Berlin Finale (Penguin Modern Classics)

by Heinz Rein

  Klose puts a hand on his arm. ‘If it isn’t possible, it will be made possible. Do you know what solidarity is?’

  Lassehn looks at Klose, on his face a mixture of embarrassment and questioning. ‘Not really,’ he answers, and then, as if speaking to himself, ‘solidarity, that comes from the Latin solidus, meaning authentic, genuine, hard, solid, real …’

  ‘Whether it’s Latin or Greek or whatever it is I don’t actually know,’ Klose says, and his face is full of unusual, almost solemn seriousness, ‘but I do know that it comes from the workers’ movement, and it means that each man defends his fellow, leaps to his aid when he is in trouble, that’s what we mean by solidarity.’

  ‘But they have that in the field as well,’ Lassehn adds. ‘I’ve seen cases when …’

  ‘Of course, I don’t need proof, I was a soldier too,’ Klose interrupts, ‘but you can’t compare the two. You’re a soldier out of obligation, soldiers are forced into a community, they have no other possibility but living communally and standing up for each other, but with us it’s different, we have found our way together voluntarily, what is compulsion for soldiers is for us a way of thinking, and it all has its roots in free will.’

  ‘I’m not one of you,’ Lassehn objects.

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ Klose says, returning to his abrupt way of talking, ‘everyone who opposes fascism is one of us, whether he’s a deserter or a saboteur, whether he secretly distributes flyers or practises passive resistance. You’re not a Nazi …’

  Lassehn shakes his head. ‘Of course not, you know that, Mr Klose.’

  ‘It wasn’t a question, just an observation,’ Klose continues. ‘Everyone who isn’t a Nazi, for whatever reason, is one of us, Wiegand, for example, became a Communist and Dr Böttcher a Social Democrat, and you can meet others here, Catholic priests and people who were once tepid democrats, but now they all belong together, the common enemy has brought them together at last. Before, it would have been unthinkable for Wiegand and the Catholics to share the same initial premises, they were far too dogmatic for that, one with, the other without God, each holding his own perspective to be the only true one.’

  ‘And today there are no differences?’ Lassehn asks.

  Klose shakes his head. ‘The differences are still there, and they are not denied, but they are no longer extreme oppositions, they are no longer necessarily mutually exclusive.’

  ‘I still only half understand,’ Lassehn says with a regretful shrug, ‘I lack too much that would help me follow you, I feel as if I’m arriving in the middle of a play, and since I don’t know the beginning I only understand half or not at all, but I have noticed one thing, which is that Mr Wiegand and Dr Böttcher don’t quite agree.’

  ‘That’s true, my boy, that’s very true,’ Klose says, ‘but to some extent they are brothers who have cheated each other out of an inheritance, and neither of them wants to admit his own mistakes, and they’re each looking as if mesmerized at the mistakes the other has made, they reproach their past and forget that they shared a father. Now they remember that they do, and that’s good.’

  Lassehn nods. ‘I’m one of them, even though I don’t know how I got there.’

  Klose makes a dismissive gesture with his hand. ‘You know that very well, son, just think about it very hard, the mistake, or more precisely the shortcoming, is due to the fact that it did not arise from a particular conviction, and that’s why you’re so uncertain. But as long as you know where you belong, or at least know the way there, then you’re getting somewhere. But let’s address the practical side of the matter, that’s important too, isn’t it?’

  Lassehn nods, he feels a little awkward, because he’s grasped that the actual difficulties are starting, he’s been travelling until now. He had a goal and allowed himself to be driven towards that goal, he walked sometimes on his own and sometimes with the columns of refugees, he slept in barns or abandoned houses or in mass dormitories, he stole food or ate at soup-kitchen centres where no one asked him his name or any other information, but now in a sense his flight has become stationary, and the important thing is to bring something like order and a system into the life he is now beginning.

  ‘But you want to eat and drink,’ Klose goes on. ‘Have you got money, son?’

  Lassehn nods again. ‘About two thousand marks,’ he says.

  ‘That’s not much these days, given black-market prices,’ Klose says. ‘What else have you got?’

  ‘A few items of clothing, some underwear and odds and ends, but they’re at my wife’s.’

