Armageddon

“These bourgeois gestures do not disturb me,” Wöhlman said.

While Wöhlman exuded confidence, Heinrich Hirsch wondered. He had known Wöhlmans, Azovs, Schatzes, Ecks all his life. At a certain point their ability to have individual thought processes stopped, and their minds were completely dominated by party thinking. They functioned without a shred of anger, curiosity, or protest in their being. They were unable to have concepts of right or wrong.

Men who had no anger, curiosity, or protest in themselves could not understand how it could exist in other people.

Hirsch had never entirely lost these traits despite his training. He feared that their efforts had been a deception so transparent that the people of Berlin were going to rally behind Falkenstein in a display of defiance.

Azov was looking at Hirsch. The younger man had been under suspicion, but he possessed a mind far keener that Wöhlman’s.

“What is your opinion, Comrade Hirsch?”

“I cannot completely share Comrade Wöhlman’s confidence. We should win in a stampede. Yet, some final dramatic gesture is called for on the eve of the election.”

“But we have spent millions of rubles to bring in food and coal.”

That was what annoyed Hirsch. In the coal negotiations with the British they were forced to stick to the line that the Soviet Union could not force the Poles to give up Silesian coal. When Azov wanted coal as a campaign gesture, Polish sovereignty did not exist.

Wasn’t this last-minute flood of food rather obvious when it was known the Americans had maintained the ration for over a year? And now they had RIAS to give their story. Had they all underestimated RIAS?

“Comrades,” Hirsch said, “I believe I have the type of message the Berliners will understand.”

Two days before the election, Heinrich Hirsch’s plan unfolded. The Soviet Union controlled the flow of electricity to the Western Sectors.

At darkness, the people of the Steglitz Borough discovered they had no electricity.

Twenty minutes later the lights went out in the French boroughs of Wedding and Reinickendorf.

An hour later the central British boroughs of Tiergarten and Charlottenburg were plunged into darkness.

Alternating borough by borough, the lights went out in a wordless bit of last-minute electioneering. Without Russian electricity there would be no industry, transportation, sewage disposal, communication, schools, or hospitals.

The day of October 20 in the year of 1946 was a misery of cold and drizzle. For the first time in a decade Berliners went to the polls. The outpour of people brought mile-long lines of ragged humanity huddling for warmth against the first real bites of winter. Ballot boxes were crammed to elect the new Assembly of 130 members.

At dawn of the next day, Berlin was awakened by a now familiar voice:

“This is RIAS calling. The results of yesterday’s election is as follows. The Democratic Party, 1,015,000 ballots giving them sixty-three Assembly seats with 49 per cent of the vote.

“The Christian Party was second with over 460,000 ballots, winning twenty-nine Assembly seats and receiving 22 per cent of the vote.

“Third, the Communists under the name of People’s Proletariat received 400,000 ballots, twenty-six Assembly seats and 19 per cent of the vote.

“The Conservative Party won the balance of twelve seats with 195,000 ballots constituting 9 per cent of the vote.

“The free parties have swept the election with a staggering combination of 81 per cent.”

Chapter Twenty-one

THE STINGING DEFEAT AT the polls presented a new tactical problem to V. V. Azov. He realized the new Berlin Assembly would never elect a Communist Oberburgermeister and so he threw their strength to retaining the old Democrat Berthold Hollweg, whom they could control.

The Communist Heinz Eck was unable to attain to higher than second deputy mayor.

In the Kommandatura a new wrinkle was added as Nikolai Trepovitch ordered investigations into the backgrounds of a great number of free party assemblymen for “suspected Nazi pasts.” He was thus able to keep them from taking their office.

Although the West grew passive again after the election, the first open break between America and the Soviet Union had taken place that wild autumn of 1946.

The Berliners were certain that the few gestures of the West were in the nature of face-saving. They remained cool to each other.

Repercussions of the election continued to be felt throughout all facets of the society. At the university a rumble grew and grew.

Heidi Fritag and Matthias Schindler shared the common heritage of having parents murdered by the Nazis.

Heidi was half Jewish, her father once a professor at the university. Except for the “taint” in her ancestry, the intense girl was a physical personification of Hitler’s Aryan dream; tall, full-busted, blond. When her father was taken away, Heidi and her mother lived in seclusion in that low caste of being daughter and wife of a Jew.

Matthias Schindler’s story was one of pure horror. His father had been a Democratic Party leader in Brandenburg. He was sent to Dachau early in the regime as a political undesirable; his mother died shortly thereafter. Matthias was placed in a series of work camps for children of political prisoners and Jews. The end of the war found him having survived a dozen camps and working as a slave laborer of the Krupp Industries and the death of his father confirmed.

The university had a tradition sweeping back a century and a half with such honored names as Humboldt and Niebuhr and the Brothers Grimm. War had ravaged many of the main buildings on the Unter Den Linden.

Heinrich Hirsch re-established the university in the Russian Sector, appointed a Communist rector, filled the faculty with hand-picked teachers, texts, and curriculum to convert it into a school of Marxism.

All the new students were carefully screened. Both Heidi Fritag and Matthias Schindler were clean of Nazi taint and thought to be pro-Russian.

The returning professors and many of the students did not fit neatly into Hirsch’s vision of the institution. They began to complain to the Americans for a liberalization of studies.

In the autumn of 1945 American policy had been to cooperate with the Russians at any price. Neal Hazzard brought up the question of the university at the Kommandatura, taking the view that it should be under four-power control.

Trepovitch made one of his unmovable stands. Hazzard let the matter die. The Russian position was that the university was physically in the Russian Sector and of no interest to the West.

During 1946 Hirsch consolidated his grip. Every political, historical, and philosophical study was derived from a base of Lenin and Marx. All student clubs were under domination of young Communists on the campus. Likewise, the faculty organization was run by Communist professors.

Both the students and faculty came under heavy pressure to join Communist activities. Often students were threatened with being expelled if they did not attend special lectures, join demonstrations, donate time to the Action Squads.

After the Berlin Assembly election of the fall of 1946, a number of Communists were taken out of the educational system in the Magistrat. A ground swell started among the students and non-Communist teachers for reforms.

Heinrich Hirsch used the textbook tactics dictated by Lenin. In the light of the elections and the temper of the moment he made a temporary retreat by granting a number of small but unimportant concessions.

The stirrings grew. Heidi Fritag and Matthias Schindler emerged as the opposition leaders on a crest of unrest. The two personally petitioned Colonel Hazzard for an American license to form a Democratic Students’ Club on the campus and publish a weekly newspaper. Even though the school was in the Russian Sector, it would be keeping within the contention that the university was rightly under four-power control.

Hazzard warned the youngsters that they would be in danger and out of reach of American help, but they were adamant.

RIAS and the American newspaper announced the granting of the club license followed by an appeal from Heidi Fritag urging the students to join. What happened caught Heinrich Hirsch flat-footed. Over half the students flocked to the Democratic Club.

In the Kommandatura Nikolai Trepovitch raged at the “illegal” organization and promised to break it up. Neal Hazzard did not budge.

In a few days the first issue of the Democratic Students’ Club newspaper paper, Justice, was printed and distributed. The two-page tabloid carried a front-page editorial by Matthias Schindler.

WE DEMAND!

Academic Freedom!

An end to Marxist indoctrination!

Democratic student power!

Texts of Western philosophy!

Courses in religion!

Heinrich Hirsch stood with eyes cast down, figuring out the pattern on the Persian rug. V. V. Azov flung a copy of Justice at his feet.

“The blood of the Soviet Union drenches every millimeter of German soil! Do you think we have spilled it to stand by idly and allow the rebirth of Nazism!”

Hirsch’s voice trembled. “It would be difficult to consider Matthias Schindler or Heidi Fritag as Fascists.”

“All Germans are Nazis at heart!”

My father was not a Fascist, Heinrich said to himself.

“You will learn once and for all, Comrade Hirsch, that no German nationalism is tolerated and the German people will learn that their only salvation is through the Soviet Union!”

The abduction of Heidi Fritag and Matthias Schindler by unmarked cars of the SND was swift and efficient. Schatz’s political police bound and gagged them and whisked them out of Berlin. The kidnap was followed by an Action Squad from the university breaking into the print shop of Justice and destroying it.

The kidnap cars sped south and were swallowed up in the darkness of the Russian Zone of Germany. They halted at a castle on a former Prussian Junker estate near Jüterbog. The captives were hustled into dungeon cells where V. V. Azov, himself, had come to supervise the confessions. They had to be carefully staged, recorded, and photographed.

In the old days Azov was able to estimate within minutes how long a person could hold out. Most of those who had been brought to him during the purges had already appraised their predicament and confessed without resistance, but during the purges they only wanted to keep alive and continue as partners in the crime.

Matthias Schindler and Heidi Fritag held on to something a purged Russian never knew; the usual promise of sleep, food, water, cigarettes did not work.

The commissar could not understand their stubbornness. Five nights and days of round-the-clock questioning failed to break them. Matthias Schindler, with the glistening marks of other beatings from the Nazis, smiled and spit at them.

Heidi Fritag, the damned Jewess, merely sat erect, tight-lipped, defiant.

Azov sweated. He ordered the use of drugs, for he was getting the worst of the questionings. His stomach had turned to fire. The drugs produced blurted ramblings unsuitable as evidence to the world. As a last ditch, he decided upon torture. It had to be done with care so that no visible mutilations would show.

Schindler got it first. He broke and signed a confession.

Heidi Fritag continued to hold out.

She was stripped naked and lashed to a table. Mirrors were rigged up before her eyes so she was able to see the entire length of her body. Candles were placed on both breasts and lit. As they burned lower and lower the hot wax dripped on her. Lower ... lower ... she convulsed with pain. One of Azov’s commissars sat close by, drumming questions into her ear, promising relief.

On the eleventh day after the kidnap a “trial” was held. Heinrich Hirsch was forced to observe everything.

Present in the castle were members of Adolph Schatz’s Special Nazi Detachment, NKVD, and two carefully selected journalists. V. V. Azov sat at the end of the room as an “interested” observer.

Matthias Schindler had been cleaned up so that he might be photographed, and was dragged into the room under heavy sedation.

A prosecutor read his confession. “I admit to undercover activities dedicated to the rebirth of fascism at the university ...”

A sentence of twenty-five years was passed.

Schindler was dragged away and Heidi Fritag was called.

A member of the SND came into the room and whispered into Azov’s ear, “The girl died a few moments ago.” Azov stood and asked to address the court.

“Heidi Fritag has attempted suicide out of guilt. She cannot appear in court. However, we have her signed confession.”

The journalists wrote “interviews” with the defendants in which they expressed extreme remorse for their “crimes.” Tapes were edited and photographs retouched.... People’s justice had been done.

Sean O’Sullivan was brought out of his sleep by a sharp knock on the door. He turned on the lamp. It was three in the morning. Blessing stood at the door.

“Get dressed,” Bless said. “Pack a bag, quick. We’re taking a trip.”

Sean did as he was told without question.

