Berlin Finale (Penguin Modern Classics)

by Heinz Rein

  ‘We’re on duty,’ the junior section leader repeats. ‘A few Bolshevik tanks are supposed to have broken through at Weissensee.’

  ‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs,’ a voice says from the platoon. ‘That’s always been the case.’

  The platoon turns into Kurze Strasse, Lassehn is left behind. He has forgotten the shells that whistled over his head and the consuming flames in the street, and he stands irresolutely for a few seconds in the middle of the street, then with a shuffling step he walks back to the old woman.

  The young woman stands there with her arms dangling and looks at the old woman. ‘I think she’s dead,’ she says.

  At that moment the body twitches as if in spasm, the legs stretch out as if to push something away, the hands shoot apart and a grey stiffness spreads over the old woman’s confused face.

  ‘She’s survived it,’ the young woman says, her lips trembling, then she turns round abruptly and rejoins the queue.

  Lassehn picks up the food cards that have slipped from the old woman’s hands, one card for adults and three for children. ‘Therese Kaupisch, Berlin C, Elisabethstrasse 63,’ he reads, ‘Dieter Kaupisch’, ‘Rosemarie Kaupisch’, ‘Gudrun Kaupisch’, an old woman who went shopping for herself and her three grandchildren and will never come back. A shell splinter has torn a hole in her body from which the life has fled.

  Lassehn walks up to the young woman he was speaking to just now. She is leaning against the wall with her eyes closed, and her arms are crossed firmly over her chest. ‘Can I entrust the cards to you?’ he says. ‘Do you want to buy something with them? The address is on the cards.’

  The young woman takes the cards in silence and puts them carelessly in her pocket.

  Lassehn looks along the queue, the gap left by the death of the old woman has already closed, the survivors have pushed forward. Then he turns and puts the old woman in the gutter, the way you clear away an obstacle. A man in the queue crosses himself and murmurs a few words into his ice-grey beard.

  When Lassehn has walked a few metres into Kurze Strasse, he turns round again. There lies the old woman, the gutter is her coffin, the thundering cannon her death knell, a queue of people who have forgotten how to feel her funeral cortège. It is the conclusion of a hard-working life, the debris of an inhuman age. You can’t make omelettes …

  Then Lassehn is standing in Landsberger Strasse, which opens up broadly and extravagantly onto Alexanderplatz after a tight row of houses. Where Landsberger Strasse and Neue Königstrasse come together into an acute angle and two underground-train entrances form the threshold to the underworld of Alexanderplatz, three anti-tank guns have been set up. In the middle of the square, between the tramlines that glide apart beyond the traffic islands and curve towards the north and the south, there is a heavy anti-aircraft gun, with its cannon, painted with kill rings, aimed not towards the sky but towards Neue Königstrasse, which from Weissensee via Greifswalder Strasse forms one of the access roads to Alexanderplatz. Two field kitchens smoke in the ruined Tietz department store, a despatch rider speeds down Königstrasse from the City Hall and sweeps in a breakneck bend into Memhardstrasse to the Alexander barracks. A strange stillness has suddenly fallen over the big square, which is normally filled with seething life. The artillery fire falls silent or rumbles somewhere far away like a distant storm, the voices of the soldiers and the clatter of iron against iron are far too faint to be heard across the whole of the big square. Apart from the soldiers there is no one in the square. Since the sirens went off early in the morning no all-clear has sounded.

  It has gradually become apparent that the alarm is a permanent state.

  Suddenly a new sound penetrates the dark peace of the square. A low-flying plane, engines roaring, plunges towards the square, almost speeding towards the slender tower of the Georgenkirche, fires a few salvoes at the anti-tank emplacement and brings the plane back up over the hall of the railway station.

  Lassehn has leaped into the hallway of a block of flats, a stray bullet hits the wall next to him and showers him with plaster. For a few seconds the big square falls silent again. Two orderlies appear from the underground shaft opposite the Tietz department store, they run with long strides, backs bent, across the square, to help an injured man. A cyclist in the brown jacket and short dark trousers of the Hitler Youth comes from Büschingplatz and rides along Landsberger Strasse, he pushes the pedals like mad, his torso almost lying on the handlebars, he leans the bicycle against the iron railings of the entrance to the underground and jumps down the steps into the depths. Then another sound enters the square, vague and indistinct at first, then increasingly clear: it is the grinding sound of tank tracks.

