by Heinz Rein
The tall, thin man pulls a meaningful face. ‘I’ve had it to there with the Reich, and the Führer can go and …’ he says furiously, and makes an unambiguous hand gesture. ‘We’ve had enough of this shit!’
‘I don’t understand,’ Klose says, and shakes his head, ‘how you’re running about like you’ve just escaped from a cabinet of curiosities.’
‘Easy for you to say, you old beermonger,’ the crooked little man cuts in, and waves his arms in the air.
‘Why? It wouldn’t be a problem for me,’ Klose says, and whistles through his teeth. ‘Toot toot, and off to the middle of nowhere.’
‘Or up he goes – hanging from a lamp post,’ says the man in the hussar’s jacket.
‘That’s exactly how it is,’ agrees a man in a blue policeman’s uniform. ‘We have no option but to join in.’
‘Great German heroes you are,’ Klose says, and puts a set of glasses down on the table, ‘instead of just bringing the whole thing to an end when your necks are on the line you keep going, in a way that’s going to cost you your lives and take the battle into your houses, your flats and your cellars. But it’s more comfortable to take commands and carry out orders even if they’re a mockery of reason. Whatever you do, don’t think, don’t make any decisions of your own. You’re a bunch of cowards, the whole lot of you!’
‘Careful, fatso,’ says the man with the smart riding boots, ‘or you’ll be dangling up there even before the Russkies light up your pub with their artillery fire. Listen!’ he says, with an imperious gesture of his hand. ‘Shut up for a minute!’ Now their ears are all pricked for the sounds of the street, the artillery fire has become heavier and noisier, the explosions are coming at shorter intervals and the windowpanes rattle quietly.
‘They’re starting to fire at Silesian Station,’ the crooked little man says.
‘Every hour of battle means death and destruction for your families,’ Klose says seriously. ‘Or do you think you can still halt the Russians?’ The tall, thin man gives a weary, doubtful gesture and mutters a few vague words.
A middle-sized, dark-haired man with thick glasses now speaks: ‘I still haven’t completely given up hope,’ he says, nodding violently, ‘that the battle will not reach the end.’
‘Poor mad fool,’ Klose says, ‘you believe what you hope. Let me tell you, the battle will bleed us dry if you don’t call it off first. Here, read today’s Angriff, and what they write about Magdeburg, that’ll give you an idea. Here, take it – read it out!’
The man with the glasses hesitantly takes the paper and begins to read.
‘Piles of rubble become fire-spewing mountains
Heroic battle of Magdeburg
Magdeburg, as the war correspondent of a major American news agency reports, is putting up more hate-filled resistance to the enemy invaders than the British and the Americans had expected.
When the American tanks rolled through the streets of the city, where after the heavy terror attacks of the previous few days no resistance was expected, the piles of rubble turned into fire-spewing mountains. The population, men, women and young people, had taken up position behind the ruins of their city to pay the hated enemy back for his scandalous actions with rocket launchers and rifles. Various islands of resistance, behind whose barricades the citizens of Magdeburg, including boys and old men, defend themselves bitterly and with wild ferocity, are effectively preventing the American advance.’
When he has finished, the men fall silent.
‘Yes,’ Klose says, and looks from one to the other, ‘you can take an example from them, there are still some lads who entrench themselves when they have to, behind their own beards.’
‘If only we knew what to do,’ the tall, thin man murmurs, and absently drains his glass of beer.
‘We should just shoot the bastards down,’ says the man with the riding boots, ‘bang, bang, bang, shoot them down, that’s what we should do.’
‘When you all end up in the grave,’ Wiegand says, joining in with the conversation for the first time, ‘today or tomorrow or maybe only the day after tomorrow, then your mass grave will have a swastika with the inscription, “Here lie the Volkssturm men Should, Would, If, But and If Only, out of their own indecision they died the patient heroic German death for the greatest of Führer of all times.”’
Everyone turns to Wiegand, who is sitting in a dark corner.
‘There’s another one,’ says the man with the hussar’s jacket.
