Luftwaffe airmen were confronted with different sorts of dangers in the various places and situations in which they were deployed. That emerges clearly from a conversation between two Luftwaffe lance corporals from October 1942. They discuss the toll that the enemy’s numerical superiority could take on soldiers’ nerves:
BÜCHER: There are 180 fighters in the WASH alone. Here round LONDON there are at least 260 aircraft. If you came along with twenty aircraft you are sure to have two or three night fighters making for you! I can tell you, you have to twist about like mad. No, it’s no joke flying here.
We had some crews back from STALINGRAD with “88’s.” We came back from STALINGRAD, too, to help a bit over ENGLAND…. Night raid on CAMBRIDGE. They had nothing more to say when they got back again. Two had been shot down. They didn’t say a word. They were glad to get away again.
WEBER: In RUSSIA the flying is—
BÜCHER: Easier, I tell you! We did some flying in RUSSIA! That was fine. But here it’s just suicide.301
Those remarks echoed the confession of a German airman in October 1940:
HANSEL*: During the last six weeks we always had to be in readiness. My nerves are done for. When I was shot down, my nerves were in such a state that I could have howled.302
Comrades whose planes had been shot down were one of the recurring topics in Luftwaffe POWs’ conversations. But the speakers usually tried to avoid explicitly referring to death. The airman cited above who confessed his fear of being burned alive was the exception to the rule.
Instead, POWs remained abstract when they talked about lost crews, omitting names and causes of death. Why? Talking about death was thought to bring bad luck, as a bomber pilot named Schumann revealed when relating the heavy losses suffered within his crew: “Our morale was… low. As we were climbing into the aircraft the W/T operator said: ‘Get ready to die.’ I’ve always said it’s wrong to talk like that.”303
When soldiers did discuss the psychological strain that resulted from extreme stress and fears for one’s life, they often used comrades as surrogates for expressing what were likely their own emotions:
FICHTE*: Six crews have been lost within three months. You can imagine what sort of effect that has on the crews which are left. When they climb into their aircraft they all think: “Are we going to get back?”304
These remarks were recorded in March 1943. That same month, a bomber observer named Johann Maschel reported about a comrade whose nerves were completely shot after flying seventy-five missions:
