THE LAST WEISS

by Rolf Richardson

  But I digress. Back to the Gasthof zum Löwen, where, at exactly 18.57, Local Group Leader Gustav Wallisch gave the secret signal. The go ahead for Irma and me to start pouring the bubbly. There must have been over fifty glasses, all neatly paraded on a large wooden table. We had three minutes to charge them.

  We had just finished, a cuckoo clock in a far corner calling out the hour, when His Majesty appeared at the top of the stairs. He paused, gave a regal wave of the hand, then descended slowly to peasant level. I caught a glimpse of Benni, his little face agog with excitement, in the top landing shadows.

  Irma rushed up with the first champagne glass and thrust it into the gauleiter’s waiting hand. Together, we quickly dispensed refreshment to the rest of the guests.

  When everyone had been served, Gauleiter Frunze took a couple of steps up, so as to be seen by all, raised his glass and said, “Vaterland, Volk und Führer. (Fatherland, People and Leader).”

  “Vaterland, Volk und Führer...” the words became lost in the sound of slurping. One unfortunate, evidently unused to such luxury, sneezed violently, then collapsed in a paroxysm of coughing.

  Frunze had said Fatherland and People before Führer: a reversal of the usual word order. I wondered whether this had any significance, but didn’t have time to wonder for long. Glass levels went down with astonishing speed and soon Irma and I were busy ensuring nobody died of thirst.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the gauleiter working the crowd with practised aplomb: good eye contact, full attention, then disengaging with studious politesse for his next guest. A lot of people to cover. He had a long session with Willi Weiss, who was in seventh heaven in such august company. This was good man management, because Willi, unlike the Wehrmacht present, was his man. A Party man. A lowly party man, moreover, who would remember this moment for the rest of his life. Excellent for morale. It’s always a pleasure to see something done well and – although I hated to admit it – the Gauleiter was brilliant at handling his flock.

  Mesmerised by the sight of pudgy little Block Leader Weiss sharing a joke with one of Germany’s most powerful men, I suddenly realised that Frunze’s glass was at danger level. With Irma at the other end of the room, I dashed over to repair the damage.

  As I tipped the last few drops into the gauleiter’s glass, I found myself under scrutiny.

  “And you are...?”

  “Foreign worker Jespersen, Herr Gauleiter. From Norway.”

  “Ah... Norway. You may have met my colleague Gauleiter Terboven.”

  I nearly dropped my bottle of Heidsieck. Josef Terboven was Hitler’s top man in my country. Not one to mix with us plebs. And a thoroughly nasty piece of work.

  “Gauleiter Terboven...?” I was confused. We know him as the Reichskommissar.

  Frunze smiled, enjoying a private joke. “Terboven’s an Essen boy. Essen gauleiter. Still is, although the Führer has sent him off to Norway on special assignment. Chap called Schlessmann is keeping the Essen seat warm for him. When this is over, we’ll have Terboven back in Essen.”

  “Ahh, I didn’t know...”

  “In theory, of course, Quisling’s running Norway.” Frunze leaned closer and dropped his voice. “But between ourselves, we don’t think much of your man...”

  The thought of Quisling being ‘our man’ nearly made me choke. In little over a year, ‘our man’ would be executed for treason in Oslo’s Akershus fort.

  Frunze was about to continue, but at that moment Local Group Leader Wallisch caught the gauleiter’s eye.

  “Very well, Gustav, I can take a hint.” Frunze drained his glass and looked around.

  “No rush, sir,” said Wallisch, “but most people seem to have finished your gift from Épernay. And Frau Weiss is ready in the kitchen.”

  “Give me a few moments more.” The gauleiter mounted his makeshift rostrum again, three steps up the staircase. Acolyte Wallisch clapped hands for silence.

  “Gentlemen... gentlemen. If you please.”

  Ladies obviously didn’t count. The hubbub died down.

  “First, I must thank you for turning up here tonight,” said the gauleiter. “I know how hard you work, so I thought some relaxation would do us good. But before sitting down to enjoy ourselves, a little reminder...”He paused before continuing. “...Some of you may be feeling a bit... down in the mouth. Not surprising. Things have undeniably been difficult the past year or two. But the Führer always takes heart from history. So should we. If I mention the year seventeen sixty-two...”