‘But he’s right,’ says the crooked little man, ‘he’s right a hundred times over, but …’ He lifts his misshapen shoulder and resignedly lets it fall again. ‘Boy, they’ve really got us trapped.’
‘We need to do some serious thinking,’ says one man with a rocket launcher on his knees.
‘Of course,’ Klose says, ‘but not too fast, first make a drawing and send it to Wehrmacht high command for appraisal and certification.’
‘Drop the jokes, fatso,’ the tall, thin man says irritably. ‘It’s not as simple as that …’
A mighty crash of thunder rings out, the house trembles for a few seconds, the front door flies open, the windows rattle, plaster trickles from the walls in white clouds, screams are heard from the street, the hoofs of a fleeing horse clatter on the cobbles.
‘Bloody hell!’ says the man in the postman’s uniform. ‘Now it’s starting here, too!’
‘Yes, try and find a quiet little place in Berlin,’ Klose says scornfully.
‘This is no time for joking,’ the tall, thin man says furiously. ‘I think …’ He doesn’t have time to finish his sentence and hunches his shoulders. A second shell arrives with a whistle and explodes, now they are coming in quick succession, shot after shot, explosion after explosion, accompanied by the rattle from the engines of the low-flying aircraft and the bursts of gunfire from their weapons. After a quarter of an hour the attack is over.
‘Gentlemen, that was the overture,’ says Klose,
‘Damn it all, that was some heavy firing,’ says the man with the riding boots, ‘I’ve got to go and see what’s going on out there.’
He passes through the door, which is still open, and collides with an SS officer. All of a sudden he is back in the pub.
‘Attention!’ he shouts loudly, clicks his heels together, and puts his hands against the seams of his trousers.
All the others leap to their feet and stand to attention in line with the regulations.
The SS officer studies them coldly. ‘Report!’ he says harshly. ‘Are you making a report?’
The thin man steps forward and raises his hand in the Hitler salute. ‘Platoon leader Albrecht and nineteen Volkssturm men, Hauptsturmführer.’
‘Thank you,’ the Hauptsturmführer barks. ‘Where are you being deployed?’
‘Küstriner Platz, anti-tank barrier on Müncheberger Strasse, Plaza and Eastern Station.’
‘And what are you doing here?’
‘We’re off shift until eight p.m., Hauptsturmführer.’
‘Nonsense, there are no shifts any more. There is no eight-hour day in the military, is that clear? There’s plenty of work for everyone. Each man is urgently needed. Back to work, quick march!’
The thin man hesitates for a moment.
‘Well, can we get a move on?’ roars the Hauptsturmführer. ‘You only have to say if you don’t want to, there are still a few street lamps free, and we’ve got rope, too.’
‘Patrol fall in,’ the thin man shouts. ‘Don’t mark time, forward march.’
The Volkssturm men leave the pub in single file, with the Hauptsturmführer bringing up the rear.
Klose throws the washing-up brush in the basin, sending the water splashing. ‘It’s disgusting, Fritz,’ he says furiously. ‘Obedience is so much in their bones that … They’d almost decided to call it a day, but a few stars and stripes and the right kind of face, and they duck down and knuckle under, and it would have been an easy matter to kill that man, with all that banging and crashing out t
here no one would have noticed.’
‘Certainly wouldn’t,’ Wiegand says from his corner, he is sitting there motionless, his chin pressed against his chest, his eyes half closed, a wrinkle of bitterness at the corner of his mouth.
Klose picks up the beer glasses and glances out at the street.
‘Looks charming out there,’ he says, half turning round. ‘The anti-tank gun on Fruchtstrasse has been blown to hell, nothing but scrap metal and corpses, and the Wehrmacht shelter also took a blow, and they seem to have … Careful, low-flying aircraft!’
Klose leaps back into the pub. With a terrible roar a plane shoots low over the street, its shadow brushing the front window for a fraction of a second.
‘This is getting cosy, then,’ Klose says, and wipes the sweat from his forehead with his bare forearm. ‘You’re so calm, Fritz. What’s up with you?’
Wiegand is breathing heavily. ‘The Hauptsturmführer who was here a moment ago,’ he says, ‘that’s …’ He shakes himself like someone taking bitter medicine.
