by Heinz Rein
Dr Böttcher dismisses Schröter’s speech with a reassuring gesture. ‘So now how do you plan to draw conclusions from this insight?’ he says turning to the officer.
Tolksdorff looks at Wiegand. ‘I will tell you quite frankly: nothing. Because I don’t know what to do.’
‘So,’ Wiegand continues, ‘you will go on obeying all orders from now on, all of them?’
‘I will try to soften them, weaken them or even sidestep them,’ the officer replies.
‘… But only carry them out if that was not successful,’ Wiegand says. ‘Is it not clear to you, Lieutenant, that having acquired that insight and recognition of your complicity, you can no longer be credited with negligence let alone ignorance? Is it not clear to you that every additional minute of resistance is prolonging the suffering of women and children?’
Tolksdorff lowers his head under the assault of Wiegand’s questions.
‘Good God,’ Schröter says, and plunges his words into his opponent’s weaker parts, ‘just go into the bunkers and cellars and ask the women if they want to go on being defended! You will be astonished at what you hear! There’s been a saying in Berlin for a long time: sooner a Russian on your belly than a house on your head.’
The officer looks up again. ‘Over the last few days I have experienced quite enough,’ he says, ‘people speak very openly now, except when there’s a Nazi uniform or a Party insignia anywhere around. Why don’t a few thousand women get together and march on the Reich Chancellery, or to Herr Goebbels?’
‘Ah no,’ Schröter says, and pulls am angry face, ‘that is a silly image, my dear Lieutenant. You are demanding this courage from women, but you heroic young men prefer to raise arms against the so-called external enemy rather than against the criminals among the ministers and generals. Do you think a heroic death is easier to escape than the claws of the Gestapo? You’ve got the guns!’
‘I can’t contradict you,’ Tolksdorff says condescendingly. ‘But I have arguments of my own. So I will ask you just as harshly: who was it who kept the munitions factories working? Did the workers on the shop floors not also hold guns, lathes, drills, rolling mills, blast furnaces, haulage levels, locomotive workshops? Are they not equally responsible for …’
‘Stop!’ Wiegand says irritably. ‘That’s not exactly how it is! You, Lieutenant, and all officers along with you, have assumed responsibility voluntarily, but the workers – in spite of the undeniable significance of their work – have no responsibility, and they did not volunteer to work in the factories. Yes, if you mean the foreman forcing his workers to work at crazed rhythms, the engineer coming up with improvements to the production line, the works steward reporting late or negligent workers to the Gestapo, the man from the factory troops insisting that even the tiniest amounts of waste should be picked up – they are all complicit and responsible, and if that’s what you mean I could agree with you.’
‘It is a mistake only to apportion one side of the blame,’ Dr Böttcher says. ‘If we want to discuss the question of guilt, then here I would like to state my opinion, which is: the entire German people – apart from the small core of illegal fighters – is guilty, out of negligence, out of ignorance, out of cowardice, out of typical German nonchalance, but also out of arrogance, meanness, covetousness and a desire for superiority. It cannot be denied that its leaders are Germans, even if some of them are very curious, and of strange origins, from Latvia, Austria, Argentina, Egypt, the Führer even described one of his bodyguards as a degenerate homosexual, another as a crazed fantasist. Have people ever taken a good look at the people they are fighting for, or have fought for in the past?’
‘That round-headed idiot with the Charlie Chaplin moustache, pulling his cap so low over his eyes because he can’t look at anyone,’ Wiegand says before he can reply, ‘the cynical, scornful mug of Goebbels with his cardboard smile, that fat, bloated sybarite with the aura of the People’s Court, Himmler’s smooth, expressionless face with the cold eyes behind the rimless glasses, that inflated, unpredictable Ley, whose every word is a cliché, that cohort of fools blethering about Reich unity, gazing up like lickspittles and crawling around the Führer’s unique genius?’
‘I’m fighting for the German people,’ the officer says, and scornfully purses his lips, ‘and nothing else.’
‘That’s an error, Lieutenant,’ Gregor says, ‘I cannot accept your excuse. You are fighting for the oppression of your own people and foreign people, for the maintenance of the concentration camps, for keeping the gas chambers supplied with human detritus of inferior races, for driving God out of the German mind, that’s what you are fighting for!’
