The Vanguard Falls: Preface
Dedicated to my father, Erich Wagner
SA-Scharführer, WW-Unteroffizier, & Heer-Hauptmann
Germany's defeat was on no one's mind in November 1918. They thought the war would last a hundred years or thousand generations before a side would surrender and even if it did not, my father, like many other Germans, were convinced of the Entente's collapse. Russia had been knocked out of the war, and not a single Entente soldier occupied German land. But in a short amount of time the Kaiser and all the kings of the German Empire abdicated, a republic was declared, and the Socialist began to revolt. My grandparents took our family out of Berlin and to the countryside. My aunt, Else, had a boyfriend who was with the Socialist, and she decided to stay despite her parents' protest. She was never seen again.
When my family returned to Berlin, it was damaged, the Free Corps put the Socialists down brutally. My father, still a child, found joy in the bleak circumstances, despite his losses and strife, he found ways to enjoy what was left. The great political games did not mean much to him. Once the Treaty of Versailles was announced, he saw "a city of tears, those of angry and despair." He understood what was going on, in only the most juvenile and superficial ways. He was one of the children who waited at the gate of the factory to get his father's paycheck to use it before the mark was worth even less.
My father would become a man in his own eyes in 1925 when my grandfather died. He had only found work part-time at the factory a few months before that and now was responsible for his grandmother, two sisters and his brother who was unable to work. He dropped out at school to support his family. He worked long and grueling days and always knew he was one day away from poverty if he could not keep up. He became depressed and told me about days where he wanted to leave and start a new life. Uncle Hans told him he should, but he would always be haunted if he did.
My parents would meet in 1928. My mother, Alma, was from a family of tailors. She wanted to break away from her family too. Her father was not a good man nor a kind one. They married within a year, and things seemed good so far, but then the Crash of 1929 happened, and my father was out of work. Many fathers were out of work, and many children were hungry. Unemployment skyrocketed, and the government was inept. Like many young men, my father was corned by political extremists. I do not believe my father was an extremist, he was never one to pick fights and demand blind allegiance to a similar cause, but the man back then was not my father. He fought with communists in the streets of Berlin and wore his Stormtrooper uniform proudly. Uncle Hans did not speak to him for a while. He loathed the military and the warmongering attitude of the National Socialist German Workers' Party. He wanted no part of it. My mother did not speak out against it, but she worried about him.
He spoke of a revolution coming to save Germany and that he was finally part of something great. The leader of the Nationalist Socialists, Adolf Hitler, would eventually gain power in 1933. My father was only one of many who were swept in the "Red and Black Fever." He convinced the world that he would forge a Thousand Year Reich, but instead lasted little more than a thousand days. Germany's enemies once again allied themselves and Germany was defeated. My father survived, and after witnessing Hitler's death, like many others, abandoned Nationalist Socialism.
After I was born, my parents thought it was best to flee Germany, perhaps to Bavaria or Austria before their situation got worse. They stayed, and things did improve, but then they did not. The Socialist revolted again, and my father joined the fight against them. My sister and I were sent away. A new war had come to swallow their world whole, and my father was around to serve in it this time. I wrote to him, and he wrote back when he could, but then he wrote back less and less until nothing came. I returned to Germany in 1953 when it was safe. I found a much older man who was tired and ready to go home, but he was still my father, and I wanted to go back too. Berlin then was an old city, a ruined city, and a dead city, but it was a free city.