by Heinz Rein
What remains of the Tolksdorff group has moved into one such cellar. It lies under a house that burned down only a few days previously, the ashes on the cellar ceiling have not yet turned cold, bluish-yellow flames still flicker here and there, the bricks and breeze blocks crackle almost audibly. The cellar has apparently been cleared in great haste, and a few air-raid beds, old suitcases and boxes stand around. This cellar is part of the side wing of a house on Saarlandstrasse. The front part of the house is still standing, offering the usual view of a Berlin house of these times, with torn-out plaster and bullet holes, with the window frames splintered and the roof blown away.
Saarlandstrasse, formerly Stresemannstrasse and before that Königgrätzer Strasse, the main thoroughfare between Hallisches Tor and Potsdamer Platz, with a station for long-distance, suburban and local trains, with overground and underground railways, trams and buses, countless taxis, cars and lorries, cyclists and hordes of pedestrians, with a theatre and an ethnological museum, Hotel Fürstenhof and Hotel Excelsior, Anhalt Station and Haus Vaterland, the Europa skyscraper and the Philharmonie – this once-magnificent street, bursting with life, has now become the front line. From the south the Russians have thrust their way from Tempelhofer Feld down Belle-Alliance-Strasse to the Hallesches Tor, from the west they are advancing along Potsdamer Strasse, and in the north SS units are still putting up resistance on the east-west axis, by the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate. But the red flag already waves on the dome of the Reichstag. This strange front line only has some freedom of movement in the east towards Wilhelmstrasse.
Heavy artillery and mortars hammer uninterruptedly at the apartment blocks on this street, aeroplanes dive at them, artillery fire and the bombs from the planes dig up the stony ground, incendiary bombs turn houses into conflagrations, and down in the cellars people cower, the faint little flames of their will to live on the point of flickering out.
The former Tolksdorff group still consists of fourteen men, Dr Böttcher, Wiegand, Schröter, Gregor, Lassehn, Privates Ruppert, Poppe, Kebschull, Hinzpeter, Behrend, Manthey, Dulinski, the young soldier Hellwig, the tank gunner Reithofer, and last of all Lucie Wiegand.
The great silence has sunk inside them. Outside rages the fire of battle, the wail and crash of the shells, the crazed rattle of the aeroplane engines, the firing of the anti-aircraft placements, the rattle of stones whirl wildly around. The cellar totters and sways, the foundations tremble under the impact of the exploding shells, the earth seems to be spinning, but the fifteen people are sitting motionless in this cellar in the middle of the unfettered hurricane of iron and dust, they feel as if they were entirely removed from their lives, as if they were sitting in this cellar as if on a raft drifting rudderless in a stormy sea.
Who are these people who have been blown together into this cellar by the storm of war? And what are their thoughts in this moment, on 29 April 1945, at 11 o’clock in the morning, in this dark cellar under a bombed-out house on Saarlandstrasse in Berlin SW?
Here is Dr Walter Böttcher from Berlin East, 14 Frankfurter Allee, fifty-six years old, general practitioner by profession, widowed, with a cool, superior mind and social empathy based on a sense of responsibility, a former member of the Social Democratic Party and district councillor, the intellect behind the ‘Berolina’ resistance group. He sits with his legs crossed and his arms folded over his chest, half leaning back, and thinks about the hand grenade of Private Ruppert, which shredded the Sturmbannführer like a bundle of rags. A young man has dissolved in front of his mother’s eyes into a pasty muck of flesh, blood and fabric fibres.
Here is Friedrich Wiegand from Eichwalde, district of Teltow, forty-six years old, book printer by trade, compositor, later trade-union secretary, persecuted for twelve years by the Gestapo, living as an outlaw for four years, the most active member of the ‘Berolina’ resistance group. He sits relaxed in an armchair, memorizing Russian words to be able to speak to the liberators in their own language.
Here is Lucie Wiegand, née Rückert, his wife, forty-two years old, small and delicate as a young girl, but strong in spirit and will, she met and married Friedrich Wiegand at the age of eighteen, as a shorthand typist in the printworks of Vorwärts. She sits there upright, rubbing her fingertips very gently against one another, she is thinking about her son Robert, who was lifted from the earth by a hand grenade barely twenty-four hours before, and she doesn’t really know whether the feeling that stirs her breast is grief or relief.
