Casca 4: Panzer Soldier (17 page)

An hour passed and Wolff led Langer to the barren garden just outside the bunker, checked his watch, straightened his tunic and stood ready. He butted out his smoke and adjusted the
visored cap with the Deathshead and Reich adler insignia.

Hitler made his appearance just as twenty members of the Hitler youth were led into the garden and placed into a single rank. They had come from the fighting in Berlin. The oldest was sixteen, the youngest was thirteen. All of them were children that the state had taken control of when their parents had died or been killed from either the bombings or the Russians. They were from Dresden and Breslau. Hitler wore an ordinary
gray coat which looked too large for his stoop-shouldered frame. He moved from one to the other passing out the Order of the Iron Cross. He stopped at one youth and patted the child's cheek with a grandfatherly gesture, sighed deeply and moved on to the next. These were the last of his Thousand Year Reich. Children called in to fight in the great battle, children who still believed the myth of their leader.

Two of the boys had knocked out Russian tanks with bazookas the day before in the street fighting. Others had manned the barricades and fought the
Asiatics of Russia with the ferocity that only those who believe in fairy tales could muster. Killer children died on the streets of Berlin. If they died fast, they did so with the thought that they had served their leader well and died as did the heroes of the Nordic myth. If it took a little longer for them to expire, and the pain was great, they called for their mothers.

Finishing the awards, for the first time, Hitler looked at Langer. For a moment the dullness left his eyes. He motioned for them to follow and re-entered the subterranean bunker that served him as his personal haven.

Wolff and Langer followed. The children were led off to return to the battle. All but two would die in the next three days. Eyes watched them as they followed. One of those pairs belonged to Hitler's personal aide, who looked with mistrust at anyone too near his god.

Langer counted the steps down – forty-four. Inside, he could smell the mustiness that all concrete seems to keep forever wet, damp. Passing
gray or moldy orange-colored walls, they followed. The fetid mixed smells of urine from backed-up toilets and sweaty uniforms and boots went with them. The hum of a diesel generator droned constantly, stopping only for a second when it was switched over, coughed and restarted.

Normally to go into the bunker one would have to go through an elaborate system of security checks, but Himmler's presence and the assignment to Wolff evidently served as all the authorization Langer needed.

They followed Hitler down the corridors and corners of his labyrinth. They stopped at a small conference room two doors down from Hitler's rooms and obeyed his beckoning finger to enter.

Hitler sat at the far end, his back to the wall. He didn't like people to be behind him.

Hitler had removed his greatcoat and sat in the familiar gray plain coat with the Iron Cross he had won in the First World War on it. He was a definite contrast to the peacock dress of his general staff, in particular, Hermann Goring. By his plainness he understood that he stood out in a crowd of brilliant uniforms and be-medaled chests. He was, as always, a master showman.

But now the play was ending and he was a tired old man. He thanked Wolff and told him to wait down the hall in the guard and switchboard room until he was sent for.

Obersturmfuhrer
Wolff clicked his heels and gave the Hitler salute. "
Zum befehl, mein Fuhrer
," he said, as he obeyed, leaving the two men alone in the small room.

Hitler indicated for Langer to sit at the far end of the conference table.

His eyes foggy, he looked at the man opposite him for some time. His vision had been failing and he had to strain to keep things in focus, particularly in the dim light of the conference room.

"So you are the one we have waited for so long.

"Casca Rufio Longinus, soldier of Imperial Rome, gladiator and mercenary. It's somewhat ironic that you have ended up fighting for the Brotherhood. That's why we lost you for so long. It never occurred to us that you might be on our side in this war." Hitler laughed and coughed, his left hand holding his right to control the trembling in the arm.

“
You know, I never really believed the story of you. But here you are. You really exist." Wonder touched the edge of his voice.

"I have naturally read all the reports of your physical description – the, scars on your face and wrist. Show me your hands." The thin, ragged, circular scar encircling his left wrist brought a spark to dulled eyes. "It's really true." Hitler glanced at the clock on the wall. "I don't have much time. Tell me what really happened at Golgotha when Jesus died."

