The Broken House by Horst Krüger

Author:Horst Krüger [Krüger, Horst]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473579613

1945, ZERO HOUR

Last memory of his Reich: an act of protest. We’ve dug holes with shovels, with picks and axes, and we crouch in them like trees meant to be planted in an avenue the next day. We’re at the Dortmund–Ems Canal. We’re supposed to hold the Ruhr District. We crouch in deep, damp, sticky holes. Light drizzle falls. We are called Task Force Grasmehl and are all that remains of a paratroop regiment: about a hundred men who have been quickly rounded up in Brandenburg over the last few days. In fact, we’re from a convalescent unit. We’re all sick, wounded, exhausted, convalescents in between wards. We hardly have any weapons, but we do have bandages around our bellies and our thighs, plasters on our backs, diet notes in our pockets: Task Force Grasmehl vs the United States of America.

In Brandenburg they had told us: ‘You’re being transferred now, you’re on your way to a convalescent home.’ On the railway ramp there were lots of boxcars, an endless train of rusty brown wagons. We were loaded on our train, with luggage and marching rations and a few guns, but then nothing happened. No locomotive. That puzzled me. The whole morning I crept around suspiciously at the ramp, looking out for a locomotive. I said to myself: This is important now. This will decide the rest of your life. The ring around his Reich is nice and tight now, Greater Germany still extends from the Oder to the Rhine. And if the locomotive that they attach now comes from the direction of Berlin, we’re off to fight the Russians. You’ll be labouring for many years in Russia. But if the locomotive comes from the direction of Magdeburg you’ll be off to fight the Yanks, and with that I associated very little, hardly anything.

In the late afternoon, I had dozed off in my corner of the wagon, the train suddenly lurched forwards: a hard blow, a roar of iron, a squeak, a crunch as if a rusty chain were suddenly being pulled tight. We’re moving, I wake up with a start, look out, we’re heading westwards. Fine, westwards it is. We were loaded off the train in Unna. When we marched through the town we passed by some barracks. The SS were quartered there, and when they heard our weary and poor marching steps, they leapt, plunged, flew to the windows with frightened, searching expressions. SS men with big, frightened eyes, their jackets unbuttoned; some had just washed, they had hurried to the window in their underwear, one of them held a razor up to us as if pleading, foam around his mouth, shaving foam. But no, not yet: we may look similar, but we’re not Americans. You still have time. You can still retreat. That was my first surprise after so many years: SS frightened, SS in flight.

Our task was to cover the retreat of the SS units at the Dortmund–Ems Canal. That was why we were sitting here in

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