by Unknown
Brewster appeared to deflate slightly. He seemed to realize he had overstepped his bounds, but he couldn’t back down now. “Herr Inspector, it appears you are being uncooperative. I will let my superiors know of your answer, and we shall see what shall be done.”
Dresner sat back down and laughed. The man actually sounded like the old Gestapo. “You do that, Herr Major. I bid you good day. If I find anything, I’ll let you know,” he said dismissing Brewster and returning to the pile of papers on his desk.
Brewster seemed about to explode. He turned abruptly and stormed out of the office heading for the office of the Chief of police. A few minutes later there was a tap at the door and the Chief stuck his head in.
“Did you really have to upset that man so?” he asked with a smile on his face. Dresner motioned to a chair and the Chief sat down and chuckled.
“Arrogant little scheiße. Thought he could come in my office and demand we put more people on the case. I simply informed him he should be polite,” said Dresner.
The Chief chuckled some more. “I bet you did. And I bet your old army training came back again,” he broke out into a laugh. “I told him you were on the case and would remain on it, but that we were going to be cutting back on the search. There’s really too much to do. When he got angry, I told him I would take it up with Colonel Moss. That shut him up.” Colonel Moss was the commander of the American military contingent in southern Germany.
“That was my next call,” said Dresner with a sly smile. “I actually wish I could help the man, but I’m stumped. The only thing I can think is that the truck was taken across a border and is long gone. There is absolutely no evidence it was ever in Austria,” he said with a sigh and sitting back in his chair.
“I agree. I talked with some of our colleagues and they are coming up with the same thing. Let’s let the Americans find this one on their own,” the Chief said as he got up from his chair and turned toward the door. “Nice job this morning. The newspapers are all over us for a story. As usual, I’ll handle it. They are already talking to the young couple. The girl is telling everyone you are a saint. Good thing she doesn’t really know you,” he chuckled.
Dresner chuckled himself. “She is a good girl. Too bad this happened to them. I’m glad we got there in time, or that boy would have been singing soprano,” Dresner said.
“That’s what I heard,” said the Chief. “By the way, Counselor Dietz is on the way here. He says he has a client who needs to talk to you.”
Dresner sighed and placed his face in his hands. “Mein Gott. Now I have attorneys taking up my time. I might as well live in this office,” he moaned.
The Chief laughed again. “I thought you already did,” he said as he left the office.
Dresner sat back and looked at the mounds of paper on his desk. Between the Army, their normal caseload, the Olympics and all it added to his work, he would be busy until 1980. Rubbing his eyes, he thought back to earlier days.
Born in Dresden, he had a pretty normal life when you consider what Germany was doing between the wars. His father had survived the first war and came home to the family business casting metal machine parts. Despite the inflation, the unemployment, and general suffering all around them, his family had survived. As a young boy he remembered his father taking him on camping trips in Bavaria along with some other fathers and their sons. He learned to love nature and respect what it offered. Before long he could climb a tree, ford a stream or climb a ledge faster than any of the boys he knew. He could also read signs on the trail which told him who or what had recently passed by. His attention to detail had astonished his peers on several occasions.
Rolf had taken education as the same kind of challenge, wanting to understand and master just about anything his teachers could present to him. The resulting marks placed him at the top of his class and got him a scholarship to the university. That was in 1934. By then the Nazis had begun dictating what could be taught in schools and how it should be taught. He remembered the day when someone came in wearing one of those brown uniforms and measured each student’s head, eyes, nose and just about everything else. The next week two of his classmates had to leave the university. They didn’t meet the Aryan standard.
By the time Dresner had gotten his degree in business it didn’t really mean much. Although he had planned to continue the family business, the Army had other plans. He was conscripted and made a Leutnant, or second lieutenant. At first he had a blast. Much of this was like the camping days he had enjoyed so much. He and the men under him were assigned tasks and he made sure they were completed in the same detail he drove himself to. This caught the attention of his superiors and soon he was singled out for more challenging tasks. In the Polish campaign he had led a squad of men to surround a strong point of resistance which threatened to hold up the entire advance. Using his prior knowledge of getting around in a forest, he not only accomplished the mission, but did it without the loss of a single man. Then at the end of the campaign when his group had been charged by a Polish cavalry unit, he and his men held their ground killing nearly 200 before reinforcements arrived. That was when he received the Iron Cross. Hitler himself had pinned it on his tunic, calling him a sterling example of the German race.
France had been next. He and his men started on the Belgian border and hadn’t stopped until Dunkirk. He had actually stood on the beach and watched as the last of the British troops literally swam to boats trying to pick them up. Dresner’s superiors had promoted him to Captain by this time and often called upon him for some of the more difficult tasks. Yet, his unit rarely experienced casualties.
Being an army officer had fit him like a glove. Over the next three years he had been assigned to various units and had been selected to lead a company in the invasion of England. He had also returned home and married the girl he had fallen in love with in college. With his earnings he purchased a home in Dresden and she had become a part of his family. Their son had been born exactly nine months from their wedding day.
