“Do you deny it? Do you deny your crimes?” The man thundered from high above, seated as his raised desk intended to make him look powerful and dangerous. The boy he had addressed, about seventeen years old, stared into his cold, grey eyes unflinchingly.
“I do not deny having released information, but it was not a crime. I only told the truth.” He responded calmly.
The man on the podium straightened, his eyes glittering maliciously.
“Then I hereby sentence you to death by beheading.” He declared.
The boy before him didn’t look away or slouch. Instead, he raised his chin and puffed out his chest, holding his horribly bruised and swollen face with defiance.
“Now I must die though I have committed no crime.” He stated. “So now it’s my turn, but your turn will come.”
The man looked slightly unsettled, but he turned to us, the other two.
“As for you, conspirers of the condemned,” he commenced.
But maybe I should start at the beginning.
~~~
The year would have been 1933 when the Nazis rose to power. I was nine, and blissfully unaware or the evil that trailed the exciting new group. My parents did not like them or trust them, but they did not openly express their discontent. They were wise to the danger of that even before the disappearances started.
Those years were before I realized what the Nazis were really doing. I was entranced by the powerful and impressive speeches and parades led by the Hitler Youth group. When I was twelve, I joined the Jungvolk, or the Hitler Youth group for the very young. My father nearly begged me not to, but I could not resist the drawing of what looked like such fun.
At first, it was fun. We had campfires and hikes, and it was all very much the dream of a young boy in a world of not knowing anything but Nazi Germany, and the world of suppression that came with it.
Then I moved up to the true Hitler Youth group. I was fourteen. We handled real guns now, and we wore uniforms. We practiced in fake battles and were assigned to ranks. I made friends of a few others, but only two were ever close to me. Their names were Rudi and Helmuth. They shared my growing doubts about the Nazis and their intentions.
“They are training us to kill!” Helmuth exclaimed one day, just to me, keeping his voice a ragged whisper that was meant to be unheard to anyone else. I didn’t react, but secretly, I knew he was right. After all, why would they put us on patrols with the Gestapo, the Nazi police, and tell us to report anyone that even thought about disobeying them?
I was disgusted; with myself, with them. I started to skip meetings of the Hitler Youth and I stopped wearing my uniform. At the end of that year, I lost my temper and punched my group leader in the face, and was promptly expelled from the group.
I was relieved to be free at last, but that wasn’t the last time I had to deal with the Nazis. I thought I had gotten free, but I was still in Nazi Germany, still suppressed, and I still had to watch the Gestapo attack Jewish families for no reason, or burn their houses and shops just because they were there.
When I was 16 is where I will start, for that is when Helmuth began at first to truly begin to reveal his plans.
~~~
I was walking to Helmuth’s house, as I normally did these days when I was not in school, and as normal, I was trying to ignore my anger at the Gestapo. I saw them rounding up the Jewish and attacking them relentlessly, but there was nothing I could do. To step in would be suicide, not only for me but for my family. No, better to keep walking, to find other ways to stand against our new, tyrant leader.
When I arrived, Rudi and Helmuth were outside the door, waiting for me. I shot them both concerned looks, for they were huddled, whispering excitedly. Instead of giving me an answer, they hustle me inside, rushing me up the stairs and into the attic, securing the door. Then, somehow, Helmuth produced a shortwave radio, a banned object because of its ability to tap into waves that were not German. My friend turned it on, and it crackled to life. Then, a distinctly British voice became clearer and spoke in English, a language that I knew but did not often hear or speak.
The broadcaster was speaking about Germany, telling about the recent attack on the Russians. As I listened, horror began to settle over me. The Nazis were sending the soldiers to their deaths on the Russian border. Nothing was being won there as we had been led to believe.
After the broadcast, we sat in silence for several minutes. Finally, Helmuth spoke, his voice hard and rough.
“We must do something. We have to tell the people the truth!”
Rudi and I nodded in mute agreement.
It was the next day that Helmuth announced his plan for the flyers. Panic flared in my chest when he told us, but I also felt a sense of rightness, of duty. Rudi and I agreed to his plan, and all three of us swore that if one of us were caught, we would claim full responsibility for the operation and not reveal the others. It was an extra precaution, but a necessary one.
