by Ib Melchior
“Listen,” Woody started to interrupt. “What the . . .”
“Of course,” Arin went on, “I can’t be responsible for what happens to him on the way over. In the last group there was another suspicious SS bastard. My men knew about it. He arrived at the Russian exchange point with both his arms and both his legs broken. In several places. He—eh, slipped getting out of the truck, they said.”
“I don’t care if his damned neck is broken,” Woody said. “In sixteen places. But I want to be in on it. Personally. I . . .”
“Please, Herr Major,’” the SS officer suddenly said. He spoke English with a pronounced British accent, his voice tight and strained. “May I speak?”
The two Americans turned to him.
“You speak English, do you?” Woody asked coldly.
“Yes, Sir.”
“So what have you got to say?”
“I was not connected with—with the Flossenburg camp, Herr Major,” the German said anxiously. “In any way.”
“Of course not,” Woody said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He turned to Lieutenant Arin in disgust. “I’ve had enough of that bastard,” he said icily. “Send him to the damned Russians!” He strode toward the door.
“Wait! Please wait!” the German called.
Woody turned. “Well?”
“I come from the Führer Bunker in Berlin, Herr Major. I left there yesterday.”
Woody returned. He sat down.
“Talk!” he snapped.
“I was a foreign affairs analyst in the Ministry of Propaganda,” the German said. “Attached to the Führer Bunker. I worked with Dr. Goebbels. That is the reason for my English.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I got out of Berlin late last night,” the German went on. “I was on my way to the Alpenfestung—the Alpine Fortress. To Berchtesgaden. I knew there were German troop concentrations there. I thought—I thought I would be safe there. But there is only a narrow strip of territory between your forces and the Russians that is still held by us, and my map—my information—was not up-to-date, so I—I got lost. I found myself in American-held territory. I was hiding. Waiting until dark. So I could get back.” He looked imploringly at the two Americans. “Please believe me.”
Woody looked at the frightened man. He did believe him. He was convinced he was speaking the truth. The man was a mandatory arrestee because of his rank, but he was no five-pointer, for sure. He’d send him back to the Army Interrogation Center. They’d have a ball with him.
“Berlin is in chaos,” the German continued. “The Russians are everywhere. Conditions in the Bunker are on the verge of total collapse—after the Führer’s death.”
Woody started. He sat up. He gave the SS officer a quick look.
“Hitler is dead?” he exclaimed.
The German nodded. “The Führer committed suicide. Yesterday afternoon.”
“You are certain of that?”
“I am. I saw the bodies. Before they were burned. In the Chancellery garden.”
“Bodies?”
“The Führer’s. And Frau Hitler’s.”
“Hitler had a wife?” Woody stared at the man.
“Yes. He got married the day before yesterday. The day before he took his own life.”
“To whom?” Woody asked. He suddenly remembered. That Nazi dentist had mentioned a woman. “That mistress of his? Eva—Eva what’s-her-name?”
The German officer looked at him with some surprise. “Yes,” he said. “Eva Braun.”
“I’ll be damned.”
Woody contemplated the German. He might be of more interest than he had first thought. If. If his story held water. He believed it would. But it was all strategic information. The province of Army Interrogation Center. Not tactical. Not his. He turned to Lieutenant Arin.
“He’s all yours, Dirk,” he said. “You did damned well. You lie with the best of them. That Russian bullshit was a lulu. The bastard sure bought it.” He nodded toward the German. “Send him back to AIC. Include what we learned in your report.”
“Will do.”
Without a further look at the Nazi officer, Woody left.
It was late in the day when Woody strode into the Iceberg Forward office of Major Hall.
“Hey,” Hall greeted him. “Have you heard the news? Hitler is dead!”
“I know.”
“The Führer, Adolf Hitler, fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism, fell for Germany this afternoon in his operational command post in the Reich Chancellery, quote—unquote. Doenitz has taken over.”
“I know,” Woody said. “It’s a lot of bullshit.”
