Fire and Steel, Volume 2

by Gerald N. Lund

  Her head jerked up. “Wait. He didn’t have any money? That’s not true. He had lots of money.”

  Georg looked down, staring at his hands. “When did you last talk to him, Fräulein?”

  “On Sunday.”

  There was a deep sigh, filled with pain. “You are engaged to Sergeant Eckhardt, no?”

  “Yes.” At least I was.

  He came out from behind the desk and pointed to the lounge area. “You’d better sit down.”

  When he finished his account several minutes later, Emilee’s eyes were wide with horror. “How badly was he injured?”

  “The doctor said he probably had two or three cracked ribs. The leader of the gang hit him in the face with his ring. Twice. Each cut required six or seven stitches.” He went on, but she didn’t hear him.

  She buried her face in her hands and began to sob. “Oh, Hans,” she cried over and over. “What have I done? What have I done?”

  7:25 p.m.—East Railway Station, Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg District, Berlin

  Emilee’s eyes were still red and puffy when she walked up to the ticket counter. She guessed that was why the ticket agent was staring at her. She ignored it. “Could you tell me if the last train to Pasewalk tonight has been canceled?”

  He shook his head. “Nein, but we are expecting word any moment that it will be.”

  She sighed. “Do you know of a hotel near here where I might get a room for the night?”

  “But, Fräulein, the 7:30 train has not departed yet. Would you like to purchase a ticket for that one?”

  “It’s still here?”

  “Yes, Fräulein. Would you like a ticket?”

  “Yes, I would. I need to go home.”

  January 15, 1919, 7:30 p.m.—Imperial German Army Barracks, Finckensteinallee, Berlin

  Colonel von Schiller had described Gustav Noske as a humorless man without many social graces. And yet, von Schiller’s voice had been tinged with respect and admiration. Seeing the puzzled look Hans gave him, he had explained it this way. “I would probably never invite a man like Noske to dine with us.” He chuckled. “Monika would be horrified. But if I have to go to war, this is the man I would choose to follow.”

  As Hans watched Noske walk to the podium at the front of the assembly hall, he better understood why. He was not overly tall—barely six feet, if that—with closely cropped dark hair, large ears, thick, bushy eyebrows, a prominent nose, and a thick handlebar mustache. There was not any trace of a smile, either present or past, around that mouth. In some ways he looked like a prison guard on watch—alert, grim, determined, implacable—a man with no tolerance for sympathy, weakness, incompetence, or stupidity. Just the kind of man you wanted to lead you into battle.

  He had not been in the army per se, according to the colonel, but he was a member of Parliament during the war and became an expert on military matters. A strong right-wing Socialist, he had negotiated through the sailors’ mutiny with such skill that the sailors had elected him chairman of their Soldiers’ Council. But when the sailors accepted deserters, leftists, radicals, and freeloaders and turned against the government, Noske was called. When he learned what was happening, his answer was simple. “What you need here is a bloodhound. And I will be it.” In under twenty-four hours, he had driven the sailors out of the palace, had them in full retreat, and had earned for himself the nickname der Bluthund, “The Bloodhound.”

  As the political crisis continued to escalate, the ministers of the government announced that Noske had been appointed as Minister of the Military. Der Bluthund had been called on once again. And he had full authority to put down the revolt.

  The officers and non-coms of the newly formed First Battalion quickly quieted as Noske stood at the podium. They watched their commander-in-chief with curiosity and anticipation. Der Bluthund tapped the microphone with one finger, causing it to screech loudly. A faint smile came and went. “It works,” he noted. Laughter rippled through the crowd. Then he leaned forward. “All of those here who are associated with the nine regular army divisions that recently returned to Berlin, please stand.”

  Hans, who was about halfway back from the front, turned and looked around. He was not surprised that there were only about twenty men standing. Von Schiller had told him that the army divisions were still being brought up to strength but wouldn’t be ready for another day or two.

  “General,” Noske said to a man seated on the stand behind him, “how soon can we expect to see the first of your regular army troops?”