  Rustle of anticipation. Everyone knew what was coming.

  “...The war’s going so badly that Frederick is at his wits’ end. He’s even considering a hero’s death in battle. Then... suddenly... out of the blue, the Russian Empress dies. The coalition collapses. Frederick is saved. We know it as the Miracle of Brandenburg. And the whole world now calls the Prussian leader ‘the great’. Frederick the Great.”

  Smiles all round. Someone gave a tentative clap. But the gauleiter had not finished.

  “...Our problems are puny in comparison. Indeed, I would say our prospects are beginning to look quite rosy. Kesselring continues to give the allies a bloody nose in Italy. On the eastern front, our Operation Napoleon, launched a few days ago, is going exceptionally well. My latest information is that several Soviet divisions have been surrounded...”

  There had been communiqués about this battle, but confirmation of success lifted the mood even further.

  “As for the west,” he continued, “in the words of the famous book, Im Westen Nichts Neues” (Literally, ‘In the West, Nothing New’. The usual English version is ‘All Quiet on the Western front’).

  “Nothing new in the west, because of our magnificent Atlantic wall. If I can put it more romantically...” Frunze broke off, looked around, obviously failed in his search, shouted, “Gustav! Where the devil are you hiding?”

  Local Group Leader Wallisch emerged from a throng of bodies. A good head shorter than the rest of us, he’d been easy to miss. “Herr gauleiter?”

  “Ah, there you are, Gustav. I believe you have a talent for tinkling the ivories?”

  “Sir?”

  “Playing the piano. Don’t need a score to read. Do it by ear. So I’ve been told.”

  “Yessir, but...”

  “Can you play ‘Ein feste burg is unser Gott’? (A mighty fortress is our God)?”

  “You mean the hymn?”

  “Of course I mean the hymn. By that chap Martin Luther.”

  “But sir...?”

  Wallisch wasn’t the only one who was mystified. Unlike the Communists, who were full-blown atheists, Hitler had never banned religion. But it always came a poor second to Party theology. Yet here was the Führer’s representative on earth apparently leading a Christian revivalist rally.

  “Be a good fellow, Gustav, and play me the tune,” said Frunze patiently. “You know how it goes: A mighty fortress is our God... and so on.”

  In a daze, Wallisch went over to the piano, standing in a far corner. I’d never thought of the Local Group Leader as a musician, but why not? He could clearly turn his hand to almost anything. He flipped some imaginary coat tails, sat down on the stool, and played the opening bars. Rather well, I thought.

  But not to the gauleiter’s taste. “Too high, Gustav! Too high! What do you think I am? A castrato?”

  At one time it had been fashionable to castrate young men to sing as sopranos. Some sycophants who understood the allusion sniggered.

  Wallisch played it again in a lower register. This time Frunze was satisfied.

  “Ein feste Burg, unser Atlantikwall...” (A mighty fortress, our Atlantic Wall), roared the Nazi chief in a fine baritone. When everyone realised that God had been replaced by the Atlantic Wall, a modern Maginot Line, stretching from the Pyrenees to Northern Norway, there were grins all round. This huge defence system of mines, cannons and concrete bunkers was known to be impregnable. The gauleiter was hijacking Martin Luther to celebrate a Nazi mira
cle.

  Frunzes’ version didn’t scan: four syllables of ‘atlantikwall’ instead of the single syllable ‘Gott’. But nobody gave a damn.

  “A mighty fortress, our Atlantic wall,

  A fine defense and weapon,

  It keeps us safe from foreign foes,

  Who now try to surround us.”

  And certainly not the literary quality of the original. But the gauleiter’s sentiments fitted the occasion perfectly. Old man Luther had been pretty bellicose and Frunze was following suit in his own way. It all went down a treat.

  As for the tune, it was one every German knew. And most Norwegians. Although few of us were regular church goers, Lutheran is our state religion, so this hymn was deeply embedded also in our culture. I almost joined in myself. Party morale was lifted to new heights.

