Berlin Finale (Penguin Modern Classics)

by Heinz Rein

  ‘How come you’re so wired up?’ says young Private Hellwig, ‘This isn’t a game.’

  ‘I’m glad you’ve worked that out at last,’ Schröter shoots back.

  ‘Think very carefully about what you’re doing,’ the air-raid warden says antagonistically. ‘Wenck’s tank armies reached the western edge of the city last night, and are advancing towards the city centre, the Bolsheviks are already in retreat and are even supposed to have been encircled. And you want to …’

  ‘I’ve always said,’ Private Hinzpeter joins in triumphantly, ‘the battle for Berlin is nothing but a trap set by the Führer for the Bolsheviks, a really big trap like the one Hindenburg set for them at Tannenberg, into the bog and then roaring down on them. Mark my words, in a few days Berlin will be free again.’

  Schröter looks him scornfully up and down. ‘Good God,’ he says slowly, ‘you don’t seriously believe that?’

  ‘He’s dozy enough for a whole company,’ Ruppert says with a broad grin. ‘They shat in your brain and forgot to stir it. I could do a few things to you!’

  ‘You’re not up to much yourself,’ the air-raid warden says furiously. ‘Your comrade is right, Berlin is just a trap, a huge trap, and we will bury the Bolsheviks under the rubble, and whatever is left will be chased into the sea.’

  Dr Wiedemann smiles thinly from the corners of his mouth. ‘You are allowing yourselves to be deceived today as you have been deceived before, but you have learned nothing from it,’ he says. ‘Every great defeat has been turned into a brilliant chess move by the Führer. After we were thrown out of Africa, a representative of the OKW said this to the press:

  “The clearance of Africa has been part of our strategic plans for months. Now it is strengthening fortress Europe to an enormous degree. We never wanted to stay in Africa, but to keep the enemy away from European soil until we had made the continent of Europe impregnable.”’

  ‘But a few months previously,’ says Dr Böttcher, ‘Rommel had grandly announced in the Sportpalast:

  “We are at the gates of Alexandria, and hold the key to the Suez Canal in our hands. Wherever the German soldier stands, there he stays.”’

  Dr Wiedemann nods to him. ‘And after the defeat of Stalingrad, Dr Dietrich said something along these lines at a press conference:

  “Were it not for the genius and the unique brilliance of the Führer, we might be up against something very serious. But Stalingrad is only one of the Führer’s many brilliant chess moves, with which he paves the way for German victory.”

  Isn’t that enough?’

  The air-raid warden frowns disgruntledly and says nothing.

  ‘It doesn’t need to be true,’ says Private Hinzpeter.

  Dr Wiedemann shrugs. ‘Yes, if you only believe what you want to believe, you’re beyond help.’

  ‘So think very hard, we’re off in a moment,’ Schröter adds.

  Dr Böttcher, Wiegand, Gregor, Lassehn, Schröter and Lucie Wiegand leave the boiler room.

  ‘You could stay here, Lucie,’ Wiegand says to his wife, ‘you’re safe here, and in good hands.’

  Lucie Wiegand smiles at her husband and ties her turban tighter. ‘You don’t think I’m going to duck out now, do you, Fritz?’

  ‘That’s not ducking out …’ Dr Böttcher begins.

  ‘Fine,’ Lucie Wiegand says quickly, ‘then there’s nothing to think about.’

  They slowly climb the cellar steps.

  ‘Wait!’ calls Private Ruppert. ‘I’m coming too!’

  Lassehn carefully opens the cellar door and peers into the courtyard. The sky is a great vault of smoke, soot and smouldering haze, the artillery fire has become weaker and moved away a little, now the dominant sounds are the roar and rattle of tank tracks, the clatter of machine guns, the hard, dry reports of sub-machine guns, the brief cracks of rifles. Bullets whistle through hallways, ricochets whirr around.

  ‘The courtyard is clear,’ Lassehn says.

  ‘You’ve got to get through the hallway of the rear building, across the second courtyard and over the wall of the courtyard, and then you’ll be in the rear courtyard of 116 Wilhelmstrasse,’ Dr Wiedemann says.

  ‘Thanks,’ Dr Böttcher says, and shakes his hand.

  ‘Break a leg,’ says Dr Wiedemann.

