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Book: Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing, and Dying by Harald Welzer, Sönke Neitzel
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Authors: Harald Welzer, Sönke Neitzel
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another the whys and wherefores of things that readers of the protocols seventy years later might find puzzling. In fact, the character of their conversations is much like the sorts of chats people have at parties or occasions when people with similar experiences happen to come together. They swap stories, asking questions and interjecting remarks of their own. They exaggerate and are keen to show that they all belong to the same group, the same experiential community.
The topics of conversation among soldiers may be different, but the structure of their conversations isn’t.Luftwaffe members tend to tellhunting tales, not surprisingly, since many of them were fighter or bomber pilots tasked with destroying specifictargets like enemyplanes or ground installations. As of 1942, they were also charged withspreading generalterror among civilian populations. The tales the men tell areadventure stories that focus on their own flying skill and ability to produce destructive results. Here is one typical example:
F ISCHER : Quite recently I shot down a Boston, I put the rear-gunner out of action first, he had threemachine-guns, you could see him firing quite plainly, from the tracers from his machine-guns. I was in a “190” with two machine-guns. I pressed the button for a very short burst. He crumpled up—that’s all, not another shot, the barrels were sticking right up. Then I put a short burst into the starboard engine, which caught fire; I then turned my cannons on to the port engine. The pilot very probably got hit at that moment—I kept my thumb on the button the whole time—it went down in flames. There were twenty-five Spitfires after me; they had followed me inland as far as A RRAS .
K OCHON : Where did you land?
F ISCHER : On my own aerodrome. They had to turn back, as they couldn’t fly so far for lack of fuel. I then returned to S T . O MER . I shot down Bristol Blenheim in a similar manner. I first fired at the side of the tail unit, and the rear-gunner kept firing past us on either side. I swerved to the right and started to fire, and he fired at me like a madman. I swerved right over to the left, and as I was doing so I pressed the button and his cupola flew off, for in pressing the machine-gun button I pressed that of the cannon too. It was knocked to bits, and he was lying dead inside. I kept firing into the tail unit and the tail broke off, with bits of the fin, and the aircraft crashed. 97
Motorcyclists andextreme-sports enthusiasts tell structurally similar tales. In the soldiers’ stories, those killed are mentioned simply by way of providing colorful detail. Victims never have personal attributes. Their role in the anecdotes of German airmen is much the same as that of enemies invideo games, particularly of the ego-shooter variety, a half century later. This comparison is hardly anachronistic. In bothair combat and video games, the process itself is more important than a clearly defined result. The airman/game player’s activity revolves around skill and reflexes, and the results are measured in “counts,” the number of various types of targets destroyed. A significant component of the reference frame here is competitive sports, coupled with a typical male fascination withtechnology. The victim is insignificant either as an individual or part of a collective.
The complete absence of distinguishing details concerning targets makes it apparent that the storytellers aren’t concerned with whom they hit. The main thing is
that
they hit their targets, and that the stories they can tell about it afterward are entertaining:
B IEBER *: What kind of targets do you attack in the daytime?
K ÜSTER *: It all depends. There are two sorts of war-flight. First of all there are those pirate raids in which factories engaged in war industries and so on are attacked.
B IEBER : But always by single aircraft?
K ÜSTER : Yes. And then there are these nuisance raids when it doesn’t matter a damn whether you
The topics of conversation among soldiers may be different, but the structure of their conversations isn’t.Luftwaffe members tend to tellhunting tales, not surprisingly, since many of them were fighter or bomber pilots tasked with destroying specifictargets like enemyplanes or ground installations. As of 1942, they were also charged withspreading generalterror among civilian populations. The tales the men tell areadventure stories that focus on their own flying skill and ability to produce destructive results. Here is one typical example:
F ISCHER : Quite recently I shot down a Boston, I put the rear-gunner out of action first, he had threemachine-guns, you could see him firing quite plainly, from the tracers from his machine-guns. I was in a “190” with two machine-guns. I pressed the button for a very short burst. He crumpled up—that’s all, not another shot, the barrels were sticking right up. Then I put a short burst into the starboard engine, which caught fire; I then turned my cannons on to the port engine. The pilot very probably got hit at that moment—I kept my thumb on the button the whole time—it went down in flames. There were twenty-five Spitfires after me; they had followed me inland as far as A RRAS .
K OCHON : Where did you land?
F ISCHER : On my own aerodrome. They had to turn back, as they couldn’t fly so far for lack of fuel. I then returned to S T . O MER . I shot down Bristol Blenheim in a similar manner. I first fired at the side of the tail unit, and the rear-gunner kept firing past us on either side. I swerved to the right and started to fire, and he fired at me like a madman. I swerved right over to the left, and as I was doing so I pressed the button and his cupola flew off, for in pressing the machine-gun button I pressed that of the cannon too. It was knocked to bits, and he was lying dead inside. I kept firing into the tail unit and the tail broke off, with bits of the fin, and the aircraft crashed. 97
Motorcyclists andextreme-sports enthusiasts tell structurally similar tales. In the soldiers’ stories, those killed are mentioned simply by way of providing colorful detail. Victims never have personal attributes. Their role in the anecdotes of German airmen is much the same as that of enemies invideo games, particularly of the ego-shooter variety, a half century later. This comparison is hardly anachronistic. In bothair combat and video games, the process itself is more important than a clearly defined result. The airman/game player’s activity revolves around skill and reflexes, and the results are measured in “counts,” the number of various types of targets destroyed. A significant component of the reference frame here is competitive sports, coupled with a typical male fascination withtechnology. The victim is insignificant either as an individual or part of a collective.
The complete absence of distinguishing details concerning targets makes it apparent that the storytellers aren’t concerned with whom they hit. The main thing is
that
they hit their targets, and that the stories they can tell about it afterward are entertaining:
B IEBER *: What kind of targets do you attack in the daytime?
K ÜSTER *: It all depends. There are two sorts of war-flight. First of all there are those pirate raids in which factories engaged in war industries and so on are attacked.
B IEBER : But always by single aircraft?
K ÜSTER : Yes. And then there are these nuisance raids when it doesn’t matter a damn whether you
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