The Edelweiss Pirates E-Book

Dirk Reinhardt

• Herausgeber: Pushkin Children's Books
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 340

Beschreibung

'An unknown story we should all know, about the triumph of courage and of the human spirit over the most evil regime the world has ever known' Michael MorpurgoWhen sixteen-year-old Daniel befriends Josef Gerlach, he feels the old man is haunted by a secret from his past. Sure enough when Josef gives him his teenage diary to read, Daniel discovers a shocking story of rebellion and struggle.The diary tells how Josef left the Hitler Youth for a gang called The Edelweiss Pirates. Their uniform: long hair and cool clothes. Their motto: freedom! At first the Pirates are only interested in hanging out and having a good time, but as the situation in Nazi Germany gets worse, they start to plan dangerous missions against Hitler's regime - soon they are fighting for their lives.Dirk Reinhardt, born in 1963, studied German and history before becoming a freelance journalist and starting to write books for children and young adults. The Edelweiss Pirates is his third novel.

Leseprobe

3

5

In memory of

Jean Jülich

(18.4.1929–19.10.2011)

Fritz Theilen

(27.9.1927–18.4.2012)6

CONTENTS

TITLE PAGEEPIGRAPHINTRODUCTIONTHE EDELWEISS PIRATESAFTERWORDGLOSSARYAVAILABLE AND COMING SOON FROM PUSHKIN CHILDREN’S BOOKSABOUT THE AUTHORCOPYRIGHT

7

INTRODUCTION

In 2001 I travelled to Cologne (Köln) in Germany to help make a radio programme about the Edelweiss Pirates. At the time, all I knew about them came from a few articles that I had read: a mix of personal accounts of what old men had said or written and a few rather difficult scholarly articles on what historians thought about these “Pirates”.

When I arrived in Germany and began talking to people, things started to become clear. During the Second World War, in Cologne and other areas in the west of Germany especially, groups of young people had gathered together in groups or gangs. These groups weren’t an organized movement like, say, the Boy Scouts. In fact, they were opposed to the organized movements in Germany at the time: the Hitler Youth and the girls’ organization, the BDM. As we talked, it was clear that over the years of the Nazi regime or “Third Reich” (1933–1945) these Pirates changed. What started out as a rejection of the Hitler Youth, became more clearly an opposition to the special fanatic security forces of the Third Reich, the Gestapo and the SS.8

So it was, in the early days, the Pirates loved to meet informally in parks, in the woods, up in the mountains. They would play guitar and sing folk songs, as well as parodies of Hitler Youth songs, with the lyrics changed to insult the Nazi regime.

One man who had been a Pirate showed us the park where they used to meet. He told us that one day he had seen his father go by: he was in a forced labour gang. He had been arrested right at the beginning of the Third Reich because he had been a representative in a trade union. We talked to him some of the time in the very building where he had been held by the security forces and roughed up. I think it may well be the very same building that you’ll read about in this book.

You’ll also see why these young people called themselves Edelweiss Pirates. I won’t spoil anything by saying why. However, some details about Germany and the war might be useful if you don’t know much about it.

Before the Nazis rose to power, Germany was a fully democratic country, electing MPs in much the same way as we do in the UK. Economically, things were not going well for millions of Germans, just as they weren’t going well in Great Britain, France and the USA. The Nazi Party became the largest party in Germany but not bigger than all the other parties, and not bigger than the sum of the two parties most opposed to them, the Socialists and the Communists. This tells us that ordinary German people were very divided on how to get out of the economic 9difficulty. In the first months of 1933, the leader of the Nazis, Adolf Hitler, and the most senior members of that party—people like Goebbels, Goering and Himmler, names you will come across in this book—seized power. They passed two laws which meant that Hitler became a dictator and Germany was run as a “totalitarian state”. Everything was run by the Nazi Party and its militarized security forces. The justice system was brought under Nazi control, and all political organizations apart from the Nazi Party were banned. Freedom of speech through newspapers, radio, magazines and books came to an end. What people call “terror” came to be used as a means of ruling over ordinary people in their everyday lives. Trusted sympathizers of the Nazis were encouraged to spy on people who might be “untrustworthy” or not loyal to the “Fatherland”—the name used to describe Germany.