Here is the man who is called Gregor and whose name is Dr Josef Grabner, who lives in Berlin-Frohnau, forty-one years old, devout Catholic, lecturer in ecclesiastical law at the Friedrich-Wilhelm University in Berlin, who has lived underground for over a year, because it was discovered that he had been reproducing and distributing the encyclicals of the Pope and the speeches of Count Galen, the Bishop of Münster, member of the ‘Ringbahn’ resistance group. He lies on a couch with his eyes half closed and wonders whether it will be possible to guide people to a new faith since they have already had to walk through purgatory on earth.
Here is Richard Schröter from Berlin East, Petersburger Strasse, sixty-two years old, divorced, precision mechanic by trade, dogmatic and fanatical Marxist, the driving force behind the ‘Ringbahn’ resistance group, cunning and skilled. He paces restlessly up and down and looks at the entrance to the cellar, through which a grey light falls into the cellar, thinking, I’ll fire at any uniform that appears there, whether it be SS or Wehrmacht, Hitler Youth or police, I’m not going to be dragged out of here until the Russians arrive.
Here is Joachim Lassehn from Berlin-Lankwitz, twenty-two years old, married on an eight-day conjugal leave, music student, soft and sensitive, but hardened by the pressure of a supposedly great era. He is reclining on a lounger and letting the rondo of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto play in his head, with the curious switch from minor to major and from two-four to six-eight in the presto.
Here is private Karl Ruppert from Berlin-Neukölln, Boddinstrasse, forty-three years old, married and the father of two children, businessman by trade and owner of a small tobacconist’s shop, a modest man who loves peace, order and cleanliness, and who has ended up in an almost psychopathic state. He is crouching on a crate, as if about to jump, and thinking: the Russians should be here soon, they will put me in a car and drive me to Boddinstrasse, or they just need to let me walk, then I would … yes, from the Hallesches Tor along Urbanstrasse, across Hermannplatz, up Hermannstrasse, perhaps a good half-hour’s walk.
Here is Private Arthur Poppe from Forst in the Lausitz, thirty-eight years old, married without children, weaver by trade, a quiet, rather ponderous man, who does his work conscientiously, but without verve or personal initiative, member of the compulsory National Socialist organizations the German Labour Front and National Socialist People’s Welfare, otherwise politically completely indifferent. He has rested his head on his left shoulder and is thinking about his wife, not knowing where she is at present, he thinks of her, seeing her nimble hands quickly and deftly moving the crochet hook.
Here is Private Emil Kebschull from Wendischfähre near Bad Schandau, fifty-one years old, married, father of a grown-up daughter and twice grandfather with no son-in-law, unskilled labourer, called up during the war into a Dresden armaments factory and trained as a lathe operator, after the bombing of the factory moved to a regional defence unit. He sits there stiffly listening to the noise, his eyes focused on the ceiling, his head constantly moving as if he were following the course of the projectiles that fly over the cellar ceiling with an unpleasant hissing, wailing, piping, screeching, whining.
Here is Private Paul Hinzpeter from Cosel in Upper Silesia, forty years old, married, father of a sixteen-year-old son, section leader of the Hitler Youth, ironmongery salesman by trade, Party member before 1933, then tax commissioner, constantly declared indispensable until the Russian occupation, later assigned to a Volkssturm battalion which was blown up on the third day after it was organized, a phl
egmatic, stubborn and indifferent man. He sits with his face pinched in a half-lying position in two wicker armchairs and thinks, deeply worried: what if we really do lose the war, what then?
Here is Private Ernst Dulinski from Nedlitz near Potsdam, thirty-six years old, married and the father of three children, bricklayer by trade, former member of the Red Front League and immediately arrested by the SA after 30 January 1933, released again after being beaten half to death and finally converted into a patient citizen by marriage to a girl from Osthavelland with limited aspirations, but never quite shedding the smell of the Commune. He is thinking about the freight train that came into platform C of Kottbus Station on 20 February 1945, crammed with many hundreds of refugees, and which he had to help to unload, frozen corpses and almost lifelessly petrified people, and a shudder still runs through him even now when the phrase ‘frozen meat commando’ darts through his brain.
