The End is the Beginning -Part -6-

At the wall of slate.                                                                                      

Neither Kurt nor Helmut can make it that day.   So Hermann and I go up to the “Schlierwand”, the wall of slate. We have most successfully fished up there before, and now we have “pine apples”, American hand grenades and we can fish again.

The wall of slate rises about 5 to 7 meters above the water level and we take a position at the lowest point. Hermann brought only one of the famed pine apples. For the first time I see an American hand grenade. It is impressive in its neatness. About the size of a good sized potato, it fits comfortably into your hand, and can be hurled much like a rock. Hermann hands it to me. It’s surprisingly heavy. On one side of the ribbed exterior an L-shaped clasp is held by a ring through a cotter pin. I hold the grenade in my left hand and I pull the ring. Now I can lift the clasp. A black button which was held down by the clasp springs up and I seem to hear a hissing sound. I am so petrified; I drop the grenade in front of us. At the same moment Hermann kicks it with his shoe.

As if in slow motion the grenade spins side ways, rolls toward the wall and disappears over the lip.  Hermann and I hit the ground and cover our heads.

 The grenade is now in free fall, out of our sight. It does not hit the water. It blows half way down. I remember thinking that it’s not as loud as the German potato masher.

Still lying on the ground, we look at each other and we become instantly aware that we were mighty close to a belly full of shrapnel and likely death. I begin to shake all over my body. I cannot talk.

Hermann sits up and reaches over to help me into a sitting position. I can feel that he too is shaking.

We sit for a while, just looking at each other.

Then Hermann begins to laugh. I chime in and like two idiots we sit there and laugh. Finally I say: “That was no nine seconds.” I refer to the delay of the German hand grenade. Hermann is still laughing.. Finally we get up and walk home. We don’t talk too much on the way.

Days later, in a casual conversation with one of our American friends, we find out that pineapples have a three and a half second delay. You hold it in your throwing hand with the ring protruding through your fingers. You pull the ring and still holding the clasp in place you throw the damned thing.

The clasp falls off as the grenade leaves your hand, and three seconds later it explodes.

Now you tell me.

                        *******************

The End is the Beginning -Part 5-

Pineapples at the end of June  

                                                                                  

What we actually go for are K- rations: Those wonderful packages of wonderful food, which the Americans treat with such nonchalance. What we most often harvest, however, are cartons of cigarettes: Lucky Strike, Old Gold, Chesterfields, and Pall Mall. Ten packages of twenty cigs each, in a carton, called a “Stange” or Pole. Our trips to the farmers of the Innviertel really get successful. It’s incredible how much food you can get for a “Stange” of 200 cigarettes. We hit the farms in accordance with the farmer’s preference. Today we have Lucky Strikes. We know from whom we can get the most food in return.  We develop a veritable Black Market in Cigarettes, Eatables and Silverware. It is comical: Less than a year ago or so, we brought them our Silverware for their food. Today we bring them cigarettes for, in some cases, the same silverware and food. There is a seemingly never ending demand for cigarettes.

It is a dark and stormy night; No, I’m just kidding. It is just dark.

Hermann, his friend from high school Helmut and I meet at the Fountain just in front of our house: Stadtplatz 22.

We are dressed in black track suits and black slip-on, thin soled running shoes. There is still a strict curfew in place.

Kurt lives with his mother in one room at the Gasthaus Gans and cannot get away.

It is about 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning. The main square is jammed, as always, with military vehicles. Jeeps, trucks, and still the occasional light armoured car, parked side by side with just enough space to open doors to get in or out.

We have learnt where the Americans usually keep their cigarettes. We split up, so as not to present too large a target. Silently I move from truck to jeep to truck. The most dangerous moment comes when you open the door. It makes a clicking sound. I can feel my rapid heartbeat in my neck and I have to wipe my sweaty  hands along my pants. I prefer the open jeep, where I can just reach in, grab a carton, sometimes from the open shelf underneath the dashboard, sometimes just lying on the seat, and move on. (By now we ignore K rations,)    There is a holstered pistol. I ignore it, grab this night’s fourth carton of cigarettes and slip down the Fischergasse and in a roundabout way, home.

