by Tony Roberts
“Yeah. Panzers were the new thing, the cutting edge. I’d done enough footslogging and wanted to see what these things could do. I’d seen some in Spain in ’36, ’37 and ’38, and it looked a safer bet shooting at people from behind steel, so I volunteered. But it was in spring ’39 that war looked likely after Hitler took what was left of Czechoslovakia, and Poland signed an alliance with France and Britain. Only then did I see that war was coming and Germany was the only chance of defeating the communists of Russia.”
He began speaking of Germany and the scenes there, and both Goldman and Danny felt as though they were being sucked into a different world, a world they could see but not touch. A world that panned out in front of their eyes like some widescreen TV, a world long gone. Marching men in military uniforms filled the streets and the black colors of the SS were easily identified. Others, too, marched past and their vision swung as they centered onto a large stone building in the center of Berlin, close to the Alexanderplatz. They saw a familiar face walking into a red-carpeted room, guarded by stern-faced men wearing the scuttle helmets familiar to movie goers, and in front was a large mahogany desk and behind it sat a portly balding bureaucrat wearing round-rimmed glasses, and although they were speaking German, oddly both men understood……
CHAPTER TWO
“Carl Langer,” the big bureaucrat said slowly, as though he didn’t believe the papers he was holding were genuine. Casca – Carl Langer – knew they weren’t but they were damned good forgeries. He’d lifted the name from a gravestone and the name was close enough to his real one not to matter much. He stood silently, smartly. The National Socialist German Workers’ Party minions didn’t like slovenly people; they demanded and expected respect. Two guards stood just as silently and smartly in the room, and behind the desk stood a red flag with the white circle in the center and upon that the black hooked swastika.
Casca – or Carl – waited as the paper-shuffler scanned each page of his documentation. Finally, seemingly satisfied, he looked up. “Your papers appear to be in order. So, Herr Langer, you wish to join the Wehrmacht. You appear to be a good specimen. You will, of course, have to pass a medical before you can be accepted into our glorious armed forces.”
“I understand.” Carl Langer nodded briefly. Over the recent decades joining any modern army in peacetime demanded a physical medical examination. Things were becoming more complicated. In the past if you could walk and hold a weapon you normally were allowed to fight, but now it was different. He stood calmly waiting for the bureaucrat to stamp his papers. He hoped to hell he could get out of Berlin before Gutierrez’s body was discovered. Leaving the Spaniard in a garbage bin in the alleyway next to the hotel wasn’t ideal but he could hardly have carried the dead man around Berlin asking for the best place to hide him from the authorities.
Once Gutierrez was found the police would be on the scent and he wanted to be away from the city as soon as possible. Joining the armed forces was as good a plan as any other, and it allowed him to vanish from civilian life. Training would be somewhere away from Berlin and the gathering storm clouds of war would also take him far from this place. After that the police could close their file as unsolved and leave it as that.
“Very well,” the clerk said, flipping open his ink pad. “I see you wish to join the panzers. Any reason?” He looked up, fixing Langer with a piercing look. Perhaps he thought it made him look sinister. Langer decided it failed miserably.
“I fought in Spain for Franco. I saw what damage was caused by the tanks of both sides, and thought it would be good to try it myself.”
“You fought for the Nationalists? Excellent!” The pen-pusher seemed pleased. “If you pass your medical then I can’t see why your skills cannot be of use to the Reich.” He stamped the papers and thrust them at Langer. “Heil Hitler!”
“Heil,” Langer echoed automatically. He looked at the freshly created black ink symbol on his documents. The eagle dominated it, clutching the swastika in its claws.
“You are to report to the army medical center on Behrenstrasse. It’s just off Unter den Linden. Good luck, Herr Langer.”
“Thank you.” Langer put the papers in his jacket pocket and left, breathing in deeply outside. He always got slightly claustrophobic in the presence of officials who wielded power. He knew he’d pass the medical without a hitch; apart from the huge number of old scars on his body that caused some consternation amongst the doctors, but he passed it off as either a wild animal or a crash.
