The Soldier Who Fought Both World Wars

A Tale of War, Fate, and the Ghost of What Could Have Been

In the mud-caked trenches of Flanders during the fall of 1918, a young Austrian soldier named Friedrich Weiss knelt beside a wounded comrade, shielding him from the yellow fog rolling through No Man’s Land. It was mustard gas. Friedrich held his breath, tied a wet rag around his face, and dragged the man—screaming, blind, and choking—back to safety.

That soldier's name was Adolf Hitler.

Friedrich never forgot the haunted eyes of the man he saved. Eyes that looked through people instead of at them.

For his bravery, Friedrich was awarded a commendation and a brief leave in Paris, where he spent his days sketching cathedrals and reading poetry. He had dreams of becoming a writer, but war has a way of reshaping dreams into ashes.

When the war ended, Friedrich returned to Austria, but peace felt temporary. Whispers of revolution and economic ruin filled the cafés. And that strange young man he’d saved? He was spotted ranting in beer halls in Munich, preaching about betrayal and national rebirth.

Friedrich dismissed it. “Just another broken man shouting at ghosts.”

1939 – Poland

By the time the second war broke out, Friedrich was no longer a private. He wore the uniform of the Wehrmacht, not out of loyalty, but because he had a family and war, again, had become survival.

This time, though, the face of the Reich wasn’t a distant kaiser—it was the very man he had saved in that muddy trench. Adolf Hitler, now Führer of Germany, had declared war on the world.

Friedrich fought quietly, without fervor. He did not salute with enthusiasm. He did not recite slogans. Instead, he kept a worn notebook in his coat pocket, filled with sketches of ruined cities, weeping mothers, and dreams deferred.

During the invasion of France, Friedrich was wounded again, this time by Allied artillery. As he lay in a French field hospital, a young British soldier sat beside him.

“You don’t look like a Nazi,” the Brit said, offering a cigarette.

“I’m not,” Friedrich whispered. “I’m just a man who’s seen too much of the same nightmare.”

1945 – Berlin

As the Reich crumbled and Soviet shells thundered across the skyline, Friedrich found himself deep in the ruins of Berlin. He could have fled. Many did. But he wanted to see the end. The real end.

He was among the first to enter the Führerbunker after the gunshot echoed. In the dim light, Friedrich stared at the body of the man he'd once saved—now slumped in a pool of his own making.

He felt no satisfaction. No vindication. Only the bitter weight of a question that had haunted him for decades:

What if I hadn’t pulled him from that trench?

Epilogue

After the war, Friedrich disappeared into a quiet town in Switzerland under an assumed name. He spent his final years painting forgotten faces, writing stories he never published, and walking in silence by alpine lakes.

In one of his journals, found years later, was a single entry:

"I saved a man once. And in doing so, perhaps, I doomed millions. But a soldier does not choose who he saves. He only chooses to save. That is both our burden… and our curse."