The front door is locked. In my track suit’s breast pocket I carry the key. Up the two flights of stairs and back to bed. Cigarettes are stored underneath my bed, where the hand grenades used to be. The whole excursion took less than an hour, and I am very pleased with myself.

The Nussgarten, or, as we call the place when we speak to our many American friends, the Nutgarden, used to be a Beer garden, much beloved by a certain group of Buergers during the summer time.  Two walnut trees give plenty of shade to seven or eight wooden tables with six chairs each, Situated right atop the city walls, it affords a lovely view over the confluence of the Inn and the Enknach rivers and the wooded area running along  up-river for miles and miles.

On one side a small kitchen in which Goulash, Sausages and Sauerkraut and Sandwiches are prepared.
The beer barrels are lowered from the building on street level above via an interesting contraption of pulleys ending in four clamps which grab the barrel and allow it to be lowered through a hole in the ceiling, right into the kitchen.

just to the right of this building was the "Nutgarden"

As always after such a raid, (we call it a “buying trip”) we meet at about 9 o’clock in the morning in the Nussgarten to compare success and plan the next trip to the farms.

Helmut “bought” five cartons, I just four. Hermann, sitting on the wall, his legs dangling over the side (for a bleeder he takes real chances) has a broad grin on his face. “I got none. Not a single cigarette.” He sounds almost proud. “I got something much better.”  We don’t ask. We just look at him. We know he’ll tell us. He leans forward and although at this time in the morning we are alone in the Nussgarten, he whispers: “I got six pineapples.”

We are totally stunned.

“What in hell are we going to do with pineapples?” I ask Hermann.

Helmut just looks uncomprehendingly.

I don’t much like it when Hermann, just because he is nearly 4 years older than  I am, adopts a superior attitude.

Although I must admit that at almost 17 he knows a good deal more than I do. And in any event, he is my best friend. He is my “blood brother”. But that’s another story.

I repeat my question: “What in hell will we do with pineapples? I have never eaten any. I don’t even know if I’d like them.”

Hermann smiles: “These are not for eating” he says. “Pineapples" is what the Americans call them, because they look like small pineapples”. He pauses:

“These pineapples are hand grenades.”

                        ******************

The End is the Beginning -Part 4-

Some day in the middle of May.                                                                              

“Of course, it’ll work” Hermann says. ”The under water concussion bursts their bladder and they float to the top. Easy pickings”. I am still not convinced, but I yield to my older and more experienced friend. We take only two hand grenades, a short cut of fuse and two ignition caps. We forget the crimping pliers.

When we get to the steeply rising “Slate walls” bordering a still side arm of the river Inn, we find a spot from which we can hurl the grenade and have relatively easy access down to the water where we expect to retrieve a harvest of carp and other fish.

The Walls of Slate

We cut the fuse in half and jam it with two thin twigs into the ignition cap. This cap, in turn, gets inserted into the ‘pot’ and also securely wedged with slightly thicker twigs. To properly ignite the fuse, you must hold the match against the end of the fuse and quickly rip the striker over the match, so that the fuse is exposed to the hottest moment of the igniting match. The expulsion of a thin streak of blue smoke shows us that the fuse has caught. Nervously Hermann hurls this makeshift hand grenade down the slate wall into the water. We wait. Nothing happens.

We wait some more in vain.

“Maybe the fuse slipped from the cap” I volunteer. “Yeah, or maybe the cap slipped from the pot.” Hermann is clearly nervous and upset. “We simply must do this more carefully” he says.

“We were sloppy and sloppy people get hurt.” We take great care in the preparation of the second grenade. We test how well the fuse is lodged in the ignition cap and how securely the ignition cap is in the ‘pot’. We light the fuse. Hermann throws it in a wide arc into the water below. A second after it hits the surface a water column rises. We hear a muffled thud. We rush like madmen down to the water.

