by Dean Hughes
“Yes. I’ll remember that.” Brother Stoltz hesitated, and then he added, “Georg, were you able to learn anything about my son?”
“Yes. A little. The Gestapo is looking for him. They have printed a description, and all agents are to watch for him.”
“Was this recent?”
“It is a current bulletin.”
“Then he’s not in jail?”
“I only know what I’ve just told you. He seems to be on the run, and the Gestapo wants to find him.”
“Then he must have escaped. I know they had him at one time.”
“It must be so.”
The two men stood facing each other. They both knew they should not linger. But Brother Stoltz wanted desperately to get a lead, to have some idea where to look. “How can I find him?” he asked Georg.
“I have no idea. But I have thought about this. A young man his age–healthy and strong–cannot walk the streets of any city, any village, in this country. He would be stopped and checked for his papers. If he could show that he was in the military, and on leave, he would be all right. But otherwise, he would be arrested.”
“Maybe someone is hiding him. It’s what he’s had to do before.”
“Perhaps. Maybe he found someone. But the only safe thing for a boy on the run would be to sign up with the military. Few questions are asked these days when someone is willing to serve.”
“I don’t think Peter would join the German army. That’s the last thing he would want to do.”
“That may be true. You know him better than I do. But it’s the best place to hide. Recruiters are the only people these days who are perfectly willing to accept any explanation for lost papers–so long as they can fill their quotas of new recruits.”
That did make sense to Brother Stoltz, but he still doubted that Peter would take that step. It was an idea, however–something to begin with.
“Thank you, Georg,” Brother Stoltz said, and he shook the man’s hand.
Georg breathed, and steam escaped his mouth in a little puff. “I wish I could do more,” he said. “What will you do with my information? I don’t want it traced back to me.”
“I’m to make contact with a radio dispatcher. I will give the papers to him. And he will destroy them once he has passed on the information.”
“Then you should get out, if you have a way,” Georg said. “There is almost no way to trace your son. You would be better off now to wait until the war is over–and then begin your search. It sounds as though he’s managing for himself for now.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” Brother Stoltz said. He shook Georg’s hand. “Good luck to you,” he said. “And may God bless you.”
Georg made a quick bow as he shook hands, and he clicked his heels in the traditional German manner. Brother Stoltz knew what it had cost this man, so deeply German, to hand over this envelope.
Brother Stoltz thought he would accept Georg’s advice. He would carefully go about his business–and not take chances by seeking Peter. But that night in bed, as he struggled to sleep, his body aching from the broken bones he had suffered at the hands of the Gestapo, he was sickened by the idea of giving up. He began to consider a plan, a means at least to discover whether Peter really was in the German army.
On the following morning, Brother Stoltz walked into an office of the German military that was housed not far from where he had once worked in downtown Berlin. He knew he was taking a great chance to be seen in the area, but he felt he had to make this much effort before he stopped searching. He understood the operation of German bureaucracy, and he felt certain that he could bluff his way through the system and get to the files he wanted to see.
He stepped to the counter in the records office, and he showed his identification card, the one that placed him in the Sicherheits Dienst–the secret police. “Excuse me,” he said, “but can you help me? I am Officer Wetzel. I am trying to track down a traitor–a soldier who left his military company without permission.”
A woman behind the counter, sitting at a desk, looked up from some papers and took her glasses off. She seemed tired, uninterested. She was middle-aged, with graying hair, but her eyes made her seem elderly. She got up slowly and walked to the counter, and then she glanced at the identification. “How can I help you?”
“I simply want to check some records.”
The woman seemed ready to ask another question, and then she nodded. “It doesn’t matter to me,” she said. “What do you want to see?”
“Recruiting records for August and September, perhaps October, of this year.”
“For what city?”
“Let me start with records from southern Germany.”
“Can’t you be more specific than that? There are dozens of record books.”
“I’m sorry. I can only guess that he might have joined in a southern city.”
She didn’t look pleased. “I’ll have to look around a little. Those are still new records to us. We can’t keep up here, with so little help. We make permanent records, in time, but I doubt that’s the case yet for August and September names.”
“I understand. I’ll do the search myself.” Brother Stoltz found himself sounding a little too kind, not as commanding as he thought he should be. But he did feel sorry for the overworked woman.
“We have no space,” the woman said. “The building was bombed last summer, and now we’re all pushed together in these offices. You’ll have to come to the records room. There’s not even a place to sit down in there.”
“I’ll manage,” Brother Stoltz said, sounding a little more curt this time.
He walked to a back room with the woman. Many of the records were in ledger books, on shelves, but others were stacked about, or still in boxes. The woman searched them out and kept bringing them to him. Brother Stoltz stood in a corner, near a window, where the light was decent, and he read the many names. The sad part was, he had no idea what he was looking for. He thought of the pseudonyms Peter had used when the Stoltzes were hiding, but he doubted he would revert to those. He wondered whether Peter wouldn’t want to keep his first name, or whether he wouldn’t choose to use his own birth date–but he didn’t know.
