Casca 4: Panzer Soldier

by Barry Sadler

  By the end of January the German forces had withdrawn to the western banks of the Oder River. Pursued not only by the Russians but also by a man and a woman who made their prey the Einsatzgrüppen of the SS. Like wolves they hunted the straggling units of the Totenkopf or SD.

  From Langer, Deborah learned more than she would have dreamed of about the fine art of killing. How to place a mine or strangle a man larger than yourself with a fine piece of wire. Time and again they had eliminated parties of SS herding their helpless prisoners back to the loading pens for shipment to the concentration camps.

  Langer grew wolflike in appearance, face lean and hard with no trace of pity for the butchers he relentlessly hunted and killed.

  In this battle, mercy was a commodity they had not earned. Though many asked for it, no one received it. The bayonet and garrote snuffed out the life of the hunted silently, or the single crack of a well-placed shot, taking out the leader of a party escorting prisoners. Langer and Deborah lived off the land, taking whatever they could scavenge or steel. This was their crusade, their "Jihad," Holy War, and with the dedication of a religious zealot they spared none, not even themselves. They pushed on.

  The SS in charge of the final-solution program began to get nervous about venturing too far from the safety of their headquarters. Several high-ranking officers had gone on inspection trips to make sure the Fuhrer's orders were being obeyed, never to return, or if they were found, to be silent testimony that someone was carefully and selectively eliminating them as they did the Jews. The feeling was definitely unpleasant.

  The memory of how many times they had struck vanished from their minds. There was no limit, no thought of doing just so much and no more. They continued to live in burned-out buildings or holes in the ground, trying to keep up with the retreating Germans and ahead of the Russians, who would suffer the same fate as the SS if they happened to get too close. As for Deborah and Langer, there was little difference in them, but their chosen prey were those in the black uniforms and swastika armbands. At night they would hold each other for warmth, and what comfort they had came from each other. They loved in a special kind of way that made them twins or extensions of each other. There was tenderness for Deborah in the arms of the scar-faced man, a gentleness she would not have believed when she first saw him. She knew that he had suffered great pain in his life that made him different in a thousand small ways from the men she had known. He was timeless in his patience with her, taking hours to explain a small detail that could mean her survival. About his own survival, he really didn't seem to be very interested, as long as he could accomplish what he set out to do. Each mission, each ambush, was a thing unto itself, which might end everything for them. Every act itself was a complete statement.

  The greatest difficulty they had was choosing a good target area in order to kill the SS before they could kill the prisoners with them. He taught Deborah the use of selective terror tactics and to use lies, false hope and illusion. A single truck with eight Jews and four guards; one beside the driver and two in the back with their cargo. A shot to blow a tire, another to kill the driver; a burst of machine-gun fire from Deborah on the opposite side to convince them that they were surrounded, and promise the SS their lives, if they freed the prisoners. If they did, once the prisoners were well away, they'd kill the guards. Honor meant nothing to the SS, and a man or woman would be a fool to trust their word. Also, to let them live would condemn still more innocents to the slaughter. This was total war as Hitler wanted it. Death, the final solution.

  Langer rested under the shelter of a giant pine; the branches heavy with snow made a natural tent to shelter them. He slept with his head on Deborah's lap. It was the hour before dawn, and she too slept the deep sleep of exhaustion.

  Alsatians put their noses to the light breeze and tugged their masters forward silently. The Hundmeisters knew they were near.

  Their dogs had their vocal chords cauterized to make certain there would be no giveaway barking to let their quarry know of their presence. The squad of counter-guerrilla experts was spread out in skirmishing formation, weapons ready; only the crunching of booted feet in the snow broke the silence. A distant cough brought Langer to full awakening; his eyes snapped open, alert, ready. He rolled off Deborah's lap, his movement waking her.

  "Shhhh!" He looked out between the branches of their shelter. First one then another, then five and another five spread out, moving in good order, very professional. He looked to the left, then the right; on both sides the flankers had already passed their tree and were slightly behind them. The hunters were damned good.

