Bracing themselves against the March wind, Lilly and Anna, carrying knapsacks, made their way along the dirt road. They followed an army truck, stepped aside to let another pass.
“What is this place we’re looking for? A bunker?” asked Lilly.
“I’m not sure either. They didn’t say exactly. We were to report to a Lt. Schmitt.”
“Well, they don’t give much information over the phone, but I’m mystified about having to pack pajamas, spare blouses and socks and that. And to bring lunch kit and cutlery? How long do they suggest we stay out here? A WEEK?”
Anna laughed.
“Oh, there it is. Those roofs, see them?”
They had walked about a kilometre across the barren fields, away from the deserted streets of their suburb, seemingly untouched by the war. As they reached the site of the former FLAK installation, a series of barracks came into view.
Hard-bristle brooms were sloshing waves of soapy water out some doors, followed by young men in fatigues. Broken window panes were being replaced with rough wood boards, dresser-drawers moved around. Smoke rose from the chimney of one barrack.
Lt. Schmitt, in a FLAK uniform and in neat black boots, with an oddly high-pitched voice, was clearly in charge.
Irritated to see only two of them, he introduced himself and demanded to know where the others were.
“What others?” asked Anna, “we don’t even know why we’re here.”
“You ARE the group from the emergency service unit, right?”
“Yes, but —”
“Can you cook? Can you make a fire? Keep a galley organized? Prepare rations?” The girls followed him to a small shed with an ill-fitting door, and were confronted by an immense wood-fired cauldron. They found a long, grimy table, drawers containing knives, skewers and ladles badly in need of attention. There were no pots and pans, no bowls, but a huge spider web on the ceiling.
“We have a light in here, but no stove, and no gas,” the Lieutenant allowed.
“But hot soup will be delivered from central every day.”
“EVERY DAY? How long are we expected to be here?” asked Anna. “What is this for?”
“Oh, weren’t you told? Until further notice. The boys arrive tomorrow.”
“What boys?” asked Lilly.
“This is a training camp for a Hitler Youth unit of the National Home Guards. Your quarters will be in the barracks with the Mess Hall, where we meet, eat and receive instruction.”
“How many people altogether?” asked Anna, but the Lieutenant was on his way to the telephone.
A Sergeant had been heaving a couple of duffel bags out of a Kübelwagen, the open staff car built for the army. With his rumpled face with serious eyes, with his wiry body, his gestures were those of a much older man.
“I’m the Sergeant,” he said, producing a clipboard from the car.
“You are Waltraud, Monika?”
“No, we are Anna and Lilly,” said Lilly, “could you please give us some information about the set-up. The Lieutenant—”
“That’s my job,” he interrupted, “you girls will be looking after a hundred and thirty-eight boys, four Wehrmacht instructors and yourselves. We are expecting eight of you.”
“Well, we need to take some inventory then,” said Anna with a deep breath, “there isn’t much equipment here so far.”
“We’ll have no refrigeration,” said the Sergeant, “but the supply truck will come every day.”
“Firewood, including kindling, cutting boards, - there’s nothing but three metal buckets and a few knives in that galley,” said Lilly.
A list of requisitions for the girls’ dormitory, the Mess Hall and the galley was complete by the time three more girls trudged into the compound.
Straw-stuffed mattresses and army blankets had already been placed on bunk beds. So far no pillows. Their room had been cleaned and the open windows would look after the musty smell eventually. Anna and Lilly placed their knapsacks on two lower bunks and looked at each other. Some sort of hot beverage would have to be cooked in that enormous cauldron early each day to serve the boys with their breakfast rations. The girls were to measure and cut bread, sausage and margarine for the midday meal by the time the boys left for the day’s drill at 8.00 a.m., then clean up and get ready for the supply delivery.
Emma’s was a familiar face from the old high school. She had been with them also during the weeks and months of emergency service in downtown air raid shelters. Like the rest of the schools in the city, theirs was closed now. She had never attended any of their courses, but everyone knew Emma. Chief principle of her belief system being buddyhood, it would be good to have her here, with her small, capable hands, her ironic smile with perpetually chapped lips. Emma chose an upper bunk, citing the more rarified air.
Monika, long lashes almost completely covering dreamy eyes, couldn’t quite put into words her perplexity at being here, and so she made no attempt at this time. Remarkably, one of the departing broom-wielding types carried in her travel bag and set it on a bunk. She paid no attention.
Lotte walked in, surveyed the room, complained about the screeching door, promptly set out to fix it, and established herself, right then and there, as the handy-girl.
“I have four older brothers,” she announced by way of explanation, “believe me, I know my way around tools.”
Then there was tall Walla, who immediately pinned pictures of her twin brothers, aged four, above her bunk.
