by Lee Rudnicki
“We just want to help you,” Wolf replied.
His mother looked at her son, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Look around you, soldier. You did this to Germany. This is your fault. Haven’t you helped us enough already?”
Sebastian sighed and put the bread on the ground. “Let’s go,” he said. As the men backed out of the room, Eva sat down next to the injured woman.
“Go with your friends, dear,” the woman said. “His father is dead and I am not long for this world.”
“Shhhhhhh,” Eva replied.
“You don’t understand, sweetie. We have nothing to offer you. Nothing at all.”
Eva put her hand on the woman’s badly infected leg and smiled. The garlic-based drugs that the Gestapo had pumped into her system were starting to wear off.
57
Accountability
Wolf led the squad through the ruined Berlin cityscape as fighting raged in the distance. Graffiti in red paint on the wall of a bombed-out café held an appeal from Goebbels. “Every German will defend his capital. We shall stop the Red hordes at the walls of our Berlin.”
“The nation pays the price in blood, but Hitler never looked,” Wolf muttered to no one in particular.
“What are you talking about?” Axel asked.
“Hundreds of thousands of German civilians have been killed in the air raids, but Hitler never visited Hamburg. He never visited Cologne. He never looked at the suffering that his war caused. In fact, he had the windows of his train painted black so he could travel through our bombed out cities without having to look at anything. We gave Adolf Hitler power—Adolf Hitler gave us death.”
“I hope you’re right about the Brandenburg airfield,” Axel said.
Wolf spit on the ground. “I’m not sure that I know what is right about anything anymore.”
Suddenly, Eva screamed! The men ducked and pointed their guns at the surrounding buildings as they tried to locate the source of the threat. A second later, the air was filled with the roar of a formation of Russian Yak-7 fighter planes. “Get inside!” Wolf yelled.
The men scrambled off the street and took cover in the ruins of Café Leipzig as the planes blazed a trail of destruction with their machine guns. When fighters flew off, the sounds of death from above were replaced by music. The Blue Danube.
Sebastian thought he was hearing things. He turned around and was stunned to see an older couple in formalwear dancing in the ruins of the café.
Wolf lifted the needle up from the record player. “You have to get out of here,” he told the pair. “It’s not safe.”
The well-dressed couple smiled and continued their dream-like dance in silence, as though they didn’t hear him. “The enemy will be here soon,” Wolf said forcefully. “You must leave.”
Finally, the woman responded. “Café Leipzig was everything to us; now it is gone forever. What you see around you is all that we have left of our hopes and dreams. This is the last dance that my husband and I will ever have in the ruins of our dreams. Please, leave us be,” she said.
Wolf put the needle down.
As the soldiers walked down the street, The Blue Danube resonated behind them. “We destroyed Germany,” Wolf said.
“We didn’t destroy anything,” Axel replied. “We were only following orders.”
“That’s horseshit! Millions of lives have been lost and families have been wiped out all over Europe. Countless national treasures and works of art have been lost forever. Through our selfish actions, we helped Hitler destroy Germany. We are responsible.”
“It’s not that simple.”
The music stopped. The silence that followed was broken by two gunshots from Café Leipzig.
“It is that simple,” Wolf replied.
58
Ballroom Blitz
Gestapo officer Günter Honaker stormed out of the ruins of Café Leipzig, his gun pointed right at Wolf. “Halt! Put your hands up!” he slurred. “Where is your goddamn unit?” Günter was drunk and trying to perform what his solemn duty to the Führer; the elimination of those who betrayed Germany in its darkest hour.
Wolf was in no mood to deal with Günter. “Where the hell do you think our unit is?” he asked. “It was annihilated as we carried out orders that were conceived in a loony bin. Our Panther was destroyed near Berlin Cathedral. Like our Luftwaffe friend here, we are the sole survivors of our unit.”
Günter would have none of it. “You are not survivors—you are deserters! You should be on the front lines, fighting for the Fatherland!”
