“The enemy’s last stronghold has now fallen,” he wrote. “And so I have drunk to the coming meeting with our allies.”
Only Lieutenant Fritz Lenard, a company commander like Bach, did not write to anyone. A gentle-looking young man with a small pink mouth, a high, pale forehead and unblinking blue eyes, he paced about Preifi’s large collection of war trophies. With a half smile on his face, occasionally shaking his curls, he was reciting lines of Schiller under his breath.
Lenard inspired something close to fear in the other officers. Even Preifi, a giant of a man with a loud voice and formidable organizational energy, felt wary of him.
Before the war Lenard had worked as a propagandist. Then he had served as an SS Sturmführer. At the beginning of the war with Russia, he was transferred to the staff of a motor infantry division.
It was whispered that he had been responsible for the arrest of two officers. He had accused Major Schimmel of concealment of his racial origin, of having Jewish blood on his father’s side. The other officer, Hoffmann, had allegedly been in secret contact with a group of internationalists interned in a camp. According to Lenard, Hoffmann had not only corresponded with them but had also contrived, with the help of relatives in Dresden, to send them money and parcels of food and clothing from army stores.
On one occasion, appearing to forget his rather junior rank, Lenard had replied insolently to General Weller, the divisional commander. The general had had him transferred to the front line. There he had proved to be a good company commander. He had been mentioned several times in despatches and had been awarded an Iron Cross.
Lenard often chatted to his soldiers. He read poems to them and was attentive to their needs. He seldom used a car, preferring to sit in the back of a truck with his men.
The other officers knew that Lenard and his company had taken part in two special actions—the torching of a village on the Desna that had been harbouring partisans, and the liquidation of 5,000 Jews in a Ukrainian shtetl.
Few of the other officers truly liked Lenard, but many—even those senior to him in rank, position and age—sought out his friendship.
Bach kept his distance, even though he saw Lenard as the most intelligent and cultured of his fellow officers. Preifi’s concerns, by contrast, were exclusively economic; the only thing he ever wanted to talk about was the question of which items of food and clothing it was best to send back to Germany. Preifi concluded every conversation by asserting the importance of an all-round approach to the organization of parcels. At first, he had thought he should send linen and wool. Then he had decided to send food: coffee, honey, clarified butter. Only after some time—after crossing the Northern Donets—had he grasped the importance of meeting his family’s requirements comprehensively and simultaneously.
He liked to show the other officers his campaign packaging system. Wearing a white gown, his batman would filter clarified butter through a pharmaceutical funnel, pour it into large metal cans and then hermetically seal these cans. His batman had many talents. He was an expert solderer; he could make tough, hard-wearing sacks; and he had a conjuror’s ability to compress dozens of metres of cloth into unimaginably small packages. All this brought great joy to the giant Preifi, occupying most of his thoughts when he was free from the demands of the war.
Rummer, the chief of staff, was an alcoholic. Bach found him irritatingly verbose. Like most narrow-minded people, he was extraordinarily self-assured. When he was drunk, he liked to hold forth about questions of strategy and international politics.
The younger officers had little interest in conversation. Their only concerns were women and alcohol. But on this extraordinary day, Bach was desperate to talk. He wanted to share his thoughts with someone intelligent.
“In a fortnight,” said Preifi, “we’ll be in the heart of Asia, in the realm of silk gowns, of priceless Persian rugs and Bukhara carpets.” He laughed. “But say what you like, I’ve already found something special here in Stalingrad. Yes, you lot have missed out.” He lifted the corner of a tarpaulin thrown over a roll of grey cloth. “Pure wool, I’ve checked. I put a match to one thread—it shrank and went hard. And I’ve called in an expert—the regimental tailor.”
“A real treasure,” said Rummer, “and you must have about forty metres there!”
“No, no, no,” said Preifi. “Eighteen at the most. And if I hadn’t taken care of it, someone else would have. It was homeless and ownerless—like the air.”
In Lenard’s presence, he preferred to downplay the scale of his operations.
