Otto's Phoney War

by Leo Kessler

After the outriders, drove a huge black 12-cylinder Mercedes, its running boards jammed with black-clad giants, hands clapped on their pistol holsters, eyes darting everywhere suspiciously.

  Cheers began to ripple along both sides of the road and half-naked soldiers waved the towels on which they had been sunbathing or ran to grab their box cameras to take a picture before it was too late. Slowly as the little procession approached the bridge, two words ran from mouth to mouth before it reached the Brandenburgers’ camp just in time to explode there with the impact of an 88mm shell. ‘Der Führer … Der Führer!’

  At Otto’s side, the Count tensed. Otto flashed him a look. The middle-aged aristocrat had gone very pale suddenly; then he recovered himself and hurriedly buttoned up his collar as the procession started to roll to a stop. Gripping his overlong sabre, he marched proudly over to where the Mercedes had come to a halt, its occupants immediately springing to their feet and focusing their field glasses in a dozen different directions for the benefit of newspaper photographers who had appeared from nowhere, their cameras whirring.

  Otto recognised most of the crooks as they stepped down from the motorcade. There was Hitler, of course, busy patting the head of a blond little boy who had been produced from one of the following cars for the occasion. The German public knew that their Führer loved little boys. Behind him there was Goering looking like a comic-opera field marshal, every single millimetre of his enormous belly and chest covered in medals so that he sparkled in the late-after-noon sun like a Christmas tree ablaze with candles on Christmas Eve.

  Goering towered over Himmler, the head of the SS, a sombre, chinless man peering anxiously through his pince-nez at the cameramen like a book-keeper worrying about the cost of everything. He gave a little sigh as the expansive Goering, a big grin on his be-rouged face, started tossing out packets of cigarettes to the suddenly whooping soldiers, and concentrated his gaze thoughtfully on the Grenadiers who were standing rigidly to attention, as if they were back on duty in front of the Queen’s Palace in The Hague.

  The Count halted and raised his sabre to his forehead in a sparkle of silver. In a loud clear voice, he reported in the traditional manner, as if he had been playing soldier all his life: ‘One officer, four NCOs and fifty men of Regiment Brandenburg present and correct, Mein Führer!’

  Hitler peered down at him a little short-sightedly. Puffing out his lips so that his black moustache bulged below the nose.

  ‘Ah, my brave... Brandenburgers,’ he said, obviously not knowing who they were and what they had achieved. He smiled somewhat helplessly.

  Behind him one of the gigantic SS aides bent down and whispered swiftly into his ear. ‘Captured bridge by … Fought off counter-attack … Decimated elite Dutch regiment … name Count von der Weide … Unit … ’

  Hitler nodded his thanks, his face looking more certain. ‘Ah, my dear Count,’ he said looking up at the Count. ‘We are pleased with you, exceedingly pleased. What a tremendous achievement! Capturing this so vital bridge in such a bold, and original manner.’

  The Count started to go crimson – Otto assumed with pleasure – and his knees trembled slightly.

  ‘How brave you chaps must be to have taken on such well-trained troops and beaten them to a standstill, in spite of your small numbers!’ He clicked his fingers imperiously, moustache bulging again.

  Behind him the gigantic aide thrust two baskets piled high with decorations in front of the Führer.

  ‘First or second, sir?’ he asked deferentially, as if he were offering the Leader a choice of chocolates.

  ‘First, of course,’ Hitler snapped. ‘After all, he is an aristocrat.’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  Solemnly the Führer took the Iron Cross First Class out of the smaller basket and said, ‘Herewith by the power granted to me as Führer of the German Folk and Commander-in-Chief of the Great German Army, I bestow on you, my dear Count – ’ He paused as if taking a breath. The pause dragged.

  ‘Von der Weide, sir.’ The aide intoned without moving a muscle.

  ‘ – von der Weide, the order of the Iron Cross, First Class!’

  Proudly the Count offered his chest to the man he had tried to assassinate only a few short days before and suppressed the little yelp of pain just in time as the pin nicked his flesh.

  ‘Danke, Mein Führer,’ he barked loudly instead, in the approved military fashion, face a lobster-red with pride.

  ‘Now, one of your men,’ Hitler said, ‘a common soldier, mind. It always looks good in the newsreels, you know.’

  ‘Jawohl, Mein Führer,’ the Count answered. ‘Sonderführer Stahl, Otto.’

