Interview with Carolin Richter
Title
Interview with Carolin Richter
Description
Carolin Richter discusses the Flightpath of Friendship, the memorial in the woods at Katzenelnbogen, and the relationship between Bomber Command navigator Arthur Lee and German soldier Rudi Balzer.
Creator
Date
2025-11-26
Coverage
Language
Type
Format
00:23:48 Audio Recording
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Rights
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
Identifier
ARichterC251126
Transcription
DE: I will start recording now and I’ll do a little introduction. So my name is Dan Ellin. This is an interview for the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. Today I’m Interviewing Carolin Richter in Germany. I’m in the UK. This is happening over Teams. It is the 27th of November. No. It isn’t. It’s the 26th of November 2025. Carolin, can you just start by telling me a little bit about yourself and how you became involved with the Cross of Nails and the Flight of Freedom and can you just tell me your story please?
CR: Yes. I would love to do so. I’m thirty five years old now. The first time I’d seen the cross in the woods was in my childhood. My childhood, sorry. I was a member of the youth organization of the German Red Cross and our leader this time was married to a witness of the crash and she showed us the cross in the wood. So I always know. I always knew it was there and with eighteen years I did a school project with a friend of mine about heroes. It was a contest of the president of the German Federal Republic in history and we decided to use this story. Sadly there is no longer contact with my former friend but the story is always with me. The widow of Rudi Balzer the German soldier who rescued Arthur Lee phoned me a year after the work we did and she said, ‘The English are coming. You have to go to the woods with me.’ And I was a really shy girl, nineteen years old and was overwhelmed with everything that happened. We drove together in the woods. She was around her, oh I think late ‘80s at this time and then there were a lot of cars with veterans with the Flightpath group in their red jackets and a young soldier from the RAF, Jonathan Parker. I met him quite often since then because he is also a member of the Flightpath family. Then they held their service and in Germany remembering the war is always combined with guilt with the remembrance of all the cruel things the German soldiers did and the Nazi Party as well. So I’ve never seen anything like this before in my life. There were the wreaths, there was music, there were the tributes and also the veterans doing their salute and I was really overwhelmed with everything. After the service Jacqui came to me and you’ve met Jacqui.
DE: Yeah.
CR: She started talking a lot and my brain was so doesn’t understand anything. But with time it got better and I had to translate for Sieglinde Balzer, as well for Jacqui and all the veterans around me tried to tell me their stories and to talk to me and I’m so sorry I do not even remember anything from this day. Just my oh my gosh where I am. Jacqui said to me, ‘Oh, you will come to the UK one day.’ And I said, ‘No. Never.’ Because I thought ok this time one time to see it and then there will be no contact any longer. But two years later Sieglinde Balzer phoned me again with the same words. ‘The English are coming. You have to go with me to the woods.’ And so from 2009 until 2016 I always visited the woods when the reunion was there and in 2016 the Flightpath family got the Cross of Nails and presented it in Klingelbach Church. The church where the foreign soldiers lie and were taken to rest and where Arthur Lee spoke his words. And in this year Peter Becker veteran of the German night fighters said he won’t be able to plan the reunions any longer because of his health and so I decided, ok. I will do this with help from friends just to keep this alive. So after 2016 in Klingelbach and Katzenelnbogen it was my first time in 2017 to do a whole reunion in the Netherlands and in 2019 we had the first reunion planned by myself back in Germany. After the pandemic in 2023 in Germany as well. I’m really glad to have these friends around me who helped me a lot. Even my husband who do not speak any English words but who is now a big part of the family. And now at the moment we are planning the next reunion in the German woods next year for the 10th anniversary of the presentation of the Cross of Nails in our little church.
DE: What time? Is it, do you have the Memorial at the time that the crash happened then?
CR: Pardon?
DE: What time of year do you have the reunion? The Memorial.
CR: Oh, we will have it in September.
DE: Right.
CR: Because the crash happened in January. It’s really cold in January to have a reunion but every time the date returns when the crash happened we from our German part of the family will go to the Memorial, light candles and remember the fallen.
DE: So what, what does it mean to you? Why do, why do you do it?
