Wolfgang Fischer - LUFTWAFFE FIGHTER PILOT: Defending the Reich Against the RAF and USAAF

Fate, in the guise of my fathers career, decreed that I should be born in Waldthurn, a tiny community in the heart of the Upper Palatinate Forest some seventy-five kilometres north of Regensburg. The date was 30 October 1921. Less than three years had passed since the end of the Great War, and the aftermath of that conflict had brought sweeping changes to this sleepy backwater region of northeastern Bavaria. Its near neighbours, citizens of the collapsed Austro-Hungarian Empire, spoke the same language; even the same local dialect. For centuries the two sides, Bavarian and Bohemian, had co-existed as part of the Holy Roman Empire. Now Bohemia found itself incorporated into the newly established state of Czechoslovakiabrought into being by the post-war treaties of Versailles, St. Germain and Trianonand enclosed behind a rigidly enforced frontier. It was my fathers duties as a customs official on the Czech border that had brought the family to Waldthurn.

But Bavaria had undergone changes too. Following the Great War it lost its status as an independent kingdom. As part of the new German republic it had to forfeit a number of sovereign rights, including control of its own borders, the responsibility for which now passed into the hands of central government. Although a patriotic German, father allowed his Bavarian heart to rule his head and declined the offer to remain in the service of the state. Our brief sojourn in Waldthurn thus came to an abrupt end. Apparently father received an indemnity which, although not exactly generous, enabled him to brave the very bleak economic situation prevailing in Germany at this time and take the plunge into the commercial world. Having studied political economy and business administration in the course of his civil service career, he landed a job as manager of a sawmill in Miesbach, a small town to the southeast of Munich.

Not yet three years old, I have no recollection at all of the familys move in 1924. But not long afterwardsI must by then have been in my second year at the local primary schoolI got my first childish insight into the political turbulence that was already beginning to jeopardize Germanys fragile young democracy. It transpired that one of fathers colleagues at the sawmill, the man in charge of the companys books, was apparently siphoning off some of the profits for himself. As soon as father got wind of this he fired the man on the spot. The miscreant turned up at our house the following day accompanied by his brother and, after some heated words had been exchanged, declared himself a communist. Accusing father of being a capitalist lackey, he demanded his job back, claiming he had the full support of the KPD, or German Communist Party.

This didnt go down at all well with my father and the proceedings quickly developed into a free-for-all. Unfortunately for the avowed communist, his brother was rather small and slight of stature and this lent something of a comic air to the ensuing brawl. With his left hand father grabbed the weedy sibling by the back of his braces and lifted him clear off his feet. Held face down just above the floor, arms and legs flailing, he could do little more than squeal loudly while father brought matters to a swift conclusion by delivering a series of well-aimed right-handers to his remaining opponent.

Nor should mothers part in this fracas go unrecorded. Becoming aware of the increasing commotion, and fearing no good would come of it, she had rushed into the bedroom to get the Browning pistol that father had liberated from a Tommy officer on the western front. Reappearing moments later, she planted herself heroically behind the struggling trio and began fumbling with the unfamiliar indoors cannon. By then, thank God, father had the situation well in hand and she was not called upon to use it. Had she done so, she would very likely have drilled holes through all three of them. Having witnessed the entire episode, I later asked father what a communist was. He told me that they were enemies of the state. Since then I have always had something against communists.

It was not until our next move, which took us to Thansau on the east bank of the River Inn some ten kilometres south of Rosenheim, that the world began to open up for me. The year was 1928, I was nearing the end of my time in primary school, and it was the dawn of what people were optimistically calling the New Age. But I was not yet old enough to have any idea of what this new age held in store for us. I spent my childhood in what can only be described as one large playground.