On his way to the medical center he passed the hotel, and saw police gathered around the alleyway. He hurried on, head down. Luckily he’d left another false name – Carlos Romano – at the hotel. He guessed that’s how Gutierrez had found him. Not changing his Spanish Civil War identity fast enough. He did have one problem though; his facial features would be passed to the police, and there weren’t too many heavily built guys around in Berlin with a scar down one side of their face. It was almost like having an arrow pointing at him and neon lights blazing out it’s me, guys! as long as he stayed here. He rushed on towards the medical building, not daring to look back in case the police already had his description and were already looking out for scarred stranglers.
* * *
The training base for the 3rd panzer division was at a place south of Berlin called Wünsdorf, near the town of Zossen. Langer was driven there together with the other new recruits – some were volunteers like him, others were being called up for their national service - in an open backed truck, and they swerved off the main road south of the town to the right and drove through some woods until they stopped at a fence. Guards checked the papers of the driver and raised the barrier, waving the truck through. Langer turned round in his seat and gazed at the camp. Wooden long huts and a few sturdier smaller buildings stood in the open, and parked in neat rows by the road were the metal beasts that were all the rage in modern war; tanks.
These were the small light tanks he’d seen in Spain; the two- or three-man armored vehicles armed with machine guns in the turret and another in the hull. They were smaller and less well protected than the T-26 tanks the Russians had provided the Republicans, or even those tanks that the French possessed. Rumors were that these were monsters, heavily armed and armored and could smash anything the Third Reich had. Langer hoped that if war was coming, then Hitler and his chief panzer advisor, Heinz Guderian, had something bigger and better up their sleeves. He didn’t want to sit in one of these tin cans only to come up against their big brother the first time a fight broke out.
Men were marching in orderly lines or being instructed in groups by officers. Most were wearing black. Langer turned back and studied the reactions of the other recruits. Most fell into the usual category; apprehensive, unsure, wondering. They were, probably, hoping they would one day appear on the German newsreels that had recently been shown in the cinemas of the tanks driving through Prague after Hitler had sent them in to ‘protect’ the Slovak minority. Slovakia had been so grateful that their new ‘independent’ government under Tiso had signed an alliance with the Third Reich.
However, there was one in the truck who was different.
A large, boisterous man, rude and loud. He was, so he’d announced to everyone, called Gustaf Beidemann. He was big, muscular, and the very idea of a huge German warrior. His face was hard, craggy and like it had been hewn from the Alps. He seemed as though he didn’t give a damn about anything. Langer wondered what the hell he was doing here. Most likely on the run from something or someone. Rather like himself, in many ways.
The others tried to keep their distance from him, intimidated by his size and manner. He also was trying to entice them to part from what food they had, insisting he was starving. Langer remained silent and refused to get drawn into any conversation with anyone. Best he kept to himself, at least until he settled into the unit.
The truck came to a halt and the tailgate was thrown down by two guards who had stepped forward. A smartly dressed sergeant appeared, dressed
in black, sporting a side cap, neatly pressed jacket and trousers, and shiny black boots. He glared at the still seated men in the truck and opened his mouth.
“Get out! Raus! All of you, right now – sofort!” The immediate area echoed to his shrill yell and, startled, those at the rear of the truck sprang out and milled about, uncertain where to go and where to stand. Langer, near the front, was one of the last to get down, and he noticed Beidemann making no move to get out. “Hey, best get moving or you’ll be in trouble.”
Beidemann laughed. “Trouble? Me? Who could possibly want to cause me any trouble?”
Langer looked at the man-mountain and smiled lop-sidedly. “Nobody sane, but how do you know they are sane here?”
