by Paul Grant
BERLIN:
UPRISING
By Paul Grant
© Paul Grant 2018
Paul Grant has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
This novel is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
By the same author
BERLIN: Caught in the Mousetrap – The Schultz family series 1
BERLIN: Reaping the Whirlwind – The Schultz family series 2
Thanks
To Hayley, as always, for keeping me sane during those hours scribbling and typing away in my lofty den. And for being my first reader, even though I know it’s not your sort of thing…
To Millie, one day you will read these books and understand what Dad was actually doing with his time…
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
EPILOGUE
Thank you for reading
Acknowledgements and comments
Somewhere in the Urals, Russia
1944
His bag was by his over-polished boot. The waiting room was deserted, with not even a peasant in sight. Nobody came to this part of the world without good reason. He chuckled to himself. He had recognised the sheer folly of trying to conquer this land a long time ago. It was when he’d seen his comrades shivering in the snow without winter clothing, somewhere near Moscow. He grunted. They weren’t his comrades any more. He’d learned to despise their petty thoughts and feelings, longing only for home and family as they did. It meant nothing to him. His only focus was himself and his needs.
He’d been fortunate, of course, in the right place at the right time. Some would argue that Stalingrad wasn’t the right place for a German soldier, nor December 1942 the right time. But his instinct, his opportunism and the fervent, intense Commissar had seen him through it. He had told the Commissar what he wanted to hear, scribbling furiously in his notebook, eyebrows furrowing at every turn in his tale. The Commissar liked what he heard because he’d been duly despatched to the retraining school. Of course, he didn’t believe a word of the Marxist ideology they espoused, but he learned how to impress his new masters. He always had the right answer. He was always immaculate. He did what they wanted.
They had removed him from the others and put him on a train to God knows where for ‘special training’. He’d been selected above the others and he was pleased with himself.
His mind was distracted by an oversized rat sniffing around his feet. He kicked out at it, sending it flying across the floor, striking the wall opposite with a resounding thud. He straightened his lapel, shivering, not at the cold, but at the squalor. He hated to be unclean. It was the lice and the shit of Stalingrad that had got to him in the end. It wasn’t the killing, never that. He had always enjoyed the look of shock as he took a man’s life, their dreams and hopes in his hands for that split second. Yes, he enjoyed that power. It was only the filth that had made up his mind.
For now, he was biding his time. He knew they liked him. He knew, eventually, they would send him back to his homeland, and when he went, he would be somebody. He would have power and freedom to do what he wanted. He shuddered at the thought.
PROLOGUE
15 JUNE 1950, EAST BERLIN
Maria Schultz wondered what to make of it. At some time during the previous day, a note had been surreptitiously slipped under the door of her apartment. It had requested a meeting; the time, eleven o’clock today, the place, a spot on the Kurfürstendamm. It wasn’t signed. There was no real clue from whom it might be. Maria could only think back to the war and the methods the Major and Fräulein Sommer would employ, but those days were gone now; she hadn’t seen the Sommer woman in two years, and the Major since he disappeared suddenly during the war. The note did nothing to help Maria sleep, but not through fear or worry, only excitement. There was no doubt she would attend the meeting.
She put up her hair in an attempt to make herself look presentable. She’d not been to fashionable Ku’damm recently but had heard it was starting to thrive again. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been able to treat herself to something nice, not that she would stretch to those extravagances today.
She looked around the old apartment, wondering how it still defied gravity. She half expected to return home one day to see the Trümmerfrauen (rubble women) scouring over the site where her apartment had stood, but it was still there with all its warts: plaster missing, walls cracked, small fissures and larger crevices alike. She smiled, though, thankful for small mercies; it was a beautiful day, Eva was at school and she had the day off from her job. She thought she’d leave early for her mystery appointment and enjoy some time out in the open air of the city.
She took the tram from Frankfurter Allee, and with no pressure on her time for once, she sat back and allowed the scenery to wash over her. New buildings were starting to pop up around Berlin, dotted among the ruins. After five years of peace, the roads had been cleared and the unsafe buildings demolished. That tended to leave great open swathes of wasteland on which children took delight in playing. Maria herself had spent time clearing those buildings, chipping at the bricks to reuse, but thankfully Fräulein Sommer had helped her find a role with the Magistrat, the city council. The work wasn’t exactly taxing, but it did allow the family to eat and it meant that Maria was particularly well informed about goings-on in the Russian sector of the city.
There were resigned tuts as the tram lurched to a halt. There was a march up ahead on the Unter den Linden. Maria alighted, slipping off her jacket as she walked, garnering a feeling of relief as the sun warmed her face. It made her think of holidays, of happier times. The ruin of the Berliner Schloss brought her back to reality. She’d heard Ulbricht wanted to demolish it; the Kaiser’s name was not welcome in the eastern sector.
