Comrades of War

by Sven Hassel

  ‘We want quiet in the ward!’ a sergeant major yelled from his bed.

  Tiny looked at him. ‘You shall have it, my boy!’ He hit him twice over the head so that he passed out.

  ‘Now that you’ve untidied my bed I suggest you straighten it out,’ the artilleryman said, pointing at the big mess.

  ‘You snotty bum,’ Tiny yelled. ‘I’m going to mess your guts up so bad that even your mother will be ashamed of you!’ Growling, he walked over to the artilleryman who was standing in the middle of the room as if the whole matter didn’t concern him.

  Tiny hit him only three times. The artilleryman went down, his mouth gaping in vacant surprise. Before he managed to get up, Tiny gave him a kick in the face.

  The Legionnaire nodded to the rest of us. We seized Tiny and dragged him away from the room.

  ‘You’ll get caged for this,’ Peters prophesied. ‘They’ll rat on you. I’m pretty sure they’ll rat on you. The worst part is the window and the washbowl.’

  ‘Yeah, why? A whole lot of washbowls and windows go up in smoke these days, you know,’ Tiny said. ‘I had to show those fellows who I am.’ He took the frog out of his pocket and dropped it on the writing desk of one of the nurses.

  She flew into a rage.

  ‘Shut up, you officers’ bedwarmer,’ Tiny shouted modestly, ‘or I’ll give your ass such a shellacking you’ll think the whole military academy has been banging you.’

  As Peters had prophesied, they did return. After being fed with fresh phosphorus from the air, the still smoldering fires blazed up again.

  More victims. Barefoot children toddled down flights of stairs to die like rats in humid cellars.

  Somewhere close to the harbor, diagonally across from Admiralstrasse, a group of prisoners were trudging off to find shelter in a warehouse. The SS guards were making an awful racket and smacking them with rifle butts and whips to make them hurry up.

  They didn’t even hear the screech from the direct hit that got them. All that was left of them was a pool of bloody, writhing mash, beside the usual pervasive stench of blood, saltpeter, and scorched flesh.

  A legless SS man dragged himself blubbering over to a prisoner whose abdomen had been ripped up. They died in each other’s arms. And together they were burned to cinders by the engineers’ flame throwers.

  Around Mönckebergstrasse a figure was prowling about, bending down when he came across a corpse. A knife flashed, a finger dropped to the ground, and a ring vanished into a capacious pocket. The dark spectral figure flitted on to the next corpse. The fourth one he got to moved and cried out. A stroke with a charred board, a groan. Nimble fingers rapidly searched a quivering body. A billfold, a passport, two rings, and a purse was the booty.

  Then on to the next. He must make the most of the panic and the terror. On Hansaplatz, in Kaiser Wilhelm-Strasse, around the Alster – the same sight everywhere.

  At the corner of Alter Wall and Rödingsmarkt a woman let out a piercing shriek of insane horror. A small catlike figure pounced upon her. Steel claws closed tight about her neck and caused the scream to die down. He kicked her in the hollows of her knees till she fell over. With feverish fingers he grabbed her under the close-fitting skirt and ripped the sheer underwear to pieces. The woman kicked frantically, but her legs were powerless against his agile strong body.

  Hot soothing words rang in her ear, while a flickering tongue fluttered across her face.

  ‘Please, let me do it, please! What’s the harm? Nothing will happen to you. Why don’t you let me!’ His voice was almost tender. ‘When it’s over I’ll let you run!’

  The woman chanced it. Better this than death. She sobbed, she moaned and whimpered in fright. Far above them a Christmas tree flared up. From the Alster Canal came the sound of gurgling water. High up in the air target indicators stood out in luminous and blinding white. Dust and flames surged to the sky. The earth trembled like the woman under the rapist.

  The young woman had been on her way to a shelter when she met the sick jackal lurking in the night.

  Don’t cry, she thought. Let him do everything, or he’ll kill me.

  A bomb dropped. They didn’t notice, didn’t feel the earth showering them. Carefully, tenderly, he pulled off one long stocking, ran his lips along it, kissed it, hid his face in it. His breath came fast and short. In the glow from the surrounding blaze his eyes shone with a glazed stare. He bit her face, grabbed her hair with one hand, with the other quickly twisted the stocking about her neck, and pulled tight. She gurgled, kicked and hit out savagely.

