You have some sympathies from me. As a german who was born 31 years after the end of WW2 I was tought several times in school that even my generation had to carry the weight of what the Adolf did.
Always seemed unfair to me to be held responsible for something that happened to my grandparents and not to me. My grandfather used to tell me lots of stories from the war, but when I grew older I realized that he talked mostly about the comradery and spared me the bloody details he had seen.
He fought on the eastern front and he was in the cavalry. As an outdated type of unit he was stationed in Berlin first and during most of the war, only doing parades and working as a courier and driver. But some time after Russia started the counter attack in Stalingrad, he was sent to the eastern front, which was crazy enough, the russian army had build tanks and planes and raised new units in their backland while Adolf send cavalry. Before he left Berlin he married my grandma by telephone, she was a nurse in a hospital back home.
He lost two horses during the battle but was not wounded by himself. When the second horse was killed it was in open field and he had to lie next to the corpse several hours until the russian soldiers - a unit of woman - searched the field and took prisoners. He and a 18 year old boy from the same village where captured and escorted to the east. That way he saw some of Ukraine, which the germans already lost in battle.
When he talked of war, he mostly talked about how beautiful the land was and that the earth was deep black and fertile, that the Apples where double the size of those back home and the corn on the field which where not burned by the Nazis during their retreat was shimmering golden with ears of corn so big that the stem could barely carry the weight. (After the war, when he was retired from a Shoefactory, he was a passionate allotment gardener).
During their march to POW Camp they passed several farms and the russian soldiers (still the same women who captured them) left some of the prisioners there as forced laborers. In Fear what might happen a the POW Camp he pulled his comrade, the boy from the same village upwards when he noticed that there would be some more POW left at another farm. He moved towards the commanding officer which pointed the gun on them but stopped when he raised his hand. Showing her his golden wedding ring and pointing to his comrade, himself and then to the farm. They got the deal.
For the next years they did work on that farm as a kind of serfs, but they where treated well from the woman and her two daughters who lived there. They could sleep in the barn with the animals, which was good enough not to freeze to death in winter and they even where allowed to eat on the table in the house, after the woman had finished. They even got some clothes to wear instead of their uniforms. After all they where lucky, they where treated well and I think that was the time my grandfather started to like the idea of farming. But they could not write home, and messages about the war where rare.
Isolated on this farm my grandfather and his comrade knew that running away would not do any good. Far away from any german speaking persons, far away from their homeland and with a policeman from the next village checking in once in a week, they decided the risk was to high to run away and maybe get shot for fleeing when captured.
So they stayed. Year for Year. Year for Year. Year for Year. Not knowing what was going on in the world. No Radio, no TV, no newspapers, only talks and rumors from drivers who picked up the goods from the farm and helped with the harvest.
In Spring 1955, more then 10 years after they where captured, a military car came to the farm with a russian officer and someone from Red Cross. They talked to the woman and then they asked to see the dog tags of my grandpa and his friend. After they had proven to be german soldiers, they where told that they would go home right away. During the transport they learned that there where still POW Camps in Russia (the last was closed in 1956) and that hundreds of thousands if not a million Soldiers died in these Camps during their imprisonment.
Both went home, where my grandmother was still waiting for him to come home, even without hearing or knowing what happened to him for 10 years. My mother was born a year after and they started to build the house my family is living until today. My grandfathers comrade build one 2 minutes down the street and they remained close friends, worked together in the shoe factory and even bought a small allotment garden next to each other. There he planted an apple tree from seeds he carried with him all the way from Ukraine.
I remember him digging up all of his harvest in 1986 because of Chernobyl with tears in his eyes. He always was so proud of the harvest and until then it was pretty common that we ate vegetables and fruits mostly from his own garden.
My grandfather died early in 1990, he was alive to see the fall of the Berlin Wall and the beginning of the end of the Soviet union. I was 14 only and I remember him saying that it was a good thing with a new century around the corner that the “old and outdated things die”.
After WW2 West-Germany started a deep friendship with France, ending the bad feelings about the war with visiting each other once a year and celebrating life. We have a friendship with Carentan and until my grandfather died we went there every two years. My grandfather sometimes mentioned he was glad not to fought against the french, that way it was easier for him to befriend them. He stopped right there but I always had the feeling that he wished for a friendship with the east. And in his last days he said he wished he could see the place in Ukraine where he stayed for 10 years. He had no bad feelings about that obviously.
His friend cried a lot during my grandfather burial. He said that he would have given up or ended up in a POW Camp dying, when my grandfather had not saved them. He still lives in the same house down the street, celebrating his 95th Birthday this year.
The apple tree from the Ukrainian seeds still bears fruit every year. And for the birthday of our neighbor my mum always bakes apple pie with those apples, that is a tradition since my mum was 17. Our neighbors mind is not very clear most of the time. But he always lights up when he sees the pie. And every time he says “Albert (my grandfather) loved those apples. Sometimes he picked some up which lie on the ground for us to eat in secret, which was forbidden by the woman of the farm. But I think she noticed it and decided to pretend she has not seen it.”
I am happy that he is not able to realize what is going on in Ukraine right now. And that my Grandfather is not alive anymore to see it. It would break their heart.
Because war again, because cities bombed again, because civilians die again, because Russians are the enemy again.
My grandfather died believing that would never be the case.