Claws of Steel

by Leo Kessler

  ‘Sir!’ Barsch yelled at the top of his voice, as if he were back on the parade ground at Bad Toelz. Pushing past the broken Panzer Captain, he bellowed at the new recruits. ‘Welcome to the Wotan! All right, follow me – at the double!’

  As the black-uniformed tankers stumbled after him, laden down with their kit, the newly demoted Captain in the rear, the Vulture turned to von Dodenburg and said: ‘A word in your ear. Let the 3rd take the point – as long as they last. Barsch is a fool, but a brave one. He won’t object. I need the old reliables for the real battle.’

  ‘Real battle, sir?’

  ‘Division heard from Gehlen’s office this morning. The Popovs are holding the bulk of their armour near Kursk. They haven’t flung in half their stuff yet. I need my old reliables for the day when they do. Up to now the Popovs have just been playing with us.’

  Behind them Schulze groaned softly. ‘If this is the first act,’ he muttered, ‘I’d hate to see the fucking second one …’

  On the morning of July 9th, the Battalion was suddenly pulled out of the line, and hurried eight kilometres to the rear to ‘receive an important personage’, as the telephone order from Dietrich’s HQ had it.

  The important personage turned out to be Reichsführer Himmler himself, his skinny frame clad in the field-grey of a general in the Armed SS, his hollow chest decorated with the sports medal in bronze, Iron Cross third class and what looked like the Party’s Blood Order. As he stepped out of his Storch, followed by a tubby brown-clad figure who looked like a middle-weight boxer gone to seed, Schulze, standing behind von Dodenburg said sotto voce:

  ‘Do you think he’ll get the Knight’s Cross out of this visit? They tell me he’s got throatache.’

  ‘Shut up, Schulze,’ von Dodenburg snapped without turning his head, ‘Or I’ll see you get arse-ache – damned quick, too!’

  ‘SS Assault Battalion Wotan – attention!’ Major Geier’s voice rang out.

  The Battalion snapped to attention. Stiffly the Vulture strode forward, halted the regulation six paces before the Reichsführer and the little burly Golden Pheasant, both dwarfed by the immaculate SS aides, some of whom were nearly two metres tall, and bellowed.

  ‘SS Assault Battalion Wotan – four hundred men, eighteen officers, one officer-cadet – all present and correct, Reichsführer!’

  Heinrich Himmler touched his pale, effeminate hand to his cap and smiled thinly: ‘Thank you, my dear Geier. Good to see you again – and by the way, you’ve got your lieutenant-colonel stars. I approved them yesterday.’

  The Vulture’s face flushed with genuine pleasure. Promotion was the only thing that meant anything to him, apart from the beautiful powdered youths who frequented the Lehrter Station in Berlin after dark.

  ‘Thank you, Reichsführer,’ he barked, ‘I am sure the Battalion will be pleased at the honour.’

  The Reichsführer gave the Battalion a very careful inspection, behaving more like a sergeant-major than a commanding general, inspecting their tattered uniforms and dirty battle-damaged weapons as if they were back in peace-time Berlin and not in the heart of war-torn Russia. As Schulze sighed afterwards:

  ‘He got up so close to have a gander at my throatache’ – he meant his Knight’s Cross – ‘that I got more than enough of his sodding breath. God Almighty, it was so bad I’m surprised it didn’t melt the flaming medal!’

  But in the end the Reichsführer, who because he had been too young to see active service in World War One took his present military duties as the head of the Armed SS exceedingly serious, was satisfied. They were stood at ease while the Reichsführer attempted to clamber up the steep sides of a Tiger in order to address them. Twice he failed and waved aside the aides who rushed forward to help him while the fat Golden Pheasant grinned at his discomforture. But his spindly legs were not equal to the task and with an angry sigh, he beckoned to one of his gigantic aides to assist him.

  Angrily he tugged at his tunic and faced them. ‘Men of Wotan – comrades,’ he began. ‘It gives me great pleasure to be able to speak to you today. I am also sad at the same time to see how thin your ranks have become. But that is the sad privilege of your elite battalion – to be at the forefront of any attack for Folk, Fatherland and Führer.’

  ‘Watch it, Heini,’ Schulze cracked to his neighbour. ‘You’re going to rupture yourself if you go on like that!’

