One day Franz’ stepfather sent him off to visit the doctor – initially he wasn’t sure whether the visit was just for a medical or to provide the doctor with servicing. Indeed, initially, it seemed just like a medical examination – the doctor checked him over pretty thoroughly paying special attention to his mouth, to his nipples and to his genitalia.

‘Looking at these welts, I’m glad to see that your stepfather is keeping you in order;’

‘just going to check you out with a few needles to see how well you stand up to pain; and’

‘a couple through each nipple – good – and a couple through your cock – well done – and one each into each testicle – excellent – you did well.’

‘Now we’ll just check out your back passage – this device will slip in and then I’ll open you up to take a look and to have a bit of a feel – yes that’s your prostate gland – it’s begun producing most of your seminal fluid – apart from the sperm that come from your balls.’

‘Just be patient for a while and I’ll stroke inside and see whether we can milk you; when did you last come – shy eh !’

‘You can tell me – who masturbated you ?’

‘Your cousin – ah yes – how is he ? Do you masturbate him?’

Franz nodded.

‘To good effect’

‘No – he’s still too young – didn’t produce any spunk’

Yes – that’s right – Franz masturbated me just once. Having seen him ejaculate, this boy knew what Franz was hoping to achieve but it was simply a disappointment – nothing but colourless, transparent liquid. He never masturbated this boy again.

‘Right’, said the doctor, ‘I’d better take a look at him soon. Ask him to call in.’

‘Meantime let me just pop this gadget into your anus and see how much stretch you have developed.’

‘Quite tight!’

‘Maybe you need a bit of exercise down there to loosen up.’

And so it was Saturday afternoon, 22 August 1936, when our family doctor saw this boy to come to his office for a check up. He asked it to strip and spent some time working over its boy body. He started by simply looking at this boy as it stood before him. It was a slightly built body with its characteristic pattern of sunburnt skin – the skin pale where its singlet covered its chest but burnt below the waist. Then the doctor began firmly feeling and measuring its parts, each arm, each leg, the neck, the chest checking each nipple for any sign of breast knots before focusing on its immature genitalia. He got out a set of callipers and measured each ball in three directions.

‘I believe that we have caught you just in time and we can do something significant to help you, boy.’

‘You are going to have a painful afternoon but after that things should improve. I’ll need to keep an eye on you though and to have regular checks.’

“Now just hop up onto this special treatment bench and, for your own protection, I’ll just strap you down.’

A couple of chest straps held this boy’s upper body firm; its legs were placed on supports that swung apart so that its groin was accessible.

‘Now I’m just going to isolate your testicles so that the medicine stays in them.’

The doctor got out a gadget that looked a bit like a pair of pliers and fitted a small elastic band over prongs on the gadget.

‘I’m just going to slip your balls through this band and that will isolate them whilst we do the next little procedure.’

‘You are going to have a couple of little injections. They’ll help deal with the problems that your balls might otherwise cause you.’

In retrospect, this boy knows that the injections were of ethanol designed to replace the water in each ball and thereby to begin the process of killing them so that it remained a boy for the rest of its life. The doctor administered the injections very carefully – drawing back the plunger to check that he hadn’t hit a blood vessel and then injecting the ethanol very slowly. As predicted it was a painful experience but he seemed so careful that this boy trusted him implicitly not knowing then that his potential to become a man was being systematically annihilated.

After that first Saturday, the doctor had this boy back each Saturday for some time – each time he would strap the boy down, measure each of the balls and give each of them its own injection. Each week the doctor would also explore this boy’s back passage, helping him to relax as he learned to take more of the doctor’s hand as it stretched his hole. Meantime those injected balls, which weren’t large to start with, were shrinking week by week. This boy showed no signs of maturing and now he never would.

Looking back it supposes that the doctor knew what he was doing and of at least some of the likely consequences of effectively emasculating this boy. He had radically interfered in its physical development by preventing the production of testosterone but now he counterbalanced that by ensuring that it received intensive physical training. The doctor acted as medical officer to a local boxing club and he arranged, indeed he insisted, that this boy join the early morning training group. This group met six mornings each week and submitted to a combination of running, weight training and combat training – some boys – it was in this group – acted as jobbers do nowadays and became punchbags for the fighters. Sometimes that meant being up against a wall while one’s chest and abdomen took punishment. Other times one had to keep ones hands behind one’s back and act as a sparring target for one of the fighters in the ring. During training, we punchbags were never permitted to cover our chests – because of the regime that Franz prescribed, this boy’s chest had that pale outline of its singlet which amused the fighters.

By 1938, we knew that developments across the border were once again transforming Germany into a military powerhouse but that realisation simply deepened our escapist dreams which led us away into the hills and forests for our private playtimes….