Berlin Finale (Penguin Modern Classics)

by Heinz Rein

  ‘… gloria mundi,’ adds Dr Böttcher with a smile, and opens up the book of maps.

  ‘It’s true, not that much Gloria around at the minute,’ Klose says.

  ‘The situation is quite clear,’ Dr Böttcher says, wiping his glasses with his handkerchief. ‘Our brilliant leaders learned nothing from the battle for Vienna, and apparently expected the Russians to attack frontally from the east.’

  ‘Isn’t that what they’re doing?’ Klose asks. ‘Lichtenberg is …’ Dr Böttcher raises a defensive hand. ‘Let me finish, my dear Klose,’ he says, almost in a reproachful tone. ‘Of course the Russians are also coming from the east, but much more important are the two pincer arms that are arranged to the north and south of Berlin. The 1st Ukrainian Front under Zhukov is not only pushing its way into Berlin from the east, but is also encircling the city with its north wing and – according to the Wehrmacht report – has already reached Frohnau. To the south the 1st Belorussian Front under Konev, which was previously attacking in an east-west direction, after the advance of the first few days turned to the north-west – the line Königs Wusterhausen-Zossen-Treuenbrietzen – and is now advancing on Berlin along a south-north line, that is, Berlin is also being encircled from the south. There is absolutely no doubt that the two arms of the pincer, Zhukov’s northern wing and Konev’s west wing, will advance further and come together to the west of Berlin in a complete encirclement. This is the sober observation of the situation, only on the basis, I should add, of today’s German Wehrmacht report, which is of course a summary of the situation yesterday.’

  Dr Böttcher pauses for a moment and reads his notes. ‘But the Wehrmacht report says much more than that, at least for someone who is not just reading today’s report, but also remembers the previous few days’ reports. The advance of the Konev army group from the Neisse over the Kottbus-Spremberg-Bautzen-Hoyerswerda line, and the subsequent switch to the Treuenbrietzen-Zossen-Königs Wusterhausen line, which also means joining the southern flank of the Zhukov group, means that the whole southern wing of the German front has been disrupted.’ Dr Böttcher backs up his explanations with a few confident lines on the map.

  Lassehn has been listening carefully to Dr Böttcher’s words, and can’t take his eyes off the map. ‘If that is correct,’ he says excitedly, ‘and I have no reason to doubt it, that means that the German troops in the zone around Frankfurt an der Oder-Kottbus are enclosed and no longer available for the defence of Berlin.’

  ‘Quite correct,’ Dr Böttcher says, and puts his glasses back on again, ‘As far as I can tell, that means no fewer than two armies, the Eighth and Ninth, with I would estimate at least twenty divisions. What did the Führer, the greatest general of all time say? “I regret that I am only dealing with military idiots.”’

  ‘But we mere mortals don’t grasp that,’ Klose says, adopting a comically regretful expression. ‘Such a unique genius must measure things according to different standards, and he does so too. A thousand years lasts only twelve years, while the nine hours that the Anglo-Americans were due to remain on land in the event of an invasion of France has been somewhat extended. Add a thousand a twelve and nine … I’d need a moment’s peace to add them all up. Calculating is witchcraft, gentlemen, and incidentally …’

  ‘Someone’s knocking,’ Wiegand says. ‘If those people in there would stop making so much noise …’

  They all listen with great concentration. The knocking comes again, three times, a short pause, twice, silence, three times, short pause, twice.

  ‘That’s for us,’ Wiegand says. ‘Open up, Oskar.’

  Klose nods and leaves the room, a few tense minutes go by, and then he comes back with … yes, it’s a young woman or a young girl, she’s panting excitedly and pushes back a blonde curl that has slipped out from under her blue air-raid warden’s steel helmet. If her face did not show the soft, delicate features of a girl, if her eyebrows were not so thin and redrawn, and if she did not have a clear soprano voice, she might almost have been taken for a young man, because she is wearing a dark blue ski-suit.

  ‘Hello,’ she says, and looks from one to the other with her bright, clear eyes.

  ‘Rumpelstiltskin has sent us this sweet fairy,’ Klose says by way of explanation. ‘So, my girl, what do you bring? Out with it!’

  Before the girl can reply Wiegand speaks. ‘Are you sure, Oskar, that she really has come from Rumpelstiltskin?’

