Destined to Witness Read online

  Germany was stunned. A week later I watched the dramatic newsreel footage of the Hindenburg disaster and people trying to save themselves by jumping from the exploding wreck. I found it difficult to reconcile the stately airship that had so proudly flown over my house with the crumbling hull that was being consumed by fire.

  Although the Nazi press went along with the American official version of the suspected cause of the catastrophe—static electricity caused by atmospheric conditions likely set off the spark that triggered the explosion—most Germans, including me, believed foul play was involved. The story made the rounds that the United States, envious of Germany’s preeminence in airship construction and operation, barred German access to helium gas, thereby forcing Germans to make do with the more buoyant, but also more volatile, hydrogen. Thus set up by Americans, Germans reasoned, a well-aimed bullet may have set the Hindenburg aflame. After the war I heard that Germany was barred from using helium to prevent the Hindenburg, with its global range, from becoming a formidable weapon, capable of bombing U.S. cities in the event of war.

  While the eulogies for the fallen airship contained much talk about the construction of an even bigger and better Hindenburg, the catastrophe at Lakehurst put an end to Nazi ambitions to establish Germany as the leader in lighter-than-air technology and to dirigible passenger service in general. It also put forever to rest my childhood dream of one day traversing the skies in the Hindenburg.

  WAR CLOUDS ON THE HORIZON

  Headlines about the Hindenburg catastrophe were soon replaced by a series of pivotal events heralded by the Nazis. “Today,” Principal Wriede proudly told us, “the Führer has forever freed us from the humiliating shackles of the Treaty of Versailles.” He was referring to Hitler’s latest speech, in which he spelled out Germany’s need for Lebensraum (living space) and his determination to expand, peacefully, if possible, but by force, if necessary, in clear contravention of the treaty.

  Next, we were told that a villainous fellow by the name of Kurt von Schuschnigg, chancellor of neighboring Austria, was stirring up trouble for Nazi Party members in Austria whose only crime was their persistent demonstrations aimed at reuniting Austria with Germany. When, under pressure from Berlin, Schuschnigg resigned, the leader of the Austrian Nazi Party, Dr. Arthur Seyss-Inquart, took his place. His first act of office was to ask Hitler to send German troops, ostensibly to prevent bloodshed. On March 12, 1938, at dawn, German troops crossed into Austria where, according to the newsreels we watched, they were received by the Austrian people with open arms. That same day, Hitler, a born Austrian, arrived at his childhood home in Linz and announced the accomplishment of his mission “to restore my dear homeland to the German Reich.”

  We kids were thrilled to learn that Germany had overnight grown by nine million people, 32,375 square miles, and vast industrial, agricultural, and natural resources. To drive the point home, our teachers had us study the newly acquired territory with the help of huge display maps. We also were taught that since Anschluss (union) with the German Reich, Austria was henceforth to be known as die Ostmark (the eastern territory). By the time new maps that reflected the boundary changes were delivered to our school, another event made them obsolete before we had a chance to study them. On October 1, German troops invaded Czechoslovakia and claimed the ethnically German Sudetenland. The uncontested conquest added ten thousand square miles of new territory with a population of 3.5 million (including 700,000 Czechs) to the German Reich.

  Our teachers were ecstatic in praising the virtues of the Führer whose genius had added vast territories to the Vaterland “without firing a single shot.” It didn’t take much on the part of our teachers to convince us of the Führer’s omnipotence and to instill in us an unshakable belief in his leadership. The ubiquitous slogan, “Führer befiehl, wirfolgen (Führer, command, we follow),” was more than a slogan to us ten-year-olds. It was a promise that many of us intended to keep, even at the risk of our lives.

  WRIEDE’S REVENGE

  In the midst of these major historical events, our school was rocked by an unexpected announcement that affected us even more profoundly. Kätnerkampschule, we were told, had to be vacated forthwith to be converted into a special institution for children with learning disabilities, or what we kids cruelly called a Dofenschule (dunce school). This meant that classes would be completely broken up, and pupils and teachers would be reassigned to other schools in the district. “Those of you who don’t like to move,” Herr Schürmann had joked, “are welcome to stay.” He then read off the roster of our new assignments. I was assigned to a school at Schleidenstrasse 11, on the bank of the Osterbek Canal, more than twice the distance from my home than Kätnerkamp. Luckily, about twenty of my classmates, including some of my closest cronies, were assigned to the same school.

