Penalized for Losing

   Penalized for Losing

Suzanne Marsh

Hearne, Texas Autumn 2022

The chill of an October morn, the leaves falling from the oak trees: floating casually to earth. I knew that I was going to have to rake them once the sun burned off the glistening dew. The rake naturally was in the back of the garage hanging up. I grabbed my pink flowered gardening gloves; I was ready to rake leaves. The fragrances of autumn coupled with leaves blowing all over the lawn; raking them up and using them for mulch the following year. I live in the small Texas town of Hearne; nothing ever happens here. The last big thing was when the German POW was down the road from our ranch. I began to rake as Maddie, my dog, began nosing around in a pile of leaves I had just raked. She barked and scratched at something embedded in the earth. I walked over; much to my surprise, she had a dirty oval object in her mouth. I had her drop it at my feet. I looked at it; not exactly sure of what it was. I looked closer, there was a name on it, a German name. How, after all these years did it come to be in a pile of leaves. I took it immediately to the museum at Hearne. The curator checked the name carefully: Sergeant Helmut Schmidt.

Camp Hearne, Texas 1943

“Achtung! Achtung! Attention! You are prisoners of war. This is camp Hearne, in the great state of Texas.

Please, keep your Erkennungsmarke (dog tags) around your neck. Barracks are assigned

according to rank. Enlisted men barracks one through ten. Sergeants to Captains ten through twenty.

Reveille is 5:45am lights out 10:00pm.” This was a grim reminder to the once elite Afrika Corp, that they had lost to these American jackals.

Sergeant Helmut Schmidt, stared bleakly around at the grounds; he turned to his Captain:

“This is worse than Afrika. It is a barren land. There does not appear any way to escape

these American dogs.”

“Helmut, we are going to escape, we just have to find the right time and place.”

“Jawol, I understand that. For now, I just want to dream of freedom.”

Reveille sounded the next morning. The German POWs quickly reported for whatever lay ahead of them. They wondered if these camps were the equivalent of the German POW camps. If escape was possible any prisoner with the wear with to escape should. That was what all soldiers were taught: name, rank, and serial number.

The morning was cold, the grass wet with due. The landscape was flat, no mountains, yet no desert either. The German POW’s wonder some out loud:

“This so different from Germany, we have mountains and snow, this Texas, is flat

in many spots, no trees to hide behind. We, must investigate the perimeter there

could possibly be a way to cut through that double barbed wire fence. It is the same

thing that we have in Germany. Helmut, that will be your job to check each perimeter.

Max, your job is to acquire items we will need once we are free. Georg, your job will

be what you do best forgery, we will need passports, travel papers. Now, the escape

committee will meet again two days from now.”

“Captain Mueller, do you think we can pull this off. The Americans are not stupid.

They have guard towers, armed guards everything that is in the Fatherland. That

is why it is so important to check any and all possible escape routes.”

“Ja, but we must try, any soldier should try to escape.”

Silence followed for several minutes. Captain Mueller, stood tall, his blond hair blowing in the crisp autumn wind. The more he thought about escape, the more he wanted to find a way to go home to the Fatherland and fight again. Sergeant Schmidt also wanted to escape, but he wanted to stay here in, Texas. He knew the United States government would not grant him a visa, at least not as long as their countries were at war. That left the option of escaping, hiding in the United States under an assumed name. The last option was to return to the Fatherland, he did not wish to do that; fearing reprisals for being captured. Several men he had served with were executed by the Gestapo for returning after defeat. No, he reasoned he would be better off changing his name and hiding in clear sight.

The tunnel rat Hans Klemper, emerged from his digging:

“I have a tunnel almost finished. I now need volunteers to aid me in finishing the tunnel.

Are all the documents prepared by the forger?”

Mueller stripped off his shirt and headed down the wooden ladder into the cavity that had become their escape tunnel. Schmidt knew he would have to keep his thoughts to himself, or he could end of up dead. He knew if he took a chance he could be seen as a traitor; murdered for ideology. He could not disgrace his family name either.

Later that night, the tunnel was completed. The passports, orders and clothing were ready. The men changed quickly. Schmidt still was unsure of how he was going to slip away from the rest of the men. He wanted this freedom; the Americans spoke of. He quickly decided that the moment he saw a way to leave the eight men, he would do so. He had been speaking to the American guards when no one was nearby. They had told him about New Braunfels and Fredericksburg, they sounded like German towns, one of those would serve to give him a new start. Taps sounded; the Germans hated that sound it so mournful. Lights were out; time to go. Mueller opened the trap door they had put in place shortly after their arrival, it was flush with the floor. They swiftly went down the wooden ladder; each making sure his name matched his picture. They found themselves in the middle of a corpse of trees. Mueller made the sign to move out. Schmidt quietly separated himself from the rest hiding behind a tree. He made his way to Fredericksburg, Texas where he changed his name from Schmidt to Smith.

Autumn 2022

“Ah, yes there was a Sergeant Helmut Schmidt, there is no record of him in any of

the archives. That does seem rather strange. Those erkennungsmarkes are definitely his.”

The curator puzzled at this; he thought ‘that is so strange, we have no one by that name.

“I will continue to look into this. Thank you for bringing these to our attention.”

I smiled, now I understood why my dad always had such a thick German accent had, he had changed the name from Schmidt to Smith. My heart skipped a beat as I realized that Dad might have been penalized for losing a war that had so many the