Armageddon (29 page)

They were smiling when Sean left the next morning, without heroics or tears. For them, forty-eight hours was food for an eternity of reveries. An embrace, a wave ... and he was gone.

The C-47 bounced in and out of the layers of cumulus clouds. The plane flew southeasterly over the Rhine River, past a field of shells that had once been Düsseldorf.

The copilot was crapped out on a litter in the cabin. Sean sat in his place. He put on the earphones, enjoying hearing the cryptic jargon of the flyers. The pilot flipped on the intercom switch.

“Hey, Major. Look at that friggin’ wreck down there. Like, Jesus H ... huh?”

The plane inched over Cologne. Only the twin spires of the mighty cathedral stood in the midst of a lunar landscape along the river bank.

“Pretty sharp shooting how they missed the cathedral.”

“Christ takes care of his own.”

“Major, those krauts aren’t going to dig out of this pile of crap for a hundred years.”

“Don’t make book on it.”

The pilot switched back to the en-route frequency and called Wiesbaden tower.

“This is Army four-seven-six-three calling Y-80, over.”

“Y-80 to Army four-seven-six-three, I read you five square, over.”

“This is Army four-seven-six-three. What is the present weather?”

“Visual all the way in. Winds five knots from the northwest.”

As they passed over Coblenz the pilot rechecked his ETA.

“We’ll be landing in twenty minutes,” he said over the intercom. “Where you heading, Major?”

“Berlin,” Sean O’Sullivan answered.

Part 2

The Last Days of April

Chapter One

April 12,1945, Berlin

T
HE AIR-RAID CELLAR
beneath the Falkenstein house shifted with a sudden violent jolt. A wide split opened in one of the walls spewing a shower of granulated plaster. The precious Rosenthal china, which Frau Herta Falkenstein had meticulously wrapped and stored for safety, careened out of an overturned barrel and splintered into a million bits.

Hildegaard Falkenstein whimpered in her mother’s arms.

Another blast! Another! Another! Each closer than the last. The cellar plunged into darkness. A match flame groped for the candle on the wooden table in the center of the room.

“Is everyone all right?” Bruno Falkenstein asked.

Herta and the two girls answered haltingly.

Another hit sent all four of them to the damp floor flat on their bellies. “I can’t stand it any more!” Hildegaard shrieked. She beat her fists on the floor and writhed hysterically. “I can’t stand it!
Kill us! Kill us!”

“Keep her quiet!” Falkenstein commanded of his befuddled wife, but the girl continued her tantrum. Hildegaard was becoming more unraveled every day. By the second or third hour of the raids she was usually in a state. Bruno pulled his daughter to her feet, out of his wife’s grasp, and slapped her hard across the cheek.

“Quiet! I demand it!”

She stifled her sobs to whimpers. “Yes ... Father.”

On the opposite side of the room Ernestine clawed through the silt which had fallen from the ceiling over her cot and nightstand. She cut her fingers digging for the little music box, clawing in desperation until she found it. A part of it showed in the debris; she worked it clear and took it up. Five of the ten figures of Prussian Hussars had been knocked off, the box was chipped and gouged. She blew off the dust and wound it ever so carefully and pulled the release plunger. The five remaining horsemen began to circle around and around on the top and the music tinkled and she hummed.

Once there was a faithful Hussar,

Who loved his love for a year or two,

A year or two ... or three or four ...

He swore he’d love her ever more ...

And the crash of the bombs seemed farther away, particularly to Ernestine. They all breathed deeply during the respite. Frau Falkenstein petted Hildegaard, who had slowed to a jerky sobbing.

But the calm was short-lived. Another wave of bombers passed in on the tails of the first and another load of hell from the skies whistled down upon them and the flak crackled back and the room danced again.

Now Bruno Falkenstein’s nerves were also shredded. “Pigs! Dirty American pigs! Ami beasts!”

No one seemed to hear his protest.

Ernestine had drifted into tranquility. Years and miles passed by as she watched the little music box, transfixed. “The Faithful Hussar” ... how many thousands of years ago was it? Only six faithful years? It was 1938 then and there was peace. Peace ... what a strange word. Could it have only been six years ago? I was only seventeen then. Oh Lord! The bombs have been falling on Berlin for a hundred years. Dietrich, my love! The bombs have been falling on us night and day for a hundred years. Oh Dietrich ... my photo album was burned in a raid so long ago I have forgotten what you look like. Can you forgive me?

