Chapter 1: 1914-1928

Childhood in home village. Set up of characters and relationships that come into play later.

Chapter 1: 1914-1928

            On the twenty-eighth of June, 1914 the Archduke of Austria-Hungary was assassinated in the streets if Bosnia. One week later, the fifth July, in the mountains of south-eastern Germany, I was born to an Austrian mother and a German father. Within the following week I was baptized, and given the name Franz Ferdinand Vogler. My godparents were the Baumgartner’s, old friends of my parents, they had a daughter a month older than I named Clarimonde.

            Germany entered the war on the first day of September, and my father left. During the Great War he achieved the rank of sergeant. I was four years old when the war ended, bringing my father home. I met him, unaware of his identity; he had been sent off so shortly after my birth that I therefore had no memory of the man. In November of 1919, my little brother, Hansel, was born.

            My parents had met in Munich in 1912. Mama was working as a maid, sending money home to Austria-Hungary; every week she would go through town to the street markets, where she met my father. He had run away a few years before and was living off what wood works he sold on the street. By the next summer they had married and settled in a mountain village near the town my father was from.

            The above mentioned village was Schelingen, the highest in a cluster of such hamlets on a single mountain in the Baden-Baden region of Germany. The town itself was little more than a main street lined with buildings: the church of Saint Gangolf, the school house, a general store, and the shops of various tradesmen. Surrounding it were fields, mostly vineyards, and interspersed homes.

            However my father had been before, he returned from the war bitter and angry. Through the years Hansel and I were told many times and warned never to forget about the unfair punishments forced upon Germany by the Treaty of Versailles. The establishment of the Weimer Republic and the restitution debts rent havoc upon the country’s government and economy. People were upset and suffering, a volatile combination. In 1922 knowledge of the German Worker’s Party, by that time renamed Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei*, came to our remote mountain. With little delay my father joined the party.

            My father was the picture of the Aryan race, strong features and all the necessary coloring. Mama was a fair Austrian beauty, visibly kind and good-natured. Whereas I resembled our father, with straw yellow hair and dark blue eyes; Hansel had our Mama’s lemon hair and eyes like cornflowers. However, Hansel seemed to be much like our father in temperament, rash, tenacious, and possessing a shorter temper than does a snake. He had an amazing ability to start fights, at the center of which he would stand with flailing fists; when he couldn’t start one he would seek out one to join. Over the years I became excessively protective of the continually black and blue boy, that was my little brother.

            On the morning of my tenth birthday, immediately after breakfast, Father decided that it was time he taught me the family trade, carpentry. His father had made his living this way as had his father before him and so on. Father seemed to find little interest in it, though I found it fascinating that hands could bring forth such creations from the grain of wood.

            The winter of 1925 brought heavy snow onto the mountain. On Christmas Eve I had hidden myself away under an overhanging rock to read. Wrapped in blankets and reading by lamplight; I failed to notice the snow drifts at the opening slowly closed the entrance, trapping me within. Much later I felt snow falling onto me in small clumps, looking up I saw quickly digging paws. Soon the gap was made large enough for a person to easily crawl through. My mama’s worried face appeared at the far end of the short tunnel. Out of the cave of snow and stone and standing on a deep drift of snow holding a blanket tightly about myself, I found a gruff-looking bearded man praising a large Saint Bernard, and mama standing nearby in a thin coat. She thanked the man and dog before we made our way down the mountain.

            “Mama, is that coat warm enough?” I asked, concerned, for she was shivering against the strong wind.

            “Warm enough? Franz, you’re wearing a blanket!” She exclaimed in indignation.

            “It wasn’t this cold when I came up.” This was true, though she did not seem to be impressed by this excuse.

            “Why didn’t you come down when it got dark?”

            In all truthfulness, I had not done this because I hadn’t noticed it had gotten dark. “I’m sorry.”

