Prologue:
Welcome Everybody to my newest Real Life Battlereport. It's somewhat a description of a historical event, which is World War II. If you have no interest in history, feel free to skip this Battlereport and head over to Battle.Net and play some games. For those of you who are still here, I want to explain my motives towards writing this. Some days ago a guy called 'crunchymaker' wrote a rather lame excuse for a battlereport and posted it on this site. In the comment section he wrote some random German stuff, lacking both spelling and grammar. I found that inappropriate because battlereports.com is an international site, so the language in which one should post had to be one that everybody understands, such as english. Addionally some visitor of br.com called him 'silly Deutscher' which means 'silly German'. I was kinda pissed of by this, because I happen to be German and this kid was given 'us Germans' a bad reputation. So I told him not to post in German again, for he was insulting my native language by even speaking it. He the called me a Nazi. This got me really angry, cause apparently he knew shit about nazis, let alone me or my family. His post was politely deleted thanks to an Admin. Now what I present you here is a story from World War II. Some detail may seem exagerated or made up, because it's a told story, told to me from both the main characters in it. It's hard as hell to get detail from people, who actually participated in WW II, because most of them don't want to remember, let alone tell anyone about it. It's a story of two men. They differ from one another in any way possible, yet they are tied to each other by what we call fate. It's the story of my two grandfathers. Names are changed, in respect for my dead grandfather, who I couldn't ask for permission to post his name.

1943 -Stalingrad-
Christian cowered behind a wall of sand. Gunshots filled the air and the smell of gunpowder burnt inside his lungs. He stared at his fallen comrade for about 5 minutes now, unable to make any move. The only thing that came to his mind was the distracting color of the sand. The dark brown color had mixed with the color of blood from Martin, his pal, the only man who he came close enough to to call him a friend. What had happened ? Three month ago, he had been at home, in Hamburg with his family. They had prepared his birthday party. He was turning 18. Now he was here, in the freezing cold, inside of the War. He hadn't even been asked. They had come to his home, picked him up gave him a 2 month drill and thrown him against the enemy.
    'Must be the family curse' , he thought. The same had happened to his father in World War I. The tall man, with straight blonde hair, whom he only know from photographs had died in this damn World War I. The absurd similarity of his situation came to his mind. Was it his fate to die here, same as his father, fighting for some damn politician? Fighting for this Adolf Hitler, with his absolut hatred for anything 'not German' ? Hell, the bastard himself wasn't even German. He remembered clearly how they made jokes of the small man, with brown hair and brown eyes, as they heard him in the radio, praising how 'only tall, blonde Germans' were worth living. He was not gonna die here on this field, not for a person, an attitude, a politic he didnt believe in. His time hadn't come yet.

Christian stood up from his position inside the sand bunker. He watched the sky, silently remembering his beloved ones in Germany.

Then a shot fell and Christian fell over.

Darkness.
 
 

Andreas ran as fast as he could, but he could feel how the Gestapo (Authors note: The Gestapo was the secret service of Germany in WW II) behind him was catching up.
    'What a dumb idea to go to the social democrat meeting.' , he thought. The Social Democrat Party had been forbidden, so these meetings were secret and highly illegal. But he stood up with his party, no matter what some Austrian National Socialist would say or do. They can't shoot people for having their own political opinion, can they ? No, for sure not in Germany, the country with the most progress in both technology and economy since 1919.

He turned around a corner and ran as fast as possible. He needed to shake them of NOW. He heard a single pistol shot, which hit a brick wall right next to him. Damn, he shouldnt have run away. What could they possibly have done ? Thrown him in prison for a month or two. Now that he was a fugitive, they tried to stop him by any means possible.

He turned the next corner.

And ran smack into a group of people. He hit the ground hard and his head was ringing from the impact. Hands grapped for him. He heard a metalic -click- as the handcuffs closed. They had him.
 
