My German Lover - Part 25 chapter 1

"Yeah...", Lutz said to his friends... "My brother Hans has been baddly wounded at Stalingrad... He's suppose to be air-lifted from there, and sent to a military hospital in Germany..."

"Where?", Franz asked...

"We don't know yet... I guess we'll have to wait and see. At least, he's still alive...", Lutz answered.

"I've heard it's an inferno at Stalingrad...", Will commented.

"...It's hell on earth...", Lutz replied to his best friend.

At the end of January 1943, Lutz got news that indeed, his brother had been air-lifted from Stalingrad and had been transfered to a military hospital at Oberwesel...

"How is he?", Franz asked his lover Lutz...

"He's being treated for sharpnel wounds to his legs... He was badly hurt, and he can't walk. But in his letter, he said that later, with therapy, he should be able to walk again..."

"...I guess the war is over for him...", Franz said.

"Yes: It is!"

A week later as they were having supper at Paul's mansion, Lutz said to his friends:

"I'll be on leave for a week starting March 2nd... and I'm going to travel to Oberwesel to see Hans..."

"Where the hell is that?", Paul asked.

Lutz grinned and answered:

"In Germany of course... It's a small village on the Rhine River, south of Koblenz..."

"I can't go with him...", Franz said... "My request for a week vacation has been refused by the Embassy..."

"Hey...", Will said... "I'll be on leave too... Maybe we could go with you..."

"Why not...", Paul added...

"Cool", Ludwig said, with a smile on his face.

Will looked at his young brother and said to him:

"No Ludwig... You can't come. You would have to miss school, and that's out of the question. Sorry dude!"

"Oh come on bro!", a very disappointed Ludwig said...

"Maybe next time...", Will replied... "But not this time..."

On March 2nd, 1943, Will, Paul and Lutz boarded a train to Köln (Cologne...). Once there, they had to take another train to Wiesbaden... but there was a six hours waiting period between the two trains...

"Hey... Instead of sitting here, waiting... Why don't we go for a walk... have a beer... see the Cathedral... They say it's one of the most beatiful in the world...", Will suggested...

"Yeah, let's go guys...", Lutz answered, smiling...

The three friends walked out of the train station and then... they were shocked!

They looked around them, and all they saw was total destruction.

As they walked through the great City, they saw for themselves what the british bombs had done to Köln in May of 1942. In short, there was nothing left there, standing...

Ruins... Nothing but ruins!

The center of the City had been completely wiped out.

Everything around them had ben destroyed... except... the beatiful Cathedral!

As they were walking towards the Cathedral, they saw it had been damaged... but not badly.

"...It's like if the Allied pilots had tried to avoid damaging it...", Lutz commented.

"Well, if so... it only shows the RAF is more human than the Luftwaffe... cause following to the letter Göring's orders, the Luftwaffe totally destroyed Coventry... including the beatiful Cathedral the British had over there...", Will stated.

"Göring? You mean the big "swine"?", Paul asked, grinning...

(Of course, what they were suspecting was true: Strict orders had been given to the Allied pilots not to bomb the Cathedral... and although Cologne endured exactly 262 air raids during the war... at the end of it in May of 1945, the Cathedral was still there, standing... and almost unscratched! Kudos to the Allied pilots!)

After their visit to the Cathedral, Lutz said to his friends:

"Let's go back to the station... I've seen quite enough..."

"Hey... What about our beer?", Will asked, grinning...

"Look around pal: Where do you think we could go to have a beer, huh? There's nothing left around here..."

They had to agree... and so they made their way back to the station, amidst the debris of what was once a beatiful City...

At the station, the mood was sombre... and they remained silent. No one wanted to talk about what they had seen... And anyway, there was nothing to say about it...

And they were quite relieved to leave Köln when their train got ready to leave, and when they left the station, Paul said:

"I'm breathing easier now..."

"Yeah!", Will answered, with a sad look on his face... "Let's get the hell out of here..."

