by Heinz Rein
Tolksdorff is breathing heavily. ‘Being against something isn’t a philosophy,’ he objects. ‘Why did most of our generation become National Socialists and remain so, even today? Because we know nothing else, we were given no other support in a spiritual void. If we lose that foothold now …’
‘The famous bird in the hand,’ Lassehn mocks.
‘And what have you done?’ Tolksdorff asks. ‘You haven’t fallen under its spell?’
‘I’ve retreated completely into myself,’ Lassehn replies, ‘I’ve closed myself off from everything they tried to cram into our brains to disrupt our way of thinking.’
Tolksdorff shakes his head slowly. ‘You can’t do that,’ he says. ‘But perhaps my judgement is too subjective, I couldn’t become spiritually rootless like that. And the fact that you could, Joachim …’
‘You’re forgetting music, Dietrich,’ Lassehn reminds him.
‘You’re right,’ Tolksdorff says. ‘You were always so much of a musician that you didn’t need anything else.’
Again there is a short pause. Lassehn listens to a tune that sounds inside him, Tolksdorff nervously presses his fingertips together.
‘You always speak in the past tense,’ Tolksdorff resumes the conversation at last, ‘just as if you wanted to suggest that something in you has changed. Am I right?’
Lassehn nods. ‘Yes,’ he says firmly, ‘I have overcome the intellectual vacuum, as you called it just now, and even though the life of an illegal deserter is incredibly difficult and fraught with dangers, I still have the feeling of having cast off an unbearable burden and liberated myself.’
‘And what caused that transformation?’ Tolksdorff asks.
Lassehn smiles. ‘I can’t give you a precise answer, I just fell in with some men who are against National Socialism.’
‘There are many such these days,’ Tolksdorff says.
Lassehn nods. ‘Certainly, but these men aren’t like that,’ he replies. ‘I’ve expressed myself badly and ambiguously. These men aren’t moving away from National Socialism as lots of people are doing today, because the cause seems clearly to be going wrong, and because they want to create an alibi for themselves for later on. No, they are resolute opponents of the Nazis, not for personal, but for philosophical reasons. They are filled with the power of a conviction that cannot be lured away with a decoy or broken with a threat.’
Tolksdorff has been listening with a mixture of excitement and disbelief. ‘And you’ve joined them?’
‘Yes,’ Lassehn replies, ‘and I also know that I was right to do so, and above all I know that you don’t do anything if you don’t do everything, that you don’t risk anything if you only take your risk halfway.’
‘I’ve never been averse to learning things,’ Tolksdorff says. ‘For example, I’ve often thought about what it is that gives the Russians their almost superhuman endurance and their almost irresistible strength. I have never really believed that it was just the sub-machine guns of the commissars, as people are forever trying to tell us. But on the other hand I could never work out where these people got their strength from. It was just unthinkable to discuss such questions, it would have been like suicide even to ask them.’
‘We have come to see all the concepts that don’t conform with National Socialism in a warped and twisted form,’ Lassehn says, ‘the prejudices against socialism and democracy, parliamentarianism and pacifism have been planted in us so firmly that we … I can’t think of the right comparison.’ He pauses and shuts his eyes for a few seconds. ‘I could only introduce a comparison from music, you know that I always translate or condense everything into music.’
Tolksdorff nods. ‘Yes, I remember very clearly,’ he replies with a smile.
Lassehn can’t help smiling now too. ‘The prejudices are anchored as firmly within us as a tune that we learned wrongly and sang wrongly when we were very young, and even if we later sing that tune correctly from the score, the old tune goes on playing within us, we often prefer it to the real one. And it’s exactly the same with prejudices, they poison our thoughts and go on working away within us even when we have convinced ourselves of the opposite. Slander as much as you like, something always remains within us, that’s exactly the method the Nazis use, so with certain names and concepts we link certain ways of representing them, Stalin – a hangman, Churchill – a drunk, Roosevelt – a slave to the Jews, pacifism – a softening of the bones, parliamentarianism – chitter-chatter, democracy – broken-backed politics.’
