Herman Wouk - War and Remembrance

by War

  So it happens that Bagration has slipped into obscurity. But it was this battle that irretrievably broke our front in the east, toppled Finland out of the war, and set the Balkan politicians plotting the treachery that led to our even larger disaster the following month in Rumania. And Bagration was the real fuse that, on July 20, set off the bomb in Supreme Headquarters.

  TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.: In recent years the Soviets have been putting out more and better books on the war. Marshal Zhukov'smemoirs treat Bagration at length. These beoks, while informative, are not necessarily truthful by our standards. The communist government owns all the Printing presses in Russia, and nothing sees the light that does not extol the Party, which, like Hitler, never makes mistakes.

  V.H.

  At the first gray light on June 23, Natalie gets up and dresses for the Red Cross visit, in a bedchamber befitting a good European hotel: blond wood furniture, a small Oriental carpet, gay flowered wallpaper, armchair, lampshades; even vases of fresh flowers, delivered last night by the gardening crew. The Jastrow flat will be a stop in the tour. The noted author will show the visitors through the rooms, offer them cognac, and take them to the synagogue and the Judaica library.;So Natalie tidies the place as for military inspection before hurrying off. There is much yet to do at the children's pavilion.

  Rahm has ordered a last-minute rearrangement Of the furniture and many more animal cutouts for the walls.

  It is just sunrise. Squads of women are out on the streets already, scrubbing the pavements on their hands and knees in the slant yellow light. The stench of these tattered scarecrows from the overcrowded lofts fouls the morning breeze. Their work done, they will vanish, and the perfumed pretty ones in fancy clothes will come out.

  Natalie's senses are too blunted to register such Btautification ironies. A recurring nightmare has been destroying her sleep for a month - Haindl, swinging Louis by the legs and smashing his skull on the cement floor.

  By now the picture of the child's head splitting apart, the blood spurting, the white brains spattering, is as real to her as her memory of the SS cellar; in a way even more familiar, because that short horror came and went in a blur of shock, whereas she has seen this ghastly vision a score of times.

  Natalie is a reduced creature, scarcely normal in the head.

  One'thing keeps her going, and that is the hope of getting 'Louis out of the ghetto.

  The Czech gendarme who conveys Berel's messages says the attempt is set for the week after the visit. Louis will sicken and disappear into the hospital. She will not see him again.

  She will be told only that he has died of typhus. Then she has to hope that she will one day hear he is safe. It is like sending him off to emergency surgery; no help for it, whatever the risk.

  From a handcart parked outside the Danish barracks, gardeners are unloading rose bushes full of blooms, carrying them into the courtyard, and tamping them down into holes in the lawn. Heavy rose perfume deliciously sweetens the air as Natalie walks by. Clearly something special is going on with the Danish Jews. But that is not her concern.

  Her concern is to get through this day without a mistake, without angering Rahm and endangering Louis. The children's pavilion is the last stop on the scheduled tour, the star attraction.

  As it happens, the Danish Jews are the important ones today: a handful, four hundred fifty Jews amid thirty-five thousand, but a special handful.

  The whole story of Danish Jewry is astonishing. All but these few are free and safe in neutral Sweden. The Danish government, getting wind of an impending roundup of Jews by the German occupying force, secretly alerted the population; and in an improvised fleet of small craft, in one night, Danish volunteers ferried some six thousand Jews across a narrow sound to neutral and hospitable Sweden. So only this tiny group was caught by the Germans and sent to Theresienstadt.

  Ever since, the Danish mid Cross has been demanding to visit its Jewish citizens in the Paradise Ghetto. The Danish Foreign Ministry has been forcefully pressing this demand.

  The Germans, curiously enough, instead of shooting a few Danes and squelching the nuisance, have acted irresolute in the face of such unprecedented moral courage on behalf of Jews, displayed by this one small nation and by no other.

  Though postponing the visit time and again, they have, in fact, at last knuckled under.

  Four men, dim in history, but their names still on record, make up the visiting party.

