Liberated

by Steve Anderson

  I switched off the radio. “It’s been a long while, Kat. You missed the good white snow.”

  “I haven’t seen you in Munich either. You missed the good brown slush.”

  Silence. She shifted the other way, facing a wall. My map of Heimgau staring back at her.

  “How are your parents back home?” she said.

  “Better. The heat’s off, so to speak. Commies and Reds are all the rage now. One fear all the time, it gets boring, wears off. You need a new one.”

  “Ever hear from your brother?”

  “Max? No. And I’m still not looking.” I pulled down my feet. I got up, went to the door, shut it and found my seat. Katarina stared into her lap. I watched her until she looked up. Our eyes met. Like this, the silence didn’t drag on so long.

  “I kind of miss it,” I said finally. “I guess, I kind of miss you.”

  Katarina began to speak, leaving a pause where my name might have fit. “You do?”

  “And then sometimes, when I’m feeling a little sour—when I miss you, I guess—I can’t help thinking you knew something more about that train. On account of the life you led. Knew things a guy like Abraham Beckstein had to learn the hard way. Had an idea at least. But, that would mean a heavy price to pay, all around.”

  Katarina had crossed her arms across her chest. “I didn’t come here for your interrogation.”

  I held up hands. “What can I say? It’s been months. I’ve had time to collect my thoughts. Finish the puzzle.” I went on with it: “Sure, your dad, your little brother, they went and revolted in the last days. They were heroes. Beckstein was on his own crusade. They do end up at the castle. That’s how it started. Then someone, some interrogator, finds out who they are, who they’re related to. So someone sends you—you personally—a message. Holds them hostage. At that point, it’s got nothing to do with standing up. Has everything to do with loot.”

  Nodding, Katarina focused on the edge of my desk. She spoke slowly as if sounding out an American word new to her. “That someone, he was not the man calling himself Colonel Spanner. It was the SS. It was before I got here. The train was near here and they wanted it, thinking its worth could save them. They thought I knew where the train was. But I wasn’t here, not yet. And I didn’t know, Harry. I didn’t know where the train was. In their desperation, they only thought I did, on account of my reputation. Just like you are thinking now.”

  “Hey. I’m just trying to clear it from my head. And Spanner?”

  She shrugged. “He didn’t care about what I knew by the time I arrived. He already had his train prize. It fell right into his lap. He had inherited what the SS started.”

  “Yeah. War will do that. Did you know that Spanner did the torture, the murder?”

  “I couldn’t be sure who did it. It was so hectic. All I knew was, an Ami colonel was here at the end. And then Major Membre, too. All so very hectic. I had made it back home, yet I was too late. Came too late. A few hours made all the difference …” A tear raced down her cheek. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t care for you. Loved you even. I wasn’t after it. You weren’t. Then this whole damn thing, it fell right into our laps.”

  “Like I said. War will do that. Did the baron know about any of this? He always told me he didn’t.”

  She waved a hand. “Maulendorff? God, no. Of that one thing you can be certain.”

  We sat in silence. I watched her wipe her cheeks, one graceful swipe to each eye.

  “About the corpses,” I said. “They ended up along the road somehow.”

  She nodded. “Yes. I will tell you now. I cut a deal for them, to get them back. Colonel Spanner wanted the bodies removed, so I got to bury them my way.”

  “That’s why you never asked me about their condition. How bad they looked. Because you already knew it. Not that I would’ve been able to describe it. What they looked like. Nasty work.”

  “I saw. I did. And I saw you from the trees, from where I hid and waited. You, in your jeep. I wanted to call out to you, scream, something, but I wasn’t sure what you would do. Who you were.”

  “Smart thinking. I might’ve mucked things up worse. Was Horton your contact?”

  A nod. “How they were left there wasn’t talked about. I did not expect a hearse with flowers. But like that? The lazy pig, he heaved them out to the road like a bag of trash.”

  “The fee?”

  “Some very fine jewelry,” she said. “And, I shut my mouth or else. This was not a poor deal. I was able to live another day.”

  “You buried them, eventually. Meantime, I’d guess any cold cellar made a good morgue.”

  “Yes. But now they are finally buried here for good, together. My family is. Before, I did not think they’d be safe if I buried them here. Now I know they are safe with you here.”

  I held up my hands again. If only it was that easy, running this occupation. I had learned that much. “I had to know. I’m sorry for putting on the screws.”

