(An Original Fiction)
On June 17, 1944, during the Battle for Caen, Meinrad Pappert, a Stabsfeldwebel of the Panzer Lehr Division, an elite Wehrmacht armored division, hid from British soldiers under the shadow of a tunnel. Holding onto an enigmatic...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Tilly-sur-Seulles - June 17, 1944
MANY YEARS HAVE passed ever since Meinrad joined the Reichswehr—which, again, got its name changed to the ‘Wehrmacht’ in 1935, but it's not like that made any difference to the atrocities that Meinrad witnessed during his time in the army, and if he had the power, he would stop it over and over again and would have thought twice about starting a war that Der Führer couldn't finish—and he has changed dramatically, almost to the point that if his mother and father, and perhaps the rest of his family, wouldn't even know just who the hell they were looking at; they could have assumed they were looking at Mozart, of course, they would die from laughter if they saw that Mozart had the physique of Hercules. Still, of course, they weren't that stupid, but they wouldn't have assumed right away that it would have been Meinrad either.
How could two loving parents who raised a good-mannered boy compare him to a battle-hardened, blood-stained, tall, burly brute, let alone recognize him as the grown-up version of their little boy? Even Thekla, his little sister—whom Meinrad still loved and treasured even after so many years of her absence—would cower under the darkened gaze of the brute that she could not believe was her eldest brother all grown up.
Even his little brother—whom Meinrad loved as much as his little sister—would cower behind Thekla at the mere sight of the man the family could not believe was the firstborn all grown up.
How could they believe that he could fit in that uniform, wield an MP40 with an iron grip, and sling an MG42 over his back like it was a child's toy? Meinrad would have loved to believe that his mother would have just said something along the lines of “Have you been eating properly, dear? Look at you! You're all thin! You're all skin and bones!” and even with the body of Atlas—the Greek titan condemned to hold up the heavens for eternity after the Titanomachy—she would still find a reason to coddle Meinrad, even when the man is obviously in his late 20s; of course somehow he still looked so young and fit, even when the man is already 29 years old.
Thanks to his work ethic, he would go on to be promoted to Stabsfeldwebel. But he didn't care about the rank. After all, he just wanted a place to stay or call home. But when the entire goddamn country is in a war that it is losing, is any place in Germany able to be called home? Meinrad didn't think so. Then he remembered something else besides that. He would have loved to go to the United States and live with his younger siblings and aunt.
