by Leo Litwak
The third soldier, also blond, wore a tan tunic and dark brown pants. He was tall and rigid. He held an automatic weapon—the sort we called grease guns—at the ready. After hugs and handshakes he relaxed, put down his weapon, took out his camera.
It was not an official contact. The three Russians had been wandering over new terrain and had entered Grossdorf without authorization, bypassing our guard. The official encounter had occurred elsewhere, at the Elbe River, with high brass present, the meeting filmed and viewed worldwide. Grossdorf wasn’t even a sideshow.
I assumed the elegant Russian was an officer because of his epaulettes and manner of command. The cigarette holder contributed to the effect. He was delighted to receive American cigarettes and in return offered an open bottle of vodka. We passed around his bottle, brought out beer and glasses. The Russian raised his glass. “Zum Sieg,” he said. To victory. We clinked glasses and bottles. His underling produced his camera and we brought out ours. We snapped the Russians; they snapped us. I was photographed holding the Russian automatic weapon. I passed the gun to Novak, who had his photo taken. The Russians were snapped holding our M1s.
“The great war has ended,” the Russian officer said. “The Wehrmacht has vanished between us. We meet as brothers.” He shook my hand, insisted on a photo of the handshake.
Lieutenant Klamm remained apart from the celebration, gave no hugs, shook no hands. He motioned me over.
“Find out what they’re doing in Grossdorf.”
I asked the Russian officer if there was anything he wanted.
He said, “We are only looking.” He asked what sort of building the factory was and I told him.
“There are other factories here?”
Grossdorf was a city of farmers, and this was the only factory.
“That is your officer?” He nodded toward Lieutenant Klamm on the porch. I said, “Yes.” Before taking off, the Russian went around the platoon shaking hands and ignored Klamm. I offered the buxom woman soldier a comradely embrace and she squeezed back vigorously. The Russians climbed aboard their wagon, the officer lit up for the road and waved his cigarette holder. “Auf Wiedersehen.” The horse reared, the woman giggled, leaned forward, walloped the horse on its rump, and our first Russians were gone. The end of the war had snuck up on us by horse and wagon.
The lieutenant asked what the Russian wanted with our factory.
“He wanted to know what kind of building it was.”
“It’s none of his damn business. He isn’t supposed to be here. I don’t know how he got past our guards.”
Novak said they hadn’t come through our posts. They must have gone around the city and come in from the west.
We heard from Captain Dillon that these chance meetings were happening up and down the line. The Russians were already in Chemnitz and these encounters were likely to go on for a long time. We were to stay calm and avoid incidents. “They have a problem with discipline. Shake hands and get them back to their lines without starting World War Three.”
A few days later there was a second encounter. Again the guard was bypassed. This time it was a single, unarmed Russian soldier on foot. He came down the street wearing a tan tunic and puffy pants and high boots, a little fellow without a hat, his straw-colored hair shooting straight out and looping straight down. He was hauling a very large German farmer by the ear. The farmer had to stoop to accommodate the grip.
It was an odd scene, the middle-aged farmer twice the size of the Russian, who looked to be no more than seventeen or eighteen years old. They stumbled together down the street, the farmer not resisting. They stopped two or three times; the soldier braced to get footing, swung with his free hand, landed solid blows we could hear thirty yards away. The farmer reeled back but made no effort to escape. We came out to intercede.
The soldier beamed at the sight of us. “Comrades!” he said, “Americanski. Chères amis.” He was a handsome, freckled young man, his remarkable straw hair as straight as broom bristles.
I asked, “Was ist los?”
He said, in German, “Please. I have no gun. Let me borrow a gun.”
I asked why he wanted a gun.
“To kill this man.”
He twisted the German’s ear. The farmer grimaced but made no sound.
“Why do you want to kill him?”
“He called me a barbarian.”
“You want to kill him for that?”
He told us he was away at school when the Germans came to his village. They raped his mother and sisters and cut their throats. He learned how his family died from surviving neighbors. Now this man called him a barbarian and he intended to kill him and go back to his house and rape his wife.
