Order of Battle (4 page)

The men had a cadaverous look. Their threadbare striped
KL
uniforms hung loosely on their emaciated bodies. Across the back of each man’s pajamalike jacket a large S had been painted—S for Sonderkommando, the special details of camp inmates who’d volunteered to do the most loathsome of the crematorium jobs in return for a few weeks of life.

Just a few weeks, Willi thought. And what kind of life? Anyway, sooner or later they all end up the same way. Up in smoke!

He started to whistle softly as he watched the men work.

Du kleine Fliege,

Wenn ich dich kriege
—

It was an old German nursery rhyme he remembered from his childhood, though he was not aware of that.

The prisoners labored wearily. The wooden boxes they were manhandling were heavy and the men were weak. It took four of them to lift each box and struggle it into place on the truck. They toiled in dull, leaden silence, and the half dozen black-uniformed SS Totenkopfverband guards ringing the pitiful work party, lazily cradling Schmeisser machine pistols in their arms, hardly seemed necessary. But Sturmbannführer Kratzer had insisted.

Kratzer himself, standing at the rear of the truck, followed the loading intently.

A small man, wearing steel-rimmed glasses, with closely cropped hair and an imitation Hitler mustache, the SS major was not an imposing figure.

But there was something intense, something compelling about him, which gave even Willi an uneasy feeling.

The last box was placed on the truck. The Sonderkommando inmates were herded together in a small group. With the unerring perception of the hopeless, they knew that they had done their final job. Their sallow, sunken eyes stared at the ground; only a few of the still defiant dared lift their eyes and watch their future billowing darkly from the chimneys.

Sturmbannführer Kratzer beckoned to the Totenkopfverband noncom in charge of the guards. Almost absentmindedly he nodded toward the group of inmates.

“You know what to do,” he said flatly, in the same tone of voice he might have used giving instructions to a file clerk.

The noncom nodded. “
Jawohl,
Herr Sturmbannführer.”

Kratzer turned toward Willi.

“Richter!” he called. “Let’s go!”

While two SS guards jumped into the rear of the truck, Willi walked to the cab. He kept his eyes averted from the waiting camp inmates. There was suddenly an unpleasant stench in the air. He’d be glad to get out of the place. He stepped up into the driver’s seat and took the wheel, as Kratzer joined him in the cab.

The truck swayed ponderously as it bounced down the dirt road. The load lay heavy on the floorboards in the back. Willi drove carefully. This wasn’t the time to break a spring, or an axle.

He whistled softly to himself: “
Du Heine Fliege—”

He remembered it now. Mutti used to sing it to him—so long, long ago.

Du kleine Fliege,

Wenn ich dich kriege,

Dann reiss ich dir dein kleines Beinchen aus.

Dann musst du hinken

Auf deinen Schinken
—

Dann kommst du nie mehr wieder nach deinem Haus

Funny he should think of it now. And of his mother . . .

Willi was a war child. His father, Walter, was killed on the western front in 1916, the very day he returned from home leave. Willi was born nine months later. He was brought up by his mother. He remembered her well from his early childhood. Mutti would sing to him the old German nursery songs and she would read stories from
Der Struwwelpeter
: about Konrad, who sucked his thumbs, and had them cut off by the tailor; about the crybaby, whose eyeballs dropped from their sockets; about Cruel Paul and Slovenly Peter, and little Fritz, who was eaten alive by a wolf; about Hans, who was sliced in two sliding down a banister; and the little girl who burned herself to a pile of ashes. . . .

He still remembered the book cover vividly: Konrad, with his bleeding thumb stumps. It said: “Merry Stories and Funny Pictures for Children 3 to 6 Years of Age.” He hadn’t liked the picture of Konrad at first; it made him afraid to suck his own thumb. Then he stopped that, and he was proud of it. He always secretly felt that it served Konrad right, having his thumbs cut off—because he didn’t stop. And he got used to the pictures.

