by Michael Dean
Hodge nodded drunkenly. He felt happier than he had done since early childhood, when he still had his father. Yes, he would find Karl Wagner. And he would save those wonderful paintings from the barbarians who had seized them. Or he would bloody well die in the attempt.
Chapter 4
Ludwigsburg, Friday August 17, 1945
The Lancaster flying in from Frankfurt circled above Stuttgart airport before coming into land. The swollen belly of the aircraft was full of resupplies for the American PX stores. There were five passengers, four of them senior US military from SHAEF going to US Regional Headquarters in Stuttgart. The fifth was John Hodge, on his way to Ludwigsburg.
The lowest ranked of the Americans was a lieutenant colonel, so they had said little to the scruffy British captain on the flight. This left Hodge free to relive his three days in Paris in his mind.
Bill and Veronica Palfrey had been delightful hosts, treating him like a house guest, an ami de maison, rather than a subordinate of Bill’s. Both Palfreys were knowledgeable about food and wine, both superb cooks. Sometimes Veronica had accompanied him to the newly re-opened art galleries, sometimes he went alone. Devouring the art nourished him as much as devouring the Palfreys’ excellent food.
In the evenings, Bill talked knowledgeably about the wider political situation. He was a passionate Francophone, as was Veronica. He supported de Gaulle’s bid for equality with the other three occupying powers. In particular, he thought the French withdrawal of their occupying troops from the area Hodge would be visiting was a mistake. He regretted American troops taking over from the French. ‘A sad day’, as he put it.
Over a bottle of excellent claret, the evening before Hodge left, Bill accused the new US president, Truman, of bullying France. Truman, according to Bill, had threatened to limit aid to France unless French troops vacated the Stuttgart area and let the Americans in.
Hodge had nodded, adapting himself to whoever he was with, as he always did. But afterwards, when the judgements he had suspended reasserted themselves, he found the Palfreys’ anti-Americanism unpleasant. He had not thought of it before but he had nothing against America. Quite the opposite. As he thought that, he realised he was smiling at the US officers on the Lancaster, one of whom was looking at him oddly.
Passport control at Stuttgart airport was rudimentary. Under a handwritten notice saying Zoll/Customs, a single customs official waved through anybody in a uniform. Hodge, toting a bulging kitbag with his clothes, books and painting materials, waited in the foyer. Palfrey had said the commander of US troops in Ludwigsburg, Captain John Lindsay, would meet him at the airport.
The four senior Americans were met by a saluting female corporal and led to a jeep parked outside. After that, the foyer was deserted. There were only a few military flights into or out of Stuttgart – Palfrey had told him that. And certainly no civilian ones.
A young woman carrying files walked past him and disappeared into an office. She walked close to Hodge, smiling at him shyly. She blushed when he smiled back.
After a few more minutes waiting, he went into the office the girl had disappeared into, not displeased at the idea of talking to her. He knocked politely on the glass part of the door then went in. The young woman was behind a desk. A much older man was behind another desk.
‘Excuse me, I am Captain Hodge, British army. I am being met by a Captain John Lindsay of the United States army. Do you know …?’
Their incomprehension was total. Their faces fell into blank masks.
He tried again. ‘Captain John Lindsay. Ludwigsburg.’ Inspired, he mimed telephoning.
The old man nodded. ‘Telefon Stuttgart,’ he said. ‘Ludwigsburg nicht.’
Hodge swore under his breath. ‘Oh shit.’
The young woman smothered a giggle, and then blushed again when he looked at her. She was very pretty. Long black hair. Hodge pulled himself together. He would have to be resourceful. He was a resourceful army officer, was he not?
‘Ludwigsburg,’ he said. ‘Bus. Train.’ He attempted a mime of both forms of transport.
This time the young woman was unable to smother the giggle. She looked at the man, obviously asking permission. The man gave it with a brusque nod.
‘No bus,’ said the girl in painfully halting English. ‘Stuttgart, yes. Ludwigsburg, no. No train.’ She shrugged apologetically. ‘No Kohle. No coal.’
‘OK thanks,’ Hodge said. ‘Where is Ludwigsburg?’
The young woman got up. For the first time Hodge noticed a map on the wall. Obviously pre-war, it had spiky gothic writing on it.