Tolksdorff has risen to his feet and is pacing uneasily back and forth. ‘And what is this new insight of yours, Joachim?’ he asks, and gives Lassehn a penetrating look.
‘It hasn’t quite matured into an insight,’ Lassehn replies with a shake of the head, ‘you don’t acquire recognitions as quickly as that, but I know there are things worth living for, something has opened up within me and led me away from my inner instability. Of course it’s still vague, but it’s there.’
Tolksdorff stops in front of Lassehn. ‘A shame you don’t know what it is that’s inspiring you.’
Lassehn looks up. ‘Why a shame?’ he asks with surprise.
‘Because I …’ Tolksdorff is slightly embarrassed. ‘Because I would have liked to know your new perspectives.’
Lassehn lowers his chin to his chest, an idea has just come to him, something fantastically bold, it seems to him, but perhaps not entirely impossible. ‘What would you say, Dietrich,’ he says slowly, thinking of Dr Böttcher, ‘if I were to introduce you to somebody …’
‘Fine,’ Tolksdorff says firmly. ‘I’d be very interested,’ he adds with a hint of doubt. ‘When and where would our debate be held?’
Lassehn shakes his head. ‘I’m not in charge of this gentleman’s timetable,’ he says carefully, ‘and besides I can’t say in advance whether he would agree with me bringing an officer to the house, but I’ll ask him. Where will I find you?’
‘We still have a few days’ work to do here,’ Tolksdorff replies, ‘and then I might be able to …’
‘He’s very close to here,’ Lassehn interrupts. Only three blocks away, he thinks, only three houses, but there is a whole world between them.
XVII
16 April, 4.00 p.m.
At the end of the air-raid warning, when the sirens wail loudly again, Lassehn leaves Dr Böttcher’s flat. The cheerful mood that filled him just now, when he took his first steps into his underground life and walked along Grosse Frankfurter Strasse in the bright April sunshine, is still with him, and might even be stronger than before. Furthermore, he has every reason to be satisfied. First of all, he delivered the flyers safe and sound and thus successfully accomplished his first task at the service of the ‘Berolina’ resistance group. He was also granted permission to visit Dr Böttcher with Tolksdorff over the next few days, and he had enough to eat for lunch, and a good meal. Even for a young man like Lassehn, inclined towards the spiritual life, this is not to be sneezed at, particularly when ample, good and regular meals have become a rarity.
But the main reason for his carefree mood comes from elsewhere. Lassehn runs his hand gently over the spot where he has put his wallet. His wallet now contains not only his military passbook, which, without his leave papers or marching orders was practically worthless, but a military passbook with discharge note and indispensability certificate. His picture has been mounted into this military pass with amazing skill, the circular stamps that run over the corners of his picture line up almost perfectly with the edges of the stamps printed in the pass, and one would have to look at it unusually closely to discover the minute deviations. These papers, along with a gun in his trouser pocket, give him more of a sense of security than a clear conscience and honest intentions could ever do.
Lassehn is now itching to put the perfection of his papers to the test, he feels an urge for adventure, exactly what Klose advised him against. He walks provocatively close to a Wehrmacht patrol, standing with steel helmet and gorget on the corner of
Frankfurter Allee and Samariterstrasse, but the two military policemen pay him no attention at all, they stand as if rooted to the spot, with stubborn faces and arms clasped behind their backs, among the whirl of passers-by.
Lassehn walks past them again and then yet again, but with the same lack of success, in the end he gives up and walks further eastward along Frankfurter Allee, his destination is the S-Bahn that crosses Frankurter Allee between Pettenkoferstrasse and Möllendorffstrasse, and whose bridge is oddly known as ‘the connector’.