  ‘Quite sure,’ Klose replies, ‘there is no doubt, Fritz. So, my girl … what is your name, by the way?’

  The girl laughs brightly, and then looks anxiously at the door leading to the restaurant. ‘What’s going on in there? Have you people quartered in there?’

  ‘Only at the front,’ Klose says. ‘So, what’s your name?’

  The girl laughs again. My name doesn’t concern you, people,’ she replies, and takes off her steel helmet. ‘They call me Redbreast, and you can too.’

  ‘Nice name,’ Klose says and strokes the girl’s cheeks.

  ‘So what’s going on, Redbreast?’

  The girl’s face becomes serious. ‘Rumpelstiltskin asks you to come and help him with a few determined men.’

  ‘Help him?’ Wiegand asks.

  ‘I don’t know exactly what he’s planning,’ the girl replies, ‘but he wants to carry out an operation somewhere against the Hitler Youth, who are keeping some positions occupied. Can you send a few people …’

  ‘Of course,’ Wiegand says. ‘Are you coming, Lassehn?’

  ‘I’m there,’ Lassehn says quickly and blushes to the roots of his hair, as it is the first time Wiegand has addressed him informally, and it feels like a distinction.

  ‘Can an old fellow like me be of any use to you?’ Dr Böttcher asks and smiles at the girl.

  ‘You’re exactly the right age for the Volkssturm,’ she shoots back. ‘Are you an orderly?’ she asks, pointing at the white armband with the red cross.

  ‘I would seem to be,’ Dr Böttcher says. ‘So let’s just …’

  ‘I’m here on my bike,’ the girl says. ‘Do you have bikes as well?’

  ‘We do,’ Klose says. ‘So, to arms, in the truest sense of the word. You’ll be surprised, Redbreast!’

  The girl watches the men as they put on Volkssturm armbands and hang their carbines over their shoulders, and smiles. ‘We’ve known this one for a while, Comrades,’ she says, ‘the lion’s skin is the best defence against the lion.’

  ‘Yes, come on, quick march,’ Wiegand, says impatiently. ‘Bye, Klose, see you, Lucie.’ He shakes Klose’s hands and strokes his wife’s hair.

  Lassehn and Böttcher say goodbye as well. When they are about to leave the room, Klose holds the girl back by the arm. ‘Why do they call you Redbreast?’

  ‘What a nosy old man you are,’ the girl says, laughing in his face. ‘But if you really want to know, fatso: because they say I have a pretty voice.’

  ‘I see, I see,’ Klose says, and winks across at Lassehn. ‘If you need someone to accompany you, on the piano of course, then stick with this handsome young man, his name is Joachim.’

  Lassehn turns away in embarrassment and leaves the room; when he pulls the door closed behind him he hears Klose whistling and recognizes the tune. It is the old Berlin song ‘Give Me a Bit of Love, Love …’

  VIII

  22 April

  Four cyclists ride along Fruchtstrasse, two Volkssturm men, an orderly and one wearing a ski-suit and a steel helmet. They are plainly in a great hurry, because they are pedalling very energetically, even though cycling is anything but a pleasure. All over the road there are chunks of stone, shards of glass and shell splinters, flashes of fire dart menacingly through the air. At first glance (and who has time to give some hurrying cyclists a second glance?) it looks as if a few men from the legendary Volkssturm are out on the road, apparently prepared to sink their claws into the soil of home, and to fight to the last drop of blood. They look so hearty that the motorized army patrol blocking Fruchtstra
sse at the entrance of Küstriner Platz lets them through after a few explanatory words.

  The rectangle of Küstriner Platz has been prepared for defence by the SS, its access roads, Fruchtstrasse, Rüdersdorfer Strasse and Königsberger Strasse and the Braune Weg, are all blocked by barricades and anti-tank barriers. Heavy machine guns and anti-tank guns have been put in position, heavy guns are aimed at the freight tracks of Eastern Station, three anti-aircraft guns aim their barrels steeply into the air. The Plaza music hall has apparently become a barracks with a command post, almost all of the gun operators are SS men, and around the anti-tank barriers there are Volkssturm men and a few figures in brown uniforms. Wiegand smiles quietly to himself as their bicycles twist amidst the swarming cars. The startled expression on the face of an NCO was clear enough, it’s probably a long time since he last saw anyone (let alone a Volkssturm man) who was in a hurry to get ahead.

