Heinrich Gerlach - Breakout at Stalingrad

‘What were you thinking of, you miserable wretch?’ he blustered. ‘Thought you’d just do a runner, eh? And leave your mates in the shit, right? And now they can shoot anyone who does that! So how does that make you feel, eh?’

All of a sudden, when confronted by this bear of a man, Lakosch felt very small. It was like when he was a kid and was about to get a thrashing from his dad for doing something stupid.

‘I… I’m very sorry, Captain, sir,’ he stuttered, ‘for causing you all this trouble. And the thing about my mates, well, I hated doing that, I really did – but I’m at my wits’ end. I just can’t take any more of this!’

And then it all spilled out of Lakosch. Everything that had been seething inside of him for weeks and tormenting him to the point where he took his final desperate step now erupted from him like a stream that had been long dammed up. He spoke about his youth, about his father, who had been murdered in a concentration camp, about his belief in the Führer and a ‘German socialism’, about the war and his experiences in Russia, and finally about how his whole world had collapsed after overhearing a conversation quite by chance. And he went on to explain about Seliger and Harras and the German communists who were over there behind Russian lines working to try to save the men of the Sixth Army…

In the meantime, Endrigkeit had sat himself down on the bench next to Lakosch and lit his pipe. His anger had subsided. He sat in silence and listened to the little driver, who was sometimes halting in his delivery, while at other times he tripped over his words in his haste to get them out. Endrigkeit blew out dense clouds of smoke. So that was how things stood, then. Unold really ought to hear this. However, no sooner had this thought occurred to him than he immediately rejected it. He knew it would be pointless. The Prussian army wasn’t interested in people’s motivations.

‘So you see, I didn’t do it out of cowardice, Captain, sir,’ Lakosch said disconsolately. ‘And I was actually thinking of my comrades… given that there are Germans over on the other side. So I started thinking that maybe the Russians aren’t like they’re painted and wouldn’t go slaughtering everybody … and that there might be a truce and the army might be saved if one of them from over there explained how things really are with the Russians.’

Lakosch waited in vain for an answer. Endrigkeit sat silently, looking straight ahead. Once again, an indistinct feeling of irritation was rising in him. How simple things had been in the past, God damn it! Back then, a deserter was a scoundrel, a traitor to the Fatherland who could be dealt with summarily. But now, all of a sudden, things weren’t so straightforward any more. Loyalty, justice, honour, duty, obedience – this all suddenly appeared in a very questionable light. And even love of the Fatherland had now instantly taken on an ambiguity. Why had this set of concepts, once so rock-solid, suddenly become so shaky? Were the Nazis to blame for this as well? Or was it Stalingrad? Endrigkeit liked simplicity and clarity. He’d lost his bearings in this new landscape. And that appalled him.

Faced with the captain’s ominous silence, Lakosch had also stopped talking. He held out a grubby envelope to Endrigkeit.

‘If I might be so bold as to ask the captain for one last thing,’ he said hesitantly, ‘my mother’s address is on this envelope. If the captain would be so good as to write and tell her that… well, that I got back on the right track after all.’

Endrigkeit turned slowly to face the little driver and gave him a wide stare. His broad chest rose and fell with the deep breaths he was taking. Without warning, he sprang to his feet. ‘Get out!’ he roared, his whole body shaking. ‘Out! Get lost, you wretch! And be quick about it, or I’ll kick you up the backside, d’you hear, you wastrel? And don’t show your face round here ever again, you miserable specimen!’

Lakosch stared at the captain in astonishment. Had he suddenly taken leave of his senses? But then it began to dawn on him. A look of amazed disbelief crossed his face. He approached the captain, searching for some appropriate words of thanks. But Endrigkeit had already flung the door open and gave Lakosch such a terrifying look that the driver, cowed into silence again, simply squeezed quickly past him and rushed up the steps and dashed past the baffled sentry into the gathering darkness.

Captain Endrigkeit sat down on the bench and wiped the sweat from his brow. He was perfectly well aware – as both an officer and a policeman – of what he had just done. And of the consequences. But despite that, he felt an enormous sense of relief. Let them put him up in front of a court martial, let them shoot him – what did he care now? Final sentence had already been passed on all of them here in the Cauldron, including those who still took it upon themselves to judge others. In the face of certain death, the judgement of men counted for very little; all that really mattered now was the verdict of one’s own conscience. And his conscience had just acquitted him – just as he had decided to acquit the deserter Lakosch.

Endrigkeit stood up and stretched his limbs. As he did so, he chuckled softly to himself. He was now so far beyond caring about what would happen to him that he could raise a smile, even at a time like this, at the prospect of Unold’s dumbstruck expression tomorrow when he learned of what had happened. Yet there was one thing that Endrigkeit couldn’t see, nor could he possibly have been expected to realize it: that his judgement on Lakosch was at the same time a judgement on his own entire, long life and on the world in which that life had been led – and that he had effectively burned all the bridges to that world.

He went over to the door and called the sentry in – Senior Sergeant Kleinke, a man he’d fought alongside since day one of the war, and who was still standing outside at his post wondering what the hell had just happened. He put his arm round Kleinke’s shoulder.

‘Take the weight off your feet, why don’t you, Heinrich?’ he said. ‘Let’s you and I chew the fat for a bit…’

The candle had long since burned down. But the two men were still sitting there in the darkness. They talked about Lakosch, who wanted to desert to the Russians to try to save the Sixth Army, and about the war and justice and dying. And as always happens when people take stock of their lives, the captain found himself delving further and further into his past. He told Kleinke about his childhood, and the vastness and the silence of the Masurian forests. And he fell to describing the picture that hung in the little log cabin his family called home, showing the knight riding steadfast and upright flanked by Death and the Devil and making his way inexorably to his destination, the strong fortress on the hill.

The stretcher-bearers are dashing about, distraught. The surgeons’ hands shake, and instruments clatter to the ground. Agitated voices, shouts and curses fill the room, and even the delirious ramblings, wheezes and moans of the seriously wounded sound more restless than normal. What has happened? What did that murderous artillery barrage last night portend?

The day brings new streams of wounded men. They recount what they’ve been through, their eyes full of sheer horror. The front has been smashed. The Russians are coming!

In the afternoon, the first tank shells slam into the gorge from the surrounding high ground. By the evening, the chief surgeon of the Corps is on the field telephone:

‘Evacuate immediately!’

The staff doctor’s hand is trembling so violently he can hardly hold the receiver.

‘Evacuate? Yes, but how? And where to?’