Court Martial

by Sven Hassel

  An artillery officer steps forward. He is a big man running to fat with a sickly face.

  The Leutnant looks at him like a snake looking at a rabbit.

  ‘Reserve officer,’ he comments, with a sly grin.

  ‘Yes, Herr Leutnant.’

  The Leutnant butts him in the face, the brim of his steel helmet smashing the bridge of the nose. Blood spouts.

  ‘Damned if this criminal swine isn’t standing there trying to fill me full of lies,’ he shouts, throwing his arms out in indignation. ‘Giving himself titles he’s not entitled to! On your face, ape!’

  Like a falling tree the former artillery officer falls forward, his unprotected face smashing into the dirt.

  ‘He’s good!’ laughs the youthful Leutnant, pleased.

  The watchdogs laugh with him, dutifully. The whole barrack square bubbles with happy glee. Even the inquisitive infantrymen in the company block are amused.

  ‘Gunner Schröder, demoted Oberleutnant of the reserve, condemned to death for sabotage of orders, reporting for duty as ordered, Herr Leutnant!’

  ‘See now, that’s better,’ smiles the Leutnant, and with sadistic friendliness. ‘And what does Gunner Schröder do in civilian life?’

  ‘Schoolteacher, sir.’

  ‘Well, well! A schoolteacher!’ a dangerous glint appears in the Leutnant’s pale-blue eyes. Without any kind of warning he kicks the prisoner between the legs, and smashes the back of his gloved hand into his face. ‘Gunner schoolteacher dares to stand easy, does he? The villain thinks he’s back in his village school, where he can do what he likes with the Führer’s defenceless children. No, my fine friend, he’s in death’s ante-room now, waiting for his turn to be shaved by the big razor! Get that heap out of here,’ he orders an Unteroffizier. ‘I’m sick of the sight of it!’

  The young Leutnant amuses himself by tormenting the prisoners for another hour until his macabre display is stopped by a Major coming back from his daily morning ride in the Tiergarten. The Leutnant gets a terrific dressing-down. He has to stand to attention and stare into the eyes of the Major’s nervous horse. He is one enormous miserable human inferiority complex. All his arrogance has disappeared.

  The Major does not move away until the prisoners have been sent off to Block 2, hell’s antechamber, where those who have not the right to apply for pardon are sent to await the firing squad.

  The Major looks down at the Leutnant again, and bends forward slightly over the horse’s neck.

  ‘Your second button is missing, Herr Leutnant,’ he trumpets, slashing his shiny boots with his riding whip. ‘At 15.00 hours you will report to the company due to march off. They are short of a platoon officer. Do you think the posting will suit you?’

  ‘Yes, Herr Major!’

  ‘I thought you would,’ snarls the Major, flicking his boots again with the whip. ‘On the Southern Front you will find ample use for your surplus energy. Do you know where the March Battalion is due for?’

  ‘No, Herr Major!’

  ‘They are being flown into the Circassion encirclement. See to it that you do your regiment honour, and earn yourself an Iron Cross.’ The Major spurs his horse, which jerks nervously and splatters foam into the Leutnant’s face. The horse seems to be smiling to itself as it trots across the parade ground. Military horses develop a fine degree of instinct which their civilian counterparts never attain.

  Not until the Major is out of sight does the Leutnant dare to stand easy and wipe the foam from his face.

  ‘Blasted Jew horse,’ he swears, ‘hope it gets the gaschamber!’

  He trudges over to the company quarters and packs his kit. What there isn’t room for he throws in the fire, rather that than give it away.

  At the March Battalion he is met by a bony Oberleutnant who immediately gives him a tongue-lashing and prophesies an unpleasant future for him. He is placed in charge of the supplies section, an obvious down-grading. The other officers, who are all front-line veterans, ignore him.

  Three weeks later a dugout collapses and buries him. Nobody bothers to dig him out. His duty period in HKL26 lasted twenty-five minutes.

  The prisoners hand in their uniforms at the QM stores, and are given uniforms of scarlet drill. They are manacled hand and foot with short steel chains. Then all their hair is shaved off, to bring them to a full realisation of the miserable state they are in. Even the guard-dogs seem to disdain them and growl and show their teeth as soon as a red jacket comes near them. The ankle manacles are deliberately so short that the prisoner has to hop like a sparrow. The stairs are the worst thing. They are pure torture. And still the permanent guards continue shouting:

  ‘Faster, faster, double up, double up!’