  When they leave Küstriner Platz and turn into Königsberger Strasse, they come across no startled faces and no friendly expressions. Instead the faces of the Volkssturm men are filled with irritable surprise, and one of them says in anything but a quiet voice: ‘We’ll be stuck here for as long as there are idiots like that around,’ and another calls after them, ‘Happy heroic death!’

  ‘There can be no better praise,’ the girl says to Wiegand, who is cycling along beside her.

  ‘I agree with you,’ Wiegand agrees, and laughs. ‘Clothes make the man and uniforms make the hero. Where are you taking us, Redbreast?’

  ‘You’ll see. What’s your name?’

  ‘Fritz, if that’s enough for you.’

  ‘Completely. And the boy’ – the girl turns her head back towards Lassehn, who is cycling next to Dr Böttcher – ‘is called Joachim, I know that already. And the one with glasses you call Doctor. Is he really a doctor?’

  ‘He is really a doctor,’ Wiegand confirms. ‘If you ever have a pain …’

  The girl shakes her head. ‘Rather not, I can manage without. Right, we’re about to turn into Frankfurter Allee.’

  Frankfurter Allee is under furious fire, uninterrupted wails and crashes, explosions splinter in all directions, smoke, haze and dust hang between the rows of houses, here and there a house is ablaze, another is collapsing in on itself, the tram poles are bent and broken, the overhead wires hang in tatters, deep holes have been blown into the cobbles, burning furniture lies on the pavements and in the road, the trees seem to have been uprooted by coarse hands. A weirdly menacing, dangerous wall has been built here on Frankfurter Allee, and they can only pass through it at intervals.

  ‘We have to wait for a break in the firing,’ Dr Böttcher says. ‘Close to the walls. Now tell us where you’re taking us, Redbreast.’

  ‘Up Thaerstrasse,’ the girl replies, ‘so a little way along Frankfurter Allee …’

  ‘I get it,’ Dr Böttcher says with a smile, ‘I know the area quite well.’

  They are pressed up against the wall, the bicycles crammed close together. Shells are still flying at them, striking the houses, the promenade, the road, an armoured car is struck, a huge jet of flame shoots out as if from a flamethrower, where Komturei-Platz meets Hertie-Ecke a shell hits the horses pulling an ammunition wagon, and the horses rear up wildly, keeling over, kicking their heels like mad, whinnying loudly. Guts spill from a dappled grey horse as it tries to get back on its feet, pulls itself up, gets entangled in its own entrails, slips, falls, shows its teeth in a terrible scream. Suddenly, as if they have emerged out of the ground, there are people there. They leap over with bent knees, hunched shoulders, bent backs, with buckets, bowls, dishes, pots, cooking implements, and a wild scramble begins, pushing, jostling, shoving, thumping, everyone wants to be the first to reach the animals. They plunge kitchen knives, penknives, bread knives, even forks and pliers into the flesh of the animal, which is still alive. Above them the shells hiss and whistle, the warm blood of the animals is still flowing, but the people pay no attention, they see only meat, meat, meat.

  Lassehn had at first turned away with a shudder, then he leaps resolutely between them.

  ‘You bastards!’ he shouts furiously, shoving a man aside, and kills both horses with bullets to the head.

  A few eyes turn towards him for a fleeting second, but no one is insulted, no one takes time to be furious, they immediately turn back to their unexpected booty. Lassehn puts his revolver back in its holster and runs for cover again, because a Russian fighter bomber is plunging with wailing engines and rattling weapons, projectiles fly, stray bullets hiss like rockets, and the plane climbs back into the air, its engine singing. Two corpses now lie on the cobblestones among the dead horses.

  Panting heavily, Lassehn leans against the wall of the house and closes his eyes for a few seconds. Then he feels someone taking his hand, and holding it tightly as if in a caress. He opens his eyes and looks into the luminous face of the girl, blushing slightly with agitation.

  He abruptly pulls his hand back from hers and looks awkwardly to one side.

  ‘Don’t make a fuss, miss,’ he says.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ the girl asks and looks at him in astonishment. ‘Why are you so polite? What’s that all about?’

  ‘I didn’t know … I’m sorry.’