“Fair point,” Beidemann conceded and lumbered in Langer’s wake, crashing to the ground out of the truck, his boots sinking into the wet earth. The drill sergeant glared at the two, and barked at them to get into line, where the rest were patiently waiting. The two tacked onto the end of the new arrivals and waited. Gus Beidemann towered a good head and shoulder above Langer, and memories of past Germanic friends of similar size and bulk briefly flashed before the immortal warrior.
“Welcome to Wünsdorf,” the sergeant said clearly, standing before the silent men. “Here you will be trained to become Panzerwaffe, the elite of the Wehrmacht. You will be sorted over the next few weeks into the particular duty that is best suited to each of you, so some of you will be serving in the panzers, others will be the supporting infantry – the Schützen. Those of you to serve in the panzers, you will be further sorted into drivers, wireless operators and commanders. So don’t get too friendly with each other now, as you will probably all be split up.”
Gus made a noise of dismay. “Just when I thought I’d found true love,” he said loudly.
The sergeant came striding over. “You! The big one. Silence! You are now a soldier and you will obey orders.” He glared up at the big man and Gus merely stood staring out over the trees beyond. Langer stole a quick glance at Gus. It would be an interesting time if the big man remained in the same squad.
* * *
Leutnant Erich Farben watched coldly as the corpse of the unknown man was taken away from the hotel. His men were busy checking the room for anything, and the doctor who had been summoned to the crime scene was packing his bag and preparing to leave. Farben, a tall, clean shaven and dark haired man, was proud of his duties in the Berlin police force. Murder was rarer these days under the National Socialists – at least those committed by civilians – and so when news had come of this one he’d eagerly accepted the assignment from his superiors in Friedrichstrasse. Farben intercepted the doctor as the bespectacled man stood up and closed his bag. “Well?”
“Interesting,” the doctor said slowly. “The deceased had bruising to his ribs and back, and you saw his face. He was crushed to death.”
Farben pursed his lips and looked round the dark room. Furniture had been moved and one chair smashed, and the remnants of a light bulb lay crushed on the floor. “So a fight with someone of immense strength. Any other wounds?”
“No, none that occurred here anyway.”
“What do you mean by that, Herr Doktor?” Farben needed to know anything and everything about the deceased if he was to conduct an efficient homicide investigation.
“The deceased had plenty of old wounds – knife cuts, even one old bullet wound some years old. He wasn’t new to combat. My full report will be submitted to you tomorrow. Good day, Herr Farben.”
“Good day, Herr Doktor,” Farben automatically responded, already dismissing the man from his mind. He looked round the room again. It was interesting. The room had been used by a Spanish national, one Carlos Romano, recently arrived from Spain. The deceased was a Spaniard, or at least he looked like one. He had no papers on him, something that was extremely odd and against the law. But the concierge said this was not Romano. Romano was a bulky, strong looking man with a scar on his face. He’d been strong enough to carry the dead man out of the room and dump him in the garbage bin. Romano was gone as were his belongings. Farben rubbed his chin. He didn’t want to lose this investigation, but if it became known that foreign nationals were involved, it might bring in the Geheime Staats Politzei, the Gestapo. God know what they’d do then. He wanted Romano, and he’d do everything he could to get him without having to involve them.
He’d wait until the morning. By then, he’d have the reports of the doctor and his men to study and he’d get a better idea of what – and who – he was hunting. For now, he’d merely pass on that the murderer was possibly under an assumed name of Carlos Romano and a facial description would be put out to the usual people. He’d also check back with immigration at the airports and frontiers for this Romano. He’d been at the hotel for about a month, so he knew roughly when to check.
And when he found him, he’d make sure he’d be tried for murder.
CHAPTER THREE
Langer found that Gus Beidemann had adopted him. Oddly he found this comforting. Usually he tried to be a loner, keeping himself away from the rest. This wasn’t down to him being anti-social or any such feeling; it was because he was wary lest his unique condition become known to anyone or that he became too bonded to anyone and knew that all along one day he’d have to say goodbye either by leaving or by burying them. But Gus was different. He was big, bawdy, irreverent, thick-skinned and frankly too much like Glam to say no to. Besides, Langer wryly reflected, Gus would probably ignore him anyway.
