Leutnant Gerhard Ehlert was one of the few survivors of 2.
Nachtaufkl rungsstaffel, part of the Luftwaffe's 6th Air Fleet,
which operated on Eastern Front during the Second World War.
Although he came from a family that spoke out against Hitler and
the Nazi regime, he volunteered to join the Luftwaffe. He went on
to undertake combat patrols under the most extreme circumstances.
Facing hazardous weather conditions - often landing his aircraft
blind' in heavy fog - and mountainous odds against Soviet air
superiority, Ehlert completed twenty-two sorties before his Dornier
Do 217M-1, coded K7+FK, was shot down on 14 June 1944. Despite
strenuous efforts to escape the Soviets, along with his rear-gunner
Feldwebel Wilhelm Burr, he was captured by the Red Army. What
followed changed his life forever. Though interrogated repeatedly,
Ehlert revealed nothing about his missions or duties. Then, during
his transfer to a prisoner of war camp, he had to face a hostile
crowd of Russian civilians who had suffered from the devastating
effects of the Luftwaffe's bombs. In the long journey eastwards
across the bleak Russian steppes to the camp at Yelabuga, a town in
the Republic of Tatarstan, Ehlert reflected on his early years and
the road he took to the east and the horrifying situation he was
in. But it was not the months he endured in the freezing prisoner
of war camp which became his most haunting memory - it was when the
war ended. The Russians announced that with peace came new rules.
Now the prisoners must work and the food ration would be reduced.
Their uniforms were removed, and all privileges of rank dismissed.
To the Soviets they were no longer prisoners of war, they were mere
criminals and were treated accordingly. Transferred to Bolshoy Bor
in the north, day after day the men had to transport logs, even
through the snow and ice of winter, with many of the prisoners
dying of malnutrition and exposure. The Russians told them they
were to rebuild what they destroyed in the Soviet Union'. Ehlert's
suffering finally ended in 1949. He was able to return to his
parental home, initially being treated as an unwelcome stranger.
When he related his story to Christian Huber, Gerhard Ehlert was in
his 90s, by then a happy father and grandfather, and undoubtedly a
survivor.
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