Let’s be rational, Vlasov interrupted him. Nobody runs to get shot unless—
I know it’s hard to explain. So let me ask you something else: Do you want to live without hope?
I beg your pardon?
General Vlasov, until the war’s over we won’t be able to calculate the number of victims on both sides. But think back on the purges of ’37—
But—
Excuse me, General! Think back on the mass arrests, the horrors of collectivization, the disastrous and utterly unnecessary casualties of the Finnish War. How would you sum all that up?
In a quiet earnest voice Vlasov replied: Lack of realism.
(And indeed, it had always struck him as not only unrealistic but unreal. He seemed to see his wife, brown-eyed queen of his integrity, feebly rising up from her bed of illness to say: Can you be sure? Andrei, did you see Stalin’s men murder all those millions? Can you live with yourself if you’re wrong?)
All right, Boyarsky was insisting. And wouldn’t it be realistic to hope that the other side might be better? Because the side we come from is so impossibly evil—
As it turned out, the man with the white death’s head wasn’t Second Lieutenant Dürken at all, only a sort of doorkeeper. He inspected the pass which the guard presented, signed a receipt for Vlasov, and led him into a waiting room, where he indicated a bench. Both of them sat down. Feeling intimidated, Vlasov would not have launched any conversation, but his keeper kept looking him up and down with bemusement and finally said: General Vlasov, we have something in common. You survived and defended yourself in the Volkhov pocket. I myself was surrounded by your armies at Demyansk!
That would have been our Eleventh, our Thirty-fourth, and then our First Shock Army . . .
That’s correct. You commanded Second Shock Army, I believe?
I—yes.
Fanatical fighters! laughed the-man. You put a lot of pressure on us even after we forced you to the defensive!
Thank you . . .
Don’t be despondent, General. You may be a Slav, but I respect you as a man. Care for a smoke?
Yes, please.
I’m curious. A shock army is what exactly?
An instrument of breakthrough, Vlasov replied a little stiffly.
Ah. The Lieutenant is almost ready to see you. He didn’t have time to finish reading your file until now. He feels that preparation is especially important in a case like this.
What exactly do you mean?
The Lieutenant will see you now.
And he led Vlasov into a room which was painted white.
Second Lieutenant Dürken did not rise. Smiling, he said that he was quite ready to grant Vlasov’s men the status of semi-allies.
I must request that you clarify, said Vlasov, feeling all his apprehensions return.
In due course. I see here that you joined the Communist Party in 1930, General. Did you take that step out of political conviction?
At that time, yes.
In other words, your present attitude may or may not be different. All right. We’ll get to that. I’m very interested in Communism as a phenomenon. How about you, General?
I don’t know what you mean.
Your form of rule was discredited long ago by Plato. In the Republic he points out that true democracy is mob rule. And that’s what you Slavs have. Why do you think we were able to conquer you so quickly? Because mob rule purged the best thinkers in your officer corps!
I beg to disagree, Vlasov replied. Those purges were organized by the Soviet leadership—
That’s not important. The point is that unlike our system, Communism leaves no place for individual merit. I’ve heard that you admire General Guderian. Well, we Germans also give credit where credit is due. Some of us don’t mind calling your Tukhachevsky a genius, even though—well, it was out of fear of his genius that you shot him. We would have made him a Field-Marshal!
I myself have often wished we’d followed his line with respect to tank development—
Ah, you use his name, General Vlasov, but can you quote him? No doubt the tyrannical Jewish-Bolshevik regime—
With an ironic smile, the Russian recited: It is necessary to observe the promise of privileged treatment to those who surrender voluntarily with their arms.
Oh, he said that? Hm. Perhaps he wasn’t ruthless enough for today. Anyway, you shot him.
Lieutenant, it wasn’t I who pulled the trigger!
Of course it’s never anyone in particular! But does Stalin really exist, or is he just the convenient projection for a hive of Jews?
