Last Flight to Stalingrad

by Graham Hurley

  Wrong. Messner was on hand with a Kübelwagen. While the pilot conferred with a technician about the engine he’d had to close down, Messner drove Nehmann and the pathologist across to the makeshift building Fliegerkorps VIII were using as a squadron mess. The Tante-Ju, he assured them, would be repaired and cleaned up for the next leg of the flight west. With luck, they’d be back in the air before dusk.

  It didn’t happen. From the mess, Nehmann was able to watch engineers working feverishly to replace parts on the malfunctioning engine. After darkness fell, they became half a dozen torches, their fading beams criss-crossing in the darkness. By now, after days of raids by Soviet bombers, the airfield was threatened by a Soviet tank army pushing in from the west. According to Messner, Richthofen had begged permission to pull out and save the aircraft that were still serviceable but High Command had issued Goering with a ‘stand-fast’ order. Only if the airfield came under direct attack from forces on the ground, insisted Hitler, was Tatsinskaya to be abandoned.

  This, Nehmann knew, was exactly the fate that awaited Stalingrad itself. Never retreat. Never surrender. Fight to the last man, regardless of the odds.

  ‘Well?’ He was looking at Messner.

  Messner was chewing a crust of black bread smeared with jam. He said he’d talked to Richthofen on the radio only minutes ago. The Generaloberst had ordered every crew of every serviceable aircraft to be at instant readiness to leave. Boxes of precious spares had already been packed into dozens of the Ju-52s. Every available fuel can had been filled to the brim. As for FK VIII’s personnel, each individual had been allotted an onboard allowance of just a hundred kilograms, to include body weight. The news put a smile on Nehmann’s face. Very Georg, he thought.

  By midnight, the booming of heavy artillery fire from the west was impossible to ignore. Nehmann braved the cold for a minute or two. He could see the distinctive outline of Messner’s nearby tent in the throw of brilliant light from the bigger explosions, and he wondered what it must be like to make an exit like this after months on the steppe. A movement beside him revealed the abrupt presence of the pathologist. Like Nehmann, he was helpless, a mere spectator as the Soviets tightened their chokehold on the airfield.

  ‘This is history,’ Gigensohen murmured. ‘Let’s just hope we live to bear witness.’

  At half past three in the morning, Soviet artillery batteries opened fire on the airfield and shells began to fall among the parked aircraft. Ground crews abandoned loading and ran for cover. Minutes later, word arrived that Russian tanks had broken through the airfield’s flimsy defences. Messner, it seemed to Nehmann, was enjoying this moment of drama. He moved from group to group, calm, unhurried, issuing a sequence of orders. Visibility on the airfield, he said, was down to five hundred metres. The cloud base was a bare thirty. Both figures would sink lower, making take-offs even more of a hazard. Time to leave.

  Air crew and personnel began to run towards their respective aircraft. Nehmann watched them for a moment, aware of the shrill whine of incoming shells. The guns on the tanks had a sharper bark than the big artillery pieces, and he ducked instinctively as the frozen earth erupted just metres away. Then came a push from behind and he turned to see Messner. He was pointing at a nearby aircraft at the end of the line of Tante-Jus.

  ‘Yours,’ he shouted. ‘Go.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I’ll be with you.’

  Nehmann bent for his kitbag and began to run, collecting the pathologist on the way. The aircraft was already half full, a blur of faces desperate for the engines to start. Nehmann helped Gigensohen up the metal ladder, then hung back waiting for Messner. He could see the tall Oberst directing the last of FKVIII’s ground crews to another aircraft. Then he began to hurry towards Nehmann. Moments later, in mid-stride, he paused, changed direction, made for his tent, tore open the flap, disappeared inside. The pilot of the Tante-Ju had begun to fire up the engines. Then came the shriek of an incoming shell and Messner’s tent seemed to physically levitate, hanging in the air, shredded by the blast.

  Nehmann didn’t hesitate. He ran towards the smoke of the explosion, shouting Messner’s name. Where the tent had been there was nothing but torn strips of canvas and the sour sweetness of expended cordite. Nehmann found Messner sprawled on the freezing turf. His throat was torn open and half his head had gone.