“You are preparing for a nice, long visit,” said Emma.
“Nope,” replied Walla, “I take the twins everywhere I go.” She had brought a pillowcase and went to point out to the Sergeant that there seemed to be nothing to put in it. He good-naturedly suggested using a rolled-up sweater, “for now.”
When the windows were shut the girls realized that they would have to do without daylight, as the blackout cover and wood boards couldn’t be removed. A naked bulb dangling from the ceiling was intact, though. As it turned out, no one would spend much time in here.
A connecting door led directly into the Mess Hall, already equipped with long tables and chairs. At its opposite end a door opened into the small office, a desk, the phone, a direct line to headquarters, and a narrow cot where the Lieutenant slept.
The Mess Hall also sported a small potbellied stove lately encouraged into working condition. And it featured a Blaupunkt radio.
“We need firewood and kindling,” Lilly said for the third time, “or no one will get anything warm around here. And it would be great to have a water kettle for the top of this stove. Any charcoal?”
“We’ll do our best,” the Sergeant shrugged, looking preoccupied.
Two Corporals walked in, morose until they spotted Monika.
“Corporal Peters, and Corporal Albers, our Medic,” said Lt. Schmitt. And then he politely read the girls’ names off his list. “We’re expecting two more.”
Trucks kept pulling into the compound as the day wore on, bearing bicycles, spades and baskets and boxes with the promised supplies. Ammunition would arrive later that night to be stored in a shed.
At one point Lotte grabbed one of the bikes and headed for the woods, returning with a load of dry twigs and some branches tied to the rack with her belt.
Anna stood in the door of the office where the Lieutenant had been on the phone for most of the day.
“How do we manage this evening?” she asked.
“They are sending a thermos,” and he finally put down the receiver, he and his office neat as a pin.
It was a strange crowd assembled in the Mess Hall that night, spooning up a vegetable-noodle-chicken soup with ‘Kommissbrot’, the square sour-dough bread named after the army, or quite possibly, the army named ‘Kommiss’ after the bread.
Incredibly, they had received cigarettes as well. But would not be smoking indoors. Lieutenant’s orders.
“I’m curious to know where they found one hundred and thirty-eight boys not already tied up in emergency services,” mumbled Emma. The Lieutenant heard.
“Around twenty-five are in units like you girls, mostly from downtown. The majority are coming from eastern refugee camps. They’ve held kids separated from their folks on the treks. Too young to serve in the army.” (And due to the urgent need for more fighting power the army and the SS had done a little separating of their own, of refugee boys from the endless streams of desperate families fleeing west.) The Lieutenant stood with his legs apart, as though wearing damp underwear.
“Time for the news,” said the Sergeant and turned on the radio. Here was the Wehrmacht report. They stood in a silent semi-circle.
“Without regard for casualties or loss of equipment, German troops recaptured key positions on the Eastern front, efficiently shortening the lines of defense…”
They were still lying but could not lie grotesquely any more — too many refugees had made it West from the front lines and told the truth. The Soviet troops had reached the Oder river, or had even crossed it. The radio was silent now. No one talked about what they had all heard, not so much a result of the Lieutenant’s closed look, but rather of the adopted etiquette. It wasn’t done. Mentioning the unthinkable was defeatist. But replacing the usual “tschüss” or “Heil Hitler” with the words, “stick around”, had become generally accepted practice.
“Without regard for casualties or loss of equipment…” how long had this terrible phrase been a daily trigger for anxiety now? Too long for parents, wives, children, siblings, friends.
Monika was listening to the Medic, a veteran of the Russian campaign, and wounded at Stalingrad just before the final horrendous battle and defeat.
Earlier they had been taken on a tour of the flimsy air raid shelter, a zigzag trench, just a few feet from the compound. No one would be allowed to remain in the barracks once the sirens sounded.
“Positively NO lights during air raids. Memorize the way to the exit, keep boots, coats handy,” said the Lieutenant cheerfully by way of terminating the evening’s entertainment.
“Where does he think we have been all these years?” said Lilly.
“Don’t even THINK of running home to Mummy,” said Lotte. “Someone’s on duty out there.” They laughed, lying on their bunks in their uniforms. Planning to undress only after the air raid.
“The Sergeant came into the galley earlier,” said Lilly, “and pointed out that the phone is a direct line to party headquarters, central switchboard. Our calls can be monitored.”
“We figured that,” mumbled Walla, “but thanks.” The moment they fell asleep the sirens wailed, or so it seemed.
The group of boys slowly approaching across the field had come by subway and by bus. The tallest, pushing black hair from his forehead, called to them, “hey, with you girls in place to defend the fatherland, I don’t see what they want with US…” He examined them with low-lidded eyes.