He exists, all right. I’ve met him. These are very peculiar things you’re saying, said Vlasov in a tone of exasperated pride. And, if you don’t mind my saying so, you haven’t conquered Russia as of yet.
Oh, come. Leningrad and Moscow may hold out another six months, but what then? You’ve been known to say that yourself! Most of your high-quality elements were destroyed long before we came. Consider yourself fortunate, General, that you were captured in time to be saved . . .
What do you truly want?
We want a democracy of the best, a society in which all aristocrats are free and equal, so that they’ll give their best to the State. Imagine an officer corps with free rein! No more purges . . .
And everyone else?
Serfs, of course. For now, we need them for their productive value. Later on, when robots can take their places, we won’t require them for anything.
You’ll exterminate them?
Of course not. We’ll let them share in our accomplishments, as long as they obey us unconditionally. The measures which we’re obliged to take in wartime are simple self-defensive necessity.
Is it true that you’re shooting all the Jews?
Propaganda! They’re all being resettled in labor camps to help the war effort. But let’s not waste time talking about those vermin—
Vlasov hesitated. Then a bitter smile traversed his face. Between thumb and forefinger he began turning and turning a certain memory-token: Geco, 7.65 millimeter.
In the end, he could not bring himself to cooperate with Second Lieutenant Dürken, whose attack upon his moral defenses had lacked depth and evinced a vulgarly linear character. But at the urging of Colonel Boyarsky, he wrote a letter directly to the Reich, requesting permission to establish an autonomous Russian National Army. It’s said that when the authorities received it, they adorned its margins with exclamation points.
11
At last the enigmatic organization Fremde Heere Ost dispatched one of its own, a certain Captain Wilfried Strik-Strikfeldt, who was to play a crucial role in the Vlasov game—indeed, he might have been more important than Vlasov himself. As it happened, Strik-Strikfeldt was a Baltic German who’d been to university in Saint Petersburg. Our Führer teaches that blood calls to blood; and in this case racial kinship did facilitate the project. With his wry, half-ruthless smile, his merrily narrowed eyes and clean high forehead, his military crewcut and naked ears, Strik-Strikfeldt achieved a dashing appearance. Vlasov liked him at once.
Sitting alertly in chairs made of crooked birch-limbs, enjoying the July days on the dusty plain of Vinnitsa, they faced one another across the long table. Beside each of them sat German officers with their military caps on, and then at the next table, which was well within earshot, a German in dark glasses pretended to be reading a newspaper while a female stenographer typed everything. Behind her, the log cabin barracks lay sleepily silent, and trees rose all around.
Strik-Strikfeldt had already begun to feel like a new-made American millionaire. This Russian general was decent, intelligent, capable, and ready to be guided by somebody who didn’t make Dürken’s mistakes. Vlasov spoke openly, he remarks in his memoirs, and I did also, insofar as my oath of service permitted me.
How peculiar life is! he remarked. I fought in the Imperial Russian Army and now I’m serving on the German General Staff. Sometimes I can hardly catch my breath—
Vlasov smiled sadly, eyeing
the lyre-like decorations on his dark collar, and the German eagle below.
Not really disconcerted, Strik-Strikfeldt continued: My dear fellow, do you think Stalin would have allowed me to enlist as the lowest private in the Soviet Army? Eight grams was what he would have fed me. Eight grams of lead—
I suppose you’ve seen my memorandum, said Vlasov, a little impatiently.
To be sure. A number of us have studied it. Have I mentioned that before the war I used to run a business in Riga? Don’t think I’m indifferent to Mother Russia! And let me tell you something. Now is the time, when the territorial situation is so fluid, to push through certain measures. I swear to you, we can make good all Russia’s losses . . .
Clasping his hands, Vlasov replied in a harsh voice: Only if I put human values before nationalist values would I be justified in accepting your aid against the Kremlin.
My, my, but he goes straight to the point! I admire your earnestness, General. Well, we have several issues to discuss, but it’s not impossible that I can help you.
Vlasov waited, perceptibly anxious.
