Hitler's Last Day: Minute by Minute: The hidden story of an SS family in wartime Germany by Emma Craigie, Jonathan Mayo Page A
Authors: Emma Craigie, Jonathan Mayo
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79th Mountain Artillery Regiment. On his chest are medals that he won fighting the Russians in Hungary. Claus looks over the receptionist’s desk and sees that the package he brought yesterday is still lying on the floor, unopened. Claus wonders if he should go round and open the package and check whether it contains what he assumes – a request for urgent supplies from his commanding officer. Instead he gives it a kick, then makes the sign of the cross over it. He’s done all he can to complete the first part of the mission – although Claus can see that no one here is interested. In his room is the second package that must be delivered soon.
About 8.30am/9.30am UK time
In a large detached house named Burleigh, in a village outside Coventry, the telephone is ringing. Mrs Clara Milburn answers; it’s her friend Mrs Greenslade.
‘Aren’t you excited?’ she begins and explains that she’s seen a story in yesterday’s
Daily Telegraph
that POWs from Oflag VII-B have been liberated. Clara Milburn’s son Alan has beena prisoner in Germany since Dunkirk. Mrs Greenslade means well, but Alan is in Stalag VII-B not Oflag VII-B.
Alan has written regularly over the years; the last letter Clara and her husband Jack received was on 23rd March – it had taken over two months to reach them. Alan wrote about his working party doing gardening in the local town and how cold the weather’s been – ‘the old ears and fingers get nipped first thing’. Seven other men from the 7th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment were captured with him; three have been moved to other camps
.
Last Wednesday a young man named Jack Mercer came to see the Milburns. He had been in Stalag VII-B with Alan up until 18 months ago, but then had been moved to another camp by the Germans. Jack’s camp was liberated by the Americans and he’d got home five days ago. Clara and her husband appreciated the young man’s visit, especially as he’d cycled 60 miles from Stoke to see them
.
Later today Clara will get out an old exercise book on the first page of which she has written ‘Burleigh in Wartime’, and she will write up the latest war news: ‘... Berlin is being hammered street by street and house by house. Thousands of Germans are killed each day and their sufferings must be ghastly, but how unnecessarily they have made others suffer – and are not sorry.’ Clara has kept this diary since the day Alan was called up in 1939
.
Clara is not alone in keeping a diary; hundreds of others around the country are doing the same thing, feeling that they want a record of these momentous days. Many, like Clara, are taking cuttings from newspapers to stick alongside their diary entries
.
At Stalag VII-A at Moosburg, British Major Elliott Viney has finished his breakfast and is watching two USAAF P-51 Mustangs fly low over the camp. They perform a victory rolland the men clap and cheer like mad. They can hear the sound of gunfire nearby. They know that liberation is close at hand.
Also watching and cheering the planes is a former P-51 pilot – 24-year-old Flight Lieutenant Alexander Jefferson is enjoying his first evening of freedom for eight months. In August 1944 Jefferson was shot down just outside Toulon while attacking a radar installation, and he was captured and taken first to a POW camp in Poland, and then, as the Russians advanced, moved with thousands of others to Moosburg.
Alexander Jefferson is one of the USAAF’s first black pilots. When the US entered the war in December 1941, black people were not allowed to fly planes. In 1943 Jefferson became part of the Tuskegee Institute Experiment, which was set up to determine if black people could, in fact, be pilots. Shortly after, he was assigned to the 332nd ‘Red Tail’ Fighter group; the Germans soon came to respect these ‘
Schwarze Vogelmenschen
’ or ‘Black Birdmen’ as skilled bomber escorts
.
Jefferson will eventually sail home on the liner
Queen Mary
two months after being
About 8.30am/9.30am UK time
In a large detached house named Burleigh, in a village outside Coventry, the telephone is ringing. Mrs Clara Milburn answers; it’s her friend Mrs Greenslade.
‘Aren’t you excited?’ she begins and explains that she’s seen a story in yesterday’s
Daily Telegraph
that POWs from Oflag VII-B have been liberated. Clara Milburn’s son Alan has beena prisoner in Germany since Dunkirk. Mrs Greenslade means well, but Alan is in Stalag VII-B not Oflag VII-B.
Alan has written regularly over the years; the last letter Clara and her husband Jack received was on 23rd March – it had taken over two months to reach them. Alan wrote about his working party doing gardening in the local town and how cold the weather’s been – ‘the old ears and fingers get nipped first thing’. Seven other men from the 7th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment were captured with him; three have been moved to other camps
.
Last Wednesday a young man named Jack Mercer came to see the Milburns. He had been in Stalag VII-B with Alan up until 18 months ago, but then had been moved to another camp by the Germans. Jack’s camp was liberated by the Americans and he’d got home five days ago. Clara and her husband appreciated the young man’s visit, especially as he’d cycled 60 miles from Stoke to see them
.
Later today Clara will get out an old exercise book on the first page of which she has written ‘Burleigh in Wartime’, and she will write up the latest war news: ‘... Berlin is being hammered street by street and house by house. Thousands of Germans are killed each day and their sufferings must be ghastly, but how unnecessarily they have made others suffer – and are not sorry.’ Clara has kept this diary since the day Alan was called up in 1939
.
Clara is not alone in keeping a diary; hundreds of others around the country are doing the same thing, feeling that they want a record of these momentous days. Many, like Clara, are taking cuttings from newspapers to stick alongside their diary entries
.
At Stalag VII-A at Moosburg, British Major Elliott Viney has finished his breakfast and is watching two USAAF P-51 Mustangs fly low over the camp. They perform a victory rolland the men clap and cheer like mad. They can hear the sound of gunfire nearby. They know that liberation is close at hand.
Also watching and cheering the planes is a former P-51 pilot – 24-year-old Flight Lieutenant Alexander Jefferson is enjoying his first evening of freedom for eight months. In August 1944 Jefferson was shot down just outside Toulon while attacking a radar installation, and he was captured and taken first to a POW camp in Poland, and then, as the Russians advanced, moved with thousands of others to Moosburg.
Alexander Jefferson is one of the USAAF’s first black pilots. When the US entered the war in December 1941, black people were not allowed to fly planes. In 1943 Jefferson became part of the Tuskegee Institute Experiment, which was set up to determine if black people could, in fact, be pilots. Shortly after, he was assigned to the 332nd ‘Red Tail’ Fighter group; the Germans soon came to respect these ‘
Schwarze Vogelmenschen
’ or ‘Black Birdmen’ as skilled bomber escorts
.
Jefferson will eventually sail home on the liner
Queen Mary
two months after being
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