Collision of Evil (9 page)

We heard Allied airplanes often over the next few days, but they were at high altitude and on their way to or from somewhere else. We crossed into Bavaria one night, traversing a winding one-lane road surrounded by vineyards near Wuerzburg. We avoided the city itself as it represented a bombing target. Here and there we encountered the corpses of Wehrmacht conscripts who had been hanged by order of a flying court for desertion. Most of them looked either too young or too old to be soldiers. Their crimes were written on placards hung around their necks.

We passed the outskirts of Munich in moonlit semidarkness the
next night, and I could see the shattered towers of the
Frauenkirche
like spectral giants brooding over the carcass of that ancient city. We did not pause; Munich was not our destination.

And then the next evening we found ourselves deep in the towering, protective folds of the Bavarian Alps, with lines of fir trees marching from the valley floor to heights far above us. My comrades and I were not far removed from where the two of us are sitting now. When dawn broke, it was as if we had entered a different world, as if the last months, even the last years, had been a bad dream.

Even at this stage of the war, the region had been largely spared the malevolent, consuming grasp of the conflict. There was no major city nearby, which meant that Allied bombers focused their attentions elsewhere. The battlefronts were getting closer by the day, but the countryside still remained unmolested and perversely peaceful.

We were able to dine on fresh milk and eggs and smoked ham. The locals had enough of these things and provided for us. We parked our convoy under the shelter of trees along the bank of a valley stream. The mountain water was pristine, and we drank huge, gulping mouthfuls and used it to wash the accumulated filth and sweat and stink of fear from our uniforms.

For two days we did nothing else; ate, drank, slept, and wandered around that patch of countryside, reveling in the scenery and stillness. No one spoke of the war. It was as if the topic—the center of our lives for the past six years—had suddenly become taboo.

On the third day, around ten in the morning, we were told to prepare for a short journey. Uwe, Ruediger, and I mounted our vehicle without enthusiasm, content to forget military duties altogether and await the conclusion of hostilities, whatever that might bring. But we did as we were ordered.

“What do you think is up?” Ruediger asked.

Uwe grumbled out a laugh and slapped his meaty hands together. “It’s one of two things. Either we are all going to some field where we will be instructed to shoot ourselves as exemplary heroes for the Fatherland in its last hours, or we’re going to unload these crates.”

“The Fuehrer Headquarters in Obersalzburg,” Ruediger mused. “That might be where we’re headed. Its not far from here; thirty kilometers maybe. It’s bound to have bunkers and tunnels, exactly what’s needed to store whatever the hell is in these crates.”

Uwe and I shrugged, judging that the next few hours would resolve the issue.

Our column wheezed to life in a cloud of exhaust fumes. The Volkswagen with its Waffen-SS officer was in the lead. One of the civilians was seated next to the Stuermbannfuehrer with the arm sling. The wounded officer had his well-creased topographical map out and communicated the route to his driver.

We moved from the valley road to a well-paved but serpentine way that took us into the mountains. When the asphalt ended, we found ourselves jostling along a rough earthen path, the valley floor from which we had issued now a distant emerald vision far below us.

There was a dissonant cacophony of engines grinding away, and I wondered how high the abused vehicles could manage to go before they overheated. The Stuermbannfuehrer turned in his seat every now and then, checking the halting progress of his troop. His expression seemed as granitic as the jagged peaks rising above us. Despite the protesting motors, the trucks doggedly moved higher into the terrain, untended meadows to the right and left. The sweep of tall grass was dotted with mountain wildflowers, an iridescent aquarelle of white, yellow, and blue. The rough road curved to the left and the meadows slipped away behind us. Deep shadows from rows of fir trees rolled protectively over the hoods of our vehicles. We entered high forest, and the ground was transformed from green to burnished gold from a thick carpet of needles.

