The company’s aristocrats were Stumpfe and Vogel, both former SS. They were among the many thousands of SS who, on the Führer’s orders, had been transferred to the Wehrmacht to boost morale.
Stumpfe was generally seen as the company’s life and soul, as its moral backbone. He was tall and—unlike most corporals and rank-and-file soldiers—round and plump in the face. He was bold, smart and lucky, and he had an unrivalled ability to go round a half-destroyed Russian village and conjure up enough good foodstuffs for a parcel to send back home. He only had to look at an “Easterner” for honey and fatback to appear. All this, naturally, impressed and delighted his fellow soldiers.
He loved his wife, his children and his brother. He wrote to them regularly and his food parcels were as rich and nutritious as those sent by officers. His wallet was full of photographs, which he had shown more than once to everyone in the company.
There were photos of his rather thin wife—clearing a dining table piled with dishes; leaning against the fireplace, wearing pyjamas; sitting in a boat, her hands on the oars; holding a doll and smiling; and going for a walk round the village. There were also photographs of his two children: a tall boy and a pretty little six-year-old girl with blonde hair down to her shoulders.
The other soldiers sighed as they looked at these photographs. And before returning a photograph to his wallet, Stumpfe would gaze at it long and devotedly; he could have been contemplating an icon.
He had a gift for telling stories about his children; Lenard once said to him that, with his talents, he should be performing on stage. One of his best stories, about preparing the family Christmas tree, was full of sweet, funny invented words, sudden cries and gestures, childish hypocrisy, childish cunning and childish envy of other children’s presents. The story’s effect on its audience was often unexpected. While Stumpfe was speaking, people would be laughing out loud, but when he came to the end they often found themselves moved to tears.
But it was not only Stumpfe’s stories that were paradoxical. He embodied in his own being qualities one might have thought irreconcilable. This lover of his wife and children was capable of extraordinary, devil-may-care violence. On the rampage, he truly did become a devil; it was impossible to restrain him.
In Kharkov, dead drunk, he once climbed out of a fourth-floor window and walked right round the building on a narrow ledge, pistol in hand, firing at anything that caught his attention.
On another occasion, he set fire to a house, got up onto the roof and, as if in charge of an orchestra, began to conduct the flames and smoke and the wails of the women and children.
Stumpfe ran amok a third time on a moonlit May night in a Ukrainian village. He threw a hand grenade into the middle of some trees in full blossom. The grenade got caught in the branches and exploded only four metres away. Leaves and white petals rained down on him, while one piece of shrapnel punctured an epaulette and a second ripped open the top of one of his boots. Stumpfe suffered only mild concussion, but it was two days before he recovered his hearing.
There was something about his face, about the sudden glassy glitter in the depths of his large, calm eyes, that terrified the “Easterners” he so despised. When he entered a hut, sniffed disdainfully as he looked slowly around him, pointed to a stool and ordered an astonished child or dazed old woman to wipe it clean with a white towel, they understood that it was best to do as he said.
Stumpfe’s grasp of the psychology of Russian peasants was remarkable. After observing a woman for five minutes, he could win bets as to the quantity of honey, eggs and butter in the hut and whether or not there were treasures hidden beneath the floorboards: new boots, cloth or woollen dresses.
He was quicker than any of his comrades to learn words of Russian and was soon able to organize all his requirements without recourse to a phrase book or dictionary. “I’ve simplified the Russian language,” he liked to say. “In my grammar there is only one mood: the imperative.”
His fellow soldiers loved hearing him talk about his past; he had witnessed a great deal.
As a young man, he had worked in a sports shop. After losing his job, he spent two summers working on farms, in charge of a threshing machine. In 1926 he worked for three months in the Ruhr, in the Kronprinz coal mine. Then, after obtaining his licence, he became a professional driver. He began by delivering truckloads of milk and then worked as a chauffeur for a well-known dentist in Gelsenkirchen. A year later he became a taxi driver in Berlin. After that, he worked for a year as an assistant concierge in the Hotel Europa, and then as a kitchen supervisor in a small restaurant frequented by lawyers and industrialists.
