Describe Alex and Hans’s jobs in the army. Who has the worse position?

Alex was a mender. Hans was a fireman/ body collector. I'd say that Alex had the better job.

Unfortunately, Alex Steiner and Hans were not kept together, though neither of them was sent into actual fighting either. Alex is sent to Austria to do mending. Hans is sent right back to Stuttgart, where most of this story began, and given a job with the LSE, the Air Raid Special Unit:

The job of the LSE was to remain aboveground during air raids and put out fires, prop up the walls of buildings, and rescue anyone who had been trapped during the raid. As Hans soon discovered, there was also an alternative definition for the acronym. The men in the unit would explain to him on his first day that it really stood for Leichensammler Einheit–Dead Body Collectors.