Nuremberg

by William F. Buckley, Jr.

  *

  Harry, the newspaper spread out on the table, had turned his chair around and was discussing the afternoon’s events with Captain Carver at the next table.

  Sebastian put away his grandmother’s letter. He was relieved he didn’t immediately need to talk with Harry. He distracted himself by retrieving the newspaper and running his eyes over the headlines. The lead story was about Soviet delegate Gromyko, who had stormed out of the United Nations in New York protesting the Security Council’s vote calling on Moscow to withdraw Soviet troops from Iran.

  He thought back to that last day in August 1939, a thirteen-year-old visiting his schoolmates on the eve of his departure, and the especially melancholy visit with his playmate, Pauline. Sebastian had never confessed to his mother that he had confided to Pauline that he would not, in fact, be coming back to live in Hamburg, that his father was only pretending he would return in a few weeks. Pauline had been disconsolate. Back home that afternoon, she might even have confided her secret to her mother, and to her father, the Hauptsturmfuehrer, and her fear that she would never see Sebastian again.

  *

  He had put the second letter out of his mind. Undressing in his room at Musikerstrasse later in the evening, his hand came upon it. He tore it open and rushed to the lamplight.

  Dear Sebastian . You are losing your mind . You may be involved in cosmic matters in Nuremberg but you are only just twenty years old . You need to go to college when you get done with the Nazis , and get a job and start a life . You will be ready to have a family in maybe seven or eight years . The girl — for God’s sake take precautions .

  It was signed, The mother who loves you , Annabelle.

  Teresa’s arms were around his neck.

  “Is that from your mother?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wish I could read English. Will you translate it for me?” His voice husky, he said, “I don’t know how to translate from English,” managing a self-derisive smile. “It’s just a letter about — her work.”

  “When I go to America with you I will work, too. At something.”

  He kissed her. And then he said he had had a very bad and stressful day. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes. I understand. I will sleep in my own room tonight.”

  Again they kissed.

  Chapter Fifty

  January 1945

  The radio wire was terse. 8TH SOVIET DIVISION ESTIMATED WILL REACH WARSAW-LODZ-CRACOW LINE APPROX 14-16 JAN. DESTROY CAMP FACILITIES ESPECIALLY CREMATORIUM. TIMING IN YOUR HANDS. YOU TO REPORT TO BERLIN SS HEADQUARTERS. PLACE DEPUTY IN CHARGE. CAMP PERSONNEL WILL REPORT TO STAGING AREA 12-C--HIMMLER.

  Amadeus reflected a moment and made a few notes. He called then for his duty officer and instructed him to assemble the guards and the Kapos at 1100 in the mess hall. Nowhere else at Camp Joni could 325 persons assemble in winter.

  He brought in an orderly and signaled him to follow. They walked one site over to Building B2 to the Kommandant’s small suite of rooms. They went directly into his bedroom. Amadeus pointed to a uniform and set of boots inside a chest of drawers and to a closet. He instructed the orderly to pack everything he designated into the two large army bags stored in the closet. “I will put other things I want in a third bag.” The orderly nodded.

  He walked past the quadrangle to the traffic officers room, outside the gate. “I shall need a car and driver to take me to Breslau.”

  “When, Herr Obersturmfuehrer?”

  “Have him stand by from 1600.”

  The staff members were assembled at the mess hall. Everyone stood at attention when he entered the room. The Kommandant’s voice would not carry from one end to the other, so he walked down the narrow passageway between the tables to the center of the room. He climbed up on a mess hall table and motioned with his hands that the company should sit down.

  “I have instructions from headquarters. When I complete the exact schedule, we are rapidly to do the following:

  “Set every building in Joni on fire with the exception of the barracks in which the prisoners are housed. Lay dynamite in the crematorium and destroy it. Burn all records in the records building.

  “Effective on my departure, perhaps as soon as later today, Major Bruler becomes the Kommandant of Joni. He will allocate the duties I have enumerated among those responsible to carry them out. I expect that the dismantlement of the camp will begin some time after the workforce returns in the afternoon.”