He was happy to see his hands becoming soft and white and he took good care of them, wanting to erase any last trace of the harm done to his skin by some of his former jobs.
In the restaurant Stumpfe had his first real encounter with a world that had always intrigued him. On one occasion he calculated that a single deal—buying a portfolio of shares just before they shot up in value after a long slump—enabled a customer to make a profit equivalent to what he himself, in his previous job, would have earned over a period of 120 years—or 1,440 months, or 40,000 days, or 300,000 working hours, or 18 million working minutes. The customer had made this deal between two sips of coffee, using the restaurant telephone; it had taken him less than two minutes.
Some miraculous power was at work here—and this power intrigued Stumpfe.
Breathing the atmosphere of wealth, hearing omniscient waiters talk about which of their customers had bought a new Hispano-Suiza,31 which had just built a villa and which had bought a pendant for a well-known actress—all this was a source of both pain and pleasure.
Stumpfe’s younger brother, Heinrich, had the same round face and was equally tall. In 1936 he joined the political police. He often said to Stumpfe, “Soon things will change. The two of us will see real life.”
Heinrich told his elder brother in whispers about a game still bolder and grander than anything talked about in his restaurant. With the backing of fortune, a single audacious move could raise you to dizzying heights.
There was a three-leaved mirror in the dimly lit restaurant lobby. Sometimes Stumpfe would stop in front of it, adopting the look of fastidious ennui he sometimes saw on customers’ faces. He was in good shape: 177 centimetres tall, 80 kilos in weight, soft hair and smooth, pale skin. He had no doubt that he deserved something better than the life he was leading.
Meanwhile Alfred Rosenberg and Julius Streicher, Reichsmarschall Göring, Joseph Goebbels and the Führer himself were all proclaiming that the wisdom of the world’s greatest sages and the labour of its greatest labourers meant nothing in comparison with the greatest treasure of all—the blood that flowed in the veins of every true German. Countless lecturers, journalists and radio presenters repeated the same intoxicating message. Stumpfe’s head, planted on top of a huge, lazy, greedy torso, began to spin.
During the Eastern campaign Stumpfe came to believe more strongly than ever in his racial superiority—but this afforded him no joy. The nearer they got to the end of the war, the clearer it became that he was not in any real way benefiting from this superiority; he was still only a private soldier and he could fit all his belongings into a small knapsack. He wanted more than the opportunity to send regular food parcels back home.
Stumpfe was widely respected. The non-commissioned officers were well aware that the other soldiers listened to what he had to say, and that he often played the role of arbiter in their disputes. He was brave and was often chosen for reconnaissance missions; men liked to go with him, saying they felt safer with him than with Corporal Munk, who was a trained scout. He fearlessly entered villages occupied by Russian troops. One night he even set fire to a command post guarded by a Red Army sentry.
Stumpfe’s comrades enjoyed his sense of humour. He had nicknames for almost everyone in the company; he was quick to notice people’s peculiarities and could mimic them to perfection. He had a whole repertoire of
campaign sketches and anecdotes: “Sommer Four-Eyes receives a dressing-down from the battalion commander,” “Vogel puts together a modest breakfast—twenty fried eggs and a small chicken,” “In front of her small children Ledeke the determined womanizer wins the love of a Russian peasant woman,” “Meierhof enables a Jew to understand that it is in his interests to leave this world sooner than the god of the Jews had decreed.”
Among the most fully developed of these sketches was an entire cycle devoted to a certain Schmidt: “Schmidt marries but, working for a whole year on the night shift, is unable to sleep with his wife,” “Schmidt receives a badge from his factory in recognition of his twenty years as a metalworker and tries to exchange this badge for a kilogram of potatoes,” “Schmidt stands solemnly before the ranks to listen to the order demoting him from corporal to private soldier.”
Thanks to Stumpfe, Schmidt had become a butt of ridicule for the whole regiment, but there was nothing obviously comic about this unfortunate, middle-aged private. He was stout, as tall as Stumpfe, and slightly stooped. Much of the time he was silent and somewhat glum. But Stumpfe managed to capture even the least obvious of his quirks and mannerisms: his slight shuffle; his habit of half opening his mouth as he darned his clothes; the way he puffed and sniffed when he fell into thought.
