Fire and Steel, Volume 2

by Gerald N. Lund

  Hans and Bert Diehls exchanged glances. An intriguing question. Diehls, who knew Berlin better than either of the other two, said, “I think there’s a pretty good chance there are. It’s required by city code now, but whether it was back when the building was built . . .” He shrugged. “Not sure. I don’t remember ever being around the back before.”

  “What are you thinking?” Hans asked. He liked this captain. He was serious but pleasant. A man probably in his early thirties who wore a simple wedding band on his left hand. He had a quick mind, as he had proven yesterday, and was fearless in battle, as he had also proven yesterday.

  Ruger frowned and pulled at his lower lip. “I’m thinking, that’s a lot of building to secure. And there are likely several hundred men inside. What if we took both of our companies, made a wide circle so Eichhorn and his thugs can’t see what we’re doing, and came around the back? If there are fire escapes, we climb to the top, start on the top floors, and then start working our way down. Drive those Commie scum down and out the front entrance.”

  “We’re going to have to do that sooner or later,” Diehls agreed. “I like sooner.”

  Hans was musing over the idea. He looked at the two of them. “What if we coordinate that attack with the artillery guys? They wait until we’re in place, and then the minute they open fire on the front of the building, we go in through the roof.”

  “Excellent!” Ruger said. “Hit them from both directions. Catch them totally off guard.”

  The sound of an engine from behind them and below brought their heads around. Coming up Alexanderstrasse from the south was a staff car followed by an army truck. “There’s the Major now,” Ruger said. “Let’s pitch it to him.”

  7:15 a.m.

  To the further joy of the battalion, Major Ott had wrangled two machine gun platoons from another battalion and the truck to transport them. A subdued cheer went up from the men when the new men followed Ott onto the roof carrying four MG 08s, water-cooled machine guns on tripods. Hans didn’t applaud, but he was grinning happily. This was something he knew and knew well. With a range of almost a mile and the ability to fire about eight rounds per second, one MG 08 was a formidable weapon. Four were phenomenal.

  Once the major directed them where to set up the guns, Captain Ruger asked if he had a minute to talk to them. He did, and they moved off to one side. Ruger laid out their proposal, talking quietly but earnestly. Ott was nodding vigorously before he even finished speaking. “I like it. I like it a lot. Approved. Ruger, you’re in command. You all right with the plan, Eckhardt?”

  “Yes, sir. I think it’s a brilliant idea.”

  “Gut. How long will it take you to get into position?” he asked Ruger.

  “I’d say about an hour, sir. We’d like to make a wide circle so they don’t see us coming. The element of surprise will be important.”

  “All right. Move out as soon as you’re ready.”

  “Yes, sir!” The three men started away, but Ott called after them. “Eckhardt?”

  He turned back. “Yes, sir?”

  “I stopped off at the hospital to check in on Colonel von Schiller this morning.”

  “How’s he doing?” Diehls asked.

  “Better, actually. He’s got some color back in his face. Those blood transfusions are really helping, but he’s still pretty weak.” He looked at Hans. “But he asked me to remind you that you didn’t answer his question last night.”

  Taken aback, Hans asked, “About whether I would ever consider the army as a career?”

  The other two men’s heads snapped up, but Hans ignored them. “I thought a lot about it last night. I think the answer is yes, but I need to think about it some more.”

  “Excellent. I signed the order requesting a battlefield commission for you, Eckhardt. It’ll take some time, but see Jürgens. As of now you’re an acting lieutenant. Have him find you some bars to stick on your shoulders later today.”

  Diehls reached out and poked him. “You’re going to be a shavetail louie? Does that mean I’ve got to start treating you with respect now?”

  “That’ll be the day,” Hans growled.

  “Okay, go!” Major Ott said. “I’d like to knock on Eichhorn’s door as early as possible. Oh, and by the way, we want Eichhorn, that Schweinbauer, taken alive. He’s going to stand trial. ”

  8:33 a.m.—On the roof of police headquarters

  Ruger darted across the roof in a low, running crouch and rejoined the men. “All right, we’ve got two minutes. Everyone in place. The instant you hear those cannons open fire, we’re going through the doors.”