  Two words reached up to him, spoken by someone at the table on which he was standing. “The prisoners?”

  “Yes. The prisoners.” He looked about over the heads of the guards at the surrounding tables, their faces clean shaven, as Amadeus had always required. Many wore overcoats against the penetrating cold. “Hellich, where are you?”

  “Here, Herr Kommandant.” Hellich was seated toward the end of the hall.

  “How many are there, Lieutenant?”

  “Two thousand, two hundred and ninety, Herr Kommandant.”

  “What is the breakdown?”

  There was a delay while Hellich reached in his pocket.

  “Two hundred and five prisoners of war. One hundred eighty Polish nationals. Forty-five criminals. One thousand, eight hundred and sixty Hungarian Jews.”

  The crematorium could handle only 800 occupants at a time, and could recycle only after the twelve hours needed to remove the bodies, hose down the chamber, and cheek the gas vents.

  Amadeus reflected on the problem. The timing, Himmler had explicitly said, was up to him. If Amadeus kept the death facilities operating another thirty-six hours, he could liquidate his entire inventory. But that would also mean the elimination of the workforce. Every day over one thousand prisoners reported to work, most of them going to the chemical plant four kilometers away. Amadeus didn’t know what orders had been sent by Berlin to the general manager of the I. G. Farben factory, but presumably it too had been ordered destroyed. He could counsel with Governor Frank — but why should he do so? Unless he really wished to? Himmler had not told him to coordinate his activities with the civil authority.

  What it came down to, he reassured himself, standing up on the table, brow furrowed, staff and personnel silent awaiting his instructions, was: Do whatever he thought best. Do what he wished .

  Yes, in thirty-six hours, he could liquidate the prisoners by the usual procedures, and he could accelerate the liquidation by ordering a thousand or so prisoners shot; but there would be no time to unearth graves for them, and general orders had forbidden eliminations that resulted in the putridity of the years before the crematoriums had been devised.

  Best to gas and cremate the POWs, at the very least. Any delay or dereliction on that question would mean the survival and reenlistment in the Soviet army of an entire battalion of Russian soldiers. The criminals could be fitted — easily — into the same gas chamber with the POWs. The criminals were, granted, the most skilled of the workers, but to arrange for their evacuation and integration into work units and for their transport safely west of the war front would strain facilities, slowing down the evacuation.

  And the Jews? He rather wished that Himmler had decided this question for him, as he had done all others for so long. The objective was of course to eliminate the Jews, but that job was not going to be finished, never mind the Soviet advance about which Himmler had warned. It was hardly as if there weren’t Jews outside the sphere of the Third Reich. The Wannsee document revealed that there were more than three hundred thousand Jews in England alone — untouched, untouchable, obviously.

  He reflected, suddenly, that his delay, in front of his entire staff, gave the impression of indecisiveness.

  “Captain Mahler, prepare the facilities for an instant round of activity. I will go over the tabulations with Lieutenant Hellich and give detailed instructions within an hour.”

  Exactly an hour later, Hellich and Mahler at his side, Amadeus went over the breakdown. Hellich apologized: He could not absolutely record the dem
ographic pattern, but what he had was very close. Amadeus looked down, pencil in hand.

  Barrack 11A — 205 prisoners of war; 45 criminals

  Barrack 11B — 180 Poles; 150 Jews (male)

  Barrack 11C — 310 Jews (male)

  Barrack 11D — 300 Jews (male)

  Barrack 11E — 300 Jews (male)

  Barrack 11F — 300 Jews (male)

  Barrack 12A — 300 Jews (female)

  Barrack 12B — 180 Jews (children, both sexes)

  Colonel Amadeus penciled some quick subtotals.

  He affixed checks down the roster, one by one, counting subtotals as he went, mouthing the figures. He put a pencil check on barracks 11A, 11B, 11C, 11D, 11E, 11F.

  “That makes just about 1,600.”

  He turned to Mahler. “Leave the women and children. And when you depart Joni, which I assume you can do in forty-eight hours, leave them with rations.”

