The listener in this excerpt from the protocols, Bieber, was a German stool pigeon working for British intelligence. 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:
WINKLER: We had to deal with partisans down there, you can’t imagine it… suddenly retrained the torpedo pilots to use bombs, dive bombing in the “88.” It was wonderful. But it wasn’t counted as a warflight.
WUNSCH: Not even as an operational flight?
WINKLER: 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.
WUNSCH: Had they no defenses?
WINKLER: Don’t say that, the fellows had AA guns… The CO carried 50 kg. bombs. The CO took off first, made a quick survey, “Aha, there’s a house with a few motor vehicles.” He’s a pilot himself,
In this anecdote, violence is clearly experienced as a kind of sport. The “game” Winkler talks about is the dropping of fragmentation bombs on an alleged group of partisans in the Vercors region of the French Alps in July 1944—something he clearly enjoyed. After a series of difficult and deadly missions targeting Allied ships in the Mediterranean, such a relatively easy assignment came as a welcome change. At long last, Winkler had another success story, another tale of a fruitful hunt and what was gunned down. The British staff Winkler hit somewhat haphazardly in the process barely rates a mention.
Conversations of this sort took place in an atmosphere of mutual agreement and tacit consensus. This example is from April 1941:
