The Colonel and the Civilian: A Wartime Ghost Story

Bernhard-Georg Meitzel fought in the German Army during WWII, reaching the rank of SS-Obersturmführer.  British forces captured Meitzel after the Normandy invasion, leading him to spend some months in an internment camp.  After the war, while in Germany awaiting his “denazification” trial, Meitzel--who was fluent in English--wrote an eerie tale which appeared in the Winter 1949 issue of “Fate” magazine, describing the time that he was an indirect witness to a ghostly vengeance.

While Meitzel was in the camp, he made the acquaintance of another prisoner, whom he simply described as “the Colonel in the threadbare uniform of a General Staff Officer.”  The two men discussed books and did a bit of horse-trading over their rations of cigarettes and black bread.  (As Meitzel did not smoke, he gave the Colonel his cigarettes, getting some bread in return.)

On the third day, the Colonel told him a grim story.  In 1942, the Colonel was commanding officer of a reconnaissance battalion.  They were advancing toward Demjansk to relieve a German garrison under siege from Russian forces.  When they were in Kobylkina, two corporals took a civilian prisoner when they saw he had a gun.  The man had no identity card, no other military equipment, and did not appear to know Russian.

The Colonel saw that the man was--hardly unreasonably, given the circumstances--very frightened.  The Colonel tried questioning him in both Russian and German, but got only the replies, “Nix Russian.  Nix German.”  The Colonel did not know what to make of the man.  Was he a civilian agent?  Or had he merely picked up a gun left by the retreating Russians in the hopes of trading it for food?  Unfortunately, no one there could speak the man’s language, so getting any story out of him was impossible.

The Colonel pitied the man, but did not see what could be done with him.  His battalion could not take him with them.  As the man was conceivably a guerrilla fighter, they could not turn him loose, either.  And the Colonel had strict orders to continuously advance.  A decision about the stranger had to be made immediately.  The Colonel decided there was only one thing he could do.  He gave the man bread, a cigarette, and a glass of vodka.  He then made a surreptitious gesture to his adjutant.

The prisoner was taken out and shot, desperately shouting, “Nix Russian!  Nix German!” until the bullets quieted him forever.

The Colonel felt a sense of guilt over the man’s execution, but rationalized to himself that during war, one had no choice but to do some ruthless things.  Before long, he was able to dismiss the matter from his mind.

In 1943, the Colonel flew to Army HQ in Pleskau.  An armored car was on the tarmac, about to leave the airfield.  The driver told him, “I’m in a hurry, please get in.”  As the Colonel was about to follow the driver, he saw a man in ragged civilian clothes on the far side of the road, waving to him.  The Colonel couldn’t hear anything over the loud car engine, but he thought the man was shouting something.  The Colonel ignored the increasingly impatient driver and went towards the man.  As he drew nearer, he suddenly recognized the waving, shouting figure.  It was the man whom he had ordered killed at Kobylkina.  As the Colonel stared in increasing horror, the man entered a control-booth.  The Colonel followed him into the room, only to find it empty.

When he came back out, the Colonel asked a passing soldier if he had seen a civilian hanging around.  “No sir. No civilians are allowed on the airfield, sir.”

The shaken Colonel began walking back to the armored car.  An ambulance raced past him.  And the armored car was gone.  A few moments later, the ambulance returned.  He heard the ambulance driver shout to a medical officer, “Dead.  All of ‘em.”

The Colonel asked him if he was talking about the car that left the airfield just a few moments earlier.  He was.

The Colonel told Meitzel, “Since then, I’ve kept asking myself why did it happen?  Why was I saved by a man whose execution I had ordered?  Was he sent by my guardian angel?  Was he my guardian angel?  Why was my life spared at all?  To get another chance in life?  To try to prevent a recurrence of the madness of the last war?

“I don’t know the answer yet.  But after spending three years in this internment camp I am about to believe that I was only spared to meet a more dreadful fate.  Who knows when they are going to turn me over to the Russians or to the Jugoslavs?”

The Colonel stared into space for a moment, and went back to his book.

The following day, Meitzel did not see his friend around the camp.  He was told that the previous night, the Colonel left the camp under guard.  Nobody knew where he had been taken.

Meitzel never learned what became of the Colonel.  He guessed the man had been taken to a Soviet concentration camp to meet the “more dreadful fate” he had predicted for himself.