Robert Conroy

by Red Inferno: 1945: A Novel

  Petr Dankov, now alone in the dark sky, watched the conflagration below. He was now truly alone in a strange land, and with about half an hour’s worth of fuel and very little ammunition left. Another explosion from the ground distracted him so that he never saw the first of four RAF Spitfires, also attracted by the flames, take up position on his tail and open fire at a range of a hundred feet. He felt the bullets impact the plane and then, for a brief, final instant, his body.

  • • •

  THE CORPSE LAY where it had been found that morning. By this time the number of curious had diminished to only a couple of people and only one bored American guard was still on duty. He straightened to something resembling attention as Logan approached with Elisabeth Wolf beside him.

  “How much longer is he going to stay there, Private?”

  The soldier glanced nervously at the bloody corpse. “I’ve been told about another hour, sir. I guess somebody might want to take a picture or do some kind of an investigation. Not that it’ll do much good.”

  Elisabeth leaned over the restraining rope, stared at the dead man, and grimaced. “I remember him only slightly. Of course, back then his head wasn’t bashed in. I’m glad Pauli isn’t here to see it, although I’m afraid he’s seen much worse.”

  They had walked the short distance upon first hearing of the violent death. This was the first time that a refugee had been killed by another refugee since the siege of Potsdam had begun.

  “Lis, I’ve already heard a number of rumors. Was he a thief or something else? I heard that he was a Nazi murderer.”

  Elisabeth looked at the blood-matted blond hair of the dead man. “No. Not a thief, although there are those who say he stole people’s lives. He was identified by one of the Jews here in Potsdam as having been a concentration camp guard she’d seen about a year ago. The person who identified him recalled him as being particularly cruel and despicable, even for an SS man.”

  “And he was certain it was the same person?”

  “The woman told the others you always remember the man who kills your child.”

  Given so calmly, the comment chilled him. “Jesus.”

  “In order to be certain, I understand they sprung a trap. They waited until last night, when he went out in the dark to relieve himself, and then they called his name, the one they knew him by at the camp. Like a fool, the man responded. The Jews here in Potsdam are still weak and sick compared to others, but there were a dozen of them and they dragged him down and beat him to a bloody pulp. It didn’t take long. If anyone heard the fight or the man’s screams, they did nothing. I don’t think anybody will remember anything either.”

  Logan looked again at the body. The man’s skull was distorted, like a melon that had been dropped. There were only about a hundred Jewish refugees in the Potsdam perimeter and, understandably, they stayed together as a group and did little mingling with the others. Mostly male, with only a handful of women and no children, the Jews were thin and appeared tormented. Logan again wondered if the terrible rumors he’d been hearing about how the Nazis treated the Jews were true. They were almost too awful to believe.

  Elisabeth took his arm and pulled him away from the scene. “What happens now?” she asked.

  “Probably not much. If the man was as much of a pig as they say, the killers probably did the world a favor. Our generals might think it’s smart to separate the Jews from the others so it can’t happen again, or worse, someone might try to take revenge on them. God, what a crazy world we’re in.”

  He stopped and pulled her around so that she faced him. “Lis, did you know what was happening to the Jews? Is it true? They’re saying millions died.”

  “Last question first.” She took his hand and they seated themselves on the ground, where they could look at a couple of trees and not at the devastation around them. “Jack, what happened to the Jews defies belief. It was so awful as to be almost incomprehensible. The Nazis wanted to exterminate them and did so with such calculated cruelty that the world may never forgive Germany.”

  “Incredible, almost impossible to believe. Now, what about the first question?”

  “We knew from the beginning that something awful was happening to the Jews. Or, in the case of German Jews, had already happened to most of them by the time my family returned to Germany from Canada. Everyone knew the Jews were disappearing, and most said good riddance because they were different. Remember,” she said sarcastically, “they killed Christ and they talk funny and they have big hooked noses.

