Of Knights and Dogfights Read online

  Of Knights and Dogfights

  A WWII Novel

  Ellie Midwood

  Of Knights and Dogfights. Copyright © 2018 by Ellie Midwood.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  www.elliemidwood.com

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  Cover designed by Melody Simmons

  Cover photo by: G.GaritanRuffneck88 [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

  Hans Joachim Marseille photo by: By Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-2006-0122 / Hoffmann, Heinrich / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Note to the Reader

  About the Author

  Never allow yourself to hate people because of the actions of a few. Hatred and bigotry destroyed my nation, and millions died. I would hope that most people did not hate Germans because of the Nazis, or Americans because of slaves. Never hate, it only eats you alive. Keep an open mind and always look for the good in people. You may be surprised at what you find.

  Erich Hartmann

  One

  Schwechat, near Vienna. Jagdfliegerschule 5 – Basic Flying School. September 1938

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  Johann politely thanked the uniformed, young man, of about his own age who gave him a short tour around his new living quarters and glimpsed the time on his wristwatch – his father’s parting gift before Johann’s departure for Vienna. Eleven hundred hours; military time. Only a few years ago he’d say that it was eleven in the morning, but then again, a few years ago he would greet the grocer with a smile and a Guten Morgen instead of a rabid shout of Heil Hitler and a click of the heels which was demanded of Germany’s youth nowadays. His younger brother Harald had no difficulty in embracing the new ideology as soon as he came home holding out his new Jungvolk dagger, with the words “Blood and Honor” engraved into it.

  “I had to jump into a swimming pool from the three-meter diving board,” he muttered without tearing his eyes off the dagger. “For our Mutprobe...” Test of courage.

  “Congratulations,” Johann said in a flat tone. What else did he expect? Our banner means more to us than death, they sang at the top of their lungs daily. Der Führer was all Harald knew. It was easy for him to like him. Johann envied him at times.

  He looked around hesitantly as the door closed behind his guide and finally threw his duffel bag on top of the two-level bed near the window. The walls still gave off a faint smell of fresh paint and the beds appeared remarkably new, freshly assembled, not yet slept in. A year hadn’t passed since Austria had become a part of the Großdeutschland and the Germans had already taken over with a typical Prussian efficiency, utilizing every single structure that stood unoccupied, for its military purposes, weaponizing, rearming, structuring, unifying them into something awfully powerful and vaguely threatening, something that Johann was yet to comprehend.

  Johann was in the middle of transferring his meager possessions (the only items allowed according to the list he received, together with the acceptance letter from the basic flying school – a shaving set, a hairbrush, a toothbrush, and a change of underwear) into the top shelf of the communal closet, when a tall youngster appeared in the door.

  “Heil Hitler,” he offered with uncertainty, outstretching his arm slower than prescribed, as though probing the air itself with it.

  “Heil Hitler,” Johann replied with the same lukewarm enthusiasm.

  “Are you Brandt? They told me we are to be roommates.” The newcomer grinned tentatively; waited for the acknowledgment and only after that advanced into the room. “I’m Rudi. Rudolf Wiedmeyer.”

  “Johann.”

  They shook hands.

  The newcomer was of Johann’s age, about eighteen, only at least a head taller and with a head full of raven-black hair, smoothed back in the most meticulous manner and shining with brilliantine. His eyes were just as black, two bottomless pits full of darkness like a well at noon, in which it’s impossible to recognize anything, but one’s deceiving reflection. Johann’s were bright-blue; hair – nearly white, bleached out in the summer sun to striking platinum. Both sported the same golden-bronze tan and calloused palms, despite their young age.

  “Compulsory Labor Service?” Johann demanded, revealing two dimples in his cheeks as he smiled.

  Only several decent months’ worth of work in the fields for “the glory of the Fatherland” could award one with such a tan and with such callouses. Rudolf’s grunt, in tandem with his expressively rolled eyes, confirmed Johann’s guess.

  “You too?”

  “I would have preferred to spend summer at the seaside with my parents but nobody asked my opinion, eh?”

  “No, they don’t ask anyone anymore, it appears.”

  The two exchanged quick glances after those first probing remarks. Rudolf’s eyes darted back to the door, which he had left open so recklessly. At last, the tension on his face broke as a few moments passed, and no one burst inside with the sole purpose of reporting him and doing him out of flying school before he even got a chance to report for duty. Johann thoroughly pretended not to notice his fearful, almost instinctual, over-the-shoulder glance; in Germany, it had become the norm lately.

  “Did I hear it right that we’re supposed to be issued our new uniforms today?” he inquired of Johann with a ghost of a smile, as though craving encouragement.

  “I think so. To be honest, I can’t wait to get into the new one.” Johann pensively touched a braided cord extending from his breast pocket to a center button on his shirt.