Schmidt was the oldest soldier in the company and had fought in the First World War. It was rumoured that in 1918 he had joined the deserter movement organized by some scoundrel with a name like Labiknecht or Leibnecht. The younger soldiers were unsure of the name, but they knew from school that he was an agent of the Jewish Sanhedrin.32
Schmidt’s gloomy obtuseness was deeply irritating and Stumpfe was unable to look at him without feeling angry. Too old to be a private soldier, he had joined the Wehrmacht as a non-commissioned officer. After his demotion, his work qualifications should have led him to be demobilized, but for some reason he remained in the company. He was a born loser. His constant misfortunes won him only contempt and he was always chosen for the most unpleasant tasks. He had a gift for showing up just when someone was needed to clean the officers’ latrines or to clear up some other filth. He carried out such tasks with his usual quiet conscientiousness, with a kind of brainless indefatigability.
The sketch about Schmidt’s demotion was based on a real event from the first weeks of the Russian campaign. Before being moved to the front line, the company had been guarding a prison and a prisoner-of-war camp. Schmidt had tried to avoid his guard duty by pretending to be ill and had been caught out by the regimental doctor—he was, it appeared, an inveterate deserter.
As a private soldier, however, Schmidt did his duty, was a good shot and showed no signs of cowardice. When the company was withdrawn to regroup and refit, he diligently sent food parcels back home. Yet he remained ridiculous—a blockhead, as Stumpfe never tired of repeating.
35
STUMPFE, Vogel and Ledeke were sitting together at a round table, lit by a lamp with a pink shade.
Bound by the ties of difficult work, shared danger and shared merriment, the three friends had few secrets from one another.
Vogel, a tall, lean youth, still a schoolboy when the war began, looked at Stumpfe and Ledeke, who were almost dozing, and asked, “And where is our friend Schmidt?”
“On sentry duty,” replied Ledeke.
“It seems the war will soon be over,” said Vogel. “But this really is a huge city. I got lost on my way to the regimental command post.”
“Yes,” said Ledeke. “I’ve become a coward lately. The closer we are to the end of the war, the more terrible it would be to get killed.”
Vogel nodded. “Yes, we’ve buried a lot of men. It really would be stupid to die now.”
“I find it hard to believe I’ll soon be back home,” said Ledeke.
“You’ll have plenty to tell people, especially if you catch a particular illness,” said Vogel, who disapproved of womanizers. He slowly ran his hand over the ribbons attached to his medals. “As for me, I may not have as many of these as some of our HQ heroes, but at least I can say that I earned them honourably.”
Stumpfe had not spoken until then. Smiling wryly, he said, “There’s no writing on your medals—and medals earned in combat look no different from the ones given out at HQ.”
“Unexpectedly, Stumpfe falls into despondency,” said Ledeke. “Stumpfe’s like me. He doesn’t want to take risks just before the end.”
“Is something the matter?” asked Vogel. “I don’t understand.”
“Why would you?” said Stumpfe. “You’ll return to your father’s razor-blade factory and you’ll live like a god.”
“But you’ll be doing all right for yourself too,” Ledeke put in irritably.
“Because of a few parcels?” Stumpfe asked angrily, thumping his hand on the table. “I don’t think one or two parcels will get me very far!”
“And that little purse you wear on a chain?”
“Think I’ve got some great treasure in it? It’s only now, at the end of the war, that I can see what a damned fool I’ve been. Dancing on the roof of a burning hut while others were making themselves rich!”
“It’s all a matter of luck,” said Vogel. “I know someone who was posted to Paris. Somehow he ended up with a diamond pendant. When he was back home on leave, he showed it to a jeweller. The jeweller just asked, ‘How old are you?’ ‘Thirty-six,’ my friend replied. ‘Well, then,’ said the jeweller, ‘even if you live to a hundred and have many children and grandchildren, none of your family need ever know want.’ And the pendant had just fallen into my friend’s hands.”
