by Pirate Irwin
Rochdebois removed his helmet – which bore the evidence of the battle raging outside with several bits of shrapnel embedded in it – and swept a grimy hand through his thick lice-infested blond hair (running water was not exactly on tap in the battered city) before manoeuvring his way gingerly through row upon row of wounded, predominantly in uniform. Although there were some in civilian clothes, most Berliners had been left to fend for themselves discarded by their Führer. For of all those Germans who had blindly followed Hitler the capital city’s populace had been the least enthusiastic and never one to ignore a slight he had ensured by staying in the capital they would pay a heavy price for their perceived lack of support.
Whilst the smell in the makeshift hospital was appalling as one would expect, a mix of rotting gangrenous flesh, excrement and vomit, there were still scores of bloodstained uniformed nurses and doctors scurrying around tending to their patients but now all they could effectively offer were words as a remedy as medical supplies had run out, some said several days ago.
The smell in the Bunker was not much better. The SS telephone operator Rochus Misch, he had introduced himself to Rochedebois the day he had received his medal, shrugged embarrassedly and said the drains had backed up. As a way of trying to take the Frenchman’s mind off the malodorous smell he offered him a shot of schnapps from a silver hip flask and to his surprise a cigarette.
Normally smoking was strictly forbidden as Hitler was among many other things a fanatical anti-smoker. Not even those closest to him whether secretaries or military adjutants dared light up inside the Bunker and had to take their life into their hands if they wished to smoke by going out into the garden which resembled more a First World War battlefield as it bore the marks of being constantly shelled.
“The Führer is dead,” Misch said, his eyes welling up.
Rochdebois was stunned as he had believed the propaganda emanating from what remained of the Ministry of Propaganda under Josef Goebbels that Hitler would fight to the end.
However, he had doubted the veracity of the pledge the Führer would emerge from the Bunker and fight alongside his remaining faithful, especially after the pitiful sight he had cast the other day.
Rochdebois patted Misch on the shoulder, cheekily took another nip of schnapps and asked where he could find SS General Wilhelm Mohnke, for it was he who had commanded the Frenchman’s presence.
Misch wiped away tears and gestured to a room that was just behind his now all but superfluous telephone operating board.
The door was ajar and Rochedebois could see two figures inside the cramped sparsely furnished room, one remonstrating with the other, voices rising.
***
Rochdebois hesitated as to whether to intrude on this dispute but as he made to step back out of the dim light, the taller of the two caught sight of him cast him an angry glance and asked him his name.
“Ah it is you, ok come in come in!” barked the gaunt officer once Rochedebois had given him his name.
The officer introduced himself as Mohnke whilst he gesticulated towards a squat rotund man and said with a tone not altogether respectful that he was Martin Bormann, newly elevated to Party Minister as bequeathed to him in the Führer’s last will and testament.
Bormann might have been promoted but he was certainly not in command of anything least of all himself. He was sweating profusely, stank of alcohol and his hands were shaking. Mohnke on the other hand was remarkably calm given the dire circumstances, which was of some reassurance to Rochedebois.
However, he was impatient to find out why he had been ordered to risk life and limb to come to the Bunker, for if anything preoccupied him more it was a wish to try and avoid capture by the Soviets.
To his relief he quickly realized he was being given a chance, albeit a slim one, of escaping the charnel house that was Berlin.
Mohnke not Bormann, who was sniveling behind his desk in between taking long gulps from a bottle of schnapps, outlined how there would be several groups leaving the Bunker that night.
“You Lieutenant Rochedebois and a Sergeant from your division have been recommended as escorts, both of you being still fit for service and Iron Cross holders,” said Mohnke.
Rochedebois smiled grimly and thought fit for service was a clever way of putting it as to why two Frenchmen had been chosen to escort one of the two highest ranking members of the Nazi leadership remaining in Berlin to safety. This is where the dream of German Aryan supremacy had led to. With the golden youth of that nation largely lying dead, wounded or incarcerated across Europe they felt obliged to resort to two soldiers from a country they conquered and humiliated in a matter of weeks – well at least he had blond hair he joked to himself.
