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My first launch by Jörg Ziller, beautifully translated by Colin Anson.

There's no doubt about it; little boys do not like to lose a war! And therefore it fell to me after Germany capitulated, to take upon myself the mammoth task of continuing the prosecution of the war at every opportunity, even against overwhelming odds, until victory was achieved or, as it turned out, until I simply forgot to fight as I had to concentrate on my schoolwork.

Maybe some of my recollections may not totally coincide with the facts in every detail, but I'll just go ahead with my story of the arduous path that led to my first glider flight, even if that word "flight" may be something of an exaggeration. And, of course, usually that path is long and the flight is short. And that also applies to this account.

They were very peculiar times, when living conditions in Germany were only just starting slowly to get back to normal.

To begin with, I directed my military operations against America. American soldiers had settled down with all their goods and chattels near our village and stayed there for two to three months. After a while, it seemed that I had won my struggle against America, as the "Amis" departed from the large meadow at the edge of our village, Brunkensen near Alfeld-on-the-Leine, where my mother, my sister and I had fetched up after we had been driven out of Silesia. A pity, actually, that they left, because they were good opponents. I can't begin to describe all the stuff we managed to pinch from them! And when we did not feel like carrying on the hostilities we simply went there and scrounged some chocolate. We pretended to be quite harmless in order to deceive them, and so undermine their fighting morale.

So- the Americans were gone and the English arrived. This was no longer so much fun. We kids noticed at once that the English were not well off. They guarded their possessions closely, and the sentries were inexorable, even towards us kids. On the other hand, they did not constantly fire their machine guns all over the landscape, but that was no doubt because they were too poor. (The Americans had been quite different. They tended to fire off their machine guns towards evening, when they started on the whisky bottles, or later, when the bottles were empty. This tended not only to cause damage in the village, but also to impress us children enormously.) Once, however, the English had a trailer full of petrol pinched from them. You wouldn't believe the fuss they made. All the men of the village were put behind bars for three days. But I, their fiercest enemy, was sent home to my Mama.

This was to have fateful consequences when, after a time, our village too began to settle down to normality. The English soldiers had long gone. The petrol trailer re-emerged, converted into a mobile liquid manure barrel, and German industry started up again. There was a glass works between Solling and Ith which was supplied with various materials, but mainly coal, via an aerial ropeway. That's where mother Ziller plus children trekked along every week to collect coal briquettes which had fallen from the skips. We were not the only ones, so we often had to cover fair distances before the rucksack was full. That's how we found ourselves near the slopes of the Ith mountain and, when we happened to glance up towards the skies, were amazed to see a glider circling there. For the Zillers that was a most exciting matter. So mother Ziller had no alternative but to climb up to the summit, to watch the flying activities which the British had re-started, based on the Flying Training School. And there, working as an instructor, was Pit van Husen. Not only had he been my father's instructor and, for a long period, his boss, but he also became a family friend, which was to prove of great advantage to me later, when I went gliding at Aigen. Pit had previously taught pupils to glide on the Ith under the Germans, towards the end of the war. Now Germans were not allowed to fly, even if they worked for the Allies. But Pit was a Dutchman. All his liife he had lived and worked in Germany, until after the war he moved to Austria, his wife's country, in order to establish the gliding school at Aigen. I remember him telling my mother one day, with a certain little smile, that he was allowed to act as an instructor for the English as he had told them that the nasty Nazis had forced him to teach the Germans how to glide. So now we were on the Ith more often, a number of Englishmen got to know us and we - that is, my sister and I - got to know the lie of the land on the Ith.

A little way from the actual gliding training school there was a large hangar. It was surrounded by a big barbed-wire fence and was constantly guarded. There was a German security detachment whose members, as we found out, regularly patrolled the area around that building. The men were unarmed.