The terror was used to persecute people. Sometimes this was done on political grounds, while at other times it was motivated by the Nazis’ ideas about race, sexuality, and physical and mental capability. One of the reasons they rose to power was because they had created a part-political, part-mythological view of the human race in which people they described as “Aryan” (white northern-Europeans) were superior to everyone else and that some other peoples in particular were Untermenschen or “subhuman”: especially Jews, people of colour, “gypsies” (Roma, Sinti and all nomadic peoples) and people with severe mental illness. They also persecuted people who they deemed to 10have the “wrong” sexuality, in particular gay men. From 1933 to 1945, there was a slide from persecution, terror and imprisonment to murder, to mass murder or what is called “genocide”. There was a calculated, deliberate, scientific and industrialized attempt to wipe out all the Jews and “gypsies” from wherever the Nazis ruled, as well as millions of other civilians in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. When Nazism was finally defeated in 1945, the death toll from this barbarism was around fifteen million—in addition to all those who were killed or wounded on the battlefields and seas where the war was waged.

But what was life like for ordinary German people in that period? Mostly, when people from the countries that were opposed to the Nazis write about this time, the attitudes, activities and everyday lives of Germans are not their main interest. The billions of words written are mostly spent looking at, for example, the rise to power of the Nazis, the persecution, the genocide, the battles, the spying, the bombing and the last days of the Nazi regime. Much is written about the Nazi leaders, in particular Hitler himself. It’s been said, in rather a cynical and gruesome way, that if you want to sell a book, put a swastika on the cover. The swastika, you’ll probably know, is the symbol that the Nazis “borrowed” from ancient Indian culture to put on their flags and uniforms.

Meanwhile, the lives of ordinary Germans tend to get obscured. Sometimes people make claims about what 11German people thought about the Nazis without necessarily backing it up with eyewitness accounts. Often the picture we are given is that all German people were united behind Hitler and the Nazi atrocities and the Nazi drive to war. Sometimes very small acts of resistance are mentioned only to show that there was no “mass” resistance to the Nazis. You’ll catch sight of these small acts in this book: the White Rose and the plot to assassinate Hitler. The Edelweiss Pirates don’t often get a mention. Why not?

I think that’s partly because they were young people (under the age of twenty-one) and partly because they weren’t an organized force. They were young people who knew what they didn’t like without writing out demands or manifestos or demonstrating in the conventional way. They lived their resistance through style, music, difference and by not belonging. That said, by the end of the war, things in Cologne started to get more serious. Again, I don’t want to spoil the story that unfolds in this book, but one measure of how seriously the Nazis took the Edelweiss Pirates is the punishment meted out to them: beatings, arrests, torture and even prison camps.

In 1945, when the war ended, Germany was a crushed, defeated, smashed country. Millions of people were hungry, the country was occupied by foreign forces (the “allies” who had defeated them). The country was divided into “zones” which eventually became two sides—East and West. But for all Germans there followed a mental and social struggle to understand what had happened. As a country, the world 12condemned them for the crimes of genocide and stirring up war through invasion. In this book you will meet an old man who feels that he hasn’t had the space to tell the story of what it was like to be young, struggling to be free and full of fun at the time of the Third Reich.

I hope you’ll find it a fascinating, moving, tense read—just as I did.

Michael Rosen

November 2020  

13

15

The Edelweiss Pirates

27th November 1944

The images stay with me. They won’t let me go. It was three days ago now that they murdered my brother. But I can still see it before my eyes, every second.

Tom and Flint didn’t want me to go. They were afraid something might happen to me. Thought the Gestapo would recognize me and nab me. But I didn’t listen to them. I had to go. In the end, they gave in and came too, to make sure I didn’t do anything stupid at least.

It was in Hüttenstrasse. Where they’ve been executing people for a month or two now. Outside Ehrenfeld station.

By the time we arrived, the square was already full. Gawpers everywhere, drawn in by the posters. Dull faces, greedy for sensation. We mixed in with them. Right outside the station, there was the gallows. Two long cross-beams, resting on a frame. The bottom one for their feet, the nooses thrown over the top one.

