hitler

CHAPTER II.A H U M A N Z E R O D E F I E S D E A T HHE Sixteenth Bavarian Infantry Regiment “List” hadTan eventless night, except for an incident toward midnightwhich was soon forgotten. Karl Schimmer ofPredigstuhl in the Bavarian Wald had just crawled out ofhis shelter, stretched and yawned, when a bullet whizzed intohis mouth and made a hole at the base of his skull. The incidentroused mild interest among Karl‟s comrades. Oneof them, the company jester, made the remark that somesuch punishment should be inflicted on all those who snored.But the weather was dismal, and no one laughed.From the East, the march of a sickly light began. Itforced the glaring rockets and the searchlights to recede, but itgave impetus to the rain. For a few minutes the world wasstill enough for the splash of the raindrops to be heard.The watch of Corporal Melzer showed seven o‟clockwhen the earth burst into flames to the accompaniment ofa thousand cannons. The crashing sounds of a morninggone mad sped through the lines like a cosmic hurricane.Out of the mud, thousands of forms like spectres arose andleapt from one mud hole to another, falling prostrate withresounding thuds and projecting their bodies into the air likeplayers in some ghastly puppet show.