  Lassehn opens the door completely. They dash up the last steps of the cellar stairs, run across the courtyard through the dark hallway of the rear building, the second courtyard, surrounded on three sides by grey rear buildings, opens up in front of them, and there is the wall, the border between friend and enemy, but this time the terms have been reversed, the enemy is in fact the friend, and the friend is the enemy.

  ‘Slowly,’ Wiegand warns, stopping close behind Lassehn.

  But the second courtyard is empty too. As if under a spell, they all slow down and stare keen-eyed at the wall, the fateful wall, that leads to the free country of the enemy.

  ‘In that case …’ Wiegand begins, but he says no more.

  Six SS men swing over the wall, their hobnailed boots clatter on the stony floor, one of them stumbles and loses his sub-machine gun, behind them a few bullets whip into the masonry.

  An icy shudder runs through Lassehn. To be caught like this at the last moment …

  Wiegand seems quite calm, his face is a single taut muscle. He did flinch for a second, but he doesn’t move backward, which could be understood as flight.

  Ruppert is about to open his mouth and say something, he has already turned halfway around, but Gregor grabs him hard.

  ‘Be quiet!’ he hisses.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ an Unterscharführer says, slightly breathlessly.

  ‘Over there,’ Wiegand says, and points to the wall. ‘Reconnaissance mission.’

  ‘You can’t go there,’ says the Unterscharführer, ‘the Russians are there already.’

  That’s why we want to, Schröter thinks grimly, and then these bastards have to go and get in our way. Just a …

  ‘Clear off,’ an SS man says. ‘Where have you been deployed?’

  ‘Here,’ says Wiegand, ‘between Anhalter and Hedemannstrasse.’ He turns round and winks at the others. ‘Right, everyone, back, march, march!’ He says goodbye to the SS men abruptly and sets off.

  They stop in the hallway leading to Saarlandstrasse.

  ‘Bad luck,’ Wiegand says curtly, ‘but well done, it could have been worse. Great that none of us ran away, because that would have been that.’

  ‘What now?’ asks Private Ruppert. ‘Back to the boiler room?’

  ‘No, my dear Neukölln stogie salesman, now that we’re on our way, we’re going to keep going. If we can’t go up, we’ll have to go down.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Ruppert says in disbelief.

  ‘Look, the houses all have gaps in the walls, and we’ll go through those,’ Schröter replies.

  ‘Fine, Schröter,’ says Dr Böttcher. ‘I’ve thought of that as well. Right, everyone back to the cellar, our good old Party comrade the air-raid warden will show us the gap in the wall that leads to Wilhelmstrasse.’

  The air-raid warden is standing in the room outside the cellar in animated conversation with Dr Wiedemann, his face is bright red, he is gesticulating wildly with his arms and talking uninterruptedly at the doctor.

  Dr Böttcher delivers a brief report, then turns to the air-raid warden. ‘Where is the gap that leads to Wilhelmstrasse?’

  ‘Leave me alone,’ the air-raid warden says grumpily. ‘There are more important things.’

  ‘Like what?’ Dr Böttcher asks.

  ‘Hitler’s supposed to be dead,’ Dr Wiedemann says and shrugs. ‘Whether it’s true …’

  ‘Hope so,’ Schröter says, and gives the air-raid warden a violent nudge in the ribs. ‘Come on then, you tried-and-trusted Party comrade, show us the mousehole, we want to go to the funeral of your great Führer.’ He lifts his rifle and holds it right under the nose of the air-raid warden. ‘You know I’m not going t
o put up with any nonsense?’

  ‘That’s … that’s …’ the air-raid warden pants.

  ‘Do what you like, my love,’ Schröter says, ‘as far as I’m concerned you can think what you like, I couldn’t give a damn, but you’re going to show me the gap.’

  ‘And if I don’t?’

  ‘Then you will die a hero’s death for your Führer on the spot,’ Schröter says, playing with the safety catch of his rifle.

  ‘This is violence!’ the air-raid warden gasps.

  ‘Of course!’ Schröter says fiercely. ‘What else?’

  The air-raid warden opens his pursed, colourless lips very slowly. ‘Then come with me,’ he says furiously.

  They walk down various dark passageways.

  ‘If you take us to …’ Schröter says threateningly and lights his face with the torch.

