Chapter 13

The following morning, after a very tearful goodbye to my mother, Chris and I started our marathon journey by train and ferry to Yorkshire. We caught the train at 6.30 am from Lubeck to Hamburg where we transferred to a train to Rotterdam. A special boat train took us to the Hook of Holland where we caught the same ancient ferry to Harwich that I had taken the year before with the rowing crew. We took yet another train to Liverpool Street station in London, transferred by the underground to King’s Cross station, and finally caught a train to cover the last leg of our journey to Harrogate. We finally arrived at our destination just after midnight in a near comatose state, totally ‘journeyed out’. Needless to say, our father wasn’t there to meet us, and we had to struggle with our bags to the accommodation above the bakery. I was shown to the bed I was sleeping in, and that was the last anyone saw of the Bekker twins until just after noon the following day.

After brunch, we joined our father in the bakery, and I met Gwen, who had acted as a mother for Chris while he was growing up. I could see that they were quite close, and it must have been strange for him when he learnt that he had a natural mother in Germany.

The two weeks flew by far too quickly, and it was soon time for me to return home to Lubeck.

On the last evening, we went as a family to the local pub, to have our final beers together.

“Well Markus, have you enjoyed your time in Harrogate?’ my father asked me.

‘I have never been able to relax like I have over the past two weeks, Dad. I hadn’t realised how oppressive living in Germany has become. It was only seeing how you live your lives in Yorkshire, without the police watching everything you do that my eyes have been opened.’

‘You do know Markus that you can stay here if you want. Chris and I would love to have you here with us, and if you stayed your mother might come as well.’ I hadn’t anticipated this offer from my father, and I was very tempted to accept.

‘I want you here Markus,’ Chris added. ‘If it does end up that there is a war between Germany and England, I don’t want you to be on the other side.’

“I’m sure that there won’t be a war. Everyone is still suffering from the last major conflict and common sense must prevail,’ I said hopefully, although, having seen the preparations in Germany, I didn’t honestly believe what I was saying.

‘I am also concerned for your safety after what happened on our last night together in Lubeck,’ Chris said. ‘That encounter with the Hitler Youth mob was really frightening.’

‘I will be going back to University soon, and life is decidedly different there.’

‘Anyway Markus, you know that you can always come here, provided of course that the borders are still open, and we aren’t at war,’ my Dad said.

‘If things get any worse back in Lubeck I will certainly talk to Mum about coming here, but I do want to finish my engineering degree which will give me a passport to anywhere in the world.’

‘We had better go home now as you will have to be up early in the morning and I have to be at the bakery by five o’clock,’ my father said, getting up to leave.

I couldn’t get to sleep that night thinking about my situation:

Up to meeting Chris and my father, I had accepted the events in Germany as being necessary to make Germany great again. My eyes had been opened, and I was now starting to question the ideals that Hitler was indoctrinating the nation with. How had it evolved that we accepted that Jews could be burnt out of their shops that they had operated for years. I knew a lot of the Jewish shopkeepers in Lubeck, and they were decent people. Should I stay in Harrogate with my father and Chris? The answer was ‘No’; I had to go home to my mother and grandad. I was all that they had, and I would just have to get on with life. Although I had an English father and an English brother, I was a born and bred German.

In the morning, Chris came to the station to see me onto the 6:15 am train to London and I started my journey home. This time I didn’t have company as Chris wasn’t coming with me, it would be a long and lonely trip on my own.

When we had come from Germany to England, Chris and I had managed to catch all our connections. Due to exceptionally severe weather in the North Sea the ancient ferry was delayed, and I missed the Hamburg train in Rotterdam which meant that I had to wait until the evening train which left at 8:30 pm and arrived in Hamburg the following morning at 6.30 am. I managed to find a seat in a corner of a crowded carriage where I made myself a nest to fall asleep in. By the time that I arrived, I was cold, tired and hungry and not a little grumpy. The train for Lubeck didn’t leave until 10:00 am, so I had time to go into the town to find a café where I could purchase breakfast. I digested the contents of a newspaper as I consumed my breakfast. After seeing the world, from an English point of view during my time in Yorkshire, I wanted to update myself on the current political situation and the recent dramatic events in Austria. Not only was I exhausted from the long journey, I was also extremely sad as I read through the articles. The newspaper was full of rhetoric about expanding the country and making Germany great again, and how Hitler would ensure that the German people got what was theirs’ by right. It was pretty obvious to me that the only way Hitler could deliver on his promises was by making war on neighbouring countries. I felt like getting back on the train to Rotterdam and returning to Yorkshire. If didn’t have my close family in Lubeck, it would have been a simple decision.

I arrived back in Lubeck at lunchtime, and, after visiting my mother and grandad in the bakery, went home, grabbed some food and collapsed into bed. I didn’t wake up until the following morning.

‘Did you have a good rest?’ my mother asked me as I arrived in the bakery.

‘I slept the sleep of the dead Mum and feel more normal this morning.’

‘Take a fresh loaf of bread and go and join your grandad in the back of the shop for your breakfast. He has just made some coffee which I am sure that he will share with you.’

‘Thanks Mum I will talk to you later.’ I left her to the customers and went into the back to my grandad.

‘Welcome back Markus. How did your trip to Yorkshire go?’ my grandad asked me.

‘If I can have some of your coffee I will tell you all about it,’ I replied as I poured a cup of strong coffee.

I spent the next half an hour telling him all about the time I had spent with my father and Chris.

‘My Dad asked me to think of moving from Germany and stay with him. He told me to convince my mother to come with me so as we all could be together as a family.’