  Hans looked around. His men were nervous but eager. They wanted this done. “All right,” he said. “Remember, C Company is taking everything to the left as you get off the elevators. That’s on every floor. B Company takes everything to the right.”

  Sergeant Diehls spoke. “Be absolutely sure a room is clear. Check closets and toilets. We can’t have someone coming up on our backs.”

  “That’s right,” Ruger spoke up. “And don’t shoot unless they do. Our task is to drive them down and out the front entrance. Then we’ve got them.” He looked at his watch. “Thirty seconds. Eckhardt, you take in C Company first. We’ll be right behind you.”

  Thirty seconds later all hell broke loose as the cannons and machine guns across the plaza opened fire. The constant fire of four machine guns and the bullets slapping into the building was deafening. The concussion from the cannon explosions shook the whole building and rattled the windows. Hans was at the door that led into the building by then. Standing back, he fired one shot, blowing the lock away. Diehls flung the door open, leaped through the doorway, and started pounding down the stairs, his platoon right behind him.

  In four years of war, Hans had always fought in the trenches. This was true of most of the men on both sides of the conflict. The lines were typically static, sometimes for months at a time. So he had never done any city fighting. But he had talked to veterans who had, and from their description it seemed a dangerous and hellish way to fight. Every building had a dozen hiding places. In this case, there were hundreds. If the enemy was courageous and determined, he would lie quietly in wait until you opened the door and then fire without warning. One old sergeant had told Hans that he had never had the shakes after a battle until he and his company were charged with sanitizing a French village before the main body of troops passed through.

  Fortunately, the entire top floor of the building was empty, but they still had to go room by room, their hearts pounding like a hammer every time they kicked open a door. But when they dropped down to the fourth floor, pandemonium broke out. About half of the offices had clerks in them, mostly women—some young, some surprisingly old. Many of them were hysterical. Some actually seemed relieved and quickly went to the stairwells and started descending, their hands in the air.

  Yelling at Ruger to do the same, Hans stationed a soldier in the stairwell to make sure no one went back upstairs and got behind them. As he was leading Third Platoon down to the third floor, gunshots rang out. Taking the stairs three at a time, Hans opened the door cautiously and then stepped into the hall. One of Ruger’s men was standing over a writhing body down past the elevators. “Ours or theirs?” Hans called to him.

  “Theirs. Watch it. We’ve got men in there with guns.”

  Ruger appeared. “Got an idea,” he hissed. He cupped his hand to his mouth, waited for a moment for a break in the shelling, then shouted. “You are surrounded. Come out with your hands up and you won’t be harmed. If we come in after you, we come in shooting.”

  To their surprise, doors up and down both sides of the hallway started opening. One woman held out a white handkerchief and waved it, sobbing when she finally came out. An older man in civilian clothes, his face as white as chalk, crawled out on his hands and knees. “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” Farther down, a door opened and a pistol was tossed out into the hall. A moment later, a man in uniform came out, his hands high in th
e air.

  Hans turned and waved to his men. “Hold on.” Then he shouted the same message loudly enough to be heard over the firing outside. They waited for a moment and were pleased to see about half of the office doors open and people stream out with their hands up.

  Then he had another idea. “Teams of two,” he shouted. “One stands back, rifle at ready. The other one kicks in the door. Stay out of the line of fire until it’s clear.”

  And thus they started, some racing down to the far end of the hall, others starting where they were.

  Hans paired up with a rangy private from Bremen. He was the kicker; Hans was the one who went in. The private stopped at the door, raising a foot. Hans nodded and he kicked it in.

  BLAM! Hans felt the bullet whiz past his cheek. He dove to the floor, firing his rifle blindly as he rolled into the office. A man in an officer’s uniform screamed and leaped to his feet, emptying his Luger at Hans. Hans, rolling away, fired again. The man slammed back and went down hard.

  His partner burst into the room. “You okay, Sarge?”

