Werner wanted to retch on his shoes – or better on Sokolov’s for Markgraf to lick them clean again.
One of the NKVD sitting nearest to Sokolov whispered something into Sokolov’s ear, who wrinkled his brows, but then turned his attention to Markgraf again. “Comrade Markgraf, we’ll leave the matter for the time being.”
Werner’s knees almost gave out with relief, but he’d rejoiced too soon.
“What do you think Comrade Böhm? I believe you know that woman very well,” Sokolov said suddenly.
All blood drained from Werner’s face. Had the entire conversation been set up in advance, meant to give him a false sense of security? What did they know? And what did they expect him to admit to?
He opted to play for time, admit only what they knew anyway.
“Yes, Comrade General, I remember her. She was on the student board, but always kept in the background, rarely said a word. I never identified her as a political agitator, unlike some of the other students.”
“You’ve been seen with her quite frequently,” the second NKVD officer said.
Cold sweat broke out on Werner’s palms, but he resisted the urge to wipe them on his pants. That would give away his nerves. And an innocent man had no reason to be nervous. He forced himself to think quickly.
“Comrade, you are right. I met with her in private a couple of times, because I had the impression she had a soft spot for socialist ideas when not in the company of these agitators. It was my intention to convince her to join the SED.”
“And, did you?” Markgraf scoffed, a sly smirk on his face, and his waxed moustache twitching in merriment.
Werner wondered if he’d been under surveillance all this time. Had they somehow divined his carefully hidden criticism of Stalinism? Was this his final chance to stay in the party lane?
“I believe I did. The last time I saw her she was enthusiastic and eagerly asked me about the nearest party office from where she lives.” Werner looked from one man to the next, thinking how to maneuver him – and Marlene – out of this corner. “But I’m afraid the unfortunate happenings might have scared her. She’s not a very brave or strong woman.” It hurt to say these words, but it was for the best, should they believe she was some easily intimidated girl.
Sokolov made a sharp movement with his hand. “I don’t care either way. We got the ringleaders, and as soon as we have their confessions, this incident will never be mentioned again. She’s not important for us or for the cause.”
Chapter 29
Two days later all but three of the arrested students were released. They were badly roughed up and so traumatized by their experience in Russian captivity, that they immediately resigned their positions as student leaders and joined the SED.
“Please tell me about Georg and Julian, why haven’t they been released? What has happened to them?” Marlene asked her fellow students.
“I have no idea,” was the standard reply. She could see that they were terrified and refused to discuss the matter further.
“You should stop asking questions,” one of them advised her. “The Soviets will stop at nothing to get what they want. I for my part, want my family to be safe and alive.”
Marlene’s shoulders slumped. She felt like an awful coward to abandon Georg. Deep-rooted guilt prevented her from attending class today, so she skipped and went into town instead. She wandered around the streets. Most still showed the destruction of war, while some – mostly administrative buildings – had been slowly rebuilt. But while the Berliners were willing to knuckle down and work, there was never enough money or material to repair all the things needed.
The Soviets diverted most everything needed, including coal and steel from the Ruhr area, to Russia, letting the industry bleed out every day more. Supposedly the Western Allies had put a halt to the blatant robbery called reparations, at least in their zones, but oftentimes train wagons sent to Poland with agreed upon reparation materials never returned, and continued eastward with or without their valuable freight.
Understandably the British, to whom the Ruhr area belonged, refused to send more coal if the train cars weren’t returned first, and thus the Soviets staged a propaganda war on radio about the thieving and lying imperialists and stopped material going into Berlin in revenge. Living on an island amidst Soviet territory truly was a position between a rock and a hard place.
Marlene was so deep in thought, that she didn’t notice the car speeding down the street and would have walked under its wheels, if it weren’t for someone holding her arm.
“Are you weary of life?” a familiar voice scolded her.
She turned around, spitting with madness. “You! Get the hell out of my way!”
Werner’s face took on a hurt expression, and he pursed his lips as he said, “Shouldn’t you rather thank me for saving your life?”
“Are you spying on me?”
“No, I’m not, I was on my way to the university. But despite your obvious hate for me, I couldn’t well let you walk under a car.” Werner looked worried, haunted even and she wondered whether he felt the increasing tension as well. But that wasn’t her problem anymore, he himself had asked her never to talk to him again.
“Don’t make it a habit to save my life,” she said in the most scathing tone possible.
“Please, Marlene, can we talk for a moment?” he begged her.
She couldn’t resist the trustful expression in his eyes. As much as she wanted to despise him, there was no way she could pull through with her plan. She nodded and followed him into a nearby bakery, where he ordered coffee for both of them.
“Forgive me, but it was the only way to…” he stopped midsentence, and gave her a vague smile. “Understand my situation, I was so overwhelmed by my emotions that I panicked. I’ve been a bachelor for such a long time, I got scared. But I never meant to hurt you…” She sensed he was lying, was making up an excuse to protect her. She needed to know the truth.
“Did you know about the raid that night?” she asked.
Werner flinched. “This kind of action isn’t divulged to people outside the police department, and I’m not even involved with the university anymore.