  Nehmann crouched over him a moment, aware of more explosions, some of them close, and the roar of aircraft engines. There was a face he recognised at the door of the Tante-Ju. It was Gigensohen.

  ‘Run,’ he was yelling. ‘We’re off.’

  Nehmann knew he was cutting it fine. He took a final look at Messner, then he noticed the object in his hand. It was the egg slicer. That’s what he’d come back for. That’s what had killed him.

  Nehmann bent quickly, easing the fierce grip of Messner’s fingers. Then he began to run.

  *

  Nehmann’s memories of leaving the stricken airfield at Tatsinskaya were, he thought later, cinematic. In the crush of bodies as the aircraft lurched drunkenly into the air he could see nothing but occasional glimpses of the Soviet onslaught through the Ju’s big square windows: the sudden yellow blossom of an explosion, a deep scarlet at its core; the aircraft’s own shadow, briefly visible, racing over the shell-pocked outer airfield as the pilot fought for altitude; then the relief as shreds of cloud closed around the aircraft and everything went grey. The atmosphere in the cabin was sombre. People avoided eye contact. They’d tasted defeat and they knew that worse was probably to come.

  They landed first at Rostov, which had mercifully been spared the attentions of the Soviets. Then, after a brief pause for refuelling, they were on their way again, still standing shoulder to shoulder as they droned west. Cinematic, Nehmann thought. Goebbels would doubtless be proud of him.

  They arrived in Berlin nearly ten hours later after another refuelling stop. By some miracle, the Promi had anticipated his arrival and sent a car out to Tempelhof. The driver met Nehmann at the aircraft steps. It was Christmas Day, already late afternoon. The driver was under orders to whisk him out to the villa at Bodensee where the Minister and his family were celebrating together. Nehmann insisted that Gigensohen be dropped off first but the pathologist declined the lift. He said he was grateful for the offer but, in all truth, he needed an hour or so on his own before he could face the real world.

  Nehmann knew exactly what he meant. The big Mercedes had been, according to the driver, a recent present from the Chancellery, a mark of the Führer’s gratitude. It was heavily armoured and could survive any attack. Hitler, it seemed, had also presented his Minister with no fewer than four bodyguards, a tribute to his importance. Nehmann sat in the back as the car purred away, aware of the smell of new leather, wondering whether centimetres of armour plate and a huge engine was meant to offer him reassurance.

  Nightmare, he’d already decided, was too small a word. First Stalingrad, just the word itself, a tocsin for the soul, a synonym for everything hateful about the world. Then Stalingrad’s weather, the bitter cold that stole into your very core, and the frozen parcels of flesh and blood, some animal, some not, that littered every ruined street, every pile of roadside debris, every next line of footsteps that might once have been a road.

  These images, Nehmann knew, would stay with him forever but what was far, far worse was the journey he’d made at the priest’s invitation, the descent into hell, the moment of purest horror when the image he’d kept in his head of Kirile melted in front of his eyes and became a child’s papier-mâché apology for a face, scarlet daubs, obscene hollows, eyeless, broken, the work of someone deeply evil. Kalb, he thought. Kalb had done that. And whatever else happened in this bitch of a war, Kalb would pay.

  31

  BODENSEE, BERLIN, 25 DECEMBER 1942

  Nehmann had never met Magda. Frau Goebbels was waiting in the dim fall of light at the open front door to greet the family’s Christmas Day visitor. Nehmann had seen photographs of this woman, erec
t, handsome, stern-faced, always exquisitely dressed. In her previous marriage, to a wealthy businessman, he knew she’d acquired a taste for the finer things in life, a passion Goebbels had been happy to indulge, but this afternoon she was wearing a plain dress in a sea-green velvet and for that Nehmann was deeply grateful. A middle-of-the-night escape from the Soviet Army and two days on a Tante-Ju did nothing for your peace of mind, let alone your appearance. In a word, he felt rough.

  Goebbels, to his surprise, had readied a change of clothes. He escorted Nehmann along a corridor he recognised from his previous visit. He could hear the piping of children’s voices, the patter of footsteps, and a delicious smell hung in the air. Goose, he thought. And wonderfully waxy potatoes. And spiced sauerkraut. And – if he was really lucky – even a dumpling or two. He noticed, to his amusement, that on the wall at the end of the corridor the framed photograph featuring Lida Baarova had gone.