  Langer nodded his head in mental agreement with what he knew would come some day. He pulled Deborah to him, wiped a smudge from her face and kissed her with the gentleness of a brother and lover. Whispering, he told her what to do; with a finger, he touched her lips and silenced her protests. "This I must do, you can't help me now." He reached into his pack and took out a vial of powder and gave it to her. "Climb into the tree; when they go after me, come down and sprinkle this around the base where we were sleeping. I've been saving this for some time; it's cocaine mixed with dried blood. When the dogs smell it the cocaine will make them high and knock out their sense of smell for hours. Use that time to get away. Find a place and hole up; we've done all we can. As for me, don't worry. Save yourself, the war will be over soon, it's only a matter of a few months at most. Save yourself, Deborah Sapir, and remember me as one who loved you well."

  He burst out of the trees, his Schmeisser cutting down three men on the right flanking squad. He hit the snow and rolled over, taking out the other two; one side was open. He turned and faced the oncoming Hundmeisters. Roaring he charged, wild-eyed, gun firing. He emptied one magazine and reloaded.

  Two Hundmeisters were dead, their animals whimpering beside the bodies, their leashes around their dead masters' hands, keeping them from attacking, but Langer still kept on racing from tree to tree. A burst of fire from the SS men ripped up the bark and sent splinters stinging into the side of his face. He twisted and dodged, turning and leaping; anything to draw them away from Deborah. He made a hundred meters, then another, stopping to reload and fire. They closed in on him.

  A hurtling object caught the corner of his eye and he knew it was too late to get away. The thrower had a damned good arm; it would burst in the air. The concussion grenade exploded four feet from him in the air, peppering his face and driving the darkness into him, blocking out his consciousness. His last thought before the explosion was, "Did I get them far enough away?" He had.

  As soon as they took off after him, Deborah had climbed down from her perch and followed his instructions and sprinkled the ground with the cocaine and blood. The dogs that came after they handcuffed Langer were useless for two days. Deborah looked back once, the cold freezing her tears as she choked them back. He had done what he had to do. Now she must go on and do what he wanted her to do. She would live to see that every Nazi butcher was found and punished. "Shalom, Carl, Shalom."

  The counter-guerrilla experts loaded their unconscious prize into the back of a Krupp three-ton six-by-four with a canvas covering to keep out the weather. Inside they made use of the chains and manacles brought along for this purpose. They had been assigned to bring in the man named Carl Langer and to bring him in alive. The orders came directly from Gestapo headquarters in Berlin. As to his companion, they couldn’t care less; they had what they had come after and according to their orders had chained him securely, hands and feet.

  At Elbing they turned him over to a special escort party from the Sicherheitsdienst, tough-looking men, well fed and confident. The guerrilla fighters looked on them with some distaste. They took pride in the fact that next to the famed unit, under the command of Col. Otto Skorzeny, they were the best that the SS had to offer. The badge on their breast pocket was a sword with a serpent twisted around the blade. The SS men from Berlin had no decorations other than their written authority, which was enough to have even generals shot o
n the spot. They were glad to see them go.

  Langer had awakened about halfway back during the bumpy three-hour ride through the forests and fields. Several times they had pulled over under the shelter of the trees to avoid the searching eyes of Russian fighters, then moved on. His whole body ached from head to toe, the concussion grenade had nearly burst his eardrums, and both eyes were swollen almost shut and red with ruptured veins. His escort said nothing to him, they had their orders, silence; no one was to talk to or question the prisoner on threat of pain of death. What he had done to bring down on him the personal wrath of the highest levels of the Gestapo was beyond their understanding. As far as they knew, he was just another turncoat traitor who had done a bit of sniping.