  A man in full uniform with two stars on each shoulder stood up. “Give me two days, sir, and I’ll have three thousand pairs of boots marching through the Brandenburg Gate. On the third day I’ll give you three thousand more, and that many more each day thereafter until you have all 20,000 men at your back.”

  Noske grunted in satisfaction. “Thank you, General.” He turned back to the men. “Now there’s a soldier’s response for you, men. What a day that was when the general’s nine divisions marched into Berlin last month. I was there, and I have never been prouder. It was like 1914 all over again. I watched them march through the Brandenburg Gate in perfect cadence like the veterans they are. Every rank, every column was as straight as the shaft of an arrow. Their uniforms were clean and pressed. Their boots looked like black glass. Their rifle barrels gleamed.”

  He half closed his eyes, as if seeing them again now. “And the people. Ah, the people. The Communists would have you believe that the people despise the army. But that day, the people lined the streets, shouting and waving handkerchiefs, scarves, and flags. Women ran forward and festooned their rifles with flowers. Children put garlands around their necks. Men, weeping as unashamedly as the women, hung wreaths over the cannons that rolled behind them.

  “And now we are being called on again,” Noske continued. “To do what?” He slammed his fist down against the podium, and the sound was like a gunshot. “I’ll tell you what,” he roared. “To save our Fatherland from becoming”—now he emphasized every word with another blow to the podium—“ONE . . . MORE . . . MINDLESS . . . GODLESS . . . PUPPET . . . RUSSIAN . . . BOLSHEVIK . . . STATE.”

  The response was thunderous. The rafters shook. Had there been a Communist in the room, Hans had no question that he would have been torn to pieces. No wonder they called this guy the Bloodhound. Every man in the room was baying for the blood of their enemies.

  Noske let it roll for over a minute before he raised his hands. Everyone sat down again. Hans was grateful, for the yelling had set his ribs afire.

  “Now, you Freikorps units. You stand in the breach until the regular army can close ranks with us. But you are no less brave, no less prepared, no less loyal than are they. Would you like to know how the Communists feel about the army? Well, I’ll tell you. Liebknecht and his Spartacans recently formed a new Freikorps unit. Would you like to know what they chose as their name?”

  Several voices cried out yes.

  “Their official name is ‘The People’s Council of Deserters, Stragglers, and Furloughed Soldiers.’”

  Laughter and hoots of disbelief rang out. Hans wondered if this was some kind of joke.

  “You think I made that up, don’t you?” Noske went on. “Well, I did not. That’s how much respect these men have for themselves. The Spartacans have gathered the dregs of the military. These are the men who left their posts, who threw down their weapons and ran like frightened dogs. They are scum. Vermin. Rats slinking through the sewers of the city.” He scoffed in disgust. “Know what we do to deserters in times of war? We shoot them down like the dogs they are.”

  Thunderous applause. Noske let it go on for a moment, and then again signaled for silence.

  “The Spartacans are telling these men of theirs that you won’t fire on them, that you are brothers-in-arms, fellow soldiers, part of the Brotherhood. And how do you feel about that?”

  The response was deafening. Men were stomping on the floor, pounding their hands together, shouting in anger. And
Hans was one of them. This is the real brotherhood, he thought. Courageous men in war. There was nothing like it, and it sent his blood singing.

  Noske held up his hands again, and gradually the noise subsided and the men took their seats. “Now, my brethren,” he said when it was quiet again. “There is one thing I need to say to you. Not all of the people you are going to see tomorrow are Bolsheviks and revolutionists. Many of those who will be there tomorrow are the people of the Fatherland—the poor, the workers, the farmers, the unionists, the old and the infirm. Are they the enemy?”

  “No!” the group shouted back at him.

  “No? And what if they have rifles in their hands? What do you do to them?”

  Noske leaned forward. “How can you tell the difference between those poor wretches who are innocent pawns and those who are hard-core leftists ready to die for their cause?”

  Finally, an officer near the front raised his hand. Noske pointed at him. “Yes, Captain.”

