Courtney's War

by Wilbur Smith

  He took the diary to his direct superior and said, “Excuse me, Sturmbannführer, but I have discovered something I think you should see.”

  The ex-policeman found the entry to which he was referring and explained its significance.

  Sturmbannführer Franz Minke had acquired his rank more by political sycophancy than competence and greatly depended on his junior’s experience and worldly wisdom.

  “What do you think I should do?” he asked.

  “I would go to Berlin, insist on a personal meeting, explain why you are there and say that you felt it was vital that he should see this first, since it should surely be his right to decide how best to proceed.”

  “He won’t be pleased when he sees it.”

  “Perhaps not, but he’ll be very pleased that it’s him that’s seeing it, rather than someone who could use it against him.”

  “He’ll be pleased I came to him, then?”

  “Yes, sir . . . and relieved . . . and very grateful.”

  Within the hour Sturmbannführer Minke and von Tresckow’s notebook were on their way to Berlin.

  •••

  For a few heart-stopping moments, Sturmbannführer Minke feared that he had made a terrible miscalculation. Brigadeführer von Meerbach was not known for his sweetness of nature. He was reputed to possess a streak of cold, ruthless cruelty that was exceptional even by SS standards. But then von Meerbach did something that took Minke entirely by surprise. He burst out laughing. He hooted. He guffawed as if he had seen the world’s funniest comedian tell his best joke.

  Minke tittered nervously, uncertain whether he should respond in kind to the senior officer’s amusement.

  “Oh, this is priceless . . . absolutely priceless,” von Meerbach said, pulling himself up straight and wiping a tear of joy from his eye. “What did you say your name was again?”

  “Minke, Brigadeführer.”

  “Well, Minke, you have made my day . . . and my dear wife’s too, when she hears about it. Here is proof that my smug, self-satisfied, conceited, Jew-loving brother is the traitor I always thought he was. Oh, he thought he had everyone fooled, the handsome fighter ace with his medals around his neck. But he didn’t fool me. I knew that if I left the trap open long enough he was bound to walk into it. And here it is, in this notebook, proof that he was in league with von Tresckow, one of the key men in the conspiracy against the Führer.

  “Look here,” von Meerbach said, striding over toward his aide-de-camp, who had been standing discreetly in a shadowy corner of the office. He held the notebook under the ADC’s face and jabbed at the open page. “My brother’s name, the date and place of their meeting and then a single word, ‘Ja.’ A mere two letters, but they say everything.”

  The ADC frowned. “Excuse me, Brigadeführer, perhaps I am being stupid today, but what do those letters say?”

  “That my brother said yes to von Tresckow, of course. He agreed to join the conspiracy. Naturally, he doesn’t spell it out. He would not need to for himself, and he would not want to make it obvious if someone found the book. But in hindsight, now that we know what he had in mind . . . Oh, I have no doubt at all what that ‘Ja’ means, and nor will the People’s Court. Have my brother arrested. And Minke, tell me, who first came across this entry?”

  Minke gave the ex-policeman’s name and added, for he saw that he could afford to be generous now, “He understood at once, just as you did, what the entry meant.”

  “Then he is a fine officer, as are you, Minke, for having the wit to bring this to me. I will not forget your good work, you can be sure of that.”

  “Thank you, Herr Brigadeführer.” Minke beamed.

  “Not at all . . . Now, we had better call the People’s Court, while we’re at it. The sooner my brother receives the justice he so richly deserves, the better.”

  Gerhard was no longer flying missions over Russian soil. Army Group South had been pushed back into the Balkans and his fighters were engaged in constant missions against the Russian and American bombers, which were trying to knock out the Romanian oil fields and refineries that were the principal suppliers of Germany’s fuel. The first he heard about the July 20th assassination attempt was when he returned from a mission and found his base abuzz with rumors that the Führer was dead and a coup had taken place.

  He thought back to his meeting with von Tresckow. He wondered whether this was any of his doing. But then news came through that the Führer had survived.

  More’s the pity, Gerhard thought, and it was clear from the mood of many of his pilots that he was not alone in that opinion.

  Within a couple of days, the plot against Hitler was all but forgotten. They had more urgent matters to think about. The days when the Luftwaffe had command of the sky were long gone. The Russians had better aircraft now, produced in massive quantities. Each time he took to the sky, Gerhard felt his lease on life growing shorter. Somehow he had survived, but the odds on him going much further were getting longer by the day.

  One afternoon in the first week of August, he climbed from his plane and was greeted not by his ground crew, but by a man in a suit—Gestapo, Gerhard realized at once—accompanied by half a dozen soldiers from the Waffen-SS.

  Gerhard was arrested, bundled into the back of a lorry, taken to Berlin and thrown in an underground cellar. For three nights he was questioned. The interrogations seemed strangely half-hearted, as if no one really cared what answers he gave. No torture was used, but he was beaten up a number of times. Even then, he was roughed up, but not seriously injured.

  His captors accused him of plotting against the Führer, but their questions were oddly unfocused. They were not trying to make him confess to something they felt certain he had done. They were attempting to establish whether he had done anything at all. And as the interrogation went on Gerhard concluded that their only evidence was a single notebook entry, in which the key word appeared to be, “Ja.”