“I’m Motz Zimmermann and this blond prince is called Eddie. These lesser types don’t have names but we’re working on that. In the meantime, just whistle for service.” Eddie demonstrated and four of the others obliged, ran forward and saluted humbly.
“Say, who picked this godforsaken location! Are these trees? We’ve got this sensationally stylish concrete bunker downtown. When they called us up, we suggested an alternative defence strategy, but headquarters wouldn’t hear of it.”
Some other kid came forward.
“I’ve got to take a leak. Is there a little house with a heart in the door, or do we —”
Lilly pointed to the latrines, speechless, and Anna laughed.
The boys were wearing Hitler Youth uniforms with a white band around the upper left sleeve, identifying them as ‘National Home Guards’. Soon they would be armed, had arrived for a crash course in ducking and killing.
They dropped their gear inside the door of the first barrack, opened all the windows and deftly proceeded to examine the ceilings, floorboards and corners, as well as the top bunks.
“What are you doing?” asked Anna from the door.
“Bed bugs,” Eddie informed her, “but there aren’t any.”
“Bed bugs? How do you mean?”
“We love all God’s creatures, but we wouldn’t want to wake up in the morning covered in welts and bumps.”
“BUGS? Aren’t they tiny? How would you know they’re even there?” Eddie and Motz, along with some of the nameless others, exchanged patient looks, as in, “did you hear what I just heard? Where on the face of the earth did they find this HELP?”
“They’re actually quite large, if you must know,” said Eddie, adopting an educational tone and examining his thumb nails in search of a suitable example for demonstration.
“You mean like dung beetles?” asked Anna.
“What are DUNG beetles?” asked Motz, eyes closed. “Sounds outright unappetizing to me.”
“You know dung beetles — those blue-black bugs you see in the parks and the woods — they clean up after horses and dogs, you know?”
“Be honest, Eddie. Is this fair? We’ve never met any of those before. Are they edible?”
“All I want to know is this,” said Eddie, “have you girls let any dogs or horses in here lately?”
“Not a chance,” said Anna.
“They drop from the ceiling, in the dark,” said Eddie menacingly.
“WHAT?” said Lilly, “who does?”
“Eddie! Quit spooking the ladies. He’s back on the bed bugs, felt the topic needed further exploring. When I was an infant, my apartment, and all the neighbours, no, entire city blocks, were never dark at night. The bugs drop from the ceiling when the lights go out. If you sleep with the light on, they stay put.”
“When our beloved Führer came to power, he cleaned up all the bugs,” Eddie added in the sonorous tones of a museum guide, “personally.”
“Okay, it’s a bit extravagant, but we’ll take this room, I suppose,” said Motz, peering out the window to examine the view. “Sixteen bunks in here,” said Anna. “Twelve next door.”
“Aren’t there any uniforms around here?” asked one of the other boys.
“They went off to the woods this morning,” said Lilly. “They should be back soon.”
“A promising start,” said Motz, “a bunch of us come strolling across this field, meaning no harm, and our own senior military personnel make for the woods —”
“Yes, well,” came the voice from the entrance. “Perhaps we can trouble you gentlemen to step into the office, one at a time, with your I.D. card, if you please.”
It was the Lieutenant and he wasn’t amused.
They were assembled in the Mess Hall listening to the radio later, when they heard the trucks just outside the compound, doors slamming. Anna, Lilly and the Sergeant went out, followed by Lotte and Emma, who almost had the door bashed into her face by a gust of wind. In the dusk they watched tired, pale, silent boys jump from trucks, carrying army issue mess kits, rations, duffle bags or sacks, and boots, all wearing bits of ill-fitting Hitler Youth uniforms.
The Sergeant lined them up in triple rows in front of the barracks and counted one hundred and nine boys.
“What’s up?” he shouted to one of the drivers getting ready to pull out, “have you sold one?”
“Not that I know of —” Then a search turned up a sleepy, rosy-cheeked child, smiling apologetically.
Hansi.
The Sergeant put up a hand to help him down.
“How old are you, kid?”
“What day is this?”
“March 25th.”
“Almost fourteen.”
The new arrivals had hardly made it inside and dropped their gear when they heard the familiar wail of the sirens.
“You know what?” said Eddie, ducking into the shelter without enthusiasm, “I think I’ll start chain-smoking. If I work hard at it, maybe I get to die of consumption. Just think of Garbo in Camille. So romantic!”
Motz mumbled, “Eddie, bosom buddy, comrade in arms from kindergarten, use your head. As far as I’m aware, TB isn’t caused by smoking, bad breath is. Now be a good boy and groom your healthy body for the fatherland. What’s more, I’m the one who has to listen to you whine when you run out of smokes.”
Eddie brought his face level with Motz’s.
