Daniel Pov Prisoner Of Night And Fog

Chapter 28

The streetcar carried Gretchen and I to the Englischer Garten. Once we got there, we moved quickly on the winding pathways. We saw the Chinese Tower raising into the night sky, a hulking shadow spearing up from the grassy clearing. A massive pagoda-shaped structure.

I lead Gretchen to a park bench. There were a bunch of Münchener's were drinking at the tables at Chinese Tower up ahead. None looked at us as we sat near.
Gretchen looked around, slightly nervous, probably making sure that she doesn't see anyone she knew.

I pulled the packet of envelopes from my suit pocket. Gretchen skimmed the first five letters before giving them to me, I read those letters over her shoulders, they were all about descriptions of bad food, long marches, and streaming rain. However, the sixth letter mentioned Hitlers. Gretchen must've read it twice as it took her quite to finish it, since I was reading over her shoulder. I'd heard that at that point in time, the war was still new, and people thought the war would end soon.

The letter was dated November 1914, and wrote:

My dearest Liesel,
You complained in your letter that I scarcely tell you anything about my comrades and my new daily life in the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment, so I shall satisfy your curiosity. Most of the men are dependable, steady fellows from München, but there's one man in our mist who is a definite oddity-- a funny little Austrian call Adi Hitler who had been living in München before war broke out.
He's a courier, so, as you can imagine, he takes tremendous risks to deliver messages when our company lines to command and battalion posts are knocked out by artillery fire. He's peculiar fellow-- skinny, sloppy, bombastically pro-German and patriotic, but generally well liked. He never abandons a wounded comrade and frequently sketches amusing caricatures of other soldiers.
He is quite alone in the world, I gather, for he never speaks of his family, or, indeed, his background at all, and he receives no care packages from home. You know how hungry I would be if I could not count on the food you send me!
I write these words sitting beneath some trees in the countryside outside Messines. I keep hearing the scream of exploding shells, although now there is comfortable quite all around me. It makes me wonder if my mind is beginning to fail me...

There was more to the letter, but there was no more mention of Hitler, I held my hand out for the letter, I must've read faster than Gretchen as gave it to me about a minute later.
The next letters, covering the next three months were about rain-soaked trenches, decreasing food rations, forests thick with smoke. Occasionally mentioning Hitler. The letters mentioned that Hitler had adopted a white terrier that leapt into the trenches, how he drew other soldiers, surviving dangerous messenger runs while other couriers died around them, which made some say he must lead a charmed life or higher power protecting him.

The next few years rushed past, skirmishes in the French countryside, days hunched in the muddy trenches, shells and smoke and screams. It all sounded gruesome.
When we reached the last letter, the writing was very shaking, very different to the earlier letters.

It was dated the 9th of November 1918, only days before the war ended, I remembered the day it ended, I was almost five, I don't remember much, but I remember my parents crying in joy when they listened to the wireless, and saying it's safer for me to go outside now, the war is over. I remember being happy, even though I had just really got my head around the fact there was even a war going on.

9 November 1918
Pasewalk, Pomerania
My dearest Liesel,
An elderly pastor came to our hospital today to break the news. Germany has become a republic, and our surrender imminent. Corporal Hitler-- the Austrian soldier I have written you about-- cried that everything had gone black again before his eyes and staggered back to the dormitory, where he flung himself into his bunk and begged me to leave him alone. But I couldn't, for we are the only soldiers from our regiment who have been sent here and quite alone otherwise, so I tried to make him listen to reason.

Gretchen turned to me, "This is odd. Why were my father and Uncle Dolf the only ones from their regiment at this hospital?" she asked to me.
I thought for a moment "Were they the only ones injured?" I asked.
Gretchen shook her head, she thought for a moment, recalling what she knows, and what we've read "Their regiment suffered a gas attack in France in mid-October. Some men died instantly, but the rest were blinded-- all but one, who could still see faintly and led them to a first-aid station. Why go to the expense of separating my father and Uncle Dolf from the others and sending them all the way to Pomerania when there must have been several closer hospitals in Belgium?" Gretchen explained.
She was right "Perhaps he explains later on," I suggested, and we continued reading.

Adi sobbed that his eyes burned like coals and all was black. He became hysterical, and finally, in desperation, I searched for Herr Doktor Forster, a consulting specialist from Berlin, who has been most helpful in my recovery. I found the doctor in a nearby corridor, and when I mentioned Adi's name, he quickened his step toward our dormitories.
"Herr Müller, wait a moment," he said when we came across another doctor in the hallway, and I moved back several paces as the two men consulted. Their low murmurs reached me, but only a few words were intelligible.
And yet, they weren't. I am not an educated man, and perhaps I flatter myself by thinking I am as clever as most,

I guess that explains some things about her, and her lifestyle, I guess my life, and my parents lives differ from other people's. But I guess her father did try to have a or less of an average intelligence.

but the two words I caught have perplexed me. I can guess at their meaning, and yet I cannot believe they can guess they refer to Adi, this small, intense, peculiar and yet kindly fellow whom I have fought alongside for four long years.
I shall not write them down; to do so is a disservice to a comrade.

I guess what Gerlich said was true, her father seemed nice enough, it could've just been due to a lack of education, or maybe Hitlers words, he just had the wrong belief in politics.

Herr Dokter Forster went to the dormitories and calmed Adi and is, I believe, planning some sort of new treatment for him. Once we have returned to München, I shall take Adi under my wing, and I shall ask you to do the same, Liesel. Time and time again, I have seen him risk his life to deliver a message to a message along the front lines. He does not lack courage, and now he shall lack a friend.
I shall return to you as soon as I am able, dearest Liesel. Kiss the children for me.

Your loving Klaus

Gretchen sat the paper down. The only question I have now is what was said, and why they were there "I don't understand. What could Herr Doktor have said that was so awful?" I asked her.
Gretchen shrugged; her eyebrows knitted together in thought "I don't know. None of it makes sense" She muttered.

I looked up when there was a shout of laughter from the Chinese Tower, there was a bunch of men walking drunkenly down the steps towards the trestle tables, and held their beer steins aloft so it doesn't spill.
Gretchen spoke "There's only one person we can talk to" Gretchen stated.
I nodded "The doctor. He could be anywhere after all this time, perhaps even dead. But we must do all can to find him" I said.