Langer spoke, trying to keep himself from strangling the madman. "What do you care about Jesus? I don't understand. He was a Jew, yet you kill Jews as inferior beings. Why should you have any interest?" He deliberately omitted the obligatory title of "Mein Fuhrer" or even sir.

Hitler responded, "You really don't know? It's quite simple. We have definite proof that Jesus was not Jewish. He was of an ancient Aryan stock, the same as the pure blood of the German tribes. Jesus was not a Jew."

Langer laughed. "Then he could have fooled me. He was as Jewish-looking as I ever saw. Not like the paintings of him with light-brown hair and blue eyes. He was a small man with a large Semitic hook nose and bad skin. He was a Jew, but he died well. Will you be able to claim the same" – sarcasm touched at his words – "Mein Fuhrer?"

Hitler refused to rise to the argument.
"That you will see for yourself, Herr Longinus. That you will most certainly see for yourself.

"You know, you could do something about all those scars. They have learned some remarkable things about plastic surgery lately. You could have most of them erased." His mind wandered; then with a visible effort he drew himself back. Now he ordered him to tell him about the crucifixion. "I have to know."

Langer hesitated a moment, then decided, why not?

He turned on his mind, letting the past sweep over him, rushing, not conscious of his words as he let the past take over and let Hitler go with him to the Mount of Golgotha.
To experience the storm of that hot afternoon, the sweat running down his legs. The priests of the Sanhedrin who came to mock the man on the cross. The moment when the storm was reaching its peak and he struck with his spear into the side of the man they called Messiah. Hitler felt in his words the feel of the Roman uniform, the rubbing of the leather against sore spots, the grating of sand in the sandals, the caligula.

He experienced, in Langer’s words, the final moment when Jesus looked on the man who killed him and spoke, the storm around them breaking, the wind screaming. "As you are so you shall remain until I come again."

Hitler wept.

Langer finished, breathed deeply. He didn't like this reliving of his past, it drained him. Hitler wiped his eyes with a linen handkerchief. "It's true, it's all true,
you were there." Taking a gulp of air, Hitler composed himself.

Breathing deeply from the emotional exhaustion that had overcome him he spoke, his voice a little stronger than before. "Now I know all our work and sacrifices will not have been in vain. I will not have lived in vain. Everything is clear to me now. Thank you, Herr Longinus, or Langer, whichever you prefer. This moment has given me the will to do what must be done. You are free to go. But return to this place on the thirtieth of April. There will be something happening that you would not want to miss.
My death."

Langer rose, facing the maniac. "You bet your ass I will be here. That is one thing you can be certain that I want to be present for."

He did an about-face unconsciously and left the room.

Hitler picked up the phone and gave instructions to Wolff, who intercepted Langer in the hallway. "Come with me." He led Langer out of the bunker and back to the chancellery. There he took him to an arms room filled with weapons and equipment.

"Take what you want." He handed him a card. "This will permit your entry into this place and the Fuhrer bunker at any time. You are on your own." He clicked his heels, hailed Hitler and left. Langer looked over the stockpile. The crunch of a Russian heavy shell shook the building.

He picked out one of the new Stg-44 assault rifles. If they only had weapons like this early enough, they could have given Ivan hell. The rifle fired both semi and fully automatic. The rifle fired a short 7.92. It had a thirty-round magazine, a muzzle velocity of 2,132 feet per second and fired on fully automatic five hundred rounds per minute. A damned fine weapon, better than anything made anywhere else in the world and like most of the things that had come out of German science, too late to do the soldiers in the field any good. Well, he could put it to good use now. Himmler was right about one thing. For once, they had a common enemy, the Russians in the city. Maybe he could do some good there.
Taking out as many as he could before the end. But he knew that he would, at any cost, be back at the bunker on the thirtieth. That left him only two days.