  The man laughed.

  Her lips went blue. Her eyes popped out from their sockets. Her mouth opened. She went limp, stiffened – she was dead. Strangled with her own stocking.

  He stuck her panties in his pocket.

  Once again he was quiet. He looked at the desecrated corpse and smiled. Fell on his knees and folded his hands.

  ‘O Lord, my God, holy ruler. I’m your scourge. A she-devil has been punished as you commanded me!’

  Then he got up, bent over the corpse and cut a cross on her forehead. He laughed loudly and vanished over charred beams and rubble.

  A little later the murdered person was found by two women. They burst out screaming. Seized with panic, they rushed off as fast as their legs could carry them.

  This was the fifth woman murdered in a short time.

  The case went from the Criminal Investigation Department to the Gestapo.

  Kriminalrat Paul Bielert took over the inquiry, ‘Pretty Paul,’ Aunt Dora’s protector.

  In black overcoat and white gloves he stood silently looking at the corpse. The long silver cigarette holder dangled from the corner of his mouth. A bit of ash got stuck on his sleeve. Reverently he brushed it clean, then held a scented handkerchief to his nose.

  His men rushed around barking like terriers. Commanded, measured, and took photographs.

  A doctor rose to his feet. An old shabby figure. A typical police doctor.

  ‘Before he strangled her she was raped. The cuts were inflicted after death.’

  ‘Rather than giving me all that rubbish, tell me who did it! I’ll have to consider whether you wouldn’t benefit from a trip to the Eastern Front!’

  He turned his back on the doctor and slowly walked down the street toward Neuer Wall, where his Mercedes was waiting.

  He saw nothing, heard nothing. His brain worked at high pressure. In the service of the Security Police this same brain had devised the most diabolic methods of torture. At long last the brain that had helped to bring Edgar André to the gallows several years before the war was being used for something sensible.

  On the fourth floor of Police Headquarters on Karl Muck Platz the casualties were being added up. It could never be determined quite accurately how many were dead and missing, but a couple of hundreds more or less didn’t really matter. An old frowsy typist assembled the lists. After a lot of jabbering back and forth they had arrived at 3,418 dead and as many wounded. In addition came the large number of missing. Many had been completely incinerated by the flame-throwers which the pioneer soldiers used in their clean-up operations.

  Cards were crossed off and filed. A pile of stamped death certificates with facsimiles, and then everything was ready for the next attack.

  A civilized society must maintain order.

  ‘Pretty Paul’ was sitting with a couple of colleagues in room 367 on the third floor. They were studying five photos of murdered women. The youngest was 16, the oldest 32. All of them had a bloodstained cross on their forehead. Every one had been strangled with a stocking, and in every single case the murderer had taken the panties with him.

  ‘The man is a soldier,’ Paul Bielert said suddenly, standing up.

  His three colleagues looked at him in surprise. An SS man helped him on with his coat. He primly slipped his hands into his white gloves. With the long silver cigarette holder stuck in his mouth he left Police Headquarters.

  For hours he walked through smoking
streets, holding the scented handkerchief to his mouth. Now and then a passerby would glance warily at him. Others greeted the great man from Karl Muck Platz humbly and ingratiatingly.

  He visited Aunt Dora, chatted with her girls and yelled at the pimp, Ewald, till the poor man felt groggy. He strolled down Neuer Wall, dropping in several places.

  Toward evening he entered a de luxe restaurant at Baumwall, situated a couple of floors underground. From the outside it resembled more than anything an old, dilapidated basement junk shop, but after the visitor had walked down two flights of steep concrete stairs, he was in for a surprise. Here a new world opened up. Subterranean halls with automatic ventilation and an air conditioning plant. Tables dressed with white cloths and the finest china and silverware stood in cosy little rooms and intimate niches. Colored table lamps enhanced the charm. There were upholstered club chairs and heavy carpets on the floors and in the corridors. Waiters in full evening dress, followed by assistants in shining white jackets with red lapels, served the laughing, elegant guests.

