The Air Raid Killer (Max Heller, Dresden Detective Book 1)

by Frank Goldammer

  Heller trudged through Blasewitz, heading for the Striesen neighborhood, and had to make wide detours. What used to be a brief stroll took him more than an hour. Everywhere people were crawling out onto the street from cellars. Some just stood there, stunned, staring at the inferno. Others reacted reasonably by digging away at the destroyed homes in search of survivors. Some in uniform were giving out commands, and the first dead were carried onto the street, while other people attempted to save their belongings by hauling dressers, kitchenware, and clothing onto the street. Heller hurried on, speeding up as he got closer to Gruna. He forgot the pain in his ankle, ignored the burning in his throat. His chest kept tightening, his stomach hardening to stone. He tried not to think about what he’d seen. Tried not to imagine what could have happened to Karin. Yet in his thoughts he kept seeing her suffocating and burning to death and screaming his name over and over.

  As he neared Schandauer Strasse from Bergmannstrasse, his pace slowed until eventually he halted. All he could get out was a rasping moan. What used to be his neighborhood had been razed to the ground. The outer walls of some buildings still stood, like backdrops for a stage play. The firestorm raged hundreds of yards high, the wood of the roof trusses glowing red, great bursts of sparks spewing out like volcanic eruptions. A streetcar stood at the intersection, nearly unscathed, but there was no longer a track to follow.

  A few people hobbled his way. None were crying, none screaming. Apart from the dull thunder receding and the rumbling of fires, an eerie silence now reigned. The sirens had ceased too. Suddenly Heller lost all strength in his legs. He had to sit down. Two female Red Cross helpers rushed by. As he sat there, on a half-yard stretch of curbstone uprooted from the ground, everything dulled, every noise a long way away. His sight blurred as if his eyes were now trying to shield him, to protect him from so much misery and despair. He felt nothing anymore. He smelled only himself, the scorched leather of his shoes, the seared wool, his singed hair. Blood, flesh, dust, fear, death.

  “Max?”

  It sounded almost bashful. Unbelievable. Heller looked up. Karin stood before him. She was wearing her slippers, her long gray skirt, and a half-scorched cardigan. Her hair was gray with dust, her face black with soot, one eye swollen. He slowly rose.

  “Max?” she asked again, as if she couldn’t believe it. Heller just nodded, took her fingers, and caressed the back of her hand with his thumb. Then he touched her face, carefully stroked her hair. “Max, I had to . . . I can’t even . . .” She fell silent. There were no words to describe what had happened.

  Heller pulled her to him. Karin pressed her face into the crook of his neck.

  And there they stood.

  PART TWO

  May 16, 1945: Early Morning

  How strange people are, thought Heller. Every single one of them, including him. It didn’t take long for it all to become so normal.

  “What now? Keep it movin’!” someone shouted, squeezing by him. It was getting warm already this early in the morning, the sky free of clouds. Loschwitz Bridge was teeming with people. All of the other city-center bridges had been detonated just one day before the war ended, turning the bridge they called the Blue Wonder into a giant traffic hub. To cross the Elbe, people either had to take one of the ferries or travel this one single span.

  Heller pressed on. He carried his backpack by hand, his empty metal mess kit inside. The Russians had been in the city for a week. A simple proclamation, posted at all public squares on May 10, had left him unemployed: the whole police force was disbanded.

  His constant goal was to come up with food for himself and Karin—and for Frau Marquart, in whose apartment they’d been assigned lodging. They were now living in the Weisser Hirsch area across the river and up the hill, within earshot of a villa that had been requisitioned by Russian officers. Night after night, they heard the exuberant Russians singing and firing their guns into the dark sky.

  They were getting used to that as well, along with the much longer walking distances, the constant searching for firewood to fuel their primitive steel cookers and always for food, and the soldiers of the Red Army everywhere, and the sight of their city completely destroyed.

