When We Were Brave

by Karla M Jay

  The Führer’s anger had to be at an all-time high as the tyrant’s plans crumbled around him. Falk only met Hitler once. That was outside Bergen-Belsen where Hitler admonished the Sonderkommandos—work crews made up of Jewish inmates in charge of the gas chambers—to speed up exterminations. “To allow for new shipments soon to arrive.”

  Falk’s hatred for the runty bastard had risen to new levels that day.

  And “shipments”? As if each cattle car contained armaments or medicine, not devastated families forced to pay for their own deportations. The money went directly to the bogus program Heinrich Himmler called the resettlement work in the East. Falk didn’t need to do the arithmetic to know that, even after German Railways took their portion, Himmler’s henchmen earned millions of Reichsmarks since the transports began.

  It was as if a moral lobotomy had been performed on the men closest to Hitler. Or, perhaps their sadistic tendencies were simply freed under his command. Regardless. Many of Hitler’s closest comrades stepped across that line between good and evil. They separated family members with ease, without conscience. Turned a deaf ear to their pleas and cries. Then they grew impatient. Shooting the Jews one by one along trenches was a slow process. So they celebrated the decision to bring in roving extermination-by-gas trucks.

  The man next to Falk startled him, nudging his boot against Falk’s leg. The man’s nose was flat, and he had full lips and a weak chin. “What division were you with?”

  “Tenth army.” Each POW received a large identification tag and was admonished to always wear it pinned on their outer clothing. Falk held it out from his chest, evidence of his new identity. “How about you?”

  The man leaned in to study Falk’s tag. A scowl creased the soldier’s forehead. “Yeah. Me, too.” He sat back, scrutinizing Falk. “Don’t remember you.”

  “Too many of us.” His heart beat faster as he made a show of pulling out the pack of cigarettes the real Klaus Stern carried in his pocket. He took his time with the matches, and after a long draw, handed the pack to the soldier. Maybe the offer of a smoke would get the guy off this interrogation kick.

  The soldier tapped out a cigarette and accepted the matches, handing back the pack. “Thanks.” He lit his smoke and took a deep pull. Then he scraped at his tongue with dirty fingers for loose tobacco pieces and flicked away something tiny.

  “One notch above horse shit.” Falk raised his hand holding the smoke. “But it’s what we have.”

  The soldier inhaled deeply before he turned his attention back to Falk. “Still . . . I don’t recognize you.”

  Christ. Dozens of divisions, all mingled together, and he ended up next to a soldier who happened to be in the same unit as Stern? “Barely came over from the Fifteenth Panzer Grenadier.” Falk knew the commander of that Panzer Division and remembered it was stationed in Italy.

  “Hunh.” The soldier leveled a hard stare Falk’s way. Then he pulled out the crackers the British distributed and took a bite. Crumbs fell onto his shirt and he brushed them away.

  “I don’t recognize you either,” Falk said. “What’s your name?”

  “Hartmann.” The soldier spat something to the side and leaned his head back against the rock. “Heard America’s blown to bits. Maybe we’ll get to see Canada.”

  Falk stubbed out his cigarette. That would be bad news for him. “No. We’re going to America. Overheard it from the Brits.”

  “You understand English?”

  “I understood New York City.” Falk learned basic English when he was a teenager in the Association of Christian Students. Although greetings, food and clothing names wouldn’t get him far in a real conversation.

  Hartmann scratched at red welts on his arm. Falk had matching bites on his neck. Fleas and hunger were their two new enemies.

  “New York is a mess,” Hartmann said. “When the Führer wraps up Europe, we’ll be in place to claim our cities, as promised. I’m taking Boston.”

  Falk’s head pounded. He couldn’t bear to listen to one more minute of this fanatical nonsense. Himmler and Goering pumped out propaganda about Germany’s future ownership of the United States in a desperate attempt to bolster the troops’ depleted morale. Hartmann was a committed Nazi and no amount of arguing would change his ideology.