“Very well General, and will Minister Goebbels also be accompanying us or going with another group?” asked Rochedebois.
He sincerely hoped the club-footed Goebbels wouldn’t be, as he would be a hindrance and doubted he would get very far given the appalling state of the streets.
Mohnke breathed in deeply and replied he was not aware of what Goebbels’s plans were but that no he would certainly not be in Bormann’s party as they did not want to risk the two Ministers falling into Soviet hands at the same time.
***
Mohnke told Rochedebois he would not be required for several more hours, glancing at his watch he saw through the grime of the dust that had accumulated over the past weeks it was 4 in the afternoon, though he would have been hard-pressed to have known it was day as outside the amount of shells falling gave the sky a permanent dark pall.
“In the intervening hours Lieutenant you do not need to go back to the line, we don’t want to have to replace you at short notice,” Mohnke said without the trace of a smile.
“As you can see the loss of the Führer has come as a terrible blow to many, not least the Minister, and any other upsets could result in unfortunate consequences,” added Mohnke whose implication that Bormann might also choose to take his own life was not lost on Rochedebois. Ordinarily he wouldn’t have cared less if Bormann did commit suicide but the Minister was his ticket out of Berlin.
“Very well General what do you suggest I do in the interim?”
Rochedebois wished he could leave the Bunker and return to the line and then clear off altogether without the impediment of having to accompany the pathetic figure of Bormann, who had for so long been the figure in the background whispering poison into Hitler’s ear and enabling himself to rise at the expense of the other paladins that had once held the Führer’s favour.
Mohnke led him out of the room and along a corridor to a small room which was littered with shreds of paper. On the table was a large map, not of mainland Europe once -- save Spain -- property of the Nazis or its puppet dictators but just Berlin and its suburbs. Although as Rochedebois noticed when he looked closer there were arrows driving into the heart of Berlin with the names of General Wenck, Steiner and Busse and their armies.
“Don’t get your hopes up Lieutenant. They will not be lifting the siege. They are doing what they can to save themselves and their men and as for being in charge of respective Armies, well you are clearly not stupid, they are just shattered remnants. Some amongst us preferred to delude themselves to the end that they were rushing to rescue us and turn the tide against the Soviets,” Mohnke chuckled mirthlessly.
“So Lieutenant what I suggest you do for the next few hours is study the area of the city you will be escorting the Bormann group through. Obviously it will be dark, well there will be some light because of the fires the Soviet shells have caused, so I guess we have something to thank them for, but there will be few street signs.
“I will send in the sergeant once he gets here. We had a problem tracking him down, which is hardly surprising. Here you can entertain yourself while poring over the map with a bottle of schnapps, and here is a packet of much sought after cigarettes, procured from a dead Soviet. I would advise you not to be as enthusiastic with the liquid intake as the Minister,” smiled
Mohnke before closing the door.
Rochedebois kicked his heels for an hour, having given the map a cursory glance, smoking and drinking sparingly, for he wanted some tobacco for the trip, whilst marveling that such a non-descript and tiny room had been the last command centre for Hitler. What must the man who promised the Germans they would rule the world have felt at being reduced to issuing orders from what amounted to a room the size of a large broom cupboard and commanding phantom armies with his kingdom reduced to a few rubble-strewn streets.
Evidently if Mohnke was to be believed the sycophantic underlings like Bormann had continued to talk ludicrously of a miraculous rescue and to carry on the fight.
Easy for them to do so, surmised Rochedebois, because they lived in a make believe bubble having never ventured to the frontline since the savage hordes of Soviets had poured into Germany. Thus Bormann had not seen how lacking in equipment and how reduced in manpower the courageous fighting units had become – give Goebbels a little credit he had at least visited the frontline and grasped how desperate the situation was and that his call for ‘Total War’ had ended in complete destruction not that he cared too much for the human cost.