  In these underground luxury restaurants there was no menu or wine list. All one had to do was to make a wish. And the price was determined accordingly.

  A scantily dressed lady took Pretty Paul’s coat and hat. Nonchalantly he threw himself into a chair in the middle of the room. He didn’t even bother to glance at the bowing waiter as he ordered partridge with mushrooms and pommes frites. For wine he ordered a bottle of Oppenheimer. The waiter took down his order without moving a muscle in his face.

  Paul Bielert leaned back in his chair to study the many guests. Elegant army officers in gray and green uniforms. Navy officers in dark blue with sparkling gold trimmings. Airmen in gray-blue dress uniforms and gleaming white shirt fronts. Black-clad SS officers with dazzling silver on collars and shoulders. Party officials in showy golden uniforms plastered with so much gold and silver that a field marshal under Emperor Franz Josef would have envied them. Ladies in costly silks and furs, looking completely unconcerned and laughing merrily with their partners.

  An admiral sat with two very gay ladies. The Knights Cross, with swords and oak leaves, dangled from his neck, and beside it the Pour le Mérite from World War I.

  Paul Bielert snorted scornfully as the admiral gave him a condescending look. The admiral would have shivered to the very marrow of his bones if he could have read the thoughts of SS Standartenführer Paul Bielert. Just wait, you fop! When victory is won at last, the tin about your neck will blow up in smoke the moment your stupid head tumbles into the basket.

  Pretty Paul hated the upper classes, the officers and the Junkers. This he showed clearly after the attempted assassination of July 20, when as SS Gruppenführer he came directly under the command of Gestapo boss Kaltenbrunner in Prinz Albrechts-Strasse.

  He ate his partridge in silence. He gnawed ferociously at the carcass without bothering about the fact that the other guests were looking at him with condescending smiles. Bird bones crunched between his strong teeth. Now and then he would spit out a splinter, open his mouth and pick his teeth with his fork. A slight belch escaped him, too.

  A civilian gentleman followed by a lady greeted him politely, almost humbly, as he passed by. Paul Bielert nodded carelessly without taking the partridge leg he was holding with both hands out of his mouth. When they were some distance away, the gentleman whispered discreetly to his lady: ‘High-ranking Gestapo officer! Heaven only knows what brings him to this place!’

  A Party official in a uniform of excremental yellow entered, followed by three ladies and their escorts. Swaggeringly he ordered a cognac and smacked one of the ladies on her wiggling posterior. Her partner angrily raised his eyebrow, but when he realized where the smack had come from he smiled and nodded.

  The Party man undertook the same maneuver with a lady who was dancing with an Air Force major. The major protested and made lame threats. The Party man grinned and glanced at the major’s service cross, shining lone on his gray-blue breast. ‘You seem to be looking for a hero’s death,’ he said. The round face of the Air Force officer flushed deeply. His lady smiled and looked at the Party man.

  ‘Is there anything else?’ he asked provocatively.

  The Air Force officer turned purple and his mouth opened and closed like that of a stranded fish. He drew himself up and said faintly to the Party man: ‘You shall hear from me, Sir.’

  ‘And you from me,’ the Party man said. He led some ladies to the bar, where he sat like a king on a high stool looking out across the room.

  Pretty Paul wiped his mouth with a white napkin and ordered a mocha.

  The falling and rising blasts of the air-raid sirens sounded from far away. The heavy steel doors with their gas air locks were shut. The world on fire was locked out. The crashing of the bombs was felt only as a faint tremor.

  The waiters went about serving as before, without haste and without fear. Quietly and deliberately. There was no pity for the people up there in the streets. People dancing through blazing asphalt with shrieks of terror. People rolling in their own intestines. Children melting in the glaring light of phosphorus.

  A select orchestra was playing sentimental dance music. Here you could dance with the blessing of the Party. The guests were the cream of Hamburg’s upper class. Jewels sparkled around women’s bare necks. Rings worth sums written with a string of Os flashed on well-kept fingers.

  In the surrounding streets far above lurked the specters haunting the city during air attacks at night, in the hope that the elegant restaurant would get a direct hit. In the ensuing panic, the corpse robbers would have an easy time of it. There were those among them who wore the swastika on their lapels.

