Armageddon (59 page)

Stories were printed about their “sordid” past and their current secret work on behalf of the rebirth of Nazism. Ugly cartoons depicting them as savages and animals found a daily place on the editorial pages.

SS WAR CRIMINALS FIND SAFETY AND REWARDS IN THE WESTERN ZONE!

NAZI BEASTS FILL WESTERN GOVERNMENTS!

MURDERERS RUN GERMAN POLICE IN AMERICAN ZONE!

IMPERIALISTS USE NAZI OFFICERS TO REBUILD SS FOR A WAR OF REVENGE!

After each session of the Kommandatura, Nikolai Trepovitch printed his version of the proceedings in a column which carried such headlines:

WEST BLOCKS HOT MEALS FOR GERMAN WORKERS!

HAZZARD DELAYS HOUSING PROGRAM!

WEST ADMITS IT IS AGAINST UNIFICATION!

In the Soviet Sector of Berlin, thousands upon thousands of signs covered the walls. Bombed-out buildings wore red banners reading:

THIS BUILDING WAS DESTROYED BY AMERICAN BOMBS. IT MUST NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN.

The Soviet Union advanced the theory that their Zone of Germany had selected communism and their Germans were therefore redeemed and had purged themselves of guilt in the Nazi era. On the other hand, the West which now fostered Nazism stood guilty for all of Hitler’s doings.

The newspapers carried front-page stories and photographs of lynchings in the South, child labor in factories, Chicago gangster murders, race riots, skid row bums, labor strife, Hollywood orgies, poverty-stricken Oklahoma farmers, American backing of South American dictatorships, and oriental war lords. The Western decadence of Henry Miller and boogie-woogie, prostitution in New York, and the striptease joints of New Orleans all came in for special beratings.

This attack was paralleled by stories depicting happy Soviet workers on their collective farms building the socialist future. Social realism in art and literature was displayed alongside the corruptions of Picasso and Hemingway.

The stage was elaborately set in Berlin for a move on the West before the Foreign Ministers’ Conference.

Chapter Twenty-nine

A
NEW PLAYGROUND HAD
been bulldozed from a rubble-strewn square in Zehlendorf. A baseball team of German boys, trained by GI’s under the youth program, played a team of Americans from the garrison families. Neal Hazzard umpired.

The ball ground was surrounded by curious Germans. In the second inning Hazzard called a particularly bad and obvious decision against the Americans to keep the score within bounds.

The American boys ganged around him screaming in protest. Both German team and spectators were astonished at this defiance of authority ... against Colonel Hazzard, no less. Fortunately, Colonel Hazzard won the argument and the game resumed.

Between innings Lieutenant Colonel O’Sullivan drove up in a staff car. “The Russians have seized the Railroad Administration Building.”

Hazzard looked baffled. It was deep inside the American Sector. “Hansen know about this?”

“He’s on the way to Headquarters now.”

Hazzard appointed an umpire to replace him, announced his regrets, and went off with Sean, speeding directly to Hansen’s office.

When they entered, General Hansen had just concluded unsuccessful attempts to reach Marshal Popov and General Trepovitch. The Russians were “not available.” Colonel Mark Parrott, commander of the American garrison, was present. He told them a company of Russian infantry crossed into the American Sector a half hour earlier, evicted all the German workers from the Railroad Administration Building, ran up a Red flag and stood guard.

The three officers looked to the general; there was no time to procrastinate. Either they had to respond immediately or accept it as an accomplished feat.

“Move in your troops, Mark, cut the area off. Don’t shoot first, but if they try to send in relief, open fire.”

Neal Hazzard beamed.

The staff car bearing him and Sean O’Sullivan barreled through the streets, sirens screaming. It slowed at Friedenau Platz, where a crowd had gathered. Sean ordered everyone off the streets, then walked toward the building with Hazzard. They were blocked by a submachine-gun-toting Red Army soldier at the door.

“I want to see the officer in charge,” Hazzard said.

The soldier shrugged and pointed the gun at them. They turned and recrossed the street. In a matter of moments Mark Parrott pulled up with several truckloads of soldiers and quickly dispersed them so that the building was cut off.