“Your friend was a lucky man,” said Ledeke. “Stumpfe’s right—you don’t find diamond pendants in the huts of Russian peasants. We’d have been better off on the Western front. Or if we’d been tank men. They can take what they like—quality cloth, fine furs. We’re on the wrong front and in the wrong branch of service.”
“And we’re the wrong rank,” added Vogel. “If Stumpfe were a general, he’d be looking a lot happier. They send truck after truck back home. I used to chat to their orderlies when I was on guard duty at Army HQ. You wouldn’t believe it. They used to argue about which of their bosses had sent back the most furs.”
“Pelze . . . Pelze . . .” said Ledeke.33 “It’s the only word you ever hear at HQ. But when we get to Persia and India, it’ll be carpets.”
“You’re a pair of fools,” said Stumpfe. “Unfortunately, I’ve realized today that I’ve been a fool too. Fur coats and carpets are neither here nor there.” He looked around, then went on in a whisper, “It’s a matter of my children’s future. I took part a while ago in a special action in some miserable little shtetl. That’s where I came by these little trinkets—this gold coin, this watch, this little ring. Well, imagine what treasures come the way of Einsatzgruppen carrying out liquidations in Odessa, Kiev or Warsaw! Do you follow me?”
“I’m not so sure about these special actions,” said Vogel. “My nerves aren’t strong enough.”
“A pfennig from every Jew who’s stopped breathing,” said Stumpfe. “That’s all.”
“Then you won’t do too badly,” said Ledeke. “The Führer’s fully behind these special actions. It’ll be whole wagonloads of pfennigs.”
They laughed, but Stumpfe, usually only too ready to laugh and joke, was in a serious mood.
“I’m not an idealist like you are,” he said to Vogel, “and I fully admit it. You’re like Lieutenant Bach—a man of the nineteenth century.”
“That’s true,” said Ledeke. “Not everyone has a rich family. It’s easy enough to come out with fine words if your father owns a whole factory.”
“I’ve made up my mind,” said Stumpfe. “I’m going to have a word with First Lieutenant Lenard. Maybe he can get me transferred—and I can make up for lost time before it’s too late. I’ll tell him I can hear a call, that it’s my inner voice. He’s a poet—he likes that sort of thing.”
Then Stumpfe took out anoth
er of his photographs. It showed a huge column of women, children and old men walking along between lines of armed soldiers. Some were looking towards the photographer; most were looking down at the ground. In the foreground stood an open-top car. The young woman inside was wearing a black fox stole, which brought out the paleness of her skin and the gold of her hair. Some officers standing nearby were watching the column of people. The woman had plump white hands and she was holding up a small dog with a big head and shaggy black hair, apparently wanting it too to look at the people. She could have been a mother showing some unusual sight to a small boy in order to be able to tell him, years later, what he had once witnessed.
Vogel studied the photograph for a long time. “It’s a Scottish terrier,” he said. “We’ve got one very like it at home. Every time she writes, my mother passes on his greetings.”
“Quite a woman!” Ledeke sighed.
“My sister-in-law,” said Stumpfe. “And the man leaning against the car door is my brother.”
“He looks very like you,” said Ledeke. “At first I thought it was you. But he’s got SS lapels and he’s a higher rank.”
“The photo was taken in Kiev, in September 1941. Near a cemetery, but I’ve forgotten the name of the place.34 My brother did well out of that Purim.35 If your dad ever wants to expand his factory, my brother can certainly lend him a few pfennigs.”
“Let me have another look at her,” said Ledeke. “There’s something of the ancient world about her, especially with this procession of death in the background. A Roman lady in the Coliseum.”
“Before the war,” Stumpfe continued, “my brother was an actor in an operetta company and his wife was a ticket-seller. If you’d come across her then, you’d hardly have noticed her. Eighty per cent of a woman’s beauty comes from her clothes, the way she does her hair, the elegance of her surroundings. When the war’s over, I want my wife to be able to look like this too. My brother’s in the General Government now.36 Reading between the lines, I understand from his letters that they’ve established something remarkable there—a real factory for processing Jews. What happened on the outskirts of Kiev was mere child’s play. He’s told me that, if I can get a transfer he’ll find me work at his factory. And don’t worry—I’ve got nerves of steel!”37
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