  Klose drums his fingers on the tabletop. ‘Well, let’s see how we manage, tomorrow I’ll get you some Reisemarken, otherwise I always manage to get hold of something.’

  ‘Mr Klose …’

  ‘Fine,’ Klose says, waving him away, ‘we’ll do that, I’ve got contacts, you won’t starve, lad.’ Lassehn sighs deeply. ‘If only the war would end soon, so that I wasn’t such a burden on you.’

  ‘You can rely on the fact that they won’t make it through the summer,’ he says firmly. ‘You’ll survive those few weeks or months, because in the end it’s down to you. There are people who live underground for years, some without money and often without contacts, they wander aimlessly about during the day or sit in cinemas, they sleep in trenches or ruined houses. That’s no life, always being chased, always hungry, every loud footstep, every braking car and every attentive glance by anyone at all could mean betrayal and death … It’s probably a little easier for the illegals right now, in fact, with everything topsy-turvy.’

  Lassehn rests his elbows on the table and supports his head heavily in his hands. ‘Mr Klose, it isn’t just being worried about a bit of food and sleep that’s making me impatient,’ he says, breathing slowly and heavily, ‘it’s the impatience of waiting to leave this uncertain existence, saying goodbye to all the misery and starting again …’

  ‘I understand,’ Klose says, ‘I understand quite clearly, you want to start tinkling the ivories again, your Beethoven and Schubert and whatever all their names are.’

  Lassehn shakes his head violently. ‘No, Mr Klose, you’ve misunderstood me this time,’ he says. ‘What Dr Böttcher said to me yesterday has gone through my head again and again, and I’ve seen that he was right, music on its own isn’t enough, he said. You see, and this is why I want to find a foundation to build my new life on.’

  ‘And what about music?’ Klose asks.

  ‘It’ll have to be a background accompaniment until it harmonizes completely with my future life,’ Lassehn replies.

  ‘That sounds great, lad,’ Klose says and smiles mischievously. ‘Let’s hope that our beloved Führer starts playing some pretty harmonies quite soon, that would be the loveliest harmony of all, but first of all we’re going to have a few noisy diss … diss …’

  ‘Dissonances,’ Lassehn says, coming to his assistance.

  ‘That’s the one, have a few dissonances, with thunder and lightning and crashing waves, but not on the Rhine, rather on the Spree and the Panke, making the wall rattle. Man, when you see it like that, people putting up anti-tank barriers in the street, it’s lucky that the city was bombed, at least they have plenty of rags and iron, they’re spoiled for choice.’

  ‘So do you think Berlin will be defended?’ Lassehn asks.

  ‘Of course, they’ll let the people fight to the last,’ Klose says bitterly, ‘they’ll stop at nothing. You’ve held the Völkischer Beobachter in your hand, you must have read Heini’s latest proclamation.’

  Lassehn shakes his head.

  Klose takes the paper from the hook, puts it in front of him and points to an article. ‘There, read that, then you’ll know what you need to know.’

  Lassehn pulls the paper over and reads:

  A decree from the Reichsführer SS

  Every town will be defended!

  Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler has issued the following order: the enemy is attempting to use deception to persuade German towns
to surrender. With fake armed reconnaissance vehicles he is attempting to intimidate the population with the threat that if the town is not handed over they will be shot by tanks or artillery that will shortly arrive. Every village and every town will be defended and held by every means possible. Every German man responsible for the defence of his town who fails to uphold this fundamental national duty will forfeit his honour and his life.

  ‘Now you’re in the picture,’ Klose says when Lassehn looks up again.

  ‘But there are hundreds of thousands of women and children and old people in the city,’ Lassehn objects. ‘Will they at least be allowed to leave?’

  Klose shakes his head. ‘Where to, Joachim? Have a think, it’s all full of refugees from the east, and besides the railways can’t handle it, the Americans and the British are systematically destroying the whole railway network, they’re running out of rolling stock and it’s getting worse by the day. They’re nearing the end and the rogues up there know that very well, they’re not that stupid.’

  ‘So why don’t they just call it a day?’ Lassehn says desperately. ‘It would be more decent than sending lots of innocent people to certain death.’