  ‘Stop that,’ growls the air-raid warden.

  Then they are standing by a wall. It is a wall like a hundred thousand other cellar walls, casually whitewashed, brick on brick, hung with cobwebs, and yet it is a very special wall, with a big, dark patch in the middle, on which it says in black capitals: ‘Passageway to 116 Wilhelmstrasse.’

  Lassehn grabs the pickaxe that hangs on a hook beside the passageway and starts striking the wall. At first there are only fragments of plaster and bits of brick, then a small hole appears, soon whole bricks are breaking away, the hole grows quickly. Lassehn works furiously, the pickaxe rains incessantly down on the wall.

  The cellar on the other side is in deep darkness, a smell of mildew envelops him. Wiegand shines his torch: it is empty. Then the hole is big enough for them to climb through. Wiegand stands in front of the hole and stares into the darkness, pierced only by the narrow beam of light from his torch, he stands there motionless for several seconds. It is incredibly quiet down here.

  Then firm footsteps ring out, suddenly there are strange sounds in the cellar. Standing in the beam from Wiegand’s torch is a Russian soldier, in a long, grey-green coat and wearing a white fur hat with a red Soviet star blinking brightly from it.

  Wiegand takes a deep breath, then climbs skilfully through the hole in the wall and walks up to the Russian soldier.

  ‘Tovarich,’ he says in an excited voice and raises his hands in the air. The Russian soldier looks at him calmly, then twists his lips into a contemptuous smile and replies, ‘Nix tovarich. Give watch. Davai!’

  The End

  ‘Here and now begins a new era of world history and you can say you were there.’

  Goethe, after the cannonade of Valmy (1792)

  2 May

  It is 5.30, the rays of the rising sun pierce the wall of cloud that stretches grey and bleak across the ruins of the city. On Vossstrasse, which connects Wilhelmplatz and Hermann-Göring-Strasse, a massive blanket rises slowly into the air, it rises clumsily and reluctantly like a drawbridge allowing access to a besieged fortress. This concrete blanket, which is lifted on Vossstrasse by hydraulic power, opens access to a cave, the last command post of the last Berlin Combat Commandant. It is surrounded on all sides, a detachment of Russian officers has taken up position, they raise their cocked sub-machine guns and aim at the entrance to the bunker, but they don’t need to make use of their weapons, because the first to appear is a soldier. Unshaven, rumpled, gaunt, he carries on the tip of his bayonet a scrap of white cloth. Only then do the others appear, Weidling, General of the Artillery, Supreme Commander of the Defence Zone of Berlin, in an immaculate uniform, with the collar fastened at the top and the Knight’s Cross, gold epaulettes with two stars and a row of medals, and only the untidily wrapped ankle garters reveal the unusual haste with which he has put them on, Ministerial Director Hans Fritzche, Goebbels’ protégé and imitator in word and tone, in a perfectly fitting elegant suit with sharp creases, and last of all the senior editor Dr Otto Kriegk, intellectual opinion maker and agitator of the Hugenberg company, in the olive-grey uniform of a leader of the Labour Service, with woven silver epaulettes. For a few seconds they stand there in silence and blink like owls into the light that falls upon them, then they clamber awkwardly into an armoured reconnaissance vehicle that stands ready a few metres away. The doors are closed, the vehicle sets off, turns into Hermann-Göring-Strasse and crosses Potsdamer Platz, it bellows its hoarse signals through the ruined streets, dashes down Saarlandstrasse, past the horrific skeletons of Potsdam and Anhalt Stations, hurries along Hallesches Tor and up the slope of Belle-Alliance-Strasse to Tempelhof. The vehicle drives recklessly over rubble and through potholes, it rattles its passengers against one another and bounces them off walls and ceilings, but no one says a word, their lips are pressed tightly together and their eyes half closed, every now and again the general takes his glasses off and rubs them clean, the broadcasting liar fiddles nervously with his tie, the opinion-making hack has collapsed entirely in on himself.

