The German Triangle Page 3

  The conversation soon turned to Nazism, how it got started and what it had done to the German people and how it had almost taken over the world. While they were discussing Hitler and his regime, Herr Kurtz came to clear the table. Though his English was not very good, he did understand when they used the word “Hitler” and “Nazi,” and he stopped to listen to the discussion.

  The discussion had gotten fairly animated and then Matthews was stunned when Herr Kurtz put the dishes down, stood up straight, and spit on the floor. He was astonished.

  “Nazi,” he said, and spit again, the hatred spewing from his mouth. He turned and walked away, a little straighter this time.

  Matthews turned to the other Americans seated with him. “I don’t understand,” he said, looking for an explanation.

  Reynolds started to explain. Herr Kurtz had volunteered for a German Army at a time when German honor and pride was thought to be at stake. He, and most of the other German population, looked at the worsening international situation at that time as a test of their strength, their inner strength, as a nation. They had grown to be one of the leading economic industrial countries in the world and desired to take their place among the world leaders. Their enemy, if in fact there was one, was the outside world. And some say that they welcomed the opportunity to flex their muscles. What could have been a small scale war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia was allowed to escalate to a large war, enabling Germany to become a major player on the world scene. But all along, the German people were led to believe that the threat to their rightful place on the world scene was coming from outside the German borders. And in a frightful few days, Austria declared war on Serbia. Russia, Serbia’s traditional ally declared war on Austria. Germany declared war on Russia, being Austria’s ally. France, being allied with Russia, declared war on Germany. And Great Britain declared war on Germany, being allied with the French. The whole continent was allowed to become a fiery battleground.

  The difference, at least as Herr Kurtz saw it, was that World War II and the conditions within Germany which led to the war, had been blamed on internal enemies of the state, specifically Jews and Bolsheviks. Hitler’s propaganda machine accused these two groups of undermining Germany’s struggle in WWI and causing Germany’s loss, and with it, the loss of their sovereign rights as a free nation. His goal was to convince the German people that their loss earlier was the result of internal sedition leading to military defeat and that, as a result, 1) those two groups of people needed to be eliminated, and 2) the areas which had been unfairly taken away from Germany, unfairly because the other countries had been aided by the internal sedition, in other words it was not a fair war, should be returned to Germany.

  Matthews listened intently. Reynolds continued on, relating a story about how one of Herr Kurtz’s daughter’s friends, a Jewish girl, had been rounded up one night taken away from the town, never to be heard from again. In fact, the whole family had been taken from their beds, thrown in a truck, and driven away. Herr Kurtz had known this family all his life and knew them to be loyal Germans. His personal knowledge of this family contrasted sharply with what was being said about the Jews and Bolsheviks. This single incident was enough to make him understand that the Nazis were not telling the truth and were just looking for scapegoats to unify the German populace and gain their support. It had worked and Herr Kurtz hated the Nazis for bringing the suffering to the German people.

  Matthews and Wistick just sat there listening to Reynolds explain the reasoning behind Herr Kurtz’s hatred of the Nazis. The sound of the outside door closing broke their concentration and they turned to look at who had entered the restaurant.

  A young woman was taking off her scarf and coat and hung them up on a coat rack by the kitchen door.

  “Ingrid,” said Reynolds, “Herr Kurtz’s daughter.”

  Ingrid was a slight girl, around 23 or 24 years old, with light colored hair, rosy cheeks, and a body that was trim and fit. The intensity in her eyes matched those of her father’s and the freedom and lithe movement of her body mirrored what her father’s movements must have been like before the landmine. She was an attractive woman who seemed to keep to herself and did not seem to have any boyfriends hanging around. She helped her father with the restaurant, and in fact, had just returned from the local Lebensmittel (grocery store) with a basket full of bread, rolls, cabbage, and onions. She glanced at the American pilots but said nothing.

  Herr Kurtz came out of the kitchen door and smiled when he saw his daughter. Ingrid returned the smile and gave him a daughterly kiss on the cheek, saying something in his ear as she did so. Herr Kurtz nodded as he looked at the three Americans watching the greeting. She picked up the loaded basket and walked into the kitchen as Herr Kurtz walked over to the occupied table and asked the pilots if they would like another beer. Citing fullness caused by the dinner, all three declined.

  Ingrid came out of the kitchen and glanced over at the table again. Reynolds, having been coming there the longest of the three, waved to her. Ingrid just stopped and glared, then ignored the wave and went up the stairs to the family apartment. The sound of the apartment door closing was more the sound of a drawbridge being raised against the oncoming enemy.

  The three American pilots just looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders.

  Chapter Three

  The jeep was waiting for Matthews the next morning when he walked out the door of Frau Schlegal’s house, its exhaust bellowing out the tailpipe as the warm air from the engine mixed with the cold wind swooping down from the vineyards and across the road. Matthews felt the chill the minute he opened up the house door and pulled the fur collar of his flight jacket up around his cheeks to protect them as he walked the few steps to the waiting vehicle. He grabbed the metal handle, opened the canvas door with its plastic window and climbed inside the barren metal container. The driver, different from the one the evening before, nodded a good morning, shifted into first gear with a grind, and headed to Rhein-Main and the operations building.