But then things changed. England was called off when the “glorious” Luftwaffe failed to win control of the air. Resistance movements began to take their toll on the troops and leadership. The “invincibility” of the German people was starting to crack. He had never been a member of the party, but had reveled in Germany’s success much as everyone else had. As time passed he began to sense the pressure just to keep the status quo. Germany wasn’t going to conquer the world and there were great forces being prepared to take what they had gained away from them. His mind had understood the math. Just a few million could not hope to hold off the hundreds of millions being pressed against them. Yet all they ever heard was how invincible the nation was.
By now the bombers were crossing German skies every day. When he went home on leave, he saw whole cities and towns which were now mere shells. From his rail car he saw the people milling around carrying what few possessions they had on their backs or pushing them in carts.
The Russian Front had been a disaster. From the beginning of the campaign he had seen a change in leadership. No longer content with winning battles he saw generals being ordered around my SS colonels. Troops were being tasked with killing entire populations of a small town, or hunting down Jews and other undesirables. True, some of this had happened before, but not using regular army troops. It was like the army had forgotten how to operate. Orders were issued, countermanded, and issued again. There were shortages he had not seen before. When the first big winter storm hit, he and his men were still in their summer uniforms.
Dresner shivered slightly at that thought. Until that date, he had only lost a hand full of men. Now he watched as they began to freeze to death. After a few days with no warm clothing, he had led his men around the back of a town and attacked from the rear. By doing so he prevented the people from burning everything before they could get in. His orders had been to search each building and find as many furs and animal pelts as possible. He knew the Russians were keeping warm and this was
the logical approach. Luckily they found a tanner with a storeroom full of various pelts. He and his men spent the next two days sewing together rudimentary insulated underwear to be worn under their uniforms. From then on, his men stayed relatively warm. Just a week later he had been wounded when a Russian sniper got lucky. The round had torn through his upper leg, fracturing his femur and earning him a trip home.
It had been a glorious three months. In his hospital room he had been decorated again and promoted to major. When he finally got home his family was all there. His son was growing a like a weed and got to know the father who was never home. The business was booming and his father was doing his best to make sure the war was not an everyday part of their lives. He even got to go camping for a weekend.
His new orders were to take command of a brigade of infantry in France. He was happy he was not returning to Russia but was sorry he was no longer with his former troops. Although there was now no mail coming back from the front, you couldn’t stop people from talking. On June 6, 1944, he was stationed in Northern France. Even though he was ready to take his men to the front, they had been ordered to remain where they were. From that moment on, it had been a losing battle. Despite his skills and despite his leadership, his men had been whittled down, replaced and whittled down further. By February of 1945 he and his men were fighting in Germany itself. That was when he had received word about the Dresden bombing. His whole family, the business, everything was gone.
Tears crept into Dresner’s eyes as he thought about losing his family. The news had come in a telegram and was passed along from his commanding officer. From that point, he had been in shock. It had been his top sergeant, Betz, who had noticed the shock first. After seeing the telegram, Betz took him into the local farmhouse and sat him down. He brought food, built a fire and even produced a bottle of captured American whiskey. His men kept watch over him and took care of him until finally the grief swept through him and released itself. To Dresner’s surprise his men had become his surrogate family. From that point on, they had become much closer both as friends and as a unit.
At the end, he and his men had been assigned the task of going through southern Germany and Austria to find all the secret facilities which had been built up by the various political factions and shut them down. He was also tasked with destroying any equipment or documents which might fall into the hands of the Soviets. He chucked at the thought. They hadn’t cared if the Americans got them, just not the Soviets. They had closed over 50 when they received word that Hitler was dead and ten more by the time Germany surrendered.
It was right here in Innsbruck that he surrendered his men to an American Major. Nice guy. It turned out the American was doing some of the same things he was. When it was all over, there was nothing left for him in Germany. With his hometown a mass of burned bricks and his family dead, he decided to stay in Innsbruck and make a new home. It had been the best decision he had ever made.
Dresner looked back at his desk. Since the pile hadn’t gone away as he wished, he picked up his pen and started back to work. Five minutes later there was a knock at the door. Dresner looked up from his work with a frown. He saw the counselor and looked back down at the mound of paperwork on his desk. “Herr Dietz, I have not the time to take on a new case. Please come back some other time.”
“Not this time,” Dietz said sternly.
That got Dresner’s attention. After Major Brewster, he was in no mood. He lifted his face in a mask of indignation just to have it vanish when he saw the man standing next to Dietz. He gasped slightly. “Mein Gott!” he said in a low tone as he came to his feet.
“How’s it going Herr Major?” Al Anderson said as he reached out his hand. Anderson was the American officer Dresner had surrendered to at the end of the war.
