Presently I finished chapter 12 of “Trust to a degree”.
I eliminated and changed many parts of previous chapters because I felt that there was no need to open up old memories and old wounds just to write about past events.
First of all, they are painful to remember, secondly they will serve no conceivable good, thirdly there have been documents written about the atrocities committed following the surrender of Berlin………and ……nobody cared.
But more importantly nobody learned from it …..and I guess nobody ever will……..
I read in previous years that some of the allied “war reporters” washed it away with the statement: “It was horrific, but after all the Germans had it coming”
Well, while this might be debatable, there is one thing that for the life of me I don’t understand: ” How did the little 10 year old girls, being raped to dead, had it coming?”
So, I wrote what I witnessed and then deleted almost all of it. I “trashed” it. That’s where it belongs. In the trash.
Therefore, if you expect to read detailed accounts about brutality and rape….then I like to advise you not to read the book. I choose d not to write about it.
Instead I am writing about the strange events as they unfolded for Karl and Harold by cooperating with a Russian political commissar.
It was a cooperation based upon mutual trust.
In retrospect, I think that in “normal” times the relationship of trust, between 14 year old kids and intelligence officers would be highly unlikely.
But, in 1945, in Berlin, given the complex personalities of the various Soviet political commissars and Russian military officers, combined with their personal motivations, greed and revenge,…….well, I think that it might be worth your time to read about it, because it is an interesting true account of highly unusual times.
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Please inform of the book rerelease date. Read the first one quickly. Very good.
I just finished reading loyal to a degree, it’s a very good book, very informative and interesting to read a book about II World War events from a young german kid point of view, great kid, wise, a real hero with a very good heart. I’m looking forward to reading the second book.
I thoroughly enjoyed the first book. It was significant to me because my father was Russian and was involved in the war. He was a political prisoner in Kamchatka who was put on a train and shipped across Russia in order to fight. He said they were all given guns and Vodka and knew they were going to their death. On the train they played “Russian Roulette” because it didn’t matter much if you died now or later. When his best friend died, my father stopped playing and from then on his goal was to live and to escape from Russia. His Army booklet shows that he was drafted for the period of time from 1939 to 1989, fifty years!
My father was a mathematician and scientist who was caught trying to leave Russia by walking across the mountains into Persia. That was his crime. Because he spoke seven languages it helped him in his efforts to escape communism. He said he was almost killed on multiple occasions. My dad had all his gold fillings removed in Poland in order to trade for new documents with a new name claiming he was Polish. He was in Berlin and took the first opportunity to escape by hitching a ride on a train and going to Karlsruhe where he met my mother. Three months later, they married.
My parents left Germany and emigrated to Australia. All of my fathers life he feared that he would be sent back to Russia. He achieved his goal of coming to the US in 1962.
Hello Savanna,
Thank you for reading my book and thanks for the compliment..
At the present time I am writing the last two chapters of the next book. If all goes well it will get published by about September 20th.
This is about 3 weeks beyond my original time line.
I will keep you informed.
Horst