First of all, we need to know your attitude on the subject of the Stalin government. I suppose you’ve suffered—
The Soviet regime has brought me no personal disadvantages, said Vlasov flatly.
Ah.
The tall Russian sat glowering at him, so Strik-Strikfeldt, who was very cunning in such situations, said: And doubtless you were given every assistance and reasonable orders in carrying out your command—
Wilfried Karlovich, at Przemysl and at Lvov my corps was attacked, held its ground and was ready to counterattack, but my proposals were rejected. At Kiev we were commanded to hold almost to the last man, to no purpose except to hide the vanity and incompetence of our leadership; you know as well as I how many thousands died as a result. When they refused to allow Second Shock Army to pull out of the Volkhov pocket while there was still time, that decision murdered more and more and more—
It was as if Vlasov could not stop talking now. Strik-Strikfeldt gazed unwaveringly into his anguished eyes as he spoke of collectivization, purges, murders, arrests. The man was truly pitiful.
Well, my dear fellow, don’t worry, for we’ll be able to put everything to rights within a few months—or do you think that Stalin has any chance of escaping defeat?
Vlasov fitted his fingertips together and said: Two factors must entail our loss of the war: first, the unwillingness of Russians to defend our Bolshevik masters, and second, the inadequacy of a military leadership debilitated by interference from the commissars. That was what I wrote in my memorandum.
Yes, of course. I merely wanted to make sure you hadn’t changed your mind. You told Dürken that we haven’t conquered Russia as of yet—
Well, this Dürken—
Say no more. He just doesn’t realize . . .
12
Once, not too long ago, I was lying in the arms of a woman who’d explained that she still loved me but could no longer endure to go on in the dishonest, enervating, frightening, exhilarating and unspeakably sad way that we’d gone on. She, the one who for years had always clung to me, wheedling just a moment more and then a moment more in my embrace, now grew restless there on the bed. She’d already refused to make love with me one last time, because it would be too pitiful and she didn’t know how one ought to go about lovemaking for the last time. Should she put her all into it, or . . . ? Then I too agreed that doing that really would have been too sad. I kissed her once, desperately, then lay back with her still in my arms, her body, having determined that mine was now inimical, trying politely not to squirm away from mine.—But putting it this way is so unfair to her! She really did still love me, you see; it wasn’t that I bored her; it was simply that everything was over.—I wondered whether I should stop calling her darling now or next time we met. I knew that as soon as I stood up, everything really would be over forever. But she was still mine for another five minutes, and then another five minutes while she yawned and asked whether we ought to get up and take a drive or play a board game. And it had come to this point between Vlasov and his immaculateness. (She was always far more admirable, sincere, honest and decent than I.) Strik-Strikfeldt was explaining that under the secret direction of the Experimental Formation Center, a Russian National People’s Army had already been formed!
13
Wilfried Karlovich, said the prisoner in a tone of almost childish eagerness, what did you really think of my memorandum? Was it clear? And has the German leadership made any comment?
Ah, said Strik-Strikfeldt. Well, it’s an admirable document, but, as drafted, too Russian. Shock tactics!
Do you know, laughed Vlasov irrelevantly, once I gave my parents-in-law a cow, and in consequence they got punished for being kulaks!
14
My friend, if you don’t mind me asking you, what are you doing with that spent cartridge?
It’s a souvenir, he replied in a suddenly lifeless voice.
May I have a look at it? Why, it’s a Geco, 7.65 millimeter. I’m told that the Führer himself carries a Walther pistol of that caliber. Good for close work, they say. Does it have some sort of sentimental value, or am I getting too personal?
Awkwardly stiff, roundfaced, his hair receding, Vlasov watched everyone through round heavy spectacles which gave him an impression of half-comical surprise. Even his mouth was round. Round buttons descended from the sharp triangular points of his collar. He said: It reminds me not to make any commitments I might later regret.