  There was not enough evidence to prove a crime beyond being rude about the Führer during an argument in a bar. Gerhard’s interrogators seemed untroubled by their failure to pin a more serious offense upon him. Far from becoming more aggressive or desperate in their questioning, their attitude changed to casual indifference, until they ceased dragging him out of his cell for questioning.

  A week went by when he was left alone in his tiny cell, with nothing to mark the passing time but the increasing hunger that gnawed at his belly. He was fed twice a day and the meals were so unpleasant—potatoes, pinkish from mold, rotten cabbage, sawdust and flour bread, blutwurst, a rock-hard sausage made from congealed animal blood—that it was all he could do to force them down.

  Then one morning his guard informed him that his trial would be in two days’ time. “Your lawyer will be coming to see you today,” the guard said. He laughed and said, “I’m sure he’ll do a good job.”

  Even after a dozen years of Nazi rule, Gerhard still believed a criminal lawyer was a brilliant man, motivated by belief in the system of justice, whose fierce intellect was devoted to his client’s defense. The man who came to meet him, clutching a manila file that contained two sheets of paper on which the charge against him was laid out, was short, shabbily dressed, with slightly protruding teeth and hair greased flat against his scalp. His voice was thin, his accent coarse. The Nazi Party badge on his lapel indicated where his loyalty lay.

  “My name is Karpf,” he said. “I expect you’re wondering what will happen at the trial.”

  “I expect you to present my case,” Gerhard replied. “I played no part in the attack on the Führer. The only evidence against me consists of a two-letter word in the diary of an army officer I met once in my life. I am no lawyer, but I’ve always assumed that courts operate on the basis of evidence and proof. In my case, there is none. I am not guilty.”

  Karpf’s rodent face was twisted into a pained grimace. “Ah . . . yes . . .” He pulled the document from his file. “You’ve been serving on the Russian Front, I see.”

 
; “Yes. That’s why I couldn’t have had anything to do with this bomb plot. I was in mid-air when the damn thing went off.”

  “I suppose that would explain it.”

  “What?”

  “Your failure to understand the purpose of the People’s Court. Had you been closer to home you would know that the court has no need to establish innocence or guilt. The fact that you stand before it is proof enough. The court exists so that the righteous fury of the people can be directed at those who seek to undermine the Führer, the Party or the Reich. The people need to see that their enemies are dealt with so that they can feel safe themselves.”

  “A show trial, in other words.”

  “You should not use that phrase, Meerbach, it reeks of Bolshevism.”

  “My name is Colonel von Meerbach.”

  “To you, maybe, but not the People’s Court.” Karpf replaced the paper in the file. “Well, I am glad that we have had this chance to talk. I will see you again in two days’ time. Naturally, I will be pleading guilty on your behalf. Good day.”

  •••

  Gerhard’s initial reaction was fury at the injustice of his situation and frustration at his impotence. Now he understood why his interrogators had behaved with such indifference. Evidence was irrelevant. Justice had ceased to exist.

  But as the hours went by, his thinking changed. Now his anger was directed at his own stupidity. How could he have expected anything different? His country was ruled by leaders who locked naked men and women into a van and gassed them, then passed the time until the last of their victims had died by drinking coffee and nibbling pastries. Its leader would allow an entire army to die of hunger and frostbite, rather than lose face by allowing them to retreat. In such a world why would anyone expect there to be justice?

  He lay awake all night, wondering what his fate would be and how he would greet it. He presumed that the penalty for his supposed treason would be death. But he had seen so much of it inflicted in so many forms that the prospect of oblivion no longer held any terror. Besides, it was inevitable at some point. And execution, whether by the firing squad’s bullets or the hangman’s noose, was a quicker and more merciful exit than most men could expect.

  In the morning, a second visitor came to the cell.

  He was a Luftwaffe major by the name of Bayer, who was, in every respect, the opposite of the lawyer Karpf. Bayer was tall, well-built and as handsome as a department store mannequin. His uniform was immaculate, his grooming impeccable. The snap of his “Heil Hitler” salute was worthy of the parade ground.

  “I work at the Air Ministry,” he said. “I have the great honor of serving on the private staff of Reichsmarschall Göring, so you may take it that what I am about to tell you comes from the highest levels. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes,” Gerhard replied. An unfamiliar sensation he could not quite identify was fluttering in his belly. It took him a second to recognize it as hope.

  “I am sure that I do not have to tell you that, as Vice-Chancellor of Germany, second only to the Führer himself, the Reichsmarschall utterly condemns the cowardly, treacherous plot against the Führer’s life and against the Reich itself.”

  “Of course.” Gerhard nodded.

  “That said, concern has been expressed at the eagerness with which certain elements in the SS have pursued the case against you. They note the contrast between the frankly inadequate evidence of any treachery on your part and the years of your gallantry and service to the Fatherland.”

  Gerhard said nothing, but a fractional nod of his head sufficed to acknowledge Bayer’s compliment.