I saw Mum further forwards. Two women were holding her up. I badly wanted to run over to her, but Tom and Flint held me back. There were Gestapo spies everywhere. Standing there, looking inconspicuous. Listening out for anyone saying the wrong things. Lurking in wait for people like us, who’re on the wanted lists. We kept our heads down and pulled our hoods over our faces.16

After a few minutes, the SS marched up. When I saw them with their machine guns, all my hopes crumbled. I’d been secretly playing with the idea of rescuing my brother. But it was no good. The only weapons I had were an old knife and one of our basic Molotov cocktails.

Mum turned around, as if she was searching for me. She looked scared and desperate. Helpless. Kind of against my will, I shoved my hand in my pocket and gripped the knife. Maybe I should go, I thought. Now—before it’s too late.

But then the lorry arrived with the prisoners. They were sitting in the back, which was uncovered, their hands tied behind them. Horst was there too. He was wearing his SS uniform, but the badges he used to be so proud of had been ripped off. They dragged him and the others to the gallows. He kept his head down and climbed onto the beam. One of the SS men put the noose round his neck while he just stared blankly into space.

Right away, one of the Gestapo men read out the death warrant. I couldn’t take it in. Just stared at Horst. My brother! Who’d always been so strong. The one I admired. Now the noose was round his neck. But at the moment I looked at him, he suddenly raised his head. Like he was trying to find me.

I let go of the knife and grabbed the Moli. What if I light it and lob it so it goes off among all the SS? I thought. Maybe they’d panic? Maybe I could rescue Horst in the mayhem and then we could…17

But before I had time to do anything, Tom was there. He must’ve been watching me. Probably guessed what I was planning. He grabbed my hand and held on tight.

I crumpled and shut my eyes. He was right. I knew it, but I didn’t want it to be true. We stood there like that for a couple of seconds, then a murmur went round the crowd. I didn’t need to look to know why: the SS had started the executions. One by one, the nooses would be jerked tight, the prisoners would lose their balance on the beam and kick the air, fighting with death. Same hideous show every time.

When I opened my eyes again, Horst was still standing there, but the man next to him was just being pulled up in the air, so he’d be next. I couldn’t bear it and tried to get away from Tom. But Flint appeared on the other side of me. He grabbed me, put his hand over my mouth and nodded to Tom. Then they dragged me away.

Over the people’s heads, I saw my brother being yanked up in the air. And I heard Mum cry out. I reared up, wanted to shake Tom and Flint off. But they held me tight, trying to pull me away before anyone noticed us.

At some point, I stopped fighting. Horst was dead because he saved us. It was like part of me had died up there.

18

 

It all began when I wouldn’t let somebody go. Would he have stayed of his own accord? Probably not. He was too shy for that.

It was two months ago. I was standing at my grandfather’s grave not long after he died. The sky was bleak and grey; everywhere, the last leaves were falling from the trees. I stood there, missing him, the way I still miss him. I often went to see him—before. If there was something I couldn’t deal with. He was so relaxed. Nothing fazed him. No matter what was on my mind, if I discussed it with him, I felt after a while as though it was small and unimportant and didn’t actually matter at all.

It was gradually getting dark; I was about to go. Then I noticed this old man, a short distance away, by one of the other graves. There was nothing special about him. But I’d been there the week before, and the week before that, and every time, I’d seen him in exactly that spot. I looked more closely at him and could see that his lips were moving, as if he were talking to someone—but there was nobody around. There was only the gravestone by his feet.

And I noticed something else. He kept looking over at me. He wasn’t paying any attention to anybody else. 19Whenever he raised his head, he looked at me, and nobody else. I didn’t know what to make of it. It was a bit creepy.

After a while, he turned and walked away. As I watched him, I suddenly had a feeling that I should ask him about the way he was acting. I’m not normally like that, but that day I felt an urge and before it faded, I’d run after him. It was quite a way to the grave he’d been standing by, but he walked very slowly, with small steps, cautiously feeling his way, so he hadn’t got far when I reached it.