‘The Wehrmacht has nothing to do with that!’ Tolksdorff says stubbornly. ‘The Wehrmacht is a military organization, not a political one.’
‘The Wehrmacht covers Nazi filth with its grey uniform,’ Gregor declaims. ‘I can’t remember the Wehrmacht ever distancing itself from Party and government, apart from those brave men who left a bomb in a briefcase at Herr Hitler’s headquarters, unfortunately, rather than shooting him right in the mouth, at the risk of being killed themselves. In terms of guilt, I see no distinction.’
‘Today I can see with horrific clarity how wrong the path we took truly was,’ the officer says quietly, looking out of the window, as if the path led directly to that gloomy courtyard at the back of a building in Berlin, ‘but it can’t all have been entirely in vain, the victories, the deprivations in the icy cold and in the blazing heat of the desert, the deaths of all those comrades, the amputated limbs …’
‘No, it wasn’t in vain, my dear friend,’ Dr Böttcher says, ‘just as nothing in matter is ever lost, and instead, without losing any volume, is only transformed, historical events are the same, in this case war and the sacrifices it involves, a process that turns itself into intellectual and political achievement. Democritus says, “Nothing that is can become nothing.” The victims of this war were indeed brought to the most terrifying Moloch that has been visible in human form since the creation of the world, but they will not have been in vain, recognitions will rise from the corpses of the dead and the rubble of the cities, which will make a repetition impossible once and for all.’
The officer turns back towards the room. ‘So you are of the opinion, Doctor, that there will be no more wars?’
Dr Böttcher smiles seriously. ‘I am of the opinion that it is possible to avoid or prevent wars.’
Tolksdorff shakes his head. ‘Music of the spheres, Doctor, after the First World War a wave of “No More War” went around the world, the League of Nations was founded and non-aggression pacts drawn up. And the result?’
‘A failed attempt proves nothing,’ Dr Böttcher replies, ‘and in Germany there was, unfortunately, a “Let’s-Have-War-Again-Soon” movement. Very quickly, the defeat of 1918 ceased to be the result of a bankrupt politics, it did not lead to a change of mind, oh no, armistice and peace were more of a pause for breath so that the defeated armies could gather and regroup. That was how it was that one saw only two lost battles in Compiègne and Versailles, no more than that, which had to be followed up by the great victorious conflict if honour was to be saved. You are too young to know what happened in Germany before 1933.’
‘I don’t know that, or rather I know it only in the official Nazi version, but I have an even more relevant objection to your thesis,’ the officer says. ‘Since men have existed, wars have existed too, and while men continue to populate this miserable planet, disputes between them will be resolved in belligerent ways.’
‘That is the ideology of the eternal squaddie,’ Dr Böttcher says. ‘You, Lieutenant, should in fact be above adhering to it. First of all your assertion is not proved by anything, it is based on the pure theory of the immutability of the human being. Since people and peoples and the states that they have formed do not change significantly, their relations with one another, insignificant modifications aside, must also inevitably be immutable. That is your view more or less, isn’t th
at correct?’
‘You have expressed it exquisitely,’ says Tolksdorff.
Dr Böttcher takes a deep breath. ‘It is true that certain hereditary traits cannot be fully trained out of human beings, any more than they can from beasts of prey, they can be mitigated, weakened, even compensated for and finally allowed to atrophy. It is impossible, Lieutenant, for you as a rational human being to be able to assume that manly virtues such as courage, loyalty and honour can only be manifested through and in war, because our civilian life, as you soldiers think, is not varied enough and offers no opportunity to prove oneself. But I wanted to say something else. Just as one can mitigate and weaken hereditary traits or, to use the term, primal instincts, it is obviously also possible to stimulate them and breed them to disproportionate dimensions, and that has been done either by – and this is the philosophical variant – inventing the myth of the front-line soldier and the doctrine of the natural need for war, thus in the end relegating its causes to an abstract dimension independent of empirical considerations, or by loudly and ham-fistedly enticing primitive individuals and arousing them with the prospect of theft, booty and riotous living.’