  All around him the wooden-faced SS troopers tittered sudtered suddenly. But on the tank Himmler was too busy trying to get his breath back while the gigantic aide proferred him a glass of his favourite lemonade. He only touched alcohol on special occasions; his stomach was too delicate.

  ‘But your sacrifices, comrades, have not been in vain. As you know, we are pushing back the Bolshevik beast steadily and inexorably. We are winning – definitely winning! Now you, as the point of the Führer’s own Bodyguard, have been given the honour of delivering the death blow to the Soviet beast.’ He paused dramatically, his sickly face flushed a sudden hectic red.

  ‘In forty-eight hours at the latest,’ Himmler continued, ‘you as the point will hit the Soviet’s fourth and major line of defence. There the Soviets will have to stand and fight, or run away for ever. They will stand, according to our Intelligence. Thus it will be your honour to give the first blows of that tremendous battle.’ He paused to get his breath and in the front rank von Dodenburg could hear the air wheezing through his diseased lungs.

  Down below, the Golden Pheasant looked at his watch and yawned in boredom, not even attempting to cover his mouth with his fat hand. Idly von Dodenburg wondered who he was, daring to affront Himmler in such a manner.

  ‘Comrades, I cannot tell you very much. As you can realise what knowledge I have is highly secret. But this much I can say – the battle you will join in forty-eight hours’ time will be the greatest tank battle in all history, and when you have fought it, those of you who survive will count it as the most significant event in your whole lives.’ His face cracked into a wintery smile. ‘And now comrades, before I and Folk Comrade Bormann here leave,’ he nodded his head at the Golden Pheasant, whose broad face was beginning to brighten now at the smell of the food, we should deem it an honour if you would join us for a simple soldier’s lunch.’

  As the cooks began to plant the great tureens of steaming pea soup and sausage on the trestle tables set out behind the parade, the new Lieutenant-Colonel Geier bellowed: ‘Sieg Heil!’ In his enthusiasm at his new promotion, he forgot his usual cynical distaste of the whole National Socialist theatricality.

  ‘Sieg Heil!’ the great cry rose from four hundred throats with a fervour that von Dodenburg, his face flushed an enthusiastic red as he stood there rigidly to attention, had not heard for a long, long time. Suddenly he felt confident again. The doubts cast by Sergeant Schulze vanished. They must beat the Popovs – they would.

  ‘Sieg Heil!’ he screamed, his eyes gleaming fanatically. ‘Sieg Heil …’

  Metzger was given the job of picking the waiters to serve Himmler’s table. A handful of men were delegated to report to him and Schulze, who as the only other rank with the Knight’s Cross was to be in charge, went down their ranks quickly, selecting the ones he needed.

  ‘You,’ he snapped to a lanky youth from Rumania, ‘say – can I give you the salt, Reichsführer.’ He groaned when the boy repeated the phrase in barely understandable German. ‘Get out of it, you shitty booty German, you!’ he bellowed. ‘What the hell do you think this battalion is – the crappy Foreign Legion!’

  A couple of others were turned down because they weren’t blond – it was well known that the Reichsführer only liked blond SS men around him although he was sallow and dark enough himself. Metzger looked at the tall soldier at the end of the line who had just joined them from the 8th Panzer.

  ‘You’ll do,’ he said. ‘But get that black jacket off – you’re in the SS now, remember.’

  The soldier’s tough face cracked into a lazy grin. ‘Who could forget, sergeant?’ he said
impudently. ‘Pea soup and half a sausage with the Reichsführer one day – and a wooden overcoat the next! You certainly see life in the SS.’

  ‘Button up your thick lip, you asparagus Tarzan you!’ Metzger said threateningly, but he had no time to ‘make a sow’ out of the man as he would have done normally; the Reichsführer wanted some more mineral water and the kitchen bulls couldn’t find any more. ‘Schulze,’ he said hurriedly, ‘check their sausage fingers and see their nails haven’t got half the steppe under them. Here, use this.’

  He picked up the Russian bayonet which the cooks had been using to chop up the sausages for Himmler’s table and throwing it to Schulze, hurried away to find some more soda water. Schulze passed it swiftly down the line, giving it to each man in turn to clean his nails. He came level with the soldier from the Eighth.

  ‘All right, asparagus Tarzan, let’s see your pinkies!’ Schulze stared at his left hand. On each finger he had a lark blue letter tattooed. ‘M-A-R-CH-E,’ he read out aloud. ‘Marche? What the hell does that mean?’