Maybe that was why the Charlemagne Division, not that it resembled anything like that after months of fighting on the Eastern Front, had been ordered to defend Berlin, because like the remaining Nazi hierarchy in the city they had nothing to lose as the game was up for them.
Being sent to the Western Front was seen by many soldiers as the lesser of the two killing fields where being captured meant relatively soft conditions but for the French that would not have been the case, fortunate not to be shot on the spot for wearing the enemy’s uniform.
In a way Rochedebois was thankful because he was still alive and had bought himself some time to concoct a story – a lie of course – should he be taken prisoner by the Soviets and hope that his fable would be sufficient to earn himself a return back to France.
Thus this had been how he had spent the majority of his time since being left alone by Mohnke, best to get his story ready if he was captured during the breakout. He just hoped the Soviets were more easygoing on those from another country they found in the Nazis uniform than their own compatriots, whom he had heard received no mercy.
His thought process was interrupted by shrieks from the corridor but when he opened the door he was greeted by a fierce looking SS officer, who told him in no uncertain terms to stay in the room. Peering over the officer’s shoulder, though, was the sergeant he had been promised. Francois Barazer de Lannurien.
At 19 de Lannurien was some 11 years his junior but despite his youth he had shown himself to be a leader and fought heroically. If those qualities had been more in evidence amongst his fellow soldiers in 1940 we might not be in the mess we are now thought Rochedebois, thinking back to the chaos as they retreated in disarray in the face of the German onslaught.
“I’m glad to see you sergeant. Oh hell let us dispense with such formalities, permit me to call you Francois and you can call me Lucien. Given all that remains for us is a hazardous escape from here, I don’t really think rank is of any importance anymore and besides best we stick together given the baggage we have to take with us,” smiled Rochedebois.
De Lannurien, sandy-haired with blue eyes, nodded his assent and reached for a glass, blowing the dust from it, and filled it with schnapps, whilst lighting a cigarette from his own pack, and offering one to Rochedebois.
“I’d say Bormann’s nerves are shredded to pieces completely now that Goebbels and his wife have taken the same route as the Führer,” said de Lannurien.
So Goebbels had gone too, and his wife the eye-catching Magda, oh well thought Rochedebois no surprise really. They would not be the last as exhaustion distorted the mind to such an extent that suicide offered an escape from the magnitude of the defeat and the shattered buildings and lives that would be a constant reminder of their failure to deliver a victory to erase memories of the 1918 calamity.
Rochedebois said as much to de Lannurien, who shrugged.
“I would have gladly shot them myself to be blunt about it. For if it is true what I heard as I came to meet you then they are beyond redemption. They had their children murdered before they themselves committed suicide,” he said spitting the words out.
Rochedebois was appalled and felt physically sick. It was one thing for an adult who could not cope with the defeat to take his or her life but to inflict that on innocent young children, people they had brought into the world, was beyond the pale.
“You have children, Lucien?” asked de Lannurien, his voice shaking.
“No, but I have nephews and nieces about the same age as the Goebbels children, whom I was very fond of,” he replied glumly, preferring de Lannurien hadn’t brought the subject up.
De Lannurien wiped away tears from his dust encrusted cheeks, and patted him on the shoulder.
“Well don’t look so forlorn, they provide extra motivation for you to get out of this alive,” he said.
Rochedebois nodded wearily and eyed his much younger compatriot, wondering what had been his reasons for signing up at such a young age to an army that was on the back foot by that stage when he could have afforded being from a good family to sit the war out.
“If we do survive Lucien what do you expect will happen to us once we return to France? Be put up against a wall and shot or given a proper trial?” asked de Lannurien.
Rochedebois sighed.