Langer picked out a field pack and stuffed it with loose rounds for the Stg-44, sat down on a crate and filled up ten magazines. These went into two bread bags, one slung from each shoulder. Another sack he filled with egg grenades. They took up less room than the potato masher type.
Two canteens and iron rations. Last was a Kar-98 bayonet and a short close combat knife to fit in his boot top. From a pile of unissued uniforms he picked out one of the canvas material splinter camouflage jackets. It wouldn't help too much in daylight on the streets, but at night the patterns would blend perfectly with dark shadows.

He left the confines of the chancellery and entered the streets of Berlin. Stopping, he listened. It would make no difference which way he went
; the enemy was all around them. Refugees were kept out of this area by the SS and police, but in the city itself, he knew they would be huddling in basements and corners seeking shelter in attics. In the subways would be thousands of women, men and children. He checked his weapon, moved across Unter den Linden passing the Brandenburg Gate. From there, he worked his way through the rubble and smoke to Invaliden Strasse. He had passed small groups of men being herded up to the lines. The SS were rounding up deserters and stragglers. Hitler youth and men from the SA and Arbeit Corps. Anyone who could carry a weapon was forced into the line.

From a lamp post where Muller
Chaussee intersected the Invaliden, the body of a Gauleiter in full uniform swung slowly back and forth. The homemade sign around his once well-fed neck read,

"I hang here because I lost faith in the Fuhrer. So die all defeatists.
Heil Hitler."

The crackling of small arms fire told him that he was close to the lines.

When the encirclement was completed there were two million civilians in the confines of the city. On the twenty-sixth, Zhukov came from the north and Koniev from the south, driving their armies on through the defense of the city. Tanks grinding the defenders under after the artillery and rockets first softened up the positions. In two days of hellish fighting the Russian forces under Zhukov had advanced to the Spree. And Koniev had nearly reached the Tiergarten. The two armies were separated by only about two kilometers; the city was nearly cut in half. Between lay the last outpost of Nazi Germany: the Fuhrer bunker.

The mass bombings of the city had nearly stopped. The Americans and the British didn't want to kill any of their Russian allies below. But the Russian artillery took over with massive selective fire barrages that destroyed whole blocks and all in it. Napoleon would have groaned with envy at the numbers of guns used. Between them,
Koniev and Zhukov mustered nearly two and a half million men for the battle. But this time the streets were in favor of the defenders and they fought with a ferocity not seen on the front for a long time. He knew this was the final battle, all else mattered not. They had to hold on until the Americans came. Then, the Fuhrer would most certainly ally himself with them and between they would turn against the Russians and drive back to the mud huts and plains from whence they came. Langer knew better. The Americans and Russians might have a go at it later, but not now. There would be no help from the Western Allies. They, too, had a score to settle and were content to let the Russians do their dirty work for them.

He pulled his pack up a little higher and test fired his weapon. The sound of his shots wouldn't be heard against the thunder of the artillery and bursting buildings. Satisfied, he moved out into the streets, taking shelter from building to building. A group of paratroopers from the 9th Airborne Division passed him moving fast and at the ready; they were wearing their peculiar canvas smocks, the pockets bulging with ammo and grenades. Langer followed, keeping a distance between them and
himself. In this battle, he preferred to go it alone when he could. Several times parties of roaming SS had tried to impress him along with others into hastily formed battle groups.

The card given him by Wolff changed their minds and they left him alone.

The next days were one of horror. Men and women died by the hundreds and thousands. Russians penetrated into the city in hundreds, riding the backs of tanks shooting at everything that moved, animals and even children. But some of the children fought back and more than one T-34 or heavy Joseph Stalin tank and its crew fell victim to twelve- or thirteen-year-old boys breaking a bottle filled with naphtha, benzine and. phosphorous against the steel plating. From the windows and alleys, women who had been repeatedly raped by the Russians in their advance on Silesia and Pomerania finally found revenge firing bazookas and Panzerfausts; they killed and were killed. Their vengeance on the Russians taken alive was equal to the treatment they had at the hands of the hordes of Asia.