The second day of May
1945
The rumours are rampant:
Braunau has to capitulate officially by 12 noon, or else an artillery
bombardment will commence, which will not stop until the town is
levelled. With most of the people still in the basements it is hard
to understand how rumours travel. They just do.
The artillery fire of two
nights ago had mostly been directed against some few hundred members
of the German Wehrmacht
in the forest area outside the town. Only a few errant salvos damaged
some buildings on the main square: The Apothecary got a glancing blow
and the church steeple was hit just above the clock face. The main
hydro-electric station gets a full hit, knocking out power all over
Braunau. White sheets hang from most windows and one suddenly
appears high up on the steeple. A strange change from the swastika
banners displayed before.
Hermann comes to get me. I
can’t stand it in the basement, nor do I feel particularly
comfortable in our apartment. I tell no-one. We leave and explore
around town. It is uncanny. Not a store is open, shutters still
down, and the very few people who are about scurry from place to
place. Through the old gate at the end of the square we follow two
women pulling a wooden cart. Two huge chestnut trees stand like
sentinels in front of the Kaserne.
The two women, still pulling their cart, disappear through the small
door, set in the large double gates.
We follow and find
ourselves in empty military quarters. We see the woman loading
uniform-grey bolts of cloth.. I remember one of them bringing a large
jar of pickles and some loaves of bread. They look at us askance
suspecting rival plunderers. We open other doors and come to the
armoury.
There are Sten guns and
full magazines lying around. In one corner we find hand grenades,
ignition caps and rolls of fuses. We unscrew and abandon the long
handles and drop the heads into our securely fastened knickerbockers.
Three in each pant leg, gives us 12 hand grenades. An equal number of
ignition caps, and a length of fuse wrapped around our waist,
underneath our shirts. It occurs to me and I tell Hermann that if one
of the grenades were to explode it won’t matter that he is a
haemophiliac. We are so used to this fact that we laugh about it.
Hermann finds a pair of crimping pliers, which will later allow for
the secure fastening of the fuse into the ignition cap. As a last
minute thought, he grabs one of the Sten guns and two magazines. He
loosens his belt, shoves the Sten down his pants and carries the
magazines openly in his hands. We saunter non-chalantly back through
the gate, then quickly up to our apartment, where we temporarily
stash the grenades, ignition caps and fuse under my bed. At this time
we have no idea what we would ever want them for. It gives us a
swagger to know what we have done.
When we come to Hermann’s
house, the Sten finds a hiding place in the attic. Hermann brings
some old rags and the gun, and both magazines are wrapped tightly
and wedged in where two beams meet in an acute angle.
It’s noon.
There are now more people
in the main square. Some women are arguing with a group of men, among
them the town’s Chief of Police.
The women, I know them
all, insist that some of the men should row across the river and
officially surrender Braunau to the American forces. There is no one
left who could possibly fight for a lost cause.
Two groups of five men
each finally pile into two row boats and cross the river.
Hermann and I go down to
the river’s bank and sit on a concrete boulder, staring into the
water which swirls around the torn bridge girders and struts. We
munch on some rye bread and an apple each. Kurt joins us and we watch
as a platoon of American soldiers works their way carefully across
the remnants of the rail road bridge I did not see it, I heard about
it later and I have never gotten it out of my mind that one of the
Americans drowned in this attempt. I keep thinking, maybe he’s the
one who gave us the chewing gum in Simbach and told us to go home.
Even as I write this, so many years later, I feel a deep sense of
sorrow. The war, to all intents and purposes is over. Maybe he’d
written home that he is well, that he’ll be home soon. Then he
never gets there. I would like it not to be true.
On the Simbach side of the
river, we can make out the beginnings of a pontoon bridge being
built.
The speed of progress is
unbelievable. I think it takes less than two hours before the first
trucks roll over it, and a long snake of infantry soldiers, guns
slung over their shoulders walk over the slightly undulating bridge.
*********************
American Infantry and supplies roll across the Pontoon Bridge
in a seemingly never ending stream.
************
The fifth day of May
1945
I can hear Hermann’s
familiar whistle from the church square below our living room window.
