FROM THE ATLANTIC TO THE URALS
Breitspurbhan – Scheme to establish a broad-gauge railway running enormous double-decker coaches from the Atlantic to the Urals. Status: Partially complete. The trans-Europe routes are as Hitler intended but the gauge is less and the coaches are fewer and of a more conventional type than originally envisioned.
Half His Dreams, All Our Nightmares – A Brief Guide to Nazi Mega-Projects
(London Daily Chronicle, special Sunday Supplement, May 29, 2016)
I – The Stewardess
London Harlow Airport (ILV: LHR) – ein internationaler Großflughafen in Harlow im Gemeindebezirk Harlow in Essex, 48,9 km nordöstlich von London. Es ist, nach London Woking, der zweitgrößte Flughafen im Vereinigten Königreich durch Passagierverkehr.
Großbritannien, 12th Edition
(Karl Baedeker, Leipzig)
Her name is Lena Däbritz and one would, if sufficiently cynical, guess pulchritude was the prime requisite for Deutsches Luft Hansa stewardesses. Who am I to question the whims of airline public relations masterminds, especially when the fruits of their efforts are sharing a drink with me in the lounge near Gate 17? After my second beer, I find myself noticing that young Fraulein Däbritz has both blue eyes and a blue uniform, while her golden hair matches the trim on said uniform. This seems of particular interest a half hour later, as the flight is announced to be delayed yet again and I venture into my third beer.Großbritannien, 12th Edition
(Karl Baedeker, Leipzig)
The conversation remains lucid and unembarrassing, though. We spin through the usual preliminaries fairly quickly. She’s from Solingen, a city I’ve never heard of but which is, I am sternly assured, the Reich’s main manufacturing center for knives, scissors, razors and bayonets. She’s been working for DLH for just over two years now.
I then ask the fairly inevitable and dull question. “How do you like it? I have a niece who’s just started working for Commonwealth Air.”
“Really? Where is she based?”
“Montreal. She’s on the short flights – Buffalo, Detroit, Boston.”
Lena nods and stirs her the icy remnants of her soda. “I am the same. London, Brest, Brüssel, around and around, over and over. It’s not so bad, but I want to fly on the big birds. Like the Ju 700, you know?”
I nod. The largest passenger plane in the world, as Germans never tire in reminding everyone else. I’ve never had the pleasure of flying aboard one, but apparently they’re so steady you hardly know you’re flying.
“You can drive a panzer down the cabin! Not like this little thing.” She gestures dismissively at the Focke-Wulf turboprop finally nosing up to our jetway. “From Hitlerstadt to Nanking! Or even America. I would like to see New York. One day, maybe.”
I’m drunk enough to think But how would you deal with all the Jews and Russians? but not nearly drunk enough to say it aloud.
And then she asks the obvious question. “Why are you going to Germany?”
“I’m writing an article.” I’d cleverly mentioned I was a writer earlier, during my first beer, so this didn’t come as a bolt from the blue. Still, it was interesting, and depressing, to see her guard go up. Her eyes harden, her answers come more slowly. Some Germans are happy to talk to foreign writers, others, and they may well be the more sensible ones, are extremely reluctant. Even in London Harlow, you can’t be sure who reports to Ruschestraße 103 (1).
The only safe place left is inside your own mind, as Christoph Pelz said in his suicide note.
She doesn’t go away, though, not even with the excuse of our inbound flight’s arrival. “What kind of article?”
“Just about people.”
“Any people?”
“Interesting ones.” The beer makes me wink. She’s nice enough to smile back, but a man knows when he’s lost the game. That more than anything starts to sober me up. “Ordinary Germans. Whoever is willing to talk about anything they want to talk about. Like you and your work. New York.”
The flight from Brest starts disgorging passengers. It’s a funny mix, as usually for DLH flights from outside the Reich. Mostly French (traveling a German carrier for lack of any other options), some Germans, a few curious Brits like me.
“It was nice to meet you, but my duty calls,” she says to me.
I raise my glass in salute. “Tschüß!”
“Ta ta.”
I watch her go, realize I’m leering but don’t stop.
Christ, I think. This trip’s off to a brilliant start and I’ve not even left the country.
1 - Headquarters of the Gestapo since 1976.
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