Later he was less and less close to Mutti, especially during the four years up to his nineteenth birthday, when he was in the Hitler Youth. And then, of course, he joined the Waffen SS. . . .

Kratzer brought Willi out of his reveries.

“Up there,” he ordered. “Turn left. Into the forest.”

In a small clearing just inside the woods, hidden from view from the road, another truck was waiting. It was not a Wehrmacht vehicle, but a run-down civilian truck which had been converted from gasoline- to wood-burning in the wartime effort to conserve vital resources. The big cylindrical furnace tank and the wood storage bin were mounted clumsily behind the cab. A man in civilian clothes, leather jacket and cap stood puffing on a pipe nearby. He carefully extinguished it with a work-hardened thumb and put it in his pocket as Willi brought his truck to a halt next to the other vehicle.

The men jumped from the truck.

“
Los!”
Kratzer commanded. “
Die Kisten umladen!
All the boxes into the other truck! Get going!” He made an impatient gesture with his submachine gun.

The two SS guards put away their weapons. At once they and the civilian began the transfer of the heavy boxes from the Wehrmacht truck to the wood burner. Willi looked curiously at the battered vehicle. Kratzer joined him. He grinned.

“We don’t want to attract too much attention,” he said. “The enemy has air patrols in the area we have to go through. But they won’t waste ammunition on a decrepit old wood-burning truck like that!”

“Will we make it?” Willi asked dubiously. “Into the mountains?”

“Of course. It’s four hundred and twenty kilometers to Rattendorf from here. We’ll be there tomorrow. Early.”

Willi hoped the major was right. It wouldn’t be easy to negotiate the Alpine roads in a shitty, worn-out wood burner.

The men had almost finished reloading the boxes. The three of them were swinging the last heavy box to heave it up onto the pile on the truck. Suddenly one of them lost his grip. The two others, unable to hold the box, let go. The box crashed to the ground, splintering open.

The three men stared at the shattered box. Mingled with the broken wood were a number of crude gold bars! As one the men looked toward Kratzer. And frozel

The SS major was contemplating them regretfully. His Schmeisser machine pistol was aimed directly at them.

“I’m sorry, gentlemen,” he said softly.

Two brief staccato bursts from the submachine gun raked in short arcs across the men.

The bullets cut them in half. One of the SS men stared in disbelief at the bloody entrails spilling out of his torn abdomen into his hands, before he collapsed across his comrades.

A flock of black crows in a nearby tree took wing in alarm—and flapped away with raucous cries of protest across the bleak fields.

Willi felt the bitter taste of bile in his mouth. His knees were suddenly weak. He forced himself to swallow. He stared at the SS major.

Holy Mother of God, he thought, they were Germans! They weren’t just Jews—they were Germans!

Kratzer’s face was without emotion as he looked intently at the three bodies. For a split second Willi had the illusion that the man’s eyes were mere jet-black hollow pits. Against his will his own eyes were drawn toward the lifeless bodies. Again he felt the bile rise in his throat. He seemed to have difficulty getting enough air.

Kratzer was unaware of him. He stared raptly at the bodies. He walked up to them, taking small, mincing steps. He prided himself on the fact that he was an expert in detecting fakers. But he was also very efficient. There was no need for any
Genickschuss.
The three men were all dead.

Kratzer suddenly became aware of Willi. He seemed to read the young man’s thoughts.

“Willi! Come here,” he ordered quietly.

Willi joined him. He was still shaken.

“They knew where we are going,” he said. “We can’t afford to have rumors spread around that twenty million Reichsmarks in gold can be found in Rattendorf.”

He is right, of course, Willi thought. He was getting hold of himself again. He felt a little ashamed. He’d almost gone to pieces.

Kratzer kicked the gold bars with his boot.

“Teeth!” He grinned. “A hell of a lot of teeth!”

He laughed coldly.

“The Jews are not all bad,” he said. “There’s a kernel of gold in most of them.”