  Oberst Frick is the first to fall while climbing the steep staircase. Kicks and butt-strokes rain pitilessly down on his back and kidneys.

  ‘Damned if he isn’t lying down on it!’ roars a Feldwebel, pressing his Mpi muzzle, brutally, into the former Oberst’s neck. More dead than alive he reaches a cell, where there are already eight other fellow-sufferers in scarlet drill with yellow numbers on their chests.

  In the cell his wrists are unmanacled, but not his ankles.

  ‘And these men are fellow-countrymen,’ groans the Oberst, falling heavily on to a wooden stool. He looks at his red-clad fellow-sufferers, depressedly.

  ‘Hugo Wagner,’ the eldest of them introduces himself. He is an upright man with a severe face. ‘Gunner, former Generalleutnant and Divisional Commander, condemned under paragraph 91b. I imagine that tells you everything. And yourself? Hanging or shooting?’

  ‘Shooting,’ replies Frick with an indifference which surprises even himself.

  ‘Then you have been fortunate. I am to hang! I still hope, however, that they will change the sentence to the firing-squad before it is too late.’

  The door is opened with a great clatter, and a Feldwebel throws a sheet of paper and a pencil on the small table.

  ‘Here,’ he growls, unpleasantly, looking at Frick as if his very presence were an insult. ‘Write your application for pardon. I’ll be back to get it in twenty minutes’ time. See that it’s finished by then! Understood? It’s not the story of your life you’re writing! And don’t you forget it, Gunner Shit!’ He bangs the door shut so forcibly that plaster falls from the ceiling. you’re writing! And don’t you forget it, Gunner Shit!’ He bangs the door shut so forcibly that plaster falls from the ceiling.

  ‘Thank God,’ mumbles Oberst Frick, in relief. ‘At last I can explain what really happened. This whole business is a tissue of lies and has been turned round completely.’

  ‘I would not recommend your writing in that tone,’ warns the former Divisional Commander. ‘It will serve only to annoy them, and before the General has got half-way through your application he will have refused it and signed the order for your execution. Nobody is in the least interested in you or your particular case, and if you are pardoned, which I doubt – your rank is too high – it will be purely because you can be used in some very smelly business. Absolutely not for your sake. Write as follows: Demoted Jäger Oberst, full name and birth date, and address it to General responsible for Pardons, No. 3 General Command. Begin two fingers in from the side, do not forget that. Thereafter, date, time, sentenced to death by Higher Field Courts Martial, Berlin. Thereafter request that the sentence be reduced to penal servitude. Finally, three fingers lower down on the page: Infantry Barracks, Berlin-Moabitt, date, Heil Hitler and your signature.’

  ‘Heil Hitler?’ asks Frick, wonderingly.

  ‘Do you think that this form of salutation has been changed by your having been sentenced to death?’ smiles the former Generalleutnant.

  Exactly twenty minutes later the sour Feldwebel is back. He runs his eyes quickly down the application, nods in satisfaction and leaves the cell without a word.

  ‘Do you think I have some small chance of a pardon?’ asks Frick, with hope in his gaze.

  ‘Naturally not. People do get pardoned
, but so infrequently that it is a sensation when it does happen. In your particular case I would consider it to be out of the question. If you had been a private soldier, an ordinary conscript, you might have had a tiny chance, dependent upon the General’s temper that day, but as a line-officer sentenced under 91b, no! You will be shot!’

  ‘Heavenly powers, then, it’s a mere waste of time to send in the application,’ says Frick, a feeling of despair rising within him.

  ‘Are you so eager to let go of life?’ asks the General, sarcastically. ‘The application will keep you alive longer. Nothing will happen to you until it comes back. You will not be taken from here at 08.00 hours tomorrow morning, as may be the case with any of the rest of us. During the next eight days you will not lie in terror throughout the night.’

  ‘Do they fetch you at 08.00 hours in the morning?’ asks Frick, his voice shaking. He feels the cold hand of death upon him already. The whole cell breathes fear. It exudes from the walls, drips from the ceiling, rises up from the floor.