  ‘Birthplace?’ Hitler asked quietly.

  ‘Berlin, sir.’

  ‘Father and mother?’

  ‘I think that his father is dead.’

  ‘Ah good, that will do,’ Hitler said and nodded to the aide. ‘Second class.’

  A moment later a surprised Otto stood rigidly to attention in front of Adolf Hitler, while the cameras whirred and the photographers jostled each other to get a good shot of this handsome young hero from Berlin. The capital was a very big city and a photograph of a local boy would sell a lot of newspapers.

  Hitler pinned the Iron Cross on Otto’s chest and said, ‘Berlin will be proud of you, Stahl. But then it was to be expected, eh? Nomen est omen. That’s Latin,’ he added hastily. ‘It means that – ’

  ‘I’ve heard it before, sir,’ Otto said, reasoning that as a hero he could even interrupt the Führer.

  ‘Of course, just because you’re a working-class boy, it doesn’t mean you’re stupid. If only your dear dead father could have been alive to experience this great moment,’ he continued, while Otto listened in growing astonishment. How could he know about Berlin and the missing old man? Was it true, as it was rumoured, that the Führer had the power of second-sight? How else could he have known?

  ‘But at least, your humble, hard-working, honest mother will have that pleasure,’ Hitler said and patted Otto’s helmet, and in an instant Otto knew that the Führer was not infallible after all. No one in his right mind would ever call his mother humble, hard-working and especially, honest.

  A few moments later the cavalcade was off again, with Himmler, whose skinny black-clad chest was devoid of any decorations, eyeing the baskets filled with Iron Crosses, while the gigantic aide counted them.

  ‘Hope they’ve got enough for the rest of the day.’ Otto commented sourly out of the side of his mouth to the Count, while the Mercedes gathered speed and Maps, who had been holding his spray with itchy fingers, waiting excitedly for this moment, raised it and puffed a cloud of delousing powder after the Führer.

  ‘What a man!’ the Count breathed as the Mercedes finally vanished round the bend and they could relax. ‘Those dynamic eyes! That noble brow! Every millimetre a great leader of men!’ He sighed at the memory. ‘For a few moments, Otto, we were in the presence of genius. Now you can tell your children, nay even your grandchildren, that you shook the hand of Adolf Hitler himself.’

  ‘He doesn’t shit through the ribs, you know,’ was Otto’s sole comment.

  Unpinning the Iron Cross and stowing it carelessly in his pocket, he trudged to the tank and lay down wearily in the shade it afforded. A few minutes later he was sleeping on his back, out to the world, the Battle for Holland totally forgotten.

  On tiptoe the Count stole over to him and stared down at a red-faced, open-mouthed Otto.

  ‘The warrior who has fought the good fight,’ he said softly and touched his medal as if to reassure himself that it was still there. ‘A man of the people – a hero!’

  Gently he unbuckled the bed-roll on the side of the tank and draped the blankets over the sleeping soldier. He beamed at Otto, who was snoring nasally with ever increasing vigour now, his upper lip making strange little trembling movements.

  ‘Good night, sweet prince,’ he whispered in English – completely drowned out by Otto's sawing – and then tiptoed away, leavin
g the hero to his dreams.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Count paused dramatically at the door of the company office. Today for the first time in weeks he no longer wore his tight-fitting elegant cavalry uniform, complete with Iron Cross. Instead he was dressed in rough working-man’s clothes, leather breeches, and a battered old green felt hat, complete with feather. He looked like a refugee from the backwoods of Bavaria.

  Otto took his feet off the desk in astonishment. ‘What happened?’ he demanded.

  The Count swallowed miserably. ‘I’ve taken a dive.’

  ‘A dive?’

  ‘Yes.’ He took off his absurd Bavarian hat and mopped his damp brow. ‘Wasn’t it Sophocles who once said: To die would be good, but never to have been born would have been better.’ He sighed and slumped forlornly in a free chair.

  Outside in the Brandenburgers’ barracks at Düren, the new recruits were hopping around the square at the command of the training sergeants like large clumsy grey squirrels, wearing helmets.

  ‘Well, come on, cough it out,’ Otto snapped.

  ‘Otto there have been developments, terrible developments. The Gestapo will be after me – and you – soon. I thought it better to take a dive now while I still had time. Father Christmas thought the same.’