Their train made a stop at Bonn, then at Koblenz... and finally they arrived at Oberwesel, and went to the military hospital where Hans was admitted.

Lutz was very happy to see his brother Hans was doing well, and Hans was happy to see them. Of course, Hans knew Will well from childhood, since they had grown on the same street, back in Berlin. And he also knew Paul: They had met in Berlin back in 1941, just before the start of Hitler's camgaing against russia...

"...The therapy is going well", Hans explained... "And in a few months, I should be able to walk again. I guess I'm lucky, compare to my comrades I left behind at Stalingrad. The Sixth Army doesn't exist anymore..."

"What?", Will exclaimed, stupefied... "But... that's not possible... I mean... The Sixth Army was so strong..."

"Yeah! Exceptionally strong... with 850 000 soldiers...", Hans answered, with a disabused look on his face.

"But... What happened? All we heard was that the Wehrmacht had experienced a setback at Stalingrad but...", Lutz started to say before being suddenly interrupted by his brother Hans who said:

"A setback? Are you kidding? It's a defeat unmatched in scale to what we have ever seen in history!"

"(...)"

"But how could that be, Hans?", Paul asked...

"You ask me how that happened?", Hans answered, looking around to make sure nobody else but his friends was listening... "I'm gonna tell you how it happened!", he said, furious... 

And after a pause, he began explaining:

"You see last November, the Russians have launched an offensive and have sealed a ring around Stalingrad, where we were. This is how the entire Sixth Army found itself trapped... inside the resulting pocket... -we were calling it "Der Kessel"- (the cauldron...) 850 000 of our soldiers were caught in Der Kessel... Of course, at that point, it would have been possible for us to break through their lines, but in order to do so, we would have had to evacuate Stalingrad... And Hitler refused!"

"Huh?", Will said...

"Yeah!", Hans answered... "And do you know why? (...) Because the big swine -Göring- told the Führer the Luftwaffe could supply the Sixth Army with an air bridge! An air bridge! Can you believe that, huh? To feed 850 000 men... and supply such a big army with fuel and ammunition... How ludicrous! But Hitler believed him, and re-iterated his orders of "no retreat"... and "no surrender". So we stayed at Stalingrad..."

"And?", Lutz ventured to ask his brother...

"And what do you think happened bro?", Hans replied, looking at Lutz... "The air bridge was a total failure... and it didn't take long before we began starving! Before long, we were out of fuel... and our guys began dying like flies... of malnutrition, frostbite and diseases. It's a miracle I was air-lifted from that hell before Von Paulus capitulated to the Russians."

"I can't believe what you're telling us...", Paul said...

"Yeah, well... it's all too true. And while the big swine was spending some good time on his estate of KarinHall, drinking French Champagne, eating Russian caviare and admiring all the paintings he has stolen from the occupied territories... the Russians were slaughtering us by the thousands..."

"Where are those guys now?", Will asked...

"We don't know... All we know is that they were taken and sent by the Russians to labour camps...", Hans answered, with tears in his eyes... "I've heard that when Von Paulus surrendered, less than 100 000 of or guys were sill alive..."

Of course at the time, Hans and his friends had now way of knowing that not until 1955 would the Russians allow the handful of survivors -6 000- to go back to Germany... 6 000 survivors, out of an army of 850 000 soldiers.

"My God! (...) I don't know what to think...", Will commented...

"You don't know?", Hans said, looking at Will straight in the eyes... "I'm gonna tell you: It's obvious to me Stalingrad was a turning point... It's the beginning of the end for the Reich, I'm telling you guys. The war is lost..."

"Oh come on Hans...", Lutz said... "I understand it was bad over there... but I mean... We'll..."

Hans turned to look at his brother and said to him:

"....Poor Lutz... You don't know what you're talking about... I'm telling you: At Stalingrad, we have lost the war. We'll never recover from that defeat..."