Although for everyone who shared my hobby, the principle of "one against the rest" applied, there was one
person among my numerous rivals who I always looked forward to seeing. He was an old man who supplemented
his meager pension by selling empty brass cartridges. He was always on foot, and always carried a large old
brown leather bag. You could recognize him from a distance because of his bald, red head. Blood pressure and
sugar had forced him to take early retirement, as he once told me. He always had a friendly glint in his
eyes whenever he called me "my boy". When I'd meet him in the Grunewald after school, he would usually be on
his way home with a bulging bag. He would stop to chat briefly, and often gave me hot tips on places where
I might find something, even though by doing so he was essentially giving away money that he could have had
for himself.
We would work with each other and not, as was the case with all of my other rivals, against each other.
A kind of paternal friendship quickly developed between us. This is why I don't like to think back to one
hot summer day in 1963, which had begun just like any other. It was my summer school vacation in Berlin, and
I had already hurried into the Grunewald early that morning. I was drawn by a loud machine gun firing, which
suggested that there was a big military exercise taking place in the Havelberge hills. On my way I bumped
into my elderly friend who was, of course, rushing in exactly the same direction. The hill stood in a thick
veil of fog caused by the many colorful smoke grenades that were spreading a rather unpleasant smell.
In an almost unbearable heat, American troops were relentlessly attacking several 'enemy' bunker positions
on top of the hill. Stooping to pick up the countless 7.62mm expended cartridges was very sweaty work.
The slope was so strewn with brass that I didn't even mind my competition being there as well. I'd lost
sight of my friend in all the wild turmoil.
Suddenly the battle action abruptly stopped, right in the middle of an attack. I heard the signal of a
whistle and noticed that the soldiers were all gathering together at one spot. Some of them shouted
"Cease Fire!" Still engrossed in collecting shells, I heard another competitor say "The old man has
collapsed up there". I immediately thought of my friend and hurried to the spot where the soldiers were
standing in a circle. It felt awful to see the old man lying helplessly in the dry grass with his eyes
wide open staring into space. His head was as white as snow and his lips were trembling. After two soldiers
had looked after him for a while, they carried him carefully into an open U.S. ambulance jeep that had in
the meantime arrived. When I asked where they were taking him, a Sergeant explained to me that the jeep was
taking him to the German fire brigade's emergency vehicle, which had been unable to approach closer uphill
in such soft sand. Speechless, I saw the "Red Cross" jeep disappear into a cloud of dirt and dust. I felt
like bursting into tears, for I didn't even know my friend's name.
This terrible experience hovered before my eyes for a long time. I kept an eye out for him, and asked
acquaintances if they'd seen him. Sometimes, from a distance, I thought I recognized him, but I never saw
him again. Months later, an acquaintance told me that he'd heard from the scrap dealer that my old friend
had not lived beyond that day. This information had come from his widow when she sold her late husband's
collection of brass. In this tragic way, his life had reached its end in the place where he particularly
liked spending his time, with the practicing American troops. Although I had already suspected this sad end,
I still didn't want to believe it. I missed the friendly old man for a long time. Afterwards, whenever I
spotted an ambulance vehicle, the awful memory came back to me. Although these jeeps would follow each
convoy and accompany every unit on a daily basis on their marches back and forth, and although they remained
in the forest throughout the entire exercise, they had never before been of any interest to me because their
crews were not armed. The paramedics didn't even seem to know the exact location of the troops unless they
had heard the battle noises.
The Troublemaker