Just as we get there the first fish float to the top, belly-up. We ignore the small fry and harvest four good sized carp. Hermann doesn’t want any, so I take all four home with me.

What a feast we have that evening. Even the Americans enjoy my mother’s carp. They ask where this wonderful tasting fish comes from.

 My mother smiles enigmatically:

“Mein Sohn ist ein guter Fischermann”.

In truth, she has no idea how we got this fish. If she knew, she’d have a heart attack.

The German hand grenade, called "the Potato Masher"

From that day on we ever only take one ‘pot’. We never forget the crimping pliers. We wrap the ignition cap in old handkerchiefs or other rags and tie it in place with string. Most important of all: We take a sturdy willow branch with a string tied to its end and a shoemaker’s sewing needle, bent in the heat of a candle into a hook. Equipped this way nobody could ask: How did you catch this beautiful carp?

We become the most successful fishermen in Braunau, but, inevitably, we run out of hand grenades.

                                                            ***********************

The End is the Beginning - part 3 -

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 beets 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 cobblestone ground. We replace the shelf and reposition 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, and 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 lose 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:

Main entrance to my home at Stadtplatz 22

“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.

                

                                    

The End is the Beginning - part 2

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.

Well, here is Part 2 of my story! 

Who knows, if I feel like it, I may post the rest of this booklet.

The pictures were not taken by me, but copied out of a book about this time. 

Maybe I am breaking some Royalty Laws.

The End is the Beginning - Part 1

Many years ago I wrote a little booklet about the happenings

 of  a period which started on 30 April 1945.

I have decided to put this story on my Blog in several segments.

Maybe somebody will enjoy reading it .

But for the younger generation the turbulence of this time will

forever remain incomprehensible.

I shall not change a word from my original writing, 

although here and there I am tempted to do so.

Everything in this story is true, but the Dialogues are  not recaptured verbatim.

Braunau am Inn, as seen from the woods along the Inn's tributary, the Enknach.

THE END IS THE BEGINNING                                                                                        

At that time, Kurt was a good friend of mine.

He and his mother were refugees from the Banat region. We both were 13 years of age and tried to fit into the time of 1945. Even at such a young age we vaguely suspected that the war reports we heard over the radio and which spoke of “strategic withdrawals”  and a “shortening of the defensive front lines”, did not reflect the reality of the war.

It was the 30^th of April and as often before, Kurt and I crossed the bridge over the river Inn, which was the border between Austria (then named: Ostmark ) and Bavaria. Quickly we walked through the town of Simbach and turned down-river. We carried empty back bags which we hoped to fill up with eatables obtained in a variety of ways from small farms located there. On a foot path running parallel to the high way we marched along happily  fully expecting to repeat earlier successes, and waved to the uninterrupted chain of military vehicles coming toward us and heading up-river. There were trucks, tanks, armoured all terrain vehicles, red-cross vans and trucks again. The unusual  colour of the soldiers uniforms we ascribed to our Africa Chor.

That “enemy troops” could have reached our home land was totally unthinkable until a distinctive German military Volkswagen, coming from a narrow side road, was fired upon by a machine gun fixed ontop one of the armoured cars. We turned and in shock we saw the white star emblazoned on the rear of all the vehicles.

Like two rabbits chased by a pack of dogs we raced cross-country in a desperate effort to put as much distance between us and this now threatening column of vehicles.

We ran and did not stop running until we reached the old abandoned brick factory half way up the hill range, called the  “Marienhoehe” ( Mary’s hights) . About 30 to 40 German soldiers had gathered up there too, discarding rifles, hand guns, gas masks and any insignia identifying them as officers. A Lieutenant attempted to bring some order into the reigning chaos, but he had no success. Kurt and I climbed onto a wooden veranda which jutted out in front of the main building and which afforded a beautiful, unobstructed view across the river Inn and onto my home town, Braunau.

