A Higher Call

by Adam Makos

“In this story,” Charlie said, “I’m just a character—Franz Stigler is the real hero.”

A Nazi was an abbreviation for a National Socialist.

Franz never joined them.

Can good men be found on both sides of a bad war? Adam

There he flew a Messerschmitt 109 fighter with a massive Daimler-Benz engine.

Hitler and The Party took over Germany after 56 percent of the country had voted against them.

Of the twenty-eight thousand German fighter pilots to see combat in WWII, only twelve hundred survived the war.

Franz’s father gave him a lesson. “Always do the right thing, even if no one sees it.”

“The eagles know where the good air is—follow them.”

Lieutenant Hans-Joachim Marseille, the twenty-two-year-old ace known as the “virtuoso of all fighter pilots.” He had already destroyed more than fifty enemy planes.

“The Star of Africa,” as the newspapers called Marseille.

“Those odds may make a man want to fight dirty to survive,” Roedel said, squeezing the bunched-up leather gloves in his hands. “But let what I’m about to say to you act as a warning. Honor is everything here.”

“If I ever see or hear of you shooting at a man in a parachute,” Roedel said, “I will shoot you down myself.”

“You follow the rules of war for you, not for your enemy,” Roedel said. “You fight by rules to keep your humanity.” Roedel

“As soldiers, we must kill or be killed, but once a person enjoys killing, he is lost.

“You score victories, not kills,” Roedel told Voegl, frustrated. “Haven’t you learned anything?” Turning to Franz, Roedel added, “You shoot at a machine not a man.”