1503954692

by Steve Robinson

  ‘Like this, Günther?’ Erich kicked the boy again, and this time it felt as if the blow had cracked a rib.

  ‘That’s it,’ Günther said with obvious satisfaction. ‘The strong dominate the weak. Remember that.’ He was suddenly towering over the defenceless boy. ‘What’s your name?’

  The boy spat blood at him. A moment later he felt a tug at the neck of his shirt as his head and shoulders were pulled up, only to be smashed back down again by Günther’s fist. Laughter rang in the boy’s ears. Another blow sent his head crashing into the parquet floor that lined the corridor he had previously been running along on his way to class. He wanted to cry, but he didn’t. Had his father been there, he knew he would have beaten him all the harder if he had. Instead, he rolled onto his side and curled his knees up to his chest in supplication.

  Then, through the blood in his eyes, he saw a pair of knee-length white socks striding towards him, and a pair of black shorts and a brown shirt like his own. It was another boy of about his age approaching along the otherwise empty corridor. Their eyes met, and even while he was being kicked repeatedly in the back, by all three of the older boys for all he knew, the boy couldn’t take his eyes off the newcomer.

  The approaching boy called out. ‘Hey, Blödmann!’

  The kicking stopped and somehow the pain in the boy’s back and ribs seemed to intensify.

  ‘Who’s this, then?’ Günther said. ‘Has your little brother come to help you?’ He laughed. ‘We’ll soon see who the stupid one is. It’s still three against two, and we’re older and stronger.’

  The size and strength of the opposition seemed to make no difference to the newcomer, who was suddenly in their midst, standing with his hands on his hips in a defiant, mocking posture.

  ‘And what are you going to do, little man?’ Günther continued. ‘Do you want some of the same med—’

  Günther wasn’t allowed to finish his sentence. The newcomer cracked his fist into Günther’s nose with such speed and determination, it would have been impossible to see it coming. The other two boys backed away, as though suddenly less sure of themselves.

  Günther quickly recovered. He wiped the blood from his nose and studied it momentarily before looking up again. ‘You’re going to pay for that!’ He lunged at the newcomer and landed a glancing blow to his chin, jolting his head sideways. Then Günther leapt at him and pulled him to the ground. ‘Can you wrestle, little man?’

  The newcomer lashed out again, but this time his punch was easily blocked.

  ‘I’m a very good wrestler,’ Günther said as he twisted his legs around the other boy and rolled him over, pinning him onto his back.

  The newcomer jabbed again, and now he cut his opponent’s lip. He threw another punch, but any advantage he might have had was fleeting.

  Günther blocked him again and he knelt on his upper arms, immobilising them. ‘See how you like this,’ he said, and then he began to rain blow after blow into the newcomer’s face, like a blacksmith hammering steel, until his knuckles were wet with blood.

  Beside them, the boy stirred. He sat up and the pain in his ribs caused him to wince and clutch his side. He saw Günther’s friends move closer and he knew he would not be allowed to help this bright-haired boy who had come to his aid. He could do no more than watch and hope that the bully would soon let up. Blow after blow continued to fall until the boy saw the fight go from the newcomer. He had stopped bucking and twisting, and his head seemed limp now as it rocked from side to side as Günther kept hitting him. The boy thought Günther would never let up. He thought he was going to kill the newcomer if he didn’t do something. He was about to, for what good he thought it would do, but the beating suddenly stopped. Günther seemed to freeze mid-blow.

  He groaned. ‘Oh, Scheisse!’

  Very slowly Günther began to fall sideways towards the boy. He landed heavily just a few feet from him, and it was then that the boy saw the reason he had stopped the beating. Protruding from his side was the unmistakable black and polished nickel plate handle of the newcomer’s Hitler Youth dagger.

  The newcomer began to move again. He slowly sat up, blood in his teeth and all over his face from the beating he’d just taken. He kicked Günther’s legs away from him and the other two boys who had been with him turned and ran for the doors at the end of the corridor.

  The newcomer got to his feet. ‘You must learn to stand up for yourself—show your enemies you’re not scared. I’ll teach you.’ He straightened his shirt and tie. ‘Well, are you just going to sit there all day?’ He extended his arm to help the boy up. ‘I’m Volker. Volker Strobel.’