“What do you mean?”
“Hitler killed himself. He took poison,” Woody said. “He didn’t die a hero’s death. He crapped out.”
“How the hell do you know that?” Hall asked.
Woody told him. He gave him a full report on his interrogation of Obersturmbannführer Leopold Krauss, late of the Führer Bunker.
“I feel kind of sorry for that broad, Eva Braun,” he finished. “She sure made a piss poor choice of lovers. Some honeymoon. Bride one day—the next, kaput!"
10
FEARFULLY EVA WATCHED the four scowling men with their Volkssturm armbands. They were all up in age, even as much as fifty, she thought. How could they be like this? She was bitterly afraid—mostly because she did not understand what was happening. First the SS—now the Volkssturm. Their own people! Why were they being held prisoners? They were not the enemy. Just before Willi calmly had surrendered to the Volksstürmers, he had whispered to her out of the corner of his mouth: “Careful. Don’t say anything. Let me handle it.” But he had done nothing at all, except to tell the men that they were refugees from Berlin trying to get to some relatives in Potsdam. He had admitted that he had no identification—it had been lost in a shelling, he’d said, and he had meekly handed over his gun to them. The men had seemed uncertain. They had tied them up and the four of them had been arguing almost an hour about what to do with their two prisoners who sat, hands tied behind their backs, leaning against one of the beached sailboats.
One of them wanted to march them back to their headquarters and let their superiors decide. Another argued that Willi and his woman were probably deserters—or worse—and deserved to be done away with on the spot. The two others maintained that inasmuch as they were supposed to be relieved at noon—only six hours or so away—they should wait and all of them take the prisoners back.
Their sour-faced leader, who appeared to be self-appointed, was a wizened little man whose arms were so thin he’d had to pin the regulation size Volkssturm armband together so it wouldn’t slip off his sleeve. His gray hair was cropped so short that it looked as if his beard stubble reached all the way to the crown of his head. He wore steel-rimmed glasses and had a slit for a mouth which was so tight-lipped it hardly seemed to move when he spoke. A vindictive little Beamte—civil service type used to riding roughshod over others. Eva looked at him. He gave her a disquieting feeling.
The man was, of course, a stickler for rules and regulations, and his opinion prevailed: No one was supposed to leave his post until relieved. They would all wait. Rules also prescribed that all men must have identification papers. Willi had none, and consequently had to be considered an enemy of the people and must be treated as such. At least until his fate, and that of his woman, were decided by higher ups.
Willi seemed to be half dozing as he slouched against the boat. But his thoughts were racing—observing, assessing, and forming a plan of action.
It would be impossible to wait six hours—and then take the chance of being detained even further by some half-baked Volkssturm outfit. Potsdam could fall any time, and he preferred to get there while the town was still in German hands.
When he informed his Volkssturm captors of his true identity, he realized that he hardly looked the part of an SS officer in his gaudy sports shirt and mufti pants. He did not blame them for not taking him at his
word. In their place he would have done the same. He cursed himself for having discarded his I.D. too soon. On the other hand, had he held on to it and been intercepted by a Russian patrol, which could easily have happened, his cover as a refugee who had lost everything would most certainly have been shattered.
Out of half-closed eyes he studied the four men who were guarding them. They seemed competent enough. They were more than adequately armed. Each had a Mauser Gewehr 98, the standard army rifle, and two or three Stielhandgranaten 24, the common stick hand grenade, clipped to his belt along with his ammo pouch. The pedantic little leader had appropriated his, Willi’s, P-38 for himself, and a couple of Panzerfäuste lay ready nearby.
He considered the men. He regretted having to kill them. They probably had wives waiting for them. And children. Grown children. But there was no other way.
Eva—and the child of Adolf Hitler—came first.
“Holla! Mench!"he called to one of them. “Hey! Fellow! If I don’t get to a tree in a hurry my damned bladder will burst!”
Uncertainly the Volksstürmer looked at one another.