“Where are the women who used to live in this house?” asked Lenard. “One of them is a real beauty, a true Nordic type.”
“They were taken to the western outskirts, along with the other inhabitants. Orders from the divisional chief of staff,” said Rummer. “He thinks the Russians may soon counter-attack.”
“A shame about the woman,” said Lenard.
“Wanting to converse with them, were you?”
“To the old fat one, no doubt?”
“Well, Lenard wouldn’t be interested in the young beauty, would he?”
“The fat one’s not so very old,” said Preifi. “She has a rather oriental face.”
This made everyone laugh.
“Quite right, Captain,” said Lenard. “I wondered if she was Jewish.”
“I’m sure that will be ascertained soon,” said Rummer.
“All right,” said Preifi. “Time you went back to your companies.” He replaced the tarpaulin over his roll of cloth. “And don’t get in the way of any bullets. I’m a changed man—I’ve turned into a coward. What could be more stupid than to go and get yourself killed a day or two before the end of the war?”
Bach and Lenard went out onto the street. Their command posts were located in a long one-storey building; Bach was in the southern half, Lenard in the northern.
Lenard said, “I’ll come and join you. There’s a covered passage between the two halves of the building—I won’t have to go out onto the street.”
“Please do,” said Bach. “I’ve got some alcohol, and I’ve had enough of conversations about war loot.”
“If we carry out a landing on the moon,” Lenard replied, “the first thing our captain will ask is whether they make good cloth there. After that it’s just possible he might ask whether or not there’s any oxygen in the atmosphere.” Tapping the wall with one finger, he went on, “I think this wall must have been built in the eighteenth century.”
The walls were astonishingly thick—stout enough to support another seven floors, even though this was only a one-storey building.
“Russian-style,” Bach replied. “Senseless and scary.”28
The telephonists and messengers were in a large room with a low ceiling. The two officers went through to a smaller room where they could be on their own. One window looked out onto the embankment, a small section of the river and a monument to some Soviet hero. From the other window they could see the high grey walls of the grain silo and the factory buildings in the southern part of the city.
They spent almost half their first day in Stalingrad together, drinking and talking. “Our national character continues to surprise me,” said Bach. “All through the war I’ve been longing for my home and family. But today, now I’ve finally come to believe that the war is nearing its end, I feel sad. It’s not easy to say which has been the happiest time of my life, but it may well have been last night. Armed with grenades and a sub-machine gun, I crept down to the Volga. It looked black and wild. I scooped up some water with my helmet, poured it onto my head—which was almost on fire with excitement—and looked up at the black Asian sky and its Asian stars. There were drops of water on my glasses, and I suddenly understood that this was truly me, that I had come all the way from the Western Bug to the Volga, to the Asian steppe.”
“We have not only defeated the Bolsheviks and the vast spaces of Russia,” Lenard replied. “We have also rescued ourselves from the impotence of humanism. We
have conquered both within and around us.”
“Yes,” said Bach, suddenly moved. “Only Germans could be talking like this, in a company command post in a recently captured city. This need for a universal perspective is our German privilege. And you’re right: we covered those 2,000 kilometres without the help of morality.”
Leaning forward over the table, Lenard said cheerily, “And I challenge anyone to stand on the bank of the Volga and say that Hitler has led Germany down the wrong path.”
“I’m sure there are people who think that,” Bach replied no less cheerily. “But understandably, they prefer to keep silent.”
“True, but who cares? It is not sentimental old lady teachers, snivelling intellectuals and specialists in children’s diseases who determine the course of history. It is not they who speak for the German soul. Lachrymose virtue counts for nothing. The important thing is to be German. That is what matters.”
They each drank another glass. Bach felt an overwhelming desire for a frank, sincere conversation. Somewhere deep down, he understood that if he were sober, he would not say what he was about to say, that he would come to regret his loose tongue, that it would cause him pointless, tedious anxiety. But here, on the Volga, everything seemed permitted, even a frank conversation with Lenard.