‘Are you trying to claim, Doctor,’ Tolksdorff replies defiantly, ‘that the Wehrmacht consists on the one hand of people with no sense of reality and on the other of robbers?’
‘That would be an exaggeration,’ Dr Böttcher replies calmly. ‘I would put it like this: the military in Germany – and not only since the days of Hitler – has always been the ruling and dominant life form, everyone else had to make themselves subservient to you. In no other country on earth has there ever been such a discrepancy between the so-called fundamental ideals of the state and the universal spirit of its greatest minds as there is in Germany, and nowhere has the humanistic influence been inferior, even though crucial contributions to humanism have arisen from within our midst.’
‘This development has now reached its supreme perfection in our Third Reich: the military has been declared the only possible life form,’ Gregor says, and looks steadily at the lieutenant. ‘To this exclusiveness, of which they were perhaps not entirely sure, that of race was added, declaring openly that a superior race, in the realization of its supposed mission, was not bound to the commandments of human morality as they are generally acknowledged. Since there was nothing to oppose this “truth” decreed by state and Party, no other opinion let alone an objection, for your generation, Lieutenant, the implications of this idea have been obvious from the outset. Your generation was rigorously schooled and brought into line, and the authorities were able to do this with unimagined thoroughness by making any other kind of thinking impossible for you, and excluding you and fencing you off from all philosophies, intellectual trends and political efforts that did not run a parallel course with National Socialism or could not be made compatible with it. Was that not clear to you?’
The officer contorts his face into a tormented smile. ‘Clarity, Doctor … Oh, it seemed so clear, so unambiguous, we were inspired, and now everything lies in shattered fragments before us.’
‘But you pay reverence to each individual fragment,’ Schröter breaks in.
‘And since the whole giant building of this barbaric form of life, the so-called military philosophy, is tottering, you are left only with faith in a miracle that abolishes the laws of causality,’ Wiegand adds.
Dr Böttcher waves them violently away. ‘I have not yet finished, gentlemen. First of all I would like to present you, Lieutenant, with another example ad absurdum, before I return to your assertion concerning the natural necessity of war. The people of earlier centuries saw the plague as an unalterable fate, a scourge from God, and it is not today, it has been limited to a few small places where it is endemic, and it will one day be eradicated completely.’
‘Thanks to the discovery of its source, and improvements in sanitary and hygienic conditions,’ Tolksdorff says.
‘In other words, thanks to scientific discoveries,’ Dr Böttcher says. ‘You seem to be of the opinion, Lieutenant, that wars are also unavoidable natural disasters, and thus resist scientific discovery. We are unable to prevent natural disasters, earthquakes, hurricanes, cloudbursts and sandstorms because they lie outside our sphere of influence, they are not based within ourselves, but wars – and this is a crucial difference – have precisely identifiable causes. We cannot say that the forces that cause them lie within the atmosphere or the earth’s crust. Wars are produced in the human brain and nowhere else. All mysticism is charlatanry, presented to us by those who profit from war in one way or another. I don’t intend to engage in a discussion of epistemology, it would take us too far from our subject and might also become too much like an academic argument.’
The lieutenant looks at his watch. ‘I should point out that my time is unfortunately very limited. I am sorry that we have to have this kind of conversation on the hop, as it were.’
‘I can’t explain everything to you the way the doctor does,’ Schröter says, ‘my take on things is more emotional than rational, but I do know one thing: that I would never obey those criminals.’
‘But I have sworn an oath of loyalty to the Führer,’ Tolksdorff says. ‘You can’t just set an oath aside like an old newspaper, can you?’
Schröter laughs loudly. ‘The oath does not bind you, if that is your only concern and your final reservation …’
‘I would like to point out,’ Tolksdorff contradicts him, ‘that I took that oath voluntarily.’
Schröter is about to lash out at the lieutenant with a stinging remark, but this time it is Gregor who speaks after summoning their attention with a commanding gesture. ‘First of all it should be said that you have sworn an oath to a man who deceived you and the whole German people about his true intentions, or in legal terms: that oath was demanded of you under false pretences, in fact the man to whom you swore that oath is not justified in demanding that you swear it. Is the legalistic interpretation enough for you, or do you believe in God, so that you feel bound to this oath before God?’