  Goebbels led the way to a guest bedroom. The replacement set of clothes that awaited Nehmann might have been lifted from Guram’s apartment. The same heavy pullover with the same zigzag motif. A pair of trousers, freshly ironed, that fitted like a dream. Even the triangle of red silk scarf that Nehmann liked to knot around his neck.

  ‘We took advice.’ Goebbels was beaming. ‘We got word that you were losing weight, so we acquired a tighter pair of trousers. That was Maria’s doing. Don’t tell me you’re surprised.’

  ‘Not at all. How is she?’

  ‘Well, my friend. And as eager as ever.’

  ‘For?’

  ‘You, Nehmann.’ The smile was even wider. ‘Who else?’

  The family, he explained, would be eating later, before the evening’s entertainments began. For their guest, the cook had prepared a cold platter from last night’s Christmas Eve celebrations. Nehmann would be dining alone in Goebbels’ study over a drink or two while together they did their best to resolve certain matters. Nehmann was very welcome to take advantage of the facilities. A bath had already been run. Afterwards, soaped and lotioned, he would doubtless be able to remember his way to the study. A glass or two of Gewürztraminer would be waiting for him once he’d had time to collect himself.

  Certain matters? Collect himself?

  Nehmann lay full length in the bath, his eyes closed. He couldn’t remember when he’d last enjoyed water this hot. It seeped into him, a reminder that life in the Third Reich could have its moments of purest pleasure. The temptation was to tally this against the countless images he’d just left behind him, to remind himself that everything in this weird regime came at a price paid by millions of others, but he shook his head. With luck, he’d be back on the road to the city within a couple of hours. Maria, he thought. Waiting for him.

  Goebbels, when Nehmann joined him a full hour later, was showing signs of impatience.

  ‘You slept,’ he said.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I checked. You’re a guest Nehmann. You live here by our rules, not yours.’

  Goebbels was, as ever, sitting behind his desk. Nehmann settled in the proffered chair. None of this matters, he told himself. I’m still alive.

  ‘You have something for me?’ Goebbels couldn’t have been blunter.

  Nehmann nodded. He’d typed up his encounter with Gigensohen, the pathologist, and now he handed it across. Goebbels, it turned out, knew about the pathologist’s visit to Stalingrad already. Indeed, by his own account it had been partly his own idea.

  ‘We need focus, Nehmann. We need to acknowledge the reality of things. And, in my view, there’s no better place to start than the findings of a man like Gigensohen. He’s a scientist. He deals in facts, not fictions. People will trust him.’

  He bent his head and scanned Nehmann’s account. Then he read it a second time, a green pen in his hand, making notes in the margin.

  ‘He told you about having to thaw out the bodies? Before he carves them up? How difficult that can be? How long it takes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And he told you about the time he left one poor man to roast for too long? Charred him down one side? Like some Schwein on a spit?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then use it. Make it graphic. Make it real.’ He lifted his head at last and adjusted his reading glasses. ‘What’s the matter, Nehmann? Why do I have to tell you all this? Has Stalingrad done bad things to you? Robbed you of your appetite for that killer phrase we know and love?’

  ‘Not at all, Minister. Stalingrad has taught me many things, not all of them pleasant.’

  Goebbels caught the change of mood at once. Nehmann very rarely called him ‘Minister’. Indeed, a faux-camaraderie had always been the very essence of their relationship: two buccaneering artists pushing propaganda to its limits.

  ‘What’s the matter, Nehmann?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You still regard me as a friend? A colleague? A supporter?’

  ‘Of course, Minister.’

  ‘Then read this.’ He pushed a magazine across the desk. It was an advance copy of the January edition of Das Reich. The article, authored by Goebbels, was headlined Totaler Krieg. Total War.

  The article was brief. Nehmann understood the thrust of it in seconds. The nation had to understand that war could be ugly, and costly, and painful. The quicker the whole business was over, the better. Wise, therefore, to devote every particle of the nation’s effort to winning. At whatever cost.