 

Christian woke up in a field hospital. The first thing he realized was that he couldn't feel his legs. He was desperate to stand up, but he couldn't get control of them. They must've given him morphine, cause he felt quiet good and didn't feel any pain. He raised one arm to get up and looked down to his legs. All of a sudden he was near throwing up, he would've if he had anything inside his stomach. They had cut his pants open at his left leg. It was a bloody mess. He could see nothing of it but the raw flesh around the hole that the bullet made. The sides of the wound were burnt by the hot iron of the projectile. He drifted away.

As he awoke, the sun was going down. It had seemed like 15 minutes, but he must've slept the whole day through. Then he realized the man standing next to his bed. He raised his hand to form a salut, but was to weak to perform it.
    'Private, you'll be flown out at 0500 tomorrow.', the man said and the added in a less militaric way 'You're going home soldier.'
 
 

He suffered from the hard work, which he wasn't used to and he got weaker every day. But he had to survive. He had a little son at home, 2 years old. He wouldn't give up.
 
 

'You're going home soldier', Christian thought. Bullshit. They had send him to Bremen into some army base. As Stalingrad had been a physical agony, so was Bremen a mental one. Each and every day he had to fill out forms for the Commander. Forms that released other soldiers to freedom. Forms that sent them home. Agony.

It was on his second week there when he heard the message over the radio.The place where he had been in Stalingrad had been overrun by the Russians. Noone had come out there alive. They were either dead or captured. He smiled sadistically as he watched his left leg. He was froced to walk with a walking cane, but that was a cheap price. They never found out he had shot at himself.

That was when he made his plan. He had fooled the army once. These military bastards weren't so smart after all. He could fool them again.
 
 

Andreas was struck down by the club.
    'Go back to work.' the 'black star' screamed at him. Without a word, Andreas took the shovel back up. They were building more houses, for more prisoners to come. Everyday the trains came. Wagons, originally made for cattle transports, full of poor souls that got captured.
Would this ever have an end ?

It must've been month now. He could count the days and he had no possibility to find out what date it was. He was tired. He could stand this anymore. Why not give up ? Death is like sleep after all. Wonderful deep sleep. Dreamless. Nothing the Guards could do to haunt him after death. It seemed so easy.

Then the alarm signal came. He heard gun shots and heavy machines rolling. The SS (Authors note: Germanys Special Forces) troops left the camp.
 
 

Christian walked into the bureau, just like every evening for the last 4 month.
    'Commander, here are the forms for today.' he said. His hands were sweating he had been nervously waiting for this moment the whole day.
    'Good Private.' the Commander said and proceeded to sign them, while chatting about 'the damn Americans taking their role in a War that had nothing to do with them'. Christian didn't listen. All he could do is watch the Commanders hands, signing every single form.

    'Oh I see, you're on of the lucky ones today, eh?', said the Commander, when he reached the paper with Christians name on it.
    'Yes, sir', was all Christian could say.
    'Well, good luck then, you were a good man. You can take you last days off, to do the exit purposes.'
    'Thank you, sir'

The next morning, Christian walked out of Bremen. It was over 300 kilometers to Hamburg and he had no money. He would have to walk most of the parts, even with his shot leg. But that wasn't important. He was free. And he was save. He had fooled them again. The Commander never realized the paer was faked. He proofed his fate wrong.

And so he began walking.
 
 

The whole camp was confused. The whole SS army had left the camp. They hadn't said anything to the prisoners. On the last day, over 3000 prisoners were shot. Over 7000 were sent on a march towards south, but without any guards. As the last troops left, there were over 60.000 prisoners left in the camp.

The next day Andreas knew what was up. He had heard the marching of military vehicles in the morning. At first he thought, the SS was coming back. But when the first trucks arrived he saw the American symbols. They were gonna be free. The Americans came and with them they brought food.

He was so close to give up, but he didnt care anymore. He was 6'2, weighing 135 pounds when they arrived. But that didn't matter. All that mattered was that he was free.
 

Epilogue:
This is it. RubiksCube signing out. Leave comments if you want. And please don't ever judge people for their past.