Here is Private Bruno Behrend from Landau, Saarpfalz, thirty-two years old, single, engaged to a war widow, owner of a good haberdashery in Kaiserslautern, representative of the Pforzheim jewellery industry by trade, a lively, agile man, quick and sharp, former sergeant in a supply unit, demoted for embezzlement and transferred to a punishment battalion, finally pardoned and assigned to an infantry unit. He lies on an air-raid bed, his hands folded in the back of his neck, and thinks: the jewellery industry is going to be dead after the war anyway, we’ll have to start something completely new.
Here is Private Walter Manthey from Altefähr on Rügen, thirty-five years old, widowed, father of two small girls who are being brought up by their grandmother, gardener by trade, owner of a seed-cultivation centre, a hard-working, knowledgeable, slightly cumbersome man, a soldier since 1941, suffered from frostbite on his feet near Rzhev, was painstakingly reconstructed and reactivated at the beginning of the Soviet offensive. He leans against the posts of the air-raid beds and thinks about his garden, which he has dug over year after year and not seen for three years, and the fruit trees which need to be pruned and cut back this month.
Here is the young soldier Erhard Hellwig from Poggendorf, district of Greifswald, twenty-two years old, middle-school student, aiming to become a dentist, did not become a soldier entirely voluntarily, a young man who has become unstable, who has always been driven along against his will, with a deep dislike for everything military. He lies on the upper air-raid bed and tries to sleep, but can’t, he thinks constantly of his little home town and a girl he kissed last time he was on leave, autumn 1943, on her beautiful, dark-red lips which were at first firmly and defiantly closed, and then opened, soft and warm and moist.
Here is the young tank gunner Ulrich Reithofer from Cham in the Upper Palatinate, nineteen years old, son of a brewer, flagbearer in the Jungvolk, cadre unit leader in the Hitler Youth, Party member at eighteen, by no means a fanatical Nazi, more someone who joins in because everyone’s joining in, a rather brutal, surprisingly confident boy who unhesitatingly believes everything he is told. He is sitting sideways on a kitchen chair, restless and edgy, not because the air from shell fire is roaring, he is thinking of Corporal Schumann, who disappeared after Ruppert threw the hand grenade: if he reports what happened we’re up the creek, we’ll be strung up in an instant.
The minutes flow sluggishly on, the artillery fire becomes stronger and stronger, lumps of masonry crash into the courtyard, clouds of dust and smoke are forced through the open cellar door.
‘Unbearable, sitting here and not knowing what’s going on around us,’ Schröter says, and irritably stamps his foot.
‘You can’t go out there now,’ Wiegand says. ‘They’ll nab you straight away.’
‘I know,’ Schröter replies, ‘I’m staying here, but still … There seem to be a lot of people in the next air-raid shelter along.’
‘And?’ Dr Böttcher asks. ‘What do you mean?’
‘We should make contact with them,’ Schröter answers.
Wiegand shakes his head. ‘An air-raid community like that is like a closed society, they don’t want to see a stranger …’
‘… and men, even soldiers,’ Gregor adds. ‘They’ll hand you over just to have a bit of peace.’
‘I could go over,’ Lucie Wiegand speaks up.
Wiegand waves his hand quickly. ‘It’s too dangerous, Lucie.’
‘I’m going,’ Lucie Wiegand says resolutely, ‘if the firing eases off a bit.’
‘I’ll go with you,’ Lassehn says, ‘if you …’
He doesn’t finish his sentence. A whistling hiss approaches at great speed, the roof of the cellar is hit, shakes and sways, a fountain of dirt sprays as far as the doorway, but no explosion follows.
‘A dud!’ shouts Private Kebschull, and leaps to his feet.
‘Right, outside!’ Wiegand shouts. ‘Quickly, quickly!’
They all jump to their feet and run up the cellar steps. The courtyard is full of smoke and haze, the stirred-up ashes whirl around as if in a black snowstorm, the looming ruin now has cracks as wide as the palm of a hand, it sways, bricks are already coming away from the top edge of the wall and falling with a dull thud in the courtyard.
‘Come on, come on!’ Wiegand spurs them on.