  In my whole life I can’t remember any occasion with a greater buzz, more intoxicating in the widest sense, than this evening at the Gasthof zum Löwen. Little did we know – although we should have guessed – that it was the prelude to Götterdämmerung. Within twelve months, the whole ghastly edifice that called itself The Third Reich would lie in ruins. But as May 1944 drew to a close it was still possible – just, with a large dose of self-deception, to believe that everything would turn out all right for them in the end.

  CHAPTER 16

  Unable to foretell the future – or rather, viewing an alcohol-fuelled future through rose-tinted spectacles, the party continued in the same high spirits. Irma and I collected the dead champagne glasses and re-organised the place settings that had become scrambled in the mêlée. Meanwhile the guests proceeded to their seats. Gauleiter Richard Frunze took his place at the head of the main table. With Block Leader Willi Weiss on his right. Message: this is a ‘Party’ party.

  Willi continued to look as though paradise had come to the Third Reich. Tie awry, sweating profusely, he was laughing uproariously at a gauleiter joke. Which may even have been funny. I had the feeling Richard Frunze might be something of a wag. Anyway, Willi was in unrestrained toady mode.

  His brother, Gregor, in Sunday best civilian dress, lots of buttons and velvet, was sitting at our usual corner family table with a few of his cronies. All were either in civvies, like him, or Wehrmacht grey. Not a Party table. They looked like a bunch of dinosaurs; not the fierce raptor types, but the more fragile ones, heading for extinction. For a man who was officially the town’s bürgermeister, this was a studied insult: the table mood distinctly less upbeat.

  I wondered why Local Group Leader Gustav Wallisch, as the next most senior Party man, was not at the gauleiter’s table. Then I noticed him, back in his normal role, scurrying around like a demented cockroach, organising, instructing, reprimanding. The job of maître d’ didn’t allow for the luxury of social intercourse.

  Actually, Gustav Wallisch didn’t strike me as a social animal at all. He was one of those under-the-radar characters who got things done by being almost invisible. Until you slipped up, when he was at your elbow in a flash. I’ve no idea what Junior Assault Leader Bruch had done to upset Wallisch, but there he was, all six feet six inches of gangly SS man, apparently apologising to someone who barely reached up to his navel. Irma had been right. You didn’t cross the Local Group Leader.

  I had little time for such people-watching, because as soon as everyone was seated Irma and I swung into action. She did the wine, while I served the food. Starters must have been beyond even the gauleiter, because we kicked off with the main course: Chateaubriand steak, on the rare side of medium, according to Frunze’s specific instructions. He liked it that way. So would everyone else. Siggy admitted this me afterwards, with approval. It made her job a great deal easier. Nothing worse than fifty different pseudo gourmets, giving her fifty different steak orders, many of which would inevitably not please.

  As an under-training sommelier, I thought it proper to take an interest in the wine, so asked Irma...

  “A 1936 Vosne Romanée... A Burgundy,” she added, seeing my blank look.

  “Richard,” she continued – now firmly on first name terms, “said he could only get hold of one case. A premier cru, from the best part of the vineyard, in a very special year. So top table takes priority. The rest of them have to make do with the gasthof’s cellars.”

  Irma was constantly at the gauleiter’s elbow, smiling, cajoling, pressing him to try just a little more of this wildly expensive nectar. Even though the liquid level in Frunze’s glass barely moved – obviously not a heavy drinker, he didn’t seem to mind. Nodded and smiled with every tiny top-up. It was all an act, the gauleiter in the starring role. Like any king... tsar... emperor, his job was to impress his subjects. At this he was a master. Irma, tall, slim, raven-haired, was his leading lady, the top of her low-cut dress never far from his field of view. I felt like bursting out with applause.

  Poor little Siggy, by contrast, was beavering away backstage, her hair in chaos, apron speckled with food. No thanks, no male ogling for her. Just a dismal slog to keep the show on the road. I performed mini Olympiads between kitchen and dining room; a brief pause after the steaks, then another series of sprints with the Black Forest gateau.

  I had one unexpected bonus. Someone – I never discovered who – had not touched his steak: a vegetarian perhaps. When I offered it to Siggy back in the kitchen, she just shook her head. She was past eating. Past everything.