“Excuse me!” I called after him.

He stopped and turned around.

“Excuse me,” I said again. “Do we know each other, by any chance?”

He looked uncertainly at me. “No. I-I don’t think so.”

“It’s just that—you kept looking over at me. So, I thought, maybe we’d met but I just didn’t recognize you.”

“Oh!” He seemed embarrassed. “You noticed that, then?”

“Well, I don’t know about noticed, I just kind of wondered.”

He came hesitantly closer. “Yes, you’re right, I was looking at you. I was wondering why a young person like you keeps coming here. It’s the third time I’ve seen you now. You should be—I don’t know—playing football or something.”

So that was it; he’d just been curious. Or was there more to it? When I looked at him, I couldn’t shake off the feeling 20that he had only told me half the truth. He looked away and turned around, as if to leave… but then he didn’t. An embarrassing silence was building up. To stop it going on too long, I pointed at the grave we were standing next to.

“Is that—a relative of yours?”

“Yes,” he said. “My brother. Today is the sixty-seventh anniversary of his death.”

I took a closer look at the gravestone. “Horst Gerlach”, it read. And beneath it: “18.2.1925–24.11.1944”. Then I realized. Today was the 24th of November!

“Was he killed in the war?” I asked.

“No. He was murdered.”

It sounded strange, the way he said that. I wondered whether everyone who died in war was somehow “murdered”—at least in some way or other.

“It’s a long story,” he said when I didn’t reply. “But it might interest you. You especially!”

I was only listening with half an ear. Standing by his brother’s gravestone were three red memorial candles, which were all lit, and lying next to them were flowers. White flowers.

“If you’d like to hear it, I’ll tell you,” he continued. “What do you think? You could come to my place.”

I hesitated. We didn’t know each other. Why was he inviting me to his place? I must have looked pretty astonished, because he cringed.

“No,” he said hastily. “No, that was stupid of me. Please, forget I said it, OK?”21

The next moment, he turned and walked away. I hadn’t meant that to happen. I raised my hand and wanted to call out to him—but by then that sudden feeling, the one that had made me run after him, had disappeared. Instead I just watched until he was out of sight, and then I walked away too.

On my way home, there was one thing I couldn’t get out of my mind. He’d stressed it so emphatically. What had he meant—this story might interest me especially?

22

12th March 1941

It’s finally happened. It had been building up for months and today it went off with a bang. Tom and me and the others got into a scrap with Morken and his lot, and there was a punch-up you could hear the other side of Cologne. I’m still black and blue. Don’t care though: Morken’s lot look worse.

It’d been brewing for months. Over a year. Since the war started. Loads of the older Hitler Youth leaders volunteered for the army. Since then we’ve been bossed around by the Platoon Leaders and they’re only fourteen or fifteen—hardly any older than us. But they’re all from the grammar school. So much for everyone in the HJ being treated the same and having the same chances—it’s a fairy tale. You learn that fast. They’d never dream of making one of us common boys from Klarastrasse a leader. In the end, they always pick the ones from the posh schools, with the rich fathers.

They despise us. In their eyes, we’re riff-raff, scum—they don’t mix with the likes of us. So they bully us into the ground at the Hitler Youth, the HJ. Morken’s the worst. His dad’s some rich factory owner with the right Party membership. He’s been the Platoon Leader for a few months and fancies himself as a little general. Makes us stand to attention for hours or crawl through the mud in the rain. 23On the training evenings, we have to read out essays and he and his cronies laugh at how stupid we are. They never miss an opportunity to prove they’re better than us.

Which is why I’m sick of HJ duties now. Back before the war, it was better. But now: march, fall in, drill, fall in again, more marching. Always the same. And if anyone gets it wrong, he has to do pack drill, like in the army. Morken’s always thinking up new dirty tricks. Course they’re only for us, never his lot.

We’re meant to be learning “military virtues”. But that’s the last thing Tom and me and the other lads from round here want. Life’s nothing but drill and doing as you’re told anyway: first at home, then at school, then at work. We get bossed around and pushed around everywhere. We really don’t need any more.