  Once inside the operations building, Matthews was introduced to his Commander and the Operations Officer. He explained to them what experience he had, where he had been stationed and what he felt he was lacking. Both men listened as he detailed his flight training, his experiences in different aircraft, and what he wanted to gain from this assignment. Satisfied that he would fit into the squadron, they assigned him to a plane and went about introducing him to the rest of the pilots.

  The next couple of weeks seemed like a blur. He flew every day, sometimes all day, to places he had only heard about. Places like Munich, the capital of Bavaria located in the southeast portion of Germany, not far from Austria and Switzerland and the site of the renowned Oktoberfest. It was in Munich that Hitler had started his takeover of the German government, leading a group of men out of the basement of the Hofbrauhaus only to be arrested by the police and imprisoned. His second attempt was far more successful and the world had suffered as a result.

  Matthews flew to Berlin a few times and was taken aback by the amount of destruction the city had endured. Circling the city, he had an opportunity to observe firsthand, the reconstructive efforts underway. Up close, he could still see the rubble of Hitler’s bunker in front of the Brandenburg Gate and across the street from the Russian Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, still being constructed. Piles of rubble had been consolidated in areas where stylish buildings and fancy restaurants once stood as the city went about its business trying to regroup from the devastation of a losing war. Berlin, once the leading cosmopolitan city on the continent, lay in rubble. It struggled to rise from the ashes.

  He was assigned a new co-pilot and navigator. They had been flying in Europe for a while longer than he had, so he listened and took in everything they said about the different airports they visited. The co-pilot, Mike Robson, had been a crew chief during the war and had seen more action than most. His squadron had been responsible for the deployment of infiltrators to the rear of enemy lines. Usually f
lying alone, his plane would attempt to skirt known anti-aircraft positions and deposit their living cargo in pre-determined areas where they could cause damage to radar sites, fuel dumps, and even a few bridges. Towing a glider, he could release the cargo several miles from the designated target and be headed back home before the infantry had landed. Several times, however, the glider was not the answer and Robson had been forced to fly closer to the target so that the parachutists would not have to walk too far to the target. It was these flights that raised the hair on the back of the neck. After the war, Robson had gone to transition school to become a pilot. So while he had more experience flying in the European theater, he was a junior in rank to Matthews.

  Larry Smiley was the navigator and his name was a true indicator of his personality. Always smiling, he was the joker of the squadron, thinking of gags and gimmicks to keep the laughter flowing. He was a good navigator but better morale booster, always ready with a joke and a pat on the back. Smiley never had aspirations to become a pilot, desiring instead to work his magic with maps. He constantly had a running battle with himself to see if he could plot a faster time from Point A to Point B. Above his fold-down desk in the plane he kept a list of his flight times to and from those points and was always trying to beat them.

  The three men got along well.

  Most of the flights were cargo flights with an occasional passenger. On a couple of occasions, he would fly back to England to pick up something, usually aircraft parts where they were needed in a hurry. On those flights he had the opportunity to stay overnight and renew acquaintances with the locals near the airfield. He had taken out one of the local women while he was stationed there, but soon found that absence did not make the heart grow fonder, just lonelier. While being cordial, she had made it clear that a long-distance relationship was not what she had in mind. He could understand that and agreed. He made a mental note to send her some flowers so there were no hard feelings.

  Depending on the availability of transportation when his day was done, he ate in the mess hall and waited for transportation to become available which usually caused him to get back to the village late. The mess hall was a large open building with a kitchen at one end and the tables and chairs taking up the remainder of the room. Separating the kitchen from the dining area was a stainless steel railing wide enough to accommodate the laminated compartmentalized wooden trays the diners used to carry their food. Starting at one end, the crews would gather utensils and napkins, then slowly slide their trays along the railing, gathering first the rolls and make-believe butter, then moving to the single entrée, which a cook in semi-clean whites scooped onto a plate along with the proverbial potatoes and some type of vegetables. Desserts, usually slices of cakes or pies, completed the journey. On rare occasions, real ice cream, made in America, would be available, but if you were not one of the early ones to make it through the line, the only thing you saw was a round, empty cardboard container with a well-licked spoon lying at the bottom.

  If transportation was available after he landed and did the post-flight check and debriefing, he would take it back to his room in the tiny village of Oberstdorf. Frau Schlegel would normally be in the parlor either reading or knitting, an afghan across her knees to ward off the chill of the evening. After a time, between his learning some German and Frau Schlegel learning a little English, they were able to carry on small conversations. She looked forward to his arrival because sometimes he would bring magazines that had been sent from the States for the troops to read. She enjoyed the pictures and usually had questions the following day after reading them. In that fashion, she learned her English.

  One such evening, after cleaning up and changing clothes, Matthews went to zum Rose for dinner. He was becoming a regular now, like Tom Reynolds and Jim Wistick had become. When he opened the door, Herr Kurtz looked up from the bar and smiled. He liked the new American and was happy to see him frequent the restaurant.