The lieutenant shrugs apathetically.
‘Then let’s leave that aside,’ Gregor continues. ‘In our times the religious content of such an oath is in any case nil, it has become an empty formula and been stripped completely of its actual significance, since the idolatrous cult of the Führer took the place of God. In fact an oath sworn on the flag also has only constitutional significance, and I should remind you that the man who demands this oath of unconditional loyalty from you is known as someone who breaks his word on a grand scale, who breaks solemn agreements and treaties as thoughtlessly as if cancelling a previously made engagement. Or what would you call the violation of the Non-Aggression Pact with the Soviet Union, with Denmark and Yugoslavia, the Munich Accord, his statements concerning respect for the neutrality of Belgium and Holland, his repeated assurances that he no longer had any territorial claims? There are many other examples, I have cited only the most striking.’
Tolksdorff is breathing heavily. ‘I am so caught up in traditional thinking,’ he says, ‘that in all the monstrosities I am still looking for excuses, because I cannot grasp that there is such a division between words and deeds.’
‘You are also seeking excuses for yourself,’ Dr Böttcher says. ‘I’m sure it’s hard to see that you have become the victim of criminals and lunatics and sadists, as long as they have Führer and Reich Chancellor, Supreme Army Commander, Reich Marshal, Reich Minister or similar titles attached to their names. We do not doubt your personal honour, Lieutenant, but if we are to continue to believe in it, you must distance yourself from that rabble. You owe that to yourself, apart from anything.’
The lieutenant stares rigidly into his cap before he looks up again. ‘But what will become of Germany, Doctor? There must be a way out. We are Germans, after all, and I assume that you too feel that you are part of the German people.’
‘Why shouldn’t I?’ Dr Böttcher asks back. ‘Or do you think we crave Germany’s defeat as
a kind of suicidal sadism? It is painful enough to have to acknowledge that the way to a better future leads only via the defeat of one’s own people, and that it is better to plant the flag of right and the freedom of the individual on a pile of rubble than to put the seal on the eradication of man’s individuality through blood and iron with a final victory. We are entirely aware of the unnatural quality of our situation, such that the success of our armies discourages us and that of enemy armies fills us with hope, that the devastation of foreign countries arouses our fury, while the destruction of our own grants us the certainty that our people will burn the false gods in the flames of their own burning houses. I would even dare to claim that we are the true patriots.’
‘Even though you crave Germany’s defeat?’ Tolksdorff asks.
‘Not even though, but because,’ Dr Böttcher says firmly. ‘You see, Lieutenant, here we are touching the core of the problem. The man from Braunau and his spokesmen have actually succeeded in equating National Socialism with what it means to be German, and to involve the German people in his own guilt, making it the spineless instrument of his barbaric megalomania, and in the end to commit all his criminal actions in the name of the German people and sadly also with their support, making them accessories to his crimes once and for all. Guilt becomes indivisible, or to put it in legal terms: it becomes complicity, and this in turn gives rise to the fear of the supposedly Old Testament revenge of the enemy, which Goebbels’ propaganda describes in the most glaring colours with fake quotations and freely invented reports, shots to the back of the neck, deportations, slavery, eradication, sterilization and the like. Here you have the true explanation of the so-called loyalty of the German people.’
‘It is terrible to have to see that,’ says Tolksdorff. ‘I must admit, there was a time in which I actually did see Germany and National Socialism as synonymous. It seemed so natural to me that it was beyond discussion …’
‘Just as nothing officially proclaimed was up for discussion,’ Dr Böttcher cuts in, ‘whether it was a speech by the Führer or an article by Goebbels, a report by the Propaganda Department or an order from some little Nazi boss, a poem by Schirach or a politically valuable film by Harlan, it was all high-handedly exempt from criticism like the word of God, neither doubts nor counter-opinions were possible, the Führer and his lackeys were the measure of all things. But I interrupted you, I apologize, it’s impossible to stay calm in the circumstances.’