CR: It’s a difficult question. It’s now part of my life for sixteen years. Sixteen difficult years sometimes in my life and it’s no longer just a reunion. It’s meeting family, family and friends overseas and remembering that former enemies could form a friendship. The veterans on both sides were able to to make friends with each other. To be there. To talk, to sing together and share a lot, a lot and to be there together even if they tried to kill each other. I really love that even if you are really young you are a whole member of this group as well. I started meeting them at nineteen and one of my friends in Germany met them the first time at fourteen years but he was always a whole member. Not because he was young now, you have no right to say things and even the veterans they were so lovely when I met, when I’ve met them and really yeah they really were British gentlemen if you understand. In Germany there’s thought a British gentleman is something really special but it was. And Jacqui, we were part with the scene and with a lot of ease but she is one of my best friends. Everything in my life she did. She, she was with me even in [unclear] when I got married for the second time she was there and when my mum died last year I phoned Jacqui and said, ‘Hey, I need you.’ And so it’s the whole family. Even the lot of years between 2019 and 2023 just felt like we met yesterday. So it’s like coming home for me when I’m together with all these people and this is the second thing. It makes me believe that peace is possible because we are free nations and people with every age, with every background, with everything different like it’s possible but we are together and then peace is not just a wish.
DE: Yeah. That’s, that’s lovely. I mean the thing that, the question that’s sort of going through my mind is, is would this have been possible without the role played by Rudi Balzer? I mean he must have been an incredible person.
CR: Sadly, Rudi Balzer passed away when I was just a teenager so I haven’t met him about the cross. But I knew his wife and I knew his son and even his grandsons and I think yes it was a huge part. We have to imagine that Arthur Lee died in the late ‘80s and the reunions went on and the Balzer family welcomed them in their home every time until Sieglinde said, ‘No. I’m not able to do this any longer because of my health.’ And even when I’m now calling Dieter the son of Rudi and Sieglinde because the cross might get broken or anything and he said, ‘Oh, I will have a look. I will do this.’ He is even planning to build a new one because this one now with time got a bit bad in his constitution and he said, ‘Oh, I will do this and we will do this and you won’t have to do anything with this. I will call you when it is ready and then we can place it together.’ And he and the Balzer family they are the guys who are making coffins and burying people —
DE: Oh right.
CR: In our area and he is really with a big heart and could talk to people and could get them. He is a really lovely man and I think his father must have been like him.
DE: Yeah. I’m just, it’s astonishing because it was such, it was such a risky thing that he did for himself.
CR: Yeah. Yes. He could have been killed.
DE: Yeah.
CR: By the German people. They could have said, ‘Oh no. You are together with the enemy. You have to die too.’
DE: Yeah.
CR: And he was a really young guy but he said later when he talked about this I’ve read some documents it was because he was taught so. To love each other.
DE: Yeah. I’ve, I’ve again, today I read the report written that, by Arthur Lee and you know he said he couldn’t remember who said what but he did remember Rudi very clearly who lent him his coat to go to sleep on in the, in the room where he was and talked to everybody else that was arguing over him. So yeah. He made a really strong impression on Arthur Lee then so —
CR: Yes.
DE: Yeah.
CR: It’s a difficult thing to talk clearly about this in Germany because no one, no one would like to hear that his or her grandfather was a Nazi. So this is a bit difficult. But I know Rudi later was a prisoner of war because he, I know, I don’t know if he didn’t know about this to have asked Arthur Lee for saying, ‘Oh, he helped me.’ He could be back home or if it wasn’t possible because no one said, ‘Oh, we could use this for him as well.’ Like Robert [Stahl] did.
DE: Yes. That was, that was his name. Yes. Yeah.
CR: Yes.
DE: Yeah. I mean I think it’s wonderful the way that some of the people are remembered in Germany because they were, you know they were known as terror flyers.
CR: Yes.
DE: Terror Flieger. But the German people even more now are putting up Memorials and crosses and remembering them. What’s, you know, what’s behind that do you think?
CR: I think this was the connection of Rudi and Arthur Lee. I’ve read while doing the project that they decided to do this together. Arthur Lee was really impressed by the work of Coventry Cathedral. Father forgive. And so they both decided ok we will place a cross like this near the place where the plane crashed and our wooden cross has got the same words engraved, “Father forgive,” and in German as well as a reminder of the war. Of the friends of Arthur Lee and of other things that happened in war.
DE: Yeah. It’s also I think it’s wonderful that even after so many of the people have since passed away that you are carrying on with the tradition and still meeting all the family. It’s absolutely wonderful.
CR: For me it’s quite important. I couldn’t bear it if this would die. If this tradition, if these meetings and if the stories would be forgotten. Now, we are from the museum in our village we have placed a board with all the things that happened around the crash and after that. So if there are people on a walk could read or I know sometimes school kids go around the place to have a look there.
DE: Yeah. That’s fantastic. Yeah. That’s really good to hear. Yeah. And as part of the, as part of the Cross of Nails you also go to Holland is it that you go to as well?