He laughed again. A chilling sound.

“And enough good little Jewish kernels will help the Third Reich survive. We’ll see to that.”

He turned to Willi.

“Come on. Let’s get the rest of it on the truck. The sooner we get to Rattendorf, the sooner we can return to Thürenberg. . . .”

The old wood burner made good time rumbling down the dirt road. Willi was driving. It was a beautiful afternoon. There were only a few gray clouds in the sky. Or was it smoke from the crematorium? . . .

Kratzer was dozing beside him. Willi again began to whistle softly his old favorite nursery tune that Mutti used to sing: “
Du kleine Fliege
—”

You little fly,

When I catch you,

Then I’ll tear out your little legs.

Then you must hobble

On your hams—

Then you’ll never again get to your home.

He gave it up.

For some reason his mouth was dry.

Berlin

2337 hrs

The Berlin
Stadtmitte
—the city center—was in flames. An RAF bombing raid had just rained down destruction upon the German capital. Many buildings had. been severely damaged by the high explosives; some, like the big, fashionable Adlon Hotel at the corner of Unter Den Linden and Wilhelmstrasse, were ablaze. But the Propaganda Ministry down the street was relatively undamaged.

The mortally wounded city was fighting for its existence. Fire trucks, ambulances and military vehicles roared through the rubble-strewn streets, where soldiers, civilians and firemen were trying desperately to swamp the raging holocaust, and Red Cross workers, wielding their heavy utility daggers, were tearing and hacking and digging at the smoking debris in their efforts to reach the dying and the dead trapped below.

The flames from the remains of the Chancellery licked toward the now empty night sky and were mirrored in the darkened windows of the Ministry of Propaganda, transforming the building into a looming monster of many eyes that winked with red malevolence.

Down the street of chaos, from the direction of the blazing Adlon, a small motorcade approached the ministry. A large black limousine, with two SS motorcyclists in front and two behind, made its way through the maze of masonry rubble as speedily as the rescue and fire-fighting activities would permit. They drew up to the front steps of the ministry and came to a halt.

An orderly jumped from the limousine and opened the door. Quickly the lone passenger got out. He was a small man. He wore a Nazi uniform cap and a long leather overcoat with broad lapels and a wide belt. He walked toward the steps of the ministry with a pronounced limp. At the steps he turned to look at the destruction around him.

Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda for the Third Reich, was appalled. His strangely simian features were grim. It wasn’t going to be easy, he thought. He was well aware that a growing number of Berliners no longer shared his unshakable belief in the Führer. They were misled, of course. They were wrong. But it wasn’t going to be easy to ensure their continued support in the face of daily and nightly air raids like this.

He started up the broad steps. A small group suddenly came hurrying from the building. Obviously agitated and excited, they met him halfway up. Urgently, with unconcealed exhilaration, a ministry secretary spoke to “the
Doktor.”

The flames from the burning buildings were reflected in a flickering
danse macabre
on Goebbels’ lowering face. The secretary was trying to make himself understood above the din from the streets. And suddenly Goebbels grabbed the man’s arm. His face lit up with triumphant elation, and followed by the others he hurried into the building.

The minister made straight for his office. As he hastened down the corridor, eager and willing hands helped him out of his great leather coat. Everyone seemed to be in a high-spirited mood.

Goebbels went directly to the massive desk that dominated his richly and solidly furnished office. He sat down and faced the excited people gathered expectantly before him.

He rubbed his hands, a grin of satisfaction on his face.

“Now!” he said. “Bring out our best champagne. And get me the Führer on the phone.”

Someone hurried away to carry out the minister’s order. The secretary at once began to establish contact with the Führer Bunker, where Hitler was sitting out the air raid. Dr. Goebbels’ eyes were bright as he looked around him. He noticed the large desk calendar before him. It showed Thursday, April 12, 1945. He glanced at his watch, and reached over to tear off the page. A new day had begun.