Heinz Rein - Berlin Finale

And to the east and west of the city the fronts rise up like a dark curtain of clouds. They seem like storms in the distance, no rumble of thunder can yet be heard, lightning still lurks behind the wall of clouds, but a whirling wind heralds the approaching storm, an oppressive, sulphurous yellow brightness spreads, a stormy closeness weighs upon the city. A fearful sense of expectation has taken hold of the city’s inhabitants, they oscillate between hope of a miracle that has been repeatedly promised and presented as imminent by the Party leadership, and the paralysing horror of a terrible end. While exploding and incendiary bombs fall on the city, just as pitch and sulphur once rained on Sodom and Gomorrah, the little groups of the resistance movement wait with painful longing for liberation, because they cannot free themselves by their own power.

In the early hours of the afternoon on 14 April 1945, the door of a restaurant on Strasse Am Schlesischen Bahnhof opens as it has never been opened before. It is not thrown wide open, or simply pushed open with the feet, as some guests like to do, nor is it hurled aside boisterously or with great force, or simply opened unceremoniously. No, the door is opened slowly, almost carefully, only a narrow chink, the gap between the door frame and the large window next to it is just wide enough for a slender young man to be able to slip through. He hastily closes the door, darts his eyes around the empty restaurant and then, as if afraid that someone might get in his way, makes quickly for the furthest, darkest corner. Here he slumps heavily onto a chair with a deep, almost audible sigh, leans back for a few seconds and closes his eyes, but then, with a mighty effort that runs through him almost like a shock, opens his eyelids again and says loudly, ‘A beer!’

In his thirty-year career in hospitality, the landlord of this pub has served many a curious character so he is especially good at gauging his customers. He can tell at a glance a thug from an opportunist thief, a full-time lady of the night from an amateur prostitute, a con man from an ordinary card-player, he knows immediately when he is dealing with a brawler and when with a harmless drunk. He draws his conclusions, if that is what one wishes to call his rather instinctive cognitions, from behaviour and clothing, attitude and gesture, language and expression, and in the case of this individual – who has just pushed his way through the door, huddled shyly in a dark corner and exhaled with relief as if he had just jumped into the last lifeboat, whose eyes are filled with harassment and anxiety, whose movements are nervously alert, whose clothes have been assembled at random and are not exactly by the very best tailor, clothes in which in all likelihood he doesn’t belong, because the young man’s hands are not well kept, long, slender hands with pliant, nimble fingers – it is plain that a number of things do not quite add up.

The landlord, as he froths the beer in a mug and then brings the full weight of his massive body out from behind the bar, studies the solitary guest again, the ski-cap with dirty fingerprints on the right-hand side, the mud-splashed boots which he has quite clearly not taken off for days, his threadbare green rucksack: it is quite clear. The young man is a deserter.

When the landlord sets the beer down in front of him he says, as if in passing, ‘So, where are we off to, young man?’

The man thus addressed gives a start and blinks uneasily. ‘Off to?’ he asks back. ‘Why should I be going off somewhere? Do I look like a traveller?’

The landlord chuckles.

‘You shouldn’t take these things so literally, young man,’ he says. ‘It was just a question. You have to talk to your customers, don’t you?’

As he speaks he sits down opposite his guest and looks him in the eye with unconcealed curiosity.

‘Of course,’ the young man confirms, but it isn’t hard to tell from his face that he has no wish to be entertained, that the conversation might even be an annoyance to him. He drains the beer in one great swig and hastily pushes the glass towards the landlord. ‘Same again!’

‘Of course,’ the landlord says, but gives no indication of wanting to get to his feet, his little eyes between swollen lids will not let go of his guest, and constantly circle him.

The young man turns awkwardly away and begins to read the posters on the walls. ‘One Volk, one Reich, one Führer!’, ‘Boa-Lie, the deliciously refreshing drink’, ‘We will never capitulate!’, ‘So appetisingly fresh, Bergmann Privat’, ‘No entry to Jews!’ He turns away, repelled, takes the 12-Uhr-Blatt from the newspaper hook and begins to read.

Wehrmacht Senior Command: Focus on the Central Section

Severe street-fighting rage in the Danube city – Weimar falls.

The headlines spread, bold and black, like victory fanfares. He skips the report, apparently interested only in the front lines around Berlin.

Führer’s Headquarters, 13 April

From the front to the Bay of Pomerania no combat operations of any significance are reported. The enemy are continuing with their preparations to attack in Silesia and on the lower Oder. Naval battleships were sunk…

‘Here,’ says the landlord and taps the table a few times with his index finger. ‘There’s something I’d like to ask you.’

The young man flinches briefly, but he doesn’t look up from the newspaper.

Between Ems and Weser…

In Wittenberge on the Elbe reconnaissance fighters are in combat with our bridgehead troops on the western shore. Further to the south the Americans are advancing against Magdeburg.

‘Stop pulling faces!’ the landlord says, his voice a strange mixture of command and request. ‘How long have you been on the road?’

The young man casts another quick glance at the headlines.

‘A ruined continent sends its curses to Roosevelt.’

‘The war-makers judged by fate.’

‘Great consternation in London.’

‘Mass murders on his debit account.’

Then he lowers the paper and stares at the landlord with his eyes wide open.

‘How do you mean, sir?’

‘If you’ve done a bunk I want to know!’ the landlord says impatiently.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ the young man says, and sets the newspaper aside again as if it bothers him now, then he sits up stiffly, puts both hands on his knees and leans forward. His attitude suggests tension and a readiness to pounce.

‘Don’t try and fool me, son,’ the landlord says, and twists his fat, flabby mouth into a broad grin, ‘you’ve done a bunk, you’re on the run, you’ve hightailed it, you’ve skedaddled or – to put it another way – you have deserted.’

The young man leaps to his feet and hastily pulls a revolver from his coat pocket. ‘I’ll blow your brains out if you try to hand me over to the cops,’ he yells breathlessly.

The landlord leans back comfortably in the chair, rests his chin on his chest and looks up from beneath raised eyebrows. ‘Put that thing away,’ he says calmly. ‘You don’t need that here.’

‘I don’t trust you,’ the young man says agitatedly, and keeps his finger on the trigger. ‘I don’t trust anybody, these days everyone is…’

‘Not everyone, son, not everyone,’ the landlord cuts in. ‘Put that thing away and sit down again.’