  ‘Now hold your breath, Joachim,’ Klose says. ‘You might be a good musician, but you’re a very stupid person. Don’t be cross with me for being so blunt, but I speak as I find. You suffer from the deep-rooted failing of the Germans, they’re good musicians and efficient bookkeepers, skilled engineers and industrious street sweepers. They are erudite connoisseurs of the cultures of all eras and they know all about all kinds of complicated things. They’re unusually efficient and hard-working, curious and talented, but … yes, now comes the big but, my dear boy, but they can’t see beyond their own noses, the musician can’t see beyond his piano, the street sweeper beyond his broom, the bookkeeper … well, and so on, their navel is the centre of the world. We Germans are in fact not a part of this world, the world is built around us, to complement our incomplete appendage, the rest are merely dilettantes and beginners, that has been drummed into the Germans in every key for so long that they just believe it and pass on that belief from generation to generation.’

  Klose pauses for a few seconds, he has been speaking quickly, perhaps a little agitatedly, and now he has to catch his breath. ‘A simile occurs to me, one that Dr Böttcher once mentioned, and which fits perfectly: he compared us Germans to a stamp collector who pays attention to all the details, to watermarks, type of paper, perforations, colouring and whatever all else there is, and who forgets the beauty of the stamps, who breaks them down and dissects them into their details under the microscope, but ignores the whole, and then calls that scientific stamp-collecting, philately, he grasps nothing of the actual essence of the stamp. And the Germans are like that in every field, we can’t see the wood for the trees, we lose ourselves in trivia and minor details and leave the leadership to the political specialists, who must be able to do it because they’re specialists. We’re a bloody strange people!’

  Lassehn has been listening as if under a spell. ‘Yes, that’s occurred to me too, Mr Klose,’ he says when Klose pauses to light a cigarette. ‘Today, on Barnimstrasse, near the Königstor, I observed a group of men building an anti-tank barrier, across the road, but with a little gap for the traffic to get through, they were ripping the cobbles out of the ground, they rammed two rows of joists in vertically and covered the gaps over with wood and metal. In fact I don’t need to describe that to you, because I’m sure you’ve seen things like that yourself. I’m not just telling you because of the technical details, but to some extent because of the psychological anomaly. The men who were doing this work were probably convinced that a defence of Berlin would be a terrible misfortune, they had probably understood that the conquerors of the Siegfried Line or the great Russian rivers would not be defeated by a few ludicrous anti-tank barriers. The men were quite tired and ill tempered, they were in no particular hurry, but they did their work with staggering conscientiousness. They checked that the joists had been rammed hard enough into the ground, they engaged in lively discussions about whether the outside walls were strong enough to withstand the pressure of the masses of sand and stones and so on. Elsewhere – probably on the Brauner Weg – an anti-tank barrier had just been completed, and I must say, the workers at that spot were no different from the ones in Barnimstrasse, they kept walking around the finished barrier and tested its firmness, they were proud of their work and were praised and clapped on the shoulder by a Nazi boss who had probably directed and supervised the work. Was it not clear to these men that with these barricades they were building they were probably pulling down their own houses and destroying the rest of the city, if it was really to be defended?’

  Klose nods a number of times, the smile has vanished completely from his broad face, making way for a gloomy expression. ‘You’ve been very observant, Joachim, and unfortunately it’s true, it needs to be said that the German workforce has largely failed, it has worked industriously and conscientiously in the armaments factories, as if for its own cause. You need only have seen people after the air-raid warnings, when the trams and other modes of transport are cancelled or there is a hold-up due to congestion, pushing and jostling their way into the S-Bahn and U-Bahn stations, cursing each other and often even fighting just to get to their factories in time or at least as quickly as possible. Lad, I can tell you, it’s shaming, you could despair and wonder whether they’ve all lost their reason, whether they don’t realize that every shell unturned, every rivet unhammered, every piece of iron unpulled must shorten the war.’ He brings the flat of his hand crashing down on the table. ‘It would drive you mad that a handful of crazy demagogues and charlatans have managed to make an entire people obsessed with their idea.’

