Under the Hay to Save the Day but Devastation Happens Anyway

Germany was losing the war, why should he go on a suicide mission for them? Ludwig was eighteen now but the whole affair had started when he was only sixteen. The second world war had been going on for a while, but never had they asked for soldiers so young. It began on a cold day in December. He woke up to his mother calling him down to meet the SS officer at the door. He was told to report to the anti-aircraft missile base by the next day. This was not the front, but there was always a chance that the allies would bomb the area. He stayed at the base for two years and then received the order to move out immediately and transfer to the pilot training camp. They constantly needed new pilots because the Allies were purposely targeting all their new planes. For the newly trained pilots taking off was basically suicide. The Germans didn’t have enough time to properly train any of them and constantly needed new fighters because the original pilots had perished. There were still some very experienced pilots who had survived but they were not available to train these new recruits while they were fighting in the war. Ludwig knew that the war was coming to an end as the allies were gaining an upper hand and talk of peace treaties had spread. Why should he die in a war that was already over? After he had been given the order he went to the train station with the intention of heading to the air force base for pilot training, but he never arrived.

He had deserted. When his mother saw him, she started crying because she knew he hadn’t been allowed to return home, and if the SS officers found him, he would surely die. The only way he could survive was to hide. Ludwig and his family, lived on a large farm with various animals and had a large storage room, full of hay, for the animals to eat. Ludwig, with the help of his mother and one of the workers, began to move aside the hay and build a small space beneath the ground. Once they had finished, Ludwig crept into the hole and his mother replaced the floorboards that they had removed. They then dumped the bushels of hay on top of the floorboards and continued with their work. Every day Ludwig’s mother would bring him food and once a week there was a time when they thought it might be safe for him to come out of the hole and walk around for a bit.

After one month the SS officers arrived. Ludwig’s mother invited them in to eat and drink, but they declined and started searching for him. At last, they came to the shed with the hay bushels. The officers didn’t bring a dog, so they were not able to find him. They searched for another two hours, his mother constantly asking them what the problem was and what they were searching for. When they didn’t find Ludwig, they plundered the farm and assured his mother that they would return. Ludwig hid in that hole for over a year and often couldn’t come out to walk around for months on end. By the time the war ended he had lost all hope of ever being able to walk outdoors again. Then the news spread that Hitler had committed suicide and his mother decided that it was safe for him to come out. The sight that he saw was devastating. His farm had been plundered by the SS officers multiple times, who were looking for anything useful at all, even tearing the wood from their house. Many Germans had similar experiences during the Second World War and all of them lost something or someone.

Ludwig was my great uncle, the brother of my grandfather, and he was my age when he was drafted by the Nazis. I can’t imagine being drafted at 16 and being forced to fight in a war that I don’t agree with. Although the Nazis knew they were losing, they continued fighting anyways, unnecessarily adding to the number of deaths during the war. My grandparents were very young during the second world war, but they still remember the horrors that occurred. I think that it is very important to remember what happened during this war so that we don’t repeat our past mistakes.