  Frants Hvass, the Danish diplomat who has been pressing Berlin about Theresienstadt.

  Dr. Juel Henningsen, of the Danish Red Cross.

  Dr. M. Rossel, of the German office of the International Red Cross in Berlin.

  Eberhard von Thadden, a German career diplomat.

  "Madden handles Jewish affairs in the Foreign MinistryEichmann transports Jews to their deaths; Thadden pries them out of the countries where they hold'citizenship, and delivers them to Eichmann.

  The tour begins at noon. It lasts eight hours. It is to impress these two Danes and these two Germans, in these eight houm that the whole stupendous six-month Beautification has been carried out. It proves well worth it. The written reports of Hvass and the Red Cross man have survived. They glow with approbation of the splendid conditions in Theresienstadt. "More like an ideal suburban community," one sums up, "than a concentration camp."

  And why not?

  The four visitors, with a train of high Nazi officials from Berlin and Prague, traverse Rahm's route by the timetable without a hitch.

  Their approach sets off one charming sight after another-pretty farm girls singing as they march with shouldered rakes to- the truck gardens, masses of fragrant fresh vegetables,"unloading at the grocery store and Jews happily queueing up to buy, a robed chorus of eighty voices bursting forth with a breathtaking "Sanctus," a soccer goal shot to the cheers of a joyous crowd, just as the visitors reach the sports field.

  The hospital looks and smells Paradise-clean, the linen is snow-white, the patients are cheerful and comfortable, replying to all questions by praising the superb treatment and meals. Wherever the visitors go-the slaughterhouse, the laundry, the bank, the Jewish administration offices, the post office, the ground-floor apartments of the Prominente, the Danish barracks-they see order, brightness, cleanliness, charm, and contentment. The Danish Jews outdo each other in assuring Hvass and Henningsen that they are well off and handsomely treated.

  And the outdoor scenes are so pleasant! The quaintly decorated street signs are a treat to the eye. Well-dressed Jews strolj at leisure in the sunshine, as few Europeans can do in the harsh wartime conditions. The cara- entertainment is first-class. The cream pastries are delicious. Of the coffee Herr von Thadden remarks, "Better than you can get in Berlin!"

  And what a fine last impression the children's pavilion makes!

  The lovely svelte Jewess in charge, the niece of the famous author, appears so happy in her work, and is so quick with positive responses to questions! Clearly she is on the friendliest terms with Commander Rahm and Inspector Haindl. It is a beguiling close to the visit: healthy pretty children swinging, sliding, dancing in a circle, splashing in the pond, riding a roundabout, casting comic long shadows in the sunset light on the fresh grass of the playground, their laughter chiming like light music. Pretty young matrons watch them, but none half as handsome or cheerful as the one in the blue silk dress. With the commander's permission, the Berlin Red Cross man takes photographs, including one of her holding her son in her arms, a lively imp with a heart-melting smile. In a burst of good feeling, Herr Rossel tells her that a print will be forwarded to her family in America.

  After the war, challenged in the Danish Parliament to explain how he was duped by the Germans, Frants Hvass replies that he was not in the least fooled. He could see the visit was staged. He turned in a favorable report to assure continued good treatment for the Danish Jews and the flow of food parcels to them. That was his mission, not the exposure of German duplicity. Hvass confesses to Parliament, nevertheless, tha
t he was relieved by the visit. In view of the terrible reports of the German camps already in the hands of the Red Cross, he had half-feared seeing corpses lying all over the streets, Musselmen stumbling about in a miasma of filth and death. Despite all the fakery, there was none of that.

  The world keeps wondering why the International Red Cross-and for that matter, the Vatican-kept silent all through the war when they certainly knew about the great secret massacre..The nearest thing to an explanation is always Frants Hvass's: that accusing the Germans of crimes that could not be proven in wartime would only have made matters worse for the Jews still alive in their hands. The Red Cross and the Vatican knew the Germans well. Possibly they had a point, though the next question is, "How could matters have been made worse?"