  “The official word was they were going to resettlement areas or work camps for the duration of the war. After the war they would be expelled and sent to some other country. Somewhere I heard that Madagascar would be their new home, but the war interfered, and it never happened.”

  She leaned against him and he put his arm around her. “But did I know they were being systematically murdered? No. Most Germans didn’t know that. I know my father didn’t. At least not in the beginning. He may have suspected that things weren’t as they should be, but you didn’t voice your suspicions too loudly in the Third Reich. Besides, what could he have done? My father was a good man and, like just about everyone, he originally thought Hitler was going to do good things for Germany. It wasn’t until we returned, and Hitler took over Czechoslovakia, that he began to have doubts. Many Germans knew the Jews were being mistreated, and thought that it was good. But I truly think that the emerging awfulness and extent of the exterminations is a shock to the majority of Germans. The ones who perpetrated the crimes must pay.”

  “Like the dead guy did?”

  “It’s rough justice, but effective.”

  “Lis, is there any chance the Jews were wrong last night? What if the guy had been forced to do some of the things he did?”

  She smiled up at him. “You Americans are so trusting, aren’t you?” She reached up and touched his cheek. “That’s why I like you so much. Even for a soldier, you are still so innocent. Jack, there was no doubt that he was the brute from the concentration camp. Before they killed him they stripped him and found the SS tattoo on his arm. As to his being forced to do what he did, no. All the SS men were volunteers, and only the cruelest and most malevolent were sent to the camps as guards. We know this now.”

  “And he killed that woman’s son.”

  “That and more, Jack. Did you know it was against the laws of the Reich for a German to have sexual intercourse with a Jew?”

  “No.”

  She laughed bitterly. “Do you think such rules would stop a prison guard? He and several others violated her after they killed her child. The Nazi sex laws worked the other way as well. Did you know that it was customary, almost a law, for a German woman to have sex with an SS man if he asked?”

  “Are you joking?”

  “Hitler wanted to breed more Aryans as quickly as possible, so he let his golden-haired Teutonic knights have any woman they wished.”

  A sickening thought overtook him. “Did they come after you?”

  Surprisingly, she laughed. “No, all those goats wanted was some blond Brunhilde, and I am too small and dark-haired for their tastes. I was definitely not what they had in mind to perpetuate the master race. For once, not being a buxom blonde worked in my favor. Besides, the law was not that widely observed.”

  Jack squeezed her arm slightly and tried to joke. “Well, I like you anyhow even if you’re not a blond Brunhilde.”

  She didn’t smile. “Pauli and I will leave Germany as quickly as we can when this is over. Somehow, we will make our way back to Canada. I still have dual citizenship, but Pauli is only German. It doesn’t matter,” she said determinedly. “We will get there. And”—she kissed him on the cheek—“I will use that address you gave me and find you.”

  ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE DEAN ACHESON was shown into the elaborate Paris office used by the acting president of France, Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle rose and, at almost six and a half feet tall, towered over the smaller Acheson. De Gaulle als
o had a huge nose, and the effect was to make him look more like a horse than a great general and a brilliant intellect. Acheson recalled that de Gaulle’s family traced itself back to before the battle of Agincourt and that his love of France went beyond the extreme. He also recalled that, as a student, de Gaulle had been nicknamed “The Big Asparagus” or Cyrano by his unloving peers.

  Acheson spoke passable French, but de Gaulle either did not speak English or chose not to; thus the presence of translators.

  “I knew you would come,” de Gaulle said. “As soon as you heard the Russians were here, I knew you would follow them.”

  “Indeed,” said Acheson. The presence of Vice Premier Andrei Vyshinsky in Paris had come as a shock to the U.S. government. Acheson, who had been in London, had been quickly dispatched to Paris. One question involved the manner in which Vyshinsky had arrived in Paris. After all, weren’t the Allies at war with Russia? But the Russian had traveled to neutral Finland and taken a plane to equally neutral Sweden and then to France. Acheson had to remind himself that there had yet been no formal declaration of war, and that the various embassies were still functioning in the various capitals, no matter how incongruous that might be.