            “You will be when we get home. Your papa is furious.” She said, not so much as a threat than as a warning. When we did arrive home, caked in snow from head to toe,, my father sat at the kitchen table holding a belt.

            “Where were you?” He demanded.

            “I was reading.” I dared not look up at him but stared at the floor and my snow-caked shoes.

            “Reading! Books won’t get you anywhere! They fill your head with useless dreams and ideas.” I was given a sound thrashing and sent to bed without dinner.

            On weekends and days without school, while both our parents were too busy to have us hanging around the house, I took Hansel up further on the mountain and would show him the hidden overhang. When we could, we shot down birds, using pebbles and a slingshot, for dinner. During the summer months Mama would send Hansel and I out to collect raspberries. If we came home with enough she would make raspberry strudel, preserving the remaining filling for the winter. As she worked her voice could be heard throughout the house in song about the edelweiss, the small white stars upon the mountains.

            When I came into the kitchen, on the morning of my twelfth birthday, my father threw a roughly wrapped package across the table to me. I opened it to find a copy of Mein Kampf. “If you’re going to read, read something good.” He briefly smiled, or at least the closest semblance to a smile he could form.

            That year I entered Deutsches Jungvolk, a division had been founded nearby in Freiburg. On the first day, the new applicants to the group were lined up before the other members, who on command saluted and recited. “I promise to do my duty in love and loyalty to the Fuhrer and our flag.”

            We then were made to recite the oath for those entering Jungvolk. “In the presence of this blood banner which represents our Fuhrer, I swear to devote all my energies and my strength to the savior of our country, Adolf Hitler. I am willing and ready to give up my life for him, so help me God.”  Every Wednesday and Saturday evening Father would take me with him into Freiburg. He had quickly become a corps leader at Jungvolk. He was a stern, callous man; he believed in self-reliance and physical strength as though they were doctrines of faith. On those days I spent little time with Hansel, maybe an hour between school or work and when I had to leave.

            At Deutsches Jungvolk my father expected me, his eldest son, to be the best in everything, dig the deepest, throw the furthest, run the fastest, and so on.

            There were only a few times I managed to avoid going, On the first of these, upon coming home from school I ran up to the hiding place without even entering the house. I hadn’t been there very long when Mama came up to me.

            “Your papa is looking for you.”

            “I’m not going.” I asserted, as defiantly as possible.

            “No one is going to make you.” She answered.

            “Father will.”

            “Franzi, believe me, no matter how long the Winter seems, the Spring always comes again; like an edelweiss, even from the deepest snows, at the first sign of Spring the poke out their heads.” As she said this she plucked one from nearby. She was prone to such speeches of comfort. “Are you coming down for supper?”

            “No.”

            “Well then, I brought you a blanket and some food.”

            “Thank you,” and with that she left. That night I slept under the rocky outcrop. In the morning I went to school, in addition to the blanket and food she had also left me a change of clothes. When I did return home I faced the punishment of some minutes over my father’s knee.

            That Autumn the family of my father’s sister, Aunt Helga, moved to Schelingen from Freiburg, they had bought a vineyard outside of town. We went down to the bottom of the mountain to meet them. Aunt Helga and Father greeted each other warmly. She was plump and pleasant looking, with a wide toothy smile. “Which village is it?” She asked my father as she looked up at the scattering of hamlets.

            “The highest one.” He replied pointing up on the summit.

            A boy, whom I could only guess was my cousin Trennen, stepped off the train. He was heavy and carried an air of superiority. As he looked me up and down critically he seemed to find me an inadequate relative. “I thought I had two cousins.” He stated to his mother.

            “You do,” Mama responded in the other woman’s stead, “Hansel is only seven and just a little too young for the trip down.” He scowled unimpressed by the apparent lack of suitable playmates.

            After school the next day, the daily races began. Everyday children would line up next to a tree, three-hundred meters away a fallen log lay rotting as the finish line. I had just leapt over the log, the first across, when Trennen approached me.