When Lassehn joins the queue at the ticket counter he has already almost forgotten about his papers, he is preparing himself for his new task, and that is his trip to Eichwalde. He has never travelled along the stretch to Königs Wusterhausen, he doesn’t know the eastern part of Berlin at all, he only has dim memories of an outing in a steamer on the Müggelsee, but that is a long time ago. When his parents still lived on Schönhauser Allee he only preferred the northern suburbs of Tegel, Frohnau, Birkenwerder, Bernau and Lübars, and later, when his parents moved to Lankwitz, he hiked through the western edges of the Grunewald to Werder, from Pichelsberge to Falkensee. It is an unquestionable fact that Berliners don’t like to cross the whole city to get to the surrounding countryside, they like to go straight from the area where they live into the open, there is barely a Berliner who knows the whole surroundings of his home, unless he is an almost professional hiker.
When Lassehn has bought his ticket he stops by the railway map in the ticket hall, and first looks for his present location, the Frankfurter Allee S-Bahn station, and then examines the eastern suburban lines to Strausberg, Fürstenwalde and Königs Wusterhausen. As the ticket hall is quite dark, he walks up close to the map and runs his finger along the red line from Görlitz Station to Königs Wusterhausen. He has just reached Schöneweide when someone addresses him.
‘So, my friend, where to?’
Lassehn turns around and finds himself face to face with a small, thin little man who is trying in vain to increase his height with a bowler hat.
‘To Eichwalde,’ he replies. ‘I have to change at Treptower Park, isn’t that right?’
‘Correct,’ the little man replies, ‘and then again in Grünau. Come with me, I’m going almost the same way.’
Why not? Lassehn thinks. Now that his papers are in order he doesn’t want to avoid people any more. Quite the contrary, he seeks out their company, he keeps his ears pricked at all times, pushes his way into all kinds of gatherings, he’s interested in everything that people are saying, and what goes unsaid between the words.
The platform is thick with people, and even if an empty train pulled in only some of the waiting people would find a seat.
Lassehn stands helplessly in the middle of the platform.
‘There’s no question of me coming with you,’ he says.
‘Don’t say that, my friend,’ says the little man. ‘If you take a good run up and put your back into it, you’ll be on there in a second.’
‘But if everyone did that …’ Lassehn objects.
‘Not everyone does, pal,’ the little man says and winks smugly. ‘People are divided into those who jostle and those who allow themselves to be jostled. I’m one of the jostlers. What about you?’
Lassehn shrugs. ‘I absolutely have to get to Eichwalde today,’ he says.
‘There’s no absolutely these days,’ the little man says. ‘Or rather there is. We must be absolutely victorious, says the Führer. Or maybe not?’
‘He’s said lots of things,’ a worker chimes in and laughs sarcastically. ‘It hasn’t always been true, but he’s always been right about one thing. Give me ten years and you won’t recognize Germany. That’s pretty much for definite.’
‘It’s all factored in, he said,’ the little man says, ‘the odd miscalculation isn’t so important, we can deal with those. Isn’t that right, pal?’
‘And we’re the ones who come out of it looking like idiots,’ the worker says.
‘We’ve been idiots from the start,’ says the little man, ‘if we’d had our wits about us that lot wouldn’t have won the lottery. Or what do you think?’
‘I’d thank you to keep your trap shut,’ says a tall, fat man. ‘The Führer would have been fine, except that he couldn’t trust bastards like you. You lot should be reported for coming out with things like that, when everything’s at stake.’
‘So have you got something to lose, fatty?’ the little man laughs. ‘When you’ve been bombed out of your house you might change your tune as well.’
The fat man alters the tone of his voice, now he isn’t just talking to the little man, to Lassehn and the worker, he’s speaking to everyone standing nearby. ‘Be reasonable, my national comrades, we must be victorious …’
‘Or else you’re stuffed,’ a voice butts in.
‘What do you mean, you, national comrades?’ the fat man says. ‘We all belong together, we are a united community.’
‘That must be Goebbels’ big brother,’ the same voice adds.
Everyone laughs, and the fat man falls grimly silent.