Anyway, Lenard was different now. Months of rubbing up against ordinary German soldiers and officers had changed him. There was something attractive in his bright eyes with their long lashes.
“For a long time,” said Bach, “I thought that Germany and National Socialism were incompatible. Probably it was because of the world I was brought up in. My father, a teacher, lost his job; he said the wrong things to the children he taught. To be honest, I too felt sceptical about Nazi ideas. I did not believe in the racial theory and I have to confess that I was expelled from my university. But now I have reached the Volga! There is more logic in this long march than in books. The man who led Germany through Russian fields and forests, who crossed the Bug, the Berezina, the Dnieper and the Don—now I know who he is. Now I understand. Our philosophy has moved out of the libraries. It’s no longer confined to the pages of academic tomes. What had long lain dormant, hazily expressed in Beyond Good and Evil, and in the writings of Spengler and Fichte—this is what is now marching across the earth.”29
Bach was unable to stop, even though he was well aware that his eloquence was born of insomnia, the tension of recent battles, and almost half a litre of strong Russian vodka. Thoughts were streaming out of him the way waves of heat stream from incandescent steel.
“You see, Lenard, I used to think, to be honest with you, that the German people did not want special actions carried out against women and children, against the elderly and defenceless. And only at this hour of victory have I understood that this battle is taking place at a level beyond good and evil. The idea of German power is no longer merely an idea; it has become a power in its own right. A new religion has come into the world. It is cruel and brilliant and it has eclipsed the morality of mercy and the myth of international equality.”
Taking a handkerchief from his pocket, Lenard went over to Bach, wiped a drop of sweat from his forehead and put his hands on his shoulders.
“You are speaking sincerely,” he said slowly, “and that is what matters most of all. All the same, you are mistaken. It is our enemies who make out that our philosophy is a negation of love. How wrong they are! The snivelling fools equate the trembling of the impotent with love. In time you will see that we too are tender and sensitive. You must not think that we know only cruelty. We too know love. And it is our love—strong men’s love—that the world needs. I would like us to be friends, dear Bach!”
There was an expectant look on Lenard’s face. Bach took off his glasses. Lenard’s face misted over; it was now merely a bright blur, without eyes.
“This is real,” said Bach, squeezing Lenard’s hand. “And I value what is real. Now, how about going for a swim in the Volga together? Wouldn’t that be great? ‘Two Germans have bathed in the Volga!’ we could write in our letters back home.”
“Bathe in the Volga? We’d get shot straightaway,” said Lenard. “Better just to put your head under a cold tap—you’ve had a lot to drink.”
Sobering up a little, Bach looked at Lenard in alarm.
He had a sudden thought: if Lenard ever tried to turn his recent confession against him, his best defence would be to make out he’d been hopelessly drunk. It had, after all, been a momentous day.
“You’re right,” he muttered. “I’ve had a lot to drink. Tomorrow morning I probably won’t remember a word of my babblings.”
As if divining his anxieties, Lenard laughed and said, “What do you mean? You spoke beautifully—your words deserve to be printed in tomorrow’s newspapers.” Taking Bach’s hand again, he added, “But how did I let that Nordic beauty slip through my fingers. I must track her down. I can’t forget her. It’s as if she’s standing right here in front of me.”
“I never saw her,” said Bach, “but the soldiers are talking about her too.”
“She’s the only kind of war trophy I value,” said Lenard.
That night Bach had a painful headache. Beneath a bright electric light he wrote in his diary:
“I think I’m coming to understand something important. It’s not a matter of denying old-fashioned humanism; it’s a matter of taking our understanding to a higher level. Today Germany and the Führer are resolving a question of fundamental importance. Good and evil are not fixed categories; they are capable of mutual transformation. Like thermal and mechanical energy, they are not opposites but different forms of a single essence. They are conventional signs; it is naive to assume they are in opposition. Today’s crime is the foundation for tomorrow’s virtue. The nation’s energy assimilates good and evil, freedom and slavery, morality and amorality. It brings them together and makes them into a single pan-Germanic force. It may be that we have now, here on the Volga, found a simple and definitive answer to a fundamental question.”
