It doesn't take long to write these words, and it takes even less time to say them, when you don't have to
look the wounded party in the eye! Regrettably, I didn't manage this 40 years ago and although it is now too
late, I'm trying to make up for it in this rather unusual way. There's no alternative, for my Grandpa, to
whom this story is dedicated, died many years ago. Things that have happened generally cannot be undone.
At the time, fear and shame stopped me from confessing the incident to my grandparents; an incident that
was a good example of my carelessness and thoughtlessness. At the time, a bad conscience and feelings of
guilt made me incapable of confessing.
It was all quite harmless to begin with. During a particularly successful expedition in the Grunewald,
I discovered a large, empty, wooden crate above the Kumme Lanke lake. It must have been used as packaging
for ammunition boxes. A short while later I found an abandoned, unexploded "Flash Bang" booby trap, the most
dangerous trip wire kind. I must have taken leave of my senses as I put a devious plan into action.
I had always wanted to get one over on my many annoying rivals. There were still a few scores to be settled
and I thought I'd found a brilliant way to do so. I cautiously fixed the booby trap to the bottom part on
the inside of the empty wooden crate. To its pull-out fuse I attached a short connecting wire, which I then
fixed to the inside of the loose lid. It all took just a matter of minutes. Ingenious, I thought - with the
lid on top, the crate looked like it might be full. I was aware that whoever even just slightly raised the
lid or knocked over the crate would trigger the immediate detonation of the incendiary device. Full of
malicious glee, I could just picture the stupid face of whoever would be nosy enough to fall into my trap.
I carefully carried the wooden crate into the middle of the trail and placed a few full blank cartridges in
front of it as bait. Then I had to scram. With great anticipation, I waited in some nearby bushes for one
of my many greedy rivals. All for nothing! It was just typical, I thought to myself, nothing was happening.
For miles around not a soul to be seen who could falter into my trap! Disappointed somehow, I thoughtlessly
left the crate as it was and rode back home.
As soon as I arrived home, Oma asked me whether I'd bumped into Opa in the woods. He'd been gone for so
long. As I replied "no" to all of her questions, and also told her that I hadn't seen any Americans in the
Grunewald either, she started to get worried. Of course, I didn't tell her about my silly prank. For a while,
I'd known that Opa was persistently trying to get his share of the brass fortune, for the most part with
little success. Although my grandfather would never openly admit it, he would have loved to supplement his
modest pension with the help of some money made from selling brass. Of course, he regularly saw my scrap
dealer handing over bank notes to me. But it was easier said than done. Compared to all of the other
collectors, some of whom would even stay in the woods overnight, he hardly stood a chance. Above all else,
he lacked the experience and the necessary mobility. He walked blindly past undiscovered spots, completely
clueless, and he always arrived much too late for the latest shoot-outs. But it had to be on this particular
day that, of all people, Opa had to be the one to find the wooden crate that I had so maliciously prepared.
It is not hard to imagine what happened at that very moment. The hairs on the back of my head still stand
on end today, for the disaster did indeed take its course. What on earth had I done? I could never have
guessed that it would turn out that way, and it certainly hadn't been intentional. If only I'd been there I
would certainly would have prevented it.
When Opa then finally arrived back home after about an hour, he seemed completely distraught. He didn't
answer Oma's questions at first. Obviously something must have happened that could explain his strange
behavior! Not until later on that evening did he hesitantly mention something about a crate that had been
lying in the middle of the "Black Trail", presumably left behind by someone. Seeing as it looked full, he
had unsuspectingly gone up to it. When he tried to look inside there was a loud bang, the cause of which he
couldn't understand, for the crate was indeed empty. And since then he had been experiencing difficulties
hearing, which thankfully were as good as gone by the next morning. "Whatever you do, don't touch anything
else", I heard Oma telling us. When I heard that, I just wanted a hole to open up in the ground and swallow
me. What an fool I'd been, he could have fallen down dead with fright! Poor Opa, I did feel sorry for him,
and yet I was too gutless to confess to my awful deed.
But as I said, he was lacking any kind of experience in my admittedly very dangerous hobby. Sometimes Opa
lingered for hours near a particular unit, even though it was clear to every insider that there was
definitely nothing to be had. Whenever I saw the soldiers, I could already tell from a distance whether
to expect a loud or a quiet exercise. The whole secret lay in the fact that the soldiers put "blank adapters"
onto their rifle muzzles if they intended to fire blanks. The blank adapter made fully automatic firing
possible, and it resulted in many empty rounds. If they didn't have these red adapters (the British ones
were yellow), then it was highly likely that only a logistics exercise or life firing range training had
been planned. In these cases, there was no need to waste time hanging around.
Not such a good deed after all