  “I know. Don’t be. I would, too.”

  She began crying again. I went out, got her a glass of water, gave her a couple extra minutes alone. When I returned she was sitting up straight, her cheeks glowing. I wanted to keep them glowing a little longer, so I told her: “Oh, the Red Cross team stopped by the other day. I asked about Little Marta. This time they’d gotten word. Her boat made it over, Kat. They placed her with a smart young couple in San Francisco. Turns out the father is an architect, does skyscrapers. I’ve never been to the West Coast. Maybe I’ll stop by and see her someday. Or, maybe not.”

  “Perhaps she would rather not be reminded.”

  “Yeah. Sure.” I opened my top drawer and lay a postcard on the desktop. On the front was a watercolor of a port city called Haifa. On the back, a message dated February 1946:

  We have made it, Mister! Thanks to you and your special gift. What are your future plans, my friend? We can use good men like you here in the days to come.

  Shalom,

  Emil

  I pushed the postcard across the desk. Katarina ignored the watercolor and flipped to the back. The words made her smile, and she put a hand to her mouth. She flipped the postcard back over and smiled at the watercolor, her eyes searching it.

  “Everybody’s starting over,” I added. “What’s your game now?”

  “Oh, I am busy,” she said, placing the postcard back on the desk, “very busy. I’ve been cleared to teach elementary school, but I’m starting up my own side operation. I cut a deal with the Jewish relief agency, you see. I’ll introduce orphans to Shakespeare and Schiller and the Brothers Grimm—”

  “Where?”

  “What? The Jewish relief office? It’s the UNRRA one, in the Ludwigstrasse.”

  “Not the office. That’s in Munich. You know what I mean. Where’s the deal for? For orphans, say, in Palestine? For a port called Haifa?”

  She took a deep breath. Her eyes darted around before landing back on mine. “I miss him, Harry. I miss them. It.”

  “A fight. That’s what you miss. You’re like the guy all bloodied in the ring, back to the ropes.”

  “As you say it, yes. I have to admit, I don’t regret killing those two.”

  “You saved my life, Kat.”

  “I think we saved each others’.” She stood. “Let’s go out, all right? I wish to see my town.”

  I loosened my tie and slid on my sunglasses. Out in front of City Hall, the usual refugee kids were playing in the sidecar of my motorcycle. I had a new one now, a onetime Wehrmacht Zündapp I’d had repainted in glossy red and white like the baron’s BMW. I had let Katarina take his car back to Munich and never had asked her what she and Emil did with it. It was warm for early spring, the breaking sun was drying out the cobblestones, and the air smelled of bark and flowers. We crossed over to the Stefansplatz, where a string quartet played to a small crowd. Katarina clapped hands together. “Wonderful! It’s Geigertag?”

  “Violin Day, yeah. Have ‘em twice a month now. Brahms, I think. Bach?
No idea.”

  “It’s Bach.” She put a hand to her mouth again, a new habit of hers. Fetching, I thought. It went well with the hair.

  She led me to Cathedral Square. I lit a Lucky and watched her skip along up ahead. I took my time. She waited for me on the square, the cathedral looming behind her. Our frantic, crude tryst inside there came rushing back to me.

  “Harry, stop. What are you doing?”

  I was grasping her wrist, leading her away.

  I sat her down at the cathedral steps. “Let’s cut the bull.”

  “Yes. All right. Let’s do.”

  “You helped Emil get out, right? To Palestine. And now you’re going.”

  Katarina nodded. “Yes. I must try and visit him.”

  “Visit’s one thing. You going to stay?”

  “I don’t know. I might not be able to make it back in any case.”

  “So you were seeing him. In Munich you were.”

  “Yes, but not like that, not the way you and I saw each other. I hadn’t expected to find Emil in Munich. Alive. I thought he was dead. All of them, dead. But, we will see. He would love to have you come too.”

  I let her hands free. “And do what? Maybe I’m not so mad anymore. Since we’re laying it all out here, the full confession? Maybe I’m not so starry-eyed either or aspiring in the way that gets a guy into trouble.”

  “I am still mad,” she said. “I’m going to be mad for a long time.”

  I’d asked for this, so I had to finish it off. I took a drag off my Lucky and said: “We’re too much alike, you and me. In plenty of ways. It doesn’t seem like it now, but the farther we get from this war, you’ll see it. And I just can’t see you stateside. How you are going to like cooking for me every night, stuffing my pipe, chatting up the nosy neighbors.”