  Lassehn looks along Landsberger Strasse, but he can’t see far, thick smoke from a burning house is sent deep into the street, the outlines of the houses are almost invisible. A car stands brightly blazing in front of the Eden cinema, the penetrating stench of burning rubber blows up to Alexanderplatz, a man, two women and a little girl come running out of Frankfurter Strasse, panting under the weight of rucksacks and suitcases towards the bunker on Landsberger Strasse, the girl falls to her knees a few times, the man stumbles and loses his hat.

  The barrels of the guns aim precisely at the cloud of smoke on Landsberger Strasse. ‘Clear the street!’ shouts one of the crew of the anti-tank gun.

  Meanwhile the man with the women and the girl has reached the entrance to the bunker, he sets down the two suitcases and wipes his brow with the sleeve of his coat, then goes leaping grotesquely across the carriageway to pick up his hat.

  ‘Clear the street!’ a gunner shouts again.

  At the same moment thunder and lightning explode from the cloud of smoke on Landsberger Strasse, then thunder and lightning and, once more, thunder and lightning. A dark, resounding echo, explosions spraying debris high in the air, a hail of shell splinters, clouds of smoke, screams, then the big grey masses of two T-34 tanks emerge from the cloud of smoke, driving at an angle, firing shot after shot. The anti-tank guns start firing now too, but after only the first few shots the tank rolls over them. Several SS men with rocket launchers come running from Alte Schützenstrasse. Lassehn recognizes the Unterscharführer who was marching with his platoon down Kaiserstrasse a short while ago so he takes cover behind a pile of sand and sets two rocket launchers down in front of him. By now the first tank has driven around Alexanderplatz and is turning into Dircksenstrasse, while the other has turned right, cut across the tongue of pavement that protrudes sharply from the entrance of Frankfurter Strasse into Landsberger Strasse, and fires at the anti-tank gun that blocks the northbound carriageway of Landsberger Strasse. From Dircksenstrasse the first tank now opens fire on the anti-aircraft gun, but it is firing too high, the shells sweep over the square into the building of the Labour Office. Now the Unterscharführer starts firing, he hits the track of the T-34, picks up another rocket launcher and aims. At that very moment the tank advances towards him, the SS man pulls the trigger and jumps a few steps back, one, two, three seconds pass, then there’s a cloud around the tank, sparks rain down, but the tank keeps going, it rolls across the traffic islands towards Landsberger Strasse, swings its turret round and fires shot after shot. Then all of a sudden it is engulfed in flames. The Unterscharführer throws up his arms in triumph, calls his men over with an imperious gesture, and they run after the tank, sub-machine guns at the ready.

  The other tank, still standing on Frankfurter Strasse, now changes its direction of fire and starts shooting one round after another, and the anti-aircraft gun starts firing as well, the shots roar across the square, hitting the buildings behind the tank, ripping big chunks of stone from a block of flats, a balcony falls on the cobblestones, window frames swirl through the air, splinters of glass come down like rain. The second tank turns away now and rolls back into the cloud of smoke on Landsberger Strasse.

  By now the SS men have surrounded the burning tank, the turret opens and three Red Army soldiers clim
b out. Lassehn can clearly make out their faces, two of them have young, broad, tanned faces, with eyes as clear as water and short, bristly, dark-blond hair, the sweat covers their low, angular foreheads like a thick layer of grease and drips like melted lard on their grey-green uniform jackets, the third is Asiatic, with slanting, narrow eyes, dark like a child’s, sharp cheekbones and a hare lip, he wears a grey fur cap whose side flaps hang loosely down. They climb out of the turret one after the other, jump heavily onto the cobbles and raise their arms in the air.

  The Unterscharführer walks right up to them and studies them darkly, then with a quick movement tears the decorations and medals from their uniforms.

  ‘What shall we do with these fellows?’ one of the SS men asked. ‘Where should we take the prisoners to?’

  The Unterscharführer turns halfway around to address him. ‘Prisoners? Are you stupid?’ he bellows. ‘There are only the living and the dead now.’

  ‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ the SS man says, ‘you can’t just shoot them down in the middle of Alexanderplatz, there are people all over the place, some of them are coming out of the bunker right now.’

  ‘Just let me get on with it,’ the Unterscharführer replies, and turns back to the Red Army soldiers. ‘Clear off, Ivan,’ he says and grins, with a gesture in the direction that the tank has just come from.

  The Russians look in the direction he has just indicated, shrug their shoulders and protest to the Unterscharführer.

  ‘Home, domoi, you,’ the Unterscharführer says, and points again in the same direction.

  The Russians look at each other, perplexed, and smile in disbelief. Aren’t they taking us prisoner? Aren’t they going to shoot us? Are they just going to let us run away? they might be thinking right now. But the war is practically over, they’ve almost conquered Berlin already, and Berlin is Germany.

  They exchange a few words, then one of them points to himself and the two others and then points down Landsberger Strasse.

  ‘We go?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes, Ivan,’ the Unterscharführer says impatiently, he narrows his eyes and looks past the three Russians at the entrance to the bunker, where a few dozen people are standing and carefully keeping watch.

  ‘Spassibo,’ the Asiatic soldier says and reveals his white teeth in a broad smile, ‘spassibo.’

  For a few seconds the three Red Army soldiers stand there in the oily haze and smoke of the burning tank, turn irresolutely on their heels, then walk a few steps, nod to the SS men and fall into a light running step.

  ‘Fire!’ the Unterscharführer orders.

  The SS men suddenly raise their sub-machine guns and fire three salvoes in a row. Two Russians fall straight away, the third staggers on a few steps and then falls forward, raises his torso again and turns round with a puzzled expression, until a shot from the Unterscharführer’s pistol finishes him off.

  ‘The bastards tried to run,’ the Unterscharführer says to a few people crossing the road from the bunker. ‘I had no choice …’

  Shot while fleeing, Lassehn thinks, so that’s how it’s done. He clenches his fists and feels tears of rage rising into his eyes. The death of the old woman on Kaiserstrasse, just a quarter of an hour previously, has almost been forgotten again. It touched him with a dull sense of grief, but the deaths of the three Russian soldiers leave him agitated and upset. The old woman’s death was an accident or a misfortune, one might call it chance of fate, but this was cold-blooded, perfidious murder.

  Lassehn studies the Unterscharführer’s face. He feels anxious, the other man bears human features like his own, perhaps his lips are thin lines and his eyes the cold blue of a winter coat, but nothing else suggests that this man is a cold-blooded murderer. His hands are steady as he lights a cigarette, they don’t tremble, there is only indifference in his face, and his voice sounds relaxed, without a hint of agitation, when he gives an order.

  ‘Clear these fellows away,’ he says. ‘Chuck them somewhere in the ruins.’

  Lassehn leaves the doorway in which he has been standing until now and crosses Landsberger Strasse. The hat is still there, a dark-green velvet hat with a grey cord, which the man with the suitcase lost, except the hat is still there, and a blood stain. The body of the man who wore the hat is lacerated, mangled, annihilated. He tried to save his hat and instead lost his life.

  Lassehn crosses Alexanderplatz, walks past the still-burning tank and turns into Dirckenstrasse. What is it in these people that is different from me, that they can murder in cold blood like that? Just because others belong to a foreign race, have a different set of principles or wear an enemy uniform? Even if these people are separated from those around them by the SS runes, they are still human beings, upright-walking mammals, gifted with the ability to speak and associate ideas, born in innocence and growing up in a mother’s care, the same seed has been placed in their mind as in mine, but the soil into which it has sunk must be a different one, more accessible to destructive ferments, which in the end overgrow everything that Christianity and humanism have over thousands of years of hard work forced, injected, instilled and impressed on the primitive mind of the barbarian. It is an incomprehensible trick of nature that it does not outwardly identify these people whose spirit denies thousands of years of human history by reverting to barbarism.

  ‘But these are mere hypotheses,’ Lassehn says to himself, ‘where is the answer, my God, where is the answer?’