An hour went by, and Brother Stoltz saw names that might have had some vague connection to their family, but he saw nothing that stood out as a sure thing. What he was beginning to accept was that this was the fruitless chase he had assumed it might be. And then, looking in the Stuttgart ledgers, he saw the name Peter Stutz. His eyes stopped, of course, and he looked more carefully. And then he saw the clue that convinced him this was the right name. The birth date was not Peter’s. He had chosen a year that made him younger than he really was–which made sense. But the day and month were Anna’s. It would only make sense that he would choose a birthday he would be able to remember easily.
So Brother Stoltz walked back to the outer office. “I think I’ve found the name I’m looking for,” he told the woman. “Is there a way to determine what unit this person is serving with?”
“Not here. Down the hall.” She directed Brother Stoltz to another office.
Brother Stoltz had assumed his role rather well by now, he thought, and he seemed to have the woman’s confidence. He wasn’t worried all that much as he approached the new office. But here a man checked his identity card more carefully. And then he said, “What is it you want?” as though he doubted the SD had any business looking into his files.
The man appeared healthy enough, and yet he was here and not out fighting somewhere, so Brother Stoltz guessed that he might have been wounded. He said, “I’m sorry. It’s my job. I was hurt last year at the Eastern front. They told me they didn’t want me in the army anymore, and they gave me this duty, doing work for the SD. I know I can be a bother to men like you who have business to take care of.”
The man looked surprised. He was a thin man with little hair even for eyebrows. His dark eyes seemed piercing, sitting in the pale wasteland of his face. “Yes. I took a bullet my
self, near Kiev. Otherwise, this is the last job in the world I would be doing. What is it you need?” He sounded more at ease now.
“I have the name of a recruit.” He held out a slip of paper with Peter’s name, birth date, and service number on it. “He’s reported now as absent without leave. But I think, in fact, he may be missing in action. Is there any way to know his unit, and where it’s fighting now?”
The man took the slip of paper from Brother Stoltz and said, “But why wouldn’t you know this? Who reported him missing?”
“Who knows? It’s the usual sort of foul-up. They ask me to check out these things, and half the time they give me no information.”
The man shook his head, some of the annoyance returning to his face. “Let me look. But I may not be able to tell you very much.” He walked from the room. He was gone for quite some time, and while he was gone, Brother Stoltz had time to become nervous. He was wearing an overcoat still, and holding his hat in his hand. He found himself pacing back and forth.
When the official returned, he announced, “The boy is with the Grossdeutschland Division. Seventeenth Battalion. They were fighting, when last known, near Lublin, in Poland.”
“What do you mean, ‘When last known’?” Brother Stoltz asked.
“Oh, mein Herr, you must know, all is in chaos in that sector. Our men are retreating, holding on, then falling back again. It’s a terrible mess.”
“Is there no way to find out exactly where they are?”
“What difference does it make to you? Whether he’s on the run from his own battalion, or from the Russians, he took off from someplace other than where they are now.”
“Yes. But I would like to have some idea of where he could be–or where I could look for him.”
“You would go look for him?”
“No. Of course not. Not myself. I’m merely . . .” But Brother Stoltz knew he had to be careful. He was forgetting his role.
“If I were you, I’d send someone to check his home. He’s just a young boy. That’s where he might run to.”
“Yes, yes. That will be done.”
“Why didn’t you search there first?”
“I’m only just beginning to . . . look into this.”
“It’s crazy. They give you no more information than his name and service number? What fool sent you out on such a search? I’ve never heard of such a thing. This is all handled by military police, in my experience. They stop boys on the street, check their identity cards. There’s none of this searching around in records, trying to trace them back to their unit.”
“Yes, it seemed . . . inefficient to me, too.” Brother Stoltz knew it was time to get out. He was only creating suspicion now, but he had a lead and no way to follow it. “Is there an office here somewhere that keeps closer track of troop movements? Is there a way to locate this boy’s unit more precisely?”
The man stared at Brother Stoltz for several seconds before he said, “This doesn’t make sense to me. You want to know things that shouldn’t matter to you. I don’t like the sound of this.”
“It’s only . . . oh, my, never mind. I’ll do as you say. I’ll let the police know, in the little village where he lives. They can be on the watch for him.”
“This all makes me nervous. I’ve never heard of anyone being taken on by the SD the way you describe. That’s not how these people work. I wonder why you want this information.”
“Nothing to be nervous about. I won’t bother you anymore.” Brother Stoltz turned to walk away.
“Wait a moment. Tell me your name again.”
“Heitz,” Brother Stoltz said. “Alfred Heitz.” But as the words left his lips, he realized what he had done. He had used the pseudonym he had been using the past few days since entering Germany, but not Wetzel–the name on the identification card. That was his second identity, the one he was planning to use mainly for his escape from Germany.
“What?” the man said. “Let me see your identification again.”
“It’s no matter. Thank you for your time. I’ll manage things from here.” He was moving away, edging toward the door.