Sebastian protectively stepped in front of the others. “Look around you, idiot,” he said. “There are no front lines in Berlin anymore. There is only survival, which is growing more and more difficult by the hour. Put the goddamn gun down and save your life.”
“Traitor! Put your hands up or I’ll blow your damn head off!” Günter shouted.
As the situation escalated, Heydrich suddenly appeared out of nowhere. He had been searching for Wolf and the others all night and he was not about to allow a derelict Gestapo officer to interfere with Operation Tristan. “Stand down! That’s an order,” he said.
Günter turned his gun on Heydrich. “To hell with your cowardly orders. I hang deserters!”
Heydrich smiled. Then he pulled out his Luger and shot Günter right between the eyes. The men had never seen anyone move so fast. The second surprise was Heydrich’s announcement that followed. “Major Kepler, I’ve been tracking you all night. You have proven quite difficult to find in this environment.”
Wolf was stunned. His mind raced with a thousand questions. “You’ve been tracking me? How is that possible? How do you even know who I am?”
“There is no time to explain Major, we have to go. The Russians are about to launch their final assault.”
As they spoke, a group of Hitler Youth rode past them, a Panzerfaust or two strapped to the front of each bicycle. Heydrich clicked his heels and gave the kids a sharp salute. Eva also raised her hand into the air, but as if to tell them to stop.
“Death to the Russians! Defend Berlin!” a freckled, red-haired kid shouted. A few other kids cheered as they furiously pedaled their bikes.
The children’s misguided enthusiasm saddened Wolf. They were acting like they were going outside for recess, but they had no idea what they were in for. “They’re going to die. They’re all going to die for nothing.”
“Keep your voice down, Major Kepler,” Heydrich replied. “Adolf Hitler himself ordered those children to attack the Russian positions. They will not survive this mission, but that doesn’t make their contribution any less valuable to the Reich. They are buying us time.”
“Buying us time for what?”
“To get you out of Berlin.”
59
Dead Kids on Bikes
Major Federov had received intelligence from recently captured prisoners that the Germans were about to launch a preemptive strike in his sector. In response, he carefully set up multiple kill zones in the street with his machine guns and anti-tank weapons. Any German units that were stupid enough to attack his position would pay a heavy price.
“Multiple targets!” a rooftop sniper shouted. “Multiple targets approaching fast!”
Federov jumped behind a wall of sandbags, picked up a pair of binoculars and scoured the street for any sign of the attackers. “Select targets! Fire on my command!”
Each soldier pointed his rifle or machine gun down the street and waited. Gunners slammed shells into the 57 mm anti-tank guns; they were bushwhackers prepared to rain death upon the enemy.
Federov watched the enemy approach. As the images in his field of view became clearer, he realized that the soldiers of the attacking force were just a bunch of kids. The Nazis were using children as suicide troops!
He dropped the binoculars and ran in front of his troops waving his arms like a madman. The war was nearly over—he didn’t want it to end with the blood of children on his hands, despite what his own family had su
ffered in the brutal siege of Leningrad. “Hold your fire! Don’t shoot! They’re just kids!” he yelled.
His troops stared down their gun barrels as Federov picked up a megaphone and desperately tried his version of battlefield diplomacy. “Children!” he shouted in German. “Please put your weapons down and go home. The war is over—we don’t want to hurt you!”
The youths jumped off their bikes. For a fleeting moment, Federov thought that he had pulled off a minor diplomatic miracle. Then the red-haired kid raised his Panzerfaust and yelled “Heil Hitler!” That’s when Federov knew the situation was about to get ugly.
He dove behind sandbags as the shell swished through the air towards them. Boom! The explosion erupted right where he had been standing.
Federov got up quickly. His ears were ringing, but he wasn’t hurt. A private from Belarus hadn’t been so lucky, however. The sight of the blood shooting out of the mortally wounded young soldier’s thigh enraged him.
“Fire!” he screamed. “Kill them! Kill them all!”