Springtime, Berlin 1939

Ernestine held the tiller steady while Dietrich Rascher took down the sail and dropped anchor. The dark-green mass of the Grunewald and the shoreline was far away. Ernestine could not conceal her joy that the two of them were able to slip away together from the rest of the Group.

How handsome Dietrich is, she thought. How deftly he moves about the boat. How beautiful his face is. Kind and thoughtful, with puppy-dog eyes.

She looked back to the shore with a twinge of guilt. The Group would be singing Nazi Youth songs. Today there was a lecturer from the party. The devil with it. It was much nicer in the middle of the lake with Dietrich Rascher.

He slipped alongside her. Dietrich could hardly control his pride. Today he had been made senior leader for the entire Dahlem District of Hitler Youth. At the age of nineteen this was quite an honor.

“Let’s don’t go back,” Ernestine said wistfully, “ever, ever, ever. Let us set sail and blow right off the Wannsee up the canal to the North Sea, and then over the oceans to the South Seas.”

“A romantic notion that conflicts with tonight’s lecture.”

“Don’t you ever forget Hitler Youth, even for a moment?”

He shook his head. “Sometimes, Ernestine, I swear I have a feeling you don’t even want to belong to the Group.”

“Oh, but I do, very much. That way I can get to see you more often.”

“Don’t tease about such serious matters. You seemed eager enough to join in the first place.”

“Well, of course, I had to. And then Father ordered Hilde, my brother Gerd, and me to be enthusiastic.”

“Ach.”

“I’m sorry, Dietrich. I know how much this means to you and I shouldn’t tease, but I suppose I’m jealous.”

He sucked in a deep breath, decided to be indulgent, then turned to her and took her hands. “I asked you to sail out here with me today because I have a secret. I am sharing it with no one in the world but you. Ernestine,” he paused proudly, “I have made application for officer’s training in the SS. I think I will be accepted.”

A strange silence brought only the sound of lapping water. The confusion in her angered him. “I was hoping you would be proud,” he snapped.

“I love you, Dietrich.”

“But you don’t see what an honor it is.”

She only shook her head. One was not allowed to say what one truly thought in these matters. The reaction upset him. He gripped her shoulders excitedly. “The Fuehrer has done so much for us, Ernestine. Until he came we Germans had been beaten into the dirt. He said ... lift your heads ... be proud to be Germans. He has given us bread and jobs and land and our pride.”

Ernestine squirmed uncomfortably at his tightening grip, his sudden burst of fanaticism. “We must give back to the Fuehrer what he has given us by obedience. We Germans are the only people in the world capable of giving the devotion demanded of the Aryan race.”

The words had been pounded into her brain since memory. Dietrich recited them well, as any Hitler Youth Leader must. He watched her shrink away and dropped his hands from her. “What do women know of politics,” he snapped. “You should be even more grateful for what Hitler has done for German womanhood.”

And then, nothing.

“Well, for God’s sake, say something!” he demanded.

“You were so kind and gentle when we first met. I don’t want you to lose that.”

He was moved by the hurt in her and he touched her hand softly, lifted it to his lips and kissed it, and she managed a weak smile. “Ernestine ... I love you. And I trust you alone in this world. Here, in the middle of the Wannsee I can say some things that I hate myself for thinking about. There are some things about being a Nazi I have not made peace with. I do not like having to spy on my parents because of a few things in their past. They are old and harmless. Sometimes ... I even feel sorry about a Jewish friend I had.” The sound of his own confession annoyed him; he added quickly, “But we must accept the fact that there are a few unpleasant duties we must perform and we must obey without question. It is small enough a price for what Hitler is giving Germany.”

“I was advised by my councilor to offer my body to you to produce an Aryan child. Do you think that it’s right that we have a child now?”

“I have told you that even Hitler cannot order me to violate you.”

Ernestine softened and cuddled in his waiting arms and thought ... he will never really be an SS officer, in his heart, so long as I continue to own it.