  “But that’s not you either.” She raised her eyebrows. “I could have acted there, or sang.”

  “Got enough Germans in Hollywood as it is.”

  She chuckled. “Yes. Why have a German Betty Grable when you have the real thing?”

  “That’s it. I was kidding about stuffing my pipe.”

  “What if you stayed here?”

  “I’m no career soldier. I’ll do my hitch and be done.”

  “And I’m no war bride.”

  “No. Get me? It wasn’t meant to be. But that train job? That was laid out for us, up in the stars somewhere.”

  “Yes, I suppose that is true,” Katarina said, and she stood, back out on the square. I stood. Facing each other as if to dance. She held me by the wrists with fingertips, and she kissed me on the forehead. I kissed her on the cheek. We hugged, probably a little too long for my own good. I breathed her in deep. She took a step backward, and another, and she turned, and she hurried off.

  I ground out the Lucky under my heel. I sat back down on the cathedral steps and slouched, my head hanging right over my knees like a man trying to lose a vertigo. My thoughts stinging away. The girl wanted to believe she has a bigger debt to pay. So let her. I closed my eyes, but it only kept my thoughts locked in and banging around in there, going over it again and again. It was “up in the stars”—is that what I’d really said? What a crock. How could she buy that line? We’d shared so much more than that train.

  I thought of her family. Now they are all here, together—that’s what she’d said. Today.

  I shot up and hustled down the alleys of Old Town, turning corners, crossing squares, and down more alleys until I found the Old Cemetery. Pushed through the black iron gate. A couple workmen rolled a wheelbarrow up the main path, the dirt in it fresh. Before I could open my mouth, they pointed to the work they’d just finished. I jogged on.

  The two plots were so new the dirt sparkled in the breaking sun. I stood over the dark rectangles—a wider one for two and a single one. Double bed and a twin. A bundle of fresh flowers lay at each tombstone, purple and pink and yellow. Joachim and Frau Buchholz shared one wide tombstone, while little brother Gerd got his own nice slab. And for each, the finest marble I’d seen outside a baroque church. If there was still a Jewish cemetery here, I’d find one for Abraham Beckstein. But the Nazis had plowed over the Jewish cemetery. They made it a training ground for the local SA brownshirts to play army. I felt certain Katarina had found a good resting place for Beckstein and probably before I had even met her.

  By the time I got back to the square, the March sun was out for good. It was all hustle and bustle there. They had a new News and Tobacco stand now. I strolled over, bought a Süddeutsche Zeitung, Bavaria’s brand-new German-owned newspaper, and took a seat back on the cathedral steps.

  “County-Level Elections Coming,” read the headline. “Political Activity Allowed in US Zone: First Elections in Germany Since 1933.” Again, I thought about the Baron Friedrich-Faustino von Maulendorff. This would have been his moment. He might have gone from mayor of Heimgau Town to Landrat on the Christian Social Union party list. Sure, he would have. It would have been a cinch.

  Meanwhile, Heimgau was going to need another new mayor. I had brought in a good man with solid credentials, but he wished to retire. My man was old, and his heart was weak from years in Gestapo dungeons.

  Two steps down, on the cobblestones, stood former and current Police Chief Uli Winkl. He saw my newspaper; he had one too. I waved mine at him.

  “So, Heimgau will need a new man for mayor,” he said.

  “Don’t I know it. If I only knew who.”

  “You know who.”

  “Come again?”

  Winkl smoothed out his tunic. He looked around and cleared his throat. He rolled up his paper and shook it. “I know my Heimgau. I have the experience. And I can work with the Americans, can I not? You bet I can and I will.”

  “Sure, that’s it, keep it going,” I said and clapped and whistled, and several passersby stopped for more—two young widows holding hands, a refugee artisan and his wife, three scruffy schoolboys.

  Winkl turned to them all. His voice rose to a confident holler: “Yes, citizens, it is true! Heimgau needs a good man for mayor, and that man can only be me!” He backed up those first couple steps, so they could all see him. He opened his arms wide and high.

  Afterword

  THIS BOOK MIGHT READ LIKE FICTION, but the story is based on simple truths and historical record. Justifications aside, the early US occupation of Germany was a type of Wild West in which a foreign autocrat caste had total power over the native inhabitants. On the frontiers of Southern Bavaria in late spring of 1945, US combat units had secured the war’s unexpectedly calm closure. On the local level, however, the future peace and law and order remained far from clear.