Her blood boiled at the half-hearted attempted to deny his knowledge and before she could stop herself, she hissed, “You are a despicable coward, a beast. Man up and at least admit your involvement. And stop defending the communist terror.”
“All I ever wanted was to protect you, Marlene,” he persisted.
“Why me? Why not all the others? Do you think they deserved to be roughed up by the people’s police?” Marlene could barely keep herself from shouting out loud.
His face fell. “I tried to warn them. You can’t imagine how often I urged Georg to stop antagonizing the administration.”
“The Soviet puppets, you mean?” She emptied the coffee cup, her hands trembling with barely suppressed fury.
“Let’s not get into semantics. You know full well that I’m on your side, but there are greater powers that neither I nor anyone else can influence. The student board didn’t heed my warnings.” Werner rubbed his hands, seemingly unsure how to continue. “When people violate the rules, they have to bear the consequences for their actions. This is an omnipresent principle of any state structure.”
“How can you still defend the communists? They’re worse than the Nazis.” She knew she should keep her mouth shut, but his slick, two-faced behavior irked her to no end.
“If you believe that then I’m afraid you have a lot to learn,” Werner shrugged. “At least thank the Soviet army for ridding Germany of the Nazis and bringing peace and stability to this country.”
“I’ll thank these communist thugs, rapists and murderers for nothing and I’ll be the first one to cheer when they leave Berlin for good,” she said in disgust. “And you know what? You’re enabling the Soviet death grip on my city and therefore I hate you!”
For a moment he looked truly sad, but then he schooled his features again and answered, “I
guess you should. I’m not worth your attention.”
Chapter 30
Werner left the bakery in a very sour mood. Marlene had called him a despicable beast and a coward, but that wasn’t the worst. What really got to him was that she was right. In a dozen years in the Soviet Union he’d learned to always toe the party line, never utter an independent or – God forbid – critical thought.
He’d looked away when his parents had fallen victim to the purge, had defended Stalin’s regime when some of his best friends ended up in Gulags for minor transgressions, had empathized with veterans of the Spanish Civil War and Lenin’s comrades in arms who’d fallen in disgrace with Stalin.
He sighed. It wasn’t something he was especially proud of, but sometimes the greater good required sacrifices. Individual hardships were inevitable during the transitional period until a truly socialist community was formed. The student board leaders were such individual fates that couldn’t be avoided, because their agitation might otherwise threaten the entire reform process of the German population.
The next morning, he got up in a much better mood and looked out of the window. The day looked promising with the sun shining resolutely through the cloudy sky. He hoped it wouldn’t rain, since he hated the rain that made everything damp and filled the roads with puddles that were deceptive to drive through.
He arrived at his office in the Haus der Einheit , and sat down to work. Around noon, a knock on the door tore him from his concentration. “Come in!”
A uniformed Russian entered the room. “Comrade Böhm?”
“Yes, how can I help you?”
“General Sokolov expects you in Karlshorst. I’m here to drive you there,” the man said briskly.
Werner sat in stunned silence for a moment, until the gravity of the order finally registered. A summons from the general was quite unexpected. It also augured unpleasantness, and with a sense of foreboding, Werner wondered what was in store for him.
“Certainly,” he said and got up to grab his hat and coat before he followed the Russian to the black car waiting outside. Just when they left the building, the rain came pouring down. The wipers frantically waved backwards and forwards and still couldn’t keep the windscreen clear.
Werner peered through the clouded glass, happy it wasn’t him at the steering wheel trying to stay on the road which was flooded by the sudden deluge. Inching along, and hitting every pothole, Werner finally arrived at the headquarters to meet his fate.
Throughout the journey he resisted the urge to try and ask the Russian about the reason for his summons. He wouldn’t know anyway. At last the car stopped in front of the impressive SMAD headquarters. Long used to not being told what was going on, his mind still was in turmoil and his heart pounded.
It seemed the delegation had been waiting exclusively for him, because the moment the car stopped, the doors opened and Paul Markgraf and an NKVD officer squeezed into the backseat.
“Comrade Böhm,” the police chief greeted him.
The tiniest sigh escaped Werner’s throat. As long as they still called him comrade, things couldn’t be that bad. Despite knowing better, he asked, “Where are we going Comrade Markgraf?”
“You’ll see when we get there.” Paul Markgraf guffawed and began complaining about the awful rain. Since weather was an innocuous topic, Werner joined the rant, although he carefully interspersed hidden praise about how much better he liked the weather in Moscow than in Berlin. The NKVD officer never said a single word, but Werner was sure, he understood German quite well.
After about an hour’s drive, the car stopped. As Werner got out, he noticed that a column of four cars, including theirs had arrived. From one of them stepped General Sokolov himself, accompanied by his deputy and Norbert.
Werner respectfully signaled a greeting in their direction, but nobody acknowledged him. The grey bunker-like building turned out to be a former Gestapo prison, appropriated by the NKVD that now used it for the same sinister acts as the previous owner, simply changing the underlying ideology.
