Robert Conroy - Germanica

He’d had an idea and today he would try it out. On many days, a middle-aged man would come to a nearby park that overlooked the Aare River that snaked through Bern. He would sit and smoke his pipe, apparently pontificating. Ernie sensed that the man was an American, doubtless a diplomat, although he might be from the Red Cross, which had its headquarters in Bern. It didn’t matter. Maybe the man could get him out of the boring hole that was Bern and back to the war.

After having watched him for a while, Ernie realized that men and women would occasionally come up to the man, shake hands, and depart. Sometimes they would sit and talk softly. Ernie quickly realized that that some of them were surreptitiously giving him information and documents. Whoever the old guy was, he was likely a spy. Now he really had to meet the guy.

Ernie walked across the park and sat by the man at the far end of the bench. He lit a cigarette and tried to look casual. The man had been reading a newspaper. He folded it and laid it down. “Good afternoon, Captain Janek. My name is Allen Dulles. How may I be of service to you?”

Whenever there was thunder and lightning, Lena would wonder if these were the sights and sounds of battles that would set her free. Always her hopes were dashed when nothing more than wind and rain pelted down. She swore that she would not feel sorry for herself. As her grandmother used to say, each day of life was a blessing. The fact that she was alive and not being brutalized in a factory or work camp was another blessing. The fact that she did not have to spread her legs for Gustav Schneider or take his manhood in her mouth was one more blessing. The fact that Gustav’s son Anton and his sister Astrid could still be controlled was another.

Like servants or slaves everywhere, the Schneiders sometimes forgot she was present. Or that she could hear them easily if she simply moved to another room. They had loud raucous voices. Her grandmother would have considered them vulgar and Lena concurred.

She had a lot of freedom. She often went shopping with Frau Schneider and carried her packages like a good and dutiful servant. This gave her an opportunity to see the world around her and gauge what was happening. She was heartened by the growing sense of despair in the faces of those Germans she saw. Wounded German soldiers, many missing limbs or with mutilated faces, sat on benches and stared vacantly at their terribly changed world. She could pity them as individuals, but not the regime they fought for. She felt the same with the growing columns of civilian refugees that were now streaming west. It pleased her to see the men, women, and children of the master race pushing handcarts with all their remaining possessions piled on them. She thought she could tell by the haunted faces of some of the women that they had suffered at the hands of the Soviets before escaping to Germany. Even though she had shared their fate, she felt no sympathy.

The Schneiders had not had the yellow Star of David sewn on her clothing, another blessing. Apparently they and other authorities concurred that there was enough doubt about her Jewishness to permit that exception. Lena didn’t think the Schneiders liked being seen in the company of someone who was openly proclaimed to be a Jew.

On occasion they would even send her alone on small errands. They were not concerned that she would run away. After all, where the devil would she go? They did make sure that she carried a permission slip from Herr Schneider in case she was stopped by the police or the Gestapo.

Gustav Schneider was a district administrator and an enthusiastic member of the Nazi Party. He was not part of the Gestapo, but he did run a number of informants who fed him information about disloyal citizens. This was forwarded on and those who doubted Germany’s ultimate victory would be talked to. Or they would disappear.

For all intents and purposes, Gustav Schneider’s word was law. He had served in World War I and had been active in the postwar street fighting that had brought the Nazi Party to power. Lena suspected that he had been a peasant before becoming a Nazi. She sensed that his formal education had been slight, but he had worked hard and corrected those deficiencies.

But now she had a fair idea of her fate and she was terrified. She had heard them say that they would not take her with them to the Alpine Redoubt. No room for Jews was the reason. Instead, when the time came for the Schneiders to move south, she would be taken away to a hidden factory that made small parts for airplane engines. She’d heard of the place. Rumors said it was a hell from which no working slaves emerged. Despite the fact that it was a small factory with only a couple hundred people confined and working, she knew she would die if she was sent there.

Thus, she had to escape. But when and how?

* * *

Tanner and Sergeant Billy Hill struck up an easy relationship that was both professional and somewhat personal. Each had been in the army long enough to know that sometimes the distinctions of rank had to be eased, if not ignored altogether, when out in the field.

The American army had advanced beyond where Hill’s column had been ambushed. Still, they went to the site and saw the scars of battle. The dead had been removed, although some of the bloodstains on the road were still visible. The charred and smashed vehicles that could not be salvaged had been pushed to the side where they lay as grim memorials. In the distance, the hills that would grow into mountains seemed to look down on them. A column of trucks drove past them at a prudent thirty miles an hour, evidence that the area was now secure. The German fighting retreat had continued. Almost inevitably, artillery rumbled in the distance.

They turned down a dirt road and drove to where they could see the Rhine. They’d been told that the river was narrower here than up north but it was still a mighty and powerful obstacle. The current was fast and strong and the water was cold. Falling in would result in a quick death if one were not rescued immediately. Tanner looked at the other side through his binoculars and wondered if a German was looking back at him. He fought a ridiculous urge to wave. With his luck, the response would be an artillery round fired right at him.

Sergeant Hill spat some tobacco on the ground, happily desecrating the Third Reich. “Excuse the impertinence, Captain, but what’s your take on General Evans?”

Tanner paused. It was an impertinent question but one he’d been pondering as well. “I think he’s got problems, Sergeant. He’s got a brand-new division that’s seriously understrength and with a whole new cast of characters and most of them are totally inexperienced. Many of the infantrymen arrived here without ever having fired a rifle and haven’t done so yet. Also, the division’s filled with inexperienced officers and NCOs. You and I have been in action, although my avoiding surrendering hardly qualifies me as a combat expert. But most of the officers and men haven’t really heard a shot fired in anger. And that artillery going off in the distance doesn’t count as combat experience either. That’s why the ambush of your platoon was such a shock. In the Ardennes it happened all the time, but not to my division and not to yours. The 106th had just arrived up there and most of the men had barely settled in, just like here. A lot of them hoped they could ride out the end of the war in relative comfort and safety. They were hoping to bide their time drinking beer and screwing German women. Then all hell broke loose and the division was effectively destroyed.”

“And I’ll bet that most of them didn’t want to fight too hard either, did they?”

“That’s right. They just wanted to serve their time and get home. Nobody wanted to be a hero and that fact is going to plague Evans. It’s not that the men are cowards. They just don’t want to take a chance on dying when they don’t have to. Ironically, some inexperienced soldiers might be talked into taking chances that experienced ones won’t. We’ll all obey General Evans’ orders, but I don’t see too many people going out of their way to show initiative, and that probably includes me.”