A staff car waited at curbside. Bless got in the front seat next to the driver and Sean in the back. Neal Hazzard was waiting. They sped along the Unter Den Eichen.

“We have General Hansen’s plane standing by at Tempelhof. We’re carrying out a single VIP to London. Keep him company. Write down what he says. See that he doesn’t try to knock himself off.”

“Defector?”

“A big one. Heinrich Hirsch.”

Chapter Twenty-two

V. V. AZOV HAD FORCED Hirsch to attend session after session of the questioning and torture of Heidi Fritag and Matthias Schindler to break this strange streak of resistance in him.

Hirsch watched the whole event like a witness at his father’s death. The circle was complete. He, a victim of tyranny, had now seen the same merciless destruction imposed on an enemy. He, the Communist, had killed in the same manner as his father had died at the hands of the Nazis.

Azov’s attempt to debase his spirit was the final disillusion of what was once a golden idea. He still believed in Communism, but had come to detest the men who had perverted it beyond recognition.

Yet, the last thread of defiance did not break. He would not submit to this final humiliation ... to become a Communist robot without a soul.

Months earlier he had gotten wind of certain happenings in the American Sector that planted a seed of escape in his mind.

Jews, freed from death camps in Poland, trekked west to attempt to get to Palestine, the only door open to them. They were carefully shepherded by young Palestinians who slipped them to French and Italian ports. Immigration to Palestine was deemed illegal by the ruling British mandate.

Although it meant going against his British colleague, Neal Hazzard quietly established a refugee camp for the Jews in the American Sector and saw to it they got what they needed in the way of displaced persons documents.

General Hansen unofficially encouraged his officers all over Germany to help the transit of the Jews to embarkation ports for Palestine.

The Russians learned of this and watched the American-protected camps with suspicion.

Heinrich Hirsch alone stumbled onto the information that one of the leaders in the Jewish underground in Berlin was the American chaplain. On closer scrutiny Hirsch discovered that many Russian Jewish soldiers visited the chaplain’s house to attend services forbidden in the Russian Army. The rabbi’s place was a social center for Jewish soldiers of all four occupation powers. Here they met Jewish girls from the camp, or others who had been hidden and were trying to get to Palestine.

The NKVD was baffled by the disappearance of some forty Russian Jewish soldiers. Hirsch figured that they would rendezvous with the chaplain in civilian dress, he would issue them displaced persons papers, and they would disappear into the American camp.

He never reported his findings to his own authorities. After the fate of Matthias Schindler and Heidi Fritag was sealed, Hirsch made his own rendezvous with the chaplain.

His confession and the revelation of Heidi Fritag’s brutal death hit Berlin as hard as the first rages of winter. The classes at the university emptied and refused to reconvene despite the threats of Communist students’ Action Squads.

Hostile bands of students circled aimlessly looking for a voice as the pitch boiled to a fever; and then a half-dozen new leaders stepped forward from both the student body and the faculty.

They announced defiantly that a memorial service would be held for Heidi Fritag on the steps of the main building.

The People’s Radio reacted quickly to denounce Heinrich Hirsch as a traitor and his confession as a lie. The threat was made that a demonstration would be broken up by force and all participants expelled.

Neal Hazzard had taken Heidi Fritag’s death very hard. As a combat commander he had sent men into battle with a reasonable chance of defending themselves. Heidi Fritag died helpless ... as helpless as the students would be if they tried a demonstration.

The British and French commandants entered the Kommandatura conference room without greeting Nikolai Trepovitch. The Russian, stripped of flamboyance, stared emptily at the papers before him.

Colonel Neal Hazzard arrived last. He looked at the Russian for the first time with absolute hatred.

Nikolai Trepovitch had just finished a merciless session with Marshal Popov. As chairman, he called the meeting to order.

“I have requested this emergency meeting to discuss illegal activities planned at the university. Heinrich Hirsch is a traitor, a liar, and a provocateur. We have signed confessions of the accused. Unless this demonstration is called off we will resort to necessary measures.”

“I take it then,” T. E. Blatty said, “you propose to massacre students in the streets.”

“I propose to stop a demonstration of Fascist militarism.”

“But sir, you established the university, you screened these students, you chose their studies and their teachers.”

Trepovitch fell back to the second line of defense. The plan was to hold out bait of a promise of four-power control of the university in exchange for stopping the demonstration. Once the West agreed, Trepovitch could haggle over the control mechanism until the incident died down.

“We are a peace-loving people,” Trepovitch said. “The Soviet Union wishes to avoid bloodshed. For the sake of Allied unity we would consider the possibility of four-power control.”

“No,” Neal Hazzard said. “No four-power control, no one-power control. The school belongs to the people of Berlin. They have shown now they are ready to run it.”

The Russian could not buy it. It would mean the end of their domination completely. “You want this school to foster German militarism and rebuild the Nazis! We will not tolerate it!”

Neal Hazzard appealed to the cooler heads among the new leaders of the university and convinced them to hold their demonstration in the American Sector.

Twenty-five hundred students walked the Stresemann Strasse spanning from curb to curb, and behind them walked 25,000 Berliners. At a place where Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry once stood they came to a halt, looking across the street into the Soviet Sector, a leveled field that once held

Hitler’s Reich Chancellory. It was filled with Soviet tanks and guns.

The students wore black arm bands, carried black-bordered photographs of the first martyr of a new age, Heidi Fritag. Other placards demanded the freedom of Matthias Schindler.

At the head of their number walked Colonel Neal Hazzard.

Chapter Twenty-three Winter, 1946–47

IT WAS THE COLDEST in the history of Europe.

In Berlin blustery north winds and snow dropped the temperature to twenty and thirty below zero. People froze to death by the dozens, helplessly covered with rags. The infant mortality rate skyrocketed; the water supply froze; filth bred epidemic; rampages of pneumonia and TB swept the city along with a diphtheria epidemic. Gonorrhea and syphilis had long ago found a home in the orgy-filled town.

Berlin was an icebox with bare shelves. Emergency soup kitchens attempted to stave off starvation. People were driven from the heatless shells of buildings down into the underground railroad and to bomb shelters.

In one of the desperation measures, the Kommandatura gave permission for Berliners to cut down their forests for use as firewood. This became the most terrible symbol of the defeat. They trudged in the face of a frigid death from their hovels to gather armloads of kindling.

In the Western Sectors the Grunewald and Tegel forest heard the ring of the ax as did the woods bordering the medieval section of the city at Spandau. In the Russian Sector the great State Forest on the Müggel toppled to the same fate.

When the Falkensteins were not at work they huddled around a single unit of warmth, a wood-kindled kitchen stove from turn of the century vintage, or they lay bundled beneath stacks of covering.

Ernestine was able to use her former legal training in obtaining a position in the Magistrat in the reorganization of the laws and courts. She worked for American jurists in the military government, which also kept her out of the physical cold a part of the day.

At home she tried in vain to bring her family back together. Hildegaard preyed on her mind always. She remained a regular at the Paris Cabaret, taking that sordid life as against the risks of the bitter weather and life outside. Hilde had a third case of gonorrhea and an abortion. Ernestine saw the arrogance fade from her sister. Hilde was the chattel of Stumpf, the mistress of Elke Handfest. Yet, despite it, the girl went into her twenty-first birthday with much of her early beauty.

Ernestine was unable to bear it any longer. Talks with Hilde had no effect. She went to her mother.

“I have suspected Hilde’s activities for a long time,” Herta said.

“Why in the name of God haven’t you done something?” Ernestine demanded.

“I tried to speak to her, but she will admit to nothing. She passes me off. Besides, in these times who is to say she is wrong? It will all pass in a few years.”

“Mother, we must do something for Hilde now. We can’t wait. She must be sent out of Berlin.”

“That is not possible without your father knowing why.”

“Of course, he will be told.”

Herta stood fast. “Your father must not know. He has enough troubles.”

Gerd Falkenstein proved to be energetic, industrious, and ingenious. These were the traits, he boasted, that had made the German people superior and God’s chosen.

With an old comrade and money from his father’s savings, Gerd was able to buy up several thousand surplus gas masks and convert the metal casings into pans and ladles. As his parents worked to support his enterprise, he received a license to reclaim rubble and with his partner rigged a device to resurface bricks and stone into standard sizes. Their operation was carried on in a patched-up shell of a small, bombed-out factory in Schöneberg Borough in the Ami Sector. He boasted openly that the family would stop working one day and return to the old standard of living.

While his ambition was commendable, Ernestine feared his other attitudes. One of his workers was found to be an ex-Nazi in the Waffen SS and she knew that Gerd had helped him escape to the British Zone of Germany, which was the most lax on de-Nazification.

There was more that worried Ernestine. Gerd tried to obtain a license to form a veterans’ organization, and when this was unsuccessful he continued to have weekly gatherings at his factory, where the old songs were sometimes sung and the exploits of the war recounted.

“There’s nothing wrong with getting together with a few old friends,” he told his sister. “Don’t take it so seriously.’’

Lieutenant Oakley Oakes of Frog Creek, Missouri, was one of the most anonymous and at the same time obnoxious officers in military government. He had not come out correctly. Oakley stood an insignificant five feet, five inches tall, had wiry hair, and a pocked face. His personality was equally homely. His singular achievement was matriculation at a university where he joined the ROTC and this eventually brought him a commission in the Army.

He worked in the ration-control section of the Steglitz Borough and, as such, gained a running knowledge of many German families.

As a social failure back home, he luxuriated in his new status in Berlin, bragging constantly about his “exploits,” to the boredom of fellow officers.

One day, in the winter of 1946, a new officer named Tom Jones was assigned to his section. Tom Jones, a few months out of college, was awed by the sophistication of the “old-timer” and his apparently limitless connections with German girls. He accepted Oakley Oakes’ offer to “show him Berlin.”

They started in Zehlendorf, near Headquarters, drinking at their own club, then working up toward Wedding Borough in the French Sector where Oakes assured Tom Jones he knew a Frenchy joint with the best poon in Berlin.

Oakley Oakes and companion burst into the French garrison’s Bier Garten, a big noisy room that smelled of malt and hops and sauerkraut and pungent sausages. He waved and loudly greeted real and imaginary acquaintances as though he were part owner and certainly the most popular man in the city.

They plopped into heavily hewn chairs. Oakes smacked a pack of American cigarettes on the table and pointed to the bar lined with waiting girls. “There’s the poon.”

Tom Jones had been impassioned by the long evening of drinking and urged Lieutenant Oakes to make a connection quickly.

“Man, you acting like a boar hog in stud. Take it easy, man. Berlin’s just one big poon town.”

Oakley drank two large mugs of dark beer while playing out the role of complete nonchalance. He began to remember why he really wanted to come to the Wedding Bier Garden and remembering through the alcoholic haze turned him into a mean mood.

“How about the redhead?” Tom Jones panted.

“Nothing ... she ain’t nothing.”

“That’s nothing!”

“Stick with me, kid. I’m gonna get you laid good.”