  ‘Yes, each morning at exactly 08.00 hours you will hear marching feet and the rattle of arms in the corridor. You will hear cell-doors open and close. At exactly 11.00 hours, on the stroke of the barracks clock, there is nothing more to fear for that day. We have almost another day in which to live and the entire prison breathes again. Fear envelops us again when darkness falls and we again lie in our beds. The worst period comes in the morning between 04.00 and 08.00 hours. That is the time you hear screams coming from other cells. Some succeed in committing suicide, but God help them if their attempt does not succeed and they are revived again! The guards take such attempts very personally. They are sent to the front-line if a prisoner succeeds in cheating the firing-squad.’

  ‘Is there no possibility of escape?’ asks the Oberst, his face livening up.

  ‘Completely impossible,’ the General rejects the suggestion with a sneer.

  ‘What about air raids?’ asks the Oberst, stubbornly. ‘When everything is in confusion.’

  ‘Not here,’ smiles the General. ‘Here they double-lock the doors of the cells, and sit down to play cards. If a bomb or two should happen to score a direct hit, what then? The enemy has merely carried out sentence on us. We are temporary and highly expendable. If we are expended a day earlier or a day later what difference can it make. It is important only that our lives are taken and the sentence can be reported as carried out! Put all thoughts of escape out of your head. Accept what is your fate. It will make things easier for you.’

  ‘It’s a fearful thing,’ says the Oberst, running his hand over his cropped head, ‘to try to become used to the thought that one is to be butchered like an animal.’

  ‘I agree with you,’ admits the General.

  ‘Where do the executions take place?’

  ‘Where have you been, Oberst Frick?’ asks the General, sarcastically. ‘Are you not aware of how things are done these days in Germany? In the Morellenschlucht people are shot in groups. Most of them for small offences.’

  ‘Do the hangings also take place there?’ asks the Oberst, shivering.

  ‘Of course. The gallows stand in rows. Decapitation is the only sentence the military authorities have requested not be carried out on army premises. These are carried out by the civil authorities at Plötzensee. The work is done by the Chief Executioner. Those who are to go under the big knife have already been dismissed from the army and are to be regarded as a kind of civilian.’

  Shortly before bedtime Oberleutnant Wisling is shoved into the cell. His face is bloody and swollen. He sits down on the floor and regards the occupants of the cell with empty eyes.

  Almost all his teeth have been knocked out and one of his kneecaps gapes open. Several ribs are also broken. He complains of pain when he draws breath.

  ‘I jumped the duty officer and tried to strangle him,’ he explains, quietly.

  ‘That was foolish,’ says the General. ‘It hurts only yourself, and often other innocent prisoners.’

  ‘Yes, it was foolish,’ admits Wisling, feeling his bruised body gently.

  ‘It isn’t so bad here,’ explains the General, making himself comfortable for the night on the damp, mould-blotched sea-weed mattress. ‘I have been in many places which were much worse: Torgau, Germersheim, Glatz, Fort Zittau, Admiral Schröder Strasse. They were hell in the deepest meaning of the word. Here we are at least left in peace in our cells, and are given the same food as the soldiers. You should have seen what we were given at Germersheim!’

  ‘How long have you been in prison?’ asks the Oberst, wonderingly.

  ‘Fourteen months, but it will soon be over. I expect to be taken out any morning. The only chance I have is for the war to end suddenly, and the gentlemen from the other FPO to come and let me out.’

  ‘That’ll be a while yet,’ considers a fellow prisoner, pessimistically.

  ‘In Peenemünde they are busy experimenting with a new weapon,’ comes from the corner. ‘It is a kind of weapon so terrible that nothing like it has ever been heard of before. If they get it finished they’ll win the war.’

  ‘I’ve heard of that weapon,’ remarks the Oberst. ‘Something to do with heavy water they get from Norway.’