But the worst is all the talk about “a hero’s death”. Dad was killed in the war last year. Morken’s old man isn’t even fighting and nor are the other posh boys’ dads. They know how to get out of it. And then Morken pops up at a training evening and drones on about how there’s nothing more beautiful than dying a hero’s death for our country, for Führer and Fatherland. With that mocking look in his eye! It makes me long to throttle him every time.

Anyway, a week or two back, I started skiving off. And me and Tom always do everything together, so he skived too. We kept thinking up new excuses, why we couldn’t come. Course everyone knew they were a pack of lies. Morken was blue in the face at losing his favourite victims.24

The other day, a written warning came in the post. There’d be “serious consequences” if we didn’t turn up right away. We couldn’t think of any more excuses, so today we went.

That was what Morken had been waiting for. He was in his element all right. Ordered us to crawl through the mushy snow as a punishment for skiving. But we’d already decided there was no way we’d make idiots of ourselves. So we said no.

Morken was speechless. Refusing to obey orders is the worst crime in the HJ. They wouldn’t care if you killed your own mum, but insubordination is right out. He said it again, and we refused again. So he ordered the whole platoon to pile on me and Tom and beat us up. That’s actually against the rules but it still happens now and then.

But it didn’t go the way Morken planned. The lads from our road stood up to him. So instead of a pile on, there was a massive punch-up between the riff-raff and Morken’s lot. All the stored-up hate came bursting out. Nobody gave a damn about the HJ or ranks or orders or anything.

Revenge can sure as hell taste sweet. We’d been longing to do that for months, and now we have.

15th March 1941

Today, Tom and I had to go and see the Jungstammführer. About the business on Wednesday. Course the HJ won’t just 25put up with stuff like that. Specially cos word got out about it.

When we arrived, Morken was already there. He explained how it all happened. Hammed it right up of course. You’d have thought we were serious criminals, Tom and me. Double murder at least. After that, we were allowed to speak too. Didn’t really bother though. Cos nobody would believe us anyway.

The Jungstammführer, a funny, pale lad, two or three years older than us, listened to it all. It seemed like he mostly wanted to avoid a fuss. Probably cos he knew a punishment beating’s against the rules really. Anyway, in the end, he decided we should officially apologize to Morken and our platoon. And that was that.

Me and Tom, we looked at each other and both had the same thought. Apologize to Morken? Never! Over our dead bodies! So we refused.

The Jungstammführer, who probably thought he’d been extra lenient, couldn’t believe his ears. He loomed over us and whacked us one each. But that only made us more determined and stubborn. In the end, he threw us out, announcing that he’d think up some “special treatment” just for us.

When we got home, we tried to top each other’s ideas of what we’d do to Morken if we met him in the street. Make him lick the slush off the pavement? Tar and feather him? Set his feet in concrete and drop him in the sewers? Just as well we didn’t see him.

26

30th March 1941

That’s it. Over and done. Goodbye HJ! There’s no going back for me and Tom now.

Since going to the Jungstammführer, we’ve had a few “absolutely final” warnings to turn up for duty again. But we didn’t. We swore never to go back to the HJ. No more crawling in the mud and being bossed around by people like Morken, or anyone else. No matter what they do to us.

Today is the last Sunday in March, so it’s time for the big coming-of-age ceremony. After four years in the Jungvolk, members of the German Youth take a pledge and graduate to the Hitler Youth. Standing there with torches listening to thousands of speeches. Tom and me were meant to go too. But we didn’t want to.

Course we had a bad feeling about it. Everyone says you get in massive trouble if you leave the HJ. But who knows? Maybe it’s just talk. Perhaps they just want to scare you and it’s not actually that bad. Cos what can they do? They can’t kill us, we’re too young for the army, we’ve got nothing they could take away and we’re used to boxed ears.

So what’ve they got left?

3rd April 1941

Yesterday was our last day of school. Eight years of compulsory education over. We’re fourteen now, Tom and me. 27Old enough to serve Führer and Fatherland as part of the workforce.

I’m glad to be done with school and so’s Tom. Mostly cos of Kriechbaum. Seven years we had him as our teacher. The one before him was OK. We liked him, he wasn’t as grim. But he left and we got Kriechbaum. Must have been in ’34 or thereabouts.