An unwelcome breeze came up. Dietrich raised the sail, pulled up the anchor, and swung the boat away from Potsdam toward the Grunewald encampment.

“Sometimes, Ernestine, I get a strange feeling that you really don’t believe in the Nazis.”

“Of course I do, Dietrich. There is so much happiness in the people these days. I have seen the joy it has brought into my own home with Gerd and my mother and father. I see how much better life is ... only ...”

“Only what?”

“I do have an uncle in the Schwabenwald Concentration Camp.”

“No one blames your family. Ulrich Falkenstein was a traitor to the German people.”

“No, Dietrich,” she answered softly, “he was a good man and he loved Germany very much. I am not permitted to speak his name, but I cannot be made to forget him, either, and I cannot believe he is a traitor.”

“Men like Ulrich Falkenstein would have kept Germany a paupers’ state. They were weak in their illusions of democracy. Germany must be strong.”

“What bothers me, Dietrich, is that I have questions about Uncle Ulrich and about the Jews. I have questions about God and many other things, and I wish I knew where I could go to find another answer.”

“To be a German today is to understand Germany’s destiny.”
You must believe without question
...
believe without question
...
believe without question...
.

Now only a muted breathing of numbed people could be heard in the Falkenstein cellar. For two hours the American Eighth Air Force from England dumped nearly a thousand tons of bombs on Berlin, and as the last of their flights faded from hearing, the first of the motors of the American Fifteenth Air Force from Italy began to drone above them.

Hildegaard had collapsed. Frau Falkenstein was glassy-eyed. Only Bruno Falkenstein issued small weak curses against the Americans, for Ernestine was completely immersed in memory. Remembering always helped during the long days and nights in the cellar.

A year had passed since Dietrich Rascher was accepted into SS Officers’ Training at Schwabenwald Concentration Camp. He had returned to Berlin. War was with them. As a new SS Untersturmfuehrer it was a certainty he would be leaving for Poland or the occupied countries soon.

Dietrich stared sullenly from the hotel window through streaking rain down to the Kurfurstendamm. Behind him, he could hear “The Faithful Hussar” tinkle from the music box. He had brought it home to Ernestine as a gift. It was hand-carved in the Black Forest with dainty little figures of olden Prussian horsemen of Frederick the Great, and the music works were imported from Switzerland.

It should have been a moment for great happiness, but Dietrich was miserable. People below scurried along, hugging the buildings to keep dry—except for a pair of jack-booted Nazis who swaggered in the middle of the sidewalk in defiance of the rain.

Dietrich wanted to explain ... words stuck in his throat. He wanted to tell Ernestine what the year had been like in the SS school; he wanted her to know all about the brutal training, the punishments, and the “practical work” with the prisoners inside the concentration camp. He had learned to become a bully and to terrorize. And now he had come home and had taken Ernestine with a same lack of conscience.

He wanted to tell her about the exercises in degrading the human spirit and the ease with which he beat up defenseless men; and that after his first revulsion, there was a pleasure in the power one had, in seeing men cower before you.

Dietrich turned from the window. Ernestine lay on the bed, half dressed. She looked like an innocent child, winding up the music box. As he came to her, her eyes showed him how filled with love she was.

Ernestine was reassuring herself that Dietrich had not really changed; he was compassionate, and all during that first trembling night alone he had been ever so gentle with her. Perhaps he was right about his desire to become an SS officer. It had given him manliness and respect. A man must have what he wants. Mother always told her that ... give the man what he wants ... the man is everything.

Dietrich sat alongside her. She tried to understand his silence, longed to make him happy, fulfill him completely. He stroked her hair. It was thick and golden and his fingers became entwined in it. Suddenly, his fingers tightened. He hurt her. He pulled his hand away and stared at it almost madly... .

“Kadett Rascher!”

“Jawohl!”

“I am your Hauptsturmfuehrer. Each new candidate like yourself is assigned a shepherd puppy as he enters his SS training. An SS officer must understand animals, how to train them, and how to use them. And, as our beloved Fuehrer said, how to imitate their power and virility. You shall pick a dog from this litter and after it is properly housebroken the dog will share your quarters with you.”