CR: Yeah. We were in Holland this year. In August.
DE: Yeah. And what’s, what’s that like?
CR: We were in this area the first time. The former reunions were in Dronten at the Memorial and the first time we were there we’ve got a German veteran with us. The last one of our group and it was the first time that he was allowed to take a salute at the Memorial. A German one. The mayor was there and for the service as well and he was really impressed I think and it was really a difficult but special moment for me to speak in front of all the Dutch people because I know how they suffered through World War Two. This year it was a bit, I wasn’t there when the service at the Memorial was held but for any other occasions I was with my Dutch friend at the Memorial for the Jewish people. I was so overwhelmed with guilt this time. This was really difficult for me and she had to tell me, ‘It’s not your fault. You weren’t even alive.’ So this is sometimes difficult for me to be there as, yeah a German girl to be there. But I’m glad everyone I’ve met in the Netherlands was really welcoming and nice to me.
DE: Yeah. I can’t believe, I can’t begin to think how how hard it must be. I think the, it’s a bit of a problem in the UK that everybody just sort of thinks the war was won by the British and the British and the Allies never did anything bad you know and its, its, I think sometimes we’re struggling to come to terms with the memory of the war. I mean everybody is aren’t they but —
CR: Yeah. I understand what you are, what you mean. I, most time, most of the time I know quite good that it’s not my fault. My grandparents were children during the war so no one I’ve met in my life from my family did anything to, to please the Nazi Party. I’m not sure about my great great grandparents but not this, not this time. But looking in politics and seeing that words used during the war and during the time of the Nazi Party as well in Germany makes me really frightened about this even if I see like Jewish people are treated sometimes in Germany. It makes me feel more guilty about this and I think it has been eighty years. Why is this back again?
DE: Yeah. I feel exactly the same. Yes. It’s frightening at times isn’t it?
CR: Yes.
DE: Yeah.
CR: And before I started working where I am now working in a kindergarten I’ve studied history so there are so many things you could see and think no. Not this again.
DE: No.
CR: And so it is sometimes hard to be a German again and seeing what might happen.
DE: Yeah. Yeah. I’m really sorry. I’m going to have to run upstairs and get my charger because my laptop battery is going.
CR: Yes.
DE: So I’m just going to pause the recording.
CR: Yeah.
DE: And I will be two minutes, ok?
CR: Ok.
[recording paused]
DE: So, I’m recording again. We’ve had a little chat off the microphone and we have agreed that we are going to end the interview here. So I’d just like to say thank you very very much for talking to me.
CR: Yeah. It was a pleasure for me.
DE: Wonderful. Thank you.
CR: Yes. I would love to do so. I’m thirty five years old now. The first time I’d seen the cross in the woods was in my childhood. My childhood, sorry. I was a member of the youth organization of the German Red Cross and our leader this time was married to a witness of the crash and she showed us the cross in the wood. So I always know. I always knew it was there and with eighteen years I did a school project with a friend of mine about heroes. It was a contest of the president of the German Federal Republic in history and we decided to use this story. Sadly there is no longer contact with my former friend but the story is always with me. The widow of Rudi Balzer the German soldier who rescued Arthur Lee phoned me a year after the work we did and she said, ‘The English are coming. You have to go to the woods with me.’ And I was a really shy girl, nineteen years old and was overwhelmed with everything that happened. We drove together in the woods. She was around her, oh I think late ‘80s at this time and then there were a lot of cars with veterans with the Flightpath group in their red jackets and a young soldier from the RAF, Jonathan Parker. I met him quite often since then because he is also a member of the Flightpath family. Then they held their service and in Germany remembering the war is always combined with guilt with the remembrance of all the cruel things the German soldiers did and the Nazi Party as well. So I’ve never seen anything like this before in my life. There were the wreaths, there was music, there were the tributes and also the veterans doing their salute and I was really overwhelmed with everything. After the service Jacqui came to me and you’ve met Jacqui.
DE: Yeah.