  He didn’t care one way or another for his current Hitlerjugend uniform. Despite it being blue – the Flieger wing – and not the usual brown, he still wore it with the tolerant disdain of a non-believer. He despised what it stood for, that is. It was very well-tailored and looked so very befitting to his boyishly-handsome face; the only problem was that on the day he had to join Hitlerjugend, having finally succumbed to the pressure of the teachers, his best friend Alfred – Alf, as he had known him from kindergarten – threw him such a glare that Johann nearly died from shame.

  “They told me I’d never be admitted to the flying school if I didn’t join; you heard them!” His own voice sounded like that of a criminal in a futile effort hoping to worm his way out of a court’s sentence. He searched Alf’s disappointed face and realized with eternal horror that he was as guilty as sin, that he himself wasn’t exempt from that collective madness fueled by hatred and fear, to which his country had succumbed, no matter how much he was trying to persuade himself in the opposite. He might have donned it for a very sound reason, but in Alf’s eyes, it only signified one thing – the first step to becoming a future Nazi.r />
  And so, Alf only shrugged dismissively and kept walking, grim and forlorn in his regular clothes.

  “Jew!” someone shouted behind their backs.

  Alf ignored a small rock that hit him in his back and kept on walking; Johann didn’t. Always too sensitive to the slightest injustice, ever the protector of the weak ones, he got himself into a fistfight with two boys in the same uniform and for the very first time received a first-class dressing down from his Oberkameradschaftsführer during the meeting that was organized on his account that very evening.

  The following day, Alf didn’t appear at his door according to their custom and didn’t walk with Johann to school; neither could he be found at his usual seat, which he occupied next to his best friend. Instead, he sat at the very back, together with two other mischlinge along with three full Jews and refused even to acknowledge Johann’s presence with a single look. When the latter confronted him during recess, all Alf said was, “go back to your seat and don’t talk to me, Johann. Don’t you see, I’m only getting you in trouble. Your comrades are already throwing you glares; go back, please. You can’t get thrown out of the Hitlerjugend. Think about your flying school.”

  It wasn’t just his flying school; it used to be their flying school, of which both had dreamed ever since Johann’s father, a pilot who made a living by giving lessons to everyone who wished to obtain a pilot’s license, allowed them into the cockpit. Both grew obsessed with planes; only now, it appeared, for one of them the door was closed to the establishment. Like it was with everything in this new Germany, the Luftwaffe didn’t need any Jews in its midst.

  That was three years ago. Alf didn’t graduate together with Johann; according to the new Law Against the Overcrowding of German Schools, aimed solely at undesirables, Alf, together with the rest of the unfortunate pupils was dismissed from their school only two years after Hitler had been appointed as the Chancellor. As for their education, a rabbi should teach them just fine, one of the teachers remarked with a sneer. The case was closed; former Jewish classmates – soon forgotten, with the innocent callousness of youth.

  Naturally, when the time came for Johann to board his train for Vienna, Alf wasn’t on it as they had dreamt of in some forgotten, past life of theirs. Alf dutifully saw him off and remained on the platform, a gangling fellow with beautiful doe’s eyes and a bright yellow star newly sewn over his heart. Over Johann’s, a small HJ pin with a swastika shamefully sat. They embraced and parted their ways. As the train started moving, Johann saw his father drape his arm around Alf’s shoulders in a fatherly, protective gesture despite the disapproving glances from the crowd. He’ll look after him, Johann reassured himself. He loves him as his own.

  “Have you always wanted to be a pilot?” Rudolf’s voice pulled Johann out of his unhappy musings.

  “Yes. My best friend and I—” Johann stopped mid-word, looking as though he let on more than he wished to and murmured a quiet, “yes. Yes, I have.”

  “I see.”

  Lost in his thoughts, Johann stood frozen in front of the closet and only realized that he’d been blocking Rudolf’s way to it after the pause grew so long that it eventually transcended into something almost audible. Yet, Rudi patiently waited with his shaving kit in his hands and head slightly cocked in a silent, polite question; may I?

  “I’m sorry.” Johann motioned towards the closet and stepped away from it, allowing his new roommate to arrange his belongings on a shelf next to his. “I get distracted sometimes.”

  “They say, all true pilots are dreamers,” Rudolf conceded brightly. “For me, it was either that or the Kriegsschule. I actually always wanted to be…” Another pause followed; more swallowed words and sentiments that weren’t meant to be heard in this new Germany. “Well, the Luftwaffe is better than the Wehrmacht, isn’t it?”

  “It depends.”

  Rudolf turned on his heels at once, blinking somewhat nervously, as though expecting to hear all of the reasons why he had made the wrong choice.

  “It depends whether you’re afraid of heights,” Johann finished his joke quickly, grinning.

  Rudolf gave a long laugh. “Good thing I’m not afraid of them then.”