  The success of the Great Beautification gives the higherups in Berlin an idea. Why not shoot a film in Theresienstadt showing how well off the Jews are under the Nazis, giving the lie to all the mounting Allied atrocity propaganda about murder camps and gas cellars?

  Orders go out to prepare and shoot such a film at once. Title: Der Fuhrer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt, "The Fuhrer Grants the Jews a Town." Assigned to 'the script committee is Dr. Aaron Jastrow, and the children's pavilion will be prominently featured.

  From "World Empire MILITARY L#Cabee, July 20 -The Attempt to Kill Hitler... The briefing conference was taking place in a wooden hut, because the heavy concrete command bunker was being reinforced against air attack as the Russian front drew neater Rastenburg. This saved Hitler's life. In the bunker we would all have been wiped out by the confined explosion. it was a familiar boring scene until the bomb went off.

  Heusinger was droning on glumly about the eastern front. Hitler leaned over the table map, peering through his thick spectacles, and I stood beside him among the usual staff officers. There came a shattering noise, and the room was swathed in yellow smoke. I found myself lying on the wooden floor in terrible pain, involuntary groans issuing from my throat. I thought we had been bombed from the air. My first idea was to save myself from being burned alive, forthere was a crackling of flame and a smell of burning. Despite my broken leg I dragged myself outside, stumbling over fallen bodies'in the smoke and gloom. The groans and screams-all around me were frightful. On the ground outside I collapsed in a sitting position. I saw Hitler come out of the smoke leaning on somebody's arm. There was blood on his face, his hair stood on end caked with plaster dust, and I could see his naked legs through his ripped black trousers. Those whito spindle legs, those pudgy knees, for the moment made him seem an ordinary and pathetic man, not the ferocious warlord.

  A favorable literature has sprung up about the conspirators. I myself cannot sentimentalize over them. That I was almost killed is beside the poirvt. Count von Stauffenberg certainly was brave and ingenious to get by the formidable gate systems and security checks of Wolfsschanze and to place the briefcase full of. explosives under the table; but to what avail? He was already a mutilated wreck, as is well known, minus an eye, a right hand, and two fingers on the left, lost in North Africa. Why did he not give his all? True, he was the head of the conspiracy, but the whole purpose was to kill Hitler; and the only sure way to do that was to walk up to him, camouflaged bomb in hand, and detonate it. The count's vague Christian idealism, it seems, did not extend to martyrdom. Ironically, he only lived a few more hours, anyway. He was caught and executed that same night in Berlin.

  I knew nearly all the Wehrmacht conspirators. That some of them turned out to be involved astounded me. The identity of others I would have guessed, for I too was sounded out, early on.

  I silenced the inquirer and was not approached again. The concept of ending the war by murdering the Head of State whatever his defects, so evident to us insiders-I considered treasonous, contrary to our oath as officers, and unsound. I still do.

  On July 20, 1944, the Wehrmacht stood everywhere deep in foreign territory, nine million strong, fighting magnificently despite erratic leadership. The Fatherland, though battered from the air, was intact.

  The political spine of Germany was, for better or worse, the bond between the German people and Hitler.

  Murdering him would have let loose chaos. Himmler, Goering, and Goebbels, who still controlled all the state machinery, would have launched a vengeful blood bath beyond imagining. Every German's hand would have been against his brother. Our leaderless armies would have collapsed. The military situation, bad as it was, did not call for such a solution, really no solution at all: to plunge ourselves into anarchy, and invite the Bolshevik barbarians to spread rapine and pillage to the Rhine! In fact, the July twentieth bombing boomeranged into a second Reichstag Fire. it gavii Hitler the one excuse he needed to slaughter all surviving opposition. At least five thousand people died, most of them innocent. The General Staff and the independent intellectual elite-politicians, labor leaders, priests, professors, and the remnants of the old German aristocracywere all but exterminated.

