When I passed through the fortress gate on the hill, riding on one of the first trucks, emaciated figures silently began to unload the sacks and boxes. We were strictly forbidden to speak to the fortress prisoners, but one or two of us managed to exchange a few words with them, and we heard about hunger, dirt, and atrocious sanitary conditions. The deliveries were then repeated and a few of us were slipped the message that the French guards passed on only a small part of the provisions to the prisoners, while the larger part of the consignment ended up on the black market.
The handball team of Laon Camp: the author and fellow escapee Wolfgang Münkel are fifth and sixth from the left, respectively
In autumn 1945 Hubertus zu Löwenstein—my father’s friend who had emigrated to the United States—tried to get me released with the help of his influential contacts. But his efforts were just as unsuccessful as the calls made by the academic Emil Lengyel, another of my father’s friends, who had visited us several times during the Hitler years. However, they could at least inform me about the fate of the rest of my family. They let me know that my mother and my two sisters had survived somewhere in Berlin. About Winfried I was told, somewhat mysteriously, that he had “escaped the bloodhounds at the last moment,” while all trace of my father had been lost somewhere in East Prussia. At the end of a letter Löwenstein wrote that he would have liked to send me food but, after making inquiries, found out that it was not allowed. Lengyel wrote me the same thing.
It was now that I began to keep a diary. A world, I thought, in which nothing happens, must be made more exciting through ideas committed to paper. I noted my conversations with Captain Donaldson, no matter how little there was to them, or the problems with Lieutenant Dillon, who evidently believed that a certain amount of bad temper went with putting on a uniform. But I also wrote down the arguments of the lower ranks with each other or with the Polish detachment that had recently arrived, as well as conversations with a slowly growing circle of friends.
The figure at its center was Erich Kahnt, a tall Saarlander, proud of his chubbiness, who liked to busy himself as cook, poet, and conversationalist; also part of the group were Wolfgang Münkel, who was devoted and sensible, and Klaus-Jürgen Meise from Hamburg, who, as one of the Swing Youth, had been imprisoned by the Nazis and covered every inch of his tent corner with colored pinups. And, of course, the close relation with Alfred Sternmann continued. There was almost nothing in my notebooks about Berlin; because of the censorship, the three or four letters I received from home reported only the inconsequential: Thank goodness, you’re still alive! We survived, too. How are you? Do you get enough to eat? … and so on. Longer and more substantial entries were given over to the Commanding Professor, who, as ever, always came back to the habeas corpus acts and the Bill of Rights. When one of the participants in the course complained about Grey’s eternal repetitions, our teacher was ready with a disarming explanation: these two documents were not only of fundamental importance, but he had simply loved them ever since he was young. “Yes!” he insisted, “ ‘Love’ is the right word.” And for the sake of our country, that should be exactly our attitude, too.
I also wrote down what I thought worth recording about the camp handball team, of which I was soon a member, and the tournament trips, as well as my impressions on the way. It was not long before this had developed into a penchant for describing landscapes as precisely as possible, but also for capturing each human figure mentioned in a vivid portrait recognizable to the reader by at least the third sentence. Several years before, when I described the two sides of Hans Hausdorf—the serious and the punning—my father had accused me of a lack of respect, and to my response that I was merely describing reality, he had objected, “Then don’t look so carefully! One can draw people more gently, more understandingly, if you’ll permit the word!” Now, however, it was a matter of looking carefully. When I read Sternmann the three pages in which I had tried to portray him, he picked up his drawing block and began, even as I was still reading my text, to put down the first strokes of a drawing of me.
At about the same time I resolved to write down what I had learned about the Renaissance over the years. I did not know the exact dates of the persons and events, but I had committed to memory many episodes in the lives of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Verrocchio, and Alexander VI, Pico della Mirandola, Michelangelo, and Julius II, Guicciardini, Botticelli, and the unforgotten “great Caravaggio.” Driffel got hold of a bloodthirsty, inventive potboiler about Lucrezia Borgia for me. It was called Love, Power and Daggers: All Red as Blood and the name of its author has disappeared from the world, as it has from my memory. Finally, with the help of this muddled and colorful material, which I spread out on my desk at headquarters when I was on night duty, I tried to write an essay.
Although I was aware of the gaps in my knowledge, I got so much pleasure from a subject that was in every sense human and splendid that I soon began to write a biographical sketch about the Luccan condottiere Castruccio Castracani. For weeks I had searched for biographical data about this contemporary of Machiavelli’s but given our conditions at the time, I had been able to gather only a few haphazard references. As a result, I did not know much more about him than his origin as a foundling, which, possibly for propaganda reasons, was surrounded by mystery, as well as the notable connections which, with astonishing farsightedness, he had already made as a young man.