  “You have it,” she said.

  So I did. It was hardly the best setting for my first experience of the fabled Chateaubriand: snatched swallowings between laps of a one-man relay race. But I can still remember the taste.

  My recollection of the rest of the evening was increasingly hazy. On one of her forays into the kitchen, Irma decided I needed some liquid refuelling and poured me a glass. Then another. Not the Burgundy, of course, but something from the local cellar. Something white and alcoholic. And very acceptable. Don’t tell me white wine doesn’t go with meat.

  I’ve no idea when the party finally finished. But it was late. Very late. I staggered up to my nest in the attic and promptly died. At some time during the night I felt a warm body snuggling up to me. Siggy.

  “Didn’t fancy the kitchen floor,” she whispered, “and I need company. But no funny business.”

  An unnecessary admonition. I was quite incapable of any ‘funny business’. So the night I lost my virginity to a member of the master race was entirely platonic. If that isn’t a contradiction in terms. It was also the night we turned the calendar from May to June. From guarded optimism for Hitler’s Reich to...

  CHAPTER 17

  JUNE 1944 , GERMANY

  The first few days of June were an intermezzo of calm. Both the RAF and American 8th Air Force seemed to have lost interest in destruction. Although our town was too small to register on Bomber Harris’s death list, the usual targets in the Reich were also being neglected. The Ruhr, Berlin, Frankfurt, Mannheim, our neighbour city: all were granted a respite. No droning of bomber waves, no terror-flieger rants from Goebbles. People should perhaps have been suspicious, the bombers were not idle, merely concentrating on targets further west. In France. This didn’t register with the hard-pressed German civilians, who were just thankful to be spared for a few days.

  Our small community had something else on its mind: recovering and clearing up after the Big Feast. By the time I made my way gingerly down the steps from the attic, the swanky Mercedes tourer had disappeared from the square, taking Gauleiter Richard Frunze and Junior Assault Leader Bruch back to Party headquarters in the city suburbs.

  A notice on the front door of the gasthof informed everyone it would not open again until 6pm. It took two days to get back to normal.

  Only then did Irma get her first tobacco-break. And a chance for me to quiz her.

  With en-suite bedrooms almost unknown, all the liquid taken on board by our guests had to be disposed of in a few far-flung toilets. The gasthof’s nocturnal corridors became like Unter den Linden at rush hour. Where, at around 4am, I met
Irma, in what I thought were embarrassing circumstances, she not being one of the gasthof’s official residents.

  Irma merely grinned and pressed a finger to her lips.

  And grinned again when I met her a couple of days later with the inevitable question.

  “Richard was a real gentleman,” she replied. “Charming. Considerate. A lot of fun.”

  “I believe he has a wife somewhere,” I pointed out, cattily.

  “Also charming. According to Richard.”

  “But who doesn’t understand him.”

  “Oh, but she does. Again according to Richard. She understands perfectly. That a man in his position, the weight of the Reich on his shoulders, needs relaxation. Needs to get away from it all. Besides, they have four children. Who keep her busy.”

  “Another Magda. A breeding machine,” I observed. Magda Goebbels was idolised as the perfect Party mate, a conveyor belt for baby Aryans. She had seven children in all, six by Propaganda chief Josef Goebbels, who made Gauleiter Frunze look like an amatory amateur. Goebbels was notorious for an inability to keep his trousers on.

  “Talking of breeding...” said Irma pensively.

  “My God! You can’t know already...”

  “Not me, silly. Rabbits.”

  “Rabbits?”

  “Have you forgotten our plan to stock up for next winter? Was it you, or Frau Sperrle, who suggested rabbits?”

  “Frau Sperrle. So you were doing your duty? Lying back and murmuring rabbit pie to your lover?”

  “Not at all. That would have been prostitution. And wouldn’t have worked. Richard is a genuinely nice guy. Well, he seems nice. No good trying a commercial: me as the price for some bunnies. So I massaged his ego. Softened him up. Had some laughs.”

  “And it worked?”

  “Time will tell. But I think so. It so happens that his buddy, Heinrich, was into rabbits in a big way. But has now lost interest. Might be persuaded to get rid of them.”