  At first I reacted to the news with mixed emotions. On the one hand, I was excited about the pending change and the prospect of being rid of Wriede and Dutke; on the other, I felt anxious about leaving the familiar environment and facing an entirely new world with different people and different problems. Eventually, however, my curiosity won out and I began to look forward with eager anticipation to whatever new challenges were in store for me. Finally, the anxiously awaited day arrived. On the morning of the last day, the entire school marched into the auditorium on the top floor. While we stirred impatiently in our seats, several teachers took turns giving flowery speeches that were packed with flattering pro-Hitler clichés but void of content. Then came the highlight of the event, a farewell address by Schulleiter Wriede. As usual, he took the opportunity to wear his beloved Nazi uniform. There were muffled giggles from us boys as the principal assumed a pose similar to that of Hitler in the life-size portrait of the dictator on the wall behind the speaker’s podium. His obvious attempt to give his voice a more guttural, Hitlerian quality promptly provoked further giggles.

  Visibly annoyed by his young detractors, Wriede told us that the time for fun and games would soon be over and that very soon we would no longer be boys but men who had to take our designated places in Germany’s economic and political life. Abruptly, his voice derailed and climbed out of control into the falsetto range. The resulting squeak was met with uproarious laughter from the pupils.

  From the start of the principal’s address, I had shifted uneasily in my seat. While the humor of the ridiculous, erect figure on the podium was not lost on me, I had learned the hard way to control my boyish urge to giggle along with my peers. On more than one occasion, Wriede had singled me out and made me pay for the collective sins of the class. Although this was my last school day at Kätnerkamp, I resolved to play it safe up to the very last minute I was under Wriede’s jurisdiction in order to give the mean-spirited principal no excuse to retaliate.

  He told his young audience that they were facing an enviable future, and that in a few years they would be old enough to volunteer for military service in the best military organization the world had ever known. The Deutsche Wehrmacht, he explained, offered unlimited opportunities for young men who had grown up the way the Führer wanted them to grow up. “Should you ever be called upon to fight for your Führer and your Vaterland, I know that I can depend on you to do your level best to make Kätnerkampschule proud of you,” he added.

  Then, after suggesting that in every barrel of apples, there are a few rotten ones, he continued, with a withering stare in my direction, that there would be some boys who, for one reason or another, would be found unworthy of the honor of wearing the uniform of a German soldier. For them, he said, he had only one piece of advice: to get out of Germany while they could, because the future Germany would be a Germany of soldiers, not of cowards and shirkers of duty. Thanks to the Führer, he concluded, Germany would never again become a haven for treasonous non-Aryan scum—Jews, Negroes, and other misfits. Hitler would not allow them to defile noble German blood and to cheat the German people of the rewards of their hard-won victories.

  At Wriede’s mention of the world “N
egroes,” I tried in vain to find cover behind the back of a shorter classmate. As if on command, all eyes shifted to me as everyone tried to get a better look at the boy whom the principal had just branded an enemy of the German people. My heart started pounding so hard that I feared it could be heard throughout the auditorium. My knees began to tremble and my body became drenched in sweat. I wished that the floor would open and swallow me to remove me from the humiliating stares of my peers. But the floor did not swallow me and I had to endure the stares. In my agony I recalled, as so often in the past, the old admonition that “German boys don’t cry,” no matter what. It helped me to suppress the tears of shame and humiliation that were welling up in my eyes. Through my tear-blurred vision, I could see Wriede sneer at me from the podium with a smug, malicious grin that signaled the principal’s satisfaction with having hit his favorite target where it hurt the most. As so often in the past, I had been made a convenient scapegoat for Wriede’s chagrin over having been ridiculed by the class.

