Robert Conroy

by Red Inferno: 1945: A Novel

  “Gentlemen, I have no weapons.”

  “Then what the hell do you want?” snapped Leland.

  “My name is Wolfgang von Schumann and I would like to talk to the general. I have several questions and some few suggestions in which I might be of assistance to you.”

  “Where’d you lose the leg?” Miller asked. From his bearing, he had deduced that the man was likely a German officer.

  “Stalingrad.”

  “You’re a Nazi?” Miller continued.

  “Yes. At least I was.”

  Miller laughed grimly and Leland joined in. “Jesus Christ,” said Miller, “I knew there had to be at least one of you in Germany. Everybody we talk to says that they never were Nazis although all of their neighbors were. At least you’re somewhat of an honest man. Now, what were your questions?”

  Wolfgang gestured behind him, where a number of disheveled civilians were gathered, watching him talk to the American general.

  “Somehow, General Miller, I have become the leader of several hundred refugees, with more gathering by me each day. I help them collect and distribute food and clothing, and try to ensure that they have shelter until they can somehow find their way to their homes. I might add that not all the refugees are Germans. Some are forced laborers, while others are slave laborers from other countries who have been freed as a result of the upheavals around us. I even have a number of Jews who were in concentration camps and have managed to escape in the chaos.”

  “Great,” Miller said. “I am sincerely glad that someone is taking care of them. Now, what was your question?”

  “Since we are in your area of control and unable to leave, we will shortly be without resources. When that time comes, I have a simple question—will you feed us?”

  Miller blinked. “Shit. What would happen if I asked you to leave?” he asked, thinking of the additional strain the growing number of refugees would put on his limited resources. And there had to be many more than the few hundred von Schumann was referring to.

  Von Schumann gestured with his hands. “It would be the same as shooting us. In fact, shooting us would be a great favor. The Russians would kill every one of us, every man, woman, and child, regardless of age. The men might die quickly, but the women’s deaths would be lingering and horrible. And God only knows what they would do to the children.”

  Miller was not surprised. He had been hearing stories of unbelievable atrocities committed by the Russians as reprisal for the barbarities inflicted upon their people by the Nazis. He had no love for the Germans, but neither did he want to be responsible for the deaths of civilians. Not directly, at least.

  “All right,” he said grudgingly, “your people can stay and I will do my best to get you enough food and medical supplies. But your people get theirs after my boys go first.”

  Even as he said it, Miller knew it was an empty statement. He had already seen GIs giving food to hungry German children, and the inevitable bartering system would start up shortly. He would have to issue a nonfraternization order and hope his troops paid at least some attention to it. A realist, he knew they probably wouldn’t.

  “You said you had suggestions, von Schumann?”

  “General, I believe a number of my civilians have skills that you can use during your unintended stay here in Potsdam. For instance, did you take any prisoners during the battle?”

  Miller looked at Leland. “Half a dozen,” Leland responded, thinking angrily of the thousands of missing Americans.

  “Have you interrogated them?”

  “No,” Leland responded.

  “And why not?”

  “Because,” Leland snapped, “we don’t have a single fucking soul who speaks Russian. A couple of the Russian prisoners are too badly hurt to talk, but the others just sit there and smile at us and eat our food.”

  Von Schumann smiled. “I know of several displaced workers in my flock who are from the Soviet Union. Russian is their native tongue and they have learned out of necessity to speak German. They will translate Russian to German and we have several people who speak English.”

  Miller’s mind raced. He would dearly love to know what orders the few Russians he held had been given prior to the attack. The answers to that sort of question might end all that bullshit about the attack being a mistake.

  “I’ll take your translators,” Miller said, “if they speak English as well as you do. Where did you learn it?”

  Von Schumann laughed, something he hadn’t done much of lately. “Thank you, General, but in Europe it is virtually essential that an educated person be conversant in at least one language other than one’s own. I also speak French and can get by in Spanish.”

  Miller cringed inwardly. The kraut was right. Everyone spoke more than one language in Europe. He sometimes considered himself barely adequate in English.

  “General,” von Schumann continued, “I have a number of other people who can serve as medical assistants, cooks, laborers, and such to free your people from some of those tasks. I have been watching your soldiers dig trenches. Wouldn’t you like to have some of my people digging for you and earning their food?”

  Von Schumann was offering a trade, and it was an easy decision to make. Food for labor while his men did the important work of preparing for battle. “Okay,” said Miller, surprising himself by holding out his hand to von Schumann. It just seemed the right thing to do. “You’re on.”

  Miller hopped in the front seat of the jeep and gestured for von Schumann to get in behind him. “Von Schumann, when you were a Nazi up at Stalingrad, just what did you do there?”

  “I commanded a Panzer unit. A brigade of tanks.”

  “Against the Russians?” It was a foolish question, Miller realized. Who else would have been there?

  “Certainly.”

  “Von Schumann, I think we should have a long talk fairly shortly.”

  ELISABETH HAD GOOD days and bad days. Until earlier, she thought her life was getting better. Her body no longer ached very much and she was able to think clearly at least most of the time. Survival no longer seemed laughably impossible.

