Armageddon - Leon Uris

Dante Arosa and Shenandoah Blessing played upon the shocked condition of the people to build a system of informers. The safest way for one to clear one’s name was to implicate someone else. Inform. Tell on your neighbor. Informing had become a fine art during the Nazi days; no one had been safe from prying eyes. Informers had been glorified by the Nazis ... children were rewarded for telling on their parents and parents on their children and brother on sister and cousin on cousin.

Werner Hoffman, a deputy of Falkenstein, became the unofficial liaison between the informers and the Allied authorities. Hoffman had been a minor Socialist official in pre-Nazi days and somehow survived five years at Schwabenwald. He walked bent from his back which had been broken by a guard’s rifle butt. He had been made a freak whose constant pain had amused the SS, so they let him live. Hoffman was not a particularly efficient official, but he was a rare being ... a trusted anti-Nazi.

Hoffman made the rendezvous on Princess Allee. Hoffman made the deals with the informers for extra rations and extra consideration.

This disintegration of morality added to Sean’s disgust of the Germans. And it brought the usual snide and knowing observations of Maurice Duquesne. “Why are you so shocked? They are defeated and they wish to survive. You Americans have never had to live under the conditions of defeat. You have never had to account for the actions of your life. If a German army was occupying New York you would be amazed how many Americans tongues would waggle.”

There began a wild scramble to exonerate one’s guilt

“You must make the Americans understand I joined the party because my job was at stake.”

“My job was nonpolitical, strictly nonpolitical, but I was in a position to see what was going on.”

“Holstein turned over four Jewish children who were being hidden.”

“No matter what Herr Dunkel tells you, he was a Brown Shirt.”

“When you question Bargel, remind him of how it was when he was a block warden.”

“It is known that the child turned his own mother in.”

“Yes, stole the entire business and house of the Jewish family when they disappeared.”

The overloaded garbage can spilled and the overflow vomited and the stench mingled in Rombaden’s ashes.

Ulrich Falkenstein slept in a mansion confiscated from the brewery owner. It was a twenty-two-room affair on the south bank shared with a half-dozen former Schwabenwald inmates working with the Allied Government.

At five o’clock in the morning of the beginning of the second week of occupation, his phone rang. It was Werner Hoffman.

“What in God’s name do you want at this hour!” Falkenstein demanded.

Hoffman answered with a single name. “Klaus Stoll.”

He spoke the name of the commandant of Schwabenwald, who had disappeared at the end of the fighting.

“Stoll!” Falkenstein repeated in a chilled whisper.

“And his dear wife, Emma. We have them both.”

“Where? How?”

“The information came to us from someone who has a lot to answer for. Stoll has been hiding in the basement of a bombed-out rubble on Friedrichstrasse. He placed his trust in one of our most reliable informers.”

“The Allied authorities! Do they know?”

“As a matter of fact it was Lieutenant Blessing who captured Stoll an hour ago. He said that for the sake of certain identification it would be a good idea if a dozen or so former inmates from Schwabenwald interviewed Stoll right in the basement before he is taken into custody.”

“God in heaven! Major O’Sullivan will be furious!”

“Major O’Sullivan knows. He said that he will be touring the Landkreis all day. And he added something quite strange. He said, ‘What I don’t know won’t hurt me.’ What did he mean by that, Ulrich?”

Falkenstein threw his blankets off. The blood rushed through his heart so quickly and heavily he thought his chest would break. He fought into his clothing, called for his chauffeur, and soon crossed the pontoon bridge into Rombaden. He was met by Hoffman in the square in the first light of day.

They stopped before a rubble pile of what had once been Kaufmann’s Department Store. No one seemed about. Hoffman, grimacing from the pain of his warped body, and Falkenstein, puffing from age, stumbled through the wreckage and down into a foul-smelling basement.

A flashlight beam hit them. “In here!” someone called.

They made their way into a cleverly concealed cell all but blocked by twisted steel and burned-out timbers. They gasped for breath and adjusted their eyes to the lantern light. A dozen German inmates of Schwabenwald had been assembled.

On a bed of rags in the corner, Obersturmfuehrer Klaus Stoll and his wife, Emma, cringed.

One of his former prisoners kicked him in the stomach. The blow made more noise than damage. “Stand in the presence of Ulrich Falkenstein,” the man demanded.

Klaus Stoll slid his back up the wall, holding his arms across his face to ward off any blows.

Another of them grabbed Emma Stoll by her hair and jerked her to her feet.

Ulrich pushed through the ring and stood face to face with the Nazi. Stoll was a great brute of a man, as large in frame as Falkenstein had once been before the flesh had been beaten from his body. He looked from Klaus to Emma and back again. He tried to renew the nine years in Schwabenwald in his mind. There she stood as she was. A dull, stupid, low-class, foul-mouthed slut. Emma, who wore her sweaters and skirts tight to taunt the inmates. Emma, who called for naked men and women to perform for her. Emma, who collapsed in sweaty exhaustion from lashing inmates.

And Klaus Stoll, brewery-wagon driver saved from anonymity by his depraved Nazis. Klaus the braggart, who taunted Ulrich by descriptions of the gassings and how he liked to watch the castrations at the medical experiment center; how he made a half-dozen prisoners kneel head to head and bet he could put a single pistol bullet through their heads.

And Klaus Stall’s killer dog, Messer. The dog strained on the leash waiting for the command, “Kill! ... Go for the throat, Messer!”

Klaus Stoll’s dark face was stubbled, dirty, and sweat-drenched. His black Nazi uniform was torn and caked with dried blood. The swastika was gone. “I am glad you are here, Herr Falkenstein,” he said in his semiliterate speech. “You are understanding. I have explained to them that I only followed orders. The Nazis would have killed me if I hadn’t obeyed. They held my family as hostage to see that I carried out orders.”

“Step back, Ulrich, and let us deal with them.”

“Herr Falkenstein! You are a civilized man! You cannot put me at their mercy!”

“Perhaps you are right, Stoll. Perhaps we should call in the Poles.”

“God no!” Emma screamed.

Stoll turned to the crippled Hoffman. “Didn’t I spare you even against orders?”

“Because it was amusing to see me scream in pain with my back.” Hoffman snatched up a brick. “Let us see how you will bear the pain of a broken back!”

The Nazi fell to his knees and clasped his hands. “God! God be my merciful judge! I hated every minute of it! They made me do it!”

The ring closed in.

“Wait!” ordered Ulrich Falkenstein with such power and authority they halted. “Let us not be so quick. In places like Schwabenwald human beings were turned into animals so that whores and bums like Klaus and Emma Stoll would become supermen in their own eyes by comparison. Let us see if the superman is made of our stuff. Stand up Klaus Stoll,” Falkenstein said in an almost paternal tone. “We shall not lay a hand on you.”

Ulrich quieted the others’ protests and continued. “Now, Klaus Stoll. Face your wife. Spit in her face as you made us spit on our comrades. Spit I say!”