The Life Of A German Soldier

The Paratrooper

Albert looked up into the tree when Ernst pointed to what he saw. There was a parachute that was tangled in a tall pine tree. They both looked up at the man for a long time and saw that he was trying to get out of his harness. He was about 30 feet from the ground. There was a possibility that he would break his legs if he jumped from that height.

"We can't do anything about it, Ernst."

"Wait, yes we can."

"What would that be? We can't just catch him with our arms, it's not that simple."

"I know, go get Charlotte."

"What, why?"

"Just do it, Albert!"

Albert sighed and ran towards Charlotte's town. He went to the cellar and looked in there, she was not there. He looked in her home, she was not in there either. Albert had broken into a panic and his heart dropped to his stomach once again. He looked in every home, room, and cellar there was. She was missing.

Albert went running back to Ernst with his legs shaking. Ernst starred at him and wondered what was wrong.

"Charlotte is gone!"

Ernst's eyes widened to the point of falling out.

"What?" he said nervously.

"I.....I looked in every home and she was not there. Everywhere! There was no trace of her anywhere."

"You stay here with the paratrooper. I talked to him already."

Ernst ran off to the town and brought back a big sheet from the bed Albert was sleeping on last night. Albert tried to talk to the paratrooper but he could not respond. His harness had pulled up to his neck and prevented him from breathing. He released it with his knife which worked in time. He was now at the point of hanging on to a thin tree branch that he could not hold on to for long.

Ernst got back and spread out the sheet. He and Albert held it tightly as much as possible. They told the paratrooper when to jump.

"Jump now!" yelled Ernst.

They watched as the paratrooper fell from the tree and landed on the sheet. Ernst and Albert both fell face forward as the paratrooper landed on it, safely. He still got the wind knocked out of him. 

The paratrooper glared back at us, wondering why we were not entering Stary Oskol. 

"Why aren't you going into Stary Oskol with your unit? I'm Peter by the way."

"Me and him are not with those units. I'm from the 18th Panzergrenadier division in the upper northern tip of Ukraine." said Ernst.

"I'm from the 78th Infantry division of the Wehrmacht which is stationed close to Kursk."

"Why are you out here then, and what are your names?"

"That's Ernst Schwarz and I'm Albert Schroeder. I will tell you my story first. I was out fighting during the evening and my closest friend, Kurt Smith, and Kurt's closest friend Ralph Schäfer, were both shot in the chest and did not make it. So I decided to make graves for all of the fallen soldiers after the battle, I only got through some of them the next day. That's when Russian soldiers came and invaded our barracks. I killed one of them and that's when I was captured and put in a transport truck, they took me to a Russian POW camp. I stayed there for half the night with other soldiers, including Ernst, that's where we first talked to each other. We all planned an escape. I killed the guard with a knife that was guarding the camp. That's when we planned to make our escape. There was a forest right next to the camp that we would run through until they would have lost......."

"Shhh!" said Schmidtz.

"What?" said Ernst.

"Quiet!"

The paratrooper turned around and looked at the top of the trees and around the forest's floor. There was a low rumbling sound of bombers over head and the sound of rustling leaves behind a tree to the left. There was a soft cry from what sounded like a young boy.

"Give me the MP-40, Albert."

Albert tossed it to him and Peter loaded it. He slowly walked over to the tree and turned around. From the other side of the tree, there was a boy that got up and raised his arms with tears strolling down his cheeks. It was not just any boy, he was a soldier for the Russians. Peter grabbed his arms and threw him to the ground, making the boy scream louder. 

"Peter, should you really be doing that? He's only a kid?"

"If he's one of them, then yes. I will tie his hands together with a rope from my parachute."

Peter put his foot on the boy's back and held him down. He put his hands together and pulled the rope as hard as he could. The boy screamed and he tried to break free.