Stuka Pilot

Upstairs to the first floor! I climb on to the window sill with an umbrella, open it up, take a quick look down, and before I have time to be afraid I jump. I land on a soft flower-bed and am surprised to find that I have twisted every muscle and actually broken a leg. In the tricky way in which umbrellas are apt to behave, the thing has turned inside out and hardly braked my fall. But nevertheless I abide by my resolve: I will be an airman.

After a brief flirtation with modem languages at the local school I take up classics, and learn Greek and Latin. At Sagen, Niesky, Görlitz and Lauban—my father is moved to these different parishes in the lovely province of Silesia—my schooling is completed. My holidays are devoted almost exclusively to sport, including motor-cycling; athletics in summer, and skiing in winter lay the foundations of a robust constitution for later life. I enjoy everything; so I do not specialize in any particular field. Our little village does not offer very much scope—my knowledge of sporting tackle is derived solely from magazines—so I practice pole-jumping by using a long tree-prop to vault over my mother’s clothesline. Thus later with a proper bamboo pole I can clear a respectable height… As a ten year old I go off into the Eulengebirge, twenty three miles away, with the six foot long skis given to me as a Christmas present, and teach myself skiing… I stand a couple of planks resting on a sawing-horse of my father’s, this gives me an upward slope. I give the contraption the once—over to make sure it is firmly fixed. No flunking now—I open the throttle of my motorbike and sail up the boards… and over. I land on the other side, swerve wildly and back again for another run at the planks and the trusty sawing-horse! It never enters my head that in addition to all this I ought to be a good scholar, much to my parents’ distress: I play almost every conceivable prank on my teachers. But the question of my future becomes a more serious problem as matriculation looms nearer. One of my sisters is studying medicine, and consequently the possibility of finding the large sum of money needed to have me trained as a civil air-pilot does not even come under consideration—a pity. So I decide to become a sports instructor.

Quite unexpectedly the Luftwaffe is created, and with it a demand for applicants for a reserve of officers.

Black sheep that I am, I see little hope of passing the difficult entrance examination. Several fellows I know, rather older than myself, who have previously tried to get in have been unlucky. Apparently only sixty out of six hundred candidates will be selected, and I cannot imagine any likelihood of my being among this ten per cent. Fate, however, disposes otherwise; and in August 1936 I have in my pocket the notification of my admission to the Military School at Wildpark-Werder for next December. Two months Labour Service work on the regulation of the Neisse at Muskau follow matriculation in the autumn. In the first term at Wildpark-Werder we recruits are put through the mill. Our infantry training is completed in six months.

Aircraft we see only from the ground, with an especial longing when we happen to be flat on our faces. The rule of no smoking and no drinking, the virtual restriction of all leisure time to physical exercise and games, the pretence of indifference to the distractions of the near-by capital, are tiresome. I take a rather dim view of my milk-drinking existence, and that is putting it mildly. I earn no black marks in my military and athletic training and so my supervisional officer, Lt. Feldmann, is not dissatisfied. In some respects, however, I am not altogether successful in living down the reputation of being a “queer fish.”