  “If they pick up a rifle?”

  “Exactly!” he shouted. “Or if they pick up a stone or a bottle. If they are setting fire to a building. Then they are the enemy and they must be stopped. That is why we are here. If we do not stop them, all is lost. But if they are simply standing by, watching events unfold, you do not—you must not!—fire on them, for these are the people that we fight for, not against.”

  Noske raised one hand and briefly rubbed at his eyes. “Almost certainly, innocents will die tomorrow. Not long ago, as we put down the sailors’ mutiny, I found a sixteen-year-old girl lying in a pool of blood, breathing her last breath.”

  The hush in the room was total now. “Was it our fire or theirs that struck this innocent down? We shall never know. What I do know is that the picture of that girl shall always be in my mind.”

  “But,” he raised a fist and shook it at them as his voice roared out again. “But had I known in advance that an innocent girl might die, would I have let those mutinous traitors slink away to fight again another day? NO! I would not. I cannot! The collective good of the Fatherland is greater than the good of any one individual.”

  Just then a colonel entered the room and went quickly to the podium. He had a sheet of paper in one hand. He handed it to Noske, who read it quickly, looked up at the colonel, and said something the microphone didn’t catch. The colonel nodded.

  Noske nodded back, and the colonel moved away. The Bloodhound’s face was grave as he turned back to the microphone. “My brothers,” he said softly, “we have a new development. As you know, the government has demanded that Emil Eichhorn, that pig of a man who claims to be our legitimate president of the metropolitan police, step down. Today, his supporters called for a massive rally to protest his removal from office. Hundreds of thousands are expected to respond tomorrow. But there is something new in this. Even as we meet here, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, those two traitorous leaders of the Spartacus movement, are urging their followers to rise up and take immediate action to overthrow the government. And their people have responded. They have attacked and seized”—he raised the paper and read from it—“the Vorwärts offices and printing plant.”

  Gasps and cries of shock exploded all around Hans. Vorwärts was the central organ of the Social Democratic Party of Germany and a leading newspaper in Berlin.

  Noske went on grimly. “We have reports that they have already changed the name of the paper to The Reds Forward and will print an edition tomorrow morning telling Berlin that the ‘real revolutionists have seized power’ and that ‘no power on earth can take it from them.’”

  “In addition,” Noske went on grimly, “they have also successfully stormed and taken the newspaper plants of the Tageblatt newspaper and the Ullstein Company plant, which prints the Berlin Morning Post and Zeitung am Mittag.”

  Hans swore softly under his breath. He was not a Berliner and didn’t recognize those names, but from the shock going on around him, he assumed these were not small losses.

  Noske thumped the pulpit once to get their attention again. “I am not finished,” he said. When they quieted he went on, not reading now. “There have also been bloody clashes tonight at Wilhelm Plaza, Potsdamer Plaza, and along Unter den Linden near the Brandenburg Gate.”

  He lifted the paper again. “There is one small light in this dim and dark tunnel,” he said, waving the paper back and forth. “The government, who, if I do say so, has been as weak as water in their response to these criminals, is finally mobilizing. We are not going to stand by and let it happen. All four battalions will start deploying at oh-seven-hundred hours tomorrow.”

  Every man in the room leaped to his feet, shouting and whistling and stomping. Noske actually smiled and then raised a hand, shouted something back, and turned and left the room.

  8:08 p.m.

  Hans walked swiftly up to where Colonel von Schiller was standing. He stayed back a few yards, seeing that two captains—probably two of his company commanders—were talking with him. As soon as they finished, the colonel waved Hans forward. “All right, Eckhardt. What is it?”

  “I don’t mean to be presumptuous, sir, and I’m sure you’ve already thought about this, but I’d like to recommend we do some recon before we deploy tomorrow.”

  “Reconnaissance?”

  Hans took a quick breath. This was sensitive. His colonel had no battlefield experience, but colonels didn’t always take warmly to a master sergeant giving advice.

