The end was coming near

I remember Hermann Goehring, the air force minister of Germany, saying in one of his speeches that no enemy plane would ever cross over a German border or his name would be Mayer... so... his name became Hermann Mayer.
Times were terribly stressfull even though we, the children, took it all pretty much in our stride... mainly because we didn't know any better. But I do remember how much my family suffered, and how hard life had become for them.
As very little official information was available that was of any value, rumors were rampant.
At those times when news bulletins were announced over the radio, they only spoke of victories and German advances into enemy territory. People were beginning to doubt the truth of these announcements, and yet, nobody ever spoke openly about it... it would have been treason.
Our leaders said that our greatest victory lay yet ahead. We were told that when or if the time came, every German man, woman and child must lay down their lives for Fuehrer and Fatherland. As long as there was breath left in any citizen, we must go on and fight.
Defeat was only for the cowardly, we were told, only for the weak.
And if the enemy should one day enter our cities, our streets, they would find nothing but rubble and brave dead Germans.

I didn't think that I would live very long. But I also thought that I wasn't really very brave.