SS General (20 page)

"Isn't everyone hungry at Stalingrad?" the president castigated him. "Do you think other people besides yourself haven't gone without food for three days? Or even longer? Hunger is no excuse for stealing."

The court retired to discuss its verdict and decided unanimously that Wenck was guilty under the order of General Paulus dated December 9, 1942, and that he should be sentenced to death in accordance with the provisions of that order. Wenck promptly fainted and had to be hauled to his feet by two guards. It was noticeable that the two guards were sufficiently well fed to cope with him quite easily. They slapped his face until he had come to his senses and then dragged him screaming and sobbing from the court. For the theft of a loaf of dry bread, eighteen-year-old Paul Wenck, thrown into the cauldron of Stalingrad to fight for his country, was sentenced to be shot.

The execution was carried out twenty-four hours later. Private Blatt was a somewhat self-righteous member of the firing squad. The ice was too hard for a grave to be dug, so they covered the body with snow and left it in its frozen tomb.

On Christmas Day it was decided that firing squads were a waste of ammunition; from then on, offenders would be hanged instead of shot.

Generals We Have Known

We were sitting in a cellar playing cards, with a pack that belonged to the Old Man. It was black and dog-eared, a veteran of the war, and the pips were sometimes hidden beneath layers of grease, but at least it was honest. You played with Porta's cards at your peril, but everyone knew that the Old Man was straight.

For once, both Porta and the Legionnaire were losing heavily, while Tiny was winning. For some time the Russian artillery had been bombarding us. The light had gone out and we were using candle stubs, and a great split had appeared across the ceiling.

"This is useless!" declared Gregor, throwing in his hand as a new tremor raced across the floor. "I can't concentrate with this racket going on!"

"Persistent bastards, aren't they?" I said, holding down the table.

We sat back in our chairs and watched another split break out across the ceiling.

"Any minute now," I said.

"We could always run up a white flag," suggested Porta. "Fly a pair of Tiny's drawers from a first-floor window . . ."

"And get shot for our pains," said the Old Man. "Russians be damned, we'd be in front of one of our own firing squads so fast we'd never know what hit us."

"Like yesterday," said Heide. "Some yellow-bellied bastard of a general trying to run out with the whole of his company hot on his heels." He laughed vindictively. "Did they get what was coming to them! One of the best executions I've seen since we came to this fucking country. Flags flying, drums beating, they gave 'em the works; even had a padre reading out of the Bible and a lieutenant with a saber to tell 'em when to shoot."

"What they won't do for a bit of top brass," I said.

"Top brass!" Gregor snorted. "They deserve all they get--and more. Bastards, the whole lot of 'em."

The Old Man raised a remonstrative eyebrow. "Generalizations," he murmured.

"Yeah, generalizations!" agreed Gregor, with a venom almost equaling Heide's. "That's just about it."

"And just what, may I ask, do you know about generals?" mildly inquired the Old Man.

"A hell of a lot, believe me! I used to be Field Marshal von Kluge's driver at one time. You know what those bastard generals used to do? Nothing but eat and drink and smoke and copulate for twenty-three hours every day, and plot and plan for the last one."

"Plot and plan?" Tiny was at once interested. "What sort of plot and plan?"

"How to get some jerk in power and push some other jerk out of power. How to do Hitler in and get away with it. How to make sure they did all right themselves--all that sort of thing."

"And you never denounced them?" accused Heide, sitting bolt upright in his chair.

"You're damn right I didn't! Let 'em get on with it, that's what I say. You think I was going to risk my neck running off to Adolf with a pack of tales?"

"Quite right," said Porta, nodding his approval. "Not worth sticking your nose in--unless you stand to gain something by it, of course. Now, me," he puffed out his pigeon chest, "I've had quite a lot of revenue in the past from overhearing other people's plots. High treason, and all that --they pay very well for keeping your mouth shut."

"You deserve to be shot, the pair of you!" said Heide, white-lipped.

"Oh, shove it!" said Porta. "I hadn't been in this lousy army two hours before I realized the whole thing was rotten from the ass up. You don't catch me risking my neck to save Adolf Hitler's life!"

"What I'm waiting to hear," said the Old Man, hoping to avert a scene, "is what happened to von Kluge."