On the Unter den Linden, Maria could see the huge procession snaking slowly down towards the Brandenburg Gate. She overtook the mass of children waving flags, sporting their light-blue shirts. At the head of the protest, two young men held aloft a huge banner with two poles. ‘Yankees go home!’ was the shrieked message. Maria knew that Walter Ulbricht would love nothing more than the Americans to leave Berlin to him and his cohorts.
There had been no news of her husband, Klaus. After being taken prisoner by the Russians in 1943, the Nazis didn’t want to admit any soldiers had survived, then the Russians didn’t want to admit they had any prisoners. Enquiries were not encouraged in East Berlin and were strongly rebuffed by the Russians, especially when made by the Church or western governments. It had been more than seven years. In her weaker moments, Maria did wonder if she should get on with her life, then she would admonish herself thinking of Kla
us and what he must be suffering.
Close to Zoo station, Maria dragged her mind back to the note and the reason for being where she was. She felt the excitement in the pit of her stomach, the kind she’d experienced when helping the Resistance during the war. Each time she’d gone to inform a family that their son or husband wasn’t really dead but had been taken prisoner by the Russians, or each time she helped Hannah Hirsch evade capture, she’d had the same feeling. It was a sad indictment of what her life had become. In some ways the war had made her feel alive, but since then, it had been the same constant grind.
Rounding the ruins of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, the Ku’damm bustled with life. Maria felt herself being pulled along by its energy; well-dressed women bounced along, flaunting colourful shopping bags. People enjoyed the sunshine and barely a café table was unoccupied. There was undoubted glamour in this part of the city; a little too much for Maria. She felt slightly downtrodden in her old, patched clothes. New shops had appeared since her last visit and a number of fronts were being prepared for other grand openings. The buildings were more about speed and function than beauty, but things were happening.
At the corner of Joachimsthaler Strasse, she was drawn to one shop in particular. Sarotti, the chocolatiers, was announced in brilliant gold lettering on a perfect whitewashed façade. Brown marble surrounded the spotlessly clean window displays. Praline wrapped in beautiful hand-made boxes enticed Maria to gawp longingly, her mouth watering in expectation which sadly wasn’t to be fulfilled. She recalled her father bringing home Sarotti chocolates for her mother’s birthday when she was a child. Such wonderful treats were only for special occasions back then; now they were out of her financial reach altogether.
‘Look good, don’t they?’
Maria turned in surprise. ‘Major!’
He smiled slightly, looking very dapper in his beige suit, the white wisps of hair sneaking out from under his Panama hat. She was so surprised, she was unsure what to do next. In the end, she settled on a small hug.
‘I might have known you’d have something to do with all the mystery.’
He nodded without giving anything away. ‘Should we find somewhere quiet for a coffee?’
Maria could only nod dumbly, her mind spinning with a thousand questions.
It had been six years since she’d seen him. Then he’d been weighed down with his duties in the Abwehr (German Intelligence). There had been the attempt on Hitler’s life and the Major suddenly disappeared. He was part of the resistance to Nazi rule. He was a decent man who had risked his life, hiding people, helping them escape the clutches of the Gestapo. Now, he was back and seemingly as coy as ever.
There was a café opposite sporting a red-and-white-striped veranda. The waiter showed them to a table outside, but the Major shook his head and gestured inside, much to the waiter’s surprise, and Maria’s disappointment.
They took a seat at one of the spotless tables. Cups clanked and a coffee machine hissed in the background. The Major had a view of the rest of the clientele, Maria of him and the display of wonderful cream cakes over his left shoulder. Maria thought he looked well, kissed by the sun recently if she wasn’t mistaken. There were so many things to ask, she didn’t know quite where to start.
The Major pointed back over the road to a busy building site. ‘The new Café Kranzler. They chose to build it here. I don’t suppose there will be many writers visiting this part of town.’ He seemed a little awkward for the first time. ‘I hope you’ve been keeping well, Maria.’
‘As well as the rations allow,’ she joked feebly.
‘And the children? Ulrich, wasn’t it? And Eva?’
‘You have a good memory. Ulrich is an apprentice builder, Eva at school. They’re doing well, thank you.’
She felt underwhelmed by the small talk. The important questions were screaming to get out, like a kettle coming to the boil.
Maria finally popped. ‘What happened to you?’
The Major didn’t reply immediately as the coffee arrived; Maria’s was first, a small cup with a biscuit on the side, then the Major’s, placed down on the table then turned to precisely the correct position with a flourish by the waiter. The Major inclined his head slightly in thanks, then the waiter was gone, dancing between two tables, in the direction of the action outside.
‘Things became too risky for me to be in Berlin back then. It was prudent to leave until things calmed down a bit.’