  De Gaulle gestured for Acheson to be seated. “Do you know what that man did?” he asked through the translator. “He reminded me of all of the many slights I had suffered at the hands of the Americans and the British. As if I would ever forget them!”

  Acheson winced. Along with being a brilliant man and a devoted patriot, de Gaulle’s ego was as huge and as sensitive as any man’s could be. Worse, in the beginning the Allies had done almost everything wrong in their dealings with the pompous Frenchman. First, Roosevelt had not taken him seriously as a leader of the Free French, although Churchill had given him his early support. Why should they have concerned themselves with his apparent delusions of grandeur? He had been a fairly low-ranking and unknown general at the beginning of the war. Then, when the Americans began to realize his importance, they chose instead to deal with the traitorous Darlan and others. It hadn’t helped that Roosevelt thought de Gaulle was an insufferable boor and had disliked him intensely.

  What made de Gaulle even more difficult to deal with was his insistence that France was still a world power when just the opposite was true. In Acheson’s and most others’ opinion, France had slipped to being a second-or even a third-rate power. Thus, de Gaulle’s pronouncements about France’s right to a sector of Germany and her right to be at this or that bargaining table, or the right of the Free French Army to cross the Rhine when it had no longer been necessary, were particularly frustrating. Acheson thought him galling and smiled to himself at the pun.

  On the other hand, Acheson did feel he understood what Charles de Gaulle was actually up to. He was a patriot and wanted France to lift herself from the ashes of disgrace and defeat. The morale and self-esteem of France were so low as to be virtually nonexistent. If de Gaulle must make an obstreperous fool of himself in order to help the land after which he and his ancestors had been named, then so be it. Somehow, he would breathe life into France.

  “Mr. President,” Acheson said, “I had hoped that all those mistakes were in the past and that we could get on to the future.”

  De Gaulle grunted. “The past is our history and we must be reminded of it. The Russian made me an offer. Do you wish to hear it?”

  “Of course.” The very thought of a Russian proposal to France was frightening. The Soviets wanted France out of the war. What would they offer?

  “Not surprisingly, Vyshinsky said that the Soviet forces would win this war and that the Allies would be forced out of Germany. He then said what happened to France after this was up to me. If I wanted France to live as a free and independent country, then I would have to sever relations with Britain and the United States. In particular, Russia would require me to forbid your armies to supply themselves through French ports and via French rail. Air bases would also have to be closed. In effect, France would become a neutral nation, just like Switzerland.”

  Acheson was aghast. Such actions would cripple the Allied effort. “Mr. President, I cannot see how France could exist alongside a Germany dominated by Russia. It would be a nightmare of contradictions.”

  De Gaulle leaned back, an effect that gave Acheson an uncomfortable view of the inside of the taller man’s nostrils. “Vyshinsky said I had no choice. He said that my country was in a state of revolution as a result of his Communist brothers wanting peace with Russia, and that the French people were sick and tired of war. If I did not acquiesce to his demands, then the Russians would not stop at the French border when they finally defeated the Allies in Germany with their Red Inferno. Instead, they would invade a helpless France and turn her into a satellite of the Soviet Union.” De Gaulle glared at Acheson. “What would you have done had you been confronted with such a proposal?”

  Acheson wondered if he was being tested. He dared not scold or patronize the man. Or worse, misjudge him as so many others had. “I presume you told him you understood that France could not be a free country with Russian armies on her border, and that a Soviet victory would result in a de facto occupation of France in any case.”

  De Gaulle smiled slightly. “That is what I thought, but it is not what I said to the foolish Russian. I told him he had given France much to think about and that I would respond presently. You are, however, quite right. In either event, a Soviet victory would represent the death of a France that is already very ill. It cannot be permitted to happen. If pressed for an answer, I will tell him to tell Stalin that we will not betray our alliance with Great Britain and America, even if it results in our being invaded and occupied again. I already fought one war from exile, and I will do it forever if I have to.”

