The End of War - A Novel of the Race for Berlin - [World War II 02]

by David L. Robbins

  Young concertmaster Taschner knows he must escape. The others are staying, so there’s room for his family. And Diburtz sends his daughter away. They are both smart men. Not cowards at all. Realists.

  Lottie thinks she could run home and grab Mutti. There is room in the car to Bayreuth. And if there is not, she can leave behind the cello. But Mutti will not go. There’s no point in imagining she will.

  Lottie is late to the Beethoven Hall. Most of the orchestra has already assembled on stage when she enters. One hundred and five musicians handle their instruments. The tubas and basses wrangle into place, violins bow long tuning notes, French horns and trumpets warm their cold brass valves. Woodwinds play fast and flighty little solos. Lottie dances her cello through the forest of music stands, knees, and bells, careful not to knock anything over or dent the Galiano. She receives nods or nothing from the occupied, seated men.

  Lottie does not know who among the orchestra is aware of the escape plot. Tuning her Galiano, she watches faces. Who complains about the change in program for today’s concert? Who smiles at her in a secretive, parting way? Who sits up straighter, sets his chin, knowing he plays his last concert before the fall of the city?

  At five o’clock the concert begins. The baroque red-and-gold auditorium is filled. Minister Speer sits erect in his accustomed center seat of the first row. Von Westermann watches from a box with his wife. Everyone in the audience wears overcoats; the Beethoven Hall is not heated. The vast room is lit only by the ocher candescence of candles—normally at this time of day the electricity in Berlin is cut—but the lamps on the musicians’ stands glow. Speer must have worked some final magic for this concert.

  Conductor Robert Heger walks on stage through applause. When he takes up his baton and mounts the riser, the house hushes. Lottie readies her bow with the other cellos. She prepares herself to play her finest, like Mutti wants.

  Now, before Heger raises his hands to begin the concert, Lottie sees, almost as if they glow, who knows. Thirty, forty, almost half the orchestra, every man who voted to stay and share the fate of Berlin lifts his head, works his jaw even behind his mouthpiece, many of them sniff back tears, several let tears roll down their cheeks. Lottie breathes in the bouquet of emotion when Heger lifts the baton.

  The drums begin, tragic and slow, a dirge. The tubas respond. The joined basses add their depth. With grand sweeps Heger brings the full orchestra alive to tell Wagner’s tale of the gods’ evildoing, the funeral of the hero Siegfried, the devotion of Brunhild who on horseback climbs her lover’s burning pyre to join him in death, the demise of the gods and the destruction of all Valhalla and the world.

  Lottie plays with freedom and precision. For the first time she hears not her own notes but the whole, the passion of the orchestra. For stretches Lottie closes her eyes and bows, even during some passages she did not know she’d memorized. Her place in the music, in the moment, is so deep she is carried by it, her heart knows what to play.

  The BPO pounds on Die Gotterdammerung, almost as though the piece were an actual signal, a giant bell to be rung in a steeple, an alarm. When they are finished, the applause from the house is the greatest Lottie has ever experienced. It takes five minutes to climax. Musicians on all sides of her exchange glances, some touch hands, there is the breathlessness of a feat accomplished.

  The concert proceeds quickly, lacking the majesty of the Wagner. Twenty-three-year-old Taschner plays the solo in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto without his usual bravura. He seems distracted and worn. Perhaps the concertmaster’s departure with his family is not viewed by the other musicians as such a noble deed. In any event, the Beethoven symphony is acquitted as a matter of rote by the orchestra.

  Heger waves the final note. The audience rewards the BPO with warmth but nothing like what followed the Twilight of the Gods. That performance was memorial, Lottie will recall it for the rest of her life. The director points his baton at Gerhard Taschner to accept his applause as soloist. Taschner takes a long, last bow. Then, violin in hand, the concertmaster departs the stage.

  Is he leaving now? Isn’t Taschner staying until the end, for the Bruckner? The concertmaster is gone. Lottie looks into the front row, where Minister Speer stands clapping at the edge of the stage in a tan, belted overcoat. The Minister returns Lottie’s gaze. His lips form a silent word. Go.

  Lottie’s eyes dart through the dim house to von Westermann’s box. The fat orchestra manager halts his own applause to hold out one hand, like a man ushering her to a seat. There, the gesture says, there is the way out. Take it. Now.

  Heger turns his baton to the orchestra, to lift them from their seats for a bow. All the musicians stand. To Lottie’s left, a trim little cellist with magnificent veined hands, Herr Kleber, takes hold of her Galiano.

  “That’ll slow you down, dear. I’ll watch it for you.”

  On her right, another voice hones in under the applause.

  “Start coughing. Start crying. Do something, girl. Run offstage.”

  Heger keeps the orchestra standing. The applause begins to wane, he cannot leave them on their feet but for a few seconds more. Lottie must turn and exit.