  The big man held up his right hand. Each finger had a letter tattooed on it too.

  ‘Marche ou crève, it says. It’s French – and in case, you ain’t cultured as I am, Sergeant, that’s frog for march or croak.’

  Schulze looked at him keenly. ‘You in the Legion?’

  ‘Sure, Sergeant,’ the other man said easily. ‘Eight years. I deserted in North Africa in 1941 as soon as the Afrika Korps landed in Libya and made my way across the frontier.’

  ‘North Africa, eh,’ Schulze said thoughtfully. ‘I’d like to have a talk with you, my lad.’

  ‘Any time, Sergeant. But don’t expect me to fall in love with you straight away. You see,’ the ex-legionnaire gave him a mock simper, ‘I left my one true love back in Africa.’

  Sergeant Schulze made an obscene gesture, but all the same he was not displeased with the new recruit from the 8th; a vague plan was beginning to form in his mind.

  Folk Comrade Bormann ate his first half litre of pea soup greedily, concentrating on eating, as if it had been a long time since he had last eaten, completely ignoring Himmler, his staff and Wotan officers all around him. Then he speared his half sausage and ate it the way the peasants do from the fork, letting the grease run down his pugnacious chin. That finished he belched, wiped his chin and broke into the conversation brusquely.

  ‘I’m a Mecklenburger, you know.’ His voice was coarse and harsh, and the assembled officers looked across at him startled. ‘A thousand years ago, the Slavs lived there until we Germans kicked them out. Since then generations of good German peasants have toiled to make Mecklenburg and what lies east of it German – generation after generation of simple good German folk.’ He raised his voice, which in spite of its coarseness was full of authority, as though Bormann were used to giving orders and expected them to be obeyed. ‘Now if we don’t beat the Bolsheviks this July, they will start pushing us back out of Russia. And they won’t stop in Poland, nor in East Prussia. No, gentlemen, their target will be the Elbe, once the boundary of the ancient Slavic kingdom. Then Mecklenburg will be Slav again. That is why the battle you will be soon fighting, gentlemen, is so vital for the future of the Reich. It is as simple as that.’

  There was a moment of awkward silence while Folk Comrade Bormann stared challengingly at their battle-weary faces, as if he were expecting one of them to deny the truth of his bald statement.

  ‘Of course you’re right, Martin,’ Himmler said and wet his dry lips delicately with his mineral water. ‘The coming battle here is vital for the Reich, but don’t you think you are putting the matter into a too dramatic a light? I mean if you consider—’

  ‘No,’ Bormann butted in harshly and von Dodenburg could see that the Golden Pheasant hardly disguised his contempt for the leader of the SS. ‘I am not being too dramatic, Heinrich. Let there be no mistake about it. This is a battle for the survival of the Reich. Time is running out. If we don’t succeed in crushing the Bolsheviks this summer, we certainly will not be able to do it in the winter. All of us know what happened last winter, don’t we?’ A few of the assembled officers nodded their heads thoughtfully; Stalingrad and the tremendous debacle there was always at the backs of their minds.

  Bormann flashed a hard look around the young faces of the Wotan officers. ‘Believe me the Führer is well aware of the great suffering you and your men have undergone. But he knows too that he must demand and receive even greater sacrifices from you in the coming battle. If you were to be at his side like I am, twenty hours a day and saw how he worried about you and Germany, you would know that your sacrifices do not go unnoticed. The loss of one single humble German grenadier cuts the Führer to the heart. Yet he has hardened himself to losses, as he must. You, too, must be harder – as hard as Krupp steel, as they used to say when I was a boy in Mecklenburg. You must ask and get the most brutal sacrifices out of your men in the coming battle. After all the fate of the Third Reich is in your hands.’

  He paused, sniffed and looking down at his empty bowl, as if he had already dismissed the ‘fate of the Third Reich’ from his cold logical mind, he said pleasantly: ‘I think I’ll have another half litre of that good pea soup, if I may – and half a sausage, if you can spare it, Colonel – er—’

  ‘Geier,’ the Vulture snapped, flushing.

  ‘Yes Colonel Geier. Could you arrange it?’

  ‘Metzger,’ thundered the Vulture. ‘See the Reichsleiter has some more soup. We don’t want him to leave the front thinking that we soldiers starve our visitors from the rear echelon, where, as everyone knows, food is in short supply.’ The insult was obvious, but the fat Golden Pheasant did not seem to notice it.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said pleasantly.

