Caged

(Source)

The three officers were standing together near the fence which separated the officers' camp from that of the enlisted. They had been talking with the two surviving senior sergeants from their old battalion, it seemed that a number of the men had fallen sick. No doubt because of the conditions in the camp.

A lot of the men were still sleeping in the open with nothing between them and the heavens but a Zeltbahn, sometimes they didn't even have that. On sunny days it wasn't too bad but sanitation was becoming an issue as well. There were no proper latrines and some of the men were so demoralized that they were just doing their business anywhere.

"Do you regret surrendering, Jürgen?" Leutnant Manfred Sauer watched his major's face as he waited for an answer.

"Do I regret not sending my men to their deaths? Do I regret not having to follow insane orders from those criminals in Berlin? Yes, I think of them as criminals now, they have betrayed the German people and have led us into Hell. Do I regret wondering where our next meal is coming from? Whether or not we'll have enough fuel and ammunition to fight?" von Lüttwitz paused, he looked across the wire and saw his sergeant major instructing some of the younger men in how to attach their Zeltbahnen together to make a tent.

"Not at all Manfred." Turning to Leutnant Heinrich, the former Panzer commander, he asked, "How about you Ralf, do you miss your Panther?"

Heinrich nodded, "Of course, Herr Major. I miss the sound of the engine, I miss the feeling of commanding such a fine fighting machine. But do I miss hearing my men scream as fire consumes them? Do I miss freezing inside the tank in the winter, or sweating like a pig in the summer?"

"No Sir, I do not."

Hauptfeldwebel Georg Eichmann watched as the four young men managed to put their shelter together. "You can sleep in relative comfort under there. It will be a little tight, but it's better than being rained on."

Grenadier Kurt Schröder laughed and shoved his comrade, Grenadier Uwe von Weber. "It will be fine as long as Uwe can contain his farts!" The two young soldiers had been on the battalion staff, essentially as extra hands for doing the heavy lifting, pitching tents, packing and unpacking equipment. They were overjoyed at the prospect of actually surviving the war.

Eichmann chuckled as he walked over to Hauptfeldwebel Klaus-Peter Keller, Sauer's company sergeant major. Eichmann was junior to Keller in seniority but higher on the "food chain" as the company clerk, Obergefreiter Adolph Storch, liked to say.

"Klaus-Peter, any word on those extra rations you've been trying to organize?"

Keller turned around and said, "Is that all you can think of Georg? Eating?"

"What else is there to do in this Godforsaken camp?"

"True, and the extra rations should be here after dark. The men still have some of their medals and badges which they're willing to trade for more food. The Amis are entranced by the stuff." Keller explained.

"They could just take those things!" Eichmann exclaimed.

"Funny thing about the Amis, Georg, most of them are decent sorts, they like to 'play fair' as one of them told me."

"All that f**king artillery they hit us with in the Ardennes didn't seem very fair. Getting strafed and bombed from Normandy to the Rhineland didn't seem very fair." Eichmann always thought that the Americans wouldn't fight man to man, they used steel instead of blood.

"Oh, they don't believe in fighting fair, that's certain. But want to make a deal with them, they're willing to talk. You can't eat medals, or rank epaulettes, can you?"

"Well, sure, that's true. I just wish those bastards in Berlin would quit so that we could go home." Eichmann shook his head, he couldn't believe the war still dragged on.

"It will end, and soon I'm sure, but no doubt the Russians will have to kill every Nazi in Berlin first." Keller said.

"The Russians? Won't the Amis and the Tommies strike for the capital?" Eichmann seemed amazed that the Russians would be allowed to take Berlin, had the Western Allies no political sense?

"One of the guards, a German speaker, told me that Roosevelt agreed to letting the Russians take Berlin before he died."

"What? Roosevelt is dead?"

"You didn't know?"

"No, I didn't. The Russians in Berlin, that's bad. Did you ever serve in the East, Klaus-Peter? Do you know what we did there?"

"Yes and yes. The peace may turn out to be worse than the war, especially in the eastern parts of the Reich."

"We sowed the wind, Klaus-Peter."

"Yes Georg, we truly did..."

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