Rybin, Y. Luftwaffe ace Walter Schuck researched / Christer Bergstrom, Yuriy Rybin. - Sweden : [s. l.], 2019. - 190 p. : ill.

WALTER SCHUCK Walter Schuck’s devotion for flying also stemmed from childhood. In Mittelbexbach, the neighbouring village, lived an old First World War pilot by the name of Kneip. He had a biplane which he used to fly from a large meadow. In summertime in the twenties and early thirties, the rattling of Kneip’s aircraft in the sky above was the signal which made all the young boys on the ground below to stop their activities and rise their heads in admiration towards the bold aviator in the sky. Walter dreamed that one day he too would man an airplane high in the sky. In winter time, Walter spent many hours with his nose pressed against the show window of Kneip’s bicycle store, where the disassembled aircraft stood on exhibition. In 1927, the Schuck family moved from Frankenholz to the nearby village of Oberbexbach. Although hous­ ing no more than around three thousand inhabitants, this little village would produce no less than four Knight’s Cross holders during Second World War: Apart from Schuck, the fighter pilot Edwin Thiel, the Panzer soldier Willi Rothaar, and the Mountain yager Karl Oberkircher. From 1933, Adolf Hitler’s Machtiibernahme, seizure of power in Germany, exerted an increasing influence on the Saar region. Fear for the new regime in Germany caused a split in the previously unanimous desire among the Saar people to reunite with Germany. But the ruth­ less exploitation by the French and the humiliation of foreign occupation outweighed the fear for what Hit­ ler’s rule might bring, at least among a majority of the Germans in Saar. In addition, social reforms played an important role in undermining the fear for the extreme right. One of the Third Reich’s most popular reforms was the establishment of gratiutious holiday camps for chil­ dren from poor families. Walter and his younger sister were selected for one of those so-called Kinderver- schickungen, and he spent a wonderful summer at See- bad Ahlbeck on the Baltic Sea coast - not far from the later so famous rocket test grounds of Peenemunde. At Seebad Ahlbeck he met a 13-year old Berlin girl, and their acquaintance would last for a lifetime. The plebiscite which was held in January 1935 to decide the future for the Saar region resulted in a huge majority for reunification with Germany. Walter, by then 14 years old, never saw the German troops march into the Saar region. The triumph parade was held in the city of Saarbriicken, 20 miles from little Oberbexbach, and initially people thought that nothing would change in the small miner’s village. But very soon they would discover just how wrong that was. With the unification with Hitler’s Germany, much changed - for bad and for good - and it changed rapidly. The people in the Saar region learned the meaning of Gleichschaltung, rectification of all elements of society according to the new totalitarian state. Walter felt, if not an actual fear, then at least how a certain caution set in. People started to mind their P’s and Q’s when they spoke with each other, and certain subjects - particularly concerning society or the new authorities - started to be avoided. Jokes were not cracked as freely as previously. Listening to foreign radio became prohibited, and peo­ ple were expected to tune in on the German Volksradio with its simplified message. At the same time, Hitler cleverly sought to com­ pensate the freedom the people lost with various social reforms. Although worker’s rights were totally abol­ ished, state relief payments was something new, and to the Saar miners, the economic situation during the previ­ ous French rule by all means had been worse. (The cost for the reduced worker’s security measures was grimly paid by the miners themselves in January 1941, when an accident in the Frankenholz mine killed 41 miners and injured 46, causing the decision to close down the whole mine.) In any case, in the mid-1930s, a young son of a Saar miner like Walter Schuck was fully occupied with the problem of how to support himself and not be a finan­ cial burden to his family. There was no way his father’s meagre income would permit Walter to even think of a higher education. Following elementary school, he applied for apprenticeship, but without any success. All he managed to do was to get a few short-term periods of work at a brickyard, but the salary was ridiculous, and it was only temporary. Hitler’s re-introduction of compulsory military service meant both a threat and a possibility to Walter. Jakob Schuck had served as an infantry soldier in First World War, and he had seen the hell of trench warfare. When Walter was sixteen, his father told him: “My son, you have to join the military. If not, an uneducated miner’s son like you will be drafted into the infantry. But if you volunteer, you will have the possibil­ ity to choose, and then you can avoid the infantry.” Walter had no desire for a military career, but after some hesitation he realised that his father was right - he was left with no other alternative. Then, after all, this also was his opportunity to fulfil his dream of becoming an aviator. T