  He pointed to the soldier’s boots. “Where’d you get those?” They were the newest style in British airmen wear, specialty boots that provided protection from the sub-zero temperatures. The Wehrmacht supplied nothing like those to its soldiers.

  “Took them off a dead pilot in a snowbank in the Alps. Had to saw off his damn legs.”

  Falk slowly screwed the cap back on the canteen. “No shit?” If Hartmann was trying to shock him, he had a long way to go. This simpleton’s brain would explode if he had glimpsed even a tiny portion of the misery and torture he had seen.

  “Completely frozen onto his feet,” Hartmann continued. “I heated his legs under the hood of the truck. Feet thawed out nicely and the boots came off real clean.” Then he rocked his booted feet from side to side. “Heavy as hell though. Should have traded them for something lighter.”

  The guy was a fool. The boots came with a small hidden knife used to cut away the upper boot portion, leaving a regular, much lighter shoe underneath. Capture Escape Boots. They helped disguise a downed airman behind enemy lines who might find himself walking among the locals waiting for rescue. But Falk was in no mood to lighten the load of this pig-faced Nazi, so he didn’t mention it. “Watch out. Some Tommy might believe you killed a comrade for the boots.”

  The Nazi scanned the field as if the British soldiers might be creeping up on him, and Falk chuckled inside. Hartmann was a deluded soldier who sooner or later would learn the truth about the leader he served. What Hitler was doing behind the cover of war had nothing to do with occupying all of Europe. Falk would not have believed Hitler’s intent if he’d not personally seen it. At some level, he understood why his letters to dignitaries had gone unanswered. Who could comprehend such a massive extermination plan?

  Hartmann pushed to his feet. “Good thinking, Stern. I’ll lift a new pair of boots tonight. Someone’s bound to die, right?” He stretched, and a crack sounded from his back. “Going to find a tree to squat behind.” He turned to walk away and then stopped. “Stern. Just a warning. We’ve got anti-socialists among us.”

  He watched the Nazi wander off. If Hartmann only knew he’d been talking to one. In 1940, Falk had served nine months in Dachau prison for his outspokenness against Hitler. Two years later, he was forced to join the Wehrmacht. His prison time, those months away from Ilse and his sons, were pure hell. Purposefully denied letter exchanges, he worried his family could be punished because of him. Although they’d been left alone, the fear in Ilse’s eyes lingered long after he returned. When he was released, the Army Chief of Staff, Generaloberst Ludwig Beck, a friend of Falk’s father, convinced Falk to join the Action Group Zossen. The group comprised dozens of generals who planned a coup to replace Hitler if he started a war. Hitler continued to ignore their attempts to bring him to his senses after he overtook Poland in ‘39. But by 1940, Joseph Goebbels, the head of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, had created the heroic image of Hitler as a towering genius. And Hitler believed his elevated status wholeheartedly, refusing to listen to the military experts around him. In ‘42, Falk was made to join the SS, and General Beck landed him a spot in the upper military ranks that were depleted by then. No one questioned him as they no longer had time to do background checks.

  Falk ignored the conversations around him. He rolled onto his stomach and pulled out Stern’s identification booklet and studied the 24 pages of dates and facts. Although already dismayed by his identity, he needed to be convincing if questioned. In order to surrender with a battle unit, he needed to find a look-alike soldier to trade places with, not someone with a remarkable military record. But some form of accomplishme
nt on Stern’s part would have been nice. Stern was assigned to units that fought at the edges of battles. Nothing notable there. His pay rate of 36 Reichsmarks a month wouldn’t feed a family, which was good because Stern had only a wife. He’d earned no awards, had been on leave twice in two years, and had foot fungus. Falk wanted to shoot the dead man all over again for being such a loser.

  “Hey.” In his peripheral vision, he saw that the British pilot capture boots were back, planted not a foot from his face. Why couldn’t the masses have swallowed up the annoying guy?

  Falk sat up and tucked the booklet away. “Yeah?”

  Hartmann ran a finger below his stubby nose and wiped the snot on his pant leg. “Think we can convince the Tommies to make a comfort stop?”