A third mug of beer made him fuzzy and thick-tongued and his posture decomposed. He turned bleary-eyed, opened his blouse and tie to get air. Cigar ashes dripped down his shirt. He remembered the Paris Cabaret and the humiliation of a week before. He was very drunk then, too, and tried to get a date with one of the girls; they hustled him out into the street and told him not to return, and the MPs drove him back to the American Sector.

“Son of a bitch,” he mumbled.

“What you talking about, Mr. Oakes?”

“Can’t fool this old boy. No, sir, not Oakley Oakes. Man, I know every goddam ration book in Steglitz Borough. I know that broad. I seen her up there for her book. She’s the one that turned me down at the Paris ...”

He put two fingers in his mouth and blasted out a whistle. “Hey, you, boy!” He snapped his fingers at Bruno Falkenstein. “That’s how you gotta treat these kraut bastards.”

Bruno stood before his table and bowed.

“I’m interested in some tail.”

Bruno reddened and squelched his anger. This little sandy-haired wart had always been a troublemaker.

“Elsa will be in soon.”

“She’s a pig.”

Tom Jones was getting sick.

“I will do what I can, Herr Lieutenant,” Bruno said, hoping the damned Ami would pass out. He bowed again and tried to take leave but Oakes grabbed his sleeve.

“I want me Hilde Diehl.”

“Diehl? But sir, I know of no Hilde Diehl.”

Oakes’ face wrinkled and he snarled. “Hilde from the Paris Cabaret.”

“I am sorry, Herr Lieutenant. I do not know anyone from the Paris Cabaret.”

“Bullshit.”

“Hey, leave him alone, Mr. Oakes,” Tom Jones pleaded.

“Don’t you lie to me, boy. I said I want me Hilde Diehl.”

“Herr Lieutenant, I swear to you, I know no one by that name.”

“You know her you kraut pimp. She’s your daughter.”

Hilde’s screams brought Ernestine running up the stairs past the open doors of the neighbors. She broke into the room. Her mother was at the table, head buried and weeping, and Gerd stood immobile in a corner.

Hildegaard cringed on the floor. Bruno stood above her, flailing both fists on her back as though he was wielding a sledge hammer.

“Pig! Slut!”

The veins of his neck and face throbbed with rushing blood. His color was as purple as his rage and the sweat poured from the exertion. He kicked his daughter in the ribs. “Pig! Pig! Pig!”

Hildegaard shrieked. As Ernestine tried to get to her, Gerd blocked her way and grabbed her arms. “Leave him alone.”

She tore out of her brother’s grip and flung herself on the floor as a shield to receive the last blows of his strength. Bruno gasped, reeled around the room, fell onto his cot, and groaned between curses.

“Shhh ... shhh ... shhh ... he won’t touch you any more ... Ernestine is here ... Ernestine is here ...”

She struggled to her feet and got Hilde upright somehow.

Gerd walked toward them, menacingly. Ernestine backed Hilde into a corner and stood between them.

Gerd stopped and smiled cruelly.

“Oh God in heaven!” Ernestine cried in anguish. “Look at what has become of us! This is our victory!” She turned to her beaten sister, took off her own coat and put it over Hilde’s shoulders, and wiped at the blood spurting from the girl’s nose and mouth. She held her tightly in her own thin arms and braced her to walk slowly over the room.

Her mother looked up. “Where are you taking her?”

“Away from here! Away from you!”

“I forbid it!” Bruno rasped. “I forbid it!”

They continued toward the door. Herta climbed clumsily to her feet, knuckles on the table. “Obey your father!” the mother commanded.

“I forbid! I ... forbid!”

“Go to hell, Father,” Ernestine said.

“I won’t stand for you to talk to Father like that!” Gerd roared.

“My father,” Ernestine whispered. She spat on the floor and led her sister.

“Stop them! I demand it! Stop them!”

Gerd blocked the doorway. He saw in Ernestine’s eyes something more intense than the frenzy of a Nazi mob, more bitter than enemy soldier to enemy soldier. He stepped aside. “Let the little whore go.”

Ulrich Falkenstein set his book down, shuffling to the door in response to the urgent knocking.

“My God!” he cried at the sight of Hildegaard.

Ernestine held her hands open desperately. “We have been walking for hours all over Berlin. It is cold. We have no place to go. She is sick. Please help us ...”

Ulrich stood at the door of the bedroom watching Ernestine at her sister’s bedside. She was like an angel, speaking softly, giving warmth.

Hilde’s cheekbone had been fractured and several ribs broken. Her face was puffed and discolored, but the pain was now blocked by a wall of drugs.

“Ernestine. You are so good! I love you. Oh, Ernestine ... you are all that is left of us that is decent...”

“Please rest ...”

“You tried to tell me what a fool I am...”

“Don’t go back there ... ever!”

“Russian officers are in back of Stumpf ... Hippold ... they may kill me.”

“I’ll get you out of Berlin, I swear it.”

“Oh, God, Erna ... I’d give anything . .. anything . ..”

Hilde’s eyelids became heavy and she passed into sleep begging her sister not to leave her. Ernestine held her hand for an hour, and at last Ulrich took her back to his study.

She painfully told her uncle the story of Hilde’s downfall and of Gerd and her parents.

“I am the worst of them all,” she said. “I did not help her. But I wonder, Uncle ... do we deserve better?” And then Ernestine began to cry softly. “I have turned on my own father.”

She felt Ulrich’s hand on her shoulder. “It is high time some German sons and daughters do that.”

“There is good in Hilde. I swear I’ll do anything if she is given another chance.”

“First, she must mend. And then she will leave Berlin. There are friends in the Western Zones who will take her.”

It had been a long, long time since Ernestine felt the warmth of another human being. She knelt before her uncle’s chair and laid her head on his lap and let herself be comforted. “You are so kind,” she said.

“And you, my child, what of you? You cannot go back there.”

“I don’t know.”

“This is a lonesome place for an old man,” he said.

She looked up at the scholarly, slovenly room filled with books he had not been able to read and music he had not heard.

“Would you share this place with me, Ernestine?”

Perhaps, she thought, I can help him too. We do need each other. I will take care of him.

“You will stay?”

“I love you, Uncle Ulrich ... and I have been so cold for so long ...”

Chapter Twenty-four

BLESSING COVERED THE DOOR opening with his hulk, leaned against the frame, and chewed on a strip of beef jerky, which Lil always sent in the packages. Bo Bolinski finished packing, wordlessly.

Bo lay the last three khaki shirts in a battered canvas officer’s bag, buckled it shut, set it alongside his foot locker, and looked about the room.

“I guess that’s everything,” he said, looking at his watch. Two hours to traintime. Bo sat on the locker and lit a cigarette. His unhappiness was apparent. “We’ve been together a long time, Bless. The major and you and me. London, France, Rombaden.”

“We’re all that’s left of the team,” Bless said.

The captains and the kings depart.”

Bo had received an excellent opportunity from a large and important law firm in Chicago. Its attorneys and most of its clients were Polish-Americans. At the end of the war the firm became flooded by those trying to re-establish contact with lost relatives or claim lost fortunes.

It was a natural situation for Bolinski. He was a good lawyer, experienced in displaced persons work, spoke fluent Polish and English, was an expert on indemnification and restitutions, and had built up contacts. It was the time and place for a young man to go far.

Bo sent Major O’Sullivan his request to resign from the Army. In a few months he would have been eligible for discharge, anyway, and Sean pushed it through.

Somehow the return to the States did not bring him the expected exaltation ... not leaving Berlin or even the anticipation of the reunion with his wife and children. He had convinced himself he had done enough and was entitled to leave. Yet ...

“It’s going to be a funny feeling to see a city not wrecked by bombs ... and look at people who aren’t hungry.”

“I reckon so.”

“What about you, Bless?”

“My discharge should be coming up in three or four months.”

“I’ll be glad when you get out of here. This city is like standing over a trap door waiting for the Russians to pull the lever.”

“We all want to go home,” Bless said. “That’s our national anthem.”

“We can’t all be made like the major.”

“Reckon not. The Lord put his finger on certain people to do the dirty work for the rest of us.”

“Don’t be so sure it’s out of love. He hates the Germans enough to stay here for a century so long as they’re suffering.”

“I wouldn’t say that, Bo.”

“Anyhow, it’s time to go in and say good-by to him.”

Shenandoah Blessing watched Bo’s train disappear from sight and hearing. He wheeled his jeep from trackside and drove back toward Headquarters. Bo felt guilty, but no one could blame him for wanting home, Blessing thought. Hell, everyone who could was pulling out these days.

They had offered him captain’s bars to remain in Berlin two more years. Small compensation for the losing battle being fought. Lil and his kids hungered for him and he for them.

Bless knew he was pushing forty-five. The law of the land said that Hook County had to reinstate him as sheriff. His first deputy, Charlie Durkin, had held the office for five years now. Charlie knew his way around and was a good officer. No doubt he had built his own political connections and had become entrenched. Blessing would have to face him in an election.

Had he returned at the end of the war, he would have won any election, hands down. But the days of returning heroes were gone. The war was over for nearly two years and wanted only to be forgotten by Americans. There would be resentment against him now. Soldiers in uniform were big people when there was a fight to be won, but these were the days when soldiers in outposts were forgotten.

A month after Bolinski left for the States, Captain Shenandoah Blessing stood at dockside at the American enclave of Bremerhaven in the British Zone as the first shipload of American wives and children arrived through a North Sea’s mist.

There was much weeping and embracing on the dock. Lil and the two kids dragged down the gangplank as did most of them, weary from the voyage. They stood and looked at each other.

“Hi, Bless,” she said.

“Hi, Lil.”

He scooped up his sons and they hugged him and said hello daddy and he said, my God, they’ve grown and the four of them walked slowly and tightly together for the shed.

Later a heavily armed train chugged through the unfriendly German countryside toward Berlin. After a barrage of questions the boys fell off to sleep and Lil curled up in his arms, poked his belly, and said she was glad he hadn’t gotten skinny.

“Honey,” he said, “I was never able to put into words why I thought I should stay here and I swear, I don’t think I ever can.”

“Bless, you don’t have to. Well make out. We always have. I know you’re doing the right thing. “

Chapter Twenty-five

AT THE END OF 1946 THE lead story around the world for the day told that Andrew Jackson Hansen had been named a full general and assumed the position of military governor of Germany.

Shrewd observers like Nelson Goodfellow Bradbury felt it came just in time, for the situation was degenerating badly.

In a quiet and efficient way Hansen had built a dazzling record. As first deputy he had sat as a member of the Supreme German Council for several months. At the end of the war he moved in on cartels, froze German assets, and broke the backs of a number of those evil industrial combines. He spearheaded the de-Nazification of two million Germans in the American Zone through the questions of the Fragebogen. A hundred thousand criminal Nazis were in American stockades, and an additional 300,000 were allowed to work only at common labor.

Hansen was tough, yet guided by an overriding principle that the American Zone had to establish its own democracy rather than exist under a military tribunal.