Then, we began.
The work was scarily risky and infuriatingly hard. Just making the posters themselves had to be done in absolute secret, for even a task so small and seemingly insignificant could have us arrested and killed for treason. We did not reveal our plans even to our parents, but instead we labored hidden away where no one would find us.
It took around a month to write, edit, and print the first flyer. Then came the actual distribution of the papers. This was, by far, the most dangerous and nerve-wracking part of the operation. I do not know what made me do it, but I volunteered that first night to go out. Helmuth and Rudi agreed and offered to take the next two days, if I succeeded. It was not said, but it was understood that the project would be abandoned if I was caught, for I would claim to be alone, and if the flyers continued to be distributed, it would become too dangerous and the other two would be caught.
We stood in a triangle, all of us staring at the others. A solemn silence hung over us as we thought about what was about to happen. I gathered the flyers into my hand and tucked them inside my jacket. Then, before I could lose heart, I turned and left, exiting the attic. I snuck down the stairs and out into the crisp, still air of the dark streets.
I rushed through the town, dodging into shadows and stuffing papers in mailboxes and dropping them on benches and porches. Every corner I turn I expect to see the Gestapo waiting for me. My heart thuds against my chest so hard and so loud that it feels like a wonder to me that the Nazis don’t hear and arrest me on the spot.
Finally, against all my worst fears, I reach home once more. I sneak in, walking with barely a sound and getting to my room without waking my parents. I had expected them to be asleep, but I had a cover story ready in case they were not. I would have told them that I had stayed late at Helmuth’s, lost track of time and came home late. They would have believed me, I think, because it was not an uncommon occurrence. That would not question me, just like they never had those other times.
Time passed with the same things. We printed the flyers and took turns passing them out. The Gestapo started to get more and more desperate to catch us, because the flyers were everywhere, called things like, “Hitler the Murderer!” and “Do You Know You Are Being Lied To?!” We got braver and attempted risky feats, like slipping our posters into the pockets of high ranking officials and such. We stopped hanging out anywhere in public and we only ever met together in private. We were getting away with it, and it felt like we had outsmarted the police.
It was a night like any other, Helmuth’s turn to pass out the flyers, and Rudi and I were just getting ready to head home. We had cleaned up the attic, hiding our printing tools and our flyers and radio under the floorboards, and were outside the door. Suddenly, we heard shouting and gunshots from a few streets over. Glancing at each other, I could tell that we both had the same thought. We continued on our way, faster than before now, frustrated that we could not go and investigate.
The next morning, when we headed over to Helmuth’s, was when our worst fears were confirmed. Our friend had been caught by the Gestapo the night before and had been taken away. Rudi and I left his house with fear in our hearts, though we could only hope that he would keep his part of the pact and not reveal us to the Nazis. Rudi and I stopped hanging out, almost completely, for fear that we would be suspected and arrested.
Two days passed, and I began to relax a little more. I was still greatly upset about Helmuth getting captured, but neither Rudi nor I could do anything for him. My remaining friend and I risked more visits to each other, but we didn’t go to Helmuth’s house or pass out any more flyers.
Then, suddenly, we were both arrested. Rudi and I were both terrified about what would happen to us. What had Helmuth told them? Why had he broken the pact? What would happen to our families?
Rudi and I were separated at the prison. I feared that I would not see him again. i also feared what he would tell the Nazis. For the first night, I curled up, unable to sleep, and cried. I was scared of what would happen, what the Nazis would do to us. Eventually, I think I must have dozed for a short time, for I woke to the heavy footfalls of the prison guard.
I lifted my head wearily, wondering what they were coming to do. Two of them entered my cell and started to beat me; kicking me, punching me, hitting me with the butts of their guns. I remember hazily my time there, but that first time they attacked me, I remember clearly. They beat me bloody, until I curled into a ball and no longer moved. After that, they left, and I stayed, curled on the floor, afraid to move, afraid to breathe.
