The Other Side

(Source)

In wartime we dehumanize the enemy, it makes it easier to kill him (or her). But nevertheless, the other side are still human. Their culture might be vastly different, doesn't mean it's wrong, just different.

It's always the old men, the party politicians who send the young to fight, sometimes those young are indoctrinated sufficiently to think that right is on their side. That their enemy is evil and must be ground underfoot.

Throughout history there have been men, evil men, who desired to take something that was not theirs, was never theirs. All of the misery our species has suffered throughout the vastness of time can be attributed to one thing - greed.

The common people oft times have absolutely no say in what their leaders seek. Sometimes they're swept up in the passionate argument of why their side is right.

Seldom does the common soldier have any say at all in where, or who, he or she fights.

I'm in the midst of reading a very fine book on the Normandy Invasion, which the anniversary of fast approaches. It is Sand and Steel: The D-Day Invasion and the Liberation of France by Peter Caddick-Adams, which is available here. (Other places too, I'm sure.) This is the second of his books I've read, the first I wrote about here. Having enjoyed that one, when I had the opportunity to buy Sand and Steel, I jumped on it. (Picked it up at Barnes & Nobles, in an actual brick and mortar book store.)

The other day, at breakfast, I was reading of some of the bitter fighting waged behind Utah Beach. Turning the page I came upon a photo of three dead paratroopers. It was obvious that the three men had died violently. They were piled on a cart, awaiting burial. Not something one necessarily wants to see over morning coffee. But it happened, I have spent my life reading history, while a bit of a shock, it's not like I haven't seen that sort of thing before.

While looking at the photo, I had the thought I often had upon seeing such a thing: who were these men, where were they from, did they leave a family behind? I also noticed that one of the men was a captain, his body thrown unceremoniously upon a simple farm cart with the bodies of two of his men.

You may be forgiven for thinking, how dare they treat the bodies of our dead this way? Well, the battle was still raging, in wartime there is often not the time for the pomp and circumstance of a proper burial. Due to the threat of disease and the sheer number of the dead, it was often expedient to gather them quickly, take note of what you could, and quickly get them in the ground. Often in mass graves. So it has been since antiquity, the dead are mourned when there is time, the war rages and there is a job to do, a fight to win.

Thing is though, these men were not American paratroops, nor were they British paratroops. They were not men of either the U.S. 82nd or 101st Airborne Divisions, nor were they troopers from the British 1st Airborne Division. These men were German. Men of the 6th Fallschirmjäger¹ Regiment commanded by Major Friedrich August Freiherr von der Heydte. If you've seen the HBO mini-series Band of Brothers, these were the men who faced the men of Easy Company at Carentan.

Yes, they were the enemy. Yes, they served one of the most evil regimes to have ever ruled a nation. Perhaps they were die hard Nazis, some Fallschirmjäger were indeed true believers. Most were soldiers like other soldiers. Swept up in the maelstrom of war, perhaps with little choice in the matter, other than perhaps they wished to be part of an elite unit. Much like our own airborne troopers.

You could see two of the faces of these men, both, including the captain, were quite young, probably no more than 25 for the captain. According to the text, the captain was probably one of von der Heydte's battalion commanders. (In the German Army it was often the case where a soldier of a lower rank could command a unit which, in peacetime, required a higher rank. Colonels could, and often did, command divisions.)

I was haunted by that picture for the rest of that day, and still am. Though they may have been the enemy, they were men. They had hopes, they had aspirations, they had, until the Invasion of Normandy, a future. They had families who mourned their loss, if the families themselves were still alive that is, even civilians are consumed in modern war. War is not particular in who dies.

While thinking about how to approach the topic of those dead Germans, and doing further research, I came upon the story of Leutnant² Friedrich Lengfeld, commander of the 2nd Company of the Fusilier Battalion of the 275th Infantry Division.

It was November of 1944, the American Army and the German Army were locked in combat in the Hürtgen Forest. The weather was miserable - wet, cold, muddy - and the United States Army, to include my Great-Uncle John's outfit the 4th Infantry Division, were pushing against tough German resistance. My uncle was eventually wounded in the Hürtgen Forest and evacuated back to England. (I told his story here.) A good man with whom I worked closely in Germany, Johannes, told me that his father had been captured by the Americans during that battle.

During that battle, there was one day, when an attack upon a German position, commanded by Leutnant Lengfeld left a wounded American soldier in a minefield. Assuming that American medics would come to collect the man, Lengfeld ordered his men to keep an eye out for such a thing and to hold their fire. Yes, hold their fire.

The Americans did not come, the wounded man was obviously in great pain and was crying out for help. So Leutnant Lengfeld took his own medics out to assist and evacuate the wounded man from the minefield.

During the rescue attempt, Leutnant Lengfeld stepped on a mine, badly wounded he was evacuated, dying of his wounds a few days later.

I have been to the German military cemetery where that memorial is, though I have not seen it myself. It is worth noting that the memorial was placed by men of the American 22nd Infantry Regiment, the opponents of Leutnant Lengfeld's Fusilier Battalion. The Leutnant himself isn't actually buried there but at a smaller military cemetery about ten miles away. You can read the whole story in the sources listed below.

I think, during this time of remembrance of our fallen, that it is worth remembering that heroism, compassion, and mercy are not the exclusive purview of any one side in a war.

We are all human.

Leutnant Friedrich Lengfeld
(Source)

Sources:

• Legacy of the Battle of the Hürtgen Forest Link
• The heroic German officer killed in a minefield trying to save an American Link
• 22nd Infantry Monument to a Fallen German Soldier Link
• Friedrich Lengfeld (German Wikipedia) Link
• Lt Friedrich Lengfeld Link
• This Nazi³ officer risked his life to save an American soldier Link

¹ Fallschirmjäger = Paratroop or paratrooper
² Leutnant = Second Lieutenant
³ It is worth noting, again, that not all Germans were Nazis.