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The fun to be had from a successful attack played a major role in the Luftwaffe airmen’s conversations. The category not only served to mutually confirm the virtuoso skill with which one handled one’s aircraft and the superiority one enjoyed over the enemy or others. It also had a considerable communicative significance. Fun was part of what made a story worth telling. It was part of the tension of a well-rounded narrative, comprehensible and with a striking ending, and the mutual laughter it elicited showed that soldiers inhabited one and the same world, a world in which hitting targets and having fun went hand in hand. Victims in the sense of people with whom soldiers could empathize do not appear in their stories. Whether they were talking about ships, planes, or houses, bicyclists, fairground visitors, train and ship passengers, or mothers with children, the victims appear only as targets.

The following anecdotes from Germany’s air campaign against England from 1940 to 1944 require no commentary:

No, only intruder patrols. Whatever we came across; country houses on a hillside made the best targets. You flew up from below, then you aimed—and crash! There was the sound of breaking windowpanes and the roof flew off. But I’ve only done that with the 190, twice in attacks on villages.

At the Market Place, there were crowds of people and speeches were being made. They ran like hares! That’s great fun! It was just before Christmas. We had no losses on that occasion.¹¹²