“He will be punished,” I said. “Leave him with us.”
“You will punish him?”
“Certainly.”
He let go the farmer’s ear. He loved Amerikanskis, he said, and embraced me and pounded my back. “We are comrades?”
I assured him we were and that I would see to it the farmer was punished. He hugged me again. He hugged Roy Jones and Novak. Then he waved farewell and headed toward the farmhouse.
“He is crazy,” the farmer said. “He wants to kill me.”
I asked if he had indeed called the soldier a barbarian.
“He does not understand German. He is crazy.”
The shaken farmer stayed with us the rest of the afternoon.
I told Roy Jones and Novak what had happened.
Roy said, “Why didn’t you let him kill the son of a bitch? I’d have lent him my gun.”
Novak nodded.
“What is it with you, Doc?” Roy asked. “You’d think you, of all people, would want to see these bastards dead.”
I guessed he meant, You, Doc, a Jew, are too softhearted to operate in this world. You need coldhearted sons of bitches like me to keep things straight in this world. I sometimes thought Roy was right and that I let others do what I didn’t have the heart to do. But all in all I followed my heart and was glad I was a medic without a gun to use or lend.
THE THIRD RUSSIAN encounter was with a little sergeant, lean and weathered and tough-looking. He wore a cap with a bill, almost too large for his sharp, creased face. Even though the weather was mild, he was dressed in a dark, heavy wool coat that almost reached the ground. I guessed his rank from the knobs on the shoulders of his greatcoat and the holstered sidearm hanging from one side of a pistol belt. There was a black leather scabbard with a blade on the other side of the belt.
He came to us driving a German vehicle with a puny rear engine that putt-putted in idle. He had come to our quarters looking for gas.
I checked with the lieutenant.
“Give him a can of gas and get rid of him. “
The Russian understood from the tone that the lieutenant was no friend.
Emptying the five-gallon GI can into his tank, he asked, “You like him, your officer?”
“He is a good man, but sometimes hard.”
“He is not a good man. They are none of them good, not Russian officers, not American officers. Only the common soldiers are good.”
I told him he spoke the truth.
“Common people everywhere are good,” he said.
“Germans, too?”
Germans were animals, not men. Murderers. His unit had liberated camps. “The Germans are no good. Not true?”
“Yes, true.” To get rid of him I agreed with everything he said.
“The common Russian soldier, the common American soldier are brothers, not true?”
“Yes, true.”
“I will show you a place, here in this village where Russki and Amerikanski can drink together.”
“I need my officer’s permission.”
I told Klamm the man wanted to take me somewhere for a drink.
“Just get rid of him. Go with him if you have to but don’t let him take you out of town.”
The little German car was low-powered and noisy. We drove to a hotel t
hat might have been appropriate to the Midwest, the only one in town, just off the square, a nondescript two-story wood building, paint faded and blistered. Willy had told me it was a place where farmers stayed when they came to Grossdorf to do business at the bank or market. It had apparently been taken over by DPs. Inside the dingy lobby I recognized several Russians whom I had seen hanging around the town square. The lobby was stripped, not even a chair, no wall hangings or carpets. The DPs stood in the middle of the room. A few squatted against the wall. The place was dense with tobacco smoke. They rolled their own. To smoke readymades would have been to burn money.
We climbed a bare stairway, threads of carpet snagged in nails, and entered a room on the second floor, empty save for a small, battered oak table and two unsteady chairs. The walls were grimy with patches of white where pictures had been removed. The wide plank floor was scuffed and splintered, the windows almost opaque with caked dirt.
The sergeant motioned me to sit and took the chair across from me. He didn’t bother to remove his coat or cap or pistol belt. A woman came in, bearing two mugs and two plates on a tray. She wore a Russian tunic, her hair bound in a shawl. It was Katrina, whom I hadn’t seen since we first arrived in Grossdorf.
“Katrina?”