I answer as always and rush down stairs. “I must get the ‘pots’
out of our apartment” I tell him. “We are getting 5 American
officers quartered in our apartment. If they find the pots, they’ll
shoot us.”
Again we walk through the
town, heavily armed in our knickerbockers. We go to Hermann’s
house. His parents run a knitting mill and a retail store of knitted
ware. We sit in his basement, surrounded by neatly arranged shelves
full of home made jams, marmalades, fruits and vegetables. I’ve
never seen so much food at the same time in the same place. That’s
why Hermann never bothers to go “food collecting” with Kurt and
me. Hermann opens a jar of sliced red beats and we have ourselves a
feast. Even down here we can hear the rhythmic chatter of the
knitting machines.
We consider putting our
‘pots’ together with the ignition caps into one of the empty jars
and place those in the back row of the preserves. We abandon this
idea when it proves that the grenades won’t fit through the jars’
narrower necks. Finally we carefully remove the bottom board of one
of the storage shelves and place the potentially devastating
explosive cans on their side on the cobble stone ground. We replace
the shelve and re-position the jars.
To keep the length of fuse
dry, we place it , tightly curled, together with the ignition caps
into an empty jar at the back row of the most recently dated ”put
up” jam, reasoning that they would stay undisturbed the longest.
Hermann places the crimping pliers carelessly into a box housing old
tools.
Then we step back and
admire our handiwork. “Gosh” says Hermann, “ you’d never
suspect.”
Just then I note that it’s
not only the clatter of the knitting machines I hear, but also the
blood pounding in my head.
When I come home, my
mother is frantic. They were looking for me all over, she says. (They
weren’t looking in Hermann’s basement or they would have found
me, surrounded by hand grenades.)
There is what seems like
a whole platoon of American soldiers in our apartment. It turns out
that there are five and they want quarters.
They indicate by gestures
that they want this room and that one. I muster all my English
language skills and tell them: “you cannot have this room. This is
our ‘beautiful room’. We use it only when we have visitors.”
One of the Americans turns to me. “Oh good, you speak English”.
“Yes” I say, “a very little”. “What is your name, please?”
he asks politely. I tell him and he says: “ I am Lieutenant Anthony
March. Consider us your visitors.” I understand that our
“Beautiful Room” in which only rare guests or important
relatives, like Onkel Felix, were entertained will now house two or
three ‘Amis’.
They talk among each
other. I understand only a word here and there. Anthony again turns
to me: “Egbert, is your mother a good cook?” he asks. “The very
best” I answer. “Good !” Anthony smiles: “Ask her if she
would like to cook for us. We will supply the groceries. But she must
be a good cook.”
“What are groceries?”
I ask Anthony. He explains painstakingly.
I finally tell my mother
that they want her to cook for them. She thinks it’s a great idea.
She hasn’t really “cooked” in a long time. But she knows how to
make cabbage and potatoes 365 different ways.
She loves to cook, and she
will be able to do it with real butter, real eggs, fresh meats. She
will use some American but mostly Austrian spices.
This is obviously a
smashing success. Within a few days, the five who eat here, become
eight and sometimes ten.
Among the American Officer
Corp, my mother becomes famous.
And I become the
semi-official interpreter.
My mother, my sisters and
I always eat before our “visitors.” In spite of my urging, and
‘though we are often hungry, mother refuses to use any of “Their
Groceries” to feed us. Until one day, Anthony comes early and sees
what we eat.
Anthony (by now we call
him Tony) calls a meeting. It is their unanimous decision, that the
Reitter family henceforth shall eat the same as the “visitors”.
This, I have no doubt, is the beginning of my love of everything
“American”.
Months later, the Black
Cat division is transferred to Gmunden, in those days a three hour
car ride from Braunau.
We hate to loose our
“visitors” of whom we have truly grown very fond. Two weeks
later, Tony is heard by our neighbour, at three o’clock in the
morning, calling from the narrow street below:
“Mamma Reitter, Mamma
Reitter”
He brought a huge box of
“Groceries” and the Reitter family had to get up and have bacon
and eggs and milk with “Tony” at 3 o’clock in the morning.
We did not mind at all.
For the next two weeks we
lived really well.
*********************
************
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