They had adjacent bunks in the same barracks, and Gus made sure his quiet but tough new friend was looked after, whether it be the second best helping of food (Gus naturally had the best) or the next best place in any lecture hall or gathering on the barrack square. Langer was happy enough with this arrangement; he would have pushed his way to the best places without Gus, and for once was happy to allow the giant to take top place. Gus wasn’t a bully or nasty about it; he was just too good humored and almost child-like in his ways to take issue with. Nobody argued with him, since his bulk intimidated everyone else, and those who existed in the group who might have tried it on with those above them in the pecking order left him well alone.
Langer found the training good. He always felt at home in a military world. He knew, as the Jew had when cursing him on Golgotha, that he was a soldier and so he would remain until Jesus came again. Langer had accepted it long ago and whenever the calling came to the colors, or the flag, or just a convenient fight, he would come and enlist. Gus was different. A mechanic by trade near Berlin, his national call-up had brought him to the panzers and if anyone was earmarked as a driver, then Gus was. The only thing that worried him was the size of the panzers.
“How am I going to fit into such a piddling little toy?” he had exclaimed the day they had been formally introduced to the Panzer I. It was a two-man vehicle, and Gus had peered into the driver’s compartment, to the left of the interior, and wondered how his huge frame could possibly get into it and – more importantly – get out. The other place was for the commander/gunner, and Langer naturally had been earmarked, as Gus’ buddy, to be the other. The commander/gunner sat in the small turret which was on the right hand side of the tank and he could also slide down into the main body if the hatch needed shutting. The main armament was two 7.92mm machine guns mounted in tandem, and fed by clips of 25 rounds each. Langer squeezed into the turret and turned the wheel set in the turret to swing the turret round. Gus had forced himself into the driver’s position, overflowing the canvas seat, and found his thighs rubbing against the steering levers. “This isn’t any good!” he roared, and bent the lever sideways before the instructor could say anything.
“What the devil?” the instructor has shrieked, leaning in the hatch. “That’s state property, you vandal!” he exclaimed, eyes bulging at the bent metal.
“Well, they should make them tougher,” Gus said dismissively. “How are we to spread the word of National Socialism to the untermensch in such toys?”
&
nbsp; Langer had sat in the turret, shaking with laughter.
That evening the two of them lay on their bunks discussing the merits – or more accurately, the shortcomings – of the Panzer I. Langer was concerned about the lack of protection. “I’m not happy with the armor thickness, Gus. Thirteen millimeters won’t stop much more than machine gun fire. Anything more powerful will smash through that.”
Gus lay on his back, his arms folded behind his head. His fatigues shirt lay open and his hairy chest was exposed to the air. He was staring up at the ceiling. “That’s not too bad my fragile darling. I can throw that tin can around pretty well, if it stands up to the punishment. It’s fast, I’ll give it that, but Uncle Gus needs space, and I haven’t got much. Nowhere to store meat.”
“Meat?” Langer leaned over and stared at the concentrating man. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“If you and I are going to form a beautiful friendship, my scarred comrade, then you must understand I have to eat to survive.” Gus grinned to himself. “Going to war without a side of beef in the tank is unthinkable. Get me one of those Panzer IIs.”
Langer threw himself back onto his bunk. “Beef! In that heat? You’ll be swarming with maggots in no time! And the oil. The mess and filth. Not somewhere to hang meat, Gus!”
“You obviously have no idea about the finer points of good living,” Gus lectured Langer. Langer closed his eyes and shook his head. He wasn’t sure whether Gus was kidding or being serious. He hoped the big man was as good a driver as he seemed, for if he was going to form a permanent team with him, he would want the best. Gus was a bear of a man, and looked tough enough to cope with most situations. It might be a good team, but there was only one way to find that out.