Fifteen years in a childhood paradise

Lina moved with her and looked after her as before.

The manor house was just enormous, after having lived in our small house all my life. Mutter had a few renovations carried out, like removing the inside glass doors of the entrance hall, which made it look much more gracious, and an arch way to an ante-room where all our overcoats and furs were hanging. Oma's old bedroom on the ground floor became a visitor's room, and Opa's became ours. It was facing the lake, with the most wonderful view. My parents chose a room upstairs, exactly above us, which had an en-suit bathroom.

Gerda had the room opposite. The Goebel's kept their wing as before. As it became warmer in June, we used the back terrace far more than Oma and Opa had. It was like sitting in a place of your dreams. A lovely view of the lake was framed by some of the tall trees of the park, gently sloping down towards the lake.

Sitting there on the terrace on a warm summer evening, sipping a glass of wine, and watching the silver light of the full moon reflect in the still waters of the lake, was an unforgettable experience. We also enjoyed being treated as adults. The war seemed as far removed from this idyllic place, as the moon from the earth.

*

During a weekend in October, just a few days before Günter's birthday, a German stuka plane had made an emergency landing on the paddock behind the barns. We had not heard anything until the pilot suddenly appeared at our front door.

"I had to make this emergency landing, because it was far too foggy for me to steer the stuka single handed to the Russian front."

"How come you could land here in this fog?" Vater wanted to know. "I just saw a break in the cloud and saw some green grass, and I went for it. That was very lucky."

"Come in then, and have something to eat. You can also use the phone, if you like."

"Thank you, I'll have some lunch, if you would be so kind, but I won't use your phone."

Günter and I were delighted. "Are you really a stuka pilot?" He nodded and we asked: "Have you been flying a stuka for long?" "Over three years. I'm now training younger men to fly it."

"Does it always make such a terrifying noise when you are in the air?" I wanted to know.

"No, only if we fly in attack, with a bomb in our belly, falling from the sky as it were. At the last moment you pull the steering stick towards you as hard as you can. That releases the bomb, hopefully exactly on target."

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