Nevertheless, I did find out something about Castracani’s intentions: above all, that in his early twenties he had wanted to conquer Tuscany and after that to subjugate province after province until all Italy was in his hands. His senator’s toga bore the inscription: He is the one whom God wants. Beyond that (according to my sources at the time), he dreamed the dream of every powerful man of the period: an alliance with the papacy or (should that fail) its subjection. As, in his unbounded ambition, he was setting out to do just that, he died a pitiful death from influenza. My piece was eventually forty pages long, and I sometimes thought it was probably this “banal” end, after so many mighty projects—the Thomas Mann punch line, so to speak—that had attracted me. More or less the only thing I still have of this first effort as a writer is the title: “The Hour of Castruccio.” When Werner Schreiber, who dropped by from time to time for English conversation, objected, “Not a title! Too weak!,” I retorted that it was better for a provisional title to be too weak than to announce itself with a “roll of thunder.”
In spring 1946 we were alarmed by rumors that very soon the Laon camp was to be transferred to French control. We also heard about a formal agreement with Washington, concluded shortly before the end of the war, to provide the French with a million prisoners for forced labor. This talk, particularly as it grew more dismaying by the day, gave rise to increasing disquiet. Many prisoners thought that the French, as the great losers among the Allies, wanted a bigger piece of the victory bonus than was due to them, and in the camp some radical groups, which also existed, even discussed the possibility of a violent uprising. The prisoners who worked at headquarters were almost every day bombarded with demands to use their influence with Captain Donaldson to prevent these plans from happening. But when I, too, pestered him, the camp commandant merely shook his head—“Sorry!”—and said that such decisions did not fall within his area of responsibility. “I would like to help you. But it’s impossible.” A few days later I resolved to escape.
The number of breakout attempts had already increased after the first rumors of a handover to the French. Technically, it was comparatively easy to contrive an escape, because the guards were rather negligent and every week at least one goods train went from Laon to the American Zone of occupation in Germany.4 Those in charge of the camp were therefore forced to tighten control. Lieutenant Dillon, together with the command staff in Rheims, urged greater restrictions, while Captain Donaldson said the prisoners should not be treated with undue harshness. They had already had more than enough of that. He saw it rather as his task to make their lives easier, he on
ce remarked to me with his amused, gentleman’s smile. But he was powerless in the face of the order that shortly before departure each train should be searched by a special unit from Rheims.
It had become usual for prisoners to make escape attempts in pairs to be better prepared to meet the unforeseeable, so I first of all turned to Walter Heuser, who was supposed to have a taste for adventure and to be both daring and helpful. Surprisingly, he turned me down on the grounds that he didn’t know where he should escape to. His whole family had died in the air raids. “Well, away from the barbed wire,” I objected, “away from the French! Is that not enough?” But I couldn’t change Walter’s mind. It seemed to me that despite his reputation, he considered the risk of a breakout to be too great. After that I asked Wolfgang Münkel, who appeared both determined and levelheaded. He came from Mannheim, which was in the American Zone, and not only agreed without hesitation but immediately began to give thought to what one had to take into account in an escape, so as not to fail pitifully like most of the previous undertakings, particularly the recent ones.
First of all we drew up a list of things we would need. It began with a box of provisions, which would contain eight cans of corned beef and four cans of meat and beans for each of us, a few packets of Zwieback, three cans of beer, and a carton of cigarettes each. In addition, two canisters of drinking water, two woolen blankets, and, thanks to contact with a friendly but discreet French officer up in the fortress, authentic discharge papers made out in our names. We assembled these objects in the space of three weeks. And, of course, I stowed away my diary and the two Renaissance texts in my little leather bag, which so far I had got through all checks. At the end of April the rumors in the camp suggested that July 1 was planned as the day of the handover, so time was running out. A few days later we got hold of one of the confidential timetables, according to which a goods train was heading for the Stuttgart area on May 16. The description of the load listed uniform parts and rubber tires, and included the information that the eight rear wagons would be carrying asbestos pipe casing, which would be packed in long wooden containers. We decided on one of these asbestos wagons, because they seemed to us to offer the best shelter.
As camouflage, we ordered a container made of the same wood from the camp joiner’s shop, but the box made for us, since it had to provide space for two people, was necessarily about twenty-five inches longer and almost twelve and a half inches wider than the ones for the asbestos. At the last moment we learned from an unwitting remark by First Sergeant Driffel that from mid-May departing trains would not only be searched but that tear gas would be used to flush out any escapees. After a few days we even managed to track down a gas mask, although such pieces of equipment were not part of the depot stocks. Unfortunately, we could get hold of only one.
When everything had been brought together and packed away in as space-saving a way as possible, we told the loaders in which wagon they should put the escape box. Then we informed the two crane operators that we wanted to get into the box in Warehouse 7 and be brought to the crane outside at the tracks by a forklift truck; there we were to be the first item to be put on the wagon bed: TOP and BOTTOM, LEFT and RIGHT were marked on the box. After that the asbestos containers were to be placed around us and finally on top of us, until there was nothing to be seen of our hiding place. A twenty-five-inch-wide escape path had to remain open, however, in case of emergencies. The crane operators promised to arrange everything as we wanted it.