As quickly as clean Germans could be found, the courts and de-Nazification procedures were put into their hands.

Free elections were held in three “lands” in the American Zone with new constitutions governing them and schools reopened with new texts. A free press and radio returned to Germany after a long absence.

Hansen was instrumental in the spurring of youth groups formed on new principles and he encouraged the church to purge any Nazi taint.

Andrew Jackson Hansen was more responsible than any other man for bringing into military government leading American educators, jurists, clergymen, labor leaders, mayors and civic officials, doctors, engineers, and police who lent their skills in fashioning a new path for the German people. He arranged for Germans to travel in America to study American methods and establishments.

He spurred the revival of the opera, the symphony, the theater, and the arts.

On Hansen’s orders three battalions of Negro troops were converted from service units to infantry. A new pride changed them from outfits with severe discipline problems to first-rate troops. His own honor guard in Berlin was a Negro unit. Hansen alone predicted the next step had to be full integration. He felt that the example of a moving, living democracy would have the greatest possible effect on the German people.

A corner of America was established in Germany. The arrival of large numbers of wives and children in the early parts of 1947 did much to put a skid to the occupation orgy.

Schools were built and women’s clubs, PTA’s, and a social life put a large dent into the beer-hall and prostitution business. The reinstatement of family and communal life came as a saving grace in many cases.

The occupation forces published their own newspapers, had a radio network, built movies, servicemen’s clubs, bowling alleys, and libraries. Inexpensive vacations in Bavarian resorts were arranged and schooling through college made available to every soldier.

Law and order were maintained by a magnificent American constabulary of 30,000 mobile police. These white-helmeted, yellow-scarfed troops constituted a crack force that commanded the respect of the Germans.

The most spectacular victory was won by the friendliness of the Americans. The Germans realized that they had come not to bleed the economy or debase the vanquished, but to protect, cleanse, teach, and rebuild.

While General Hansen and his country established a record of progress, the other side of the coin was a dark picture. He took command on the heels of a cruel winter that had paralyzed all of Europe.

In Germany canals froze, putting more burden on the wrecked rail system, now short thousands of cars and running on obsolete engines and punctured lines. There were no spare parts either in the transportation or the manufacturing complex.

As the coal mines functioned at but a fraction of capacity, and the means to transport it collapsed, manufacturing all but stopped.

The land failed to respond because of a lack of fertilizer and there were few seeds.

Housing remained the worst of any civilized nation and the cold brought all normal functions to a standstill.

The terror was compounded when seven million Germans were expelled from Hungary, Poland, East Prussia, and Czechoslovakia and poured into the American and British zones.

Hansen had observed the dwindling of the American Army. He inherited a force so thin it would not be able to meet a direct military challenge.

There was confusion among the Americans on what to do with Germany.

A harsh line wanted to reduce Germany to an agrarian economy. Hansen knew this plan would never work. Germany had a land area of less than the state of California and ten times the population with almost no natural wealth. In her best days, Germany had never been self-sustaining in the raising of food. Germany had to manufacture and trade to survive. This was an absolute economic law. The plan to reduce her to a vast farm would have invited mass starvation and sown the seeds of another war.

A second plan was to chop Germany into small territories and have each neighbor annex a piece. However, none of these units by themselves were sustaining and would create a burden on the annexing country which would be also compelled to take a hostile German minority. This plan could only foster a German “unification” dream.

Hansen had to take the unpopular view that Germany had to manufacture and trade. Moreover, the occupation zones had to be reunified, for the country could respond only as a single economic unit. The American Zone had pretty Bavarian scenery, but no ports or great industry; neither could the British or Russian zones survive by themselves.

Yet, Hansen inherited a situation where each of the four occupation zones was cut off from the other with little exchange of product, ideas, or population.

On the Supreme German Council, the French position broke Western unity. General Ives de Lys argued out of fear of Germany; the French wanted economic domination of the Saar and Internationalization of the Ruhr.

The Ruhr represented Germany’s chief asset. Without it Germany could never establish a trade balance. Such a French plan would have continued the British and American zones as liabilities, costing billions to sustain.

The French wanted a permanent four-power army on the Rhine, but Hansen would have no part of Soviet troops beyond the Elbe.

General de Lys continued to operate on the contention that business could be done with the Soviet Union and the French did not want to offend them.

Marshal Alexei Popov bogged down the Supreme German Council on the basic issue of operating Germany as a single economic unit with free trade between zones governed by a common policy. He deceitfully paid lip service to unity, but in fact sealed the Russian Zone from any contact with the West.

Every attempt to establish four-power administrations over trade and industry was blocked by Popov as the Russians continued to strip their zone and reshape it in the image of a Soviet puppet.

Reports filtered back to Hansen that thousands of German prisoners with technical skills had been detained in the Soviet Union. Russia’s grand plan for her zone was much the same as what Hitler intended to do with Poland, reduce it to serfdom and set it up as a buffer.

Popov aided the elaborate Communist scheme by holding Germany down, draining off reparations from current production, and keeping her from re-establishing a trade balance.

All this brought joblessness, hunger, and all the other breeding grounds of Communism.

The key issue at the Supreme German Council was a four-power agreement on German steel production. Popov wanted a figure large enough to deliver reparations, but small enough to prevent a German recovery. Even though all of Europe was coal-starved, the Ruhr mines were permitted to operate at a fraction of capacity, for the collapsed economies of France and Italy also played into the path of Soviet aims.

One of Hansen’s first moves was to travel to Washington and urge the Secretary of State to come to Germany and deliver a statement of policy to the people.

They were shaken from the winter, frightened of what lay ahead, and a lethargy had engulfed them.

The Secretary of State spoke at Heidelberg reaffirming America’s aim to unify the zones and return its institutions to the people. It had a galvanizing effect on the demolished nation.

Immediately thereafter, Hansen began negotiations with the British for the purpose of making the American and British zones a single economic and political unit. This forced the Soviet Union to step up their own timetable, for they knew that the French would have to follow suit. The unity of the Western Zones could build up a powerful German threat and end their own plans of domination.

All four powers jockeyed for position for a Conference of Foreign Ministers. In preparation, Hansen flew to Washington to brief the American delegation. His opening remark threw off the last pretenses:

“Gentlemen, the Soviet Union will cooperate with the West only as long as they receive reparations from our zones. The instant this stops they will proceed with plans to stop unification of the Western Zones. They will endeavor to remove us first from Berlin, then from Germany, then from Europe.”

Chapter Twenty-six

THE TRAGIC STRAINS FROM Beethoven’s “Pathétique Sonata” reached Sean’s ears as he approached the door to Ulrich Falkenstein’s flat in Kreuzberg. He stopped for a moment, listened, then rang the bell. The music inside stopped.

“Lieutenant Colonel O’Sullivan?” Ernestine asked

“Yes.”

“Please come in. I am Ernestine, Herr Falkenstein’s niece. My uncle telephoned to say he would be a few minutes late, that he was distressed by the delay and hoped you would not mind.”

“Certainly not”

She led him into the only patched-up room that had been made cozy, which served as both living room and his study.

“Could I prepare you some tea?”

“No thank you.”

The bookshelves sagged under hundreds of volumes. Sean walked along and browsed at the titles in German, French, English, consisting of both profound comments and the popular fiction of the mid-thirties. He found himself at a row containing Jefferson, Paine, and Thoreau. “Quite an assortment.”

“He reads incessantly and usually far into the night. He is trying to make up for those years he lost in Schwabenwald.”

Her words struck Sean as rather strange. He thought about it for a moment, and then discovered that in all the time he had been in Germany he had never heard a German before mention the name of a concentration camp in casual conversation.

He stopped at the piano. There was a photograph of Ulrich’s brother Wolfgang, who had been hanged by Hitler. And another photograph, perhaps Falkenstein’s wife, whom he never mentioned, but likewise never forgot. Sean hit a few notes in a vain effort to read the music.

“You must play very well,” he said.

“Gallant but not true, Colonel. I play poorly. Nonetheless it is the first time in years I have had either an opportunity or the atmosphere. As you see, the rooms are not damaged and it is quite peaceful. One of the first things lost in the bombing was my piano. My sister joked that the American flyers must have heard me and aimed at our house.”

Sean turned to look at her. He had noticed her graceful movement from the moment she answered the door. The fingers that played the piano were long and artful, but had also known hard work. Her face was particularly elegant, with flawless skin set off by deep, sorrowful, expressive eyes.

Her hair, immaculately groomed and businesslike, was however, entirely feminine. Her voice was unusually soft and without Germanic abruptness. Ernestine began to fidget.

Sean ended the tour.

“Are you sure?” she asked, pointing to an array of richly colored liqueurs in cut-crystal bottles on the coffee table. He sat on the opposite end of the couch and said she could buy him an apricot brandy.

Ernestine opened a tin. “This is Leubeck flat cake. The wife of an old comrade of my uncle sends us one each month. You will find it quite different.”

He took a bite and agreed.

Ernestine looked at him from the corners of her eyes, and was unable to constrain a small giggle. “So you are Major ... I’m sorry, Colonel O’Sullivan.”

“That’s me.”

“Of course, my uncle Ulrich has spoken of you innumerable times. I was expecting someone quite different.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, I saw you as much older ... and ...”

“And?”

“You won’t be offended?”

“Promise.”

“Rather stern ... you know, like a Prussian.”

She did not know what compelled her to be so familiar except that Uncle Ulrich’s description drew a picture of a man of iron discipline and surly nature. He seemed terribly young to have been governor of Rombaden.

“I’m glad you don’t find me ... like a Prussian.”

Ernestine jumped to her feet at the sound of the door opening. Ulrich Falkenstein puffed into the room with apologies. She took his coat, wiped the perspiration from his brow, chastised him for walking so hard, and inquired if he had taken his pills. He had forgotten, as usual. She settled him into a chair, and when certain he was comfortable and calm, she took her leave.

Sean watched all this with curiosity, wondering if she was pampering him because of the comforts he could offer or if their relationship was true.

Ulrich sipped his tea. “She babies me, that girl. It is such a comfort having her. Congratulations on your promotion.”

“Thank you.”

“What extraordinary calamity brings you into a German home?”

Sean smiled. Falkenstein was the one German whose needle did not annoy him.

“Right to the point?”

“I never expect less of you.”

“All right,” Sean said. “It’s not pleasant news. We have conclusive evidence that your distinguished Oberburgermeister, Berthold Hollweg, is in complete collaboration with the Russians.”

Falkenstein set his tea down, digested Sean’s words. “All of us in the Democratic Party know he is not the same man he once was. We also know of the pressure he has been under. Hollweg has been my comrade for decades, since we were boys. Weak, yes. Movable, yes. But collaboration ... never ... never ...”

“It’s in his own handwriting, Herr Falkenstein.”

Falkenstein’s faced showed astonishment. He did not believe it.

“Not only does he obey Rudi Wöhlman’s orders,” Sean continued, “but there are also some interesting numbered bank accounts in Switzerland.”