Up ahead of the column, I saw a trio of men standing motionless at the base of a towering pine tree. One of the men wore a brown Nazi Party uniform set off with a swastika armband; a
kreisleiter
perhaps. His two companions were more humbly dressed in Bavarian country attire, with battered loden hats and worn workmen’s boots.

The Stuermbannfuehrer raised his arm and the column eased to a stop, the engines of our vehicles winding down to a low grumble.
The trio of men approached the Volkswagen and the Party official stretched out his arm in the Hitler salute, which was casually returned by the SS officer. The men huddled together in conference, occasionally glancing back at the column of lorries. It occurred to me that the conclave could involve a discussion of surrender arrangements. Perhaps the golden pheasant represented the local
gauleiter
and was empowered to come up with the best way for German forces in the area to give up to the Americans, whose arrival was expected any day. I was mistaken.

The Stuerbannfuehrer gestured for some of the other officers to join him, and after the exchange of a few words, they moved along the line of trucks issuing orders in curt, staccato style.

“Engines off. Everyone out of the vehicles,
Mach Schnell
. Five minute pause. We’ll be unloading the cargo after that and returning to the valley. Under no circumstances are the crates to be opened.”

Doors groaned against bent hinges, and we issued forth to the pine needle-coated earth that was like a sponge beneath our boots. Everyone spent their first minute stretching, coaxing away the small hurts caused by our rough journey. The crates would be heavy and unwieldy, and we knew that there was heavy lifting in our immediate future.

Uwe stood next to me and fished a small, unlabeled bottle of schnapps from the voluminous pocket of his greatcoat. He took a swig, and passed the glass container to me. I took a sip without much enthusiasm but enjoyed the burst of warmth as the crude alcohol attacked my throat. We strode into the rows of fir trees.

“I expect this is our last mission, comrade. The rest should be a matter of waiting for the hordes of Negroes and Red Indians to sweep us up.” Uwe’s tone was fatalistic.

“Most GIs look like we do, Uwe, just different uniforms. But you’re right, I guess this is the end of the road. We unload this stuff, whatever it is, and head back down the valley and wait. If the Americans come in a few days they’ll ship us off to some prisoner-of-war camp. If they are delayed, some of our younger recruits will slip away; try to make it home on their own. Not me. I’m waiting. We’ve made
it through six years of war without getting killed, and I don’t intend to take a bullet now. I’m content to sit on my ass and wait.”

Uwe breathed out a laugh. “Smart man. I’ll tell you one thing, though. I thank God that we got these orders to head south. I couldn’t have surrendered to the Ivans. I’d shove my Mauser in my mouth before being shipped off in a cattle car to Siberia.” Uwe was smiling, but there was a hardness around his eyes that I had seen before during combat. He was earnest.

I craned my head up toward the dark and tangled tree tops and saw swaths of brilliant blue sky through the branches. It occurred to me that I wanted to see lots of blue skies.

The unmistakable report of a pistol cast all further thought into hiding. “What the hell —” I heard Uwe exclaim and then we were both running toward the trucks, our rifles held chest high, fingers near the trigger guards. We scrambled loudly through the chaos of pine branches. There had been only a single shot, a subsequent protest of irate ravens forced from their arboreal perch, and then silence. A knot of soldiers was gathered round one of the vehicles near the end of the column. Uwe and I joined the gray-uniformed mass. We edged through the crowd for a look.

I recognized the soldier on the ground and knew that his last name was Fehlmann. He had been with us for maybe eight months and spoke with a Swabian accent. There was little more that I knew about him. Except that he was now dead. A dark, still expanding circular blotch of blood at the hairline just above the nape of his neck marked the entrance wound. The exit wound had caused catastrophic damage. Fehlmann’s lower jaw had been separated from the rest of his face and hung grotesquely low. His upper palate was mostly gone. Fehlmann had been hit by a bullet fired close-up.

“Scharrfuehrer, when they get their fill of gaping, have a couple of men bury this trash under the trees. Then we unload the trucks.” It was the Stuermbannfuehrer, an officer’s Luger automatic clutched in a black-gloved hand, the one not supported by the sling.