Our first attempt to return home failed. There were just too many American military vehicles and soldiers and the access to the bridge was barricaded. Throughout the day we roamed around Simbach.

There were very few locals on the streets and for a while we just sat on a curb and in fascination watched American tanks, armoured cars, trucks and, most of all American soldiers, several of whom urged us to “go home”

The night from 30^th April to 1^st May we spent in a hey loft of a small farm, which we picked because of its strategic location,  just about squarely in between the hills behind and the river in front of us. We reasoned that during an artillery battle, the safest place would be in between the cannons.

It was a sleepless night. American artillery salvos whistled overhead. We heard the canon’s shot, the whistling overhead, then silence and then the impact explosion from afar.

It seemed to go like that all night long. The shot, the whistling, the silence and then the explosion.

Shot; whistling; silence; explosion. During this night we were convinced that our home town Braunau was being totally destroyed and would disappear from the face of the earth, and that our mothers and my sisters could not possible survive. That night  I made plans how I would contact my brother, who was in America as a Prisoner of War, and how the two of us, the sole survivors of our family, would stay together. It was a cold, sleepless, desperate night.

It is the 1^st day of May 1945.
As dawn breaks we climb out of the hey and cautiously we leave the barn. Rounding the building we can hardly believe our eyes. In the distance, just as yesterday, the church steeple of  my home town, next to which my family has lived for many years, reaches skyward, undamaged.

The ground surrounding us is covered by a light blanket of snow. And that on the 1^st of May!  

We are hungry.

The farmer, who has likely not slept any more than we did, gives us a cup of hot milk and a slice of bread.

Right after this welcome breakfast we go into Simbach to make another try to cross the bridge.

We feel confident. Along the Innstrasse there are untold military vehicles. tanks, trucks, armoured cars. An  American soldier leans down from his tank. He hands us a pack of chewing gum. He smiles as he tells us to “go home”…”go home”. He doesn’t know that our “home” is on the other side of the bridge. Aimlessly we wander around Simbach. It doesn’t seem possible to get anywhere near the bridge.

Suddenly I see Frau Dr. Prasser, our English teacher for the past 2 ½ years. Many of her belongings are piled on a pull-cart and she clearly is having a difficult time of it. We help her pull the cart along Innstrasse, where she lives.

She tells us that she  wants to get out of the way when the shooting starts. Then she thanks us in English: “Thank you very much” she says and she smiles.

Kurt and I return to the brick factory. (I no longer remember why we felt safest there). We climb onto the wooden veranda which affords an almost unobstructed view across the flat land and the river onto my home town Braunau.

It is noon as we gaze across the river. 
Suddenly there is a black cloud arising from the river. Its edges slowly turn pink, then all of it turns crimson. Only then do we hear a loud explosion and seconds later we feel warm air stroking our cheeks. It is with a sense of devastation that we finally realise that the bridge no longer spans the river.

    The automobile and pedestrian bridge.        

After considerable deliberation we decide to cross over the railroad bridge, which is a relatively short distance down river. We make our way down to the river and, following a narrow hiking path , arrive, a short time later, at the pump house, which pumps water from the river through four large cast iron  pipes.

The explosion is absolutely horrific.

                                   

I am not certain: do we fling ourselves underneath the pipes, or  is it the explosion which throws us there. I know that we lie there, protected from the rain of iron and concrete blocks. The noise is indescribable. Suddenly it is silent and I can hear Kurt breathing.

                                                                                   

The rail road bridge too is gone.

The railroad bridge, which connected Braunau - Austria and Simbach,  Bavaria.

Our return to Braunau has become more and more difficult by the hour. Our determination to reach our shore, however,  increases in equal measure.

Both bridges are gone. We can’t fly and this time of the year, on the first day of May,  the river is still too cold to swim across. There is only one way out. I remember, that a short distance up-river from the pedestrian and vehicular bridge a side-arm of the river starts. We call it the “Sand-Box” and at its mouth a house boat is anchored,  to which 4 or 5 row boats are always tied securely. 

