The City in Flames Read Free

project, would throw open every window and door in the house in protest, regardless of the temperature outside.
    Then it would be my turn to be scolded for supporting such a nuisance. After listening to a lecture on smoking, how it smelled up the house, ruined the drapery, and most of all, how it occasionally burned holes in the tablecloth (of which my grandfather usually knew nothing), I would promise to use my spare time for more creative projects. But soon grandfather’s tobacco ration would go up in smoke, and again, but ever so secretly, I would be on my way to collect a supplement for his pipe. He paid me with candies or other rare sweets, which my grandmother had acquired by way of her connections in hope that she could divert my grandfather’s cravings toward something less habit-forming. Every time my grandfather lit up a cigarette, she would shove a candy into his mouth. Soon it became obvious that he didn’t mind this extra treat, and to my grandmother’s horror, she discovered he had now become hooked on both.
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Chapter Three
“Thank Hitler for It!”
    As the years passed, the morale among the Germans had fallen, and many who believed in Hitler’s lunatic ideas now joined the skeptics. Though they wouldn’t dare admit it, they no longer praised him or believed in his insane ideas. My grandfather was one of them. Though a passive member of the party, he defended Hitler’s actions even when the average citizen did not approve of them. Nobody would dare to publicly reveal their disapproval, though, because this would mark them a traitor, for which the penalty was life—or was it death?—behind the barbed wire of Dachau. No one could be trusted, so discussions took place in whispers, or best at home, where no one could eavesdrop on us.
    At our house, it became a routine. On cold Sunday afternoons in winter we gathered together, usually at my grandparents’ house, across the courtyard from our house. There we would sit around the lace-covered table and enjoy home-baked apple strudel. My grandmother poured Ersatz into delicate, hand-painted cups, which had in better days emitted the inviting aroma of real coffee. Sugar, too, was a rare commodity and used sparingly, so we used saccharin to sweeten our coffee. When my grandfather, the lover of sweets, complained about artificially sweetened food, my grandmother would usually reply with her favorite answer: “Thank Hitler for it!”
    This would start an argument that lasted way beyond the kaffeeklatsch hour, sometimes extending into the evening. Occasionally it would be interrupted by an air-raid warning, which would leave my grandmother triumphantly repeating “Thank Hitler for it!”
    My father disagreed with my grandfather when it came to Hitler, and my grandfather would try to change his mind. When he failed to convince my father, my grandfather would usually call him a Communist who didn’t know any better.
    My father was not a Communist and did indeed know better. He was a man of logic. And though not politically educated, he relied on his power of reasoning. Many men, like my grandfather, were blinded by the power wielded over them and misguided by ruthless leaders who became murderers of their own kin.
    I loved my grandparents as much as I loved my mother and father, and though I was too young to understand the arguments about Hitler, I knew my grandfather was a kind man. And when he became angry at my father, I sensed he argued in compassion, to convince my father that he was wrong.
    How could he know that it was he himself who had been misled?
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Chapter Four
February 19, 1945
    It was practically impossible to keep up with the air-raid warnings, so the German authorities provided a system by which one could determine how acute or immediate the danger was. The newspaper printed a map to be clipped and kept for orientation. The map showed Würzburg and an area of about a 100-kilometer radius. When enemy airplanes approached