"Well--" Gregor waited until the sound of a nearby explosion had died away and the dust had settled and we could check that the roof was still over our heads. "Well, he and his pals went on with all their plotting and planning-- they used to sort of shuffle people about like they was packs of cards. But it was old Adolf they'd really got it in for. All they ever talked about was how to do him in. One day they thought they'd just run up and shoot him, another day they thought they'd shove a grenade under his ass. One guy-- some lieutenant colonel he was, called von Boselager--he had this crazy notion he could get him with a saber. Wanted to slice his head off and throw it to the people to kick about the streets. Anyway, what happened in the end was they all got in so deep they couldn't get themselves out again."

"Compromised," said Porta wisely.

"Yeah, I guess so--well and truly in the shit, up to their rotten useless necks. Anyway, this von Kluge, that was a field marshal, he starts trying to wriggle out of it. Then they all start trying to wriggle out of it. Don't trust each other no more, see?" Gregor shook his head. "Next thing I know, they're having dirty great bust-ups with each other all over the place and denouncing each other and Christ knows who all. Until one day old von Kluge's called to some secret meeting, and he starts yelling for me to get the car out and off we go in one hell of a scramble with him panting down the back of my neck and banging on the glass with his stick and screaming like a lunatic." Gregor paused and looked at us. "It's all very well you guys sitting there grinning, but you just try having a nut of a general perched on your shoulder in a fast car--it ain't funny."

"You should have denounced him," said Heide primly.

Gregor ignored him. "It was in Kiev, this meeting. You ever driven along that main road they got there?" He sucked in his breath and shook his head. "One of Uncle Joe's fiascos, that road is. More like a switchback than a road. There's one bit--just before you get to some village called Dzhu-bendev, something like that--there's this one bit what goes up like this--" he shot his arm vertically into the air, "around like this--" he wriggled it, rapid and snakelike, "with bloody great ditches on either side of it. They call it Suicide Corner. Every Sunday all the locals turn out and wait for the fun to start. It's a sort of traditional pastime with 'em."

"And I suppose," said the Old Man, "you and your general ended up giving them a free show?"

"You've hit the nail on the head," said Gregor. "Old von Kluge, he was acting like something out of a Yankee gangster film. Last thing I remember, we was just screaming up to Suicide Corner when he starts banging his stick on the glass and yelling at me to step on the gas. Next thing I know, I'm laid out flat in the hospital in a sort of plaster coffin. Two months they kept me there. Lying on my back, watching all these sexy dames walking up and down the ward and me not able to do a damn thing about it!"

"How about von Kluge?" I asked. "Was he killed?"

"Was he hell!" said Gregor in disgust. "Broke his back or something. Far as I know, he's still tucked up in plaster in a hospital bed."

"Nice cushy way to spend the war," observed Porta.

"He should have been shot!" said Heide.

It was only much later that I learned that von Kluge had in fact taken poison after being implicated, justly or not, in a plot against Hitler. How much of Gregor's yarn was a fabrication I never did discover.

There was a pause. Somewhere outside we heard a series of explosions; a cloud of dust drifted slowly down and settled on our heads and shoulders.

Tiny heaved a great sigh. "I worked with a general once," he informed us.

We looked at him in automatic disbelief.

"Yeah?" said Porta. "What were you? His right-hand man?"

"You looking for a bunch of fives in the face?" demanded Tiny.

"Well, go on then, tell us!" jeered Porta. "What was this general you worked with?"

"Knochenhauer," said Tiny. "In the cavalry, he was. He's dead now--blew his brains out."

There was a burst of derisive laughter.

"Was that the natural result of having you work with him?" the Old Man wanted to know.

Tiny glowered, but bis face brightened as he said, "I was his orderly. We got on very well together. He saved my life as a matter of fact. Bet none of you has ever had his life saved by a full-blown general! Old Knochenhauer, he wasn't such a bad sort, really." Tiny was clearly beginning to enjoy himself.