She didn’t answer and I thought it was possible I’d made a mistake. That Katrina was vital and angry, expecting redemption when her Kavalieren arrived. This woman was subdued and sullen.
“Katrina?”
She looked at me, gave no sign of recognition, but it was definitely her, handsome and voluptuous.
“Your cavaliers have come,” I said. “Do you have justice?”
She shrugged and left the room. It was clearly Katrina, and when the Russian sergeant asked how I knew her, I understood from his tone that it did her no favor to be associated with me. It might have been dangerous for her to acknowledge we knew each other.
I said she resembled a woman I had met. I was probably mistaken. I told him about the lager and how I had helped get provisions for the Russian women.
He was only interested in food and drink for us. “We have nothing to eat. Let us drink, then we will go out.”
He pulled a bottle from an inner pocket of his coat. It was the shape and size of a bottle of rubbing alcohol, containing a clear liquid, the penciled word “spiritus” taped to it. He half-filled my mug, then his. He reached into another pocket of his greatcoat and brought out a small bread and a skinny sausage. “Kielbase,” he said. He pulled the blade from his scabbard, a beautiful ceremonial weapon. He sliced the bread, sliced the sausage, placed portions on my plate, then on his. He wiped the blade on his coat sleeve, then laid it on the table. He took a bite of bread and sausage, then a deep swig from his mug and bade me do the same. The sausage was hard and spicy and needed intense chewing. The drink was savage, with a gasoline odor, and I was almost immediately nauseated. He finished his drink and I felt obliged to do the same. He wanted to pour again. I pulled away my mug but he insisted we commemorate the victory of the brotherhood of common soldiers. I reluctantly offered my cup and he poured the spiritus.
His judgments were immediate and strong, not easy to oppose. He didn’t seem affected by the drink, while I had to concentrate to keep my focus. Our limited German made no great demands but I was barely able to manage my end of the dialogue.
I complimented him on the blade. “A beautiful weapon.”
“You like?”
He held it up for me. An inscription was etched on the face of the blade that I was too blurred to make out. Above the inscription a marvelous spread-winged eagle was engraved.
“Silver and steel,” the sergeant said. “No good for war. Good for kielbase.”
He admired my watch, an inexpensive Mickey Mouse watch I’d bought through the PX. He said such a watch was very desirable in the Soviet Union.
I stripped it off and gave it to him.
He bent across the table, kissed my forehead, removed his pistol belt and pulled away the scabbard. He extended blade and scabbard to me. “For you, my friend.”
I said, no, no, no. It was too valuable.
“We are brothers.”
He fitted the scabbard to my belt, strapped the watch to his wrist, the barter consummated. He finished his drink, motioned me to do the same. After the gift, I couldn’t refuse.
“Come. We eat.”
I stumbled against him, clutched the rickety railing going downstairs. He held my arm, led me through the lobby.
I remember being driven to the Bahnhof restaurant. The chilly station was jammed with refugees camping amid knapsacks and suitcases—women and children, a few old men, the smell stale and sour. They wore ski pants, wool jackets, beaked caps, stocking hats. The station restaurant was empty. An elderly waiter in white shirt and black suit came from the kitchen to tell us that sometimes they were open, more often closed, and today there was no food. The Russian pulled out his pistol, pounded the butt on the table. “Essen!” he shouted.
The waiter said, “Gar nichts zu essen, mein Herr. Alles kaput.” There’s nothing to eat.
The sergeant raised his pistol and fired into the ceiling. Plaster showered down, doused the black-suited waiter. The shot silenced the railroad station.
“Please. I beg you,” the waiter said. “I will find you something to eat.”
We were served but I have no idea what we ate. Everything tasted gassy and explosive. I barely recall the drive back to the Schloss. I threw up in the driveway and fell down. The little man hoisted me up and supported me past my outraged lieutenant and amused buddies, who pointed to my bedroom. He dumped me in bed, kissed my forehead, said, “Auf Wiedersehen,” got into his gassed-up car, and putt-putted toward the Russian lines.