“No!”

“I’m sorry, sir. It is absolutely conclusive.”

Falkenstein shook his head, pulled himself out of the deep chair, paced disquietly before the books. “What do you want of me?”

“When the exact moment is ripe, your own people have got to confront him with the charges.”

“You do it! You do it in the Kommandatura.”

“No. You have to do it as an internal affair.”

“And while you Americans keep your sanctimonious, official, and holier-than-thou status, duly elected members of the Berlin Assembly and duly selected officials of the Magistrat have been kept out of their offices by so-called investigations of the Russians. The Soviet Union doesn’t know we won a free election, but they do know the Americans will continue to sit on their hands. God knows what Hollweg has undergone. Members of my party are harassed day and night ...”

“Herr Falkenstein ... I came out of personal respect for you,” Sean interrupted. “Permanent reforms can come only from the will of the German people ... if they desire it. You know damned well that you and not I must read Hollweg out of the party.”

“You lost your calling, Colonel. You should have been a minister. How convenient for you to continue to say you do not trust Germans. Well, sir, we do not trust Americans. Of course, we are beholden for the fact that you have not mutilated or starved a defeated enemy. But here in Berlin, where there is someone to test your iron, all you do is hurl phrases at us. Ask my niece what goes on in the judicial system. The presiding judge is straight from Moscow and hasn’t enough legal background to be a blacksmith. Four judges were kidnaped last month because they made decisions on behalf of the West. Believe me, the Russians take care of their people.”

“That’s just the point,” Sean said. “You’re not our people. Will you familiarize yourself with the evidence against Hollweg or not?”

“Very well,” he said in defeat. “When is the lynching to take place?”

“When the moment is correct for a coup, not before, not after.”

Their heated words had gotten beyond the room. Ernestine stared angrily at Sean. He looked from one to the other and said a terse good night.

Chapter Twenty-seven

IN THE KOMMANDATURA THE chess game went on. Neal Hazzard became quite a player.... He made a move to break the Communist control of the Labor Front.

At first, Falkenstein and the Democrats supported the idea of a single organization, feeling that the lack of labor unity in Berlin weakened their position in fighting Hitlerism. They were soon to learn that the Labor Front was designed and staffed with Moscow-trained Germans who dominated the locals as well as the executive offices.

Hazzard dropped his bomb when RIAS announced that a new union had been authorized in the American Sector.

“Illegal!” Trepovitch bellowed. “The rules clearly state that the Labor Front is the only legal organization to be recognized! You have imported American labor thugs, hirelings, and goon squads to terrorize the workers into reactionary lines and rob them of their freedom.”

“Would you care to comment?” T. E. Blatty said when Trepovitch finished. “I do believe you have something to explain, Colonel Hazzard.”

“The Constitution governing the Labor Front as passed by this Kommandatura calls for elections of the executive every year,” Hazzard answered. “As of now elections are eight months, two weeks, four days, and six hours overdue because of General Trepovitch’s delaying tactics. Now, either we’re going to have an election or the new union which I have authorized will begin functioning. It’s up to you, General.”

Faced with the reality of losing their grip over labor, Trepovitch returned to the Kommandatura with an elaborate scheme. He would agree to an election of the executive if the West agreed to retain the present executive and merely expand it by the election. A quick check of mathematics told Neal Hazzard that if non-Communist candidates won every post in such a plot, the Communists would still have a numerical superiority.

The plan was bluntly rejected. It was so transparent that T. E. Blatty and Jacques Belfort announced that they, too, would recognize the new union in the American Sector. Trepovitch had to agree to an election.

It was the city elections of 1946 all over again, beginning with a Communist fanfare ... that all workers in the Russian Sector would henceforth receive a free, hot meal at midday.

On the day of the elections, Western officials were bluntly barred from the polling stations in the Russian Sector, which issued two colored ballots. The result, nevertheless, was another monumental defeat for the Communists.

Following the same pattern they used after the other elections, the Russians delayed the seating of the new executive. All non-Communists were bullied from taking office because of “investigations” of their suspected Nazi backgrounds.

There was more than one way to win an election. The West stood by as the abuses against the winning candidates became an open scandal.

At last Neal Hazzard announced that the new union was authorized to begin operation. As the workers in the Western Sector flocked to it, the Communist stranglehold was broken.

The American action was not long in being countered. The Russians did so with a display of raw terror never seen before in the occupation.

On a single night the SND along with the NKVD rounded up four hundred German technicians living in the Russian Sector, herded them aboard a train, locked them in, and shipped them to the Soviet Union.

When T. E. Blatty hurled the charge at Trepovitch, the Russian commandant smiled like a fat Cheshire cat.

He puckered his lips, opened his briefcase. “I have here,” he began, “signed contracts for the four hundred German volunteer technicians. It is conclusive proof there was no kidnaping. These lies spread by the Western press are sinister provocations for which we demand an apology.”

“Just keep your goddamned forgeries in your briefcase,” Hazzard snapped in the first open rage he had ever shown.

Trepovitch remained calm, too calm, Hazzard thought. The Russian whispered to one of his aides, and a moment later a German civilian was marched into the room and asked to be seated at the conference table.

“What is your name?” Trepovitch asked.

“Joachim Mangold.”

“And why did you ask for permission to appear before this body?”

“I am the spokesman for the Committee of Four Hundred Free German Technicians.”

“You are authorized to speak for all of them?”

“Yes. I was selected in a free and democratic election.”

“You are aware of American and British charges that you and your colleagues were abducted.”

“That is a lie. We volunteered.”

“Not forced?”

“No force was used.”

“Why do you wish to work in the Soviet Union and why did you seek us out and ask us for contracts?”

Mangold cleared his throat and recited carefully, “Because in the Soviet Union my comrades and I will have the opportunity to work and research for the benefit of mankind. Here, we fear we will be used for warmongering imperialist purposes of the reactionary West.”

“Jesus H. Christ,” Hazzard blurted aloud.

The outrage set off a chain of demonstrations. With mixed desperation, anger, and fear the free parties sent out a call for unity.

In a showdown the Soviet Union had displayed naked power and there would be further atrocities, for the West did not answer the kidnapings ... and the Berliners were trapped.

Chapter Twenty-eight

V. V. AZOV’S ULCERS flared when Captain Brusilov arrived from Moscow. Despite his inconspicuous rank, he was a personal courier of Stalin. Azov was aware that Captain Brusilov was never dispatched for the purpose of passing out medals.

His entry into Berlin just before the Foreign Minister’s Conference was no accident.

In his career, Azov had known some of Stalin’s other couriers. When he was Sovietizing the Ukraine a word from one of them could set off a hundred thousand deportations. During the purges, a message often sealed the doom of a marshal of the Red Army or a ranking member of the Politburo. During the war a courier gave him orders to slaughter the Germans who had surrendered in an East Prussian pocket.

Captain Brusilov traveled in a private plane in the company of fifteen NKVD and spoke to no one outside his immediate circle.

Of the five couriers Azov had known prior to Brusilov, each had disappeared as Stalin’s abnormal suspicions doomed them for possessing too many secrets.

The night before he was to confer with Brusilov, V. V. Azov displayed open fear that only Madam Azov was aware of. He told his wife that he was growing old and had served faithfully for nearly four decades. Had he not made a Soviet State out of the Russian Zone of Germany? Certainly Stalin could not complain about that. Yet he knew Comrade

Stalin could find fault without apparent reason. Had he fallen from favor? What was his crime? He had never been able to explain the defection of Heinrich Hirsch to the West. This stayed on his record as a blunder. He cursed General Hansen and those British and American officers for making his troubles. Yet, he had pushed them as far as Moscow had permitted.

For a long time, Azov dreamed of retirement to a small dacha, a modest pension, and complete anonymity.

The memory of the past terrorized him. In his time he had obtained “confessions” from hundreds of political commissars. After they had achieved the rank he now held, few of them died in bed of old age.

NKVD spies were all around him, watched his every move, monitored his words, speculated on his thoughts. Had they detected his secret yearning for peace? Had they reported to Stalin? He moaned as the fires in him flamed.

The next morning Azov fell back on years of experience to cover his fears.

Captain Brusilov admonished him for allowing the Soviet Union to get tricked into the labor election. “It is obvious,” Brusilov said, “the German people don’t know what is good for them so their votes are meaningless. Otherwise, they would have never allowed Hitler.”

Azov was further berated for failure to drive the West out of Berlin, but as he spoke he revealed that there was further use for the commissar. Azov breathed easier, knowing he would live a while longer.

“Our sacred mission is to collapse morale of the West before the Foreign Ministers’ Conference next month. The Western ministers must arrive in Berlin realizing that it is a Soviet city.”

Any last pretenses for the benefit of the German people that four-power unity remained was destroyed by a massive assault on the West with the Americans coming in for the heaviest battering. The People’s Radio and the Russian newspapers spearheaded the drive with the planting of rumors and the hurling of falsehoods.

THE NEW ARCHITECTS OF FASCISM, THE ILLEGAL COLONEL HAZZARD AND THE CORRUPT GENERAL HANSEN!

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

“LIEUTENANT COLONEL O’SUILIVAN 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

SEAN 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.”

“I like him fat. Gives me something to bounce around on.”

“How’s garrison life?”

“Can’t complain. It’s good for the boys seeing another part of the world. Kind of feel bad about how hard things are for those folks in Berlin.”

“They can’t expect any better.”

“I’m having tea with some of the ladies from the British garrison tomorrow. We’re going to have us a forum on the problems of raising kids in the occupation. How about that?”

In the few months that Lil and the kids had been in Berlin they had become like old friends. Sean gave up his cottage to them, a neat little wooded place in a development once belonging to SS people. He took a flat in Dahlem large enough to suit him.

“Sean. You’re sure not yourself, tonight.”

“It’s all this damned preparation for the Foreign Ministers’ Conference.”

“That’s not all that’s bothering you.”

Sean rolled his cognac glass in the palm of his hand.

“You’re sure wonderful around the kids,” Lil went on. “Any man who gives up all his off-duty time to coach them ought to have a couple of his own.”

“Hell, you women are all alike. None of you can stand a happy bachelor.”

“You’re talking to Lil, honey. You’re not happy.”

“I didn’t know I set off a signal.”

“Any man who works as hard as you do for the privilege of coming home to an empty room can’t be happy. Things aren’t made that way.”

“About once every three months I get to wondering about the bargain I made to come to Berlin, but it always passes.”

“Time is passing, too, buster.”

“Lil. I never got this blue until the American families came.” Then, on an impulse he said, “Are you my very good friend?”

“You bet I am.”

“Seems like I’ve got a penchant for going for the wrong woman. I think I’ve got it down to a science.”

“Getting mixed up with a German girl?”

“Not exactly. I know I want to see her again and I know I shouldn’t feel that way.”

“She encouraging you?”

“All I’ve gotten from her was a rap in the mouth.”

“The way you think about Germans you probably had it coming.”

“Maybe. Lil, am I a blind, arrogant Prussian?”