  The orders went out.

  *

  By midafternoon, Amadeus was ready, his miscellaneous gear, including books and journals, filling the third hag. The quarter-ton vehicle drove up and the orderly put the baggage into the back. “It is warming up, Herr Kommandant,” Mahler said.

  “I hadn’t noticed.” He shook the proferred hand and also that of the orderly.

  “Heil Hitler.”

  “Heil Hitler.”

  *

  He was fortunate at Cracow. He had directed the driver to the railroad station, where he would stand by for any train bound west. He did not have to wait long. Walking down the platform he carried his work case, the driver the two bags.

  The train was crowded. He walked past the first two cars, hospital wagons with large red crosses painted on their sides and, he supposed, on their roofs. On the side of the fourth car down he could detect frayed letters that had one day appeared bright and golden. Premiere Classe . He walked up the three car steps and opened the door. The officers’ car was crowded and dense with tobacco smoke. But he could move the junior officer with his leg in a splint in the third row over to one side, and make room in the seat next to him. He walked back and signaled to his driver to bring up the bags.

  He did so, stuffing two of them, as Amadeus had instructed, into the baggage section. He saluted. Amadeus returned the salute. A half hour later the train started moving. It was dark but very warm in the officers’ car. He could not bring out his flask of vodka without having to offer to share it with the wounded lieutenant, so he walked out to the passageway and, keeping his balance with one hand on the rail, brought the flask to his lips and drank deeply.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  January 1945

  After prolonged stopovers, the train arrived in midmorning in Berlin. Proceedings at Posnan had been slow, especially cumbersome because the chief railroad engineer refused to permit the train to linger at the station, a target of near-daily bombings. Having arrived in Berlin, Amadeus impressed a private into service, giving him two bags to carry. Amadeus made his way through the bomb-fractured railroad station, inaugurated in 1896 by Kaiser Wilhelm. He sneaked a look up at the gaping holes in its arched roof. He felt pain and embarrassment, any facial expression of which he refrained from revealing to his porter. They reached the taxi site in the light snow. Amadeus nodded thanks to the soldier who had helped with the bags and got into a car. The driver dodged around fresh rubble, caused by what must have been last night’s bombing, and drove to SS headquarters.

  Amadeus gave his name to the stiff-shirted lieutenant at the desk. He identified himself. “I was Kommandant at Camp Joni and am here on Reichsfuehrer Himmler’s instructions. If he is ready for me, fine. If there is to be a delay, kindly advise me where I am billeted. I will need to clean up and deposit my gear.”

  The lieutenant made a telephone call. “You can have temporary quarters at — “he pulled out a Berlin map and with his pencil identified a building a few blocks away — ” the Hotel Rougemont. They will give you a room. You will need help with your bags? Never mind, I will have a driver take you.” He inserted a jack into the switchboard and gave instructions. He then turned his back to Amadeus, permitting the lieutenant to speak into the telephone out of earshot. In moments, he turned around. “Herr Colonel, Herr Himmler will see you at 1400. Do you have German money?...That often is a problem for officials returning from Poland.” He opened a strongbox behind the desk and came back with an envelope. “Here are 1,000 marks. Kindly sign the receipt in the ledger.” He handed it over. Amadeus signed it and went gratefully to the car in the underground garage.

  In the hotel, now converted to utilitarian quarters for officers and government officials, he bathed and was shaving when a knock at the door came. His face still soaped, he admitted what seemed a sixteen-year-old soldier.

  “Herr Colonel Amadeus?”

  “Yes.”

  He was handed an envelope. The soldier waited.

  It was a summons to the office of Armament Minister Albert Speer. “He is waiting for you, Herr Colonel. I will take you there.” Amadeus nodded. He would be down in the lobby in a few minutes.

  Ten minutes later, the boy behind the wheel of a prewar Fiat pulled it up before the massive building. Amadeus stepped out. A guard led him through the cordon of SS men to the dimly lit, sparsely decorated lobby with the regal oil painting of the Fuehrer hanging over the reception desk. Only the high, ornate ceilings suggested to the visitor that there had been grander days for the Ministry.