Inside, Colonel Igor Karlovy watched the American movement on the street. He picked up a telephone to call Russian Headquarters. The line seemed dead. In another instant an aide confirmed that the Americans had cut the telephone wires.

“Colonel Hazzard is approaching the building again. This time he has a dozen soldiers around him.”

“I will see him, myself,” Igor said. He went downstairs and stood at the entrance. Neal Hazzard told his escort to stand fast and walked with Sean to the Russian.

“I know him. Let me talk to him, Neal.”

“Go ahead.”

“Afternoon, Colonel Karlovy,” Sean said. “What are you people up to?”

“This is the property of the Soviet Union!”

“It’s two miles inside the American Sector. How do you figure?”

“The location is only a technicality.”

“Go on.”

“The Kommandatura agreement states that all railroad operations in Brandenburg Province are to be run by the Soviet Union.”

“That is correct.”

“This building is the administration headquarters of the railroad system and therefore legally within Soviet jurisdiction.”

“In a pig’s ass,” Neal Hazzard cut in. “Here’s your situation. No one is going to enter this area. You are, however, permitted to leave and return to the Russian Sector. If you want to stay here, you can starve to death. That’s your business. If there is any attempt to bring troops in, you’re going to get blasted. My people have orders to open fire at the sight of Russian troops.” Hazzard left.

Igor smiled at Sean. “So, we meet again. I see you have come up in the world. Well ... one day you seize American Headquarters, one day we seize the railroad building. It balances out.”

“There’s a difference,” Sean said.

“What is that, my friend?”

“We’re not bluffing.”

The reopening of the State Opera was a great event in Berlin. The partly reconstructed Opera House was located on the Unter Den Linden in the Russian Sector. The Soviet high command hosted the evening.

General and Agnes Hansen sat as guests of Marshal Popov in a box shared with British General Fitz-Roy and French General de Lys and their wives. In the opposite box Neal and Claire Hazzard and the other commandants were guests of General and Mrs. Trepovitch.

Representatives of the State Department and of the foreign ministries were there. The diplomatic corps of seventeen Allies were there. Leading German Communists were there.... It was a glittering affair.

The opera chosen for the event was Verdi’s
Nabucco,
appropriate for this night because it had been banned during the Hitler years because of its Jewish theme.

A splendid party followed the opera, during which not a single word was exchanged regarding what was taking place at the Railroad Administration Building. During the night, Igor Karlovy and his company looked into floodlights from American batteries and began to wonder if there had not been a gross miscalculation.

At seven o’clock the next morning, Neal Hazzard’s orderly woke him to inform him that General Trepovitch was on the phone.

Hazzard smiled when he saw the time. It was an ungodly hour for the Russians. He knew they had been sitting up all night pondering.

“Morning, General Trepovitch. Beautiful event last night.”

“Yes ... indeed ... beautiful. Candidly, Colonel Hazzard, I wish to discuss the situation at the Railroad Administration Building.”

“Shoot.”

“If you will agree to withdraw your forces I will agree to an emergency session of the Kommandatura today to discuss the matter.”

“If you’re looking for bargains, try Sears, Roebuck.”

“What?”

“Nyet.”

Trepovitch’s voice lowered to that familiar pitch that was about to unleash a threat. “If you do not remove your forces, we will take appropriate measures.”

“We’ll be there.”

Trepovitch set the phone down. Marshal Popov, V. V. Azov, and Captain Brusilov from Moscow were in the room. They waited until the translations were made and read them. Captain Brusilov had been sent to create an incident before the Foreign Ministers’ Conference to establish
de facto
Russian control of the city. He crumpled the translation in his fist. Azov felt a slight comfort for the moment. What would the great courier do now? Call Moscow for instructions?

“Withdraw our forces from the building,” he said.

Chapter Thirty

“L
IEUTENANT
C
OLONEL
O’S
UILIVAN SPEAKING.
”

“This is the sergeant at the main gate, sir. There’s a Fraulein Ernestine Falkenstein to see you.”

“She has an appointment. Have her checked through and brought up to my office.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ernestine stepped into the security shack, signed in, and deposited her identification papers and ration book at the desk. A spit and polish corporal from the Constabulary led her briskly into the compound.