“My, my. Sounds like that girl said a mouthful.”

“She did. I guess there was enough truth in it to bother me.”

“Tell her what a nice girl she is. It’s not going to kill you.”

“I can’t. Not to a German girl. Besides, I guess I owe her an apology.”

“Sean ... there’s something human in the worst German who ever lived.” Lil picked up the knitting-instruction book, pulled out a number of stitches, counted carefully. “Did Bless ever tell you about us?”

“No.”

“I spent my first fourteen years on a dirt farm, the kind you read about in Tobacco Road. Ran away from home at the age of fifteen, pregnant. I lost that baby. Ended up in Harper, Tennessee, the county seat of Hook County.”

Lil set her knitting down, lit a cigarette, and poured herself a drink from the bourbon bottle. “I wasn’t much good for anything but hanging around roadhouses, but at least I was able to learn to read and write, have a dress on my back, have a room of my own with a light, a radio, plumbing.

“When I first met Bless he had been voted sheriff of Hook. Bless didn’t bother the girls so long as they didn’t steal. Matter of fact, he helped a lot of them out of trouble. Bless was always sweet on me, but he was too busy or too shy to do much about it.

“One night he pulled a raid on a place running a big game. I was caught in the roundup. I was pretty drunk, noisy, and seeing me hurt him inside. He roughed me up so bad I ended up in the hospital. Hell of a romance, huh, Sean?

“There was never a minute in my life like the next morning when that fat, wonderful man bumbled into my hospital room and asked to be forgiven. A man can look big in his own eyes and in the eyes of other men when he shoves people around. A man really looks big in a woman’s eyes when he is humble enough to say he is sorry.”

“Mind if I come in?”

Ernestine looked up from her desk as Sean closed the door behind him. She was too surprised to speak, but showed that she was unforgiving.

“I had some documents to deliver to Judge Cohen,” he said, referring to one of the American jurists in military government. “I thought I might drop in. So, this is where you work.”

The office was a clutter of law texts. Ernestine was working on translations of British and American volumes dealing with lower-court appeals.

“As a matter of fact,” Sean continued, “I am glad this opportunity came up, because I’ve been wanting to speak to you about our last meeting. Fraulein, my choice of words showed a lot of bad manners and bad taste.”

Ernestine watched his discomfort, but even his attempt to apologize was being carefully phrased. The colonel did not say he was sorry, had spoken untruthfully, or that he had changed his mind.

“What I should have said was that your uncle came back to Berlin out of choice and knowing how great his chore would be. But a long time before that he had made up his mind that the things he believed in were far more important than his own being. I believe that if you attempted to dissuade him from what he knows he must do, he would reject your plea.”

“You are right, Colonel O’Sullivan. He has rejected my plea.”

“I am sorry for your sake because I understand how much you love him.”

“It is kind of you to make this gesture.”

“As for my other remarks ...”

“You need not try to apologize. It is quite true that my fiancé was involved in the Babi-Yar Massacre and God knows what else. I am aware of what we Germans have done to the human race. I am not in the position to atone my shame and guilt, nor are you in a position to grant me forgiveness. Now please leave my office ... and please leave me alone.”

Chapter Thirty-two

A FEW DAYS BEFORE the Foreign Ministers’ Conference in Berlin the Truman Doctrine was declared stating that any further attempt to expand communism would be met with force.

From the end of the war there had been innumerable meetings of heads of state and their deputies in Washington and London, Moscow and Paris.

Conferences were directed now to easing the growing antagonism between the Soviet Union and her former allies. Now it came Berlin’s time as the site to attempt to determine a settlement for Germany.

“Mrs. Hansen is on the phone. General.” Sean said.

“Hello, Mother.”

“Andrew. I just received another of those calls. Some terrible things were said about you.”

Agnes sounded shaky. He was tied up with preconference work until very late. Tomorrow dignitaries would start arriving. All the members of his staff and their wives were receiving anonymous telephone calls at all hours promising death if the Americans did not get out of Berlin.

General Hansen and Colonel Hazzard were both sleeping with pistols at their bedstands after refusing to put guards on their homes.

“Mother,” Hansen said, “I’ll send a car for you. See if Claire Hazzard will go to the movies with you. Go to the Staff Club afterward and I’ll fetch you on the way home.”

“I’ll do that, dear. I am sorry to have bothered you.”

Sean dispatched a car for Mrs. Hansen. “Those calls are damned hard on some of the women,” he said. “Don’t you think you’d better put a guard on your house for Mrs. Hansen’s sake?”

“Hell no. When you think about it, Sean, it must be terrible for defenseless people behind the Iron Curtain to be subjected to such naked terror with no way for them to fight back. I guess the Russians must be real successful there.”

The day the delegates arrived in Berlin the Soviet Union announced they were holding war games and the sky became black with fighter planes. They buzzed the incoming transports menacingly.

Hansen called Lieutenant General Barney Root, the USAFE Commander in Wiesbaden. The American Secretary of State landed at Tempelhof under an escort of the new jet fighters, followed by other squadrons flying in formation spelling out the letters U.S.A. The Soviet planes cleared the corridors.

It was on this note of hostility and tension that the Berlin Conference of Foreign Ministers convened.

The main arena was in the Sanssouci Castle in Potsdam, but throughout Berlin subcommittees argued the points of difference.

At the Napoleon Quarters, French Headquarters, the most important Committee on Reparations met with General Hansen heading the American delegation. His old adversary from the Supreme German Council, Marshal Alexei Popov, sat on the far side of the U-shaped table.

The first session was not more than a half hour old when Marshal Popov set down the Russian reparations demand of ten billion dollars from the Western Zones from current production.

Popov, the gray fox, finished, leaving the place almost stunned. There was some parliamentary small talk, but everyone was waiting until the floor rotated to the Americans.

Andrew Jackson Hansen took off his specs, folded his hands, and looked straight at Popov. “My government is going to reject your demands,” he began bluntly. There was a buzz around the room.

“Let me explain our position, Marshal Popov. The United States is not going to make any further reparations until you agree on German iron production. The ten billion dollars you are now asking for could well be the entire output of German industry. America is in Germany for the purpose of allowing the Germans to establish a trade balance so they can take care of themselves.”

“To build for another war!”

“Now, you just wait a minute. I’m not finished. My country is pouring hundreds of millions into Germany. Your country is taking hundreds of millions out. What are you after? A direct payment from Washington to Moscow?”

Popov’s face reddened.

Hansen continued firmly. “We want the zone borders opened and Germany run as a single economic unit. You’ve avoided this issue for two years. Furthermore, we want an accounting on how much the Soviet Union has already taken out of Germany.”

Popov tried to interrupt.

“I haven’t finished yet. The Soviet Union on its own has seized German lands with a tax valuation of twelve billion dollars. It has taken land from Poland with a tax valuation of two billion dollars. The question is ... how many times and in how many different ways are you going to try to collect the same ten billion dollars?”

Popov could hold still no longer. “The Soviet Union will continue to be guided by policies that prevent the enslavement of the German working class. We know all about the concentration camps in the British Zone of Germany. We know about the Hitler-like campaign preventing the Communist Party from delivering the workers in the American Zone. It is you who are intolerant of democracy.”

“I appreciate your rhetoric,” Hansen answered, “but you haven’t answered my questions.”

“It is the Soviet Union who suffered at the hands of the Hitler aggressors and the Soviet Union leading the German people to peace!”

“Will you or will you not give us an accounting of what you have taken out of Germany?”

“I see no sense in continuing this meeting.” Without further ado, Marshal Popov and his staff walked out.

Marshal Popov’s performance was duplicated on the other side of the city by Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov, who insisted American money was pouring into Germany for the war of revenge and enslavement of the German working class.

After Molotov’s walkout, even the conciliatory French had had enough.

The Berlin Conference ended with the United States, Britain, France, Holland, Luxembourg, and Belgium jointly declaring that the three Western Zones of Germany should coordinate economic policies, and further, that steps be taken to draft a constitution for a German Republic.

Europe was weary. The horrible winter of 1946–47 had brought a final collapse of industry and agriculture. People were undernourished and machines were destroyed or obsolete. The skilled labor force had been depleted. The farms lay in ruins; the mines did not run; the will of the people to survive was failing.

Although the Truman Doctrine did much to stop the impetus of armed Communist take-overs, something more was needed. For in this filth, fear, and hunger, the cancer of communism grew fat in Italy and France.

A monumental program of aid to Europe was envisioned by a wise old soldier who had ascended to Secretary of State and knew that guns were not enough.

The question now was to get the European Recovery Act/The Marshall Plan through the Congress before it was too late.

America was coming of age. The price to rebuild Europe meant acceptance of American leadership. And for America, the age of her seclusion was done.

The tired nations of Europe were asked to convene in Paris and make their needs known as the machinery of Congress worked toward enactment of the law.

Chapter Thirty-three

THE NOTICE READ:

The new library in Amerika Haus will be formally dedicated this Thursday. Special Services has arranged a concert by the eminent pianist, Sergeant William James.

This library, which will eventually hold 50,000 volumes, is a gift of the American people through donations to the German-American Friendship League. It would be appropriate on this occasion that personnel who wish to attend invite German guests.

A formal invitation read:

Colonel and Mrs. Neal Hazzard request the pleasure of your company at a cocktail party at the Dahlem Press Club directly after the concert of Sergeant James.

Sean had the invitation on his desk for a week. A number of times he had stared at it, pondered it, reread it, doodled on a scratch pad next to it ... two days till the concert.

He picked up the phone and asked the board for an outside number.

“Hello.”

“Fraulein Falkenstein?”

“Speaking.”

“This is Lieutenant Colonel O’Sullivan.”

“Oh yes, Colonel.”

“There is to be a dedication of a library at the Amerika Haus. I wonder if you and your uncle would consent to be my guests?”

Ernestine took the invitation impersonally, in the nature of a semi-official request, as her uncle would ordinarily attend such a function.

“What day, please?”

“Day after tomorrow.”

“Oh? Let me check his calendar ... Hello ... he has a district meeting in Spandau on Thursday and I believe he has said it was quite important.”

“How about you going with me?”

“Me?”

“We have a fine young pianist who will play a concert. I understand he is going to do a Beethoven sonata.”

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

“Please, fraulein. This is not an order.”

“Well ... very well, I’ll go.”

“Good. I’ll come by for you about six-thirty. My regards to your uncle.”

Sergeant William James lived up to his advance notices as a forthcoming giant among the virtuosos.

Sean and Ernestine met with what seemed to be dedicated determination to be polite to each other. The first moments were stilted and awkward. They hardly spoke all the way to Amerika Haus.

Then by some mystic communication, Sergeant James played the “Pathétique” and Sean and Ernestine were given an awareness of each other that said that a long dormant awakening was taking place.

On the way to the Press Club they had something to talk about and it helped them relax.

At the door, he offered her his arm and they walked down the reception line. Eyebrows were raised; they felt it.

