The Fellowship (23 page)

Wolf went to the door, leaning against it and holding the doorknob tightly with both fists.  With the door secured, Lang kneeled before Albert’s bed and began to recite a psalm. 

This act – standing guard for each other during prayer – was a daily ritual. The two boys shared a secret. They were practicing Catholics.

Being Catholic was not
yet an official crime, but Wolf knew that someday soon, it would be. He had not seen a priest since 1939, when the government had closed the Catholic school he and Lang had attended in Munich, and along with it, every parochial school in the country. Their parish church had been closed later in the year and converted into a government building. And yet priests still presided over the weddings of high-ranking German officials, a fact he knew only because of occasional photographs in the newspaper. It was all very confusing.

When Lang was done, Wolf took his turn kneeling at the foot of Albert’s bed. He
clasped his hands before him, but when he closed his eyes, he did not see Albert, and he certainly did not see God. He instead saw Himmler, eyes peering through wireframe glasses, standing over Beck’s body. Resting his boot on the man’s chest as if he were a hunting trophy. He then looked up at the barn and saluted the boys on the rooftop.
I punished this man for his negligence
, the gesture had seemed to say.
I did this for you, boys. This is how much you mean to the Fatherland
.

*

Later that morning, the
cadets washed and dressed in brown shirts, brown pants and black ties.  Although they were too upset to feel hungry, the daily rituals of the Reich School remained unbroken. When Wolf and Lang made their way to the dining hall, however, they quickly found their appetites as they sat down to a lunch of smoked trout, potatoes and milk.

“Something’s up,” Lang said as he regarded the meal before him with suspicion. Although the students at the Reich School had the best of everything, to see fresh fish was unheard of.
The whole of Germany had been on rationed food portions for some time. The Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, had recently set civilian rations of meat at one-tenth of one pound per day and had also downgraded portions for bread. Vegetables were impossible to find, especially in the cities.

“
Putting on a show for Himmler,” Wolf speculated.

“
No,” Lang said. “Himmler’s been here before. He’s impressed by performance, not nutrition.”

Wolf bumped Lang with his elbow and motioned across the dining hall. Two soldiers were erecting a poster
depicting a proud cadet brandishing a dagger. The slogan read:

THE SONS OF GERMANY GIVE THEMSELVES FREELY FOR FÜHRER AND FATHERLAND

“You’re right,” Wolf said. “Something is up.”

*

In mathematics,
Wolf and Lang sat before a slab of varnished pine that was angled at 15 degrees.  There were 39 other students in the class. Albert’s chair was empty.

The math instructor
had written this word problem on the chalkboard:

German armor enjoys vast superiority over Soviet ground defenses. At an average loss rate of just three German tanks in exchange for the destruction of 35 Soviet pillboxes, how many tanks would be required to break through a front line consisting of 607 pillboxes?

Wolf opened a black leather-bound notebook and began to work out the problem with a deftly sharpened pencil. Academically, Wolf took after his scholarly father, who had, before the war, been a professor of Indo-Germanic studies at the University of Munich. Wolf was far above average in all subjects, but especially in biology, math and foreign languages. He credited his early education for this, having studied under a handful of strict, but scholarly, Jesuit teachers, all of whom had been excellent linguists and mathematicians.

But the
Reich School curriculum had dulled Wolf’s passion for numbers. The mathematics problems were always war-centric. He found these exercises disturbing. When party leaders spoke about the French threat, or the Russian threat, Wolf felt anxious, like all Germans. But he did not possess the bloodlust of the other cadets. He had no desire to kill. He wanted to teach in a university, like his father. 

Lang edged closer to
Wolf’s elbow, sneaking peeks at the equation. He was not a particularly gifted student. He had gained admittance to the school primarily through his strength as a sprinter. Until the war had broken out, he had been considered a lock for the track and field team in the 1944 Olympics, which were to be held in London. The war threatened to ruin all of that. They spent hours each week discussing it. What if Churchill was beaten by 1944?  If London could be occupied and secured by then, couldn’t the Olympics then go on as scheduled?

Confident that his calculations were correct, Wolf left his notebook open for Lang’s wandering eyes.

Minutes later, the math instructor stood, his walrus-like torso filling the space between his desk and the chalkboard. “Stand up!” the instructor barked. “Leave your tests where they are! We will march in an orderly fashion to the gymnasium.”

A confused silence fell over the room. The cadets were scheduled to be in class for another 40 minutes. “What’s going on?” Wolf whispered.

“Told you,” Lang said quietly. “Something’s up.”

They filed out of class and
crossed the athletic field en route to the gymnasium. It was already crowded with students. Red tapestries featuring enormous swastikas hung from either side of a stage. A pianist manhandled an upright piano, playing a Wagner-esque march that Wolf recognized as one of Puzzi Hanfstängel’s compositions for Hitler. He had last heard it at the annual midnight rally in Munich’s
Odeonsplatz
– a large outdoor plaza just outside Munich’s urban palace – where thousands of newly minted SS officers pledged their loyalty to the führer.

Lang, the taller of the two boys at six
foot three, stood on tiptoe and peered over the crowd.  “I see Himmler,” he said. “Vogel is there too.”

They were suddenly pushed by a wave of students arriving behind them. Older boys who lived in one of the other school houses.
The crowd surged forward, then sideways. Wolf was swept toward the far wall. He had lost Lang. In an institution that did everything in an orderly fashion, this was an unusual moment of mayhem.

The music suddenly stopped. A voice came over the public address system. It was Himmler’s.