‘You can’t leave me all on my own here,’ my grandad said plaintively. My grandma had died eight years ago in 1930, so he relied a lot on us for company.

‘I told him that I couldn’t leave Germany until I had finished my engineering degree in Kiel and also that my Mum wouldn’t leave you on your own,’ I said putting my arm around him.

‘If you left with your Mum, I would close this place down and retire. It probably would be a good idea if I took it easier anyway. You never know, I might go with you as I don’t like the new Germany and all this Hitler mania.’

‘Don’t let anybody hear you say what you have just said. People have been arrested for less, and you never know who is in your queue waiting for bread,’ I suggested.

‘I’ll try to remember that Markus. Now I think that it is time to get some work done back here. I haven’t been able to move the heavier sacks while you have been away, so you had better lend me your muscles for a while.’ He smiled as he got up and went out to the store at the rear of the building.

I went to a Flieger-HJ meeting the following day and was told that I would have to attend for training at the Lubeck Blankensee aerodrome every day until the end of my holidays from University. They had received some training planes and the older members of the Flieger-HJ would be getting flying lessons. My grandad wasn’t too impressed, but I had no choice in the matter. I would be picked up from the local stadium at 8:00 in the morning, being dropped back there shortly after 8:00 at night.

This was the fulfilment of my dream and my ‘raison d’etre’ for joining the Flieger-HJ in the first place. As an experienced glider pilot and twenty one years of age, I was included in the most senior group of trainee pilots. We spent the mornings doing theory on topics such as navigation and the afternoon actually flying the planes. The instructor that I was put under had been flying Stuka dive bombers in the Spanish Civil War, so he had lots of experience of combat flying. The first time that I tried to sit in the pilot’s seat I didn’t fit. At nearly two meters tall and with a physique to match, I was too big for the cockpit. The mechanic had to make some adjustments to a spare seat they had in the workshop and then exchange the regular seat before I could fly. It was named the “Big Bekker” seat.

The planes we flew in had the trainee in the front seat and the instructor behind at a duplicate set of controls. Occasionally my instructor took over with loud curses as I did something stupid. All in all, I did exceptionally well and after three weeks was selected to fly solo.

My flight was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon at around 3.00 pm, so I had the whole day to wait around anxiously. There were three other solo flights planned for the same day and disaster struck the second one of the morning.

I had made friends with a guy my own age called Horst van Tinden and he had been selected to make his solo flight the same day as mine. In fact, we had planned to go out in Lubeck together for a few beers that evening to celebrate what we hoped would be our successful solo flights.

I was watching his flight from a platform on the roof of the control tower together with the other trainee pilots. It was the best place to keep an eye on what was going on as there was an uninterrupted 360 degree view.

‘Horst is doing well isn’t he,’ one of the others said to me.

‘He looks to be very much in control and his take off was extremely professional’ I replied.

‘He has to make one more circuit and then he will have to land,’ one of the instructors said.

About ten minutes later he was on his approach to the airstrip to land.

‘Should that other aircraft be taxiing towards the runway?’ I asked, alarmed at seeing a dangerous situation developing.

‘He mustn’t have seen that there is an aircraft coming in to land,’ another voice piped up also alarmed by the situation.

Horst, now extremely close to landing, panicked and pulled the plane up, but without increasing his speed. The plane rapidly lost altitude, and bellied into the ground, hitting the fencing that surrounded the airfield. The plane flipped, landing on its back, and it burst into flames. The fire-truck rushed to where the plane came to a halt, but there was no hope of saving my friend Horst. We all stood in a state of shock with our eyes riveted on the terrifying scene. We had lost a colleague in distressing circumstances.

The rest of the solo flights, due to take place that day, were postponed to the following day, so I had to remain in a extremely anxious state for an additional twenty four hours. I was already extremely nervous at the thought of making my solo flight, and my condition was made considerably worse, by Horst’s accident.

The Kommandant in charge of the school called us all into the meeting room to talk to us.

‘An extremely tragic event happened today, and we lost one of our trainee pilots, Horst van Tinden. I have called you to this meeting because I want you all to know that Horst’s reaction when he saw a plane crossing his path was correct, and an experienced pilot would have done exactly the same. He took the decision to climb, but the engine didn’t react quickly enough as he had reached a critical point in his descent. A similar accident will not happen again. We have already taken steps to make sure that no other planes will be flying or manoeuvring while you make your solo flights. So go home now, relax and come back tomorrow ready for your flight.’

I went home but didn’t tell my mother what had happened at the aerodrome. She would have done her nut and tried to stop me from flying. The following evening, I went home triumphantly, having successfully completed my solo flight. I even had the Pilot’s Badge for my mother to sew on my uniform to prove it.

When I arrived at the first Flieger-HJ meeting after I returned to University at the end of September, I got a lot of envious comments from the other members of the troop when they saw my badge. Lubeck had been the only city where pilot training had taken place, so I was only one of two who had obtained their Pilot’s Badge. We were still meeting at the Kiel-Holtenau airport, and the two planes we had been promised had been delivered. Obviously I had completed my training and was allowed to fly when the others were at their theory sessions. They had to make another ‘Bekker’ seat for me so as I could fit into the cockpit.

During September, there was the Munich conference where there was agreement between Hitler and the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain that Germany could take control of the areas of Czechoslovakia where German was the spoken language. I was so busy at University, and my other activities, including my relationship with Susie that I didn’t have time to fully appreciate what was going on, but it did appear to us students that there was not going to be a war. The first term of my year at university flew by, and I soon was back in Lubeck for Christmas with my mother and grandad.