Lassehn is amazed by such candour, it is the clearest indication that the Party’s authority is in decline. The expressions used, in secret and also sometimes openly, would have been unthinkable in public only a year ago. But the curious thing is that opposition and rebellion go no further than these phrases. They are the product of passive aversion, not combative antagonism, because even though the National Socialist regime is on its last legs, it still holds in its clenched fist the threads of the powerful net that has been cast over the German people and forces everyone to turn their own tiny cog in the infernal machine of the Third Reich.
The debate concludes when the train enters the station; the passengers leaving the train force themselves through a tiny gap that opens up reluctantly in the wall of people, then the crowd surges towards the doors. Even though Lassehn doesn’t make any particular effort, he is carried along as if by a whirlpool, it’s impossible to escape it. It’s as if the vacuum produced inside the carriage by the passengers were sucking in new people like a bell jar.
When the train sets heavily off, Lassehn is almost wedged in, he can’t move a muscle, or move a centimetre in either direction.
The little man with the black bowler hat is standing right beside him, grinning at him with satisfaction. ‘So, you see, my friend, you made it after all.’
Lassehn smiles back. ‘Luck, I have no idea how it happened.’
‘Lots of people don’t,’ the little man says ambiguously. ‘This train is entirely symbolic. Or maybe not?’
‘Really?’ Lassehn says. ‘Why would that be?’
‘We all forced our way violently on,’ the little man says, ‘and now we’re on and we can’t move, we’re stuck sitting or standing wherever we are, and we can’t get off.’
‘You’re talking nonsense,’ a man says behind the little fellow, ‘if you want you can get off at the next station.’
The little man sticks to his comparison. ‘It’s not quite true,’ he replies, ‘I can only get off if you let me, and if I really do, how am I going to look? Crumpled and half dead, and they’ve practically ripped my clothes off. That’s what we’ll look like when we get off … well, when we get off that other train. Or maybe not?’
‘You’ll get yourself thrown off,’ a sharp voice says over the luggage net, ‘if you don’t shut your trap pretty soon.’
The words are followed by an awkward silence.
‘Well, the Ostkreuz is a lovely part of the world,’ someone says at last.
‘Which the British and the Americans are about to flatten,’ the little man says. A medium-sized, broad-shouldered man tries to push his way to the door. ‘I’ve got to see the chap with the big mouth,’ he says.
‘Not worth it,’ the little man says quick as a flash, ‘I’m not that much to look at.’
‘Shut up,’ Lassehn says to the little man. ‘You’re making people uncomfortable.’
The little
man nods. ‘I know,’ he says, ‘but I can’t keep my mouth shut now, they’ve been force-feeding me too much nonsense for too long. Or maybe not?’
Lassehn is about to say something, but the train pulls into Ostkreuz Station.
The medium-sized man pushes his way ruthlessly to the door and taps the little man and Lassehn on the shoulder. ‘You’re getting off when I do!’
Lassehn is slightly startled. Did I say something? I just tried to calm down the little man.
‘Of course,’ the little man says. When the train stops he gets out and disappears into the crowd in a fraction of a second.
The medium-sized man tries to follow him, but the human wall on the platform has suddenly closed firmly behind the little man. The other man curses and stays close to Lassehn.
‘Who is that man?’ he asks.
‘I don’t know him,’ Lassehn replies, ‘he spoke to me a little while ago at Frankfurter Allee Station, I’d never seen him before.’
The middle-sized man looks at him suspiciously. ‘Let’s have a look at your papers,’ he says.
Lassehn hands him his passbook. This is the test that he had been hoping for a little while ago, but he feels his heart thumping violently. ‘And who are you?’ he asks.
‘Any German is authorized to arrest suspicious people,’ the medium-sized man says harshly. ‘You don’t seem to be aware of that.’
‘Why am I suspicious?’ Lassehn asks.
‘Because you were in the company of an individual who has unfortunately escaped me,’ the medium-sized man replies. ‘And besides, I’m from the secret state police, if you must know,’ he adds, showing an oval yellow metal tag fastened to a chain, which he has taken out of his pocket.
‘And what can I do about …’ Lassehn is about to object.