  ‘Johann Langner,’ the boy said. ‘Is he dead?’

  Volker kicked Günther and he groaned again. ‘He’ll live. He’s probably just in shock, that’s all.’

  Günther stirred and tried to remove the dagger from his side.

  ‘You should leave that,’ Volker said. ‘If you take it out, you’ll bleed to death.’ To Johann, he added. ‘It’s true. I’ve seen it happen.’

  Johann scrunched his brow. ‘You have?’

  Volker nodded. ‘It was a pig, but what’s the difference?’ He turned back to Günther. ‘Lie still, Schweinchen, or you’ll make things worse.’

  Volker took Johann’s arm. ‘Come on. We should leave.’

  Johann resisted. ‘He could still die.’

  ‘He’ll be fine.’

  ‘Why did you stab him?’

  ‘I had to do something. He was going to kill me, I swear it. Now let’s go. His friends saw what happened. They’ll soon come back with help, and then I’ll be in trouble.’

  ‘No,’ Johann said. ‘We can’t leave him.’

  Volker sighed. He seemed to think about it. ‘All right then, as we’re going to be friends I’ll stay and take my punishment. But only for you. Only because you want me too. How’s that for friendship?’

  Johann didn’t know how to respond, so he gave no reply. In truth, he thought Volker Strobel an odd boy, but he didn’t dare tell him so.

  ‘My family are from Austria, but my parents live in Munich now,’ Volker said. ‘Do your parents live in Munich?’

  ‘No, Dresden.’ Johann scrunched his brow. ‘Why do you want to be friends?’

  ‘Perhaps it’s because you remind me of myself.’

  ‘How?’

  Volker smiled. ‘We both have fair hair and blue eyes, don’t we?’

  Johann laughed. It made his lip hurt. ‘So does half the academy.’

  ‘That’s true, but I just took a beating for you, didn’t I? That makes us friends.’

  ‘Does it?’

  Volker nodded with enthusiasm. ‘Of course it does, Blödmann. And besides, you owe me now. We’ll have to remain friends at least until you can pay me back.’

  The door at the end of the corridor slammed open then and Günther’s friends returned. Pacing ahead of them was Scharführer Henkel, one of the squad leaders.

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll tell them you came to my rescue,’ Johann said. ‘I’ll tell them how brave you were.’

  ‘I’m not worried. If I am in trouble, my father will sort it out.’

  ‘How will he do that?’

  ‘He’s an important man in the party. He knows people—important people. He can pull strings.’

  ‘Let’s hope he doesn’t have to,’ Johann said, and as the Scharführer arrived, he thought again how odd Volker Strobel was, and how interesting he supposed their friendship was going to be.

  Chapter Three

  Present day.

  A knock at the door to Johann Langner’s private room at the German Heart Centre interrupted the nonagenarian’s recollections of Volker Strobel. A moment later the door opened and a woman Tayte put in her mid-fifties entered. She was wearing white trousers and a light-green nurse’s tunic, and Langner’s face lit up at the sight of her.

  ‘Ingrid! You have returned to me at last. I was about to send Christoph to look for you.’

  ‘Es ist Zeit für I
hre Pillen,’ she said, her lips barely moving as she spoke.

  ‘In English, if you please, Ingrid,’ Langner said. ‘We have company. This is Herr Tayte and Professor Summer. They have come to examine the skeletons in my closet.’ He laughed as he turned to Tayte and Jean and winked at them. At least, Tayte thought it was a wink. It was difficult to tell on account of Langner only having one eye. ‘Herr Tayte … Professor Summer … this is meine Lebensretterin, my lifesaver, Ingrid Keller. In case you’re not so familiar with the German language, she’s telling me that it’s time for my pills.’

  Keller did not respond to Langner’s witticism. She simply tutted and poured him a glass of water. ‘Here.’ She offered a fistful of tablets to Langner and waited as he put half of them into his mouth at once. She passed him the water. ‘Swallow.’

  She was very direct, Tayte thought, and thus far a woman of few words. Her features were decidedly masculine. She was stockily built with thick forearms and a square jawline that framed an unadorned, no nonsense face. Even her black hair was styled like a man’s, so short it was almost a buzz-cut. Tayte figured it was at least a hygienic hairstyle for a nurse to have. He watched Langner swallow the last of his pills, and then he looked on in fascination as Keller began to massage his throat.