“In war,” he said, “Possessions are destroyed. Entire families may die. There is but one thing that survives, and that is the glory of a boy’s deeds for his country. Today Albert Hoppe demonstrated his courage in front of my own eyes. Albert Hoppe is an inspiration for all of us!”

Wolf was suddenly filled with pride. It was true that he feared Himmler. Every rational German did
, and Wolf did more than most. But there was no denying that he was a natural-born leader. Hearing Albert’s name spoken by such a man was exquisite.

The
reichs
führer
then read from the
Oera Linda
book, a text written in Old Frisian that the cadets had read in their Germanic studies classes. Himmler’s interest in ancient Germanic religions was well known. Wolf’s own father, who had once worked under Himmler, claimed that the reichs
führer
not only believed in reincarnation, but also believed that he was the re-embodiment of King Henry the Fowler. 

Some
said that Himmler was in fact a warlock. They talked of his magical ability to motivate people to do things that were against everything they had ever been taught. Wolf did not find this so difficult to believe. The regime had come into power when he was only a toddler, but when people spoke of the transformation of Germany since the Treaty of Versailles, the poverty they described was unfathomable today. He had only ever known Germany as a strong, spirited and seemingly invincible force. And all he had known since the age of 11 was victory. Since 1938, war announcements had rolled through school like sporting news. Victory in Poland. Victory in France. Victory in the Netherlands, Luxemburg and Norway. Alliance with Romania.  It was assumed that each new invasion would automatically be followed by a victory within days or weeks. 

Wolf refocused on the stage, where Himmler was still talking.
“We must find a new set of values for our people,” he said. “We must once again be rooted in our ancestors and grandchildren, the eternal sequence of our destinies. Let us follow the example of this brave boy who cared nothing for the physical world, and gave everything for society.”

Wolf f
elt a hand on his arm and looked up. It belonged to a black-uniformed SS soldier with two parallel silver stripes and two silver pips on his lapel. A
scharführer
. Not quite an officer, but nevertheless, someone deserving of wide berth.

“Seba
stian Wolf?” the soldier said even though the reichs
führer
was not yet finished with his speech. “How would you like to meet Himmler?”

Wolf did not hear himself say yes. Nevertheless he found himself following the
scharführer outside, where the sun had given way to a cold drizzle. He was escorted across campus to the third floor of the yellow mansion, where he was seated on a bench in the hallway outside the headmaster’s office.

*

He sat alone for nearly an hour. His legs felt rubbery. He was thirsty. He had not been filled with this much anxiety and dread since his father’s funeral, when Gertrude had asked him to go to the coffin and kiss his father’s corpse on the forehead. He had not wanted to feel the coolness of the skin. Had not wanted to face the unbearable stillness of the hands folded across his chest. And yet he could not disappoint her. She pleaded with him. It was somehow important. As if to prove his devotion. Or perhaps just to verify that it was real. 

Now s
weat ran down Wolf’s arms, slickening the insides of his elbows. His tongue seemed to thicken. Himmler was said to have personally ordered the executions of 85 SA leaders in order to eliminate political rivals. The dreaded
Gestapo
ultimately answered to him. Nevertheless, he was going to face this man. His mother had sold her soul to position him for this moment. He would not disappoint her now.

Gradually,
several older boys joined him in the hall. Although Wolf had been the first boy seated, several were called into the headmaster’s office before him. At times he heard shouting. That was not so peculiar at the Reich School, as the instructors were passionate about their work. Each preceding boy spent several minutes in the office, and then was escorted down the hall by the scharführer, who would then return to escort the next boy in.

When
Wolf’s name was finally called, he entered in a hurry, clicking the heels of his shoes together in an emphatic “
Heil
Hitler!”

The room smelled like oak furniture.
The office walls were painted the same shade of yellow as the building’s exterior. The window provided a clear view of the lake, the surface of which was peppered with hard rain.

Himmler was not there. The man standing behind the headmaster’s desk was much older. His cap was pulled low over his brown eyes. He held his chin elevated, so that he literally looked down his nose at the young cadet. He wore a thick but narrow mustache that, in subsequent eras, would be regarded as a
staple of Hitler parodies. In this era, it was nothing less than an homage to the führer.

Wolf had
noticed him that morning from the roof of the barn. He had been in Himmler’s entourage. Had he helped carry Albert’s body back to campus? He wore jackboots and black pants that were tight in the knees and bloomed around the thighs. An Iron Cross – a highly coveted black and silver combat medal – hung just over the knot on his tie. He wore a forest-green shirt with a black tie under his coat. His lapels showed the double-thunderbolt runes of the SS, and were decorated with three diamonds and two double-stripes, making him a
hauptsturmführer,
a captain.

“This is Obergruppen
führer
Nagel,” the scharführer said as he shut the door behind him. Wolf jumped, having forgotten that anyone else was in the room.

Nagel
walked around the desk until he was standing directly in front of the cadet. He touched Wolf’s face with his right hand, holding the boy’s chin between the oversized thumb and forefinger of his left hand.

“Strong jaw,” he observed, inspecting him as a farmer might appraise a prize goat. With the calloused thumb of his other hand, he stretched open Wolf’s eyelids and peered straight into them. “Blue eyes.”

The scha
rführer
held out a half-inch thick file with Wolf’s name on it. Nagel removed his hands from the cadet’s face and took it, walking back around the desk to the window. With his back to Wolf, the officer licked his fingertips and began flipping through documents detailing Wolf’s Hitler Youth activity, school history, examination results and Reich School enrollment materials, including documentation proving his Germanic bloodline. A separate section contained information about his parents, brother and extended family.