  He goes on walking as if in a dream, but then he shakes off his inhibitions when an S-Bahn train rattles by not far away, high on the viaduct. He can find no answer to the questions that assail him, and now is not the time, as he must address the task at hand. He looks around to get his bearings. He has almost walked too far, because on his left, in the middle of the fields of ruins, the round hall of Börse Station rises. Lassehn sighs with relief when he turns right into An der Spandauer Brücke and the rectangle of the Hackescher Markt lies straight ahead. He doesn’t guess that the most terrible link in the chain of today’s events will be added here.

  Outside the entrance to the Hackescher Hof, that big industrial building with a broad gate as an entrance, its grimness mitigated only by a few old brightly coloured film posters from the Imperial cinema, a number of people have huddled together, and excited voices are drowning one another out. Lassehn crosses the carriageway and walks past the gathering, he only wants to fulfil his task and not be held up any further, but his stride falters, and at last he stops.

  He sees a young man being pushed through the crowd by a Nazi office steward with kicks and shoves. The young man is dressed in civilian clothes, his face is grey and pale, as if it had been dipped in ash, his fair hair hangs sweaty and dishevelled into his forehead. Every new shove makes him tremble like a young tree shaken by an autumn storm.

  Lassehn is shocked. An underground worker? A deserter? A defeatist? A criminal? He releases the safety catch on his revolver, he might be able to intervene, but while he is still thinking his moment of opportunity has already passed. Three SS men come running up from Oranienburger Strasse, their hobnailed boots clattering over the cobbles. The young man stumbles into them in front of the Dresdner Bank, and a particularly violent kick from the office steward sends him flying to the ground.

  The SS men stand where they are, they aren’t wearing steel helmets but grey peaked caps with the death’s-head insignia and have the Sicherheitsdienst diamond on their right sleeve.

  ‘What’s happening to him?’ asks one of the SD man with the rank insignia of a section leader on the black collar of his uniform jacket.

  The official, in a brown uniform, knee-length boots, wearing a Party insignia with a golden wreath, lowers his pistol and raises his hand in the Hitler salute. ‘This is a deserter,’ he says, ‘such a damned …’

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ the section leader interrupts him, ‘do you know that for certain, Comrade?’

  ‘Yes,’ the brown-clad man replies, ‘very definitely, he turned up last night,
secretly, silently and quietly, he was still in uniform, but I saw him …’

  ‘Keep it short,’ the section leader breaks in, ‘we haven’t got much time.’

  The official nods. ‘And then he tried to run away, in civilian clothes as you can see.’ The section leader kicks at the young man, who is still lying on the cobbles with his arms raised protectively over his head. ‘Stand up,’ the man in the grey uniform says, ‘and be quick about it.’

  The young man tries to get up, he draws one foot underneath his body and straightens his torso, but his feet can find no purchase and slip back again.

  ‘I said get up!’ the official shouts, and kicks him again.

  The young man supports himself on his hands, kneels down and then draws himself up with his final effort.

  ‘Have you deserted from your unit?’ the section leader asks.

  The young man staggers like a drunken man, he tries to answer but his lips move without making a sound; only his Adam’s apple goes up and down with a champing sound.

  ‘Show me your papers!’ the section leader demands.

  The young man stands with his hands dangling by his sides, he doesn’t even try to look for papers in his pockets, his eyes are still directed inwards, the white of his eyeballs gleaming spectrally in his ashen face, his upper lip with its thin growth of beard twitching spasmodically.

  Lassehn stands in the middle of the crowd and feels that he has turned white as a sheet so he has to avert his gaze. He cannot bear the sight of his helplessness, his mute, quivering submission. He looks his neighbours in the face and is even more startled. He expected they would be standing there with bitterly raging expressions, twitching cheek muscles, sparkling eyes, clenched fists, ready to throw themselves at the torturers who were now their own torturers, but instead he is looking into faces that bear an expression that is a strange mixture of lascivious expectation and fear, and understands that this group is feeling the same emotions as spectators at a boxing match, for whom technical finesse is not enough, who want a tough and bloody exchange of blows and if possible a knock-out. It isn’t hard to tell from the faces of the people that two hopes are battling within them, the hope that they will be presented with a sensation, and the hope that everything will be resolved for the best in the end.