‘That’s what?’ Klose says.
‘My son,’ Wiegand replies tonelessly.
Klose sits down on the nearest chair and slaps his hands on his thighs. ‘Robert?’
Wiegand’s voice is blank. ‘Yes, Robert.’
VI
21 April
The Hackescher Markt and Silesian Station are exactly 2.2 kilometres apart as the crow flies. That normal member of the human species, Homo sapiens per pedes, or pedestrians and strollers who tend to walk upright and on level ground without being disturbed by sounds caused either by a perforated drum being rotated by an electric current and the air being fired from it by centrifugal force, or powder enclosed in metal cases being caused to explode by firing-pins – this species normally takes half an hour to cover that distance.
Lassehn is on his way to the Hackescher Markt. Line 1 is your best bet, Joachim (although only to Rosenthaler Platz), but it doesn’t run any more, it’s a very easy journey, you can’t miss it, you walk down Holzmarktstrasse, then very quickly across Alexanderstrasse and under the railway tracks, where the ‘Belvedere’ used to be, on the Roland-Ufer you spit into the good old Spree and then you potter along Neue Friedrichstrasse, which follows the curve of the city railway from Jannowitz Bridge to the Stock Exchange, you turn right at Spandau Bridge, and you’re already at the Hackescher Markt. The whole thing is a hop, skip and jump for a healthy young man, and if you stick to it you’ll be there in just half an hour.
Klose said something similar, but Klose doesn’t know everything. He knows a lot, because in his pub he hears everything you can imagine (and can’t imagine), but he doesn’t know everything because he doesn’t like to move his heavy body any further than between the front door and the back room. Lassehn has already been walking for almost an hour, but he has only reached Alexanderstrasse, because there are all kinds of obstacles and delays. Here an alleyway is closed because there’s a danger of collapsing buildings, elsewhere sentries with rifles stand and stop people getting through, then there are attacks from low-flying aircraft and artillery fire that force you to take shelter; one street was impassable because the façades on either side were burning, across its whole width unbearable heat and stinging smoke seethed and a rain of glowing ash fell down on it. Three times he is stopped by army patrols and strictly checked, and in the end he gets lost, he is so confused by all the detours, he wanders among the ruins as if between huge labyrinthine fences and in the end he doesn’t know where he actually is. The street signs have been destroyed, and there is no trace of them on the piles of rubble.
On Alexanderstrasse Lassehn considers using the S-Bahn, but he immediately rejects the idea, since public transport (if it is running at all) can only be used with special travel authorization papers of urgency level 111. Since the Roland-Ufer is also closed, Lassehn tries to reach Schicklerstrasse, but that is impossible too, so he is forced back into a narrow street leading towards the east. A hurrying passer-by tells him he is on Kaiserstrasse.
He takes a few steps down the street, but if he thought he would find a dead and abandoned street he was mistaken. The street isn’t empty, on the contrary, it is full of people, women are standing around outside a general goods store, but they aren’t standing around as they usually do in dense, packed rows of three or four, with sulky, dull or patient expressions but quick tongues, no, they are standing in single file, pressed close against the wall, and pale fear is drawn on every face. There are flickering eyes in every face and pursed, twitching lips, because beyond the roofs the shells of the Russian artillery whistle and the engines of the red fighter bombers roar, shell splinters clatter into the street, each time it sounds like a harp string breaking. A firebomb has struck the roof of a house on the other side of the street, tiles clatter on the cobblestones and shatter rattling in all directions, in the beams of the roof the fire crackles and is already licking with fiery red tongues against the lower storeys. It is a gloomy, whitish day with low-hanging clouds, so the smoke is pushed deep into the street, and a light wind blows soot along. But none of the women leave the queue, they press handkerchiefs over their horrified mouths and put on air-raid goggles, they pull their headscarves, shawls and turbans more tightly around their heads and stuff each stray lock under the protecting fabric. There they stand, mute, with faces that look as if turned to stone, their hands holding shopping bags and nets pressed firmly against their trembling bodies, between fire and falling shells. Every sound, the whistle of the shells, the whirring of the propellers and the hiss of fire, makes them flinch, all for a miserable pound of semolina or groats, half a pound of sugar or flour.
