Tiefflieger

The journey on the autobahn continued. In many places, there were large bomb craters in and alongside the road. Now I also saw for the first time the contrails from jet planes, or “rea planes” as they were called back then. Apparently, there had been air battles at high altitude involving many aircraft, because in the sky it looked like spaghetti. One could also see low-flying fighter planes attacking along the roads, sometimes flying beneath power lines.

As far as we could tell, they sometimes watched us, but the significance of the white color had apparently been understood; at times, they greeted us by tipping their wings as they flew on. During daylight, we were practically alone on the autobahn. On the open stretches that the autobahn consisted of, German convoys were easy targets to spot. Most ordinary German country roads had tree-lined avenues, which offered some degree of cover. We crossed the Danube River.

We made a stop there, and most of us took the opportunity to wash our feet in the water. Spring had progressed quite far down there, and I remember that many plants, including cowslips, were growing along the riverbank. We made one more night stop before arriving at Dachau.