  Hans got to his feet shakily. The private was gaping at the figure on the floor. Not trusting himself to speak, Hans walked over, rifle at the ready, and looked down at the man. He was not moving. Blood was spreading across his chest. Hans bent down and took the Luger from his hand and pocketed it and then searched the man’s jacket pockets and found two loaded clips and pocketed those as well. “Make sure there’s no one else in here,” he said to his man before going back into the hallway, gripping his rifle hard to stop his hands from trembling.

  They cleared the third floor more quickly than they had the fourth. Ruger’s strategy seemed to be working. Also, though they could hear a lot of rifle fire outside, the heavy shelling and the chatter of the machine guns had stopped. Hans and Ruger met for a moment before descending to the next floor. “You okay?” the captain asked.

  “Yeah. You?”

  “I’m good. Sounds like the resistance may be collapsing.”

  “Let’s hope so.” Hans started for the stairway. “Watch your back,” he called.

  When he reached the second floor, it was already filled with people with their hands in the air moving down the hallway toward the stairs, none of them meeting his eyes. Sergeant Diehls stopped for a moment as he was passing him. “Heard you had a close one.”

  He nodded. “A lot closer than I like. Let’s get this done.”

  Even though virtually every office was empty now, they still had to check them. Hans was working with the same private as before. In the fifth or sixth office, they found an older woman cowering under her desk, sobbing hysterically. At the sight of the soldiers, she totally fell apart. “Please don’t shoot!” she screamed. Hans slung his rifle over his shoulder, motioned to his partner to do the same, and then bent down so he was looking into her eyes. “Frau,” he said softly. “We’re not going to hurt you.” He gently took her by the hand and pulled her out from under the desk. Her body was shaking so violently that he thought she might collapse. He spoke softly, his voice soothing. “Private Burkhardt here is going to take you down to where it’s safe. No one is going to hurt you. We just want to get you to where you’re safe.”

  Hans transferred her hand to Burkhardt’s. “Stay with her until you know she’s safe.”

  “Yes, Sarge.”

  The two of them exited and Hans started after them, but then he stiffened. Something just behind him had scraped softly across the floor. Whirling like a cat, he jerked the Luger out of his pocket, rammed a magazine in the butt, and levered the barrel back to chamber a bullet. He pressed his back against the wall as he looked around.

  This was a smaller office, but now he saw that there was another small room near the back corner. A closet? Toilet? He wasn’t sure. Pressing himself against the wall, he raised the pistol. “I know you’re in there,” he called. “I’ve got a rifle. Come out, and you won’t be hurt.”

  There was not a sound. Wishing he could remove his boots but knowing he couldn’t do that without making a lot of noise, he inched forward. The floor beneath him creaked sharply. There was another scraping sound from the corner.

  “Come out now, or I’ll shoot!” he yelled.

  Nothing happened. Dropping into a crouch, Hans scuttled quickly across the room, stopping to one side of the door. Motionless now and trying to suppress his breathing, he listened.

  Nothing. Carefully, he reached out and gripped the door knob. Taking a quick breath, he turned the knob, jerked the door open, and spun away.

  The muzzle of a rifle appeared in the doorway and a flash of fire shot out of the muzzle. BLAM! Without thinking, Hans brought the Luger down in a vicious arc. The butt of it crashed into the rifle barrel and it clattered to the floor. Sweeping the pistol up so that its muzzle was pointed at the chest of the dark figure inside the tiny room, Hans started to pull the trigger.

  Later, he would wonder what had stopped him, and he wouldn’t be able to answer that. But he didn’t fire. A white-faced young boy with a wild shock of red hair stared out of the darkened room at him. His eyes were huge and filled with terror. After a moment, when he realized that Hans had not fired, he buried his face in his hands and his body began to shake with huge, silent sobs. He sank to his knees, bowing his head, as if he expected Hans to execute him.

  Heart pounding, Hans stepped back. It was a small office closet, barely large enough to conceal an adult. The boy was no more than fifteen. Maybe younger. His face was marred by acne scars and there was a wisp of light red whiskers on his upper lip and chin. He wore a uniform three sizes too big for him. And, to Hans’s surprise, he wasn’t wearing army boots. He wore a pair of rubber-soled shoes with blue canvas tops, which were the common footwear on farms or among poor laborers. They were cheap and sturdy.