The Russian soldiers opened up on the Hitler Youth with a vicious hailstorm of gunfire. When the bullets stopped flying, the street was littered with dead kids and bikes. Thinking of the similar fate of his own children, Major Federov fell to his knees and sobbed.
None of his men said a word.
60
Red Skies at Night
General Chuikov looked at his watch. The Hero of Stalingrad had waited a very long time for this moment. In exactly seven minutes, the Soviet Red Army would launch its final assault on the Reichstag and Berlin city center.
Chuikov had every expectation that the Germans would fight back hard. His casualties would be substantial, but irrelevant. Stalin would order him to throw more men into the fight until the Nazis were crushed. A great deal of Russian blood would be spilled in Berlin, but the only thing that ultimately mattered was that the Nazis were defeated.
The main problem that Chuikov faced—besides the tenacity of the cornered Germans—was the 88 mm guns on top of the flak towers at Friedrichshain, Humboldthain and the Zoo. The thick concrete walls of the flak towers were invulnerable to Soviet artillery and aircraft. The structures resembled a medieval castle; they were also entirely self-contained, so there was no hope of starving out the occupants any time soon. The deadly accurate 88 mm guns made life a living hell for the Soviet troops that found themselves in their sights. The lives of the men taken by the 88s today would be the cost of doing business with the devil, he thought.
Chuikov watched the seconds count down. At exactly 0600 hours, thousands of Soviet guns simultaneously opened fire. Armageddon had come to Berlin.
61
Brandenburg Gate
The sounds of the Soviet artillery barrage reverberated through Berlin, like the loudest thunderstorm in history.
Far above the battle, a vampire bat flew past the burning Reichstag, through the billowing smoke and over the Goddess of Victory that topped the Brandenburg Gate; there was hardly a square inch of the monument that wasn’t pockmarked from bullets and shell fragments.
To the west of the Brandenburg Gate, the SS had carved a makeshift airstrip out of the Tiergarten. There, two Ju-52 transport planes revved their engines and waited. The first aircraft carried a platoon of highly trained SS troops, the security force for Operation Tristan. The other plane was to carry the Third Reich’s most precious cargo—the Tristan weapon itself.
Fanatical SS guards with machine guns kept the few civilians and Wehrmacht soldiers who were brazen enough to try to get on one of the planes at bay as they waited for Heydrich.
All of the sudden, an SS officer crawled out of the rubble and sprinted towards the guards with a briefcase. “Let me through!” he shouted. “I need to get on that plane!”
The guards were stupefied—it was Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer of the SS. They recognized him, but they were under strict orders not to allow anyone other than Reinhard Heydrich near the planes. There were no exceptions, not even for high-ranking Nazi officials.
Himmler stopped in his tracks when he saw the guns pointed at him. “Put your damn weapons down!” he shouted. “That’s an order!”
The nervous guards didn’t lower their guns, but they weren’t inclined to shoot the man who they worshiped since his rise to power either.
Himmler took advantage of their indecisiveness and sweetened the deal. He opened the briefcase and showered them with gold coins and diamonds. “Take it! It’s yours!” Then he dropped the briefcase and ran right past them.
When the Reichsführer tried to get onto a plane, however, his efforts to save himself were rewarded by a punch in the face from a fanatical soldier who had no intention of deviating from his orders. The blow broke Himmler’s trademark round glasses and he fell to the ground.
The plane roared away, leaving the Reichsführer coughing in a cloud of fumes and dust. Before it could lift off, a Russian shell hit the starboard engine and exploded. The fuselage cracked in half and spilled SS soldiers all over the ground, many of them on fire.
Himmler watched the gruesome crash in disbelief as the battle for the runway intensified. There was still one transport plane left, but with so much lead flying, he decided to take his chances on the ground. He picked up what was left of his glasses and ran back into the rubble.
As the second plane moved into position, more Russian soldiers appeared at the Brandenburg Gate. A grenade exploded and three more SS troopers fell. The situation was deteriorating. The beleaguered defenders of the runway were hopelessly outnumbered and their ranks were thinning fast.