Dresner ignored the outstretch hand as he came around the desk and embraced his former captor, slapping him on the back. “It has been too long Herr Major,” he said warmly. He then invited the men to some seats and sat down next to Anderson. “What brings you to Innsbruck?”
“I’m kind of working here now. My company is building some of the Olympic venues and dormitories. I brought the family over for a little vacation at the same time,” said Anderson.
“You have heard of Anderson Construction, have you not?” asked Dietz.
Dresner’s eyes flew wide. “That is you?” he exclaimed.
Anderson nodded. “I’ve been busy. And I see you didn’t leave here after the war.”
Dresner laughed. “No, there was nothing in Germany for some of us and we decided to stay together down here. Thanks to you and what we did together some of the local townspeople offered me a job on the police force. It worked out very well,” he said before reaching over and pressing a button on his desk. A few minutes later a police sergeant stepped through the door. “You need me Herr Major?” the man said.
“You see, even after all this time, this one still calls me Major. You know how it is with German soldiers, you can’t re-train them.”
Al turned around in his seat to see another of Dresner’s group staring back at him in amazement. “How are you Feldwebel Betz?”
Betz looked at Anderson in amazement. “Major Anderson! It is good to see you again,” he said as he stiffened and clicked his heels. Anderson swore he almost saw the man’s arm go up for a salute, but he stopped it and simply held it out to him.
Anderson shook it warmly. “Sergeant, you don’t look like you have aged a day. This job must be good for you.”
Betz smiled. “Possible, but is a bit harder to move now. Besides, I have a family to look after. I must keep this job just to keep the children fed!”
“The bugger has seven kids now. I personally think we should cut them both off,” Dresner said using his fingers to indicate the use of scissors.
Betz held up a hand. “Now, now. An officer must look after the wellbeing of his men,” he cautioned.
“That’s what I mean,” said Dresner with a sly smile. The two men had remained together since the war and enjoyed the working relationship. Dresner had been like a grandfather to Betz’s children.
The men laughed and sat back to talk for a while. Dietz was amazed at the camaraderie the men shared even though they had been apart for sixteen years. Though they had been enemies, they kidded each other and laughed like old friends.
Dresner saw the puzzled expression on Dietz’s face. “Maybe I should explain, Herr Dietz. When the war ended, my company had been assigned the task of traveling throughout Bavaria and southern Germany to shut down some of the smaller operations and send the personnel to units in central Germany. I was also to make sure certain technical information was not discovered if the Soviets arrived in the area. By the time the word came down of our surrender, we had expanded our search into Austria.”
“Search?” Dietz asked.
Dresner nodded. “We were so fragmented by then; one group was not sure of what other groups might be doing. Parts of the Wehrmacht didn’t really talk to each other and the SS didn’t talk to anyone. Many of Germany’s leaders had special projects of their own going on. It was a mess. I got orders directly from Reichsminister Speer to shut everything down and destroy what was left. We bivouacked in Innsbruck the last few days when suddenly this group of Americans came into town. The group was led by this snot nosed major who acted like he hadn’t a care in the world. At first I wasn’t sure if I should surrender to him or shoot him,” he said. The men laughed.
“But he walked up to me and saluted. Then he told me since Germany had surrendered, he wanted to know if my men needed anything,” Dresner chuckled. “He wasn’t what I had expected. I had thought we would be interred somewhere. So from then on, we worked together. He asked what we were doing and then helped me to find a few more of the secret places in the area. The local people saw us working well together and he treated everyone with respect and dignity. From then on, we weren’t German soldiers. We were just people trying to get a job done. Anderson even saw to it we w
ere paid for our efforts. For some of my people it gave them the means to return home. For the rest, we stayed here with people we had grown to respect and started fresh. I think we worked together over 6 months before Herr Anderson was transferred back home.” Dresner leaned forward and winked. “I still have my pistol. He didn’t even take our sidearms. That is the kind of man he is.”
Dietz nodded and looked at Anderson with a deeper respect.
Anderson laughed it off. “Hell, I was just a member of the Corps of Engineers. I had been sent in to find the same places this guy was trying to destroy. He made my job easier. Besides, there were only six of us in my unit. He had over twenty. It would have been a bad day.”
Again the men laughed as they remembered the past. After almost an hour, they had to get back to work. “Al, some of the men and I are going to get together in two nights at the beer hall. Why don’t you join us there?” Dresner suggested.
“Rolf, that would be fun. My son Eric has always had questions about what happened after the war. He’d like to meet the guys.”
“That little baby you had photos of is here too? I would like to meet him,” Dresner said.
“Eric’s all grown up now, Rolf, getting his engineering degree this spring. He’s actually taking us flying tomorrow morning. He wanted to see the Alps from a different angle. He’s a good kid,” said Anderson with pride.
“Then bring him along. We should all be there by 8 pm. We will save you a place,” Dresner said.
The men all shook hands warmly. The evening promised to be one of the happiest many would remember.