  The SD men sat silently, one on each side of their prisoner, in the rear of the Daimler Benz 230. The driver and man riding shotgun kept their eyes on the road, but seemed to have selective blindness; an occasional body dangled from a tree or telegraph pole with a sign around its neck, reading "Collaborator" or "Coward." All this was unnoticed. They passed through several checkpoints manned by their kindred.

  Who even looked at their brothers with hungry eyes, as if regretful that they had proper papers for heading to the rear. Only the sight of their manacled and chained guest gave them any sense of satisfaction. At least there was another traitorous bastard going to his just rewards. They were waved on while the headhunters checked the papers of a Luftwaffe colonel and gleefully began to slap him around, ignoring his protests of rank and privilege. The colonel was still protesting when they shot him in the neck and strung him up a freshly printed sign reading, "Traitor to the Reich." The SD loved sticking it to the officers, especially those who looked like they had come from the Junker's class. You were in serious trouble if you wore a monocle even if you had proper papers.

  The civilian population of East Prussia was in flight, heading back to the borders of Germany. They knew they would be safe there, the Fuhrer had promised it.

  The silence was broken only by the sounds of the SD men stuffing their faces with sausage and bread, gurgling it down with white wine. The prisoner was given nothing and he was nothing but dead meat anyway. If nothing else, he did give them a reason to put some distance between them and the advancing Russian hordes.

  Langer's face was drawn and thin from days of little rest, which had worn him down to a ragged, thin-faced wretch who didn't look to be particularly dangerous, especially in chains. That is, until you looked close at the eyes and the steel-set jaw; then you knew the man was a chained animal, capable of tearing your arms off with his bare hands. Yes, the animal definitely needed to be properly restrained.

  Spring was close, and green shoots stuck their heads up through patches of melting snow. Life in its endless cycle of birth and death was not to be denied; it went on. Langer rode for the most part with his eyes closed, getting what rest he could. He knew when they reached Germany there would be little of that for him. One town after another fell behind them and the waves of panic-stricken civilians thinned to a trickle. They felt safe here, but the soldiers knew different; the war was finished and the Russians were going to bleed Germany until there was nothing left. The Russian soldiers had been promised as their reward the women of Germany and everything they could carry off. It was to be the greatest rape in history.

  The bumping of the car jogged his memory. They were all gone now, Teacher, Manny, Yuri and Stefan, all gone except for Gus, that rambling bear of a man. A tick at the corner of Langer's face tried to turn into a smile but failed. The last time he had seen Gus alive was outside of Osterode when the headhunters were taking him back; he was strolling down the road heading back to Germany with a pig following him on a leash, the pig blissfully ignorant of its destiny. Yes, Gus was heading back home singing off key as loud as he could, the familiar strains of "Ich hat eine Kamaraden," keeping time with a bayonet. How he had gotten past the headhunters, Langer could only guess. But if anyone could get back it would be Gus. Langer wished him well; at least there would be one left.

  They reached the border of Germany the next morning. The immaculate border guards checked their papers and waved them through. At Landsberg they handed their cargo over to an Obersturmführer with the insignia of the Totenkopf Deathshead Unit on his collar and made their exit. Even they did not want to hang around any longer than necessary. This place had the anti-septic odor of a clinic, a place dealing with death and pain.

  The Obersturmführer adjusted steel-rimmed glasses and peered at the documents stating the prisoner's case. Taking his time and pursing his lips and clicking his tongue over several times, while Langer stood at rigid attention (old habits die hard), Obersturmführer Meyer removed his glasses and rose from his desk. Shaking his head from side to side, he walked around the object of his attention, keeping a slight distance, not from fear but because the prisoner hadn't bathed in some time and still wore the mud of the eastern front on him. "You are really in a lot of trouble." The words were spoken gently and quietly. "You really are, you know. I don't know why they had you brought back here anyway, you should have just been shot where they found you, but orders are orders." He chuckled. "Ours not to reason why, ours but to do or die, nicht war? and my orders read that you are to be sent on from here." He rapped on the door and two SS men entered. Pointing to Langer, he said, "Take him, have him cleaned up and give him a fresh uniform with no insignia. Army! not SS! and keep him chained at all times. You may remove the manacles only when he is dressing; he's dangerous according to his files. However, he is not to be harmed in any way except by a higher authority, though God knows why. Remove him!"