  Heller stopped and pressed his body to the railing to get out of the way, thinking they should all just be glad to still be alive. But were they? Were they happy? Shouldn’t they be mourning the dead and the complete destruction of their baroque buildings, their art treasures and paintings? Was anyone mourning that? Anyone crying? For his neighbors and the people lying dead in the street? For his friends Hans and Armin and their wives? No, they didn’t think about that. They didn’t talk about it; no one did. Faced with so many corpses, they had had to burn massive pyres of the dead for days on end. What about those hanged from streetlamps? “I am a traitor to the Volk,” read a sign hanging from the neck of one, “I colluded with Jews.” Or that young soldier, executed for cowardice toward the enemy just hours before the surrender? No one talked about that.

  Life had to go on, people said, and on and on. One must only look forward, letting past days, years, simply vanish from memory. There’s no other way, people said, shrugging. The war was lost, but no one complained about that. Hitler was just a ghost now. It was unimaginable that someone like him had driven a whole nation into madness. No one talked about him now being dead. If anything, it was as if a heavy weight had been lifted, as if people had been relieved of some great burden. When the blackout rule got rescinded a few days ago and they’d seen their first windows lit at nighttime, Karin had cried with joy.

  “Davai, davai!” someone shouted now, and laughter followed. Three Russians stood at the end of the bridge, sneering at Heller and waving him forward.

  Heller pressed on. By now, the sight of the destroyed city was almost familiar to him. Karin had made them flee the city the night of the bombing raid. A medic from the Security and Assistance Service had first rinsed their eyes with boric acid lotion, and they’d received a little first aid from a National Socialist People’s Welfare truck. They were planning to stay with a cousin outside the city, in Langebrück. On the way there, they could see the second bombing raid coming, and they witnessed it all, holding each other’s hands, as well as the third raid from a safer distance the next day. Two days later, Heller had an emergency air raid truck take him back into Dresden, where he reported for duty. Even at that point, things were supposed to continue as usual. They sent him out onto the streets, where there was so much to do, and officials were called in from all of Saxony. Police headquarters had received multiple direct hits, and Obersturmbannführer Klepp, SS Sergeant Strampe, and Frau Bohle were reported killed along with many others. American planes had returned one more time in April, dropping their bombs on Reich Railway switchyards and repair facilities.

  “Stoi!”

  Heller’s heart beat wildly. The Red Army soldiers were now blocking his way. They were barely older than twenty. One looked Mongolian, his cap riding on the back of his head as if stuck there.

  “Paper!” demanded one. The other ripped Heller’s backpack from his hand and pulled it open to look inside. He took out the empty mess kit, rummaged through the pack, and tossed the metal cookware back inside.

  Heller raised his hands, trying not to worry despite all the people suddenly passing by him much faster. “No papers,” he said. “Burned up. Fire.” He gestured at the cityscape behind the Russians.

  “Fascist!” said a second one, who chucked the backpack behind him, and the Asian one grinned.

  “No, not fascist.” Heller shook his head. He was acting like a hypocrite, since he’d been part of the regime for twelve long years, after all. At Karin’s urging, he had burned his temporary police ID in the oven after the Soviet Red Army marched in.

  The first Russian stepped closer. “Soldier! Fascist soldier! Ess-ess,” he hissed and positioned himself behind Heller.

  “No, not soldier. No SS. Leg kaput! Nineteen fifteen.” Heller raised his right leg and pulled up his pants
to let them see his scar.

  “Not fascist, not soldier, not war, not Hitler!” The Russian mimicked him. Then he delivered a hard punch between Heller’s shoulder blades, making him stumble back toward the two other Russians. They dodged, and Heller fell to his knees. He hastily grabbed his backpack. The soldiers laughed and cursed him in Russian. Heller knew he should be relieved to be let off easily, yet he still felt a need to set things straight. He had never been a Nazi, and he’d never wanted Hitler nor the war.

  “Just keep going!” someone warned Heller, then helped him up and pulled him away. The man hauled Heller across Schillerplatz at a rapid pace, Heller letting himself be marched along without protest. They only halted once the Red Army soldiers couldn’t see them.

  “You got away, Maxi, you dimwit!” His counterpart gazed at him, his eyes smiling. Only now did Heller take a good look at his savior. But he couldn’t place the face.