He’d never been inside such an installation, but had heard the gleefully reported details about the atrocities Hitler’s cronies had committed, along with whispered rumors about similar things happening to those unfortunate souls in NKVD custody. His legs suddenly felt like jelly as he stepped into the concrete monolith.
They walked through a labyrinth of passages until they came to a large brightly lit chamber filled with all manner of implements designed to elicit a confession from a suspect. Werner noticed a man with his hands cuffed behind his back and hooked to a chain that suspended him from the ceiling. When the man’s head swung around, he recognized it was Georg.
Werner gasped in shock. He had never in his life seen a more repulsive sight. The bile rose in his throat and he fought it down. Why did they bring me here ? He wished to flee from the room and scream his horror to the world. But he could do no such thing. Marlene’s face appeared in front of his inner eye and her verdict about him echoed through his mind. Coward! Beast! Monster! Intuitively he ducked, awaiting her slap his face.
“No stomach for this business, eh, Werner? We’ll have to toughen you up,” Markgraf said, before he beckoned him to come outside. Werner was never more thankful for an order.
General Sokolov was standing outside and smoked. Werner almost stumbled with shock, when the general addressed him directly, “Comrade Böhm. You may wonder, why you’re here.”
“Yes, Comrade General.”
“The reason is, Comrade Gentner has informed me that you had befriended Georg Tauber,” Sokolov said casually.
Werner’s heart missed a beat. There it was. He would be punished for the crime of being friends with a dissenter. He hurried to explain, “Comrade General, I befriended this criminal subject on orders from—”
Sokolov cut him off with a move of his hand. “I know. I know. From all the students we interrogated there’s only these two, Georg Tauber and Julian Berger who refuse to confess their crimes. We really would like to close this unfortunate chapter and move on to more important things. But, we need a confession, and a public retraction on their outrageous claims. And this is where you come into play. Talk some sense into them, appeal to their reason, bribe them, do whatever you want, but make them sign a retraction.”
“Yes, Comrade General,” Werner said, wondering how on earth he was supposed to achieve what the NKVD henchmen hadn’t. Did Sokolov truly believe a few sweet words could retune a person who had withstood days of torture?
His stomach a nervous wreck, Werner entered the interrogation room again. Gratefully he realized that the tormenters had left and he was alone with Georg. He approached the young man, who looked as if he were asleep.
“Georg,” he said, waiting until the other man half-opened a heavily swollen eye. “It’s me, Werner.”
“You?” was all the other man said.
“I’m so sorry, I had no idea,” Werner said, more to himself than to Georg. He knew they were being watched through the one-way viewing pane on the wall, so he chose his words with care. “They brought me here, to talk some sense into you. Please, you must confess to the accusations and retract your demands if you want to get out of here.”
“Never,” Georg croaked.
“Please. Save yourself, and your family. I promise you’ll leave this room a free man today, but you have to confess. Don’t make this any worse than it already is,” Werner begged the courageous man, while he secretly loathed himself for being such a weakling, condoning these barbaric acts through his behavior.
Suddenly he felt like he’d lost his last morsel of humanity. He’d become a monster, equally despicable as the torturers listening outside.
“Spare your words. I will never retract on the truth and my fight for freedom. I have survived three years in a Nazi camp, I sure as hell won’t succumb to the rotten communists,” Georg spat out. The speech had used up all his energy and his chin slumped onto his chest.
Werner couldn’t stand to w
itness how his former friend was digging his own grave and tried once more. In a hushed voice he suggested, “You don’t have to give up your beliefs. Just tell them what they want to hear so that they set you free. Think of your family, too. Do you think they will be spared if you continue to challenge the system?”
“You may not understand, but unlike you, I will never sell my soul. Now leave me alone!” Georg closed his eyes and turned his head away.
Werner stepped out of the room to reunite with the Soviet officers and Markgraf. “I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do. This man stubbornly refuses to see reason in a misguided effort to protect his criminal beliefs.”
General Sokolov balled his hands into fists and yelled several Russian curses before he ordered his men, “There’s nothing left for us to do here. Hold a trial, sentence them to twenty-five years of hard labor for espionage and malicious propaganda against the Soviet population and its institutions. And you,” he turned toward Werner, “Come with me.”
Werner’s knees trembled violently but he somehow managed to follow the general into another room, where he was handed paper and a pen.
“Write a confession and retract on all defamatory claims in the name of these two criminals,” Sokolov instructed him.
It took him a few moments to actually comprehend what he was asked to do. Numb with fear and self-loathing, he sat down and wrote a glowing confession that would hold up under the strongest scrutiny by any political officer. When he was finished, he handed two sheets of paper to an NKVD officer. One for Georg and one for Julian. The officer assured him that he would take care of the rest, falsifying signatures to the statements, and dismissed him.
Werner boarded the car and returned to Berlin, thoroughly disgusted with himself. Georg was right, he was a sorry excuse for a human being. Shame washed over him, remembering that Georg’s spirit remained unbroken while his own was shattered.
Chapter 31
Marlene and Lotte returned home after classes and found Zara sitting on their doorstep, waiting for them. Her hair was tousled and her cheeks were flushed with agitation.
From the Ashes Page 17
