Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler: Compassion Amongst Enemies - Revisited

‘In the Presence of My Enemy’ by John D Hall

Today, I want to revisit one of my popular posts, a real-life story – ‘Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler: Compassion Amongst Enemies’.

As I’d said in my original post:
‘This happened… on 20th December 1943… and involved the pilot and crew of a B-17 Flying Fortress, and a Luftwaffe pilot.

The B-17 pilot – 21-year-old 2nd Lt Charles L. ‘Charlie’ Brown, in his own words, “a farm boy from Weston, West Virginia” – was with the US Army Air Force (USAAF) stationed at RAF Kimbolton, in Cambridgeshire, England.

The Luftwaffe pilot, 28-year-old Franz Stigler, already had 27 victory tallies to his name. If he achieved 30 victory tallies, he would be eligible for the highest award of Nazi Germany, the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross. If he shot down one bomber aircraft, he would achieve that 30; bombers were worth 3 points, whereas a fighter was worth 1.’

You can read the rest of the post HERE.

Over the weekend, out of the blue, YouTube recommended an animated video to do with that encounter.

After watching that, another video popped up describing the time the 2 men met face to face in 1990, the first time since that fateful day in 1943.

The animated video is made by C-Bass Productions; this is the first time I’ve watched any of their videos, and I think they’ve done a stunning job.

There’s no dialogue and everything is conveyed via the men’s expressions.

Below the video, there’s a comment from one of Franz’s friends and another from his godson.

Listening to Charlie and Franz describe their experience in their own words, and how they felt when they finally met again is quite moving.

I’ve yet to read the book, ‘A Higher Call’ by Adam Makos, which details their incredible story only because I’m dedicating this year to reading Tolkien, but it’s the first one I’ll be reading next year.