CR: She started talking a lot and my brain was so doesn’t understand anything. But with time it got better and I had to translate for Sieglinde Balzer, as well for Jacqui and all the veterans around me tried to tell me their stories and to talk to me and I’m so sorry I do not even remember anything from this day. Just my oh my gosh where I am. Jacqui said to me, ‘Oh, you will come to the UK one day.’ And I said, ‘No. Never.’ Because I thought ok this time one time to see it and then there will be no contact any longer. But two years later Sieglinde Balzer phoned me again with the same words. ‘The English are coming. You have to go with me to the woods.’ And so from 2009 until 2016 I always visited the woods when the reunion was there and in 2016 the Flightpath family got the Cross of Nails and presented it in Klingelbach Church. The church where the foreign soldiers lie and were taken to rest and where Arthur Lee spoke his words. And in this year Peter Becker veteran of the German night fighters said he won’t be able to plan the reunions any longer because of his health and so I decided, ok. I will do this with help from friends just to keep this alive. So after 2016 in Klingelbach and Katzenelnbogen it was my first time in 2017 to do a whole reunion in the Netherlands and in 2019 we had the first reunion planned by myself back in Germany. After the pandemic in 2023 in Germany as well. I’m really glad to have these friends around me who helped me a lot. Even my husband who do not speak any English words but who is now a big part of the family. And now at the moment we are planning the next reunion in the German woods next year for the 10th anniversary of the presentation of the Cross of Nails in our little church.
DE: What time? Is it, do you have the Memorial at the time that the crash happened then?
CR: Pardon?
DE: What time of year do you have the reunion? The Memorial.
CR: Oh, we will have it in September.
DE: Right.
CR: Because the crash happened in January. It’s really cold in January to have a reunion but every time the date returns when the crash happened we from our German part of the family will go to the Memorial, light candles and remember the fallen.
DE: So what, what does it mean to you? Why do, why do you do it?
CR: It’s a difficult question. It’s now part of my life for sixteen years. Sixteen difficult years sometimes in my life and it’s no longer just a reunion. It’s meeting family, family and friends overseas and remembering that former enemies could form a friendship. The veterans on both sides were able to to make friends with each other. To be there. To talk, to sing together and share a lot, a lot and to be there together even if they tried to kill each other. I really love that even if you are really young you are a whole member of this group as well. I started meeting them at nineteen and one of my friends in Germany met them the first time at fourteen years but he was always a whole member. Not because he was young now, you have no right to say things and even the veterans they were so lovely when I met, when I’ve met them and really yeah they really were British gentlemen if you understand. In Germany there’s thought a British gentleman is something really special but it was. And Jacqui, we were part with the scene and with a lot of ease but she is one of my best friends. Everything in my life she did. She, she was with me even in [unclear] when I got married for the second time she was there and when my mum died last year I phoned Jacqui and said, ‘Hey, I need you.’ And so it’s the whole family. Even the lot of years between 2019 and 2023 just felt like we met yesterday. So it’s like coming home for me when I’m together with all these people and this is the second thing. It makes me believe that peace is possible because we are free nations and people with every age, with every background, with everything different like it’s possible but we are together and then peace is not just a wish.
DE: Yeah. That’s, that’s lovely. I mean the thing that, the question that’s sort of going through my mind is, is would this have been possible without the role played by Rudi Balzer? I mean he must have been an incredible person.
CR: Sadly, Rudi Balzer passed away when I was just a teenager so I haven’t met him about the cross. But I knew his wife and I knew his son and even his grandsons and I think yes it was a huge part. We have to imagine that Arthur Lee died in the late ‘80s and the reunions went on and the Balzer family welcomed them in their home every time until Sieglinde said, ‘No. I’m not able to do this any longer because of my health.’ And even when I’m now calling Dieter the son of Rudi and Sieglinde because the cross might get broken or anything and he said, ‘Oh, I will have a look. I will do this.’ He is even planning to build a new one because this one now with time got a bit bad in his constitution and he said, ‘Oh, I will do this and we will do this and you won’t have to do anything with this. I will call you when it is ready and then we can place it together.’ And he and the Balzer family they are the guys who are making coffins and burying people —
DE: Oh right.
CR: In our area and he is really with a big heart and could talk to people and could get them. He is a really lovely man and I think his father must have been like him.
DE: Yeah. I’m just, it’s astonishing because it was such, it was such a risky thing that he did for himself.
CR: Yeah. Yes. He could have been killed.
DE: Yeah.
CR: By the German people. They could have said, ‘Oh no. You are together with the enemy. You have to die too.’
DE: Yeah.
CR: And he was a really young guy but he said later when he talked about this I’ve read some documents it was because he was taught so. To love each other.
DE: Yeah. I’ve, I’ve again, today I read the report written that, by Arthur Lee and you know he said he couldn’t remember who said what but he did remember Rudi very clearly who lent him his coat to go to sleep on in the, in the room where he was and talked to everybody else that was arguing over him. So yeah. He made a really strong impression on Arthur Lee then so —
CR: Yes.
DE: Yeah.