  ‘Did the boy die?’ Tayte asked as soon as the massaging stopped. ‘The boy Strobel stabbed?’

  ‘No,’ Langner said. ‘That is to say, he did not die then.’ He paused as Keller moved away and sat in front of the ECG monitor, where she began checking what appeared to be the recent activity logs. ‘Volker had inflicted no more than a flesh wound to the older boy’s side,’ Langner continued. ‘But instead of being punished for it, he was rewarded for bravery, would you believe? Against the odds, he had come gallantly to the aid of a fallen Kamerad and single-handedly defeated the bullies. No, it was the older boys who were punished. Fighting was tolerated, even encouraged, but these boys had shown themselves to be cowards, and that most certainly was not tolerated. The boy Volker stabbed, however, did not forget the incident. It set up a bitter rivalry that would see him dead within a year.’

  ‘Strobel killed him?’ Jean asked.

  ‘The report showed Günther’s death to be an accident. He was apparently running with his dagger drawn—every boy in the Hitlerjugend carried one on his hip. He tripped and fell and the knife pierced his heart, killing him instantly. At least, that is how it appeared, but I know better. I had no part in it, but Volker used to talk about how he was going to sort him out. Afterwards, he made no secret of what he’d done, and of course, his reputation grew.’

  ‘If you don’t mind me saying so,’ Tayte said. ‘Volker Strobel seems an odd choice of friend. And a best friend at that.’

  ‘Odd, yes, he was certainly that, but we soon settled down to our education and training—our continued indoctrination in national socialist ideology—and in those early days I looked up to Volker. He had saved me from a terrible beating on my first day at the Hitlerjugend-Akademie, and he was so very charismatic that it was difficult not to be swept along with him. Besides, he had chosen me as his friend, and believe me, I would not have wished to be his enemy. That came much later.’

  ‘Yes, you said you fell out,’ Tayte said. ‘You mentioned a girl.’

  Langner sighed and sank his head back onto his pillow. ‘Ah, there is always a girl, isn’t there?’

  Tayte glanced at Jean and she returned a coy smile. A year ago, he would have given a very different answer, but now he simply nodded in agreement and said, ‘What was her name?’

  ‘Her name was Ava Bauer,’ Langner said. ‘She had the softest dark blonde hair and a smile that made me want to know everything about her. She was a little older than Volker and me, but our education had matured us beyond our years by the time I met her.’ He paused thoughtfully. ‘That was in November 1938. I was twenty and she had just turned twenty-one. She lived in Munich on a quiet little street in the southwest district of Sendling.’

  ‘Were you still in the Hitler Youth?’ Jean asked.

  ‘Yes, it was all either of us knew. Many boys joined the ranks of the SS or SA when they turned eighteen, but because the Hitlerjugend needed leadership, some of us were encouraged to stay on. We had both progressed along the chain of command by the time we met Ava. We were each responsible for thousands of boys, and I know the power had intoxicated Volker. By the time the war broke out a year later, the ranks of the Hitlerjugend had swollen to over eight million. If we had not remained, I’m sure I would never have met Ava, and seeing her for the first time remains one of the highlights of my life. In more ways than one it was another unforgettable encounter. You see, we met on Kristallnacht.’

  Chapter Four

  Munich. 9 November 1938. Kristallnacht.

  The chill November air caused a shiver to run through Johann Langner, despite the sight of the flames that were licking out from the synagogue windows in the near distance on Herzog-Max-Strasse, which appeared intensely bright against the fading afternoon sky. He stamped his feet and blew warm air into his hands as he continued to survey the scene: the smashed doors and broken windows, the stormtroopers and older members of the Hitler Youth, such as himself, running here and there in their brown shirts, carrying knives and broom handles. Some also had axes to smash down any door whose Jewish owner refused to open it.

  ‘This is wrong, Volker.’

  ‘They are Jews,’ Volker said with disdain. ‘Untermenschen! Subhumans who will destroy our entire way of life if we let them.’

  Johann shook his head. ‘They are citizens of Germany, Volker. It’s the Bolsheviks who threaten our way of life, not the Jews.’