            “Do you always win?” He asked.

            “Most of the time, some of the older one beat me.” I answered, not untruthfully. My long legs and rather lanky form did aid in running.

            “I was known as being fast, myself.”

            “Do you want to race?” I offered in response to his blatant boast.

            He accepted. We had the track to ourselves. When I turned around, after going over the finish line, I saw him a hundred meters behind me. His face was red from exertion and temper when he finally reached the finish line. Once he had come over the log, his first move was to run at me. It was not a fast approach but rather like that of a bull towards its victim. Two pairs of fists joined in frenzied hand to hand combat. A crowd quickly formed around us chanting the brutish mantra, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” By the time we broke apart we were both battered and bruised, but Trennen had been the recipient of the bloody nose that had brought an end to the brawl. I did, afterward, have to suffer an enthusiastic interrogation, demanding details of the fight, from Hansel on our way home.

            Not long afterward Trennen gained the aid of Gerard Jaeger, a tall rat-faced boy who enjoyed intimidation and power, as much faster than himself and together they launched a reign of terror over the race line. Within a few months Trennen and Jaeger had enough power over that stretch of race track that one would have to be extremely stupid or extraordinarily brave to beat either of them. Straws were drawn at lunch to decide who got to race. An injury or the drawing of a short straw meant a sentence to watch or join the rigged race.

            As time went on Deutsches Jungvolk became less of a scouting group and more of a training for war. Likewise, the teachings of Aryan supremacy and awareness of the ‘undesirable races’ increased in intensity.

            One day after school, in the late Spring of 1928, I sat, reading under a tree; I had twisted my ankle that morning. A boy came limping over and sat down next to me. I had seen him before but never actually met him before then.

            “The Bible?” He asked dumbfounded, having bent over to read the cover.

            I held up four fingers in response, continuing to read.

            “For the fourth time!” He exclaimed, incredulous.

            “My father locked off the library for three months. All I have is the Bible and the two volumes of Mein Kampf.” My explanation seemed to suffice, as he changed subjects.

            “You’re the runner aren’t you?”

            “I suppose. Franz Vogler.” I held out my hand.

            “Ernst Brauer” We shook hands. “So, why aren’t you running?”

            “I twisted my ankle on my cousin’s foot. You?”

            “I busted my knee on a rock.” He looked away as he spoke.

            “Of course, and my cousin didn’t trip me on purpose.”

            “So it was a falling cabinet, not a rock.” He responded with an impish grin. This correction of his earlier statement raised my curiosity, but I left it alone. “Your dad is one of the corps leaders in Freiburg, right?”

            “Yes, and he’s going to kill me when I can’t run tonight.”

            “Here’s some advice, the more you use it the less it hurts. They’re about to start another race. Trennen has these races rigged nicely, doesn’t he? Everyone’s too scared to beat him and he took you out, one of the only one left who could beat Jaeger. I say you should go run the smug looks off their faces.”

            Following his suggestion, I joined the next race, lining up next to Jaeger. He and I were evenly matched, or so I’d discovered once before slowing to let him pass to the finish. The signal to start sounded and off all went. The three-hundred-meter dash seemed Sisyphus’ eternal labor up the mountain, my ankle pulsed with every step. When I landed on the far side of the log, it gave out felling me to the ground. I was then pinned there by Jaeger coming in immediately behind. Unable to escape from the disadvantageous position I took the brunt of the blows, occasionally able to land a hit. A fist to the stomach was enough to push him off me. Standing up, I found myself surrounded by a congratulating and grateful crowd. The that evening I arrived at Deutches Jungvolk very battered but no long with pain in my ankle.

            Upon turning fourteen I left Deutshes Jungvolk, after two years, and moved up to Hitlerjung.

Author's Note

It's still the first chapter, but let me know if this is already too tedious. Any other comments or suggestions are greatly appreciated.