  “There is also a strong feeling of dismay that one department of the Reich should go to such lengths to besmirch the reputation of a man from another department. The Luftwaffe is dishonored by the attack on your honor. It cannot be a good thing to make a public attack on a man who has been presented to the people as a hero. It will confuse them and make them question all heroes. None of this does any service to those who truly care about the wellbeing of the Reich.”

  “Where is this leading?” Gerhard asked.

  Bayer gave a half-smile. “A fair question. The answer is as follows. Representations have been made. Negotiations have taken place. As you can imagine, the Justice Ministry and SS are equally jealous of their reputation. A lot of busy men have dedicated a considerable amount of time to your case . . .”

  Bayer looked at Gerhard to emphasize the point. He was now in other men’s debt. He owed it to them to justify their efforts.

  “An agreement has been reached that satisfies all parties. You will admit in open court that you met with the traitor von Tresckow, that he made his anti-Führer sympathies plain and that you neglected to inform the proper authorities of this meeting. This is correct, no?”

  “Will it incriminate me if I say yes?”

  “On the contrary, it will save you.”

  “Then yes, that is the truth.”

  “In exchange, the court will accept that you had no knowledge of, or role in, the plot of the twentieth of July and bear no criminal responsibility in that regard.”

  “That is also true.”

  “Very well then, you will be found guilty of some minor charge—the precise wording is still under debate—and sentenced to thirty days’ solitary confinement, under Luftwaffe supervision.”

  Bayer glanced around the cell. “You will have proper food, sanitary facilities, books to read. It will seem like a grand hotel after this . . . And compared to what would happen to you if the People’s Court has its way.” Bayer shook his head in disgust. “Tell me, what do you think they will do to you?”

  “Firing squad . . . hanging, maybe.”

  “And you do not fear that?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “I understand. You are used to facing death. But you won’t be that lucky. The People’s Court will send you to one of the camps, like a criminal or a Jew. You will die . . . eventually. It will be a terrible death and it will be slow. That is why I plead with you—accept the offer.”

  “But you haven’t told me all of it. If this was all there was to it, there would be no need to plead. Only a fool would refuse it.”

  “You’re right. There is one more condition, and it is one on which the Luftwaffe and the other parties agree. You must stand up in court and affirm your loyalty to the Führer, your absolute faith in his leadership and your unshakeable confidence in our certain victory.”

  “Ah . . .”

  “Listen to me, Colonel. Anyone who knows what is happening understands why you might find those words sticking in your throat. Day after day, night after night, more Allied bombers attack our nation. And we have fewer aircraft and fewer pilots with which to oppose them. Even if we have fighters, we don’t have enough fuel for them. Even if we have pilots, most of them are inexperienced and unfit for combat. We know that there is only one possible ending, but for now . . .” Bayer shrugged. “We have to deal with life as it is. Say the words—if not for your sake, then for the people you love . . . for your comrades, whose own reputations will be stained by association with you . . . for the Luftwaffe itself. Just say the damn words.”

  Gerhard thought of his mother and of Saffron. Do I not owe it to them to try to survive? He remembered Berti Schrumpp and all the other friends he had lost over the past five years. Do I have the right to cast a shadow over their reputations?

  He considered the alternatives Bayer had laid out before him. What good would be achieved if he condemned himself to suffering in a concentration camp? What purpose would be served? The Reich was falling apart. The only thing that mattered now was survival.

  Gerhard looked at Bayer and said, “Please pass my sincere gratitude to the Reichsmarschall. Tell him he has his deal.”

  •••

  The judges marched into the People’s Court in Berlin with Nazi eagles embroidered onto their robes. They gave a “Heil Hitler” salute and took their places.

  Gerhard was commanded to
stand. He had not been allowed to wash or shave for days. He had been given a shabby, ill-fitting suit to wear. The only possession he had managed to keep was his photograph of Saffron, which he folded and slipped into one of his socks when no one was looking. He had been wearing his flying boots when he was arrested. Now he had a pair of unpolished shoes, worn at the heels. One of the soles was coming loose at the toe.

  The image he presented to the court was not that of an elegant Luftwaffe officer, with his uniform emblazoned with awards for gallantry. Instead they saw a dirty, scruffy, malodorous scoundrel, represented by a weasel who looked little better.

  Gerhard surveyed the packed courtroom. He saw army officers, SS men and party officials; reporters, or rather propaganda-writers, pens hovering over their notebooks; well-dressed Berliners here for a day’s entertainment. Several senior Luftwaffe officers were seated side-by-side, close to the front of the court.

  Have they come to support me, keep the judges in line, or make sure I don’t go back on the deal? Gerhard wondered.

  The he saw Konrad, with Chessi next to him. She smiled at Gerhard with a look of cold, malignant triumph, while Konrad sat and gloated at the culmination of his long campaign to crush his younger brother. Gerhard saw that they were the reason he was in the dock. His true crime had nothing to do with his meeting with von Tresckow. It was leaving Chessi for Saffron, and foiling Konrad’s schemes to do him down.

  The proceedings began and Gerhard realized that he was not in a courtroom at all. He was in a madhouse.