  ‘I’ve worked on it,’ reveals the red jacket in the corner. ‘I’m a chemist, but unfortunately one who never learnt how to hold his tongue. That’s why I’m here. It was a lovely evening with too much cognac and beautiful girls. The girl I went to bed with was working for the Gestapo. They turned up the very next day while we were still nursing our hangovers. Polite young men in long leather coats and with turned-down hat-brims. Geheime Staatspolizei27, an oval tin shield on a chain, and a politely communicated order: ‘Be so kind as to accompany us! We would like to clear up a small matter!’ The chemist in the corner laughs cheerlessly and points a finger at his chest.

  ‘The “small matter” was me! They treated me relatively gently. Everything was over in about an hour. Interrogation completed! One month later a ten-minute court martial and here I am!’

  At 06.00 hrs there is a clatter of tin buckets in the corridor. A key raps loudly on the door. This is the signal to get out of bed and to pile mattresses.

  Soon after, breakfast comes along. A slice of bread, a pat of margarine and a mug of thin, lukewarm ersatz coffee.

  Then there is the waiting. The prison stinks of fear and terror. The minute hand on the tower clock moves in tiny jerks. The clock strikes eight times and exactly on the hour iron-shod heels sound in the corridor. Sharp orders are rapped out. Steel sounds on steel.

  In the cells all talk ceases. Eyes stare fixedly at the grey doors. The first party has already been escorted away. Marching feet make echoes which disappear down the corridor.

  A demoted assistant M.O. breaks down in heart-breaking sobs.

  ‘Pull yourself together, man,’ General Wagner scolds him, harshly. ‘Crying won’t help you. It will only make things worse. That sort of thing irritates the guards. It is too late for regrets now. You should have realised sooner that a nonentity of a naval surgeon like you cannot criticise Adolf Hitler unpunished. What would you have said if some criminal had called you a quack? Would you have laughed at the joke?’

  A crushing silence falls on the cell. Close by the jingle of keys and shouted names can be heard.

  The youngest prisoner in the cell, a Gefreiter only seventeen years of age, sneaks over to the door to listen. The red drill tunic, the robe of death, hangs loosely on him.

  A former Leutnant sits petrified on the cot next to the General’s and stares as if hypnotised at the door. Will it fly open any second now? Will a tough-looking face beneath the rim of a steel helmet call out one or more names?

  He begins to sob, completely loses control of himself, and collapses into a shaking heap. He has gone through three weeks of waiting – every morning.

  The General, who is old enough to be his father, looks at him for a moment.

  ‘Stop that nonsense! Straighten up, man! Remember
you’re a soldier – an officer! Up with you, chest out, stomach in! Yes, it’s foolish, but it helps! They taught it to you in school and in the HJ. Now you’ve a use for it! What’s going to happen will happen. Crying won’t make any difference!’

  The Leutnant begins to scream. Horribly! Shockingly!

  General Wagner grabs the chest of his tunic and slaps his face resoundingly several times.

  ‘Stand up, man, pull yourself together!’ he commands, sharply.

  The Leutnant stands to attention. He is pale as a corpse, but collects himself. The glaze disappears from his eyes.

  Outside the steps of the death squad can be heard approaching. They are not far away. Rattling screams are heard from a cell close by.

  The post Feldwebel curses and scolds. ‘I can’t stand it,’ whispers the chemist. ‘I’ll go mad!’

  ‘What are you going to do, man?’ asks General Wagner, mockingly. ‘Throw yourself down in front of the firing squad? Tell them you are innocent and that they mustn’t kill you?’

  ‘Oh God, I wish they’d fetch me today,’ groans the chemist, in despair. ‘Then it’d be all over.’ He gets up. His mouth is a red hole in his face. Before the others can get to him, he screams: ‘Fetch me, you bloody murderers! Kill me! Shoot me, you Nazi bastards!’

  They throw him to the floor, and cover his mouth with their bodies to muffle his screams.

  They listen fearfully at the door. Will the guard come with their long staves? Noise in the cells is strictly forbidden. Screams count as noise.

  Quite soon the chemist is quiet again. He sits down in a corner, his lips trembling like those of a terrified rabbit.

  ‘If one of you should, against expectations, live through this,’ says the General, softly, ‘I would like to ask you to greet my wife, Margrethe Wagner, Hohenstrasse 89, Dortmund, from me. Tell her that I died well. It will be a help to her. Explain to her that everything I own is forfeit to the German state treasury. For this reason I could not even send her our wedding ring.’