  Following the recent assassination of a senior diplomat at the German Embassy in Paris, Ernst vom Rath, by a Polish Jew called Herschel Grynszpan, notice had been given for a nationwide riot in retaliation—a pogrom against Jews all over Germany and its annexed territories. Alongside the SA or Sturmabteilung—the assault division known as ‘stormtroopers’—the Hitler Youth were to join in, and since Johann and Volker were now adult leaders within the organisation it was their duty to take part. At least, that was how Volker saw it.

  ‘You have to do something now you’re here,’ Volker said. ‘The other leaders will talk. They’ll say you like the Jews.’

  ‘I don’t care. This is going too far. I’ll have no part in it.’

  ‘Here, take this.’ Volker handed Johann an empty bottle. ‘Throw it at that shop window. Surely that won’t affect your conscience too much. See, the glass is already broken.’

  Johann took the bottle. He gazed at it thoughtfully for a moment, and then he dropped it. ‘I won’t do it.’

  ‘Hey, Strobel! Langner!’

  The two friends turned to see a young man they had known well while earning their achievement badges as they moved up through the ranks of the Hitler Youth. They had not seen him since he turned eighteen and became an SA stormtrooper. He was with several other men, all of whom were armed with a weapon or blunt instrument of some kind. They were not all dressed in the brown shirts of the SA. Some had been instructed to wear casual clothing to make it look as though the German people had risen up in anger against the Jews for the assassination earlier that month, rather than a coordinated effort by the Nazi regime to help deal with die Judenfrage—the Jewish Question.

  ‘Heinrich!’ Volker called back, smiling. ‘What a night this is going to be, eh? I hear the Gestapo have already made a great many arrests.’

  Heinrich came over. ‘Yes, it will be a night to remember so that we can tell our grandchildren about it when we’re all grey-haired and toothless! How is it you’re not with your units?’

  Volker laughed. He put a hand on Johann’s shoulder. ‘It seems my friend’s lunch has disagreed with him. He’s feeling sick.’

  At hearing that, the angular features of Heinrich’s face creased in disbelief. ‘You’re queasy, Johann? A strong fighter like you?’ He slapped Johann’s back. ‘I won’t believe it.’
>
  Johann offered him only a weak smile in return, as if to corroborate the lie.

  ‘Look, now it’s me who’s falling behind,’ Heinrich said. ‘I’ll see you.’

  ‘Wait,’ Volker said. ‘We’ll come with you. We were about to rejoin the party anyway.’ He threw Johann a serious stare. ‘Weren’t we, my friend?’

  Johann raised his eyebrows apologetically. ‘I’ll be along shortly. Perhaps a few more minutes.’

  Heinrich laughed again. ‘You must have it very bad. It’s a pity. You’re missing all the fun.’

  Johann watched them leave, thinking it no pity at all. Whatever the consequences, he would sooner stay where he was, in a street where it appeared no more damage could be done. Somewhere in the near distance the shouting suddenly grew louder and he covered his ears. It made little difference. Another window shattered, and above it all came the high-pitched wailing of women and children as another Jewish home or business was raided. It reaffirmed Johann’s resolve to have no part in it. He began walking back along the street, away from the flaming synagogue that was now all but indistinguishable amidst the consuming flames and the onset of night. He was leaving, and to hell with it.

  But fate, it seemed, had other plans for him.

  A scream so close that it startled him rang shrill in his ears and he turned back. His eyes quickly scanned the buildings, some now with lights at their windows, others in darkness. Where had the sound come from? It was a woman’s cry, of that he was certain, or perhaps it was a child. His strides grew longer until he was almost at a sprint, wondering why, on this of all nights, he should care. And yet, he could not help himself.

  Another sound drew his attention. He heard raised voices to his left, and then an upstairs light above a watchmaker’s shop caught his eye as someone moved in front of it, momentarily blocking the window. The business clearly belonged to a Jewish family. The walkway outside was littered with broken glass and other items that had been destroyed and hurled out. The scream came again and Johann ran in through what remained of the smashed-in entrance door. The voices became louder and he fought his way across the debris towards the lighted stairway he could see at the back of the shop. He began to climb the stairs and was met by two Hitler Youth boys who were hurrying down. He thought them no more than fifteen years old, and they were each carrying an assortment of household items that clearly did not belong to them. They must have recognised the HJ-Bannführer insignia on Johann’s shirt, because they both froze at seeing him.