  The man removed his cap. “It’s me, Fritz. You don’t remember? From your bowling days. Let it roll!” He eagerly shook Heller’s hand.

  “Fritz . . .” It seemed so long ago, like in another life.

  “The old bowling alley’s done for. We’re now bowling over in Radebeul, every Sunday—come on by, but shhh! Meanwhile, don’t let the Russians bag you.” Fritz winked, gave Heller a slap on the shoulder, and headed off.

  Bowling, Heller thought, rubbing his shoulders, shaking his head. What an absurd notion.

  Today he had something completely different planned. He hadn’t been able to sleep since he first started considering it. He wanted to return to the building he used to live in. He wanted to retrace the path he’d taken that very night. And he wanted to find that row of buildings whose residents had saved his life because they’d managed to break through cellar walls. He needed to do this. It might rid him of his nightmares.

  Seeing ruins had lost its horror. They all looked alike, all reds and grays. It was astounding how little remained of a given building. A building that once had seven floors, home to twelve families or more, was now just a mound of rubble no higher than fifteen feet. They had all seemed like mountain ranges to him that awful night. The main streets were passable again. Some of the power lines had been repaired with stopgap fixes. The people and the authorities salvaged what they could, and the rest had to wait. Somewhere beyond one of the few habitable buildings, someone was beating dust from a carpet.

  Crosses marked the cellars where people still lay buried. Both survivors and those seeking loved ones had taken to writing in chalk on buildings, since any notes pasted up came off after a few weeks of wind and rain. The hundreds of desperate messages on display never confirmed whether they’d found their loved ones or were falling prey to complete despair.

  Lehmann family now living with the Schultes, Laubeg. Ufer Rd. . . . Stephan Müller is alive, Dornblüth. St. 12 . . . Hildegard Summschuh—where are you? —T. . . . Erna and children now in Dipps. Town . . . Inge, are you alive? —M.

  Heller took a while, preparing himself for what he was about to see. All this time he’d avoided his neighborhood of Gruna, as well as Johannstadt. He had kept busy on the outskirts of the city, helping to mark up bombs that were duds, handing out food, taking missing-persons reports, organizing work crews, redirecting refugees. Most had come from Silesia. They only had bad things to say about the Russians. Many were supposed to be sent back to where they came from, so many thousands of sorry fates—tales of freezing, fear, and hunger. Such misery. Sometimes he just wanted to close his eyes and ears and never open them again.

  And then there he stood, right where he and Karin had found each other. If she had taken a different route or if he had or if they had only missed each other by a minute, they probably wouldn’t have seen each other again. He recognized the curbstone he’d sat on, in reality a chunk of building exterior. The wall behind it looked as if it could topple over at any moment. Every week, yet another building collapsed due to wind or rain. That night, he hadn’t even noticed the streetlamps. They were all warped, bending far down to the street as if bowing in unison. The streetcar had been removed—he couldn’t imagine how they’d managed that. He walked on and suddenly realized he was wearing the same singed shoes, the same overcoat, all charred, full of burn holes. A raggedy old man, ashen-faced, homely, emaciated. The wounds he’d barely noticed that night—his cuts and burns—were only now healing up.

  His apartment building, like everything else, had come crashing down. The left-side wall still stood, though, rising high. Heller craned his head back and could see the wall of his living room, where their display cabinet had stood. One side of the cellar had been ripped open by a direct hit. He knelt down and took a look into the dark hole. Hard to believe that Karin had managed to climb out of there. None of the others had survived the explosion. What would’ve happened to him if he too had taken shelter in their cellar that night?

  Heller forced himself not to see this as fate. They had gotten lucky, nothing more. He spotted something on the ground and stooped down. Melted glass. His overcoat had been full of it. His pants had been hanging off him in shreds. The metal of his belt clasp and the clips of his sock suspenders had seared into his flesh. He’d had to throw away his watch because the clockwork had melted and the glass had cracked.