  Building to a climax of his diatribe, Wriede continued to extoll the blessings of a military career, praising those among us who would be chosen by divine providence and found worthy of giving their lives for our beloved Führer and for the future of our beloved Vaterland. With those sentiments, he bid the school farewell.

  Less inspired by the principal’s speech than by euphoria over their temporary freedom from school authority, the kids let go with a wild teacher-defying howl, then stampeded down the steps and into the street. Unlike a few minutes earlier, nobody paid any attention to me. Who had time for other people’s problems at a time like this? School was out for a week and the future, thanks to Adolf Hitler, looked brighter than ever—or so they thought. Slowly, I followed the throng into the street.

  By the time my mother returned home from work, she found me lying on my bed, my eyes fixed at the ceiling in an empty stare.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked, sensing that something was wrong.

  “Nothing. I just have a headache,” I replied without convincing her.

  “How did school go?” my mother kept probing.

  “Okay, I guess. Nothing special. Just a few speeches and things.”

  Having seen that same empty stare on my face before, my mother knew exactly how I felt.

  “I bet it was that stupid Wriede again,” she guessed with uncanny accuracy. “You promised me not to let that ignorant man upset you anymore. Just think that today was the last day you had to put up with him, and you’ll feel better right away.”

  My mother was right. As long as I lived, Wriede would never have another chance to humiliate me and play his sadistic games with me. For all practical purposes, Wriede—the bane of my short existence—was dead. I felt as if a heavy weight had been lifted off me. All of a sudden life looked bright again, and the fact that school was out for at least a week made it even better.

  SCHLEIDENSTRASSE II

  Following the week’s hiatus, I, along with some twenty Kätnerkamp classmates, reported for reassignment to Schleidenstrasse 11. Unlike the shy kid who had arrived for the first school day at Kätnerkamp six years earlier, I now was a preadolescent with an attitude. Instead of the panic that had gripped me on my first school day at that time, I felt almost cocky and looked forward to whatever the future held in store for me. For one thing, I knew that scholastically I had nothing to worry about, and as far as the possibility of running into racist teachers was concerned, I was determined not to let them get the best of me. Having survived the likes of Wriede and Dutke, I felt I could cope with just about anything that crawled from under the rock of Nazi pedagogy.

  After being divided into two groups, we were assigned to two different classes. My group, which by a stroke of luck included my two closest buddies Karl Morell and Fiffi Peters, wound up in Class 7B. Our new teacher was Herr Henry Herbst, a young man with black hair, bushy eyebrows, a permanent five o’clock shadow, a jutting jaw, and keen, chiseled features. Because of a striking resemblance to the fictitious Sherlock Holmes-type hero of prewar Germany’s best-selling whodunit paperbacks, his pupils called him Tom Shark behind his back. The nickname was meant more as a compliment than as a putdown for, like the paperback sleuth, Herr Herbst had acquired the reputation of being an extremely fair, no-nonsense fellow who knew his stuff.

  After welcoming us Neulinge (newcomers), he ticked off a long list of particular no-nos that he said he would not tolerate in his class. “If anyone ever told you that learning should be fun,” he continued, “forget it! In my class, gentlemen, learning is work—hard work, as a matter of fact. Those of you Neulinge who think they can rest on their lazy hides are making a serious mistake.”

  When the bell signaled the end of the first class, Herr Herbst asked me to stay. I braced myself for some Wriede-type shenanigans. After the other boys left the classroom, Herr Herbst asked me to sit down.

  “I don’t intend to talk about this ever again,” he opened the discussion, “but I thought you should know that your skin color is of absolutely no importance to me. In my class, you will be treated like anybody else. I’ve seen your report cards and know that you are an excellent student. If you are willing to work hard and behave in my class, I see no reason why we shouldn’t get along. Do you?”

  Pleasantly surprised, I assured him that I didn’t see any reason either; he shook my hand and dismissed me. For the nearly two years he was my teacher, he kept his word. He never mentioned my race again or gave me the slightest indication that it mattered to him.