  Heads pivot. Faces glower at her. The director puffs out his cheeks.

  Lottie looks into the hall lit in faint yellow tones. She thinks of Mutti. Did she sell the yellow star?

  She takes a deep breath.

  “Herr Kleber.”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “Thank you.”

  Lottie reaches for her cello.

  She sits.

  ~ * ~

  * * *

  April 16, 1945, 11:40 p.m.

  Stalin’s office

  the Kremlin

  Moscow

  he snatches the red phone the instant it rings.

  “Yes. This is Stalin.”

  “Comrade Stalin. This is Zhukov.”

  “General. Report. Have you taken Seelow yet?”

  Zhukov pauses.

  “No, Comrade. Not yet.”

  Stalin taps the bowl of his Dunhill pipe on the table.

  “Why not, General?”

  Stalin has given this hero of Moscow, Kursk, and Stalingrad every opportunity, every spare man and machine. Zhukov has the straightest path into Berlin. A ten-to-one advantage over the enemy in firepower. He has everything. And he cannot take one town on a hill.

  At three this afternoon Zhukov called the Kremlin to report. His progress against the Heights is grinding. By midmorning the Red Air Force had shut up many of the guns on top of the Heights. Portions of Chuikov’s Eighth Guards penetrated the first two lines of German defense at the foot of the slope. But the third line, dug into the slope itself, has proven tough to crack. Chuikov can’t get tanks or self-propelled guns up the steep grade. The only way into Seelow itself is along the roads, and every meter of them is controlled by heavy fortifications plus the remaining artillery on the hill.

  At noon Zhukov lost patience. Against the agreed battle plan, he committed his two tank armies, both of which were to be kept in reserve until the Heights was taken. Zhukov set loose almost fourteen hundred tanks and SP guns to charge ahead of Chuikov’s infantry columns. Zhukov would smash his way to Seelow.

  This was the last Stalin heard. He waited all day for word.

  Now he hears: No. Not yet.

  “Tell me why not.”

  “The German resistance has stiffened on the Heights. We are attacking through the night, Comrade.”

  “You are attacking with your two tank armies?”

  Again, Zhukov hesitates to respond. Stalin fills the gap.

  “I remind you, General, that was not your instructions. You should not have sent the First Tank Army into the Eighth Guards sector instead of where and when you were ordered. Those tanks were to be held until Seelow is taken, then used on the plateau to Berlin. You’ve ordered them in too early. And now you report they have failed.”

  In his mind Stalin pictures Zhukov lift his nose and swell his chest at that wor
d, fail.

  “Comrade Marshal, we will take Seelow tomorrow.”

  “Tell me how this happened today.”

  Zhukov explains: The emergence of the tanks from the Küstrin bridgehead snarled movement all across the Oderbruch. Chuikov’s infantry and towed artillery were forced off the roads by the advancing tanks. The boggy ground and many streams slowed the momentum of the assault. There are still many uncleared minefields. Nothing moved fast. The enemy artillery on the commanding bluffs was particularly effective in this setting.

  Zhukov has issued new orders to regroup and reorganize his artillery and scattered armor. In addition, at this moment eight hundred Soviet bombers hammer German positions on the Heights to deny the enemy rest and take out more of their artillery. Advance groups of Chuikov’s Eighth Guards have already entered the town’s outskirts and soon will take control of several houses at key road approaches.

  Stalin does not hear any report from his general on casualties. Zhukov assumes, correctly, that Stalin is not interested.

  Zhukov says, “By midnight we should have a foothold.”

  Stalin looks at his watch. He is not impressed with a foothold in Seelow. He wants Berlin. “Are you sure you will take the Seelow Heights tomorrow?”

  “You have my assurance, Comrade Stalin. Tomorrow.”

  “I will expect confirmation of that.”

  “Comrade.”

  Stalin adopts a weary tone.

  “Yes.”

  “This might not be entirely a bad thing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The more troops the enemy throws in to counter us in Seelow, the quicker we’ll be able to take Berlin. It will be easier to destroy their forces here on an open battlefield than in a fortified city.”

  “This is not sounding easy, General.”

  “No, Comrade.”

  Stalin thinks it is time to put away the crop and take out the lash.

  “Koniev is making very good progress.”

  Zhukov clears his throat.

  “Excellent.”

  “We have been thinking of ordering Koniev to swing both his tank armies from the south toward Berlin. Also, it might be a good idea to have Rokossovsky speed up crossing the Oder to strike at Berlin from the north.”

  Stalin hears nothing from the phone. Again in his mind he sees proud Zhukov grimace under the stripe of the whip. Zhukov wants Berlin, his page in military history. Stalin doesn’t care who takes the damn city, just take it.

  “General.”

  “Comrade, I agree that Koniev’s force might make such a maneuver at this time. However, I must advise, the northern army could not possibly mount an attack on Berlin for at least another week.”