  Langer had to endure the humiliation of a complete body search, which meant every hole and orifice of his body was checked by rubber-gloved guards who poked and prodded, feeling for anything such as a tube of money concealed in the rectum or a poison capsule hidden in a tooth, but there was nothing, and half reluctantly they gave up their efforts and permitted the prisoner to dress after being deloused and scrubbed. He was fed white bread from the SS kitchen and given chicken in a cream sauce with vegetables. He ate with a spoon, as he was not permitted to use any sharp instruments. It was the first solid food he had eaten in four days and he had had nothing as exotic as white bread or stewed chicken for months. He almost threw it back up.

  He was transported by truck to a nearby field and loaded along with his escort into a HE-111 converted for troops or passengers from its regular use as a bomber. Staying out of the corridors that the allies used for bombing runs on Germany, they winged high over the Fatherland, peaceful now from this distance; but below a nation was dying. After a flight of several hours, they touched down, the wheels screeching as the brakes gripped and dug in to stop the Heinkel. A Mercedes was waiting at the door when they stopped. Two more SS men with machine pistols in readiness stood by on motorcycles to escort the car and its passengers into the mountains. Langer noted carefully concealed bunkers that housed antitank guns and heavy machine guns all along the route leading to their destination. All the crews wore the camouflage patterns peculiar to the SS.

  Stahlberg Castle rose out of the morning mist, a remnant left over from the feudal days of Germany. It looked more like a picture postcard than a real building. Strong, massively built from the native mountain stones, it had lasted centuries with little change, probably much less change than humanity had achieved since the bloody days of its construction. The Stahlberg. Even the name sounded ominous.

  The terrain immediately adjacent to the castle was well guarded by the elite fanatics of the SS regiment Adolf Hitler. Young faces that had known defeat watched him through serious eyes. Their commanders were battle-tested veterans of Russia and Europe that had somehow managed to retain their fanaticism for the New Order even in the face of disaster. They had no god but Adolf Hitler and as with religious fanatics, to die in the service of your god was the greatest accomplishment one could hope for. They had the look of martyrs about them, men seeking their own perverse form of para
dise and ready to kill or be killed for it.

  Once inside the Stahlberg, the atmosphere changed to one of a time long past. Arms and armor lined the halls. Flags and pennants of battles long forgotten added bits of faded color to the gray stone. Interspersed were badly done paintings of the castle's former masters, with stern, righteous faces that glowered down on all who passed beneath as if sitting in judgment.

  The floors were polished by a couple of Polish slaves who kept their eyes averted from those of their overlords. Slaves were not permitted to look directly at a member of the master race without permission. They too waited with a resignation to their own coming finality. They knew that they would never live to return home even if the Germans lost the war. They were dead men, they merely hadn't been buried yet, but knew that time was drawing close.

  The escorting officer rapped once sharply on a single door, waited a moment and ushered his charge inside to stand in front of a plain, businesslike desk devoid of ornamentation except for a single telephone. The walls were bare save for the black and silver flag of the SS standing in the right corner.

  More impressive was the man behind the desk, Brigadeführer Erich Zeitsler wearing the uniform of the Waffen SS, the only uniform in the castle that wasn't black. Around the neck he wore the Knight's Cross with oak leaves and swords. The only other decoration to break the plainness of the uniform was a gold party badge. The man's face had none of the look of the fanatic common to the rest of the staff he had seen. The face was strong, square jawed under close-cropped, graying, ash-blond hair. Pale blue eyes looked him over with obvious curiosity. Intelligent, cold eyes. With a flick of his hand he dismissed the escort, leaving them alone.