Maria could only marvel at his understatement.
‘You were involved in the Hitler thing? The plot?’
He shrugged. ‘What does “involved” mean? If you were the Gestapo, everyone was involved until proved otherwise, and even then, innocence was no defence. In the end, it didn’t matter. Many of my colleagues and good friends… well, let’s just say if I hadn’t have left, they would have used more piano wire than they already did.’ He rubbed his neck gingerly.
‘Have you seen Fräulein Sommer?’
‘Not recently. I’ve had contact with her. I know she helped you to get a job in the Magistrat.’
‘And since? You’re living in Berlin?’
He chuckled. ‘No, just a very quick visit; I am working with the government in the Federal Republic.’
With those words Maria knew the Major had returned to the intelligence game. He clearly didn’t want to tell her too much, but it was no doubt the reason for all the secrecy; notes under the door, crowded places, inside tables away from prying eyes. It did mean she sensed they were getting to the point of the meeting. Her heartbeat quickened and not just because of the real coffee.
The Major rubbed a small mark from the rim of his cup.
‘I came to Berlin to see you, Maria.’
Her mouth was dry in anticipation.
‘A man returned to Germany recently. He came back from one of the camps in Siberia.’
Maria’s eyes widened. ‘Klaus?’
‘The man is a comrade of Klaus’. He was in the camp with him.’
Maria gasped. ‘Is he…?’
‘He’s alive, Maria.’
‘Can I speak to this man?’
The Major shook his head. ‘Unfortunately, not at the moment. We still have to debrief him fully.’
‘So what did he say? Is Klaus well? How are they being treated?’
The Major held up his hands in an attempt to hold back the barrage. ‘The man left Klaus’ camp two years ago, more than two years ago.’
‘Two years ago? He was sent to another camp?’
‘No, he escaped from Klaus’ camp.’
Maria was finding it hard to comprehend. ‘You’re telling me he escaped and it took him two years to get home?’
The Major’s steely blue eyes didn’t waver. ‘Nearly.’
Maria was starting to worry, the initial relief having quickly worn off. ‘Where is this place?’
‘Kolyma, close to the Pacific coast of the Soviet Union.’
She felt immediately ill at ease. Her husband was alive after all this time, at least he was two years ago, and yet, he was so far away, so distant.
‘I understand this is difficult for you to understand right now. We know there are other German soldiers there, and in other camps in the region. We are doing our best to secure their release, but the Russians…’ He grimaced.
Maria knew the Russians very well.
‘I am sorry I can’t tell you too much more. Only that he was as well as can be expected when his comrade escaped. The conditions at the camp are not wonderful, as I am sure you can imagine, but he is alive, or was two years ago.’
Maria didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It had been nearly eight years since she’d seen Klaus. He’d been on leave and then within three months he’d been captured at Stalingrad. Since then the only news she’d heard was that he’d survived the battle back in 1943. Her stomach churned. She pushed the coffee cup away, not able to touch a drop more.
The Major stood to leave, dropping some notes on the table. Maria s
tared at the DM notes with the large ‘B’ for Berlin stamped on them.
‘I debated long and hard about telling you these things. I realise its tenuous and fragile at best, but I thought you had a right to know.’
She barely nodded her thanks.
‘And…’ She looked up as the Major reached into his inside pocket. He pulled out a yellow-stained, folded piece of paper and placed it on the table in front of her. ‘The man who escaped brought this… It’s from your husband.’
Maria looked down at it, transfixed. She reached out instinctively to touch it, knowing it had been in Klaus’ hand. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes.
The Major gently squeezed her shoulder and left.
CHAPTER 1
JUNE 1946, SEA OF OKHOTSK
The hatch to the hold slammed shut above their heads. The air was already a putrid mix of urine and vomit. Klaus Schultz, like all the others, had his feet perched up off the floor; the rocking of the ship brought an incessant flow, to and fro, of rank slops. Why were they there, miles from home, miles from any kind of civilisation? Since that day in the Lubjanka, he’d asked himself the same question over and over. How could Oskar Marz, the young man whom they had fought alongside, with whom they had spent two years in an Arctic Gulag, and with whom Klaus hadn’t thought twice about sharing his last piece of bread, have consigned them to this? Klaus found it difficult to shake the anger and betrayal.
‘I can’t wait to get off this damned ship,’ Markus Schram groaned. His hands held his stomach like it might fall out at any moment.
‘Do you know why they closed the hold?’ Klaus asked.
‘To make us suffer a bit more?’
‘Japan.’
Markus looked up, confusion written on his already pained face. ‘What?’
‘We’re very close to the coast of Japan. Our Russian friends don’t want anybody to see how they ship their human cargo around, so they close the hold and keep us down here.’