Hmm. Well, that’s a worthy goal, to be sure, remarked Strik-Strikfeldt in a tone of brooding alertness. I wonder if there’s something you’re trying to tell me? But no, you didn’t call attention to . . . Well, let me rephrase the question. Is there something that you disapprove of, or that perhaps worries you a trifle?
Vlasov was silent.
Strik-Strikfeldt sighed.—I beg your pardon if I’ve inadvertently offended you. Well, well, here it is, and may it bring you good luck.
Wilfried Karlovich, if I told you that I found this in a burned village, about ten days before my capture, would you understand me?
Of course. Now it’s quite clear. I’m sure you saw something regrettable. But there was a reason . . .
What reason? No, I—
When Stalin purged the officer corps, did you see what happened to the men who disappeared?
No.
And, you know, we never want to admit the invincibility of death. I myself, well, once I was at the front with some colleagues who’d become dear friends, not too far from here actually, in this same forest terrain, and partisans ambushed us—the spawn of Zoya herself! I was the only survivor. Well, well, Vlasov, I’m sure you’ve seen worse; the point is that even though they were both quite obviously, you know, dead, and I was even drenched with their—
Vlasov was staring at him.
As I was saying, the point is that I couldn’t have forgiven myself if I hadn’t rushed them to the field hospital, just in case. But they were dead, dead, dead. But what if they weren’t? So I understand your position perfectly, my dear fellow, because it’s so difficult to believe in death. So you can’t be sure that Stalin’s actually committed atrocities, whereas what you saw when you picked up this bullet—well, what exactly did you see?
Nothing important, said Vlasov in a strangled voice. A few corpses—
Listen to me. You’ve assured me that you believe in rationalism. There’s always a reasonable explanation. You don’t know who killed those people or why. Now I’m going to tell you something. This is top secret, so if it ever gets out that you heard it here, it’s the concentration camp for me. But I’m trusting you. When our forces entered Poland, the casus belli was an attack by Poles upon a German radio station at the border. Well, that attack was faked. The propaganda organs supplied the bullets, the uniforms and the bodies. They were dead. But how and why they died, and who they were, well, death doesn’t always play a straight hand—
I know t
hat, Wilfried Karlovich.
Good. Just give everyone the benefit of the doubt. That’s all I ask. Don’t be hindered by unverifiable assumptions. I grant that thousands of Russian prisoners may have died from hunger and cold. But let me assure you, my dear General Vlasov, that our own soldiers froze to death on hospital trains last winter! Just consider the conditions under which both of our armies must fight! If anything, the suffering we share should bring us together . . .
Vlasov longed for Strik-Strikfeldt to think well of him. They had to trust one another. Here was Vlasov’s chance to fight for something he believed in. (Where he came from, one was free to choose: Death at the hands of Fascists, or death in our execution cellars.) He couldn’t demand too many conditions. When he expressed uneasiness about the way that so many Russians were being treated, his new friend replied: Some of that might well be true. But I swear to you, the Führer’s a flexible man. We can persuade him to change his mind.
Vlasov was easily led to assume that Strik-Strikfeldt would never have said such words had they not been authorized at the highest level. In fact, the latter belonged to the category of what Khrushchev privately called “temporary people”—rich and powerful serfs whom their master could cast into the pit at any moment. (Khrushchev, of course, was talking about the minions of Stalin. In our Greater Germany, no such perils exist.)
In fact, many of us disagree with Berlin on a number of important points! And I want you to think about that, General Vlasov. If I were a Russian and I announced that I disagreed with Moscow, what do you think would happen to me?
And so his scruples were crushed by concentric attack.
That evening, the musically talented inmates organized a serenade for Vlasov, on balalaikas provided by the Germans.
15
He dreamed that once again he was standing over the massacred peasant women in the burnt weeds where the Geco cartridges glittered, but this time he understood enough to bend down and gently cleanse the blood from their faces with a black scarf dipped in the river; and as soon as he had done this he realized that the blood wasn’t even theirs; unwounded, immaculate, they opened their eyes, sat up and kissed his lips in turn.
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