  The point is made, Stalin thinks. Do not beat the mule too much, or he won’t sting enough when you do.

  Whoever’s standing near this mule is going to hear him bray and perhaps get a swift kick. Right now.

  “General.”

  “Yes?”

  “Da svidaniya.”

  Stalin hangs up.

  * * * *

  TEN

  * * *

  April 17, 1945, 0040 hours

  On the slope of the Seelow Heights

  Germany

  M

  en die by the light of burning tanks.

  Ilya does not hear his own running boots or his heaving breath, not the weapons bouncing on his back and at his waist. The wrench of steel and the sizzle of gunpowder forge a gauntlet of pandemonium on all sides. He lowers his head and bolts through it. He waits for the rip of shrapnel into his body, somewhere, and readies himself to keep running even after it hits.

  The surprise and stealth of night are gone, there is so much flame around. Troops and tanks alike are blasted by German 88mm and 155mm guns, firing over open sights at point-blank range. Tanks reel off the road one after another. Many explode and never move again; tanks behind have to shove them out of the way or maneuver around them across the slope. Men pour out of hatches to escape frying inside their armor; lit by the flaring of their machines, many are shot down by small arms fire and machine guns.

  Ilya dodges but keeps his direction, north across the face of this last hill. He doesn’t fire his gun, doesn’t even have it in his hand. This is not his fight. These tanks have been ordered up here where they have no business trying to wage an infantry-style battle. Ilya’s company has been sent elsewhere, into the northern rim of Seelow. This flaming, useless battle of giants lies in their path.

  The only thing human Ilya hears is Misha’s voice. The little sergeant belts, ”Go! Go!” at Ilya’s back. Misha runs very fast when there is shooting. Ilya does not speed up, even with Misha nearing at his heels. No matter how methodically Ilya travels through the battle, Misha will not get in front.

  Ilya leads his platoon to every broken, burning tank in his way, dashing from one to the next. The Germans turn their fire away from these targets to concentrate on more prominent enemies. What Ilya sees makes him glad he’s always been a foot soldier; he is nimble next to these behemoths. He’s a smaller mark, harder to kill. In his experience, in this kind of close-quarters fight, one man on the loose is more dangerous than any tank.

  It takes eight minutes to reach the other side of the skirmish. Ilya squats behind a rock outcropping. He catches his breath and waits for Misha and the rest of the platoon to assemble. The battle sounds like a blacksmith’s shop, the clouting of metal against metal—p-tang!—the warble of flames, woofing guns. The platoon rushes to the safety of the rock and the shadows, some arrive shaking their heads. Ilya counts. There are forty-four left of the fifty he started with this morning. Three of the men did not make it past the Haupt Canal, three more did not last through the tanks tonight. In between, the platoon spent the day lying flat against the Seelow slope, not able to move ahead and drawing little attention from the Germans. They were ordered to wait for nightfall, then enter the town.

  Ahead of them are the seared remains of a small wood. The grade here is gradual. If they move with care, the platoon can blend with the charcoaled trunks. Ilya doesn’t know where the rest of the company is; the other hundred men may still be mired back in the firefight alongside the tanks. They’ll make their way when they can. His forty-five will push on into Seelow.

  Another five hundred meters, at the crest of the road they just ran across, stand their objectives. Three stone buildings flank the paved entry into the town. So long as these structures remain in German hands they make access into town impossible for those tanks that survive the night. By daybreak, Ilya’s company must control all three buildings. His platoon must take one.

  Ilya checks the men. He readies himself to move into the trees.

  “Sergeant Bakov.”

  Misha slides closer. The scar across his cheek and the missing lobe sometimes make Misha look unpredictable, like an ill-tempered little dog, a biter.

  “Yes, Ilya?”

  Misha has not yet called him “Lieutenant.”

  “When we reach the top of the street, we divide by squads into four storm groups. We take the first house facing the slope. Leave the others.”

  “Got it.”

  “You remember the street-fighting lessons?”

  “Yes.”

  “Top floor. Middle floors. Then ground floor.”

  “Yes.”

  “Attack from all directions possible.”

  “I know.”

  “You’ll lead one of the squads.”

  “Me? I ... Ilya ... I thought you and I would ...”

  “You, Misha.”

  Ilya stands. Misha stays crouched.

  “Give them their orders, Sergeant. Then let’s move.”

  Misha looks off into the dark. The little man nods as if to some fate he has displeased and now must agree to serve. Ilya turns his eyes to the ruined forest. He picks a path through it, again heading for the spots of greatest devastation. This reduces the chance of trip wires and unexploded mines.

  He waits for Misha
to round among the men, explaining their task and giving assignments. Ilya will lead none of the squads. He’ll work alone as he sees fit. One man, on the loose.

  Misha returns.

  “The men understand.”

  “Good.”

  “Ilya.”

  Ilya licks his lips at another pause for Misha.