Everything changed with him. First, we had to learn the Führer’s life story by heart. And then, every morning we had to stand ramrod straight and yell “Heil Hitler!”

We didn’t take it all that seriously at first, found it funny if anything, but Kriechbaum was the wrong bloke to try that with. One lunchtime, he had us fall in after the last lesson and everyone had to do the salute. You were only allowed to go if you did it right. Everyone else had to do it again. Me and Tom had to have about ten goes before we finally got out of there. But two other boys from our road, whose parents wouldn’t let them do the Hitler salute, dug their heels in. Kriechbaum could do what he liked, they just stood there with their gobs shut.

We’d probably have laughed about it, except that the results were no fun. From then on, Kriechbaum would call “the Klarastrasse lot” up to the front at least once a week—including me and Tom—and thrash us in front of the class, whether we’d done anything to deserve it or not. You could guarantee it.

Getting a thrashing was nothing new, mind you. Our dads gave us those too. But at least they had a reason—or 28tried to find one. Kriechbaum just did it cos we were from working families on Klarastrasse who were too stupid to even know the Hitler salute. That was all. We hated him. And by the end, we couldn’t stand anything about school.

But now we’re rid of the bloke. It’s a good feeling. No more Kriechbaum! No more Morken! No more thrashings, no stupid drills. Some days, you just feel free and easy. Today’s one of them.

1st May 1941

May Day! Labour Day—that’s a bad joke! I’ve spent three weeks running my feet off from one factory to another, getting nowhere. Really need some money. Since Dad died and Horst’s been at that school in Bavaria, we’ve been stony broke. Got debts everywhere, can hardly pay the rent. Tom and his mum are the same. So we’re desperately trying to get a place.

Problem is, no one wants us. Everyone else from our class got an apprenticeship ages ago. Well—everyone in the HJ, that is. It’s pretty obvious. Wherever we turn up, we might as well not bother. They won’t even talk to us. As if we’ve got the plague or something. We’re starting to realize: that’s what they meant by “trouble”.

Mum’s narked. The last couple of days, she’s been trudging round all the factories that didn’t want me. Told 29them her husband died serving the Fatherland and they can’t go making life harder for her son now too. She won’t stand for it and we bloody well deserve decent treatment. Pretty brave of her. But it didn’t do any good.

So we’re pretty screwed. What if it goes on like this? If I really can’t get anything? What’ll happen to us then?

9th May 1941

It all happened pretty fast in the end. I found an apprenticeship at Ostermann and Flüs. Where Dad worked. Back before the war. They make ship propellers. “The largest ship propellers in the world,” Dad always said. They’re right here in Ehrenfeld, on Grünerweg, not far from our flat.

One or two of Dad’s old colleagues must’ve put a good word in for me. Any rate, I got to go and see the personnel manager this morning, to sign my contract. I was in a good mood cos it’d finally happened. But that soon faded when I got in there. The way he looked at me made me feel quite different, and I soon saw that I’d have to be careful around him.

First he made me stand at his desk. Acted like I wasn’t there, just scribbled on his papers the whole time. But then, after ten minutes or so, he leant back and looked me over from head to toe.

“D’you know why we’re taking you, Gerlach?”30

“No. I don’t actually.”

“Didn’t think you’d have the brains to work it out. So I’ll tell you, we’re taking you because your father worked here. Did good and reliable work. For many years. That’s the only reason. It’s got nothing to do with you, got that?”

“Yes, got that.”

“I should hope so. I’ll tell you just one thing, if you have any respect for your father, pull your damn socks up and don’t disgrace him.” He looked at me and shook his head. “Bloody hell, how did the man end up with a little toerag like you? He really deserved better!”

I thought I’d better not answer. He left me to sweat and leafed through his papers. Then he looked up again.

“Know why I called you a little toerag?”

“No.”

“Of course not! You don’t even know your own name. So, I’ll tell you: you’re a little toerag because you’re not in the HJ any more. And why aren’t you?”