‘Here is Ludwigsburg.’ She hit it with her hand, as if the language barrier necessitated making every movement more dramatic.
Hodge looked. Ludwigsburg was something like ten miles to the north-west. There was a direct road. Once on it he was unlikely to get lost. He would have to walk and hitchhike.
‘Thanks for your help.’
‘No problem,’ said the young woman. ‘Good luck. Excuse me. Only school English. Sorry.’
Hodge stopped himself asking for her name. A telephone number would clearly not be much use either, once he got to Ludwigsburg. He said goodbye, only slightly disconcerted by the gale of laughter from inside the office as soon as he shut the door.
Outside in the muggy heat, the road was deserted except for a young man in a cap riding a bicycle. Hodge waved him down. The young man looked terrified. Hodge pulled out a wodge of the Reichsmarks Palfrey had given him. He counted out three hundred in small notes and shoved them into the young man’s hand.
‘For the bicycle,’ Hodge explained. Though the explanation was not really necessary as he proceeded to take it then and ride off on it. Had he given the young man enough? Had he just committed a reprehensible act, abusing his power as a soldier of an occupying force?
As he wobbled toward Ludwigsburg, his kitbag balanced precariously over the handlebar, he put the moral issue out of his mind. On the road there was the occasional US army jeep. He saw one civilian car, to his surprise.
There were women in scarves, a lot of them, trudging along, pulling behind them bulging long-handled wooden handcarts, usually covered over with a cloth. Most of them wore overcoats, despite the summer heat. There was the occasional young man walking slowly. Hodge thought all the men he saw looked like demobbed soldiers.
There was a feeling of desertion, of emptiness across the flat fields to the distant farmhouses glimmering in the hazy sunshine. It looked as if most of the people were somewhere else. As of course they were, reasoned Hodge. A hell of a lot of them were dead.
Two and a half hours later, after asking the way twice, he stood holding his bicycle at the entrance to the Flak-Kaserne, the barracks which was the United States Army’s headquarters in Ludwigsburg.
Flak-Kaserne looked more like a small village than a barracks. There were whitewashed houses on either side of a main street. Hodge identified himself at the guardhouse and asked permission to leave his bicycle there. Captain Lindsay was notified by telephone. A trooper was summoned to lead him along the broad main street which continued to be flanked with houses no different from the ones he had seen on the way in from Stuttgart. Eventually, they came to a long single-storey building with a sign saying ‘Main Administration’. Hodge was then shown into Lindsay’s office.
Captain John Lindsay stood to one side of his desk. His US army zipper jacket, shirt and tie were immaculate. The knee-high boots shone with brown polish. He was in his late thirties, Hodge thought, which would make him around ten years older than Hodge himself – Hodge being one of the youngest captains in the British army. He was long faced, with a bristly moustache and ears that bent out at the top. His height and build were about the same as Hodge’s – just over six feet tall, with broad shoulders tapering to the waist, making a neat triangle of the upper body.
‘John Lindsay,’ he said. ‘I command Detachment G-29 of the 63rd Infantry Division, American 7th Army. Welcome to Flak Barracks.’
Lindsay seemed about
to shake hands but Hodge thought it wise to salute. ‘Captain John Hodge. Essex Regiment. British army. Seconded to CROWCASS.’
Lindsay smiled, a little grimly, Hodge thought. He looked exhausted. ‘At ease soldier. Sit down. What the hell is Crow’s Ass?’
Hodge smiled, genuinely enough, as he and Lindsay sat on either side of the desk. ‘CROWCASS is a Nazi hunting outfit operating out of Paris,’ he heard himself drifting into Americanese.
‘You huntin’ Nazis, John? Good. We got plenty. Help yourself.’
Hodge’s smile broadened into a grin. He liked Lindsay. ‘I’m looking for one in particular.’
‘One! In par-tic-u-lar? You’ve come a hell of a long way for just one Nazi, John. Who is it?’
‘Name’s Karl Wagner.’ He waited while Lindsay noted the name on a pad on the desk.
‘Know him?’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘He’s from Ludwigsburg. He was Hitler’s bodyguard.’
