6. Oktober 1944
Loading is due to start at 10am on Friday morning. That’s when I receive the second blow. A telegram from Carola arrives in the early morning post: “Arriving Friday 12 noon Landsberg”. That’s exactly the time we’re leaving! When Carola’s train arrives at the passenger platform above, our transport train will start moving at the goods station below! What a bloody mess! That cowardly bastard has got me into a real mess! I quickly think about what to do as the command to get ready echoes through the barracks.
While the companies are loading, I tell the battalion leader, an older signals captain, about my bad luck. The old man immediately makes me a suggestion: “Stay here with your wife for another day. Come behind us tomorrow on the express train. You’ll have caught up with us by Gdansk and before we’ve embarked. And if it doesn’t work out - I’ll cover up for you!” But something stops me from accepting the offer. It’s too uncertain for me. I’ve changed my mind. The railway staff say we won’t be able to leave until 1 pm. But as Carola arrives at 12 noon, I can still speak to her. She can then continue on the same train and return via Küstrin[2]–Stettin. But for this she needs a new ticket. So I race to the ticket counter and tell the sales assistant about my plight. She kindly gives me the tickets, as she is actually only allowed to give them out on presentation of a travel authorisation, which Carola has with her. Now I run to the platform. The train is about to arrive. 12 o’clock - 12.10 - 12.20 - no train! There’s a crackle in the loudspeaker and a voice announces that the train will probably be delayed by an hour. Damnation! I leap down the high embankment to the goods station and ask the train driver how much longer our departure might be delayed. Of course, I had already told him my story too, because I have nothing else on my mind this morning. The train driver is an older man with a lot of understanding for my grief. He reassures me with fatherly kindness and says that he now has to do a brake test, and then we set off. I give him a packet of cigarettes and ask if the brake test could be extended a little. Fortunately, our train has to pass through the same platform as Carola’s train. So we agree that I should just stay up there. He would then pass the platform very slowly so that I could jump on. Now I hastily climb back up the steep slope to the passenger station and derange the Red Cross nurses by telling them my story, giving them the ticket and asking them to call for Carola when the train arrives and to send her on straight away with the ticket. But I stay upstairs myself and stand on pins and needles. It’s approaching 1 o’clock and I look nervously in the direction where Carola’s train must be coming from, but it doesn’t come. Then my gaze flits down to the goods station again. Good heavens, the transport train is starting now! No, it’s stopping again. Oh right, the brake test! I’m more nervous than before a assault. Finally, Carola’s train is arriving. It thunders into the station and the roar is like music to my ears. I walk alongside the packed train and spot Carola just as she’s about to climb down the footboards. I make a gesture of refusal and call out to her to stay on the train. She looks at me, astonished and uncomprehending, but returns to her seat and pulls down the window. I explain to her in short sentences that I am about to travel to Courland and point to the transport train down at the goods station. Unfortunately, she would have to return. Carola looks at me with wide eyes full of disappointment and when I give her the ticket, she starts to cry. I can only console her a little by telling her that I’ll be back in three weeks. There’s the warning call from the stationmaster: “Step back!” Another kiss, then we are separated by the train as it leaves.
Sitting on the bench opposite Carola is Lieutenant Schröder. I had already introduced him to my wife, but the surprising reunion with this sympathetic comrade from the tough battle days at the forester’s lodge was somewhat neglected amidst the pain of separation. We only spoke a few sentences to each other. He wears a prosthetic hand. Now Carola at least has some entertainment and distraction.
The train has barely left the station when my transport train puffing and blowing comes in on the other side of the platform. It rolls past the platform at a snail’s pace. The driver has leant far out of his engine and is looking backwards along the train. I jump up and wave to him from my window. But he doesn’t see me. Only when I grab my cap and call out does a smile cross his face. He disappears into the cab and soon afterwards the train picks up speed.
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- ↑ acc. to map from 1936
- ↑
In the original by mistake “Frankfurt/Oder”; Carola travelled either the day before from Cammin (dep 21.17)-Wietstock (arr 21.45, dep 22.05)-Gollnow (arr 22.58, dep 22.59)-Stettin (arr 23.50, overnight stay) or, if someone could have taken her to Gollnow by car, from there (dep 6.08)-Stettin (arr 7.02, dep 7.40)-Kreuz (arr 9.41, D (Express) 16 dep 11.26)-Landsberg (arr 12.15, dep 12.18)-Küstrin (arr 12.56, dep 17.08)-Stettin (arr 19.56, dep 20.25)-Gollnow (arr 21.19, dep 21.31)-Wietstock (arr 22.24, dep 22.39) to Cammin (arr 23.07). Frankfurt was not on this route.
D 16 had departed from Kutno at 5.45; the long route may well lead to a one-hour delay in Landsberg.