In the Crosshairs

Chapter 2: The German's Helmet

Hold the position!

Upon hearing those words, Friedrich instinctively began to run for cover. He scanned his surroundings and spotted a dark grey communication tent 50 meters west. He sprinted to it, barged inside, and instantly laid face-down on the ground with his hands covering his ears. 

In 10 seconds, Friedrich began to feel the ground shake violently. All around him were bomb explosions. They were quiet at first, but reached a defeaning pitch as the enemy bombardment came closer and closer. His body began to shake every time a bomb hit the ground as it synchronized with the blast of the explosions.

Ducking and covering was par for the course for Friedrich. Everytime he heard that command, an air raid attack was commencing. And with each Soviet air raid, he knew that the probabiltiy of him dying grew larger and larger.

Friedrich counted 60 seconds from the last bomb. He took his hands off of his ears and slowly got up, surveying the area around him. 

He looked to his right to see a completely leveled tent, which had been reduced to a pile of wooden frames and torn coverings over the past few minutes. One or two soldiers had been directly hit, and a few more were seriously wounded. Their cries of agony were the only thing Friedrich could hear as his hearing slowly came back. He looked up at the sky to see the Soviet planes slowly fading into the distance, before rushing to help his wounded servicemen.

------------------------------------------------

Unlike Alexander, Friedrich had minimal childhood combat training. His parents, Jürgen and Emma, were doctors during World War 1, and unlike most of the German public, were staunchly anti-war, even from the very beginning. 

"The Kaiser's making us pay. Why are we fighting other country's wars?" Emma questioned to her then boyfriend Jürgen.

The couple had planned on having a baby, but before they could get a chance, they were drafted into the war effort. Jürgen, as a battlefield medic tending to live wounds, and Emma, as a homefront medic tending to seasoned veterans. 

Neither Jürgen nor Emma could understand where the warmongering hysteria came from. They would regularly protest outside of parliament buildings, voicing their opposition to the war. They were initally called traitors and castigated as disloyal in their communities. But soon enough, their sentiments became commonplace, just as they did in Alexander's home village. Young soldiers returned home without limbs, likewise scarred by years of shellshock. The people began to starve, drawing anger and confusion toward the government and the establishment.

Jürgen told Friedrich that he remembered the day Germany surrendered vividly. There was a deadness in the morning German air. People knew something bad was coming, but great anticipation was also present. Eagerness for change, for a disruption to the status quo of confusion, starvation, and poverty caused by the war.

All around town, news of the armistice reached the people. At last, peace bestowed upon the German nation.

"It's finally over. The senseless killing is no more," Jürgen recalled.  

But a lot of people didn't share the family's sense of relief. German citizens felt hurt and betrayed, like their years of sacrifice were for nothing. The years of suffering and endless torment were just... wasted.

Jürgen and Emma tried to shield Friedrich from the disintegration of the country. The country had been indebted and was nearing economic collapse. They talked about how fortunate they were to have given birth to Friedrich, when so many of their friends had died in the war.

"We brought life into a cesspool of darkness," Emma would exhale with affection whenever Friedrich's parents told him about WW1. 

Thousands of wounded veterans meant that from a young age, Friedrich's parents were rather busy. Thus, he was raised largely by a Russian nanny named Anya. She was the daughter of poor immigrants, and secretly did sex work to support herself, though Friedrich only found this out when he was much older.