  ‘Total War, Nehmann.’ Goebbels rapped the top of the desk with his knuckles. ‘There’s no other way. People have to understand that this war will never be won in Horcher’s or the Rivoli. It demands total commitment. From every single one of us. You agree?’

  Nehmann nodded, said nothing. Horcher’s was Hermann Goering’s favourite Berlin restaurant and he knew Goebbels had been trying to close the place down for months. The Rivoli was a cinema that specialised in screening lavish movies, many of them sponsored by the Promi, to packed houses.

  ‘You agree, Nehmann?’ Goebbels said again.

  ‘Of course. And the answer is yes, Minister.’

  ‘Then attend to this shit. Make it bolder. Use the bodies. Make us feel the bite of those bone saws the pathologists use. I’ve cleared a space in next week’s VB. The Führer is half convinced but he needs a little push and that’s where you come in, Nehmann. What a way to launch the New Year, eh?’

  ‘How many words, Minister?’ VB was the Völkischer Beobachter.

  ‘Five hundred. Anything longer, people lose their way. Come on, Nehmann, for God’s sake, you used to know all this.’ Goebbels pushed the text of Nehmann’s account towards him. His gaze was unwavering. ‘Well?’

  ‘You want me to do it now?’

  ‘I do, Nehmann. I do. I want you to do it now, here. I want it sharper. I want it better. I want to imagine half of Germany reading it and nodding and realising that there’s no other way. Total War, Nehmann.’ He rapped the table again. ‘Or nothing.’

  Nothing. Nehmann reached for the text and took the proffered pen. He’d finally realised what was going on. He’d finally recognised the sub-text to this conversation, the reef buried beneath the pleasantries, and the readied bath, and the change of clothes, and all the Third Reich nonsense afterwards. This was humiliation on a subtly grand scale, a reminder of just where he, Werner Nehmann, wordsmith and jester, belonged in the ranks of the mighty. He was back at school, master and pupil, here to do Goebbels’ bidding. And then what? He shook his head, trying to dismiss the thought.

  He began to go through the text, changing a word here, adding a detail there, trying to catch the pathologist’s turn of phrase, trying to remember exact anatomical details, trying to do justice to yet another stack of Stalingrad corpses. Goebbels watched him, affecting indifference, toying with his glasses. Soon, it was done. The Minister scanned it quickly, nodding when a new phrase caught his eye, then smiling at the end where Nehmann had added the line about death never taking time off.

  ‘Excellent.’ He sat back. ‘You nev
er let me down, Nehmann. I’m glad to say your work is done.’

  ‘Done?’

  ‘Indeed. Will the Reich need you again? Of course, it will. No nation wages Total War without a great deal of effort and, dare I say it, wit. That’s your job. That’s where little Werner Nehmann comes in. But for now, my friend, you and your lady must enjoy the rest of Christmas. I’m glad Stalingrad was kind to you. Best to forget the worst of it, eh? My driver will be glad to take you back to the city. That little bookshop on Kopernikusstrasse? Am I right?’

  He got to his feet, one hand outstretched. But then came the creak of the door opening. For a moment Nehmann thought it might be the promised meal, but it turned out to be Magda. She said she felt a little guilty. It was, after all, Christmas. Was there anything she might be able to find for him in the way of a present? Nehmann gazed at her for a moment then mumbled that it was a kind offer but that he had nothing to offer in return.

  ‘Nonsense, Nehmann.’ This from Goebbels. ‘You’ve brought yourself, graced us with your presence, what more could we possibly want?’

  Nehmann held his gaze. Goebbels had always been half in love with sarcasm, but this was far too clumsy.

  ‘Well, Herr Nehmann?’ Magda was still waiting for an answer.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes, what?’

  ‘Yes, I’d like a present. Could you manage a little collection of spices? What your cook has in the kitchen? A little salt? A decent pinch of pepper? Hungarian paprika, as hot as you can manage? Cayenne, maybe? Nutmeg? Cloves? And some herbs, too? Dill? Chives? Parsley?’

  ‘That’s quite a list, Herr Nehmann.’ Magda was looking surprised.