ONKEL DIETER UND TANTE GRETEL (Part 2)
An experience of the horrors of war tends to lead people to clam up and keep their stories to themselves. Our lawyer friend, however, had a keen interest in history and the human condition that was framed by lives lived in trying times. All of us are products of our past, hence extracting details of exposure to the difficulties of life and the coping mechanisms employed by survivors, captured his interest. He was able to elicit from his good neighbours and friends some of the most harrowing details of their past that they had long held close to their chests – seldom sharing the stories even with each other. Somehow, he was adept at opening their old wounds in a manner that proved cathartic to them and they gradually came to share with him events that had been secreted away in the deep recesses of their memory.
“Mutti and I arrived in Dresden in the second week of February 1945,” said Onkel Dieter one evening after dinner. Beer in hand, the South African brew that was a trifle stronger than the German varieties, served to lubricate his tongue and encourage him to talk about his Dresden experience. It was the first time he mentioned this to anyone in all the years since.
“We had walked miles at a time. Sometimes Mutti and I managed to hitch a ride on a horse drawn trailer that happened to be advancing in the same direction. For the most part, though, it was a slog along what was left of the roads and pathways across the countryside. Winter had not abated yet, so biting cold was a constant companion. To make a bad situation worse, there were long stretches of mud and sludge that the rainy weather had conspired to make our lives even more miserable.”
The German forces were retreating on all fronts as the Allies advanced. It was not uncommon for Dieter and his mother to encounter bedraggled soldiers from the Eastern front making their way past in the hope of surrendering to the Americans and British rather than the Soviet forces. “Ivan,” as the Russians were condescendingly referred to, had a reputation for brutality and an unhinged quest for revenge. The cruelty visited upon their countrymen when the German army had invaded during Operation Barbarossa (particularly by the SS and Einzatsgruppen), was fresh in their memory. Ivan’s desire to exact revenge was primarily directed against German soldiers, but he also had no qualms about meting out cruelty to ordinary civilians, both young and old.
“Upon arrival in Dresden, our shoes had been reduced to mere strips of tattered leather and our clothes were threadbare, to say the least. Mutti found some shelter for us in the ruins of the station – underground caverns provided a little protection from the elements. Access to food was a greater concern – there was not nearly enough to feed the hungry mouths. We teetered on the edge of starvation.”
“And then came the worst firestorm we had ever witnessed. Incendiary bombs rained down incessantly as wave after wave of British and American planes pelted Dresden with all the fire and fury they could muster.”
Dresden had been an industrial and transportation hub in the district of Saxony. By mid February it was a moot point whether that seeming strategic significance held any practical advantage for German forces at the end of their tether. The Russian forces had by 8th February already crossed the Oder River and were unstoppable as they ploughed across East Germany, sowing destruction in their wake. From the West the British and Americans were forging ahead in their drive to reach Berlin before the Soviets could claim that military and political prize. In the distant war rooms in London, Bomber Harris (Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Harris) was doing his damndest to persuade the British and US decision makers of the dubious military gains that indiscriminate fire bombing would have on the final drive towards victory. His argument prevailed and between the USA and Britain, heavy bombers flung thousands of tons of high explosive bombs and incendiary devices at the cultural and architectural centre that was Dresden. From the 13th to 15th February 1945, this culturally significant landmark in Europe was reduced to burning embers.
“I saw,” relates Dieter further with a grimace breaking through his otherwise stoic acceptance of the cruelty of war, “…. I saw mothers covering their young children with wet blankets to try and keep the firestorm from incinerating their little ones. Falling ruins set streets ablaze. Horribly burnt and injured apparitions wafted in a daze through the rubble all around. With my own eyes … I saw …. Seared in my memory was the ghastly image of a mother with a baby in her arms …. Attempting to reach a spot not yet set alight …. she …. she stumbled … and her baby left her arms … and became a tiny human projectile that followed a random trajectory into the midst of a blazing inferno. The youngster was instantly engulfed in flames and incinerated …” Beneath the tough exterior of his war battered German demeanour, the young attorney was sure he could see a tear brimming, but Dieter held his composure as he continued.
“Mutti was holding my hand with the tightest of grips. She -and I – stood still for just a moment as we took in the horror that had just unfolded before us. We only had a moment to absorb it, though, before the urgency of our own desperation took hold of us. Glancing around as we made our way along in a quest for shelter, we saw bodies dropping as the fire consumed the oxygen around them and instant suffocation extinguished their consciousness. Their bodies briefly lay where they fell, then were engulfed, and convulsed as they were reduced to cinders.”
Onkel Dieter, he was sure, would soon lose his composure, and the emotion of relating this great travesty perpetrated for little or no military advantage, would burst forth in a tearful finale to a heart wrenching story of man’s inhumanity to man. The veracity of this wartime experience was beyond doubt, as Dresden’s rise from the ashes over the decades that followed, like a modern Phoenix, bore testimony to the awful days of February 1945. Twenty years later charred remains and singed skeletons were still being unearthed while excavations paved the way for modern buildings in the city’s reconstruction.
It was with quiet emotion that the three: young attorney, Gretel and Dieter retired for the night. All three settled into bed for a night bereft of sound sleep. The nightmare of Dresden hauntingly flared up in their subconscious.
[Next week: Tante Gretel tells of her experience in Berlin in those final days of the War.]
©Paul M Haupt
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