  Adjustment to my new classmates was similarly frictionless. As usual, my appearance generated a great deal of curiosity, especially during recess on the schoolyard, yet no one seemed inclined to provoke me. For a few weeks we Kätnerkamp boys kept mostly to ourselves. But soon we started making new friends and the lines between Neulinge and old-timers became more and more blurred until the only person who was still referring to us as Neulinge was Tom Shark. I soon figured out the basis for his hangup. For whatever reason, he was fiercely competitive with us Neulinge and tried hard to prove that his old pupils were more advanced than we. That turned out to be a rather frustrating task since we were usually as good as his old students and occasionally even better. Fortunately, Tom Shark was impeccably fair, so he never cheated when grading our papers in order to help the members of his old class come out on top. Yet nothing seemed to please him more than when, on a rare occasion, one of us Neulinge admitted that we hadn’t yet covered a certain subject that his old pupils had mastered.

  There was only one boy who showed resentment toward me. He was Arne Arnholdt, the school’s swimming ace. But his hostility was short-lived and before long we became good friends. When I asked him later why he had acted so hostile, he confessed that when I first arrived, word had gotten around that I could outswim Tarzan. Fearful that I would soon topple him from his first place swimming spot, he said he acted out his jealousy. All his negative feelings evaporated when he saw me swim for the first time and discovered that the rumor about my swimming prowess had been highly exaggerated and that I was nowhere near his league.

  Even though I breezed through most subjects with customary ease, there were two subjects that gave me a run for my money—English and math. In math, I at least managed—by hook or by crook—to get a passing grade, mainly by convincing Tom Shark that I really tried. In English, on the other hand, I was completely over my head. Since I had joined the class of Frau Dr. Fink, the only teacher in the entire grade school with a doctorate, my progress in English had ground to a complete halt. While my previous English teacher, Herr Neumann (who had replaced bulldog Harden), had made the language come alive by having us converse and write themes in English, Frau Dr. Fink had us conjugating verbs until we were ready to collapse. The more boring her classes became, the less interested I became, until I reached the point where I no longer cared whether I ever spoke another English word. My frustration was shared by Frau Dr. Fink, who gave vent to it at the end of the school year when, instead of giv
ing me a grade, she wrote on my report card, “Hans-Jürgen has absolutely no talent for learning English.” During nearly four decades of laboring as an English-language journalist and trying to put together sentences that make sense, I have occasionally been haunted by the notion that, perhaps, the old gal had a point.

  Shortly after enrolling at Schleidenstrasse, I made an important discovery, or rather rediscovery—girls. From the time I started school, girls had been practically invisible to me. They just happened to be on the other side of the schoolyard, and neither I nor any of my peers paid them much attention. All of a sudden that changed. Without any particular triggering event, girls our age almost overnight became ever present in our thoughts, speech, and action. Although still separated from them physically by a gender-segregated school system, we boys in seventh grade had suddenly become keenly aware of and attracted to our counterparts in the school’s female wing. Judging by the way they giggled and flashed their eyes at us provocatively, there could be no doubt that the feeling was mutual.

  Communicating our newly awakened interest in girls during recess took a variety of forms that ranged from loud, boisterous behavior to showing off with various physical stunts to actual fights, not unlike the fights of two male lions over the affection of a lioness. The big difference was that our fights weren’t over the affections of anyone, but merely a device for showing off and attracting attention. A more subtle and far more effective method of signaling interest in a member of the opposite sex was by starting an exchange of notes, which were surreptitiously passed back and forth by couriers like me. Because the likes of Wriede and Dutke had made me only too aware of the Nazi-imposed taboo of my becoming involved with German girls, I was definitely not a player, but contented myself with deriving vicarious romantic gratification by serving as go-between and confidant to various pairs of lovers. Like Cyrano de Bergerac, I would coach a friend on how to win the affections of a girl, never letting on that I, too, was smitten with her. While a far cry from the normal one-on-one relationships my classmates enjoyed, my approach to puppy love was the best I could muster under the circumstances. It gave me a legitimate reason for being near and communicating with my secret love without having to risk rejection or worse, being told by an adult—perhaps the girl’s parents—that I was out of line.