"What happened was," he leaned back expansively, "I fell out of this tank and got my boot caught in the goddam thing. Nearly had my whole leg wrenched off. Next morning I couldn't hardly walk, so I went off to see the MO. He was a real bastard, like most of 'em are--you had to have your guts trailing round your feet before he'd believe there was anything wrong with you. Couldn't stand illness. Odd, come to think of it--for a doctor. One chap I knew, he went to see him with appendicitis. This quack said he was pulling a fast one. Stuck thermometers all over him, in his mouth, down his ears, under his arms, up his ass--even then he didn't believe him. Jesus, everyone else did! Everyone else knew the poor guy was sick. I went to see him that same night, he was so hot you could've fried an egg on his backside, but all they did was threaten him with a court-martial if he didn't recover within twenty-four hours. Recover! He was dead by morning," said Tiny, gloating. "Something went pop inside of him and poisoned his innards. Just goes to show, they don't always know what they're talking about."

"Natural cynics," said the Old Man with a grin. "Too many people like you knocking around. Makes 'em suspicious!"

"Fell out of a tank!" I said, savoring it. "That's a good one!"

"I did too," said Tiny aggressively. "My foot was black and blue, I passed out three times on my way to the quack, and I passed out again when I took my boot off to show him." "I bet he did as well," said Porta. Tiny let this pass. "Bastard said I was just faking it. Seemed to think I'd bashed it with a hammer to make it look bad. He couldn't prove it, mind you, but he said there wasn't nothing wrong with me. Next thing I knew I was in the cookhouse peeling spuds. Not that I objected to that," said Tiny reasonably. "It seemed like as good a way of spending the war as any other. Only thing was, my stinking foot started to get better. Come time for the court-martial, there was hardly nothing wrong with it no more. So then they had the nerve to accuse me of--" he frowned, "loitering," he said dubiously.

"Malingering," said the Legionnaire. "Yeah, that's it," said Tiny. "That's what it was. Malingering. That carries the death sentence, did you know that? They packed me off to Torgau and shoved me in the blue wing. It was only a matter of time. I tell you, I thought my number was up--I was a condemned man," said Tiny with melodramatic relish. "Only I hadn't figured on my friend the general." He nodded and winked at us. "Saved my life, old Knochenhauer did. Came to Torgau special, and had a few words with me. We got on all right, Knochenhauer and me. 'So you're the soldier what claims he had a bad foot, are you?' he says to me. 'Are you prepared to admit you was lying or do you still stick to your original story?" So I says I stuck to my original story, and you know what he says to me?" Tiny's face beamed like a beacon in the dimly lit cellar. "He says, 'Soldier,' he says, 'you're the toughest nut I've ever had to crack. I'm going to send you off for an X-ray. Perhaps that'll knock some of the wind out of your sails. And when they confirm there ain't nothing wrong with you,' he says, 'then we're going to shoot you.' He couldn't say fairer than that, now, could he?"

"Nice to have a general for a friend," murmured the Legionnaire.

"And what did the X-ray show?" asked Porta. "Ingrowing toenails?"

"Busted bone," Tiny told him triumphantly. "Fractured my foot, I had. That knocked 'em sideways! The MO what had made the mistake, he was sent straight off to the front, and General Knochenhauer, he came and apologized to me. All over me, he was. Eating out of my hand . . ."

At this high point in Tiny's saga, we heard the shrill blast of a whistle, the sound of running footsteps, all the signs of a general alert. The door was flung open and a white-faced corporal burst in.

"The Russians have broken through!" he yelled.

There was a moment's pause. The corporal clattered back up the stairs, the Old Man began slowly to gather up his pack of cards. The rest of us stood up and reached for our equipment.

"About time they paid us a visit," said the Legionnaire. "I wondered when they'd come."

The love of liberty is not a highly developed characteristic of the German people.

Madame de Stael, 1810

On November 8, 1942, the voice of Adolf Hitler rang out across Europe from the Burgerbraukeller in Munich.

"If Stain was waiting for me to attack in the center, then he must now be a very disappointed man! I have never been interested in the center! I have pinned all my hopes on the Volga, and now I have the Volga in the palm of my hand! The final battle was fought, by some twist of fate, in a place that bears the name of Stalin himself . . ."

Frenzied bursts of
"Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!"
drowned the next two or three sentences.

"All along," screamed Hitler, "I have dreamed of conquering that town on the Volga! And now I have it! Now it belongs to us! We have only to overcome one or two minor pockets of resistance and the whole of Russia will be ours!"