  Then the car brakes hard, the doors are pulled open, General Weidling, Fritzsche and Dr Kriegk get out, they are standing outside a house on the Schulenburg-Ring, one of the many streets of Tempelhof where there are rows of uniform new buildings. They slowly climb the stairs while an unpleasant, damp, cold wind blows through the empty windows of the stairwell, the sun has disappeared behind grey clouds and a fine rain is beginning to drift down. The general looks fleetingly at the street, then he steps inside a flat on the first floor, is led down a corridor and stands in a room. It is a nice middle-class gentleman’s room with a desk and a bookcase, a leather sofa with a still life above it, a few chairs and a filing shelf, a nice middle-class gentleman’s room, but it isn’t a smooth gentleman sitting behind the desk, it is a medium-sized, powerful, squat man with a wide, reddened face, short, light, bristly hair, watery-blue, determined eyes: General Zhukov, the conqueror of Berlin. He rises to his feet for a moment, points to a chair and sits down again. General Weidling brings his hand correctly to his cap and then takes it off, sits wearily down and furtively looks the other man in the face. This Zhukov, he may be thinking now, is not a general by blood, upbringing and privilege, he is a broad, almost corpulent peasant who wears a general’s uniform, a man from that incomprehensible country. He is now sitting behind a desk in this small, almost petty-bourgeois flat in Berlin-Tempelhof and pushing the capitulation document across the tabletop. The desk is otherwise completely empty, nothing interrupts its smooth, light-brown grain. There is only this white sheet of paper.

  General Weidling gulps violently a few times, cleans his glasses again and unscrews his fountain pen. His hands trembling a little, he begins to sign, but then pulls the pen back. It has probably occurred to him that he may know the contents off by heart but he doesn’t know the text, he darts through it quickly and then brings the pen to the paper. It is six o’clock in the morning and very quiet in the room, the shorthand typist by the window has interrupted her work and turned round, the Russian officers bend their heads down, even Fritzsche and Dr Kriegk can’t escape the tension of the moment, only General Zhukov sits there quietly, leaning back in his chair, his eyes resting on the hand of the German general holding the pen. The general seems to sense their gaze, he glances up for a second and then looks at his own hand, which lies in front of him, half clenched into a fist, like a worm-eaten fruit, then he moistens his lips and resolutely writes his name below the document. Berlin has capitulated.

  A few words are exchanged, then the general leaves the room. He quickly goes downstairs and doesn’t worry about his companions, he still has a task which he would like to put behind him as quickly as possible, and climbs back into the armoured reconnaissance vehicle.

  This time the door is not quite closed, the general can look through the open crack at the streets they are driving along, and he sees the endless columns of marching Red Army men, troops of tanks, batteries of artillery, bivouacs and the long rows of the defeated trudging dully into imprisonment. He also looks at the steaming field kitchens, besieged by the population, and the trucks to which hands are no longer outstretched in the Hitl
er salute, but reaching for bread distributed by the soldiers of the victorious army.

  This time they are going to Johannisthal. In a former film studio, the general stands by a recording machine, and here he dictates his last order into a wax cylinder machine:

  ‘Berlin, 2 May 1945

  On 30 April 1945 the Führer abandoned those who had sworn loyalty to him. On the Führer’s orders you still believe you must continue to fight for Berlin, even though the lack of heavy weapons and ammunition and the overall situation makes fighting appear pointless.

  Every hour that you continue to fight prolongs the terrible suffering of the civilian population of Berlin and our wounded. In agreement with high command of the Soviet troops I therefore request that you cease fighting.

  Weidling

  General of the Artillery and Commander

  Defence Zone Berlin.’

  The New Beginning?

  Dr Böttcher, Wiegand and Schröter slowly climb a wide flight of steps, the central staircase of a primary school which has suffered no damage apart from broken windowpanes. It is a cool, rainy day, the wind blows through the open windows, every now and again a piece of glass falls to the floor or a window frame rattles. On the clothes hooks where once children’s coats, caps and lunchboxes hung, there now hang steel helmets, sub-machine guns, gas masks, ammunition belts, and the steps that once echoed with the sound of hundreds of children’s feet when the bell rang for the beginning or the end of class, now echo with the hurried steps of solid, hobnailed boots, the corridors and rooms that once were filled with the cheerful chatter of many children’s voices now whir with strange sounds. The primary school has become the base of a Russian military commandant.

  The men stop outside a door on the second floor and greet others who wait with serious faces. On the door the sign ‘conference room’ can still just be read, and above it a piece of cardboard with Russian writing is fastened with a drawing pin.