‘The fire should be reported,’ murmurs one of the women with the wrinkled face of a prematurely aged worker.
‘Where to? How? Who to?’ her neighbour asks. ‘Or do you want to go? Give up your place?’
‘I’m not even thinking about it,’ says the woman with the wrinkled face. ‘And I lost my place anyway. Let the shop burn down!’
‘Why doesn’t he open up?’ a young woman calls from the end of the row.
‘He’s waiting for instructions from the Reich Food Office,’ another young woman calls.
‘He’s keeping us waiting until …’ says a sturdy young woman in an overall.
The explosion of a shell pulls the words from her mouth, a stone fountain sprays up and rattles down, screams of horror ring out, dust and smoke roil above the place of impact.
Lassehn has thrown himself down on the ground, he has heard the whistling of the shell and shouted ‘take cover’, but the others haven’t heard him, or have heard him too late. When he gets back to his feet he sees the women leaning against the wall, their faces distorted with fear, their mouths groaning. Only one lies on the floor, she is an elderly woman, a few strands of grey hair have come loose from under a brown headscarf, her skirt is lifted to her knee revealing black, knitted woollen stockings and stout boots with buckles. Her hands, big, bony, hard-worked hands with thick blue veins and broken nails, clutch several food cards.
Lassehn leans over the woman and reaches carefully for her shoulder. ‘All over, Grandma,’ he says.
The old woman doesn’t move. Lassehn turns her carefully onto her back and looks into her old, sunken, grey face.
‘What’s happened to her?’ a young woman from the queue asks, and approaches hesitantly. ‘Is she …’
‘I don’t know,’ Lassehn says, and shrugs. ‘Perhaps she’s …’ Just fainted, he was going to say, but the words stick in his throat, he sees that the woman’s coat is shredded just below the waist. It is only a hole the size of a thumbnail, but Lassehn knows this kind of shredded clothing, he knows what it means when the ends of the fibres seem to be turned inwards, he also knows what it means when a wound like that bleeds outwards. He takes the woman’s arm and tries to feel her pulse, but he can’t find her heartbeat.
The young woman is now standing beside Lassehn, who is still bent over the old woman and holding her hand. ‘
Say something.’ The young woman is practically panting. ‘My God, say something!’
Lassehn lets the old woman’s hand slip slowly back to the cobbles and stands up. ‘We’ve got to try … Isn’t there a hospital or a first-aid station somewhere around here?’
‘Perhaps in the air-raid shelter on Alexanderplatz,’ the young woman replies. ‘But how …’
‘Won’t you help me pick her up?’ Lassehn asks, and looks her full in the face.
‘I can’t leave here,’ the young woman replies, and looks searchingly along the queue as if to check that her place is still free.
‘We might still be able to save her,’ Lassehn says urgently, ‘but she will have to be carried carefully.’
‘Has she been hit, or has she just fainted?’
‘I presume it’s shrapnel in her abdomen, internal bleeding, if she isn’t helped quickly …’
He pauses. The sound of marching comes from Alexanderstrasse, a platoon of SS grenadiers with rocket launchers, sub-machine guns and carbines turns into Kaiserstrasse, they are wearing steel helmets with SS runes pushed to the backs of their necks, and their jacket collars are unbuttoned.
Lassehn runs towards them. ‘Comrades,’ he says breathlessly, ‘there’s an old woman down there who’s been hit by a splinter from a grenade.’
The SS squad leader, who is marching on the right of the platoon, gives Lassehn a fleeting glance. ‘So? We’re on duty.’
Lassehn runs along beside the junior section leader. ‘She could still be saved,’ he says, pleadingly. ‘If you carry her carefully on the stocks of your carbines …’ He points to the old woman lying at an angle across the pavement.
The Unterscharführer and a few SS men look at the old woman and shrug, none of them slows down for even a second, in their faces there is not a flicker that might suggest a spark of emotion in their cold and apathetic faces.