  My judgment is that July twentieth may have prolonged the war. We were at the very brink of the August disasters, which might have forced the Nazis themselves to ease out Hitler for an orderly capitulation.

  Instead, July twentieth shocked all Germany into rallying around the Fuhrer.

  This lasted until he shot himself nine fearful months later Among the German people, there was no'support for the bungled attempt. The conspirators were execrated, and Hitler was riding high again.

  In the infirmary at Wolfsschanze, as I can well recall. Hitler sat not ten feet from me talking to Goering, while doctors worked on his burst eardrums. "Now I have got those fellows where I want them, " he said, or words to that effect. "Now I can act." He knew that the fiasco had reprieved his regime.

  Hitler's apologists claim he did not see the films he ordered taken of the generals' executions, but I myself sat beside him during the screening. His giggles and remarks were more appropriate to a Charlie Chaplin comedy than to the ghastly distortions of my old comrades-in-arms, going through death agonies naked, in nooses of piano wire. I could never respect him after that. I cannot respect his memory when I recall it.

  For me, the July twentieth affair was in every way a calamity. I have walked with a bad limp ever since. I lost the hearing in my right ear, and I am subject to dizzy spells and falling episodes.

  Also, it ended my chances of getting out of Supreme Headquarters.

  Coming from a conservative landowning family like most of the July twentieth men, I might well have fallen victim to Hitler's irrational suspicions and been executed myself. But possibly my injuries made my innocence seem serf-evident. Or perhaps the Gestapo knew that I was in the clear. At any rate, I became again "the good Armin," different from those "others," treated more decently by Hitler than almost any general except Model and Guderian; and I was forced to witness his progressive degeneration down to the bitter end in the Berlin bunker, swallowing every day the foulest abuse of my profession and my class.

  TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Thetinybandofconspiratorshadasortof Keystone Cops quality. They kept setting bombs that failed to go off planning actions in which someone goofed, and generally falling all over themselves. But they were'very brave men, and their story is complex and fascinating. Roon's disapproval of them is not widely shared in Germany. I get the impression that Roon feels gusty about staying out of it, and protests too much. - V. H.

  From A Jew's Journey JULY 2

  Rahm toured the gheno today with the Dutch Jew who will direct the film. The script calls for a big scene at the children's pavilion.

  Natalie knew they were coming, and; by the time the two cars arrived, she tells me, she was close to nervous prostration. But Rahm took very airily the news that Louis was dead.

  "Well, too bad. Use one of the other brats, then," was all he said.

  "Pick a lively one, and teach him that French song your kid sang."

  It seemed quite a matter of course to him that the child had died of typhus; no condolences, and apparently no suspicions. Of course we m
ust wait and see. He may still investigate. Meantime, the relief is enormous.

  Possibly none of Natalie's macabre precautions have been necessary: the urn of Louis's ashes in her bedroom, the memorial candles, the consultations with the rabbi on mourning procedures, the synagogue attendance to say kaddish, and the rest. But they have eased her mind.

  Nor has she had to playact! The continuing uncertainty has been crushing her. In three weeks there has been no further word; just the official death notice, and the grisly offer from the crematorium of his ashes, at a price. For all we know as yet, those really are Louis's ashes in Natalie's-room. Of course we don't believe that; still, it has been all too convincing a business, first to last.

  (Alas! Whose are they?) The war news is becoming glorious. One wakes each day hungry for the latest word. German newspapers, smuggled in or pilfered from SS quarters, are now passed eagerly from hand to hand, for they have become fountains of good cheer Whatever the Goebbels press admits must be true; and recent stories cause ohe to blink with amazed happiness. It is an absolute fact that a'cadre of German generals have tried. to kill Hitler! I read a full account in the scrawny Volkischer Beobachter, boiling with moral indignation at the "tiny clique of crazy traitors." German army morale is clearly cracking. in the far-off Pacific-the BBC, again-our Navy has won another victory while capturing the Mariana islands, which brings Japan within the range of American B-29s; and the Japanese government has flown.