I really cannot now recall who provoked my sister at that time. But one day she declared to me that there were more important tasks in life than to collect coal. We must go up the Ith and note down precisely, at what times the sentries were patrolling around the big aircraft hangar. Now that was a fitting operational task for me: to spy out the enemy's activities. From this moment onwards, to the profound astonishment of my mother, we kids were only too pleased to go looking for coal. But not only did we minutely register the patrol time intervals, one day my little sister took the bull by the horns. When a watchman whom she judged to be "a nice man" was on sentry duty, we left the bush which served as our observation hide-out and approached him and in the nice and charming manner she can sometimes put on (when she wants to) she asked quite harmlessly "what is there inside that big house?" "Aircraft, any number of aircraft" was his proud reply. "Could we see them?" "Strictly no - but for such nice children I suppose I could make an exception". He unlocked many doors, and finally we stood in the large hangar, in which certainly up to a hundred gliders were stored. (It was just like Klaus Heyn's idea of cloud seven in Heaven).

Now, of course, I was under orders from my sister to spy out how one might be able to gain entry into the hall. And indeed! while my little sister was distracting the watchman with sweet, clever conversation, I espied a board in the wall which was already so loose that, by virtue of my enormous strength and with the help of a lath of wood, I was able to loosen it further until one could hope to push it open from the outside.

Well, and that was it, really. I was kicked out of the school where our good Klaus Heyn, whom I had not yet met, was sitting his matric, and was sent to a boarding school where they tried to convert children into human beings fit for the "New Age". And that was also the end of my heroic struggle.

Not until I came home during the next school holidays did I learn of the heinous crime, in that wicked revenge fanatics had stolen three gliders out of the big hangar on the Ith, no doubt in order to prepare for the Third World War. I never actually met them, nor do I know what happened to the three gliders (as far as I know, my clever little sister doesn't know, either). But I am still convinced to this day that the following sequence of events, which was to change the course of my life, had its roots in all the happenings described above.

In 1952, when gliding began again in Germany, my sister (it will by now be apparent that she is older and much cleverer than I, and always took the initiative in those days) took me along to the Ith where gliding training had re-started. This time in German clubs with their own instructors and on an SG 38. I was not a club member, but I was allowed, all day long, to help push the precious glider back up the slope to the launch point. Towards evening, when all the others had done their short hops or slides (this depended almost exclusively on the good will of the holding crew towards the pilot), the instructor turned with a marked lack of enthusiasm towards the Ziller children and mumbled something like "oh yes, I suppose they were here too." Briefly, the thought flashed through my mind: is this the moment the glider pilots have been waiting for, to express their profound gratitude to the brave souls who had helped to save three sailplanes for the German gliding movement?

Well the great moment had arrived. I was allowed on to the pilot's seat, strapped in and thoroughly briefed on how to cope with all the eventualities of my flight. ( I'm sure I never intended to fly further than the 20 km back to Brunkensen). And then the commands rang out: "Ready! - Walk! - Run! - Let go!" The machine started to move...... and after a few metres came to a standstill. The instructor said I had done quite well and all the others congratulated me on my first flight, not without a hint that it was customary to pay for a round of drinks on this occasion. I was quickly removed from the pilot's seat and the machine was pushed back the few metres to the launch point. So this was what I had dreamed of for so long. Had I had a log book at the time, this "big event" would have been entered as my first flight.

Now it was my sister's turn. The instructor took great personal care over strapping her in safely. Then again the commands: "Walk! - Run! - Let go!" For a moment, after the "Let go", nothing seemed to happen at first. Then, but with noticeable hesitation, the SG38 started to move and rose, or so it seemed to me, vertically into the sky. When the glider had reached a height of at least 20 metres, the instructor screamed "Push!!" and she pushed. "Pull! - Push!" and she descended the Ith in large oscillations, aiming precisely at the only bush on the sloping meadow. Bang! Crash! the glider was hanging in the bush... Everyone rushed down the slope, to save what could no longer be saved.

It turned out that everyone had been lucky. The girl was still in one piece, the glider nearly in one piece, and the instructor became very audible indeed. What he told the holding crew cannot be put into words from the literary heritage of Goethe and Schiller. He no doubt was a very good instructor, and his words were calculated to impress the young men.

That was the end of flying for that day. On our way home to Brunkensen I had time to reflect on the day's events, and I soon realised that the high points of an airman's life should not be like that. Perhaps this was the moment when I firmly determined to learn this flying business properly. And that only began when I was allowed my first gliding course under Jan Eilers on Juist. Jan Eilers - this was the instructor who, later on, never dared to enter a gliding museum. He was afraid they would capture and slaughter him, get him stuffed and exhibit him as a former flying relic from the beginning of aviation history. But these are matters for another story......