“No. Wait a moment. Come back here.”
The man was coming out from behind his desk as Brother Stoltz glanced back the last time. He kept right on walking, quickly, but trying not to seem on the run.
The man burst from the office. “Stop right there!” he called.
“No, thank you. You’ve done enough.” Brother Stoltz waved and smiled and kept going. In a few more seconds he was out the door. But he glanced back, and he saw the man step back into his office, surely to make a phone call.
Brother Stoltz hurried down the street to the subway station on the corner. But he hadn’t realized that the station had been struck by a bomb and was closed. He glanced around frantically, and then, when he looked back toward the office building, he saw that the man he had dealt with there had walked outside. He was waving to Brother Stoltz, calling him back. Brother Stoltz walked around the corner and then began to run.
Chapter 19
Heinrich Stoltz ran halfway down the block, crossed a street, and cut through an alley. But rubble from a bombed building obstructed the alley at the other end. By the time he saw that, he was well into the trap. Now he had to retrace his steps and go back to the street. He ran again, turned another corner, and looked back to see a car coming down the street. There were few vehicles on the streets these days, and Brother Stoltz knew this couldn’t be good news. He slowed to a walk. He was passing another area where there was nothing but hollow, gutted structures, but as he reached the door to the next operating building, he turned and walked in and then hurried down the hallway to the first office he saw.
Brother Stoltz was frantic, but he was trying to keep himself under control. When he stepped inside the office, he could see that this was another bureau of some kind. “I was hoping to see your supervisor,” he told a woman, a secretary, who was sitting at a small desk. He had to gamble that she would do things the way most secretaries did.
“Yes. And who should I say wants to see him?”
“Siegfried Schultz,” he said, using the name of an old friend of his.
“Does he know what this is about?”
“Oh, certainly.”
“Just sit down a moment. He has someone else in his office right now.” She was a pleasant-looking young woman, with big round eyes, and she smiled in such a friendly way that Brother Stoltz felt ashamed to have lied to her. But things were working out as he had hoped. He wanted to stay in the office for now. He feared that the people in the car would follow him inside.
After only a few minutes a man came out of the main office, and the secretary got up and walked inside. When she came out, she said, “He’ll see you now, Herr Schultz. But you’ll have to tell him what it’s about.”
Brother Stoltz stood up and was about to tell her never mind, when she walked into a back office. He stepped to the office door and then noticed a black coat hanging on a hall tree. His own coat and hat were brown. He quickly pulled his coat off, hung it up, along with his hat, and then grabbed the black one. As he put it on, he could tell immediately that it was all wrong for him–too long and too tight. He pulled it off and merely draped it over his arm. Then he stepped outside the office and walked calmly toward the front doors. He was almost to the entrance when he realized what he had done. He had left his SD identification card in the brown coat. He stopped, tried to think. Did he dare to go back?
But just then a man in a leather coat pushed his way through the door. The man–surely a Gestapo agent–took a hard look at him, and Brother Stoltz said, “Guten Tag, mein Herr.”
The agent nodded in his direction and seemed ready to pass on by, but then he stopped and said, “Didn’t you just enter this building a few minutes ago?”
“No. I’ve been here for quite some time.”
“You didn’t have a hat on?”
“No. I’m sorry.” Brother Stoltz smiled and tried to walk away.
“Wait just a moment. What were you doing here? Do you work here?”
“No. I had some business in an office in this building. I work down the street.”
“Were you in the military records office just a short time ago?”
“No.”
The man eyed him carefully. His prominent forehead gave him something of a Neanderthal look, but his eyes, appearing almost black under his heavy eyebrows, were intent and clear. “What were you doing here?”
“Just the usual bureaucratic nonsense. My boss sent me down to check on a trivial matter.”
“What trivial matter?” The agent stepped closer and hunched his shoulders, seeming more diabolic than before.
“It was really just one of those . . .” Brother Stoltz stepped back a little so that he was partway through the door, but he still had hold of it. “ . . . complicated record-keeping issues. It’s not easy to explain.”
“What’s your name? Step back in here and show me your identification papers.”
“Schultz is my name,” Brother Stoltz said, “but I’ll have to be going now.” He took another step back.
“I told you. Come inside. Immediately.”
“No.”
As the agent stepped forward, Brother Stoltz drove the door into him. Some of the force of the big door was absorbed by the man’s knee, but it struck him in the face too, cracked it hard. The man went down.
Brother Stoltz took off running, directly across the street. He glanced back to see no one coming yet, and he rushed into the first building he came to. He hurried on through, found a back door, and went out. He was in an alley. What he found when he came out of the alley was a whole street that had been demolished by bombs. He was suddenly standing in a wilderness of rubble where he would stand out like a tree on an open plain. But it was too late to go back, so he ran the length of the street and then turned toward a street filled with apartment houses, mostly intact. By now the agent might be up and looking for him. Other agents would be called in. Brother Stoltz knew he couldn’t be seen on the streets, certainly not running.