Story: "The Last Soldier of Berlin"

The bitter winter of 1945 wrapped Berlin in a cold silence, broken only by the thunder of distant artillery. The once-proud capital of Nazi Germany was now a shadow of itself — bombed-out buildings, starving civilians, and soldiers with hollow eyes. World War II was in its final, most brutal chapter.

Among the crumbling ruins, a 19-year-old German soldier named Erik Müller stood guard at what was once a school, now converted into a last-line bunker. Erik was not a fanatic, nor a believer in Hitler's mad dreams. He was the son of a Bavarian farmer, conscripted into the Wehrmacht when he was only seventeen. The war had taken his brother, his village, and his innocence. All that remained was survival.

The Führer had ordered every man, woman, and child to defend the city. “Berlin must not fall,” the broadcasts declared. But even the most loyal soldiers knew it was a lie. The Soviets had surrounded the city. Supplies were gone, ammunition was scarce, and the Americans approached from the west. The Third Reich was dying.

Erik spent his days moving between sandbagged positions and hiding from air raids. At night, he heard the distant cries of civilians in underground shelters. In moments of calm, he would look up at the bomb-scarred sky and wonder if he’d ever see his mother again.

Then, one evening, something unexpected happened.

It was just after midnight when Erik, on patrol alone near a collapsed bridge, heard a faint groan coming from the rubble. He raised his rifle instinctively, his breath fogging in the frozen air. Carefully, he moved toward the sound, expecting a wounded German comrade — or perhaps a trap.

Instead, he found a wounded Russian soldier, barely older than himself. The young man’s uniform was torn, his leg bleeding, his face pale. He was unarmed, his rifle buried beneath fallen stones. Their eyes met — fear, exhaustion, and something else — recognition. Not as enemies, but as boys sent to kill for causes they didn’t choose.

Erik froze. Every rule told him to shoot. This man was the enemy — part of the Soviet army crushing his homeland. But in that moment, Erik didn’t see a Red Army soldier. He saw another human, dying alone in a foreign land.

He lowered his rifle.

Wordlessly, Erik removed his scarf and knelt beside the Russian. He tore part of his own uniform to bandage the wounded leg, grimacing as he tightened it to stop the bleeding. The Russian winced but didn’t resist. He only nodded slightly — a silent thank you.

They didn’t speak each other’s language, but they didn’t need to. The war, the politics, the hatred — none of it mattered there, under the broken bridge, beneath the collapsing sky.

Erik gave the soldier a sip from his canteen and dragged him under cover. He didn’t know what would happen in the morning — if he would be court-martialed for aiding the enemy, or if both of them would be shelled to pieces. He just knew he couldn’t walk away.

By dawn, the sounds of heavy gunfire drew nearer. Soviet tanks rolled into Berlin, crushing what remained of German resistance. Hitler was dead. The Reich had fallen. Berlin had surrendered.

When Soviet troops found Erik and the wounded soldier, both half-frozen, both silent, they were confused. Erik raised his hands slowly, expecting death. But the wounded Russian — his name was Mikhail — whispered something in his language to the officers. They didn’t shoot Erik. They took him into custody as a prisoner of war.

Months later, Erik sat in a Soviet camp outside Moscow, eating stale bread and dreaming of his father’s farm. He was treated fairly — better than many others. One day, he received a note, crudely written in broken German:

"You saved me. I told them. You are not like the others. Maybe we meet again when men forget to fight."
— Mikhail

Erik never saw Mikhail again. He was released a year later and returned home to a devastated, divided Germany. He lived quietly, became a schoolteacher, and rarely spoke of the war. But every year, on the night Berlin fell, he would sit alone and light a candle — not for the Reich, but for the moment he chose humanity over hatred.