“Well, there was some trouble and—”

“Shut your stupid mouth or I’ll throw you out and then you can see where you end up! Don’t think for a moment you can get away with murder just because your father worked here! And one more thing: the trouble didn’t just happen on its own. You caused trouble! Didn’t you?”

I was pleased they’d taken me on and determined to make a good impression. So I agreed with him.

“Yes, I caused trouble.”

“What was that? Speak up a bit, can’t you?”31

“YES, I CAUSED TROUBLE!”

He slapped his hand on the desk with a bang. “What are you thinking of, yelling like that in here? Watch your step or you’ll get a box round the ear!”

He left me standing there again and scribbled on his papers. Then he picked one up and slapped it down in front of me.

“Here, sign your contract, idiot!”

I didn’t need telling twice. He snatched it out of my hand almost before I’d finished.

“Good grief, I really don’t know why we go to so much bother for little toerags like you! Now get out of here and report to the foundry. And you’d better not let me see you up here again, or you really will be in the shit!”

I knew apprentices were pretty much the lowest of the low, but I didn’t think it’d be that bad. Never mind! The main thing is, I’ve got a contract and I’m earning my own money, even if it isn’t much. Walking through the streets today, I felt like people were looking at me differently, which is a load of nonsense of course—but it felt good anyway.

14th May 1941

Got through my first few days as an apprentice. Some of the instructors treat me like an old cleaning rag, but lots of the workers are nice. Specially the ones who knew Dad. I’m 32well in with them. They like me. They keep saying I remind them of him. They might just be saying that, but they might not. Anyway, I like to hear it. And the others can sod off.

One of the older blokes, who was a friend of Dad’s, sort of looks out for me. Today, at lunch, he told me I hadn’t really needed to worry about finding work. The HJ just want to make people like me think a bit. Hang us out to dry for a while so we see sense. In the long run, they can’t do without us in the factories while there’s a war on. Course he only told me in secret.

The work’s pretty tough and takes longer than it should. It was already dark by the time I got away today. Then I always walk down Vogelsanger Strasse and over Neptunplatz, past the swimming pool. Normally there’s nobody around at that time but today was different. There was a group of lads hanging around, about my age or a bit older. Making a right racket. Almost like the whole square belonged to them. I stopped and watched them from a distance. And then I remembered that I’d heard about people like them back in the HJ.

The patrols used to talk about them. Since last year, they’ve been pretty busy cos young people aren’t allowed out after dark any more, and the patrols are meant to check up on them. They’re allowed to ask for their papers and make arrests. At any rate, they were all talking about it in front of us younger ones. About what happened last night and their heroic deeds. How they’d swept some “shady characters”, some load of “filth” or “scum” off the streets and chased them away.33

Back then, Tom and I wondered why the shady characters needed chasing away every week. And why the patrols sometimes ended up with bruised faces. And then a couple of boys whispered to us they’d heard a different story. They’d heard that the patrols here in Ehrenfeld had taken a real beating again. Which was why they weren’t coming round this way at night any more. And that the guys who’d done that to them weren’t afraid of anything.

Making fun of the flag anthem for example. The HJ’s sacred anthem! They don’t sing, “Our banner flutters before us, we enter the future man for man.” They sing, “Our Baldur flutters before us, our Baldur is a chubby man.” They mean the ex-Reich Youth Leader, of course. Baldur von Schirach. Apparently, they call him—and the lads who told us really whispered this bit—“Baldur von Stink-Arse”. We didn’t know whether to believe them, Tom and me. Anyone who tried that in the HJ would’ve been beaten half-dead.

Anyway, now I’m wondering if those lads at the Neptune Pool might’ve been them. They were noisy enough. And they looked like the patrol described them. I’d really love to know!

16th May 1941

Tom’s signed his apprenticeship contract too now, just a few days after I did. He’s training to be a boilermaker 34at Klöckner-Humboldt-Deutz, over the other side of the Rhine. I told him about the people I saw at the Neptune Pool, and we went over there together after work today. We hung about the place and waited. And yes! When it got dark, they appeared again. Almost like ghosts, we didn’t even see them coming.