“How about it?” Willi asked plaintively.
The leader turned testily to one of the others. He nodded toward a nearby thicket around a few tall evergreens. “Take him over there,” he growled unpleasantly. “He gave the man the P-38. “Take this. And keep him covered.”
The Volksstürmer took the proffered gun. He checked it. It was loaded. He gestured to Willi. “Los!” he said. “Get up!”
Willi, his hands bound behind his back, struggled to get to his feet. In so doing he leaned toward Eva. Urgently he whispered: “Eva, whatever happens, trust me!”
He stood up and started to walk toward the thicket. The Volkssturm man followed him, covering him with the gun.
They reached the undergrowth.
“Far enough,” the guard said.
Willi turned. He looked back toward the boats. They were still in plain sight. He grinned suggestively at the Volksstürmer.
“Du sollst dich schämen, Opapa!” he scolded. “Shame on you, Grandpa! You want to give the young lady a free look at me? Perhaps you would like to join me? We could give her a great show, you and me!”
The man reddened. “Go on with you,” he snapped. “Behind the bushes.”
Willi shrugged. He walked into the thicket, out of sight. He stopped. Looking over his shoulder at his guard, he nodded at his bound hands.
“How about it?” he asked. “Do I get to use my hands—or will you pull it out for me and hold it while I piss?”
Angrily the man gun-gestured. “Turn around,” he said. “And no tricks. Your own gun will be right in your back.”
Willi turned. He felt the gun press into the small of his back. From now on, he thought, from now on, old man, it will be exactly as a training exercise: First, get your enemy as close as possible behind you. He had. He waited. He felt the man tug at the ropes around his hands. He felt them loosen.
Now!
With all his might he stomped his heavy boot heel down on the man’s instep. In the same split instant he twisted away to his left and delivered a sharp, two-handed blow to the man’s wrist, numbing the hand holding a gun suddenly pointing at nothing. The man had time only to grunt in surprise and pain as the gun flew from his grip, before Willi crashed a knee into his groin. Gasping, gagging, the old man collapsed.
Willi never stopped moving. He tore his hands from the loose rope. He ripped the Volksstürmer’s belt from his trousers and tied his feet. He used the rope to tie the man’s hands and stuffed his handkerchief into his mouth, tying it there with his own.
He picked up his gun and returned it to its holster. For a brief moment he stood listening. He heard nothing.
He bent over the old man lying twitching in agony on the ground. It had been almost too easy. The Volksstürmer’s reactions had been more than twice as slow as the slowest commando recruit in training.
One down—three to go, he thought.
He unclipped one of the stick hand grenades from the man’s belt and silently, stealthily he ran into the forest, circling back toward the boats.
Eva sat propped against the boat. She did not like to be alone. She was increasingly frightened. Willi seemed to have been gone a long time. She knew he had some sort of plan in mind. She thought that was what he had meant when he whispered his warning to her. But what? Had he escaped? Was he running away? Leaving her? She suddenly felt cold. She glanced at the three remaining Volkssturm men. They, too, were getting apprehensive, she thought. They were glancing at one another. The leader turned toward the thicket.
“Werner,” he called, “is everything in order?”
There was no reply.
The men looked worried.
Suddenly a wild cry rent the silence.
“Grenade!"
And a hand grenade came flying over the sailboat to land in the middle of the little campsite.
Instinctively the three men hit the ground, covering their heads with their arms.
In the same split moment Willi came sprinting around the boats. He ripped the rifle from the first man he came to and kicked him in his throat with his boot as he turned. Even as the man rolled over, rattling through his crushed larynx, trying desperately to suck air into his lungs through his mangled throat, his fingers digging convulsively into the earth, his eyes rolling back in agony, Willi was by the side of the second Volksstürmer. He smashed his rifle butt into the man’s back, instantly breaking his neck. Dazed, the leader was just sitting up, fumbling for his gun, when Willi swung his rifle and caught him with the butt under his chin in a crushing blow that shattered his jaw and drove the splintered bone up into the roof of his mouth.