  “Get up!” Hans barked.

  The boy didn’t move.

  “Get up!” He screamed it at him.

  Slowly the kid got to his feet, his eyes still fixed on the ground, his body visibly trembling. Hans kicked the rifle away, and then he cuffed the boy hard on the back of his head. “What were you doing, you stupid Trottel? You almost killed me.”

  He heard footsteps running down the hall toward him. A moment later the door flew open and two of his men were there. They stopped dead, staring first at the kid and then at their sergeant. He grabbed the kid by the elbow and pulled him forward. “This Dummkopf nearly blew my head off. Get him outta here.”

  “What shall we do with him?”

  “Take him down and put him with the other prisoners. And take his rifle, too.”

  As they started to lead him out, Hans stepped in front of him, thrusting his face right up next to the boy’s. “How old are you? And don’t lie to me!”

  “Fourteen,” the boy said, his eyes never leaving the floor.

  As they went out into the hall and disappeared, Hans moved over to the desk and leaned back against it. He was stunned. A fourteen-year-old kid with acne, who hadn’t even started shaving yet, had just come within an inch of ending Hans’s life. He gripped the edge of the desk hard. Suddenly his hands were shaking so badly he couldn’t get them to stop.

  January 18, 1919, 12:02 p.m.—Kripo Zentrale, Alexander Plaza, Berlin

  The main foyer of police headquarters was a large, cavernous area two stories high. As Hans and Captain Wolfgang Ruger stepped off the elevator, they both stopped short. The air was cold, hovering near freezing. For a moment Hans was puzzled. The upper floors of the building, where they had been for the last hour mopping things up, had been warm. Here the temperature was icy cold. Then he saw why. All of the large plate glass windows across the front of the lobby were gone. The lobby floor was aglitter with broken glass.

  Ruger swore softly as his eyes took it in. The scene was one of utter chaos and the noise was deafening. The lobby was filled with two or three hundred people. About half of those were soldiers screaming instructions or obscenities at the other half as they put them into groups.

  Ju
st to the left of the grand staircase was a group of about fifty men in various military uniforms—army, navy, and marines. They were under the close guard of Freikorps troops with rifles. These were Eichhorn’s troops, the Spartacan regulars who had fought so bitterly to hold the building. Though sullen and angry, they were also clearly defeated.

  The second group, off to their right in a back corner of the lobby, were the casualties of the last couple of hours. Here there were both soldiers and civilians, women as well as men. Most wore bandages of some kind and were seated or lying on the floor behind the aid station. Some moaned in pain, others seemed barely aware of their surroundings. Some were covered with blankets. Two doctors and four nurses were still working on their last few patients. Hans winced. The next person in line was a woman. She held one hand to her head. Her hair was matted with blood, and Hans saw that some still seeped from between her fingers. The front of her dress was spattered red. She was weeping softly, staring at the ground.

  In the far corner was the largest group, and they were surrounded by soldiers as well. But here there were no rifles out, and their guards were more relaxed. All were civilians, and most were females. They were waiting in long lines in front of four tables. Freikorps officers sat behind the tables, interviewing each person individually. Some were escorted over to join another group. Most were being allowed to leave when the officer was satisfied they were police headquarters employees.

  Hans felt a nudge. “There’s Major Ott,” Captain Ruger called out over the noise.

  Hans had seen him too. He was one of the four officers at the tables. “Come on,” Ruger continued. “Let’s go report. Then we’ll go see if that rumor about there being a mess tent outside is really true.”

  Scoffing openly, Hans said, “Come on, Captain. How many rumors in the army actually turn out to be true? One in ten thousand?”

  Ruger laughed. “That’s way too optimistic, Eckhardt. More like one in a million.” He punched him on the shoulder. “Let’s go find out.”

  As they crossed the lobby, the crackle of broken glass was loud enough that all four officers looked up at them. Major Ott was instantly on his feet. He told the woman he was interviewing to wait for him and came over and joined them. They both saluted him as he came up.