A few days later Naltschik is captured by German and Rumanian troops. The panorama as we approach our objective to the south is glorious. Ahead of us the snow peaks of the 15,000 feet range, glittering in the sunshine in all imaginable colors, below us green meadows spotted with yellow, red and blue. These spots are plants and flowers. Above us a brilliant blue sky. When approaching the target I often forget entirely the bombs I am carrying and the objective. Everything makes such a soothing, peaceful and beautiful impression. The mountain world of which the Elbruz is the centre has such a gigantic and overpowering effect; in this or that valley here one could easily tuck away several of the Alps.
After the capture of Naltschik we make a few more sorties eastwards to the Terek front, beyond Mosdok. Then, quite unexpectedly comes the withdrawal to Beloretschenskaja in the battle zone of Tuapse where bitter fighting is still going on for the old key areas. It is getting on for November. I fly my 650th operational sortie and for some weeks I have not been feeling any too fit. Jaundice! I have guessed it for some time, but I hope that it will pass and that I shall not be taken out of operations because of this. The whites of my eyes are yellow, my skin the same color. Always I deny that anything is wrong with me to anyone who asks, especially to General Pflugbeil who has been trying for quite a while to order me to bed. Malicious persons say that I have been eating too much whipped cream. Perhaps there is some truth in this. The General had brought along a case of champagne to celebrate my 600th operational flight and was quite astonished when I told him I was sure my outfit would appreciate his gift and explained that my own particular weakness lay in another direction. A few days later several large cakes arrived with two pails full of whipped cream, not too difficult a problem in view of the number of cows in these parts. For two days we practically ate nothing but these sweets; the next day hardly a single crew was fit to fly. As I am now as yellow as a quince a Messerschmitt 108 arrives with the General’s orders that I am to be taken, by force if necessary, to hospital at Rostov. I succeed in persuading him to let me stop off to report to my Wing at Karpowa near Stalingrad. We fly there on a northerly course over Elistra. I immediately move heaven and earth to stay with the Wing and from here hand over my flight to someone else. It doesn’t work, but the Wing Commander promises me No. 1 Flight in which I began the Russian Campaign.
“But into hospital first!”
Then in the middle of November I am shut up in the hospital at Rostow.
7. STALINGRAD
This lying in hospital gets on my nerves. I have been here now for almost a week, I can see hardly any change in my condition except that I am not exactly picking up strength with the strict diet and the unaccustomed confinement to bed. I can scarcely expect a visit from my colleagues; it would take them too long to get here.
Although we are near to the sea it is already becoming cold; I can tell by the breeze through the windows which are paned less with glass than with the lids of packing cases.
The doctor in charge of my case is an excellent fellow but he has lost patience with me, and so he becomes the “case” the day he enters my room and informs me offhandedly:
“There is an ambulance train leaving for Germany the day after tomorrow; I am arranging for you to go by it.”
“I shall do no such thing.”
“But you simply must go home for treatment. What are you thinking of?”
His professional wrath is aroused.
“But I can’t be sent out of the line for so ludicrous an illness. This is a very nice hospital, but I have had enough of lying in bed.”
In order to leave no doubt in his mind that I mean what I say:
“I must fly back to my squadron right away.”
Now the doctor really is angry; he opens his mouth, snaps it shut again, and finally delivers himself of this vehement protest:
“I accept no responsibility—you understand, no responsibility whatever.”
He is silent for a moment, then he adds energetically:
“Moreover, I shall make an endorsement to that effect on your discharge sheet.”
I pack my things, I get my discharge sheet from the office and—off to the aerodrome. Here there is working a fitter who has often overhauled aircraft of my Wing. One only needs to have luck on one’s side. An aircraft has just this moment come out of the repair shop; it so happens that it has to be flown up to the front to the Wing at Karpowo, ten miles from Stalingrad.
I cannot say that I feel very strong and fit, I bumble around as if I were walking in my sleep. I do not, however, attribute this so much to my illness as to the sudden fresh air.
Exactly two hours later I am on the airfield at Karpowo after having flown past Tazinskaja—Surwikino and lastly Kalatsch on the Don. The runway is packed with aircraft, mostly Stukas of our Wing and those of a neighboring squadron. The airfield itself offers no opportunities for camouflage, it lies right in the open country. It slopes away gently on one side.
After landing I go off to find the signboards. Exact orientation within the unit area has always been one of our special fads. Even if nothing or very little else indicates our presence the signboards are certain to be there. So I very soon discover the Wing orderly room. It is bang in the centre of the aerodrome in a hole in the ground, described in military parlance as a bunker. I have to wait a while before I can report to the C.O.; he has just gone out on a short operational flight with my friend Kraus. When he comes in I report my return; he is more than surprised to see me back so soon:
“You do look a sight! Your eyes and everything are yellow as a quince.”
There is no talking myself out of this without a white lie, so I brazenly reply,
“I am here only because I have been discharged as fit.”
It works. The C.O. looks at the M.O. and says with a shake of his head:
“If he is fit, then I understand more about jaundice than all the doctors. Where are your medical papers by the way?”
A ticklish question. On the aerodrome at Rostow I had had desperate need of some paper and had put my doctor’s cunningly worded certificate to a more profitable and appropriate use. I have to think quickly and reply in the same tone of voice:
“I understand that the medical papers are being sent by courier.”
In accordance with the promise made to me ten days before, I take over the command of my old flight.
We have few operational missions; they have been out only once over a Volga harbour in the vicinity of Astrachan. Our main task is to deliver attacks within the city area of Stalingrad. The Soviets are defending it like a fortress. My squadron commander gives me the latest news. There has been practically no change in the ground personnel. From armorer Götz to Sen./Fitter Pissarek all are still there. The flying personnel necessarily presents a different picture because of casualties, but the new crews I have trained have all been posted to the reserve squadron. Living quarters, offices, etc., are all underground. In a very short time I have found my feet again and feel at home. The next day we fly a sortie over Stalingrad, where approximately two thirds of the city is in German hands. It is true the Soviets hold only one third, but this third is being defended with an almost religious fanaticism. Stalingrad is Stalin’s city and Stalin is the god of these young Kirgises, Usbeks, Tartars, Turkmenians and other Mongols. They are hanging on like grim death to every scrap of rubble, they lurk behind every remnant of a wall. For their Stalin they are a guard of fire-breathing war-beasts, and when the beasts falter, well-aimed revolver shots from their political commissars nail them, in one way or the other, to the ground they are defending. These Asiatic pupils of integral communism, and the political commissars standing at their backs, are destined to force Germany, and the whole world with her, to abandon the comfortable belie f that communism is a political creed like so many others. Instead they are to prove to us first, and finally to all nations, that they are the disciples of a new gospel. And so Stalingrad is to become the Bethlehem of our century. But a Bethlehem of war and hatred, annihilation and destruction.