Page 16 of Hell to Pay
I’ve tried to figure out how to feel about all this—about where we’re going and what we’ll be doing there—but the truth is, nobody hasmuch idea. Training or not, none of us has ever been in a war before. Some of the fellows say, over the endless card games—you can’t imagine how many card games a guy will play when there’s nothing else to do—that the war in Europe will be over by the time we finally get there, but I’m not so sure. Hitler seems too crazy to give up. I suppose we’ll find out.
I know Mom is still upset about me joining up instead of waiting to be drafted, because she keeps telling me so in her letters. I could joke and say that it’s because I didn’t want to end up in the Navy or the Coast Guard, seeing how seasick I get, but the real reason is that I couldn’tnotgo, not when so many other guys are over there doing their part. I don’t know exactly what’s happening in Germany and to the East—you hear the craziest rumors, but nobody seems to know for sure—but I’ve never thought much of the kind of Judaism that retreats into its books and leaves the work of life to others. I’m too much of an American for that, I guess. Don’t tell Rabbi Goldstein! This is our fight too, maybe ours most of all. It seems crazy that our boys are over there fighting again barely twenty years after the last world war, that so many people are dying again to stop Germany, but there you go—itisa world war, and I have to help end it if I can.
This troop train is about as crowded as it could possibly be, and we’re all pretty ripe after three days on it. I hope Camp Kilmer has some decent showers, but I expect they’ll be the same as before. A few seconds to get wet, a quick scrub, and a little longer to rinse off. Who knew that a bath was what I’d miss most? I’d better not tell anyone. They’d take the mickey out of me for sure. They already call me “Professor,” based on my one lousy year of college and, I guess, wearing glasses and reading the occasional book. That’s Corporal Professor to you, boys.
Lights out. Love to Mom, and to you. Tell her not to worry. I’ll bemanning the radio, not in the thick of things. Not sure how to feel about that, but it wasn’t my choice.
Joe
From my diary—how young I was then! And how wise and mature I fancied myself!
18 December 1944
Big news on the wireless tonight: The Wehrmacht has mounted a new offensive in the West, and the American forward position is overrun. We’re driving the Allies back in Belgium and Luxembourg, and soon, Dr. Goebbels says, they’ll all be surrounded, then captured, killed, or simply forced back to France. This, he says, will be the real turning point in the war, because the lowest Aryan soldier is worth ten of an American, given the mongrel races that make up the American forces, and the English are a sickly, effete lot. The V-2 rockets, too, are eroding morale in England, where they fall out of the clear blue sky and no defense is possible, unlike in Germany, with our antiaircraft crews so skillful now at bringing down the bombers and their crews. England, at least, will soon be devoid of both aircraft and men.
Father says, though, that the V-2 isn’t such a victory as many think. We’re sending rockets, he says, because we have no fuel for bombers, and anyway, bombing England is no more likely to bring the English to their knees than their bombing us has done. The British, he says, will fight on, because they’re convinced they’re fighting for their lives, while the Russians are fighting on their anger and the Germans, at this point, mostly because they have no choice. He doesn’t count the SS in that, though. They are the true believers, he says.
Mother says that both the Russians and the Germans know their officers will shoot any who turn back, so what’s the difference? Father answers with, “Yes, but there are so many more Russians that they can lose ten to every one of ours and keep going. Nothing but cannon fodder to Stalin, poor fellows.” As for the Americans, he says they’re tougher than Hitler has ever given them credit for, despite their lack of seriousness. Mother says he’s too cynical about the spirit of the German people, but he says, “Look around you. Bread that’s half sawdust, no milk and barely any meat, queues for potatoes that turn out to be mostly rotten, and people shivering in their homes for lack of fuel. We’re sheltered here, because of those supplies Kolbe’s brother is still smuggling in from the countryside on his wagons, but with our cities bombed to rubble and the war clearly able only to be prolonged, not won? Fighting men are not so patriotic as all that. Most of them know a lost cause when they’re in the midst of one.”
Mother says, “It does seem, though, that the bombers won’t come here, if they haven’t already. Do you think it’s true that Churchill’s aunt loves Dresden too much to bomb it? Or is it just that we’re unimportant?” And Father says, “Nonsense. Trust me, the decision will be wholly pragmatic. Churchill is not so sentimental.”
I hope Mother is right.
From Joe:
December 25, 1944
Dear Dad,
Some Christmas for these guys, huh? It wasn’t much of a Hanukkah either. Who knew that being seasick for over a week straight, angling every day for a spot topside where you can vomit in peace,and sleeping in a hammock stacked three-deep would be the easy part? Not to mention climbing down a cargo net in the dead of night once we arrived, rifles and helmets banging against the sides of the ship, imagining how cold that water will feel if you miss the target, only to fall into a landing craft way too small for the job and having another guy fall on top of you. Our billet outside of Marseilles, once we’d marched miles through a mighty cold night to get to it, wasn’t exactly the Ritz-Carlton either, unless you prefer your hotels cold, windy, and full of rocks. One fellow, Alan Menckel, whose family are some big noise in the department-store business, says the French coast is a garden spot in summer, full of beaches and boats and girls, or it was before the war. It’s not much to write home about in December, I’ll tell you that. Oh, and remember me griping about those camp showers? Try sea-water showers instead. This Army business toughens a guy up for sure.