  Lis had been fortunate. She had been spared much of the horrors of the siege of Berlin. She had lived in her late parents’ apartment on the outskirts and had to endure only a little of the bombing and, more recently, the incessant shelling from Red Army artillery had passed her by. Of course she’d gone to the air-raid shelter on many occasions, but most of the bombs had not fallen near her home. Several times, she’d looked skyward and seen the shapes of the hosts of bombers flying overhead. She understood the routine—the Americans bombed during the day and the British at night. Like everyone in Berlin, it was clearly evident that the city was defenseless. The Luftwaffe was nonexistent. She’d known some young men who’d been pilots and wondered if they still lived. Likely not, she thought.

  On the radio, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels told his shrinking world that the Allied bombers weren’t enough to frighten the German people. Well, Lis thought, they were certainly enough to frighten her. Even at a distance, the shock waves could be felt and the clouds and fire and smoke were clearly visible. Berlin was a city in agony and she could feel the pain.

  She recalled seeing a painting of what an artist thought was Hell and concluded that the people in the center of Berlin were living there.

  When an occasional bomb did land near her home, she immediately went to the site to help as much as she could. She was far from alone in that effort as her neighbors all pitched in to help out. Sometimes, however, it was futile, as the mangled bodies of the dead were pulled from the debris, or the screaming maimed and injured were loaded into improvised ambulances and driven to overcrowded and understaffed hospitals that also lacked even rudimentary supplies.

  She’d considered herself lucky until the food began to run out. She’d joined others in picking through garbage and in the ruins of bombed-out buildings looking for something to put in her stomach. She’d eaten things that were half-rotten and
sometimes defied identification. But first, she knew her responsibility was to feed Pauli. He got the best parts of what she scrounged.

  To the best of her knowledge, he was the only living relative that she had in Germany. She’d seen women of all ages, from the very young to the very old, prostituting themselves for food. There were hoarders in Berlin who took advantage of them and there were some soldiers who always seemed to have rations to trade. She thought she would rather die than stoop to that. A quiet voice told her that she might rather do anything than die.

  Von Schumann had saved her and she felt she was on the way to recovery. When he said he’d seen American tanks approaching them, everyone had been elated. But the Russians and the Americans had fought and the Yanks had been driven off. All her hopes had been dashed. The barbarians, the Russians, had defeated the Americans. She’d watched with growing dismay as long columns of American soldiers made their way into Potsdam. Von Schumann said that the Americans had been defeated but not destroyed. He’d explained that they had brought their wounded and their equipment, withdrawing into Potsdam in what he referred to as “good order.”

  She understood when she saw them immediately begin to dig in. They were calm and determined, and she continued to watch as the day wore on. Her emotions were like a roller coaster. The Americans were real soldiers, not the old men and boys the German army was reduced to conscripting. Perhaps there was some hope.

  “A penny for your thoughts,” von Schumann said as he sat down beside her.

  She smiled. “I think they’re worth more than that. How are your conversations with the American general going?”

  “Miller will feed us what he can and protect us as well as he is able. We will work for our keep. You might be of use doing some translating for them.”

  “Good. It will help pass the time.” Pauli had found a couple of young friends and was playing in a basement.

  Von Schumann smiled knowingly. “Would it be better than watching well-muscled young men doing heavy labor? You’re a year or two older than my daughter, but you and she are so very similar.”

  Lis actually giggled and missed the look of sadness on his face. She’d been staring at one heavily muscled young man in a T-shirt who had a shock of short-cut red hair. He was clearly in charge of a group and she thought he must be a sergeant. He was about fifty yards away and she could hear laughter. Were the Americans so confident they could laugh in the middle of a war that had turned bad for them?

  Suddenly, a screeching sound filled the air. “Get down!” yelled von Schumann. “Everyone down!”

  Lis hurled herself to the ground and all around others did as well. A second later, explosions ripped through the area, shocking and deafening her. They seemed to go on forever. They didn’t, of course. In a moment, they were over.

  Lis stared at von Schumann. “What in God’s name was that?”

  “It’s a multiple-rocket launcher called a Katyusha by the Soviets and a Stalin Organ by us. I heard it many, many times when I had two legs and was fighting them.”

  She picked herself up, wondering when the rocket assault would begin again. Von Schumann answered her unspoken question. “Unless they have a lot of them, they take a while to reload. Also, they aren’t very accurate. I don’t think this volley caused many casualties. However, they do make a horrible noise and terrify inexperienced soldiers.”

  “And civilians,” she said.

  With that, she looked to where the red-haired soldier had been working. It didn’t look like any of the Yanks in the area had been hit, and a couple were coming out of their foxholes and trenches. They were looking around and laughing nervously. There. She saw him and was relieved. She laughed at herself for worrying about someone she didn’t even know.

  She smiled to herself. “I think I should go and see how Pauli is doing.”

  • • •

  AFTER NEARLY TWO solid days of sleepless work, Steven Burke was finally allowed time to go back to his apartment and get some rest. There was real concern on the part of the higher-ups that some of the staff were being worked to exhaustion. However, instead of returning to his home, he called Natalie and she told him to come right over to her place, that she wanted to sit down and talk with him. When she said that, he wasn’t so tired anymore.