Neal Hazzard studied Ernestine from head to toe in a second or so. He caught Sean with a glance that read: “Jesus, what a dish.”

“Fraulein Falkenstein, I’d like you to meet Colonel Hazzard, Mrs. Hazzard.”

“Lovely affair.”

“Any relation to Ulrich Falkenstein?”

“My uncle.”

They tried to avoid the voices trailing after them.

“Say, is that O’Sullivan with a German girl?”

“For her, he should make an exception.”

“That’s Falkenstein’s niece. She works in Judge Cohen’s section.”

“I’ll bet General Hansen told him to bring her. Show of friendship and all that.”

While the gossips had their say, Sean found the friendly, homely face of Nelson Goodfellow Bradbury deep in a mug of beer at the bar. He introduced Ernestine and they retreated to a quiet table in the garden and Sean excused himself to report his whereabouts to Headquarters.

In all the time they had been in Berlin, Sean had never been seen socially in the company of a German. His dates were either American girls or those working in the foreign missions.

Big Nellie sat with the girl and remembered a lot of things from way back. He was the one who had told Sean his brother was dead. And in Rombaden, Sean confided his unadulterated hatred of Germans.

Was it this particular girl because of her obvious intelligence and beauty who broke the barrier, or was it because she was the niece of Falkenstein? Was this the beginning of a softening process?

“I have enjoyed your column over the last year and a half,” Ernestine said.

“I didn’t realize I was read here in Berlin.”

“My uncle has an arrangement to receive a number of American and British papers. You have been a friend of the Berliners.”

“Because the Berliners have been our friends.”

“I understand you and the colonel are old comrades?”

“We go back a ways.”

There was an awkward second. Perhaps a question she wanted to ask; perhaps one he wanted to ask.

Sean returned and after a moment Big Nellie ambled away.

They talked for a long time about things that both of them liked: the kind of music they heard tonight; the kind of books she had read since living with her uncle. There was much in common.

When it was time for them to leave, Sean drove her home and both of them said it was a nice evening and perhaps ... sometime again.... And the moment he drove away he was annoyed with himself for enjoying it and wanting to see more of her.

Ernestine slipped quietly into the apartment. The light was on in the living room.

“How was the evening?” Ulrich asked.

“The concert was lovely. It was a pity you couldn’t attend.”

“And the colonel?”

“Quite civilized. In fact, he can be quite charming. As you know he can discuss many things on a wide range of subjects.”

“All O’Sullivan and I ever talked about was good Germans and bad Germans.”

“We avoided that.”

Ernestine brewed some tea and felt uncomfortable with her uncle’s obvious cynicism.

“Ernestine, darling,” he said, “Colonel O’Sullivan has had to set aside some deep feelings to be seen with you.”

“Under it all, he is just a human being. He was bound to become lonely. We all become lonely, Uncle.”

“And you? I have never seen you look as radiant as when you came in just now.”

“I am sure the invitation was mainly for you to make a public show of friendship.”

“And you will see him again?”

“Perhaps.”

“You are a young woman in the bloom of life. How long has it been since you had a date? Isn’t it strange that the first time you have gone out in months, it should be with an American?”

For a time, Ernestine made dates with German boys she had known and colleagues at work. She saw in them something of Dietrich Rascher, her father, her brother. She was frightened of all of them.

“Certainly O’Sullivan is civilized to stifle certain emotions, but eventually his hatred will burst through.”

Ernestine wanted to defend Sean. Her uncle had worked with him in Rombaden under severe circumstances. Uncle never got to know him as a warm and gentle person. That image of the iron-willed dedicated Prussian faded when he spoke. Why was she defending him in her own mind? She knew she wanted to see him again.

“It is strange how enemies are irresistibly drawn to each other. But love between enemies is not love. It is a desire to destroy each other,” Ulrich said.

“You are making a lot over nothing.”

“If it is nothing, then promise you won’t see him again.”

“I did enjoy the evening so much, Uncle.”

“I don’t want you hurt, Ernestine ... I don’t want you hurt. “

Chapter Thirty-four

IGOR SHAVED. IN THE mirror he could see the image of Lotte in the doorway behind him putting on her negligee. She was pouting.

“Are you going out?”

“Yes.”

“This makes four nights in a row. What is so important?”

“I am a colonel. Nikolai Trepovitch is a general. He ordered me to a meeting. I go.”

“Why must you always hold your meetings in the middle of the night?”

“So we can sleep late in the morning.”

“But I can’t sleep when you are gone.”

“You are a delightful fraud. When I return I always find you dead to the world.”

“That is because I take pills.”

He doused his face, rinsed his razor, and put on a lotion that he had obtained from an American at the Air Safety Center.

Lotte had her arms around him, squeezed him. He lifted her up and carried her into the bedroom, deposited her, and tugged on his boots.

“When will you give me a baby?” she asked.

What a liar! Oh, maybe she did want a child in the same way a little girl wants to play with a doll. She was clever enough to please him with the thought. They had been discreet, never showing up together at public functions. That was tolerable to the command. But anything like having a German mistress bear his child would mean immediate banishment.

A month earlier, Igor had gone through particular hell. The party, for some reason, decided it would be of propaganda value to dispatch his wife, Olga, to a convention of the League of German Women Communists and an inspection of Russian Berlin. Igor was compelled to stand like an adoring clod at the airport with a bouquet of flowers and embrace her with emotion at the ramp for the photographers. She was as drab as he remembered her.

For a week Igor escorted her on a well-documented tour of the Soviet Sector with the story sent out to the Communist world of this son and daughter separated by their dedication to the greater cause.

Olga visited a site in Treptower Park which would become a great memorial cemetery to the Russians who died storming Berlin. She visited an orphanage and had words for the future comrades. She attended a church service as visible proof of the Soviet Union’s democratic attitude toward religion.

Olga addressed the convention of German Women Communists with venom against the imperialists trying to enslave them and pleading for German motherhood to protect the peace by giving their sons and daughters to the forward march of world communism.

There was a final banquet at which Olga surprised her husband by presenting him with the Order of Lenin at the command of Comrade Stalin.

The agony ended with him rushing back to Lotte to calm the distraught girl an hour after his wife flew back to Leningrad.

“I do want your baby,” Lotte said again. “One day you must leave. All soldiers leave.”

Igor knew she was right. The shuffling of officers and party officials was a constant game aimed to prevent the formation of power cliques. In fact, it simply added to a ponderous and wasteful administration. Igor had remained clear of the recalls because he was an engineer with particular skills outside the political and military ring. Yet one day he, too, would leave.

He tucked Lotte in, patted her cheek, and told her to try to sleep. He had never lost that same feeling for this wonderful little imp as the first night he saw her.

As he was driven to Trepovitch’s house, Igor thought about the money he was putting away, a tidy sum he would leave for Lotte. Igor was in a position to do many favors in Berlin and, like most of the Russian staff, took advantage of it, always making certain not to go too far.

He hated himself for the notion, but he knew the money would be safer in a bank in the Western Sector. Daring to put the money in a Western bank was “speculation,” a crime that brought twenty-five years imprisonment, and sometimes death.

After he had returned from the Copenhagen Conference he had impressed Marshal Popov that the Americans and British had a number of engineering capabilities worth studying.

As long as there were areas of cooperation, Igor felt it was common sense to establish Russian missions any place they might benefit. He put people in with the Americans and British in heavy construction, road building, sanitation engineering, and the like. This brought him into contact with Western officers; he became known as the most agreeable of the Russians.

He looked for the proper American or Englishman through whom he could transfer his funds for Lotte, but each time he nearly made the decision he faltered.

The one officer he did trust was Sean O’Sullivan, but friendship with an American was a crime as serious as money speculation and Igor meticulously avoided Sean after his return to Berlin. Any meetings were by chance and the only amenities were exchanges of polite nods. Sean fully understood.

As an Air Force officer, Igor’s own particular pet project was the four-power Air Safety Center. The West was at least a decade ahead of the Soviet Union in matters of traffic control and safety. He was able to have the Americans establish a school to train Russian personnel, and he attended. He was considered the top man in his own command in this field.

Nikolai Trepovitch paddled around in bedroom slippers and a shaggy old robe after a warm greeting to Igor. Igor was concerned for his comrade. In the old days Trepovitch had been a fun-loving, robust fellow. He was now on a strict diet that permitted only mild drinking and no smoking.

“I don’t see how you can stand to sit there for hour after hour in those meetings at the Kommandatura,” Igor said.

“It’s terrible. If only I could return to a combat command. Life was good then. Between Colonel Hazzard and that Englishman, they’ve killed the inside of my stomach, but that’s no reason you shouldn’t have a drink.”

Igor poured a stiff one.

“Tovarich, there is a highly delicate matter you have to attend to in the next forty-eight hours.”

“Yes?”

“Some of the geniuses from Moscow are flying in. You must be prepared to give an opinion on whether or not the Americans and British can supply Berlin by air.”

“It would strain them, but they should be able to get in enough for their own garrisons.”

“No, no, Igor. I mean, supply their sectors of Berlin.”

“Berlin? All the Western Sectors? Food, coal, medicine ...”

Trepovitch nodded.

Igor set his drink down, stunned.

“It is a hard game we must play. They cannot be permitted to remain.”

Igor recovered his bearings. “I must have a great deal of intelligence information.”

Mid-February, 1948

Colonel Igor Karlovy went into Potsdam to a mansion hidden in the woods. The assembled were V. V. Azov, Russian Commandant Nikolai Trepovitch, Marshal Alexei Popov, an Air Force Intelligence colonel from Moscow, a colonel general attached to Stalin, a party member of the Politburo, and a top official of the NKVD. Last, the mysterious emissary, Captain Brusilov.

Igor had committed nothing to paper as he addressed this powerful group.

“Attempts at major air transport of supplies have usually fallen short.” He outlined the attempt to supply Leningrad by air, a situation he knew intimately. It was a primitive operation and a failure.

“In the spring of 1944, Imphal in the state of Manipur in the India-Burma area was supplied from the air by the American Troop Carrier Command to the extent of twenty thousand tons. It is estimated that a combined force of fifty thousand British and Indian troops were sustained for three months. Also, the Luftwaffe backed up the parachute landings on Crete with an air-supply operation. However, these two cases are of a military tactical nature for an immediate objective.

“In the large picture, the German attempt to air-supply Stalingrad ended in fiasco. All they needed, logistically speaking, was three hundred tons of material a day.

“History shows one great air-supply operation which succeeded was by the Americans, again in the India-China Theater. From the Assam Valley, the Bengal Valley, and the Calcutta area their transports flew over the Himalayan Mountains landing in some nine airfields in China in the Chengtu and Kunming areas. They called it jumping the Hump, or some such. This operation, which lasted from the end of 1942 to the end of 1945, achieved notable results with a major cargo of oil and petroleum.”

Igor went into great detail showing that the Hump deposited as much as sixty-five thousand tons of material a month in China which called for brilliant operational and logistical support, skillful and courageous flying.

“However,” he concluded, “this operation does not parallel the problems of supplying a city the size of Western Berlin and its two million civilians.”