  “Well, sir, in a normal battlefield situation, we’d typically send out a full platoon. But here, I think that would be too much. Too obvious. It could trigger a reaction we don’t want.”

  “I agree. Go on.”

  “I’ve been thinking about what Noske said. About civilians. About the innocent. That was brilliant. He’s right. That’s going to be a major challenge for us. So, what if I were to slip into the city tomorrow morning while the units are getting in place?”

  “Just you? They’ll cut your throat.”

  “Not if I go in dressed as a laborer, sir. Not if they think I’m one of them.” Hans pulled a face. “Actually, I am one of them. I’m a milchbauer, remember?” Then he touched a fingertip to the stitches on his cheek and the bruises around his eyes. “And you might say that these are my bona fides. People will ask what happened to me. I’ll tell them I was beaten up by government thugs.”

  Colonel von Schiller was too smart not to see the value of what Hans was offering, so Hans rushed on. “What I’d be looking for tomorrow would be how many civilians there are—are they organized? How many are carrying arms? Have their leaders given them strategic objectives? Sir, we’re taking in machine guns and a couple of light cannons. I agree that some innocents may end up dying in this conflict, and I realize that every battle has collateral damage, but if we were to open fire on a crowd of unarmed civilians, we’d be playing right into the hands of the enemy.”

  Eyes somber and thoughtful, von Schiller studied Hans for several seconds. “And how do you plan to ‘slip in,’ as you say it? I saw you wincing every time you got up and down tonight. We’re three or four miles from our assigned area. Don’t tell me you can just walk in.”

  “If I could have that same driver, I’d go in early, sir. Then I’d join up with you as soon as you arrive.”

  “What about your four platoons?”

  “I’ll meet with my four sergeants tonight. They’ll know what to do. I’ll be there when they arrive, and I’ll take command.”

  Von Schiller chewed on his lower lip thoughtfully, obviously intrigued. “It’s a huge risk.”

  “Sir, combat is always about risk. It’s how you manage it that makes the difference.”

  That seemed to make up his mind. “Well put, Eckhardt. All right. Tell your sergeants what’s going on, and then see Corporal Jürgens to help you get whatever you need. Our battalion is to assemble just west of the Brandenburg Gate. I want you there when we arrive. No excuses.”

  “Sir, I can do that. But the crowds will probably still be g
athering by then. I’m guessing the parade or formal demonstrations won’t start until eleven. If I leave too early, I’ll miss a lot, sir.”

  The colonel harrumphed something but then nodded. “All right, but if anything at all starts to unravel, I want you back here on the double. I don’t care if your ribs hurt or not. You double-time it back to our battalion. I need you to lead your company. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Hans saluted and walked away.

  Chapter Notes

  What is called the January Revolution in Berlin started on January 5, 1919, with a massive rally in support of Emil Eichhorn, the man who had taken over as commander of the Berlin police. It quickly escalated into a full-scale battle between the government and the revolutionary forces. It lasted for ten days before it was finally put down.

  In the novel, I have the revolution starting about ten days later than it actually did and the events compressed into a shorter time period to cover all of the key elements.

  Gustav Noske is a real person who was given charge by the government to put down the rebellion. One source mentioned him addressing the troops but gave no specific details on time or place. So his words here are mine, though they are based on what we know about him and about the situation at the time.

  Other events as described here are factual. For example, nine regular army divisions returned to Berlin on December 10, 1918. They were greeted by the people with great celebration (see German Revolution, 210).

  In the government’s battle with the rebellious People’s Marine Division, a teenage girl was hit and killed by a stray bullet while riding on a trolley. Noske led that assault on the sailors (see German Revolution 219–20; Bloodhounds, 3).

  As ridiculous as it seems to us, Karl Liebknecht, leader of the Spartacans, did actually ask the government for permission to form a unit called the “Council of Deserters, Stragglers, and Furloughed Soldiers.” Permission was refused, but he formed it anyway and armed many of them. They became a major factor in what followed (see German Revolution, 187).