Say, did you hear what General McAuliffe did a couple of days back? Bastogne encircled by the Krauts, and the Germans demanding his surrender. Tough situation. He sent them a message, all right. It was one word: “Nuts!” What a guy. Patton’s troops relieved him yesterday, and the Germans haven’t been able to break out. They don’t have the air power anymore and we do, and they’re mighty thin on supplies, too, especially fuel. They beat a pretty quick retreat once Patton’s men showed up.
There are advantages to being the radioman—I hear more than most. Of course, I’m not allowed to share it at the time. If the censors don’t like anything I tell you, you’ll know, because it’ll be blacked out.
I guess by the time you get this it will be OK for me to have told you that we moved into position on the western bank of the Rhine yesterday. There are Germans right across the water from us—our firstsight of them. The war seems mighty close—we can hear the shelling. I expect we’ll see some action at last, maybe even tomorrow. Plenty of tension in camp, but more joking than usual, too. It’s like a test you’ve been studying hard for, the kind that’s going to determine your future. You’re dreading it, and you also just want it to be over. We’ll see how the thing comes out.
Love to you and Mom,
Joe
My own Christmas wasmore comfortable.
25 December 1944
Not just Christmas, but my 16thbirthday. Frau Heffinger has been saving up the sugar rations, it seems, and our smuggled eggs, too, because she made anEierscheckein honor of the occasion. Not a very large one, but oh, how we enjoyed it. We each had the tiniest sliver, so there was enough for the servants to share as well. How good the custard tasted! I’ll never take food for granted again.
Mother says that she’s never in her life had to be so concerned about what the servants will eat. Honestly, I find her attitude a bit regressive, and wish she’d join the modern age. She’s fond of Lippert, of course, because Lippert came with her from Schleswig-Holstein upon her marriage, but otherwise? They may as well be chess pieces to her, I’m sure. Father is different, but then, Herr Kolbe, his valet, once saved his life in the first war, and Father has more modern ideas than Mother. I’ve vowed to model my life on Father’s, as much as a girl can. The most important thing, I believe, is to be clear-eyed and strong.
Mother gave me a pearl necklace for my birthday, one of the lesser jewels that wasn’t sent away for safekeeping. It’s certainly very pretty, but I can’t imagine where I shall wear it. Certainly not with my horrible BDM uniform, and that’s almost the only place I go now, to do our silly marching and singing, the running and jumping about, and then the “home evenings” where we’re meant to learn to cook and clean and care for babies so we can become good wives and mothers. “Like any petit bourgeois Hausfrau,” Mother sniffs. “When is my daughter going to need to cook and clean, I’d like to know?” One does have to laugh, she’s such a snob.
Oh! I did go someplace else this week, for a treat! Traudl Larsen and I went to the cinema on Friday, as we’ve been doing every few weeks this past year. One must have some fun, after all. It was a romanticpicture, though, and very silly and immature. I prefer a more serious and dignified man.
Father gave me a gold wristwatch for my birthday, Art Deco in style and very fine. I suspect it to be one of his, as it’s rather large. I shall treasure it. I knitted him a scarf, made of wool I unraveled from an old sweater. I’m afraid it was rather lumpy. Frau Lieberman, one of our BDM instructors, despairs over my knitting, not to mention my inferior athletic ability at everything but swimming—Father has told me I mustn’t reveal my condition, so Frau L. merely thinks I’m clumsy and timid when I fail to manage a somersault. I’m certainly not going to tell her, either, that Mother said, “Why would my daughter possibly need to knit?” At least I’m not scolded at home for my failures!
I gave Mother a watercolor I did of the palace and Hofkirche viewed from across the river, which I put into a frame that had held a photo of Max, the harlequin Great Dane we had when I was young. I’m afraid my painting isn’t any more skillful than my knitting, but it cost me a pang to take Max out of his frame, so perhaps the sacrifice counts for something. It’s difficult to give gifts when there’s nothing in the shops but the occasional potato. Even needles are in short supply, Frau Schultz, the housekeeper, tells me, and cloth is of course rationed strictly. At least that means my lack of sewing ability goes unchallenged!
Dr. Goebbels gave a Christmas address over the wireless. One does wonder why the Führer never speaks anymore; he is, my mother says, conspicuous by his absence. (I must remember not to say “the Führer” before Father, as he doesn’t like it. I haven’t told him that we’re required to do the Nazi salute and heil-Hitler our way around the place at school and BDM meetings, but I assume he knows. It’s hardly a secret.) G. reported that half a million men have been working nonstop on fortifying the Siegfried Line, so that it is nowan even more impregnable bastion of bunkers, tunnels, and tank traps from the Netherlands to Switzerland. The Allies will never breach the Rhine, he proclaims, although Father says, “And Goering swore that no aircraft would ever reach German skies.”