  ‘The Nazis,’ Lassehn says, ‘managed to equate National Socialism with the German people, to universalize the view that the collapse of National Socialism must inevitably also mean the collapse of Germany and the German people. Several of my comrades have declared to me quite openly that they didn’t sympathize with National Socialism, but they found themselves in a dilemma and had to defend Germany, and I must honestly admit that I thought similarly and haven’t quite shed the last remnants of that way of thinking even today, that I hoped, if not in the end for a victory, then for an honourable compromise …’

  ‘A compromise with Hitler?’ Klose exclaims. ‘Never! Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt will never engage in negotiations with these word-of-honour contortionists and constant treaty breakers, quite apart from the fact that the question is completely outmoded today, since the others have their fingers around his neck. No, no, my dear boy, the German people can only regain their honour when they rid themselves of this Nazi horde. But how did we slip into this conversation? What were we talking about before, Joachim?’

  Lassehn has to gather his thoughts, the conversation has taken a turn and achieved a significance that make its original source irrelevant. ‘I said,’ he begins after a while, ‘that it would be more decent for the Nazis to bring things to a timely end …’

  ‘Yes, that was it,’ Klose says. ‘How can you assume decency on the part of the Nazis? Can’t you tell that that round-headed idiot with the pomaded hair from Braunau, that great fat lump and the club-footed dwarf are drowning out each other’s screams out of sheer horror because there’s no turning back? That they are quite deliberately dragging Germany into the abyss because they have no way out? Haven’t they stated quite clearly that if the National Socialist Party should perish, they will drag the entire German people with them into the abyss because otherwise they would be abandoned to the sadistic tyranny and slavery of the Bolsheviks and the Western plutocracies? No, son, decency isn’t a word in the Nazis’ vocabulary.’

  ‘I keep imagining,’ Lassehn says, ‘what it will be like here, artillery fire, street battles, tank battles, air raids, and all of that in the middle of a city with a civilian population …’

  ‘Not to mention the Gestapo, the
SS, and crazed functionaries …’ Klose adds.

  Lassehn shudders. ‘I simply can’t believe it,’ he says.

  Klose puts a hand on his shoulder. ‘My dear boy,’ he says and narrows his eyes, ‘in spite of everything, you don’t seem to know what the Nazis are capable of. Do you know, for example, what they did in Breslau? They put an airfield right in the middle of the city, a real working runway …’

  ‘In the middle of the city?’ Lassehn asks in disbelief. ‘But that’s impossible.’

  ‘Impossible?’ Klose says with a short, dry laugh.

  Lassehn nods. ‘I mean … even technically that’s impossible.’

  ‘You innocent angel! For the Nazis nothing is technically, let alone humanly impossible. Let me tell you how they did it. First they set fire to the houses and churches, then they blew them up and carried away the rubble and iron, and then women and foreign civilian workers had to flatten the runway, fill in the cellars and craters and roll them smooth, all under heavy artillery fire. You’re amazed, young fellow, are you not?’

  Lassehn shakes himself. ‘Shocking!’

  ‘Yes, it is shocking. And you know what happened in Kolberg?’

  Lassehn shakes his head.

  ‘These gentlemen wanted to re-enact 1807fn1 there, Gneisenau, Schill and old Nettelbeck, heroic defence, freely based on Veit Harlan. You really don’t know what happened in Kolberg?’

  ‘No, how should I …’

  Klose grits his teeth like a beast of prey preparing to pounce. ‘Yes, of course, why should you? They all say that, and strike their innocent German chests. How should I and what can I do about it anyway?’

  ‘Mr Klose …’

  Klose waves his words away. ‘It’s fine. Just stick your head in the sand and whatever you do don’t learn from the facts.’ He pauses for a moment and throws his cigarette stub irritably into the ashtray. ‘So Kolberg was also defended, even though the city was bursting with refugees from East and West Prussia, there were over a hundred thousand people in the city, where only forty thousand normally live, the streets were crammed with thousands of wagons, but the gentlemen in charge paid no heed to them. The order was: The whole city is to be defended!, so it was defended, and it was only when tank shells struck the city that they began to clear it. ‘Smooth evacuation’, the Völkischer Beobachter later wrote. Do you know what that looked like?’