‘Not impressed. I know soldiers who liberated Ohrdruf camp. In fact, let me tell you, my brother was there. You know Ohrdruf?’
‘No. But the British liberated Bergen-Belsen. I know what went on.’
‘Good. There was a report about the camps in Yank magazine. I’ll show you later. The bodies in there were frozen solid and bright red from blood. John, there have been atrocities the like of which no civilized man has seen. And the British army is sending a captain to find the guy who stopped anybody taking a swing at Hitler?’
‘I take your point, but we think he also stole some valuable art by Jewish painters. Nine paintings in all including works by Chagall, Adler …’
‘Pictures!’ Lindsay cut across him. He waved his arms. ‘John, let me tell you something... Pictures. Jesus H.’ Lindsay looked down, then up again. ‘The French commander who was here before us was a guy called Captain Conradt out at Vaihingen. And he was a nice enough guy, if a little too fond of the sauce. But when the French pulled out, he and his men left this place in total, and I do mean total, chaos.’
‘I see.’
‘Oh, you see, do you? I am trying, here, with one lousy detachment, to stop the local nationals starving to death. Then we have to get them re-housed by winter or those still alive will freeze out in the open. I am also dealing with streams of DPs coming in every day …’
‘What?’
‘DPs? Displaced Persons. Some Germans from the east but we also got DPs from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, you name it. They make for Ludwigsburg because it’s a big garrison town. We have four barracks here, Fromman, Eberhard-Ludwig, Krabbenloch and this one, the biggest, Flak. We have new DPs coming all the time. The old DPs hate the new DPs and sometimes attack them.’
Hodge whistled softly. ‘I see.’
‘In addition to the DPs we have former prisoners of war the Nazis were using as slave labour. They are mainly Poles, about 10,000 of them, plus Russians and Ukrainians. Where do we put them, John?’
Hodge shook his head and laughed, a little nervously.
Lindsay went on. ‘When we’re not building internment camps, we’re restoring water supplies. We’re restoring electricity supplies. We have major building and rebuilding projects on the go, like a whole new viaduct out at Bietigheim. We have Pioneer Brigades in, clearing space for new parks, new sports grounds, new civic amenity centres. John, we are rebuilding this place from the bottom up.’
Lindsay slumped heavily into his office chair. Then he continued. ‘Do you know what my orders are, John? Here in this little town?’
Hodge sighed, admiring but getting tired of being harangued. ‘No. I don’t.’
‘The orders from the politicians are the three Ds. You know them?’
‘Demilitarization. DeNazification. Democratization.’
‘Correct. But that is what you come up with if you are a politician sitting on your ass out in a nice castle in Potsdam, or somewhere. Here on the ground we gotta translate that into action. That’s the mission. That’s the task.’
Hodge’s anger at not being met at the airport and his pique at being lectured, as he saw it, was fading as he got more and more interested in what Lindsay was saying.
‘I can see how you can achieve demilitarization. But the other two Ds, deNazification and democratization, how do you go about that?’
Lindsay laughed. ‘You really wanna know? Make yourself comfortable, captain. This could take a while.’
Hodge found himself smiling as Lindsay took a satirically heavy inward breath and began: ‘We been since here May 4th. That is three months and thirteen days. When we took over, the French, in their cultured European wisdom left the local Nazi administration in place. Totally. Basically, the French enjoyed themselves here and the Nazis carried on running the show from the Town Hall, as if nothing had happened.’
Hodge shook his head and whistled, genuinely shocked.
‘So we have to clean out the Augean Stables.’ Lindsay was clearly proud of this classical reference. He let it hang in the air for a second. Hodge obligingly looked impressed.
‘You know what you need in a situation like this, Captain Hodge? You need one good guy, among the local nationals. And we were lucky. We found him. His name is Wilhelm Keil. He’s an old man. Seventy five. Speaks excellent English. He went through the local administration for us, top to bottom, the mayor down to the dog catcher. He wrote a report for me on every man jack of ‘em. We were able to clear out the Nazis and replace them with decent democratic guys.’
‘Was one of them Wilhelm Keil, by any chance?’
‘Ah, some old-world cynicism, there, John! Keil is actually an experienced politician. From their Social Democrats – bit like our Democratic Party. But he wanted nothing for himself. No office, no payment. I told him we should name a street after him in the new Ludwigsburg we are building. Know what he said?’