CR: It’s a difficult thing to talk clearly about this in Germany because no one, no one would like to hear that his or her grandfather was a Nazi. So this is a bit difficult. But I know Rudi later was a prisoner of war because he, I know, I don’t know if he didn’t know about this to have asked Arthur Lee for saying, ‘Oh, he helped me.’ He could be back home or if it wasn’t possible because no one said, ‘Oh, we could use this for him as well.’ Like Robert [Stahl] did.
DE: Yes. That was, that was his name. Yes. Yeah.
CR: Yes.
DE: Yeah. I mean I think it’s wonderful the way that some of the people are remembered in Germany because they were, you know they were known as terror flyers.
CR: Yes.
DE: Terror Flieger. But the German people even more now are putting up Memorials and crosses and remembering them. What’s, you know, what’s behind that do you think?
CR: I think this was the connection of Rudi and Arthur Lee. I’ve read while doing the project that they decided to do this together. Arthur Lee was really impressed by the work of Coventry Cathedral. Father forgive. And so they both decided ok we will place a cross like this near the place where the plane crashed and our wooden cross has got the same words engraved, “Father forgive,” and in German as well as a reminder of the war. Of the friends of Arthur Lee and of other things that happened in war.
DE: Yeah. It’s also I think it’s wonderful that even after so many of the people have since passed away that you are carrying on with the tradition and still meeting all the family. It’s absolutely wonderful.
CR: For me it’s quite important. I couldn’t bear it if this would die. If this tradition, if these meetings and if the stories would be forgotten. Now, we are from the museum in our village we have placed a board with all the things that happened around the crash and after that. So if there are people on a walk could read or I know sometimes school kids go around the place to have a look there.
DE: Yeah. That’s fantastic. Yeah. That’s really good to hear. Yeah. And as part of the, as part of the Cross of Nails you also go to Holland is it that you go to as well?
CR: Yeah. We were in Holland this year. In August.
DE: Yeah. And what’s, what’s that like?
CR: We were in this area the first time. The former reunions were in Dronten at the Memorial and the first time we were there we’ve got a German veteran with us. The last one of our group and it was the first time that he was allowed to take a salute at the Memorial. A German one. The mayor was there and for the service as well and he was really impressed I think and it was really a difficult but special moment for me to speak in front of all the Dutch people because I know how they suffered through World War Two. This year it was a bit, I wasn’t there when the service at the Memorial was held but for any other occasions I was with my Dutch friend at the Memorial for the Jewish people. I was so overwhelmed with guilt this time. This was really difficult for me and she had to tell me, ‘It’s not your fault. You weren’t even alive.’ So this is sometimes difficult for me to be there as, yeah a German girl to be there. But I’m glad everyone I’ve met in the Netherlands was really welcoming and nice to me.
DE: Yeah. I can’t believe, I can’t begin to think how how hard it must be. I think the, it’s a bit of a problem in the UK that everybody just sort of thinks the war was won by the British and the British and the Allies never did anything bad you know and its, its, I think sometimes we’re struggling to come to terms with the memory of the war. I mean everybody is aren’t they but —
CR: Yeah. I understand what you are, what you mean. I, most time, most of the time I know quite good that it’s not my fault. My grandparents were children during the war so no one I’ve met in my life from my family did anything to, to please the Nazi Party. I’m not sure about my great great grandparents but not this, not this time. But looking in politics and seeing that words used during the war and during the time of the Nazi Party as well in Germany makes me really frightened about this even if I see like Jewish people are treated sometimes in Germany. It makes me feel more guilty about this and I think it has been eighty years. Why is this back again?
DE: Yeah. I feel exactly the same. Yes. It’s frightening at times isn’t it?
CR: Yes.
DE: Yeah.
CR: And before I started working where I am now working in a kindergarten I’ve studied history so there are so many things you could see and think no. Not this again.
DE: No.
CR: And so it is sometimes hard to be a German again and seeing what might happen.
DE: Yeah. Yeah. I’m really sorry. I’m going to have to run upstairs and get my charger because my laptop battery is going.
CR: Yes.
DE: So I’m just going to pause the recording.
CR: Yeah.
DE: And I will be two minutes, ok?
CR: Ok.
[recording paused]
DE: So, I’m recording again. We’ve had a little chat off the microphone and we have agreed that we are going to end the interview here. So I’d just like to say thank you very very much for talking to me.
CR: Yeah. It was a pleasure for me.
DE: Wonderful. Thank you.
Collection
Citation
Dan Ellin, “Interview with Carolin Richter,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed May 12, 2026, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/58467.