The entire German air force was grounded Wednesday night after planes that were supposed to fly to the Middle East to join the allied air campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria instead attacked refugees fleeing from the war-torn region to Europe.
At least four aircraft from the Luftwaffe — a name unchanged since the same force gained worldwide fame for its brutal air raids on cheery Londoners in 1940 — bombed and strafed columns of refugees along roads in Hungary and Slovenia in a series of strikes that took place on Wednesday afternoon.
Shocked refugees said that they had been concerned about the reception they would receive from a skeptical European public, but in the words of one elderly man, “this really takes the biscuit.”
In addition to the columns of refugees struck near the Slovenian-Hungarian frontier, a train carrying migrants from Vienna to Budapest was dived-bombed and derailed 70 miles north of the Austrian capital.
“As the people ran into the corn fields to get away from the burning train, the planes came back and swooped in low and machine-gunned us,” said one survivor, choking back tears.
As plumes of smoke continued to rise from the scene, emergency services put the death toll in the train attack at 41, a figure that was expected to rise as rescuers searched the burned-out carriages and surrounding fields for more bodies.
The number of dead in at least two other air raids stood at over 70 last night.
“Ve don’t know vot came uber zen,” Luftwaffe General Herman Fahrschule told an emergency press conference at Berlin’s defense ministry. “Ich can tell you vun thing, zey can’t pull das ‘Ve ver only obeying orders!’ crap zis time.”
The general said he “vas looking into” reports that the aircrews had been seen drinking heavily and singing patriotic songs in a beer hall on the morning of the attacks.
“Alcohol is no excuse! I had four liters of Stein-master before coming here to talk to you,” the general belched before punching a French journalist in the face.
Tornado pilot Captain Willy Straap expressed his shock after being relieved of his duties when he landed back at his base near Berlin on Tuesday evening.
“I don’t understand it,” he told reporters as he climbed down from the cockpit of his Tornado ground attack aircraft, its bomb racks empty and its Mauser cannons still smoking from the engagements.
“My uncle Josef spent ze first two years of ze Second Vorld Var doing what I did, und he got an iron cross with oak leaves, swords und diamonds!”