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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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smash up a fishing village or a small town or something else of the sort. You are given some target or other: “You will attack such-and-such a town.” And if you don’t get it, you just drop yourbombs somewhere else.
B IEBER : Do you feel that these pirate raids and nuisance raids are worth while?
K ÜSTER : The pirate raids are. We made ours onN ORWICH ; it was great fun.
B IEBER : Do you mean you simply smashed up a town?
K ÜSTER : Yes. Actually we were to have attacked a certain factory, but …
B IEBER : Are you told exactly which factories—?
K ÜSTER : Yes.
B IEBER : What is there at N ORWICH ?
K ÜSTER : There is an aircraft component parts factory there.
B IEBER : Oh, that was what you were supposed to attack?
K ÜSTER : Yes. We had flown over and all at once it began to rain; you could only see about 200 metres. Suddenly we were over the main railway station at N ORWICH ; it was too late; we should have turned off to the left somewhat sooner. As it was weshould have had to bank steeply at an angle of 30º to 95º. There was no point in it, they would have known what we were after. So we flew straight on; the first thing I saw was a funny sort of factory building and I released mybombs. The first bomb fell in that building and the others in the factory. That was in the morning at about 3 o’clock to 8-30.
B IEBER : Why didn’t you drop your bombs on the station?
K ÜSTER : We saw the station too late. We flew in from the east and the station is right at the approach to the town. We didn’t fire on the people at the station; there wouldn’t have been any point in it until we had got rid of our bombs. But afterwards we shot up the town; we fired at everything that was there, at cows and horses, it didn’t matter what. We fired at the trams and everything; it’s great fun. There was no A.A. there.
B IEBER : What happens, are you told about a target like that the day before?
K ÜSTER : The actual target is not announced beforehand at all. Everyone plans in advance what he is going to attack; whatever appeals to him. It’s left to the crew. And then when the weather is favourable in a given district, each crew is asked: “Have you any particular target?” 98
The listener in this excerpt from the protocols, Bieber, was a German stool pigeon working for Britishintelligence. That is why he poses questions, ostensibly out of specialist interest, about the details of German air raids. The storyteller, Lance Corporal Küster, was a gunner on a German bomber. The anecdote is from January 1943.
The anecdote does not touch on a lot of details that might be of interest to civilians. Instead the questions that drive the dialogue between the two airmen are: why wasn’t the train station attacked, and when was the target set? The conversation produces entertaining insider-oriented stories structured around three aspects: an action, its execution, and the fun that was had. Questions like why was the mission flown and was it legally and morally justifiable play no role whatsoever. Nor do airmen discuss the dramatically changing strategic and operational framework of air combat.
From the perspective of Luftwaffe fighters, there was no difference between a raid against a military target in the strict sense, an attack intended to terrify civilians, or a bombing mission aimed at a group of partisans:
W INKLER : We had to deal with partisans down there, you can’t imagine it … suddenly retrained the torpedo pilots to use bombs, divebombing in the “88.” It was wonderful. But it wasn’t counted as a warflight.
W UNSCH : Not even as an operational flight?
W INKLER : No it was only a game. We always carried as many 10 kg.fragmentation bombs as possible. The mission lasted 15 minutes and we took off repeatedly throughout the day, from dawn to dusk, we dived—swish—and dropped the bombs. Then we returned, reloaded, took off, dived and dropped our bombs again. It was fun.
W UNSCH : Had they no
B IEBER : Do you feel that these pirate raids and nuisance raids are worth while?
K ÜSTER : The pirate raids are. We made ours onN ORWICH ; it was great fun.
B IEBER : Do you mean you simply smashed up a town?
K ÜSTER : Yes. Actually we were to have attacked a certain factory, but …
B IEBER : Are you told exactly which factories—?
K ÜSTER : Yes.
B IEBER : What is there at N ORWICH ?
K ÜSTER : There is an aircraft component parts factory there.
B IEBER : Oh, that was what you were supposed to attack?
K ÜSTER : Yes. We had flown over and all at once it began to rain; you could only see about 200 metres. Suddenly we were over the main railway station at N ORWICH ; it was too late; we should have turned off to the left somewhat sooner. As it was weshould have had to bank steeply at an angle of 30º to 95º. There was no point in it, they would have known what we were after. So we flew straight on; the first thing I saw was a funny sort of factory building and I released mybombs. The first bomb fell in that building and the others in the factory. That was in the morning at about 3 o’clock to 8-30.
B IEBER : Why didn’t you drop your bombs on the station?
K ÜSTER : We saw the station too late. We flew in from the east and the station is right at the approach to the town. We didn’t fire on the people at the station; there wouldn’t have been any point in it until we had got rid of our bombs. But afterwards we shot up the town; we fired at everything that was there, at cows and horses, it didn’t matter what. We fired at the trams and everything; it’s great fun. There was no A.A. there.
B IEBER : What happens, are you told about a target like that the day before?
K ÜSTER : The actual target is not announced beforehand at all. Everyone plans in advance what he is going to attack; whatever appeals to him. It’s left to the crew. And then when the weather is favourable in a given district, each crew is asked: “Have you any particular target?” 98
The listener in this excerpt from the protocols, Bieber, was a German stool pigeon working for Britishintelligence. That is why he poses questions, ostensibly out of specialist interest, about the details of German air raids. The storyteller, Lance Corporal Küster, was a gunner on a German bomber. The anecdote is from January 1943.
The anecdote does not touch on a lot of details that might be of interest to civilians. Instead the questions that drive the dialogue between the two airmen are: why wasn’t the train station attacked, and when was the target set? The conversation produces entertaining insider-oriented stories structured around three aspects: an action, its execution, and the fun that was had. Questions like why was the mission flown and was it legally and morally justifiable play no role whatsoever. Nor do airmen discuss the dramatically changing strategic and operational framework of air combat.
From the perspective of Luftwaffe fighters, there was no difference between a raid against a military target in the strict sense, an attack intended to terrify civilians, or a bombing mission aimed at a group of partisans:
W INKLER : We had to deal with partisans down there, you can’t imagine it … suddenly retrained the torpedo pilots to use bombs, divebombing in the “88.” It was wonderful. But it wasn’t counted as a warflight.
W UNSCH : Not even as an operational flight?
W INKLER : No it was only a game. We always carried as many 10 kg.fragmentation bombs as possible. The mission lasted 15 minutes and we took off repeatedly throughout the day, from dawn to dusk, we dived—swish—and dropped the bombs. Then we returned, reloaded, took off, dived and dropped our bombs again. It was fun.
W UNSCH : Had they no
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