  ‘Gestapo?’ Otto echoed in amazement, ‘what’s going on?’

  ‘It’s that Grenadiers’ officer Dirk Van Dongeren, he’s volunteered for the Armed SS, and Himmler has accepted.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me one bit,’ Otto said darkly. ‘Now he’ll be able to play with that shitting penknife of his all the time. But what’s that got to do with the Gestapo?’

  ‘Of course Himmler’s eager to have him because van Dongeren is well connected at Court,’ Meadow continued. ‘Himmler’s hoping the Dutch aristocracy will lend a bit of class to the SS. I suppose he’s still missing Prince Bernhard.’

  ‘Oh get on with it!’

  ‘Well, naturally van Dongeren had to be vetted by SS Intelligence first. His personal reasons for joining the SS et cetera. I think there’s some woman trouble behind it really – ’

  Otto looked hard at the miserable-faced Count, but said nothing, wondering what was coming now.

  Outside on the square, a grim-faced NCO was standing menacingly just behind a trembling bespectacled recruit, crying, ‘-Am I hurting you, Herr Professor?’

  ‘No,’ the academic quavered, wondering what was to come. ‘No, Sergeant.’

  ‘Then I shitting well should be, because I’m standing on your curly locks!’ the NCO exploded in red faced artificial fury. ‘Get that hair sabred off by sixteen hundred hours this afternoon!’

  ‘But that’s not all,’ the Count continued. ‘He told the Intelligence chaps what happened at the castle that night. Everything,’ he added unhappily, ‘how the lot of you surrendered without a fight. Apparently there is even some talk of the rape of a high-born Dutch lady, the mistress of the castle, I think.’

  ‘Rape!’ Otto cried indignantly and laughed hollowly. ‘I could tell you a tale or two about who was sodding well raped.’

  But the Count wasn’t listening. ‘At all events, our decorations have been withdrawn, we gained them under false pretences, according to Herr Himmler, and he’s insisting on a court-martial for the lot of us!’

  ‘Bollocks!’

  ‘Yes, you’re to be charged with desertion on the field of battle. Very serious. Death penalty, you know. The wages of sin are death, eh?’ He smiled a little sadly at Otto, whose brain was racing furiously at this new and frightening development.

  ‘Don’t be bitter, Otto,’ the Count said, trying to cheer him up. ‘I’ll come up with a plan. Somehow or other I’ll get us out of this mess. Trust old Meadow. Oh no, can’t use that code-name any more,’ he added hastily. ‘Call me Count, all that spy business is, I’m afraid, over now.’

  ‘All right, Count, but don’t you worry about making a plan. This time, I’ll do it,’ he jerked a thumb aggressively at his own chest. ‘In August 1939, I decided I didn’t want to fight for Hitler. It doesn’t matter now why. So I get myself a job in the Westwall, nice and remote and away from it all, so I thought. But then a crazy NCO’s wife lands me in the shit and I take up with a little Belgie crook – and eventually land in the ordure again. You come along and do the same for me.’ The Count looked pained, but said nothing, letting Otto get it off his chest.

  ‘And what do I end up doing? Fighting for Hitler after all and getting a medal for doing so.’ Otto frowned hard at the thought, shaking his head, as if he could hardly believe it had happened. ‘No, Count, if I’m going to land in the muck once again, then it’s going to be my own fault. Understand?’

  ‘Naturally I understand, my dear boy,’ the Count said hastily. ‘But what is your plan exactly?’

  ‘I don’t know right now, but I’ll think of something.’ And think fast, he added to himself. But one thing he knew for sure. ‘First I need money, lots of it.’ he made a counting gesture with his finger and thumb.

  The Count frowned. ‘Fraid I’m broke, Otto,’ he said. ‘The von der Weiden have always lived well, indeed some might say in a profligate manner, but for the time being I am unable to draw on Father Christmas’s secret slush fund.’

  Otto considered. Outside the recruits were chanting the cadence as they marched up and down the square in the August heat, ‘Left … right, left … right,’ little pieces of red gun-flannel fluttering on their left thumbs as they swung their arms. Otto shook his head in disbelief. What a world it was where grown men had to have a piece of cloth tied to their thumbs to remind them which was their left hand. Crazy, absolutely crazy! It deserved to be taken for a ride.