To avoid suspicion, we don’t run, but walk slowly up-river, we pass the ruins of the vehicular bridge, where several American soldiers scan the opposite shore through heavy binoculars. They look at us with some suspicion and again we hear: “Go home! Go home!”

There is nothing I would rather do than to “Go home”. Finally we reach the Sand Box.

Two 13 year old boys, somewhat dirty and torn, playing in the row boats, attract little attention. It is easy therefore to “borrow” two oars and a paddle for direction from the unlocked house boat. We “play” in one of the row boats until its rusty chain breaks lose from its connection.

A man, dressed in military pants, white shirt, but no jacket watches us and asks what we are planning.

He seems cold and  non threatening, so we tell him, that we intend to pull the row boat up-river, far enough so that we can cross the river before getting swept into the remains of the bridge, reaching up from the fast flowing water. He too wants to get to Braunau and convinces us that his participation will enhance our chances for success. So we load him and his bicycle and jump into the row boat. Quickly we cross the Sand Box  and then, with the chain and a rope we pull the boat up-river. It is only then that we notice that our helper’s right arm is in a plaster cast. His help is minimal.  We pull the boat another 100 meters up-river to compensate for the additional load. Kurt suggests that a white flag,  fastened to the bow of our boat, will indicate our peaceful intention. He has a white handkerchief, hardly used, and ties it to a willow branch, which in turn he fastens to the bow.

Kurt and I sit side by side and we row as hard as we can. Our “plaster cast” squeezes the paddle under his left arm and keeps the boat  at a good angle. Kurt and I row as if our lives depended on it.

The river seems as wide as an Ocean. We row and row and now and then we glance over our shoulders to see how close we are to Braunau’s shore.

Finally we make it. We row around the little sandbar into the mouth of the river Enknach, a tributary of the river Inn. There we beach the boat, help our Plaster Cast/Pilot in unloading his bicycle and so, at about 5pm on the first day of May 1945, we climb the steps leading up to our town’s main square. There is a placard-box dangling on the side wall of the first building we come to. I remember it precisely: It spoke of the death of the American President Roosevelt and it said:

(Den Ärgsten Kriegsverbrecher hat der Teufel geholt!

Nun erst recht! Auf in den Kampf für Frieden, Freiheit und Brot.)

“The worst war criminal has gone to hell !

Let us redouble our efforts in our fight for freedom, liberty and bread.”

On the other side of the main square I see a man who suffers from a serious limp. He carries an automatic machine pistol slung over his right shoulder. I know him to see him, and cannot believe how this man obtains such a weapon. This man, Kurt and I  are the only people in the main square. We head upwards and reach number 22, “my” house.

 Stadtplatz 22   . 

                                      

Quickly we bid each other a “see ya” and I race upstairs, two flights. Our apartment is locked. There is no-one there.

Our neighbour’s daughter, Fritzi, comes rushing along the corridor.

“Where have you been?” she calls out loudly. “Your mother and your sisters are in the basement, worried sick about you.”

I fly downstairs and arrive in the basement with its arched ceiling. Most of our neighbours are there. So is my family.  I can see only my mother and my two sisters. I rush to them, we hug silently and for the first time I cry.

********************

Well, this is the firs part of this story.

If I ever feel like it I will post parts 2,3,4 and 5.

Honestly felt Sympathy

There is a sweet bakery ( Konditorei ) just across the street from us. They make the world's finest coffee und simply scrumptioudelicious sweets.
They also sell Rosaries and Candles. Beautifully decorated candles, I tell you.
I check them out every time I pass their window. 
The other day I spotted one, which, in gold letters, bore the inscription: "Ehrliches Beileid" which translated into English means: "Honestly felt Sympathy"
Now I ask myself: If there is an "Honestly felt Sympathy" is there also a "Dishonest Sympathy"?
And if there is, would anybody admit that's the way they felt?


Bertstravels 
thinks about all kinds of silly things.