“I’m not so sure we should be looking that far ahead do you? But as you have posed the question, I would imagine your youth plus the fact your father won the Croix de Guerre and is a member of the Legion d’Honneur will be in your favour,” said Rochedebois.
“In any case even if you accompany me to the wall you will surely have the consolation of being part of the only family to have been awarded both a Croix de Guerre and an Iron Cross,” he added smiling.
De Lannurien grinned, took another slug of schnapps and wiped his mouth with the torn sleeve of his uniform.
“Right I wish we could bloody get going,” said Rochedebois.
As if someone had been listening at the door, Mohnke, even more grim-faced than before, appeared and said the time had come for them to leave.
De Lannurien and Rochedebois poured themselves a final glass of schnapps, downed it in one and slipped on their helmets.
“So General time for the last lifeboats to leave the Titanic, hey?” de Lannurien joked.
His remark did not go down well with Mohnke, who admonished him sternly and barked at him to check he had a full magazine of ammunition, which the teenager quickly did.
“Save your puerile humour for a more appropriate occasion Sergeant,” said Mohnke.
“You and the lieutenant have been given the enormous honour and responsibility of ensuring Party Minister Bormann, who possesses some vital documents for Admiral Doenitz our new leader, escapes Berlin so we can maintain our fight against our many enemies.
“You will also have in the group Hitler Youth leader Artur Axmann, who is almost as important as it is he who will transform the youth of Germany into the future army which will lead the fight back that has been temporarily halted here,” added Mohnke solemnly.
Both Rochedebois and de Lannurien glanced at each other and stifled a laugh. Surely Mohnke didn’t believe the pompous rubbish he was spouting, but then it was immaterial to them if he did. All they knew was they were being given the chance, albeit one with little possibility of succeeding, of making a break for the relative sanctuary of the west.
Thus they both saluted Mohnke, the last time probably they would ever raise their arm in the Nazi style, and he led them along the corridor to where there were three groups of people, men and women, waiting. Most of them appeared to be drunk.
Bormann was nowhere to be seen, and Rochedebois being of senior rank to de Lannurien took it upon himself to ask Mohnke somewhat impatiently where was he. Bormann ever the shadowy figure suddenly popped up but
he looked far from ready. His golden pheasant jacket – the moniker the Nazis (primarily the Gauleiters) had been given for the colour of their uniforms – was open showing a discoloured vest and the braces of his trousers were dangling below the knees.
Even Mohnke looked annoyed by his appearance. Some of the entourage tut tutted openly, but were instantly silenced as three or four men dressed in SS uniform moved in and prodded them with their Schmeisser submachine guns.
“Herr Minister, we need to move now, the latest reports I have had from the runners is that the Soviets are 100 metres from the Bunker and our remaining forces are at breaking point,” said Mohnke, his tone managing to remain respectful.
Bormann held up his hands and nodded.
“I understand the need for urgency General, but I am caught in two minds as to what to wear,” he said, his voice sounding weak and shaky, his appearance adding to this image of a shattered man as his eyes swiveled round the increasingly fractious groups waiting to leave and his tongue slid along his lips nervously.
Mohnke arched his eyebrows and took a deep breath, but allowed Bormann to continue.
“It is just if I wear my uniform the Soviets will know I am a man of high rank, but if I put on civilian clothes and I am captured then I could be shot as a spy,” he said sounding on the verge of tears.
Mohnke, remarking that several people were becoming increasingly impatient regardless of the threat of the armed SS guards, puffed out his cheeks.
“Herr Minister I think all of us posed the very same question but really it is a secondary issue, for the longer we stay here the shorter the odds of any of us being able to escape. You are now the most senior and important person in Berlin and our number one goal is for you to make it safely to the headquarters of Admiral Doenitz,” said Mohnke calmly.
“You, ReichsFührer Axmann and Doctor Stumpfegger will be in the best of hands with these two Frenchmen, both recently decorated with the Iron Cross,” added Mohnke.