They run into the courtyard, climb over a shattered wall and find themselves standing in another courtyard surrounded by undamaged front and rear houses. A hallway at first offers them some shelter, they stop with panting lungs and thumping hearts. A shell tears a hole in the wall of the house to the rear, and at the same moment a bomb from an aircraft drops through the smoke, pulls the air apart like a curtain and falls into the ruin in whose cellar they were sitting less than a minute before, it sways like a sail, leans over and collapses with a terrible crash, stones and iron splinters whirl around, the blast knocks the men over, they fall in all directions like skittles and are almost unconscious with breathlessness. For a few seconds everything is wrapped in smoke and dust, the narrow courtyard is like a smoking fireplace. Only after endless minutes does the heavy grey cloud disperse.
‘Damn it all, where’s the air-raid cellar?’ Schröter shouts.
By now Lassehn has discovered the cellar door below the staircase to the front building. ‘Here!’ he shouts. ‘The door beside the hallway!’ He tries to open the door, but it doesn’t yield, he hammers against it with the stock of his carbine. ‘Open up!’ he shouts. ‘Open up!’
The door is opened, only a crack, but Lassehn pulls it from the hand of the man standing behind it and throws it wide open.
‘Stop!’ yells the man, whose blue and white armband identifies him as an air-raid warden. ‘Stop! The cellar is full! No one’s coming in here!’
He stands on the top step, legs wide, and spreads his arms.
Lassehn pushes him silently aside, and lets Lucie Wiegand walk ahead of him.
‘The cellar isn’t for you!’ the air-raid warden says furiously. ‘The woman can come in here, but you can’t!’
‘We’ll ask you about that in a minute,’ Schröter says. ‘Come on, everybody down there, and shut the door!’
‘There’s no room for soldiers here!’ the air-raid warden barks, and grabs Private Ruppert. ‘You lot should be up there, clear off, or …’
Ruppert gives the air-raid warden a shove in the chest, making him stagger back and clutch the banister to keep from falling down the stairs.
‘What else?’ he asks, and grabs him by the front of the jacket. ‘Come on, what else?’ he asks threateningly.
The air-raid warden, a middle-aged man, middle-sized, broad-shouldered, tries to free himself from Ruppert’s grip. ‘Let me go!’ he pants.
‘What else? Come on, what else?’ Private Ruppert repeats his question and discovers the Party insignia on the air-raid warden’s jacket. ‘What else, Comrade?’
‘Don’t cause trouble, Ruppert,’ says Private Manthey.
Ruppert loosens his grip, but still stands threateningly in front of the air-raid warden. ‘I want to know, what else? Are you going to set the SS on us, or the
military police?’
The air-raid warden straightens his jacket and studies the soldiers with a crooked, angry expression. ‘Is that a way to treat people?’
Ruppert now lets him go completely. ‘Everyone downstairs?’ he asks. ‘Then shut the door, Hellwig!’ The young soldier Hellwig shuts the door. ‘It’s quite smart in here,’ he says as he goes down the stairs, ‘you’ve even got electric light.’
At the end of the cellar steps, in the room just outside the actual air-raid cellar, the troop gathers, they have all arrived safe and sound, although Private Poppe’s upper arm has been torn open by a shell splinter.
‘It’s not so serious, Poppe,’ Dr Böttcher says, and presses him down onto a sandbox, ‘it’s bleeding copiously but otherwise it’s harmless.’ He cuts away the torn fabric of the coat and jacket, trims the edges of the wound, dabs the area with iodine, parts the tissues with small metal clamps, and wraps a layer of muslin around it.
‘So, dear boy,’ he says as he packs away his instruments. ‘That will do for now.’
In the meantime a big man with rimless glasses has come out of the iron door that separates the actual air-raid shelter from the room outside and has watched Dr Böttcher’s manipulations with great interest.
‘Bravo!’ he says appreciatively. ‘You’ve done that like a proper doctor.’
Dr Böttcher looks at him over his glasses and struggles to suppress a smile. ‘That will heal in no time.’
The man with the rimless glasses looks at him, perplexed. ‘Are you a trained orderly?’ he asks.
Now Dr Böttcher smiles. ‘A medical doctor, sir,’ he replies. The other man now smiles as well, his severe face brightening suddenly. ‘Then we are colleagues,’ he says, and extends a hand to Dr Böttcher. ‘Dr Heinrich Wiedemann.’
Dr Böttcher shakes his hand and says his name.
‘How does that work?’ Dr Wiedemann asks. ‘You being a simple Volkssturm man?’
‘It has its reasons,’ Dr Böttcher says abruptly. ‘Tell me, do we have to stay in the outside room? Is there no room in the cellar?’