  He observed the mountain of rubble, now unsure. Did he dare climb around it? Karin didn’t know he was here—he’d kept quiet on purpose. He wasn’t really sure what he was hoping to find here. Maybe he would see someone familiar; maybe he would even find some object, a keepsake, pictures, tableware, some pieces of the dinnerware they’d inherited from Karin’s mother. Something, anything he could use to provide her with some small pleasure, even just one of the nutcrackers they had kept in their display cabinet well after Christmas. He thought of his sons, of all their photos and letters now gone.

  He tried to spot a way into the ruins of his building, yet kept hesitating. He eventually accepted that his plan was too dangerous. He couldn’t go jeopardizing his life now—just for sentimentality.

  Heller decided to take the most direct route to the city center. He reached Fürstenstrasse within a few minutes, and the Johannstadt neighborhood lay before him. He rubbed his sweat-soaked neck. The bombers had left a half-mile-wide swath of utter destruction. Whole streets had been wiped out, not a single building left standing. Only the spire of Trinity Church, which he had used to get his bearings, stood high above the expanse of ruins. The church nave was completely gutted from fire. It was tough to imagine anyone surviving this.

  Suffocated. Burned to death. Ripped to shreds. Struck dead. Heat shock. German bureaucracy had managed to turn even these horrors into statistical categories. Even while the fires were still smoldering and many were still buried or trapped in their cellars, hoping for rescue, the administrative machine had already started counting, recording, measuring, classifying.

  Heller regretted coming here. There was no point. He couldn’t reconstruct that night of the bombings, couldn’t re-create that route where he’d gone astray. He would’ve been better off filling his backpack with things to eat even if they were only dandelion leaves. The refugee camps were usually handing out food rations this time of day. Things got chaotic, and there was always a chance of scrounging something.

  Closer to the Elbe River he could see the hospital grounds, and he recalled that the hospital had been hit but not destroyed. Maybe there was something to eat there.

  A Russian army truck raced past him. Soldiers with rifles and submachine guns sat in its open bed. That was the police force now. And they were less timid. He’d heard about them shooting at people trying to steal food from a freight car at the train station.

  All young German men were suspected of having been members of the armed forces. People were telling stories of arrests, of transports to Siberian POW camps, of SS men shot dead.

  It was around noon when Heller reached the hospital, sweating from the sun beating down. The grounds were all hustle and bustle. Auxiliary train tr
acks were being laid for a connecting rail line as bored Russians supervised the work. A crane shovel was also piling up the ruins of a destroyed building. But those hospital buildings in better condition had been up and running for weeks now. And, somewhere, food was being cooked—the aroma made Heller’s mouth water.

  “Herr Detective Inspector!”

  Heller whipped around. A young man on crutches moved toward him with cheerful enthusiasm. He was missing a leg. Despite the warmth, he wore a worn-out army overcoat with all insignia and buttons removed. “Herr Detective Inspector Heller, right?”

  “It’s just Herr Heller now.”

  “Seibling, Heinz. You remember? I’m a friend of Klaus’s. From our sport club—SV Guts Muts!”

  Heller now recognized him as one of his son’s soccer buddies. His gaze wandered to the man’s stump of a leg.

  “Yeah, well, no more soccer for me,” Seibling said. “Got this in France. Partisans. You heard from Klaus?”

  Heller straightened. Did the young man know something? “What’s wrong?”

  “I just mean, do you know where he is? Is he still alive?”

  Heller exhaled. The sudden thought of his sons had shot through him like a hot needle. He wished that he could believe they were still alive. But it had been far too long since he’d heard from them.

  “Pardon me, I didn’t mean to startle you, Herr Detective Inspector.”

  “Please. I’m not a cop anymore. There are no cops anymore.”

  Seibling nodded. “I thought you were here because of the woman.”

  “What woman?”

  “Well, that nurse, just this morning. She’d only been here a few days. They found her dead in a cellar. Horribly mangled. But these Russians”—Seibling paused, since he’d let this escape his lips sounding too derisive, and looked around before continuing—“the Russians took away the man who killed her. They’ve surely hanged him.” He then raised his voice. “If you happen to hear anything from Klaus, tell him hello for me. I’ll probably get lodging in Albertstadt.”