“Jawohl, Stuermbannfuehrer,” roared the noncom, his parade-ground voice betraying no emotion.

The officer nodded, seemingly soothed by the noncom’s compliance and the familiar tone of obedience. Glancing around at the gathered soldiers, the SS officer pointed his pistol at the body lying in the porridge of sludge near the rear tires of the truck. He used the weapon to gesture, the metal-blue barrel holding our attention as a conductor’s baton holds together an orchestra.

“There are a few lessons that bear mentioning,
Soldaten
. One, follow orders. Two, do the job assigned. Three, never do what is not permitted. Our disgraced comrade here violated all of these principles. I discovered him rifling open a crate at the back of this truck. That was a very poor decision.”

The officer holstered his weapon and took a few steps toward the corpse. He nudged the body with the toe of his high boots.

“You will recall that I ordered that no one opens the crates. I will brook no disobedience. Our mission, the mission we began in Berlin, is too important.”

I glanced around and noted that the Party official and the civilians were nodding agreement.

After this deadly illustration, our group was not about to split up without an explicit command, something that the Sturembannfuehrer sensed.

“All right. Lesson over. Get ready to move the cargo. Four men to each crate and put your shoulders into it. Bring the crates to the civilians up the hill for final disposition; they know what to do. After that, we leave.” He paused a second and invoked the SS motto, “
Unsere ehre ist treue.
” Our honor is loyalty.

We did put our shoulders into it and our backs too, hands chafing against the roughly planed wood. Some crates were heavier than others, but four men to each made the burden bearable. Still, there were a considerable number of containers and we had to make multiple trips. We moved slowly up the hill and the rude road became a path and then a deer trace and finally nothing at all.

As we staggered upward, the flush-faced Party official worried himself around us, flitting here and there, ceremonial dagger like a miniature Roman broadsword clanging against his belt. Now and
then he would intone “Slow but sure,” “That’s the way boys,” and other moronic utterances, but we said nothing in reproach.

As instructed, we deposited the freight high up on a spit of ground where the civilians had gathered. The two workmen were there, and I noticed that their shoulders held thick coils of rope. They would be dragging the crates to some final place, presumably close by.

Indifferent to our exertions, the afternoon waned, shifting the forest latticework of sunlight and shadow into new and changing designs. By the time we finished, it was that strangely quiet interval before dusk, that bundle of moments when all living things seem to pause and await the onset of darkness.

As promised by our SS commander, we loaded back onto our trucks, the lot of us bone-tired and thirsty, and began the slow, jogging return to the valley from which we had set out that morning. Our group now numbered one less. As our truck groaned its way downhill, Uwe, Ruediger, and I glanced over at the raised mound of earth near the roadside. Fehlmann’s final resting place was unmarked. I do not recall that we engaged in conversation during the return journey, content to cede pride of place to silence, that fearsome but respected companion of soldiers everywhere.

As events developed, we were not to wait out the remaining days of the war idling by the rushing valley stream. Two days after we rid ourselves of the crates, a Wehrmacht motorcycle appeared from the direction of Bad Reichenhall, its grim-visaged rider sporting the distinctive metal breastplate of a courier. He passed a sheet of paper to our commander, who read it slowly. He tucked the message into his tunic and told the other officers to prepare us to move out.

Upon hearing this news, Uwe began his litany of “damn” and “shit,” interspersed with an equestrian stamping of his feet.

Off we rode, crossing the former border of Austria, currently
Ostmark
, a province of the Greater German Reich. The weather remained fine, improving our mood, and the scenery was no less
breathtaking than in the alpine valley. We drove across the broad Salzach plain, the line of mountains pulling farther away. The proud fortress of the former Prince-Archbishop Paris Lodron of Salzburg was to our left, still imperiously presiding over the city below it after all those long centuries.