34
THE COMPANIES commanded by Bach and Lenard settled into the cool, spacious basement of a large building. The broken windows let in light and fresh air. The soldiers diligently carried down pieces of furniture from apartments not damaged by fire. The basement looked more like a warehouse than an army bivouac.
Each soldier had his own bed, covered with a quilt or blanket. They also carried down little tables, armchairs with fine, ornately carved legs and even a three-leaved mirror.
In one corner of the basement Stumpfe, a popular figure who was the battalion’s senior soldier, created a kind of model bedroom. He brought down a double bed from a top-floor apartment, spread a pale blue blanket over it and placed two pillows in embroidered pillowcases by the headboard. He stood bedside tables, covered with small towels, on each side of the bed, and laid a carpet on the stone floor. Then he found two chamber pots and two pairs of old-people’s fur-trimmed slippers. And he hung ten framed family photographs, taken from different apartments, on the walls.
The photographs he chose were all rather comic. One was of an old man and an old woman, probably working class, dressed up for some important occasion. The old man wore a jacket and tie; he looked uncomfortable and was frowning severely. The old woman wore a black dress with large white buttons. She had a knitted shawl draped over her shoulders and she was sitting with her hands folded in her lap, looking meekly down at the ground.
Another, much older photograph was of the same couple (the experts were all in agreement) on the day of their wedding. She was wearing a white veil, with small bunches of wax orange blossom; pretty but sad, she looked as if she were preparing for difficult years to come. The groom stood beside her, resting one elbow on the back of a tall black chair; he was wearing patent-leather boots and a black three-piece suit, with a watch chain attached to the waistcoat.
The third photograph showed a wooden coffin lined with lace paper. Inside the coffin lay a little girl in a white dress; s
tanding around it, their hands on the coffin’s sides, were various strange-looking people: an old man in a long calico shirt with no belt; a boy with his mouth hanging open; a man with a beard and several old women in kerchiefs, their faces fixed and solemn.
Without taking his boots off or removing the sub-machine gun hanging from his neck, Stumpfe collapsed onto the bed. His legs trembling, he called out in a high-pitched, affected voice, as if imitating a Russian woman, “Lieber Ivan, komm zu mir!”30 The entire company roared with laughter.
Then he and Corporal Ledeke sat down on the chamber pots and began to improvise comic dialogues: first, “Ivan and His Mother”; then, “Rabbi Israel and His Wife, Sarah.”
Very soon, soldiers from other regiments were coming to attend repeat performances. Preifi appeared too, somewhat tipsy, along with Bach and Lenard.
Stumpfe and Ledeke went through the whole programme again from beginning to end. Preifi laughed more loudly than anyone, helplessly rubbing his hands against his huge chest and saying, “Stop, stop! You’re killing me!”
In the evening the soldiers hung blankets and shawls over the windows, lit the large pink- and green-shaded oil lamps, filled with a mixture of petrol and salt, and sat down around a large table.
Only six of them had served throughout the Russian campaign. The others were from divisions previously stationed in Germany, Poland and France. Two had been in Rommel’s Afrika Korps.
The company had its aristocrats and its pariahs. The Germans made fun of the Austrians, but they also often made vicious fun of one another. Those born in East Prussia were considered ignorant hawbucks. The Bavarians laughed at the Berliners, saying that Berlin was a Jewish city, a melting pot for riff-raff from Italy, Romania, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Mexico, Brazil and any number of other countries, and that it was impossible to find a single true German there. The Prussians, the Bavarians and the Berliners all despised the Alsatians, calling them foreign swine. Men repatriated from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were referred to as “quarter-German”; all the miserable weaknesses of the Slav East were thought to have entered their blood. As for Volksdeutsche from central and eastern Europe, they were not considered German at all. There were official instructions to keep an eye on them and not to entrust them with important tasks.
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