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10 Death Enters I N AUGUST 1944, when Etzel had left and I had taken over hiszyxwvutsrqponmlkjih Fahnlein , I was formally admitted as an officer's candidate to the army's elite Division GroCdeutschland. I had been summoned with a dozen other boys to a country day school outside Wolfenbiittel for a three-day examination that was to probe my health and physical and mental abilities. As I sat in the train taking me to the examination, questions beset me that foreshadowed the unreality and ambivalence that I was to experience later in life when I thought of my father and what his life had meant to me. Here I was about to enter upon my career as a soldier, a career for which I thought my father's life had set the example. But this was August 1944, barely a month after the news of the unsuccessful assassination attempt on Hitler had hit us with a shock wave of disbelief and bewilderment. How was such treachery possible? was my mother's and my immediate reaction. When Hitler announced that his survival was proof of providential protection and that it was to assure us of ultimate victory, we were at first inclined to believe it. This had not been the first unsuccessful attempt on his life. Hitler had survived earlier bombs that had been set by political foes and, during the early years of the war, had managed to surround himself with such an aura of infallibility and invincibility that many believed he was destined to win in the end. But deeply tucked away in the recesses of my memory were the words of my father in Radlin: There would come a day of reckoning and the army would call the SS to account. I knew that the July bomb was set by an army officer, and that army units were involved in the plot. The newspaper headlines and radio bulletins had made that very clear. Had my father known this was coming? Was this what he had referred to in Radlin? Did he sympathize with, perhaps 153 Death Enters zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQ even support, the plotters? Then I also recalled that he had said the accounting would occur only after we had won the war. So he could not have meant the July plot. But how could I be sure? As I sat in the train, alone in a compartment, I began to compose a letter in my head, a letter I wanted to send to my father after I had passed the examination and returned home again. I wanted to tell him my feelings and thoughts and I wanted him to respond and settle my uncertainties. I intended to write him that the die had been cast, that he would no longer have to worry that I might choose the SS, that having joined Grofideutschland I had thrown in my lot with the army. I wanted to let him know, too, that I remembered what he had told me in Radlin; that, despite what had happened, I was going to take my stand with the army, to be with him, on his side; and that I trusted in what he had told me. I knew that I could not be explicit in my words, that I could not openly say what I meant by being on his side, but I was sure he would understand. One word of his would be enough of a reply to finally lift the uncertainty that I still felt. I could then commit myself fully to my career as a soldier and know that I was following in his steps. As it was to turn out, I never had the opportunity to send my letter; my father never had the chance to reply and end my uncertainty. On the first day after my arrival at the boarding school an army physician looked us over, and we then assembled in a classroom for tests in mathematics, language, and history. I was anxious because of my low achievements in the Braunschweig school I was then attending . But I need not have worried. Except for some of the more advanced mathematics problems I had no difficulty with any parts of the exam. I wrote confidently about my desire to become a professional soldier and I found the questions in literature and history easy to answer. The next day the officers challenged us in the gymnasium to show our courage and agility on double and single bars and probed...

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