  A lady pointed at the people who were laughing, drinking and dancing and whispered to her partner: ‘Don’t they have any heart at all? Don’t they know that a whole world is going to ruin, burnt to cinders by incendiary bombs?’

  Her partner, an elderly SS officer, put a piece of juicy red meat into his mouth and took a sip of red wine. ‘Today the brain is more important than the heart, my dear. People without a heart have a bigger chance to survive.’

  A beautiful lady in a light blue dress and high-heeled, low cut shoes strolled slowly down the central passage. She stopped at Paul Bielert’s table and gave him a smile of recognition.

  ‘Hello, Paul. You here?’

  With eyes asquint and the long silver cigarette holder teetering between his lips, he nodded to her and pointed at the chair across from him. ‘Have a seat, Elsebeth. Sit down and let us have a little chat.’

  Elsebeth sat down. She crossed her legs and pulled up her dress, revealing a pair of fine, shapely legs in sheer stockings.

  ‘Is it to be private or official?’

  Pretty Paul took a sip from his glass and pursed his lips. The living eye flashed ominously.

  ‘I’m always official. There’s a war going on, Elsebeth.’

  She laughed sarcastically. ‘I realize that, Paul. Even if I only have lost a husband and three brothers.’ She lit a cigarette. ‘And a son,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘Just one son. Do you understand what that means, Paul?’

  ‘It means nothing, Elsebeth, absolutely nothing. The only thing that matters is that the victory will be Germany’s at the end. To die for the Führer should be the ultimate wish of every German man and woman. It’s a beautiful death, Elsebeth, and you are to be envied. Not everyone can boast five fallen heroes!’

  She stared for a long while at his dead eye. ‘Did you say heroes?’

  ‘Yes, heroes fallen in battle for the Führer!’ He drew himself up as he said ‘Führer.’

  She uttered a forced laugh. ‘My little boy, Fritz, was seven. A falling beam broke his back. My son, my little Fritz. You should’ve heard him cry!’

  ‘No victory without tears, Elsebeth. That’s a law of life. In order to live we have to suffer. The Führer too has harsh moments.’

  She played with a napkin ring. The waiter brought a glass of wine. She sipped at it.


  When the waiter brought the mocha he bent familiarly over Paul Bielert. ‘There has been a good deal of noise over Barmbeck and Rothenburg for the last twenty minutes. It’s said that a heavy blanket of bombs has fallen this time.’

  Paul Bielert raised the brow of his dead eye. ‘Why do you tell me, waiter? Did you see it yourself?’

  The waiter started. ‘No, Sir. I heard it. Everybody’s talking about it.’

  Paul Bielert took a sip of his mocha. ‘Rumors, that is,’ he noted menacingly. ‘Rumor-mongering is a crime prosecuted before the People’s Court. Do you realize that? Why, incidentally, aren’t you in uniform? You certainly look as if you could run an obstacle race with an MG 42 on your shoulder!’

  The waiter changed color. He ran a well-kept finger between his neck and collar. It looked as if he was about to choke. Finally he managed to stammer out: ‘I was rejected because of heart disease, Sir.’

  ‘Heart disease!’ Paul Bielert jeered and laughed loudly. ‘What’s heart disease? Today that means absolutely nothing. You shoot with your hand and take aim with your eye. Isn’t that so, my friend? It has nothing to do with the heart, and you won’t have to look for the target at all. It will come of its own accord, and right at you. We are going to transport you and your sick heart straight to the trenches, and when we stack you up there, you’ll only have one thing to do: blaze away! We’re a great power and do a great deal for our infantry. In most other places the infantry has to trot on their flat feet, but with us they’re carried straight to their position. And yet a malingering Fritz like you dares to talk about a weak heart!’ Paul stuck the long cigarette holder in his mouth and hissed viciously: ‘As long as you aren’t dragging your heart on a plate, cut in four pieces, I won’t recognize such a thing as a weak heart. Do you know what you are? You’re a saboteur of your country’s defense, my dear man. A disgusting defeatist, an anti-social element!’