I HAD ACQUIRED the wherewithal that would allow Willy to remain in Grossdorf. The lieutenant had ordered Willy to clear out. He’d gone into hiding, and I found him at Ingrid Schultz’s and brought him the ceremonial blade.
“Is this what Klamm was looking for?”
He inspected the blade, asked where I got it, then offered me thirty dollars.
I told him it was a gift, but he refused to accept a gift. He insisted on a transaction. He asked what I’d paid.
“My Mickey Mouse watch,” I told him.
“You made yourself a good deal.” He removed his own watch, a solid gold Swiss. His principle of quid pro quo demanded a barter and I accepted the watch.
Willy showed up at the Schloss that night.
“I have found it for you, Lieutenant.”
He presented Klamm with the newly polished, glistening black scabbard. The lieutenant removed the blade, held it to the light, turned it horizontally to inspect the engraving.
Willy translated the Gothic inscription. “‘Zur Errinerung an Meine Dienstzeit.’ To the memory of my service. This is what you wanted, sir?”
“It’s a beauty. What are you asking?”
“For you, a carton of cigarettes.”
“A deal.” Klamm went to his room with blade and scabbard and returned with a carton of Lucky Strikes, his collection now complete.
Dear Folks, I’m sending along photos of our meeting with Russian soldiers. You’ll note that in one photo I’m shaking hands with a Russian officer. He’s looking directly at me while I’m grinning at the camera. My friend Novak says the Russians took the same photo and when it appears in Pravda the text will say, look at brave Ivan, greeting the Amerikanski ally with full heart, and now look at decadent Amerikanski ally, only interested in propaganda opportunity. This war is almost over. I yearn for home.
CHAPTER 11
< MAY 8 >
We tidied up, war grime erased, faces scraped, hair slicked back, shoes polished, clothes freshly laundered, ready to party. We blocked the street in front of Schloss Hartmann with chairs and tables. Holiday fare came from the company kitchen located in a nearby village. Metal vats held turkey and potatoes and salad, a massive urn for the coffee. We had apple pie and vanilla ice cream for dessert. An a
ssistant cook ladled out the main dish into mess kits. Beer was tapped from a keg, bottles of wine on every table.
Lieutenant Klamm banged a canteen cup on his table to get our attention. He was a big man, flushed from a few beers, his trim mustache and severe crew cut barely maturing his teenage face. When we were silent he announced in the stentorian voice developed for the parade ground that on this eighth day of May 1945, the Germans had officially surrendered. There might be a detour to Tokyo but sooner or later we would be en route home. He reviewed again the stations of our combat journey, northern France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Sauer, the Siegfried line, the Rhine, and at the end, Grossdorf. We had weathered it all, suffered losses, and become one family.
He drummed into us that our journey would never be forgotten and that we were joined forever.
We’d heard that refrain before. It meant much to Klamm to believe that somehow we were fused and the platoon would never end.
He told us to fill our canteen cups and toast the U.S. Army and then our company and above all our platoon. We raised our cups, cheered the U.S. Army. Hurray! Our company. Hurray! The First Platoon. Hurray! What began as a kind of mocking deference to Klamm’s sentimentality deepened as we clinked cups, and the last cheer was heartfelt. Stunned by beer, wine, the sun, it felt like the Fourth of July and I think we all believed for a moment that we’d never forget, and so, never be parted, and when Klamm read aloud the names of the dead—Sergeant Lucca first and foremost—it wasn’t only the loss of our dead that made us tearful, but the tipsy love of each other. We raised our cups, strongly joined.
Then an abrupt change of tone. Klamm had an announcement. A GI musical, Alles Kaput, was appearing in Zwickau, Maurice Sully a star of the show. Klamm didn’t know when we were scheduled to attend; he imagined soon. Attendance was voluntary, but who would want to miss Maurice on stage? He believed that someday Maurice would be a show business headliner, someone we would be proud to claim as our own.
