Surprisingly, though, the protocols do not bear out the idea, postulated by historians, that German fighting morale declined toward the end of the war.309 Airmen who were shot down in 1945 do not talk any more frequently about being afraid to die than those captured earlier. Instead, they still proudly recount their triumphs and engage in specialist discussions about the technical details of their aircraft.
It was rare for them to reflect on the personal consequences of their deployment in battle. One of the few exceptions came in June 1942,
LESSER: I was a decent boy when I joined the G.A.F., and they’ve made a swine of me. After being on the Eastern Front, I was broken in body and soul; at home they had to comfort me.310
In many respects, narratives about extreme personal burdens are the mirror image of the tales of adventure, conspicuous in their brutality, that highlighted the sporting side of aerial warfare. The former reveal that war did indeed encompass many emotions, including stress, worry, and fear for one’s own life that POWs tended not to talk about, especially to one another. Just as captured soldiers could not bolster their status among their peers by citing attempts at anti-Nazi resistance or expressions of sympathy with the victims of executions or enemy prisoners, there was little to be gained from revealing one’s own vulnerability. Stories about “nerves being shot” needed to be told via a surrogate in order to be deemed acceptable. Communicatively, showing any sort of weakness seems to have been perceived as dangerous.
The causes of this communicative block are not solely psychological. The military frame of reference in general, as we can see from statements made by soldiers in the Iraq or Afghanistan wars, does not admit conversations about death, dying, or present-tense fears. Today, we talk about soldiers’ suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, but this diagnosis did not exist during World War II. The military frame of reference left no room for physical weakness—to say nothing of psychological vulnerability. In this respect, no matter how thoroughly they were integrated into the total group of their commando or unit, soldiers were psychologically alone. This helps us understand an otherwise cryptic remark made by a German POW in 1941:
BARTELS: Those who are dead are better off than we are. We shall have to kick our heels around for God knows how long.311
Among the infrequent statements that concern soldiers’ own fears were tales about how their aircraft were shot down or their ships sunk. Whereas the hunting tales were characterized by an absolute lack of differentiation vis-à-vis the victims and their suffering, these narratives are extremely detailed. A German sailor, for instance, told of the sinking of the armed merchant cruiser MS
LEHN*: One (shell) ripped open one side of the deck. At the same instant one hit the bridge. One direct hit was sufficient—steel plates went flying over the ship. A large number of men jumped into the sea. The hatch covers were blown into the sea and afterwards bounced up again. An “Obermaat” jumped in front of me into the water; when I jumped in myself, he was no longer there—drowned. Many of them were drowned like that.
BLASCHKE*: Did they all have life jackets on?
LEHN: All of them, yes. A good many, who were standing on the side deck jumped into the sea together, and then flying pieces of metal fell on them. While the ship was sinking, a shell from the first forward gun went off, or perhaps it was another hit? Her (the CORNWALL’S) gunnery was very bad. The shells were dropping 100 metres over and 100 metres short, but never scored a hit.312