  In spite of the seriousness of the situation the girl laughs. ‘My God, you’re a funny one, Joachim,’ she says. ‘It isn’t just that you’re allowed to, it’s part of it. Are you new?’

  ‘Quite new,’ Lassehn admits.

  ‘No time for chatting,’ Wiegand interrupts them. ‘The gunfire seems to be easing off. Let’s try to get across Frankfurter Allee and reach Thaerstrasse. Just a moment.’

  They listen tensely, but there really does seem to be a break in the firing. People begin emerging from cellars and ruins, the tunnel of the underground and the slit trenches of the Weberwiese, soldiers, Volkssturm men, women, children, horse-drawn supply columns get moving, the two dead horses are still surrounded, on the corner of Tilsiter Strasse the boarded-up window of a grocer’s has been smashed, a few women are climbing into the shop, others force their way in immediately after them. Soldiers are standing there, laughing, encouraging the women, one of them even knocks the door open with the butt of his rifle and drags two sacks of sugar into the street, slits them open with his bayonet and scoops the sugar into the hollow of the women’s skirts with his steel helmet.

  Wiegand’s face sparks with deep contempt. ‘Let’s get going!’ he shouts. ‘Get across the road. Don’t stop!’

  They run off, pushing their bikes in front of them, they balance them over the piles of rubble, glancing one last time at the gutted corpses of the horses and two dead men, who have been cleared aside like troublesome debris. After a few minutes they have reached Thaerstrasse and climb on their bikes. Here – hardly a hundred metres away from Frankfurter Allee – the picture is completely different. The curve of Baltenplatz opens up in front of them, and while the Russian artillery goes on firing at the main street, the war seems to slide by without fully unfolding its annihilating wings, the women still standing in front of the grocers’ and butchers’ shops.

  ‘It’s Sunday,’ Dr Böttcher says in amazement.

  ‘I’m surprised too,’ Wiegand says. ‘It must mean something …’

  ‘It does,’ the girl says. ‘Don’t you know there was a radio announcement that food is being distributed for the seventy-fifth and seventy-sixth allocation periods, and that the shops have to stay open today?’

  ‘We had no idea,’ Dr Böttcher says.

  ‘They’re giving out the survival rations,’ Lassehn says.

  ‘Come on, come on,’ Wiegand urges as they cycle around Baltenplatz. ‘Where to now?’

  The girl reaches out her hand. ‘Back into Thaerstrasse.’

  They drive on. From the corner of Eldenaer Strasse to the Ringbahn the grounds of the abattoir stretch out on either side, rigorously separated from the street by high walls; then comes the confusion of summer houses and allo
tments, the meagre refuge of the land-hungry, earth-thirsty petty bourgeoisie and the workers, already run through with sparse greenery and the first white blossoms of the cherry trees.

  The girl turns from Thaerstrasse into the allotment colony and jumps nimbly off her bicycle.

  ‘So, gentlemen,’ she says, and points to a summer house barely two metres from the fence, ‘we’re there. In we go!’

  They dismount, walk around the summer house and lean their bicycles against the wall, then they step in through the low door, Lassehn even has to bend down.

  ‘I saw you coming,’ Schröter says, and pulls on his moustache. ‘Good that you’re here. Right, in you come.’

  The summer house consists only of a room with a table, two benches, a few chairs, an old kitchen cupboard and a stove. A round iron frame hangs from the ceiling with a paraffin lamp dangling from it, the floor is roughly concreted and scattered with a few straw mats, and the walls are covered with render boards.

  When they stepped inside two men had got to their feet, one wearing a grey overcoat, a grey forage cap with a black, white and red cockade and a Volkssturm armband, the other a shabby brown leather jacket, a blue peaked cap, breeches and leather spats as well as a Volkssturm armband. Their faces are obscured by the semi-darkness of the room, but they move into the beam of light from the window when they take a few steps towards the new arrivals. Lassehn glances quickly at their faces when he shakes the two men’s hands; the one in uniform has a narrow, determined face, the other a broad face with a boxer’s broken nose.

  Schröter gestures to them to sit down. ‘These are Comrades Münzer and Gregor.’

  ‘Do we still need code names?’ Dr Böttcher asks. ‘Just asking in passing.’

  Schröter rocks his head back and forth. ‘Let’s leave it like that for the time being.’