At three o’clock in the afternoon we crawled into the coffinlike case, and the packer Loisl handed us the lid with which we could close and open the box from inside. We were driven to the crane, heard commands, and felt ourselves being lifted up and to the side until, with a jolt which shook the whole box, we were set down on a flat surface. A little later we heard steps and muffled voices. “Is there anything else?” asked one, and immediately after that we heard another: “We’re loading the asbestos now. That’s the end of any communication.” After we had thanked them, we heard several “Safe journeys!” and “Say hello to home from me!” Then the boxes rumbled up and our container trembled as they were put down in the wagon.
The waiting began. As long as the work details were busy around the railway tracks and the daytime bustle dominated we could move about with a degree of freedom. But at some point we became increasingly aware of our arms, legs, and their suddenly numerous extremities; we were all the time knocking into each other. Hour after hour passed. We tried to while away the time, but repeatedly got in each other’s way and struggled with our numbed limbs in the confined space. In stories which were as drawn-out as possible we talked in stifled voices about childhood experiences, remembered our parents, teachers, and friends, and I got on to my admiration for Rapid Vienna and Admira Vienna with Sindelar, Pesser, and Hahnemann. Once I even tried to recount Karl May’s Treasure of Silver Lake and The Shadow of the Padishah (Durch die Wueste) and to recite Wilhelm Busch’s verses, while Münkel again and again came back to the beautiful Archivolde, whom he had got to know as a soldier in Holland and who had become his great love, the bitter opposition of her family only increasing the mutual attraction. Once we tried to make as many words as possible out of the word Sardellenbüchse (anchovy can), but didn’t get far. There was no end to the pushing around in our wooden box. Nor to the pain in our limbs.
All that ended in the evening and at night. In the weeks before we had repeatedly inspected the railway yard after nightfall and noticed the loud echo produced by the concrete surface. This observation forced us to be as quiet as possible during the nighttime silence, and we could only permit ourselves a few words; now and then we cleared our throats or shifted our bodies from our left side to our right every forty minutes or so when a passenger train thundered by. Only when the daytime sounds began did we feel halfway safe again. Then the train was usually shunted onto another track. That was the best opportunity to freshen up, which consisted of a few drops of water on a towel with which we wiped face, neck, and hands.
Until then every goods train had left the depot on the third day after taking on a load, but this time some trouble seemed to be holding it up. At any rate, we began to worry about our stock of provisions. If even on the next day we noticed no preparations for departure, I said, surprising even myself, I would go over to the camp to get hold of at least a couple of cans of corned beef. With the food that was left we would arrive hungry in Germany, although we needed as much strength as possible for the subsequent part of the flight, wherever it took us.
Münkel thought my plan was pure madness and raised countless, mostly sound objections. But I argued that a pinch of “madness” was something like the salt in the soup of life. Several times we became so agitated that each begged the other to limit his outbursts to those moments when a train passed. Then again, we sometimes laughed out loud, and as I warned him to be quiet, he said merely, “Another joke! What’s wrong?” “There is a crisis,” I replied, “in every risky undertaking.” The following evening, without saying another word, I undid the catches of the box lid, forced myself through the escape path, and, after a careful glance around the brightly lit railway yard, let myself down to the ground.
I got past the camp gate without any problem. The sentry was one of the Polish soldiers who had recently arrived. He sat frowning in his sentry box, effortfully spelling out the words of a comic strip. Most of the prisoners also walked casually past me; evidently word of our escape had not got around. The biggest risk was presented by the first tent on the left by the gate, in which I myself had been accommodated with seven comrades. Looking up Erich Kahnt in the next tent was also dangerous, since one of the occupants would inevitably recognize me and could betray me without realizing. Consequently, I took a longer route to Sternmann, established that he was alone, and made myself known to him with a few whispered words. Naturally, he already knew of my disappearance, especially as in the days when my decision had taken firmer shape I had hinted at it in our conversations.
As I still had my special pass, the Polish sentry let me through with a brief wave and when I returned to our box at about midnight Münkel was infinitely relieved. He admitted that he had already thought of breaking off the whole undertaking. Yet now he was so glad at the successful excursion and the size of our improved food supplies that—after he had heard how easy it had been—he wanted to go into the camp the following evening. “But it probably won’t happen,” he said, “because the train is sure to start tomorrow! At any rate we’ve got a few cans of meat left over for Germany and two cartons of the most valuable currency there.”5 This reminded me of my grandfather’s story about the blood sausages. But I decided to keep it to myself so as not to discourage Münkel. Then came the night again and the confinement.
The train, of course, didn’t leave that day, either. The wagons were several times shunted around, but in the end we always heard the familiar voices: the orders of Sergeant Stracker, the instructions of Corporal Weiland with his unmistakable piping voice, the bellowing of Corporal Bauer. In the late afternoon the engine was moved up and, as far as was possible, we slapped each other on the back with joy. “Now we’re off!” we said, as a couple of shrill whistles sounded. We heard the rapidly approaching dry rhythm of the locomotive rumbling over the sleepers, before the engine withdrew again. We had no explanation for these occurrences. We heard the working parties going off again, then the orders of Corporal Bauer echoing in the distance for the last time. Finally, there was silence.
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