  Falk slammed his hand on the ground before he pushed to his feet. Kidnapped women, numbering into the tens of thousands, were forced to work in the 500 brothels spread throughout the occupied countries to service the Wehrmacht. “Won’t be any brothels left here.”

  “You ever have a Polish girl?” He smacked his fat lips together and grabbed his crotch. “They’ll fight you, but it’s worth the fuck.”

  He really hated this guy. When Goebbels proclaimed that lying to the country was necessary because the knowledge of the masses was restricted and their understanding feeble, this was the caliber of man the propaganda specialist described.

  The move-out whistle spared Falk from punching Hartmann in the mouth. His arm actually ached as he refrained from busting apart that bloated smile. He grabbed his pack and quickly distanced himself from Hartmann and weaved to the front of his column. As British troops rumbled past them in Jeeps and tanks, moving to join the fight, he tolerated the jeers and catcalls of the conquerors. The soldier walking next to Falk dropped his head. “Shit,” he muttered, apparently humiliated he’d been captured, while Falk was more ashamed of being part of the Wehrmacht in the first place.

  He trudged on past train cars capsized beside the tracks, twisted and scarred by some hellish explosion. Ruined houses were everywhere, beams and bricks tumbled into charred heaps. At one point, he passed a POW dressed in woman’s clothing, sporting a swollen lip and a black eye, stumbling along. An American guard served as an escort nearby. If this soldier—disguised as a housewife in order to defect—survived the night without being killed by one of their fellow Wehrmacht, it would be a small miracle. Defection meant death. Falk pushed ahead and tried not to look suspiciously empty-handed. While most prisoners carried duffel bags, small crates, or even suitcases from who knew where, Falk’s tiny backpack held a small framed photo presumably of Stern’s wife—an agreeable enough looking woman—some matches, and half a pack of those horseshit Eckstein cigarettes. He missed the Lucky Strikes he’d once found in a storehouse in France, but cigarettes of that quality were long gone.

  When he reached the summit of a rocky field, he looked back searching for Hartmann. Good. Nowhere in sight. The POWs moved below him through the valley, like a long green and brown serpent, sluggish and endless.

  Were any of the POWs in the group an SS officer like himself? It was possible. He couldn’t be the only major who wanted out. After Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia and war was declared, the general’s coup to dethrone Hitler lost momentum. They shifted their focus to fighting the British, leaving others to try to kill Hitler. Falk knew of twenty-two failed assassination plots, but there were probably twice as many. Getting close to Hitler was nearly impossible. Hundreds guarded him, all deeply devoted to their leader.

  Hours wore on. He was thirsty, and his feet burned from several ruptured blisters. Hunger gnawed at his insides, but he dismissed it, recognizing he had no first-hand knowledge of what real hunger felt like. He’d watched starving Jews worked to death and done nothing more than take notes and snap a few quick photographs. He deserved to feel their pain. In the days before he’d made the decision to defect—when he was little more than a mental patient filled with alternating rage and regret—he’d nearly swallowed the cyanide pill. He’d written a letter to Ilse, begging for her understanding, explaining his disorientation, his guilt, the betrayal of everything good. The German people hung their trust, their lives, on what the military leaders sold them. The lies that the war was necessary to protect their families from the Russians.

  He never mailed the letter, realizing the appeasement of his guilt shouldn’t be a simple solution. A death by poison would be too quick, too easy.

  The British guards announced their approach to Naples. The black cone of Vesuvius smoked gracefully on the right. The island of Capri rested serenely beyond the mouth of the bay. Naples spilled along the shore, fortified with walled battlements. Raised voices reached him before they arrived at the outskirts of the city. At the sight of the German POWs, an awaiting crowd turned into a riotous mob of screaming, hysterical people, throwing garbage and hurling insults and threats their way.

  Up close, it became obvious why.

  Although Naples was liberated a month earlier, the Wehrmacht relentlessly bombed it for three years. They attacked not only the harbor area to prevent Allied landings and sunk all the fishing boats, but they also destroyed municipal facilities and the beautiful complex of Santa Chiara. Thousands of citizens must have died. The main aqueduct bringing water to the city looked blown apart, and the city smelled as though the sewer lines were exposed.

