Free Chocolate Cake With Hitler by Emma Craigie Page B

recovers in time. Auntie Eva and Mummy say that Dr. Stumpfegger will be able to stitch up the General.
    Flight Captain Reitsch was sitting on the sofa next to Uncle Leader when we went down to tea. Foxl was on her lap, but I’m glad to say he jumped down and came waggling towards me as soon as we came in. The Flight Captain had washed and changed and was wearing a dress of Auntie Eva’s that was ridiculously big and dragging over her feet. She is really tiny except for her teeth, which we saw a lot of as she guffawed at Blondi’s tricks.
    She told us the story of her journey here. The General had received the Leader’s summons to the bunker and had ordered Reitsch to come with him. They set off from Munich in a tiny plane called a Focke-Wulf . The same pilot who had brought Mr. Speer here agreed to fly them to Berlin. There was only just room for the pilot and one passenger, so the General squeezed in next to the pilot and Flight Captain Reitsch had to lie down on the floor in the tail of the plane. They flew very low and they had 40 Luftwaffe fighter planes flying beside them to protect them. By the time they arrived at Gatow airport on the edge of Berlin, nearly all the fighter planes had been shot down. At Gatowthey got into an even smaller plane, one which would be small enough to land in the middle of Berlin. The General took the controls and Flight Captain Reitsch sat beside him. The pilot refused to come any further. They flew so low that they could see the faces of the soldiers fighting in the streets below. Suddenly some Russians turned their guns on the plane. The bullets ripped right through the side of the plane and hit the General’s foot. Flight Captain Reitsch had to lean over him and grab the controls. Amazingly, she managed to land the plane from the passenger seat.
    Helmut was very excited. He now says he wants to be a pilot, like Harald. Hanna Reitsch promised him that she would teach him to fly after the war.
    Apparently Uncle Leader had told her that we were wonderful singers so she got us to sing “Night Silence” and “Can You Count the Stars?”. Auntie Eva had a headache and went for a rest after “Night Silence”, which was lucky because Heide then volunteered a solo performance of “Ladybird, Ladybird”, which was a high-pitched racket.
    Hanna Reitsch guffawed some more and asked if she would be allowed to put us to bed because she would love to teach us some more songs. Mummy said, “Yes – but no more exciting stories – the children need to be calm at bedtime.”
    Auntie Eva recovered from her headache and came with Hanna Reitsch to put us to bed. I wished it hadbeen Mummy, but she was resting.
    First of all Flight Captain Reitsch taught us the dwarves’ yodelling song from Snow White , which was all ho-de-lays and yodels. Helmut got hysterical giggles so she tried to calm us down with a rather childish lullaby.
    Sleep, baby, sleep!
    Your father guards the sheep,
    Your mother shakes the little tree,
    Down falls a little dream for thee,
    Sleep, baby, sleep
    Sleep, baby, sleep!
    Two sheep are there outside,
    A black one and a white one,
    And when the child doesn’t want to sleep,
    The black one comes and bites him!
    Sleep, little child, sleep
    We sang it through once together and then she divided us into two groups and we sang it as a two-part harmony. We had to stick our fingers in our ears so that we didn’t get confused by what the others were singing. She says that we should sing it to Uncle Leader tomorrow .
    After the singing she tucked us all in. I asked her, really quietly so that I wouldn’t put ideas in the others’ heads, whether she thought it would be possible to flyus out of here. She said she thought that this was the best place to be. She wants to stay here herself and support Uncle Leader, but even if she did have to fly out on his orders, it would be in a tiny plane and it would be impossible for her to take us with her.
    Everyone keeps saying that this is the