  He was led to the office of the arms minister. The huge door with the inlaid gilt panels opened. Albert Speer, his head bent over his desk, was dressed in a green tweed suit. He rose and extended his hand.

  “Ah, Kurt. It has been many days since we spent time together.”

  “Many years, Herr Arms Minister.”

  “You have not forgotten your manners, Herr Brigadefuehrer.”

  Amadeus shook his head. “I am a colonel, not a general.”

  “You are a general now.”

  Amadeus did not conceal his surprise or his pleasure. “This is for my...services at Joni?”

  “I do not get involved in the matter of the camps. I take it from Himmler that your record was good, no scandal. Exemplary performance. Total stability in trying circumstances — that is what he reported. Yes, you were recommended on that account, but your elevation is owing to the trust we are placing in you on your next assignment.”

  “What is that, Herr Albert?”

  “You will be placed in charge of security in the Fuehrer’s bunker.”

  General Amadeus drew in his breath.

  “You were carefully selected. You will be replacing Brigadefuehrer Helvetius Spahr. Spahr is a very experienced military division-commander. The Russian advance, which must of course be stopped — and will be stopped — needs the most experienced fighting men in critical positions. General Spahr will be sent to Zharkov Zone B, replacing General Ober, who fell victim last week to enemy fire. My advice in the matter of the protection of the bunker was solicited in part because of my closeness to the Fuehrer, in part because, as armaments minister, the security of critical positions in Berlin is my responsibility. And of course there is no site more critical than whatever site the Fuehrer is housed in.”

  “What, concretely, are my duties?”

  “You have an orderly mind, Kurt. For that reason I have prepared a memorandum, which I will now read to you, giving us the opportunity to discuss individual points.”

  He drew it from a desk drawer. “One. The personal security of the Fuehrer. I had nothing to do with the layout, as most recently revised, but I can quickly describe it from its plans and past visits, especially as an architect speaking to someone who studied architecture.”

  He drew from an adjacent table a large sheet of heavy paper. He sketched a rough rectangle. “These are the borders of the emplacement. They are constructed with concrete pillars and barbed wire. A...large...tent-patterned cover — ” he sketched with a facile pen “ — is designed to deflect bomb fragments. Over here
is the main entrance. We arrive at the top story.” His fingers sketched out an area. “Here you are billeted. And 120 personnel. They attend to everything.”

  “How many of the 120 are guards?”

  “The SS detachment is eighty men. The others are technicians, radio, telegraph, printing. And yes, cooks.”

  “The Fuehrer?”

  He turned the sheet over and resumed sketching.

  “Here is his bedroom. There, the suite of Fraulein Braun. There, his dressing suite...There, his private office...There, his cabinet room...There, the dining room...There, the theater. There, a substantial area for aides. They have their own dining quarters and bathrooms. Here are stairs. The Fuehrer can climb these, when the skies are clear, to a small garden, outside the view of anyone, though of course we are in the heart of Berlin. I shall resume in the order of my memorandum.

  “Two. There will be visits — there are always visits to the Fuehrer. I myself go often. And then visiting dignitaries. You are to confer with General Spahr to learn details of the security arrangements he devised a month ago. If satisfactory, maintain them. If less than that, revise them.”

  Amadeus nodded.

  “Three.” He put down the sheaf of paper. “This is not written down. The Fuehrer, as is perfectly understandable given the pressures of the last months, is under very considerable strain. Accordingly, he receives medication. Sometimes this medication can — affect him.”

  “How am I to judge this? Am I to descend to the Fuehrer’s quarters?”

  “Never. Your domain is the top story and the surrounding area. The Fuehrer does not like to be reminded that there is a military detachment surrounding him to ensure security. Although he has very direct memories of the attempt on his life on July 20th, he is persuaded that 100 percent of the German people are supporting him and supporting the war effort against the Communists and their allies...and, of course, of course, against the Jews.”