  Matthews waved his hand in “hello” and hung his flight jacket on the wooden stand. As Herr Kurtz retreated to the kitchen, Matthews walked over to his usual table and sat down, grabbing the menu from the center of the table and glancing over the list of items available. He knew what most of them were, but still had trouble remembering everything. He glanced up as the door opened and a gust of cold air entered the restaurant.

  Ingrid walked in and closed the door behind her. She looked over at the lone American seated in her father’s restaurant but made no motion of recognition. Removing her coat and scarf and hanging them on the opposite side of the wooden stand from Matthews, she walked deliberately toward the kitchen.

  “Güten Abend,” said Matthews.

  Ingrid stopped in her tracks and looked over at Matthews. Without saying a word, she slapped his offering away with one disdainful look and continued into the kitchen. Matthews shrugged his shoulders and stared back at the menu.

  “With a cold shoulder like that,” thought Matthews, “the beer should really be chilled.”

  Over the course of the next couple of weeks, Matthews continued to try and engage Ingrid in a conversation. It had become almost a nightly ritual when he ate at the zum Rose, that he offered the salutation when she arrived at the restaurant from her daily job. The next couple of times after the first attempt, the result was the same, a cold look, the quick turning away of the head, and the deliberate march into the kitchen to say hello to her father. Her mission complete, she left the kitchen and went right upstairs to do whatever it was that she did up there. Herr Kurtz said nothing about it as he served Matthews his food.

  After a couple of weeks, Matthews noticed a change in Ingrid’s response. She no longer even looked at him when he said hello, but there was a slight upturning of the lips as though trying to contain a smile, acknowledging the little game they had come to play. He mentioned this to her father, who just shrugged his shoulders and walked away.

  One night Matthews asked Herr Kurtz about his daughter and why she was not more open to his desire to be friends. Herr Kurtz, in his broken English, explained that his daughter wanted nothing to do with anyone in the military, be it the German military or the American. And especially wanted nothing to do with a pilot in either army; he slowly pulled out a chair at Matthews’ table and sat down wearily and began to tell the story.

  He explained that he, his wife, and Ingrid were living in a small town near the German-French border during the early part of 1943. While the war was going on, the only part that they could actually see were the occasional dog-fights between the Luftwaffe and the Allied fighter planes. Over the course of several months it had become routine to see them on a daily basis, sometimes several times a day. Inevitably, one fighter or the other would gain the upper hand with the other slowly sinking toward the earth, the telltale smoke bellowing from its fuselage.

  On one such occasion, Herr Kurtz explained, he and Ingrid were returning to the house they rented after shopping at the local bakery. They stopped to watch the aerial show above them, as they occasionally did when outside. Two planes, one wearing the swastika of their home country, the other sporting the star of the American military, were dueling in the skies above them. Neither pilot seemed to have the upper hand to get a clear shot. Twisting and turning in the blue sky, the pilots attempted to outguess their opponent’s next maneuver to gain the advantage.

  Suddenly the German pilot put his plane into a dive, hoping to distance himself from the American attacker. The American pilot, as though pulled along on a string by the German plane, quickly followed at a steeper angle and closed the distance between the two. Its guns blazing, the American fighter raked the German plane with its fiery bullets till smoke and flames became evident. It was clear that on this day, the American was the victor.

  Herr Kurtz and his daughter watched the death dance of the doomed fighter. As it headed to its fiery grave, it suddenly yawed to the left and came toward them. They froze in their tracks, unsure of what to do or where to go. The plane came closer and closer and they
could almost smell the burning oil from the engine. Herr Kurtz threw his arms over his daughter and pulled her to the ground alongside of him as the screaming metal roared over their heads.

  Looking up with horror, they saw the plane headed right for the house they were renting. With a scream, they both realized what was going to happen. The plane, now a firebomb, hit the brick house half-way up its front. As it pushed its way through the wall, its fuel tanks spewed their contents throughout the house, causing the house to become a funeral pyre for Frau Kurtz. The two just starred in horror, unable to do anything about it, yet unwilling to accept it. Hours later, surrounded by friends, the two finally left the scene to try and put into perspective what had happened.

  Herr Kurtz finished the story with a sigh of resignation. As he stood up and pushed the chair under the table, he said that Ingrid blamed the death of her mother on the military, any military. It does not make any difference if it is French, German, English, or American. As a result, she refuses to have any connection with anyone in uniform.

  “I,” he said pointing to his leg, “understand the fortunes of war. But a young girl who loses her mother in an accident like that, cannot accept it without hating. And her hatred has landed on military personnel, especially those who fly. You are both.”

  Herr Kurtz slowly turned and walked back to the kitchen. Matthews watched as the man seemed to age with every step. Matthews now understood Ingrid's reluctance to even acknowledge him. He wondered what it would take if the situations were reversed. His mind drew a blank as he raised the glass mug and slowly sipped the frigid beer.

  Chapter Four

  The wheels of the grounded C-47 slowed as they neared the marks on the tarmac. Its nose, pointing to the sky, housed the three crew members who, unlike the attitude of the plane, were happy to be home.