‘Röhm-putsch’ of June 1933 when Ernst Röhm and many leading members of the SA were summarily executed.

  Father made his feelings about the murder of Röhm and his colleagues all too clear to a number of high-ranking party officials of his acquaintance. Not wishing to lose his support, these latter felt compelled to send somebody to visit us at Thansau to smooth father’s ruffled feathers. They could not have chosen a worse emissary. It was the local district leader, or Ortsgruppenleiter, a pompous braggart whom father couldn’t stand at any price. He was one of the so-called ‘March violets’, the nickname given to those opportunists who had quickly jumped aboard the party bandwagon in the weeks immediately after Hitler’s appointment as Reich chancellor in January 1933. And this was the individual being sent to make father ‘see reason’! It was a recipe for disaster–and that is exactly what it turned out to be.

  The guest was ushered into the large drawing room while mother, Rada and I sat in the kitchen across the hall awaiting the inevitable explosion. The conversation got louder by the minute until only father could be heard yelling at the top of his voice. Then the door of the drawing room flew open and father bundled the portly district leader out of the house and down the front steps. In the ruckus the ‘party jackass’ lost his leather belt and gold-braided cap, and these father tossed contemptuously after him. He made off uttering dire threats of retribution, but his complaints must have fallen upon deaf ears in higher circles for, as far as I am aware, no further action was ever taken.

  The party could perhaps tolerate the odd maverick in its ranks during those early days as it was already looking ahead to the future and had its sights set firmly on the young. By ‘volunteering’ to join one of the two youth movements for boys–the ‘Jungvolk’ for those up to the age of fourteen, and the ‘Hitler-jugend’ for those aged between fourteen and eighteen–almost the entire rising generation of German youth came under the national and ideological influences of the new regime. It was possible to escape the worst of these influences, however, by opting for one of the three technical subdivisions of the Hitler Youth: the motorized, flying or naval sections.

  When I turned fifteen I joined the ‘Flieger-Hitlerjugend’ or ‘Flieger-HJ’–not, I must confess, driven by any sense of revolt, but simply because I was fascinated by the idea of flying. And I can honestly say that I cannot recall receiving any overt party political training as such; perhaps the powers-that-be were too clever for that. We were following Hitler’s lead willingly enough anyway. It was just the everyday propaganda that passed us by.

  During the summer months membership of the Flieger-HJ entailed turning up at the group’s ‘hangar’ once a week. Here we began by building model aircraft and flying them in competition. Later we were allowed to help with the maintenance and repair of the glider flown by the older boys. In the winter, after the fields had been harvested and when the weather permitted, there would be flying practice at least twice a month.

  Our flight instructor was ‘Papa’ Seitz. He had been a pilot during the Great War and was really like a father figure to us.

  Financial resources in the Flieger-HJ were not exactly abundant to begin with, and grew progressively less the further down the organizational table you went. In a small district group like ours this was reflected in the equipment we had. Take, for example, the antiquated old truck that was pressed into service to transport us out to the practice slopes in the Bavarian hills or the lower Alpine regions of the Tyrol. This appeared to have started its working life as a brewer’s dray. To the rear of the wooden, box-like driver’s cab was an open flatbed body, some four metres in length, upon which we used to huddle together shivering with cold despite our warm winter clothing. Behind us on a rickety trailer was our pride and joy: a Grunau G9 glider; the notorious ‘skull-splitter’, so called on account of the sturdy wooden brace located only a matter of centimetres in front of the pilot’s face.

  It was the ambition of every budding glider pilot to gain the coveted C-Class certificate, the highest of the three grades of proficiency–A, B and C–that could be won. But the rather primitive and bulky Grunau G9 would only permit us to attain Grade B. And for me even this achievement still lay many months ahead. My first ‘flights’, in fact, consisted of nothing more than being dragged across the ground in order to familiarize me with the take-off procedure. Nevertheless, each drag was proudly recorded in my hitherto pristine flying logbook with the appropriate letter ‘R’, indicating ‘Rutsch’, or slide.

  In addition to our flying activities, which, had we bu
t known it, were regarded by our lords and masters as ‘pre-military training’, we were also required to join with the general Hitler Youth in field exercises. Armed with watches and compasses, and weighed down by full backpacks, two sides–Blue and Red–would have to find and do battle with each other in open country. Target practice, at first with air rifles and later with small calibre weapons, was also carried out in the nearby butts under strict military supervision.

  Another part of the youth welfare programme was the lengthy outings. These were, in essence, conducted youth tours. Costing the participants very little, they took groups of youngsters to various parts of Germany. Ostensibly intended to bring the inhabitants of the different regions into closer contact with each other, this was a not altogether bad idea–had it not been for the inevitable ideological undertones. Such subtleties were lost on us, however. We simply regarded these excursions as thrilling adventures. I well remember one such fourteen-day trip to the North Sea coast. Having travelled to Hamburg by train, we set off to march along the dykes to the Danish border.

  For us landlubbers, who had never seen a body of water any larger than a Bavarian lake, the trek northwards along the Schleswig-Holstein coastline was an amazing experience. We marched in all weathers, in rain and storms, and I can still recall the salty tang of the sea air as what, to us, seemed like huge tidal waves smashed themselves against the sloping flanks of the dykes almost at our feet. At a camp near Leck, just short of Denmark, we spent a few days under canvas before catching the train home from Flensburg. Such trips were huge fun for all of us. We were off the streets and were able to do things and see places that our parents could otherwise never have afforded. We were living for the present and enjoying it immensely. That things might get darker in the future didn’t even cross our minds.