‘No.’
‘He said “Don’t bother, Captain Lindsay, we already have a Wilhelmstrasse.” That’s him being called Wilhelm, right?’
‘Right. But let me play devil’s advocate here a minute. How do you know this Keil fellow isn’t a Nazi himself? How do you know he isn’t putting his chums up for high office?’
‘John, he had an archive this thick of his life in politics. Cuttings, speeches, you name it. You have no idea what those guys went through, fighting Hitler. His meetings were bombed, his associates attacked, many of them murdered. He moved out of his apartment, to keep his family safe. All this from the early twenties to early thirties. After that they either shut up completely or left the country.’
‘So his fight goes back …’
‘Yeah, nearly twenty years. And he’s not only got balls, he has real wisdom. Reminds me of my old man. For example, we have to keep the population onside while we’re turning this town round. So I asked Keil what we should do. How do we make friends here? Know what he said?’
‘No, what?’
‘He said for twelve years all we Germans heard was Goebbels-feed. Then the moment we were freed, the French took all our radios. You want to be popular, give the people back their radio sets. So we did. Worked like a charm. Radio Stuttgart is broadcasting again. They loved us for it.’
‘I’d like to meet him, this Wilhelm Keil.’
‘Maybe you will. Yeah. I’d like you to.’
‘But meanwhile, I have a mission here, too. My commanding officer, lieutenant colonel Palfrey wrote to you. We understood that you would be assisting us. I also understood that you would be meeting me at the airport.’
The second he said that, Hodge regretted it. It sounded crass. Petulant. There was a heavy silence in the room. Both men knew their view of each other hung in the balance. Hodge had liked Lindsay on sight, he still did, but he needed to assert himself. Lindsay thought Hodge was cool, like Errol Flynn. But he hadn’t let that show. Suddenly Lindsay laughed, through his exhaustion. Hodge laughed too. They had both decided.
Lindsay rang a buzzer on his desk. A sergeant appeared in the room immediately.
‘Briscoe, is Lieutenant Carpenter around?’
‘Yes, sir, right outside.’
‘Have him step in, please.’
The lieutenant appeared immediately, an earnest-looking young fellow in rimless spectacles. ‘Sir?’
‘Brad, this is Captain John Hodge. All the way from England via Paris. He is looking for a Nazi called Karl Wagner, formerly landlord of the The Stern Inn on Mompelgard …’
‘So you have heard of him!’
Lindsay winked at Hodge, who mouthed ‘You bastard.’ Lindsay went on. ‘Wagner is on our list of known Nazi high-ups. Give him all the assistance he needs up to and including a friendly smile.’
Carpenter laughed. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘You got your notepad, Brad?’
‘Sir.’ Carpenter pulled a small pad from his breast pocket.
‘Take this down.’
Carpenter nodded and started writing.
‘Get Captain Hodge a room in the officers’ block. Get him a jeep. Full tank, after that he comes to me. Free food. As much from PX as he wants. Get him chits for that. Sign him out a pistol and some ammo. No men, under any circumstances. Any materiel he requests to be authorised by me personally. Oh yes, and find out if anyone around here knows an artwork from their asshole. John here thinks Wagner looted some valuable paintings. You got that, Brad?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Carpenter finished writing, turned to Hodge and saluted. ‘Welcome to Flak Barracks, sir. I’ll have that kit-bag taken to your room.’ Carpenter hoisted Hodge’s bag effortlessly onto his shoulder.
‘Thank you.’
‘And also your bicycle, sir.’
‘Bicycle!’ Lindsay did a theatrical double-take. ‘The British army sent you here on a bike? How long did that take?’
‘’Bout three months.’ Hodge was deadpan.
Brad Carpenter laughed. Lindsay shook his head in mock sorrow, and then spoke again.
‘Day to day stuff, you go to Brad, John. Like if you run out of bullets or you need a map or something. Big stuff you see me. ‘
‘Yes, sir.’
Lindsay turned to Carpenter. ‘Oh, and Brad, do you have any idea what I am supposed to be doing for, say, the next hour? No, make that two hours.’