Читаем Soldaten полностью

HAASE: Did you get him?

DIEKMANN: Not a hope! By the time we realised that things were in such a state in BELGIUM, before the English had even arrived, he had already half bled to death; all I could do was to close his eyes. He just said: “FRANZ, avenge me!” The “Kompanie” came after us and requisitioned lorries. My MG was mounted on one—I had the MG 42—front, right at the top, and we fired into the windows. First of all I gave the order: “Close all windows, everyone must leave the street.” We didn’t give them time for that. The “Hauptfeldwebel” said: “Wait, don’t shoot yet, they’re not ready yet!” But he hadn’t finished saying this before I pressed the trigger and the MG began rattling away. We covered the windows and anything which showed in the street. I kept on firing across the streets, you know, right into all the side streets. Of course a number of innocent people were killed, but I didn’t give a damn for that. Those dirty dogs, to kill an old, married man so treacherously, who had about four or five children at home. You couldn’t show any consideration after that, it was out of the question. We would have set all the houses on fire if another shot had been fired.

We fired MGs into the midst of thirty Belgian women. They wanted to raid the German supply dump. But they were chased away in no uncertain manner.

HAASE: They ran away then, did they?

DIEKMANN: No, they were all dead.¹⁵⁰