  ‘Count,’ he said suddenly, ‘how many recruits do you think the barracks holds now?’

  He shrugged. ‘Eight hundred to a thousand, perhaps. Why do you ask, Otto?’

  Otto didn’t answer. His mind was doing a quick calculation. Then he said, ‘It’s payday for the recruits tomorrow, isn’t it, Count?’

  ‘Yes, wh – ’

  ‘No names, no pack drill, Count,’ Otto cut him short quickly. ‘Hang on here for fifteen minutes and then be prepared to move – quick!’ And with that he was gone, leaving the Count to his thoughts, which were not happy, and the monotonous voice of some gunnery instructor outside, naming the parts with the excessive detail of his kind: ‘Now this is the sling … Now this is the stock … Now this is … ’

  Exactly fifteen minutes later, Otto returned, his eyes gleaming with excitement, his face flushed, clutching a heavy carrier-bag to his chest.

  ‘Come on,’ he gasped, ‘dig it out of the orifice! We’ve only got thirty minutes to catch the Aachen-Berlin express, first class, of course.’

  ‘First class … Aachen-Berlin express?’ the Count stuttered. ‘What … why …?’

  Otto opened the bag for an instant.

  The Count gasped. It was full to the brim of green five-mark notes. He stood there, unable to speak, like a stranded fish in its last throes.

  ‘Regimental payroll,’ Otto explained and reached for his cap. ‘It'll be good for the lads. Keep those tosspots out of the whorehouses for a weekend, I’ll be bound! Why,’ he smiled triumphantly at a still spluttering Count von der Weide, ‘we’re doing those young fellows down there a real favour. Come on! Los, nach Berlin!’

  CHAPTER 9

  A harsh voice thundered outside.

  The Witch hobbled to the window of her little Berlin flat and looked cautiously out from behind the lace curtain.

  ‘Well?’ Otto demanded, while the Count cowered next to him on the shabby sofa, already suspecting the worse.

  ‘Head hunters!’ she said.

  ‘Shit!’ Otto cursed. ‘We’ve only just got here and they’re already sending the military police after us.’

  ‘Don’t shit yourselves,’ his mother replied easily. ‘My guess is that it’s just routine. I’ll look after it.’ Hastily she took out her new false teeth and her raddled old fa
ce fell in hideously.

  ‘What are you going to do, you old bag?’ Otto asked, while the Count stared at her aghast, the hammering down below forgotten for a moment with the shock of that terrible apparition.

  There was worse to come. Cackling crazily, the Witch slipped her nightgown over her head with surprising speed for such an old woman to reveal her naked, skinny old whore’s body in all its hideousness. ‘Leave it to me, Otto,’ she said, giving him a toothless smile and grabbed the big bottle from which she had just poured him and the Count a glass of beer. Then she was gone and the Count gave a gasp of relief. ‘Otto,’ he sobbed, ‘what on earth is she going to do?’

  ‘God knows!’ Otto answered.

  ‘Heaven, arse and cloudburst!’ the bigger of the two MPs with the silver crescent of his calling around his thick neck, gasped and staggered at the door, as if some invisible fist had punched him. ‘What in the name of Heaven is that?’

  Next to him his comrade nearly dropped his rifle with shock.

  lna meine Sussen!’ the Witch croaked, as she stood there at the top of the stairs, her dugs bouncing from her skinny yellow belly, as she ground her hips in an obscene parody of her old calling ‘Come on up. There’s plenty of sauce.’ She raised the bottle to reveal the tuft of thick grey hair under her armpit, and added in what she supposed was a seductive whisper. ‘I can show your little tricks you’ve never dreamed of.’ She started to walk down the stairs, swinging her bony hips and ogling them hungrily.

  The two head hunters backed away in horror. ‘Get off,’ the bigger of the two cried in terror, ‘don’t you dare lay a finger on me!’ His big hand held out as if to fend her off, he started to stumble towards the open door.

  ‘For Chrissake, don’t leave me, Heinz!’ the other one screamed. ‘She’ll get me!’

  Halfway down the stairs, the Witch cackled hideously and spread her stick-like legs. ‘Come on boys, look what I can offer you!’ That did it. The two military policemen fled …

  …‘So you’re on the run, Otto,’ she said proudly, half an hour and two bottles of Kindi beer later. ‘Now I really know you’re my son.’ She reached out a claw and attempted to stroke his cheek.