At first we were a bit scared. But then we really wanted to know what they actually do and what they talk about. So we crept up to them. Keeping in the shadows so they wouldn’t notice. But I reckon they saw us right away and were laughing at us. And we didn’t even realize!

Anyway, we walked right into their trap. We crept up to a wall, so we could lie behind it and eavesdrop on them. They were talking loudly the whole time—but only to distract us—as we soon realized. Cos that meant we were looking straight ahead all the time and not paying attention to what was behind us.

Which was where the voice came from suddenly: “I wonder what these two little beasts are up to? What d’you reckon, Knuckles?”

“Hm! Spying maybe?” a second voice answered, deeper and hollower than the first.

“Spying?” the first voice answered. “Taking news back to the HJ, huh? They’d better watch out then. We’d have to teach them a few manners, wouldn’t we?”

Wow, that gave us a start! We twisted around in shock. Two of them were standing right behind us. They’d crept up on us and had been watching us the whole time—while 35we’d been thinking we were watching them. The one who’d spoken first was a brooding type. Shaggy, dark hair, almost black, that fell down in his face. And eyes like coal. With a look that went right through you. I was pretty scared of him. The other was a taller, stronger-looking guy with hands like shovels.

Before long, the others were there too. They stood in a circle around us, staring, half grinning and half hostile. We sat up with our backs pressed against the wall. I felt sick with fear.

“Hey, I know that one!” someone said, pointing at me. “He came creeping around here once before.”

The dark one took a step closer. “Hm, dealt a lousy hand, lads,” he said. “Better just admit that the patrols sent you. Then we’ll go easy on you.”

My heart was in my mouth—I didn’t know what to do. Luckily, Tom was braver. He said, “We’re not in the HJ. We’re done with that crew.”

That made them curious. The dark one crouched down in front of us and said, “Let’s hear it then, lads. But if you want to get out of this without a bloody nose, it’d better be a damn good story.”

So we told them all about it, Morken and the punch-up and the Jungstammführer and that we didn’t go to the swearing in, and everything.

Then it went quiet for a bit. Then one of them, lanky, head and shoulders taller than the rest, walked over to the dark one and squatted down beside him.36

“What d’you reckon, Flint?” he said.

The dark one looked me in the eyes. I tried to hold his gaze but I couldn’t. Eventually I had to look away.

“Not sure,” he said. “Could be true. I did hear somewhere about that punch-up. But they could be making it up.”

Tom and me, we sat there like we were on trial, waiting for a verdict. But then another voice spoke, higher than the others.

“I know them two,” it said. “They’re from Klarastrasse.”

We turned. A girl! Till then, we hadn’t even noticed there were girls there. Or maybe she’d only just arrived. Either way, it was pretty unusual for us. In the HJ, we never had much to do with the BDM, the League of German Girls, and our school class had just been boys too. I think we stared at her open-mouthed.

“Klarastrasse?” the dark one said. “Classy neighbourhood. Got a fair few thrashings from Kriechbaum then, huh?”

We said yes, every week, and then everyone laughed. The tension was gone and I thought: there’s a thing—even old Kriechbaum is good for something!

“D’you know them properly?” the dark one asked the girl.

“No. But I reckon they’re OK.”

“Oh, Tilly! You’re just too soft-hearted. You’d tell us half the HJ were OK.”37

But he must have believed her really, because right away he said to us, “If you’re not spies, then what are you up to?”

We looked at each other. Tom didn’t say anything. It was my turn.

“We want to join you,” I said. I didn’t really think. It just burst out.

The dark one thought for a moment. Then he wanted to know everything. Our names, our parents, where we work, etc. We answered the best we could. He stood up and talked to the others, then he came back.

“Sounds all right so far,” he said. “But we need to find out a bit more about you. Come again next week. Same day, same time. By the way, what are you still doing down there? Isn’t it about time you stood up again?”

We’d been so intimidated we were still sitting with our backs to the wall. Of course, now we jumped up, and everyone laughed at us. But not in a bad way—we had to laugh too. Not long after, we said goodbye and left.

Tom wanted to know why I’d said we wanted to join them. We hadn’t said anything about that to each other beforehand. And he was right. I didn’t really know what to answer.