  Natalie lived in an extremely large apartment in a Victorian-style building. Because of Burke’s position in the Pentagon, he was not really affected by gas rationing and wasn’t concerned about the extra driving, although his head was bobbing drowsily by the time he arrived.

  She grabbed his arm and pulled him inside. “You look awful,” she said with a smile that softened it. “Have you slept in that uniform?”

  “If I did, I wasn’t aware of it. I’m not certain I’ve slept at all in a long time.” He checked his watch and suddenly realized it was eight in the evening and not in the morning. He had lost that much track of time.

  Natalie made them some strong, hot tea, and as he sipped the scalding brew he could feel a minimal amount of life returning to him.

  “Can you talk about what you’ve been up to?” she asked. Each knew the other was cleared for sensitive information. “I’m certain you’ve been trying to figure out what the Russians will do next.”

  Burke savored the tea, enjoying its warmth. “That is precisely what we talked about, but with no definitive conclusions. Some think the crisis is over, although it will take a lot of work to resolve it, while others think it is just beginning. I fall into that latter group. I don’t think it’s over by a long shot. I think there’s the strong possibility that a lot more blood will be spilled before we’re done.”

  Natalie nodded, shaking her long dark hair. “I agree with you. God knows where we will be a year from now. Perhaps this will result in the downfall of the Communists. I hate them,” she concluded with a sudden vehemence that surprised Steve. “Do you know why?”

  “Yes,” he said softly. “They killed your father and others in your family and took your property.”

  “But do you know how they died? Of course not. But I will remember it forever. My father’s name was Nikolai Siminov. I changed mine to Holt when my mother remarried and my new father—a wonderful, loving man who cared for us until he died a couple of years ago—adopted me. One day, a couple of years after the Revolution, the Bolshevik secret police came for innocent Nikolai Siminov, and dragged him outside screaming. They kicked and punched him while my mother and I watched through a window. When that bored them, they threw him in a car and came back in and raped my mother while I hid in a closet listening to it all. Then, days later and just when we thought we’d never see him again, they dumped him on the doorstep of the house we were sharing with a couple of dozen others like ourselves.”

  Natalie paused, and Steve saw it was difficult for her. Her hands were shaking and her eyes were tearing up. “You don’t have to do this to yourself,” he said gently. He reached over and took her hand.

  She ignored him. “My mother dragged him inside. No one else would help her and I was too small. He was a ruined man and I barely recognized him. All the bones in his face were broken. His teeth had been pulled out and there were burns and cuts all over his body. His fingernails had been ripped out and a couple of his fingers were infected stumps. Years later, my mother told me they had used red-hot pliers on his testicles. He was alive but almost totally mad with pain and fear. My mother treated him for a couple more weeks until the secret police, what is now the NKVD, came again. It seems he was released because of a bureaucratic mistake. They took him outside the building and shot him in the back of the head.” She shook slightly. “They left him there.”

  She laughed bitterly. “For all I know, his body may still be lying on the pavement. My mother and I began running at that moment and didn’t stop until we reached America. Along the way, my mother sold herself for food, for shelter, and finally, for passage to America. Yes, I love the Communists,” she said, her voice a snarl.

  She put down her tea and pulle
d out a cigarette, which Steve lit for her. It was unusual, as she rarely smoked. “I’m sorry,” Steve said. “The words are totally inadequate, but I mean them.”

  Natalie touched his cheek with her hand. “I know that you do and I thank you. That story belongs to the past, and we have the present and the future to deal with. Now, what else do you know?”

  Glad to have the topic changed, he continued on. “Well, there’s a chance I’ll be with a group going over to France to see Ike and help brief the bigwigs. That would be interesting.”

  “How exciting for you!” It was the normal Natalie speaking and it sounded wonderful.

  “Yeah. It’s hard to believe everything that’s happened to me in the last couple of weeks. Marshall knows who I am, Truman spoke to me, some dumb Russian passed me a message, and some dumber ones tried to shoot at me. That reminds me, did you hear the rumor that Korzov was sent back to the USSR?”

  “It’s true,” she said grimly, “and I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes when they get their hands on him in Moscow. They are not gentle with traitors. What they did to my father will only be his beginning. Korzov’s masters told the State Department he was ‘ill’ and they shipped him out before we could do anything about it.”

  Steve felt bad for Korzov, but he must have known the risks. “What about the rest of the Russians? Have they left too?”

  “No,” she answered. “While they have been confined to their embassy, none have been expelled. Nor are they likely to be, even if the problem becomes more serious. Thinking at State is that we need them here so we can talk more or less directly to Moscow, and somehow negotiate an end to this mess. If we send their personnel home, they will retaliate by expelling ours in Moscow, and then we will be reduced to communicating through either the Swedes or the Swiss. Frankly, we don’t trust either country all that much. They have their own agendas.”

  They talked a while longer as the night grew later. As darkness fell, the effects of the tea wore off and the urge to sleep almost overwhelmed Steve.