  ‘Don’t put yer thumb in that soup, mate,’ the tough-looking ex-legionnaire said to the soldier waiter as he passed over the bowl of pea-soup intended for Reichsleiter Bormann. ‘It might fall off.’

  ‘Eh!’ the other man said surprised.

  ‘Yeah, I just spat in it to season it and I don’t think I’ve been properly cured from the last dose.’

  Schulze tossed half a sausage in Bormann’s soup. It slopped over the side of the tin bowl. The waiter wiped it off with his sleeve.

  ‘Get on with it,’ he growled at the man. ‘This comedian here is just having you on. Now trot off, before you get the toe of my boot up your arse.’

  Schulze waited until he was out of earshot. ‘All right, you asparagus-Tarzan you, what’s your plan? And don’t try to shit me, or you’ll get a taste of the Reeperbahn equalizer.’ His hand fell to his pocket.

  But the ex-legionnaire was quicker. His hand flashed to his trouser pocket. Before Schulze had even managed to locate his brass knuckles, a wicked, thin-bladed knife appeared in the other man’s hand.

  ‘First thing you learn in the Legion, sergeant. In the compagnie de passage,2 the old hands like the brown cake. If you don’t want to become a warm brother for the rest of your time in the Legion, you learn how to be quick with a knife. Slash-slash to the back of their fat queer arses and they don’t bother you again.’ He grinned lazily. ‘After all, by doing that you’ve spoiled their good looks, haven’t you?’ His grin was infectious. Schulze joined him and the ex-legionnaire slipped away the knife as quickly as it had appeared.

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ Schulze said. ‘Come on, let’s take the weight off our feet. I think even that fat little bastard of a Golden Pheasant has finished feeding his face by now.’

  In silence they walked to the shade of one of the nearby trees and sat down, their backs against it, watching the men drinking the beer the Reichsführer SS had brought for them in the Storch.

  ‘One bottle between two men,’ Schulze snorted. ‘That’s what I call generous. But then a sniff at the barmaid’s apron would send half them greenbeaks over there roaring drunk.’

  ‘I’ve got half a crate,’ the other man said calmly. ‘I snitched it while you were cutting up the sausages.’

>   ‘Did you just!’ Schulze exclaimed in admiration. ‘You’re a smart lad – too smart to be in this mob.’

  ‘I know and I don’t intend to be in it much longer.’ The ex-legionnaire pulled out a little shag pipe and the strangest looking tobacco pouch Schulze had ever seen.

  ‘What the hell’s that?’

  ‘A Kabyle woman’s tit,’ he answered, busily stuffing tobacco into his pipe. ‘I cut it off and cured it myself in thirty-four. She was a young un – you can tell that by the nipple there and the quality of the skin – never a wrinkle.’

  ‘Put the sodding thing away, will you,’ Schulze said in disgust. ‘What the hell will some people think of next!’

  ‘Caporal Grimaldi had one made out of a Chink’s testicles,’ the other man said conversationally. ‘They were so big you could stow a kilo of baccy in them.’ But he put the pouch away and said: ‘There are a lot of ways of doing it, you know Sergeant. I wouldn’t go as far as infecting an eye with gonorrhea – you can lose it like that – but a bit of tartar from your teeth, rubbed into a wound can cause abscesses. Or perhaps a couple of drops of castor oil in your eye, bandage it up overnight and next morning you’ve got yourself the start of a nice juicy case of conjunctivitis. Then there’s the trick of putting a cork upright in your boot and jumping down with it there from – say – two metres. That’s a sure way of dislocating your ankle.’

  ‘All right, laddie, you don’t need to draw me no more pictures – I get you. But what does it all add up to? You’re still in the Army and when the bone-menders have seen you off, you’re back where you started – in SS Assault Battalion Wotan. And you know what that means?’

  The legionnaire’s calm look vanished. ‘Yeah,’ he said thickly, the quick chop in double time.’

  ‘Right in one. This is the third time this flaming Battalion has done a stint in Popovland and it’s going to be no different from any other, believe you me.’ He pointed to the bronzed youths drinking their beer at the trestle tables. ‘Most of them greenbeaks over there will be looking at the potatoes from below before this month’s out.’