So the day after tomorrow will be Christmas. Fridolin with one of the administrative staff drives over to Group
Headquarters to fetch our Christmas mail. Meanwhile greetings to the “Immelman Circus” come in even from army units. We return from our last sortie on Christmas Eve at five o’clock. The place looks really Christmassy, gay and festive, almost like home. As there is no large hall available, each flight has its own celebrations in the biggest room in their headquarters. I drop in on them all. Every unit observes the occasion in its own fashion, reflecting the personality of its skipper. It is jolly everywhere. I myself spend the greater part of Christmas Eve with the Wing staff company. Here, too, the room is festively decorated with mistletoe and holly, and cheerful in the light of many candles. Two large Christmas trees with a table covered with presents set up in front of them remind us of our childhood. My soldiers’ eyes are bright pools of nostalgic dreams, their thoughts are with wife and child at home, with parents and families, in the past and in the future. Only subconsciously do we perceive among the green the German flag of war. It jerks us back to reality: we are celebrating Christmas in the field. We sing “Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht” and all the other Christmas songs. The raucous military voices blend in a softer euphony. Then the great miracle happens in our hearts: the thoughts of bombs and targets, shells and flak and death are softened by an extraordinary sense of peace, of serene and soothing peace. And we are able to think of sublime and beautiful things with the same ease as we think of walnuts, punch and pfefferkuchen. The final echo of the lovely German Christmas carols has died away. I say a few words about our German Christmas, I want my men to see me today, above all, as their comrade, not their commanding officer. We sit together happily for another hour or two; then Christmas Eve is over.
St. Peter is kind to us on the first day of the holidays: there is a dense fog. From conversations over the telephone during Christmas I know that Ivan is attacking and that we are urgently needed, but flying is absolutely impossible. The next morning I play a short game of ice hockey with my men, which this time means standing in goal in my fur boots as with my five weeks old wounds I can do no more than hobble clumsily about. Skating is out of the question. In the afternoon I am invited with a few colleagues by the people on which I am billeted to a shoot. I know very little about this “common or garden” shooting on terra firma. Our party consists of a large number of guns, but only a very few beaters. The hares know that the odds are on their side and invariably dart through the wide gaps in our “pocket” in the nick of time. Wading through the deep snow does not admit of any very rapid progress either. My driver, L.A.C. Bohme, is on my flank. All of a sudden I see a magnificent specimen of a hare break out of cover in his direction. Pointing my gun, I swivel round like a born hunter, close one eye, and… bang! I pull the trigger. A body rolls over, not the hare, but Bohme whom in my novice enthusiasm I have entirely overlooked. He is still mistrustful of my intentions, for he looks at me out of the snow with an expression of dismay and says reproachfully: “Really, sir!” He had noticed my aim in time and thrown himself flat in a flash. The buckshot missed him, but also the hare. Afterwards I am more scared by what happened than either of them. That would have been a Christmas surprise indeed. Another confirmation of the truth of our old Stuka maxim: “Nothing comes off-except what you have practiced.”
The following morning we have at last good flying weather. Ivan is early abroad; he raids our airfield. Again their bombing is pitifully bad, it is a disgrace. Their low level attacks stop at 1200 feet; we suffer practically no damage. We are out the whole of the second holiday to relieve the ground forces up in the N.E. on the River Gran and on the rest of the Budapest front. Our peaceful Christmas mood has been dispelled. The rigors of war envelope us again, the quiet cheerfulness of the peace of Christmas Eve has passed into the limbo of yesterday.
Fierce battles are raging in the air and on the ground. On our side fresh reinforcements have been thrown in, all old acquaintances of mine—friends from the Eastern Front, tank-men who, like ourselves, are the High Command’s “fire brigade.” Their task and ours will be to “punch a way out” for those parts of our divisions which are trapped in Budapest, to open a lane for them to rejoin the rest of the army. Together we should be able to pull the chestnuts out of the fire. Year in, year out, almost day by day, I have fought in every sector of the Eastern Front; I fancy that I have gained a fair knowledge of military tactics. Experience teaches that practice makes perfect; practical knowledge is the sole criterion of what is possible or impossible, good or bad. Through our daily flying we have learnt to know every ditch, every stretch, of country thoroughly, we are constantly low above them. It is quite impossible to approve of the conduct of the battle here.
Some of our armored units have been broken up and the grenadiers which are part of them are being thrown in separately. The tanks, who have always worked with them as a team, feel at sea and uncertain of themselves without them; the troops which have been assigned to them have no practical experience of co-operating with tanks, and this may result in dangerous surprises. I fail to understand how such an order can have been given; moreover one could hardly imagine a worse choice than the sector selected for the offensive, because of marshes and other difficulties of terrain, when there are so many other favorable alternatives. The infantry, on the other hand, have to advance across flat, open country which is ideal for tanks, but no place for infantry. The enemy takes full advantage of all this and so our infantry is opposed to the Soviet steel monsters without tank support. Why these unnecessary losses? This is courting failure. Who issues these orders? We sit together of an evening brooding over these questions.
On 30th December a wireless signal is received ordering me to come to Berlin immediately and to report to the Reichsmarschall. I fume because I feel that now especially my presence here is indispensable during these difficult operations. I take off for Berlin the same day, going. via Vienna and determined to be back with my comrades in two or three days. Orders are orders. The only luggage I take with me is a large dispatch case with a change of linen and toilet articles. In view of the seriousness of the situation at the front I dismiss the possibility of being kept in Berlin for longer.
On the way I already have an uncomfortable hunch that I have not been sent for anything pleasant. When I was wounded the last time, in November, I received another order grounding me in spite of which I went up again as soon as I got out of hospital Up till now no one has taken the matter up and I had gradually interpreted this silence as tacit acquiescence; but now, I guess, the question has come to a head and I am going to be put on the mat. I am flying to Berlin very reluctantly, knowing as I do that I shall never obey this order. I cannot bear to be merely looking on, giving advice or issuing orders at a time when my country is in direct need, especially as my wide practical experience gives me an advantage over others who lack this training. Success is the fruit of experience and commensurate with it. In spite of having been wounded five times, some of them seriously, I have always had the luck to make a quick recovery and to be able soon afterwards to pilot my aircraft again day after day, year in, year out, up and down the Eastern Front—from the White Sea to South of Moscow, from near Astrakhan to the Caucasus. I know the Russian front inside out. Therefore I feel an unremitting obligation to go on flying and fighting until the guns are silent and our country’s liberty is assured. Physically, I can do this because I have a healthy constitution and a body trained by sport; my fitness is one of the most valuable sources of my strength.