  Acheson let out his breath. The heavy-handed Russians had insulted de Gaulle and not intimidated him. “We are honored, sir, by your loyalty.”

  “Which is to France,” de Gaulle snapped, “not to England or the United States. Vyshinsky was correct when he said I was confronting a revolution. The Communists have risen in France and are trying to take control. Many of them fought the Germans as members of the underground, and they are now fighting the Americans and trying to interrupt the supply efforts that are so essential to the war. Worse, they appear to be coordinating with the Russian air force. Did you not hear of the train that was stopped by Communists near Namur, and then assaulted from the air?”

  Acheson had been briefed by military experts who had quizzed both French and American survivors, and it was their belief that the apparent coordination had been an act of fate and not a planned occurrence. De Gaulle, however, obviously thought otherwise.

  De Gaulle continued. “I know some do not believe it occurred that way, but I cannot take a chance on that being the truth. If you want your supplies to get through, then they must be guarded by French troops. While Frenchmen might fight Americans, I am reasonably certain they will not fire on their own countrymen. Therefore, I will be taking my divisions from Italy as soon as possible and, if necessary, de Tassigny’s First Free French Army away from your General Devers. They will be retained in France for as long as necessary to quell the Communist revolution.”

  Acheson nodded. He understood full well what de Gaulle had just done. First, he would protect the supply lines. Second, he would do it with French troops, which meant they could not be involved in the bloody meat-grinder battles that were commencing and from which the French had largely been spared. It was a trade: French lives for American supplies. The net effect of the trade was to weaken the overall war effort against the Russians. Damn de Gaulle.

  On the other hand, blunt Russian diplomacy had failed to make de Gaulle their ally. They had offended the prickly Frenchman. Speaking of pricks, Acheson thought more happily, de Gaulle may be a prick, but he’s still our prick.

  • • •

  DAYS BEFORE, THE NEAR-DAWN explosions had awakened Tony from a fitful sleep. For an instant, he thought he was back in his tan
k and under attack by the Russians. Then he recalled where he was—Ketzin, Germany, and in a Russian work gang. As the explosions drew nearer, he and the others tried to take shelter in a ditch. Not much use, he thought, if something came down close to them, but it was better than nothing.

  The drone of airplane engines backgrounded the blasts, and they realized that something nearby was under attack from bombers. Jubilantly, he realized the bombers had to be either American or British. As dim shapes flew overhead, he strained to identify them as they flew on, seemingly impervious to the antiaircraft tracers reaching up for them.

  “Wellingtons,” Vaslov whispered. “British.”

  Tony didn’t care if they were Mexican. His side was striking back. It was a wonderful feeling and he could see by the looks on the others’ faces that it was shared.

  It was not until later in the day that he learned that he would have a price to pay for the bombers’ success.

  It was now the third day of their ordeal in the work gang, and Tony’s arms and back ached from the strain of constantly lifting and carrying the dirt and rubble to fill in the road craters created by the Allied bombers. He thought he would collapse, but he would be shot if he did so. He’d seen it happen. His only consolation was that everyone else in the work gang seemed to be in as bad a shape as he. Perhaps, he felt with a twinge of guilt, even in worse shape. After all, he had not spent the last few years on a starvation or minimal diet. On the plus side, it seemed that, with the task nearing completion, the Russians were nowhere near as demanding or as security conscious as they had been.

  While filling in the roadway, he was shocked and mildly depressed at how many craters there were in nearby fields and just how many bombs had fallen nowhere near their targets. Bombing, he concluded, was a very inexact art.

  Tony stumbled and swore. “Quiet,” Vaslov hissed. They looked to where the fat little Russian guard stood. He was not looking at them and had heard nothing. Both men thought of him as Ivan the Hog.