Ernestine shrank back. She had been here before when it was the Luft Gau Headquarters for Central Germany. Her law office had sent her to witness a court-martial as a “friend of the family.” In those days a swastika flew from the mast and the entrance had a large, stone German eagle. There were black uniforms and jackboots.

The corporal led her down the long, somber corridor and she shuddered a little. At last they stopped before Lieutenant Colonel O’Sullivan’s office. The corporal knocked, opened the door, saluted, and gawked at the woman as she went in.

“I’ll call you if I need your help, Corporal.”

The soldier was embarrassed and beat a hasty retreat.

“Won’t you have a seat?”

“Thank you. And thank you for seeing me.”

“What can I do for you?”

“As you might have suspected, it regards my Uncle Ulrich. This information on Berthold Hollweg has come to him as a great shock.”

“It would be strange if it didn’t upset him.”

“They have been comrades for decades. The thought of having to bring him up on charges and thrown out of the Democratic Party is more than he can bear.”

“Your uncle has a great capacity for absorbing punishment. He understands his duty as clear-cut.”

Ernestine fumbled with her handbag. “Can’t someone else bring the charges? They are the same no matter who makes them.”

“We’ve been through all that, fraulein.”

“There is something else. I know you’re going to want him to become Oberburgermeister of Berlin.”

“That’s right. He should have been elected instead of Hollweg in the first place. We were trying to accommodate the Russians. We’re not so anxious to do that, any more.”

“Perhaps I am not making myself clear, Colonel. He is not a young man nor is he in good health. I fear that this burden might be too much for him.”

The girl was clever and well trained and more, she had perception.

“We are being drawn into a situation where we must become more and more involved with your politicians. It is a condition your uncle has argued for from the beginning. If we are to start giving up on backing then we cannot settle for less than the best man. No one has the stature of Ulrich Falkenstein.”

“But, Colonel,” Ernestine persisted, “he may not have it left in him to give. He has done enough and deserves a few years of peace.”

“Some men are never born for peace.”

“My uncle is very, very tired. I hear him thrash during the night and cry out reliving the horror of Schwabenwald. I see the exhaustion and the deterioration that others don’t want to see. This will kill him.” At the moment, Sean felt a touch of compassion for the girl.

“Let him continue as the spiritual head of the party but find a younger and more vigorous man and begin to groom him,” she pleaded.

Sean shook his head. “History chooses people. It is never the other way around, fraulein. He is the man who can rally Berlin. Each day here the battle becomes broader and clearer. Your uncle is a general who must assume his command. Like all soldiers, we are expendable if God wills it.”

“I’ll fight you,” she said.

Sean’s eyes narrowed. He was damned angry. He leaned forward almost hissing his words at her. “Did you fight to keep your brother out of uniform? Did you fight to keep your Nazi boy friend from butchering innocent, defenseless people? Not one of you fine German women seemed to fight too much to keep your men from marching off to die for the fatherland. Now you listen to me. There are things in this world more worthy of dying for than Deutschland Uber Alles.”

Ernestine came to her feet, watery-eyed. “I am sorry that your beautiful democracy has no mercy for its weary fighters.”

“Not if we are going to win.”

“I have seen men like you before, Colonel O’Sullivan. I have seen them in this very building, in these very offices. Blind obedience to duty. They were in Nazi uniform.”

Chapter Thirty-one

S
EAN WRESTLED ON THE
floor with Shenandoah Blessing’s two roly-poly boys, held them fast, tickled them, then allowed himself to be pinned and mauled. Lil Blessing finally pulled the boys off Uncle Sean and hustled them to bed.

After dinner, Shenandoah buckled on his duty belt, kissed Lil, told Sean he’d see him later and went off.

Sean settled with a cognac while Lil checked the boys and warned them of dire consequences if they weren’t asleep immediately. The German maid was dismissed. Lil picked up her knitting.

“That was a hell of a dinner,” Sean said. “I haven’t had hush puppies since I was a kid. I had an aunt and uncle in North Carolina. My brothers and I visited them one whole summer. Hush puppies, grits, hawgs’ knuckles. No wonder your old man is so fat.”