Eventually, I sat up, trying to assess the damage. Every move I made was agony, and I could hardly see for the blood running into my eyes.
This repeated for several weeks. I felt helpless, useless, and unable to fight against them. I was constantly scared, fearing for the next time they would come. When they were not there, I sat on my bed and huddled against the wall, not moving, trying not to think. Then they would come, and it would all begin again.
Finally, they came and dragged me from my cell. As they walked, and I stumbled, down the halls, I glanced sideways and saw Helmuth for the first time since he was arrested. His face was swollen with bruises and he had blood smeared across his cheek, but he smiled weakly and winked at me. Suddenly, I knew he hadn’t broken the pact.
They took me to an interrogation room, and they questioned me for hours. I held out that I had done nothing, that I was innocent, but they refused to believe me. I was taken back to my cell and beaten again, but still, I refused to say anything they might use against my friends or me.
I believe that it was August of 1942 when we stood before the judge. That is where I found out what Helmuth had really told them. He had, like our pact had commanded, assumed the blame, calling himself the mastermind of the operation. According to him, Rudi and I had known about the flyers, but that was all. It was in that moment that I realized his true bravery, and I was grateful to him for saving my life.
The judge stated the crime, reading from the reports of the Gestapo about the flyers and their contents, and how they caught Helmuth passing them out, and about him later revealing Rudi and I to have known about his plot.
“Do you deny it? Do you deny your crimes?” The man thundered from high above, seated as his raised desk intended to make him look powerful and dangerous. Helmuth stared into his cold, grey eyes unflinchingly.
“I do not deny having released information, but it was not a crime. I only told the truth.” He responded calmly.
The man on the podium straightened, his eyes glittering maliciously.
“Then I hereby sentence you to death by beheading.” He declared.
Helmuth didn’t look away or slouch. Instead, he raised his chin and puffed out his chest, holding his horribly bruised and swollen face with defiance.
“Now I must die though I have committed no crime.” He stated. “So now it’s my turn, but your turn will come.”
The man looked slightly unsettled, but he turned to us, the other two.
“As for you, conspirers of the condemned,” he began, “Must also be punished. You knew of his plots, yet you did not report him. Each of you is to be deported to a work camp, under sentence of five and ten years.”
I glanced at Rudi over my shoulder, and my friend met my gaze. I knew we had a hard experience ahead of us, but at least we were not sentenced to death. Yet both of us felt undyingly grateful to Helmuth, who was to be beheaded. How could such a hero as he deserve such a fate?
The next years, in the camp, were hard and long. They worked the people much too hard with too little food. I longed to see my family again, and I desperately hoped that they were well. No news came to me, except that the British were coming closer and getting bolder. I hoped desperately that they would find me and free me.
Luck was not with me though. Before the Allied Forces could reach me, my camp was overrun by Germany’s other enemy; The Soviet Union. I was taken away from my homeland, tied to the other work camp prisoners and taken to Russia, where the Soviet soldiers would not believe that I had defied the Nazis. I was kept in a prison cell, given scanty food and worked again as an enemy of Russia. Four long years passed before I was able to leave. During that time, I did not see Rudi, and I feared that he was dead.
Then, I was released and I left for America. I wanted to put my past behind me and move to a land where no one worried too much that we were only in a stretch of calm; the eye of the storm. People did not stare at me with disgust or pity like I had become accustomed to in the past several years.
It saddens me to say that it did not see my family after the war, or learn what fate became them. I did find Rudi though, and my old friend traveled with me to the new land. He told me that he only survived the war because he was not drafted due to his ten-year sentence, and I told him of my time in Russia.
Now, we live comfortably. The war is done and we are far away from the place that bears our pain. The new German government recognized us for our bravery and honored Helmuth for his, for, as I learned after we came to America, Helmuth was executed two months after our trial as one of the youngest people executed during the entire Nazi reign.
People call me a hero of the time, but that I will deny. Helmuth was the hero, and I was but his sidekick. I will always remember what he did for me, and his bravery before the judge, for he faced death in place of his friends, yet he held his head high and sacrificed himself for what was right.

-Karl-Heinz Schnubbi