  Their guards moved closer, flanking the long line of POWs, waving back to the people who tried to hit the POWs with clubs or sticks.

  Hundreds of dirty, ragged children braved the danger of being too close and cried to the British and American soldiers, begging for biscuits and sweets. Their thrusting hands plucked at the soldiers’ clothing. “Pane. Biscotti.” Falk had nothing to offer. His pockets were empty, save a lone cyanide pill. He watched their small heads droop when they realized the Wehrmacht soldiers were empty-handed. His insides twisted. This war was affecting even Europe’s youngest, and he hated himself as he watched them slink away like mongrel dogs.

  The guards prodded his group forward. Like an omen foretelling the future of the destroyed city, a huge ominous cloud obscured the ocean’s western horizon as the men neared the camp. The storm moved closer and mist funnels broke from the bottoms of the clouds. Rain dropped in hazy trails and grew wider, weaving a hanging slate-colored blanket that floated toward them. Then the wind hit, whipping at his shirt, which became instantly plastered to his skin as the cold rain followed. The roar of the storm was so loud, it was hard to hear the guard’s directions, but he followed the men in front who pushed in the direction of the large white building with a red-tiled roof. The hotel was transformed into a disarmament center. It sat on a flat hill above the port of Naples and was already packed full of earlier arrivals, leaving his group discarded outside. As Falk grabbed a tarp handed out by the guards, his hands shook—a combination of the cold and lack of food. He hunkered under it and soon three other POWs, without a word, joined him.

  Once again, he was surrounded by razor wire fences, the ground of the enclosure trampled into a muddy arena. And in an instant, he was back in Auschwitz. The image of the boy with the strings floated before him. What happened to the child was the final act of brutality that snapped Falk in half. He was aware of his own instability by then and a giant timepiece seemed to tick in his head as to what he should do about the death camps. When the clock counted down the last minutes of the child’s life, he knew he had to act.

  He swiped tears away from his rain-splattered face. Exhaustion dulled his mind, but it was clear a stable part of him was now missing.

  The process requiring that each POW show their identification papers was a slow one. To make matters more frustrating, a table beyond the checkpoint was filled with loaves of dark bread and large pots that emitted the aromatic scent of savory chicken and vegetables. The line inched slowly, but Falk’s turn finally arrived.

  After identifying himself as Klaus Stern, the inspect
or flipped through his soldbuch and handed it back. Falk had passed as Stern without a problem. Then he strode to the food, grabbed a bowl, and tried to hold it steady while an American soldier filled it with the steaming stew. He ate at an improvised table, no more than a board set across piled rocks. It didn’t take long to devour the soup, and the meal and the meal proved to be just what he needed to regain his strength. He returned the bowl and wandered to his assigned area. This was his last night in Europe and it was a good feeling.

  The rain was gone just as fast as it had arrived.

  Once inside the enclosure, Falk chose the driest piece of ground he could find and rearranged a jumble of small rocks into a flat surface near a wellhead. With only his tiny backpack for a pillow, he lay down and buttoned his coat to his chin, cold but newly energized. He held out little hope of sleep. For months, his mind developed different plans every time he closed his eyes and tonight would be no different. Instead of reaching for sleep, he studied the sky.

  A full moon climbed over the top of the hotel gables, illuminating the camp in an eerie silvery-blue light. The moonbeam briefly broke apart whenever a searchlight swept the compound. In those moments, the POWs looked like beached seals packed side by side, groaning, snoring, or rolling over searching for a more comfortable position.

  Falk pictured Ilse, his sons. He prayed his plan would work and that she went to the Netherlands with the children. Then, when the letter of his “death” in Italy reached Düsseldorf, she wouldn’t be there to receive it. By then, he’d have met with the U.S. government, perhaps with their specialty police force called the FBI. They’d get the American military involved in stopping Hitler’s secret murders and his killing machine would grind to a halt. Falk would contact Ilse in the Netherlands before she ever heard he was “killed in action.”