Heydrich raced to the plane and led a mad chaotic scramble up the ladder. He had gotten them into a plane, but the real feat was going to be getting it out of Berlin in one piece. “Go! Go! Go!” he screamed at the pilot as a rifle round cracked the cockpit windshield.
The engines roared and the plane taxied down the runway. A guard leaned out the door and shot at the Russians who were trying to cut them off. His targets fired back en masse; the guard took two rounds to the stomach and fell out of the plane. Then the pilot slumped forward, blood pouring out of his ear.
“Axel, the pilot got hit! Get up there! Fly the plane!” Wolf screamed.
Axel ran for the controls as the plane roared down the runway, sans pilot. Through the cockpit windshield, he saw the other transport plane engulfed in flames. They were headed right for it!
The bat swooped low towards the airplane at an incredible speed and landed right in the middle of the battle for the runway. A meter from the wing, the creature transformed into the vampire Rodika, who now had the outline of a crucifix permanently etched into her face. The Russians streaming through the Brandenburg Gate were so intent on taking the plane down that most of them didn’t notice her until she was standing on the wing.
Axel pushed the pilot’s body out of the seat and took the controls. He didn’t think they had enough runway left to get airborne, but he was determined to try.
Suddenly, there was a sharp jolt. Eva screamed. A split-second later, Rodika’s fist smashed through the corrugated steel above Sebastian’s head. Sebastian rolled away across the cabin as Wolf and Heydrich shot through the side of the plane at their unseen adversary.
In the cockpit, Axel desperately pulled the stick back as the end of the runway approached. “Come on baby! Come on baby! You can do it!” he shouted.
With meters to spare, the plane rose into the air. Unfortunately, the danger wasn’t over—Rodika darted across the wing towards the engine!
Sebastian kicked the door open and went out after her. He slipped on the wing but regained his balance and dove at the vampire in a desperate attempt to save the plane.
Rodika pivoted just as he got to her and landed three quick punches to his head. The last blow was so hard that he thought his skull was fractured. Sebastian fell backwards, dazed. Despite the pain, he was able to hold onto the wing and recover his senses.
As Rodika ripped a panel off of the engine, Sebastian c
harged again. This time, he hit her low, in the knees. The tactics worked—Rodika lost her balance and fell onto the wing.
Sebastian grabbed her by the neck and pushed her head towards the propeller in a rage. The vampire fought back fiercely; it took every ounce of his strength to push her into the spinning blades.
Right before she got chopped, Rodika pulled backwards towards the blades and tried to take Sebastian with her. The propeller made short work of her head and showered the plane with vampire body parts that quickly burned up and disintegrated. Unfortunately, the flying body parts included Sebastian’s hand. He instinctively knew that it would regenerate, but not soon enough.
As Sebastian tried to make his way back into the plane, a Russian anti-aircraft battery opened up. A searing hot piece of flak hit the tail and the plane nose-dived. Sebastian lost his grip on the wing and flew end-over-end towards the propeller. He was able to push away from the spinning blades at the last second and he plummeted through the air.
Inside the aircraft, Axel struggled to pull the stick back. The ground was approaching fast; the screaming engines sounded as if they were about to rip apart.
“Pull up, Pull up!” Heydrich shouted.
“I’m trying!” Axel yelled.
Wolf closed his eyes and hugged Eva in anticipation of the crash. Seconds before impact, Axel miraculously pulled the plane up. After it came out of the dive, the aircraft gained altitude quickly. The burning buildings and plumes of billowing smoke disappeared over the horizon.
“Unbelievable! Two close calls and we still made it out of Berlin! That was incredible! Amazing!” Axel shouted from the cockpit. “Hey Sebastian—how did you like that crazy ride?”
When he didn’t get a response, Axel looked back into the cabin. Eva was crying. Wolf just shook his head. The pilot’s heart sank when he realized that Sebastian was gone.
