Bert's Travels: The End is the Beginning

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 (Army Barracks). 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 nonchalantly 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.