“Like your sister?”
“Right.”
“Awwww?”
“NO!”
“You wouldn’t let me have your ration?”
“You bet. Swap it like the rest of us.”
When the ‘all clear’ sounded an hour later, they all stood shivering, looking at the blood-red night sky above the burning capital city of Berlin, not touching one another, and returned to their bunks in silence.
The Corporals stayed outside, smoking behind the galley.
When the Sergeant blew the whistle for wake-up, the girls had been struggling with the recalcitrant fire under the cauldron for an hour and a half, eventually boiling barley coffee and getting the boys’ rations prepared almost on time.
It was a rag-tag lot that turned out to salute the flag. In the gray morning light it appeared for a moment as though the boys hadn’t taken the time to dress, though an attempt had clearly been made to supply all with a uniform jacket to which the white armband of the Home Guards could be affixed. One boy had stuffed newspaper into an immense pair of skiing boots, but was missing a lace, and was limping. Many had no hats.
The Corporals discovered that not only had none of the newly arrived recruits ever held a handgun, seven of them had to be left behind to practice staying aboard their bicycles, when the others rode off into the woods for the first time that morning.
Lotte and Emma volunteered to come out and assist as soon as the rest would be out of sight.
“Look, take a firm hold of the handle bars, and pedal like crazy, or you’ll fall over,” Lotte said. And so they did, along the soft dirt road above the compound, falling over a lot that first day.
“Never owned a bike,” Lotte said.
“I think many of these kids are from farms in the East. They had horses or tractors to get around,” said Lilly.
“How do you know?” asked Emma.
“I spent a lot of time at my Grandma’s place in East Prussia, went to school in Königsberg,” said Lilly, “and I recognize the dialect.”
They turned to have some breakfast of their own, then cleaned up the galley.
The Lieutenant had embarked on another full day of talking on the phone and receiving messengers on motorbikes.
Anna and Lilly learned that there would be no more girls joining them after all.
The supply truck had just pulled in when the sirens went off. The driver followed the girls to the trench.
“The Ammies,” he pointed to the sky, “do the daytime raids at 10,000 metres. Forget about hitting them with FLAK. The Tommies do the night shift. They fly lower. This was very heavy equipment here. But they closed the FLAK school and moved the heavy howitzers —”
“You mean this was a school here? For cadets? Teaching what?”
“Teaching regular school subjects in the regular hours. At night they manned the guns, you know.”
“Oh.” And they left the trench when the all clear sounded, watching thick black smoke rising into the blue sky over the city.
Motz’s “nameless others” had quickly acquired an identity that no one was likely to overlook. These Berlin kids were the talkers most of the time. Gus, Rainer, Chris and Tom, in addition to Motz and Eddie, Ulli being a reluctant exception.
Among the refugees arriving from the Eastern regions — millions were said to be on the move — there were thousands of lone traumatized youngsters separated from their families. Briefly stuck in holding camps, the youngest were soon dispatched farther West as a rule, the fourteen- to sixteen-year-olds held for emergency service in a ruined city long starved for adult manpower. These silent boys at Stolpe Field became familiar faces, solemn, did have names, indeed, but seldom communicated even among themselves.
“Bernd,-“ Lotte would call after a boy, in search of a volunteer, and “Henning,” came the good-natured correction, as though there was no expectation that anyone would learn to tell them apart, blond, solidly built most of them. Henning, for one, would keep his eyes on the floor, listening to a conversation, and take a deep breath before replying, then, more often than not, nothing would emerge. A boy out of steam.
“I never know what they’re thinking,” said Anna.
“They’re homesick for their farms, the land,” said Lilly, “they’ve been through so much, seen such horror, have lost everything. Homes gone forever. How do you explain? Relate to anyone? And with their families missing —”
“Yes, that’s what they look like. Disowned. I want to put my arms around them,” said Anna.
“But have you noticed that Axel?” said Lilly, “he is from Königsberg, I’ll bet. Around there. He speaks that soft regional dialect.”
“Yes, I know who you mean. Bright guy,” said Anna.
The daily drill had been tacked up on the announcement board.
7.00 a.m. Wake-Up
7.50 a.m. Flag – Roll Call
8.00 a.m. Breakfast
8.30 a.m. Departure
5.30 p.m. Return to barracks
6.30 p.m. Soup
7.30 p.m. Weapons drill / instruction
9.00 p.m. Leisure time ( R & R)
10.00 p.m. Lights out
The boys’ lives had taken on new structure, not of their choosing but most weren’t used to the idea of choice. Their tight schedule became an easy routine for most within a week.
The Sergeant had handed the girls a roster of daily shifts for a start, but finding it impractical, they had quietly changed things to suit them better. If he noticed, they never heard.