  Enter the US Military Government (MG) detachments, following the path of US tactical forces into cities and towns, villages and counties that were physically and socially devastated. Amid untold ruin and chaos, broken infrastructure and vaporized authority, the first MG detachments aimed simply to get things going again. Establishing order and ensuring public safety were primary duties. At the same time, MG officers performed a delicate balancing act that varied according to detachment make-up, intelligence on hand, a confusing mix of directives, and the inhabitants’ cooperation. MG officers in smaller county and village detachments were often cut off in the first few months. This demanded self-reliance and inventiveness, but also invited confusion, scandal and infamy.

  Some MG commanders made themselves the lords of their helpless, isolated communities, whether a town or a Kreis (county, district) or both. Such all-too-common types were dubbed Kreiskönige, or “County Kings,” by fearful and sometimes grateful locals as their King often beat out rival MG detachments’ communities competing for manpower and resources, shelter and food.

  While performing historical research in Munich some years ago as a graduate student, I discovered the example of Miesbach, an unassuming capital of a rural Kreis between Munich and the Alps. US combat units had held back Miesbach’s MG detachment until May 16, 1945, over a week after the capitulation. What
detachment officers found there must have given them a shock. The MG report for May 13-20 described the local population as highly distressed at US Military Police “permitting SS officers and a limited number of enlisted men to remain armed with some freedom.” Incredibly, the SS soldiers were able to shoot three civilians while at liberty, including a US intelligence informant. What’s more, German army troops stationed nearby were allowed to operate with complete freedom. Their commander, a General von Hahn, reportedly addressed his men that “the war is not lost and another German Army will be formed.”

  Miesbach MG stabilized the situation, but as late as 1947 an MG investigator described a history of “careless enforcement” in Miesbach. MG there had appointed locals with distinct Nazi pasts to top posts. One deemed politically acceptable turned out a “paranoiac and a psychopathic mythomaniac.” The investigator found the situation typical in such areas. Miesbach MG officers were flattered by officials with Nazi connections and reluctant to let them go, showing a lack of “judgment, intelligence and impartiality.” He concluded: “It has been proved over and over again that the officer who is lulled into confidence by a surface obsequiousness is forgetting an essential fact: No people loves or trusts or essentially wishes to help the power that occupies it.”

  What intrigued me was how much scandal was implied between the lines, but had been lost forever, no matter how much research I performed. Musing about this would lead me to write a first manuscript years ago that, after repeated revisions, would become this novel.

  Heimgau is fictional, but not unlike Miesbach, Landsberg, Bad Tölz or any number of towns in Bavaria or elsewhere in the US Zone of Occupation. I fictionalized my burg simply for creative freedom. Harry Kaspar, Major Membre and Eugene Spanner and the rest are fictional too, but real-life examples existed. Major Membre comes closest to one Major Towle of Boston, who commanded the Bavarian town of Eichstätt. Major Towle’s MG reports made his rule there sound sensible enough, but in truth the major terrorized the locals while setting himself up as a minor eccentric tyrant, prompting Eichstätters to dub him “Major Toll,” or Major Crazy, applying the German word for both insane and fantastic in place of an unpronounceable English name. Major Crazy carried a riding whip he slapped on his desk to scare any official questioning his decisions. A pleasure-seeker and a racketeer and obsessed with ancient Catholic power, Major Towle even had a papal costume tailored for himself, and brought in a top Munich painter to portray him in it. His German and American entourage of rakes and prostitutes and pimps took up over twenty houses in town that he had requisitioned. He shipped home hundreds of crates filled with finer plunder and forged art pieces. I could go on, but one gets the picture. There are many such examples. Indeed, MG and occupation duty seemed to attract a certain type of man who saw glory, not in combat, but rather in the power and patronage, mistresses and riches that martial rule provided. Even a common Joe could thrive, and all weren’t criminals when considered in context. A 22-year-old sergeant named Henry Kissinger was a CIC agent tasked with finding and arresting former Nazis. As a CIC man, Sergeant Kissinger had more power than even the local MG commander. Calling himself “Mr. Henry,” young Kissinger ruled over the town of Bensheim and surrounding county from a lavish villa and a posh Mercedes sedan. He reportedly enjoyed multiple affairs and extravagant dinner parties. The future US Secretary of State was already learning to enjoy the trappings of authority.