  Johann was the first one to notice another newcomer. Tall, collected, with wonderful hazel eyes and brown hair, he stood on the threshold, with a hint of a smile, as he observed the couple inside the room. Promptly noting the absence of a regular HJ uniform, Johann took him for some school official making his usual rounds.

  “Heil Hitler!”

  Rudi’s shout startled Johann out of his observation. He quickly saluted as well and froze at attention with his arms along his seams. The stranger’s grin grew wider.

  “I apologize; are you Brandt and Wiedmeyer?”

  “Jawohl,” Johann stumbled over the young man’s title due to the absence of the uniform and quickly decided on a safe, “Mein Herr.”

  Much to his surprise, the young man in a civilian suit marched in with a toothy grin and an outstretched arm. “No need for such formalities. I’m only your new roommate. Walter Riedman; a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

  “Walter Riedman?” Johann kept the young man’s hand in his, studying him closely. “Not the Walter Riedman, the prodigy pilot?”

  After a moment’s hesitation and with a somewhat guilty grin, Walter mumbled something to the extent that he was no prodigy by any means; more someone who didn’t have anything better to do with his time but fly and that anyone who devoted as many hours to aerobatics as he did would have probably been much better than he anyway; blushed in the most endearing manner and quickly changed the subject to something entirely irrelevant.

  Johann, however, was already pulling Rudolf’s sleeve in excitement. “Do you know who this is? This is the famous Walter Riedman; he performed his aerobatics on my father’s aerodrome to which Papa specifically invited him. He was incredible, I tell you! I wish I could do half of the things he performed!” He turned to Walter, who had reddened unmercifully due to all the compliments, once again. “What are you doing in a flying school anyway? What can they possibly teach you?”

  “Gunnery and mechanics.” Walter shrugged, still looking embarrassed. “There are a lot of things to learn for me, as a pilot. Aerobatics is all I know, I’m afraid. My father was a Great War ace, but when the war ended and there was no work or food anywhere in the country, he started making a living by performing aerobatics all over Europe. Together with Reichsmarschall Göring,” he added in a quick and embarrassed manner of someone who doesn’t take pleasure in dropping names. “I think he began putting me into the cockpit before I learned how to talk properly. I started flying on my own when I was twelve. So, it’s been six years now that I’ve been doing this.”

  “No wonder you’re so good!” Johann clapped his shoulder, beaming with joy at the prospect of studying with someone he’s always looked up to.

  “Your father is a friend of the Reichsmarschall?” Rudi seemed to be waiting breathlessly for the answer.

  “They were close only right after the war. My father did call on him to help get me into this school but that’s about it.”

  A shadow of disappointment passed over Rudi’s face.

  “Was that Göring who got you out of the Hitlerjugend as well?” Johann asked, in jest, as the trio was making their way downstairs for their first roll call.

  “No. My mother got me out of the Hitlerjugend,” Walter replied cryptically and with that, the subject was dropped. Johann decided not to pry any further.

  The cadets’ mess at the Schwechat Basic Flying School was a grand affair with brilliantly polished floors and red banners along the walls; grandiose and austere. An officer with a clipboard stood in a pool of light from the intricate bronze chandelier; perfectly frozen in his intentionally indifferent posture, one of the Gods of the Spanish campaign – Johann spotted the Iron Cross First Class at once – a fighter ace with the face of a Gothic angel. A bantering crowd separated around him and slowed down, tip-to
ed, hushed itself at once with reverence, all the while the Gothic Angel ignoring them entirely, with a wonderful arrogance about him.

  They fell in and waited at attention for a few interminable minutes until the central clock struck twelve and the Gothic Angel, as though by magic, suddenly straightened out and stepped forward, heavily favoring his left leg. He wasn’t a deity any more, but a Leutnant Ostwald, their instructor as he had introduced himself; yet, despite the spell being broken, to Johann, he appeared now even more unfathomably God-like and heroic. Not in the Christian understanding but in a Norse one, where fallen heroes come alive with each new dawn to fight a new battle. Somehow, in Johann’s eyes, nearly dying in a fiery crash and losing his leg, elevated Leutnant Ostwald to the highest class of a Valhalla warrior.

  As Leutnant Ostwald began calling out their names one by one, Johann shouted his “Jawohl” in response to the officer’s loud “Brandt” and soon fell back into his day-dreaming; melancholy taking over him once again as the name Baumann wasn’t called before his as they always dreamt it would. How was Alf doing, he wondered. No university accepted his application and hardly anyone would risk hiring a Jew nowadays… Perhaps Papa would organize something for him at the aerodrome? Alf was great with mechanics, much better than he, Johann, was; surely, he could be of great help…

  “Von Sielaff! Is von Sielaff present?”

  Leutnant Ostwald sounded a bit irritated now that he’d repeated the name a few times, a scowl replacing his previously indifferent expression.