Willi ran to Eva. Quickly he untied her. Wild-eyed she looked at the carnage created in the span of a few seconds.
And at the grenade lying on the ground.
“I did not arm it,” Willi said. “I was quite certain they would be too scared to notice.”
She stared at him. It had all happened so fast her mind had scarcely had time to absorb it.
Willi picked up the grenade. He had not even unscrewed the Sicherungskappe—the closing cap at the end of the wooden handle, so the pull cord could be yanked to ignite the five-second fuse.
The Volksstürmers—as he had anticipated—had been too shocked to take notice.
He tossed the grenade at the body of the leader.
“Come, Eva,” he said, “we have been here long enough.”
Using his compass to orient himself, Willi picked out a landmark and started into the forest, Eva at his side. He estimated they had about two kilometers to walk before they hit the main thoroughfare of Königstrasse which bisected the area from east to west, and another two kilometers to the narrow body of water that separated Wannsee from the Babelsberg district of Potsdam where the safe house was located. Alone he could have made it in forty-five minutes, with Eva he estimated twice that.
If there were no further delays.
They stayed off the roads and paths, making their way through the forest itself. They skirted any signs of people. Many escapees from Berlin, their homes totally destroyed, had sought refuge in the Wannsee woods, living in makeshift shelters, some even with timber-shored dugouts. The refugees were not above preying on passersby—or on each other—for survival.
When they reached Königstrasse it was clogged with traffic going west, military and civilian. Trucks, armored vehicles, and army wagons competed for the roadway with hand-pulled carts, baby carriages piled high with belongings, and an endless stream of people on foot, carrying bundles and children in their arms.
They managed to get across the road, and soon they reached the bank of the channel that separated Wannsee from the Babelsberg district of Potsdam. The Böttcherberg bridge—although damaged—was still standing. It took them the better part of an hour to get across, but they were finally in Babelsberg on the outskirts of Potsdam.
Babelsberg was the industrial sect
ion of the town, which was chartered in the year 1400 after having existed as a fishing village since before 1000. The town had been enriched by Frederick the Great, Eva knew. The Führer had told her. The warrior king had his palace retreat, Sans Souci, there, where he held his famous, philosophical suppers with his friend Voltaire. Adolf had told her all about it. Sans Souci, she thought ruefully. She knew it meant Carefree. Not today.
It wasn’t the first time she had been to Babelsberg. The Potsdam suburb was also the center of Germany’s motion picture industry. The great UFA Studios were located there. In Neubabelsberg. As so many others, Eva had been movie star struck in her earlier years; she had always enjoyed the films Adolf showed almost every night at Berchtesgaden. And five years before she had visited the glamorous UFA Studios. She had seen there the great but arrogant German film star and director, Luis Trenker. He had written, was producing, and directing, and starring in a film about Giovanni di Medici and was at UFA on some sort of business. She had, of course, met him before. Years earlier. In Munich. She never did care for the man. She really thought him a disgusting fellow, and she had said so. She once had danced with him, and he had become embarrassingly familiar and suggestive. She looked at the battle-scarred buildings. She sighed. How different it all was from then.
They were crossing a railroad marshaling yard. Though crater-pitted and rubble-strewn it was apparently still partly operative. Rolling stock, much of it disabled, filled long stretches of track. On some of the cars a singularly nonprophetic propaganda slogan had been painted: RADER ROLLEN FUR DEN SIEG—Wheels Roll For Victory.
They were suddenly aware of a great commotion around two freight cars that stood off on a siding. A mob of about fifty or sixty people, men and woman, were breaking into one of the cars, which apparently was loaded with rations for the armed forces. Shouting, pushing, and clawing they were pulling boxes and crates from the door they had forced open, spilling cans, loaves of bread, slabs of bacon, sacks of potatoes, and other foodstuff on the ground, shoving and fighting each other for it.