The main cargo, Igor rationalized, would have to be coal and no one knows how to fly coal. In the Hump they had nine fields to land on and innumerable choices of routes. Flying the corridor would call for a precision never achieved in aviation history and there was only Tempelhof in Berlin to land on.

A member of the Moscow group spoke. “Comrade Colonel. Is it your opinion it cannot be done?”

“On a purely mathematical basis one would have to say the Americans and British have sufficient equipment, crews, economic reserve, and skills. In theory, mathematical theory, it is possible.”

“Then, Comrade Colonel, it is your opinion they can succeed?”

“Only in theory. There are too many imponderables. I can present you with the mathematical figures and then those things which detract from the figures.”

“Such as?”

“A calculation must be made of American public reaction and determination to go through with such an operation.”

“Determinations of this sort will be made by our political experts,” V. V. Azov said testily, trying to return Igor to the statistical end of the business.

Igor would not be stampeded by the commissar. “You must calculate if the Americans are willing to commit their global air transport power, MATS, into a single operation.”

Marshal Popov, from earlier meetings, knew this was a key question. Would the Americans dare make themselves vulnerable elsewhere?

“The entire strength of the United States,” Igor continued, “must be put behind this effort. As for the British, they may be able to deliver a quarter of the tonnage. They are short of crews, craft, and in a weak economic position. France? They will give speeches about French national honor, but can make no contribution.”

Trepovitch laughed. He had received his fill of lectures on the glory of France from Colonel Jacques Belfort.

Igor got down to bare facts. The minimum requirements for food, coal for industry, and power sustaining the barest level of existence would make this an undertaking unknown in history. It was not merely a question of the number of craft committed, but the number of engines in reserve, the number of trucks on the ground, and the number of crews. He estimated the supply of aviation fuel alone would demand a fleet of oil tankers.

In theory a craft carrying ten tons must land, unload at Tempelhof, and be on the way back to the Western Zones every eleven minutes, twenty-four hours a day, day and night.

“In the winter months the weather should defeat this operation. Beginning with autumn fogs, the weather can be below flying minimums sixty to eighty per cent of the time.”

This calculation warmed their hearts. Igor threw the statistical bomb at them. “If we were to chart the cities in America with the worst weather record, Pittsburgh would be at the top of the list. If we were to list Pittsburgh with all airports in Germany, Pittsburgh would be the best. In other words the best German weather is worse than the worst American weather in the winter months. You can depend on Berlin to be shut down fifty per cent of the time.”

From his own studies at Air Safety with the Americans, Igor knew their rigid standards. In bad weather the stacks of planes would pile up over Berlin, unable to land. It would have to result in chaos.

“And I must say, comrades, no matter how good the attempt or how lucky, it can only succeed with the support of Berliners. It is impossible for me to believe that the people would not look to the Soviet Union for protection. And lastly, the cost would be staggering, even for the Americans. It would run millions every day.”

The meeting went on for hours. Every eventuality was discussed.

That night the Moscow group and Captain Brusilov departed with the opinion: It is impossible for the West to supply Berlin by air.

On March 20, 1948, Marshal Popov staged a final walkout of the Supreme German Council.

Chapter Thirty-five

A ROLL CALL OF THE DEAD by Nelson Goodfellow Bradbury. For three years, since the end of World War II, reports have flowed in from American Embassies, military attachés, Counter-Intelligence, and journalists on what is happening in Eastern Europe. Americans did not seem to care. Now that the Truman Doctrine has been declared and a Soviet walkout has ended the function of the Supreme German Council it is well to review the past so that we understand the future.

Here is the roll call of the dead:

In the beginning Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were gobbled up and annexed into the Soviet Union as “People’s Republics.”

Poland fell through a textbook take-over by the Moscow-trained Lublin Committee. Except for a faint gasp by the Church and some traditional alliances with the West, Poland has become another odious “People’s Republic.”

Albania: The most brutally administrated and backward country in the Western world was in Communist hands at the war’s end. Hoxha is an absolute dictator ruling this domain which has little political or economic value. Yet, it is geographically located for guerrilla action against Greece and as a base for a possible move against Italy. There has been the pretense of an election; the usual single slate of candidates. The constitution is modeled on that of the Soviet Union.

Bulgaria: At the war’s end there were almost no Communists, but they quickly infiltrated under the protection of the occupying Red Army and forced the other political parties to form a “Fatherland Front” which they could dominate through naked terror. The “Fatherland Front” won the election, to be sure. In 1946 bloody purges wiped out an estimated 20,000 major and minor figures of the prewar government. After the purges, a “People’s Republic” was declared. New general elections supervised by the Red Army announced a majority to the Communists. Who knows? Georgi Dimitrov, exiled before the war to Moscow, was dusted off and returned to be named Premier.

Petkov, leader of the harassed opposition Agrarian Party was arrested and put to death, his party outlawed. Opposition to the Communists is thoroughly crushed.

Hungary: The first free election in late 1945 was swept by the anti-Communist Smallholder’s Party under the leadership of Zoltan Tildy.

Using the Red Army to support them, the Communists then forced the Smallholder’s Party to form a “unity” front. Bela Kovaks, Smallholder’s Secretary, was arrested for “crimes against the occupation” and a purge of the Smallholder’s followed. The Communists forced the Democrats to merge into the “unity” front, followed by a purge of the Democrats.

Deputy Premier Makoki, the Communist, became the true ruler of Hungary.

Cardinal Mindszenty, the last voice of opposition, was arrested before a new election presenting a single slate of candidates. A constitution along Soviet lines has been adopted, a five-year plan along Soviet lines adopted, and a final ousting of all non-Communists has taken place in the government.

Rumania: Under Red Army occupation the Communists forced the other political parties to form a “National Front.” Because of King Michael’s presence, the Americans and British were able to exert some pressure to keep a balance in the first government, but a massive terror campaign preceded the election of November 1945. Under Red Army supervision, the Communists were declared the victors.

Julius Maniu, leader of the opposition Peasant Party, was arrested along with thousands of members. Treason and espionage trials broke the back of the Peasant Party.

Ana Pauker was named the Communist Premier, forcing King Michael to abdicate.

A new “People’s Front” was formed. The new election gives the Communists 90 per cent of the vote followed by adoption of a Soviet-type constitution.

Purge trials wiped out all existing political opposition, all Roman Catholic bishops were arrested and their congregations dissolved, agriculture was collectivized and industry nationalized.

The game today is called “Slavic Unity,” a name reeking of the memory of other unities now deceased.

This is the most repetitious column I have ever written, but the pattern is bare for us all to see. Only in Yugoslavia has Moscow made a gross miscalculation. One might refer to them as the Martin Luthers of communism. Yugoslavia in World War II has the distinction of being the only occupied country to liberate itself. Stalin has made what might prove to be a classical blunder in believing that because Yugoslavia is Communist it will subject itself to the dictates of Moscow. Yugoslavia alone in the Red Bloc has a good army and Stalin does not doubt that it will be used if pushed. Moscow has backed away. This is the first dim clue that there is vulnerability within the Communist world and someday great new rifts may develop.

This great red mass has poured West like a river of molten lava devouring everything in its path. Defeat is recognized as temporary, victory inevitable.

Here in Germany we have seen the Soviet Union slicing off the Eastern Zone and rebuilding it along the recognizable lines. I believe, however, that the event that finally touched Americans was the second fall of Czechoslovakia. Two times in a single decade this innocent people fell victim to a sellout. Once at Munich, now again by an apathetic American public, which did not lift a finger as the Red Army and the Communists chewed up the Czechs. The murder/suicide (?) of the hero, Jan Masaryk, stilled the last voice of freedom, but as it died in agony, perhaps it was the sound to awaken the sleeping America.

Will other nations join the Roll Call of the Dead? Finland was “invited” by Moscow to join a mutual defense pact. Turkey has been coveted as an entrance to the Mediterranean by Russia for centuries. Italy and France are staggering close to communism through collapse of their economies.

In Greece, the Truman Doctrine is meeting its first great test. Left in a shambles by one of the most terrible of the Nazi occupations, Greece saw nearly a third of her population starved, murdered, frozen, or diseased. These valiant people, often divided against themselves, were asked to fight a most horrible civil war.

Greek Communists using bases in Yugoslavia to hit and hide have kidnaped tens of thousands of Greek children, divorced them from their lives and parents, and are training them as future agents of this barbaric order.

As the Greek tragedy wore on, a tired Britain became unable to guarantee the freedom of the Mediterranean. As massive American aid pours in, the Communists are being driven deeper and deeper into the hills.

The Achilles heel of communism, Yugoslavia, first to stand up against Moscow, is closing its borders to the guerrilla bands and it appears that an end may be in sight.

The only ray of light in this bleak picture is the accommodation worked out to neutralize Austria.

In a few years the Soviet Union has swallowed up Eastern Europe and now stands on the brink of creating an empire from the Baltic to the Mediterranean to the English Channel. It is so vast that not even a Hitler dreamed of it. The Soviet Union has patented a method of results without the death of a single Red Army soldier. In Berlin we have been subjected to every harassment short of open warfare. We take our cue from the Greeks that when free men hang tough, they will prevail. If Berlin falls, then the take-over of Western Germany and Western Europe becomes academic.

All that stands between the Soviet Union and the English Channel is a thin line of American and British soldiers and the resolution of free men.

Chapter Thirty-six

THE TENSION IN BERLIN was like that brief lull between the time the air-raid siren stopped and the first bomb fell.

The rumor was planted and spread that the Americans were about to pull out, that food reserves were nearly gone in the Western Sectors, and that there was no room “for the adherents of partition.”

With the Supreme German Council no longer functioning, the only official contact was through the Berlin Kommandatura where the moves and countermoves increased the tempo toward the showdown.

On April 11,1948, the Berlin Assembly continued to defy the Soviet Union by once more voting down the anti-Fascist front.

Two days later General Trepovitch attempted to seize the police force by declaring it wholly under Soviet command. The Western commandants were able to block the take-over because Neal Hazzard had been farsighted enough to have Hans Kronbach appointed as deputy president months before. Kronbach had quietly built a strong pro-Western force which could splinter away from the main body.

On April 16 all Western papers in the Russian Sector were seized, all printing plants confiscated.

Along with this there began a harassment of German civilians traveling in and out of Berlin. The rail lines and highways were entirely within Russian-held territory. After getting away with the pressure on the Germans, Trepovitch ordered harassment on the daily American trains which ran personnel, mail, and supplies to and from the zone.

Each train leaving Berlin was now forced to submit to tedious inspections on the Russian contention that the Americans were supporting black-marketeering and smuggling.

On the autobahn, trucks were compelled to submit manifests and their cargo was inspected carefully. Soviet checkpoints made these inspections last for hours, lining up hundreds of vehicles waiting for clearance.

Then the canals were hit and barges waylaid.... The Soviet Union had succeeded in snarling traffic hopelessly.

At last Neal Hazzard warned that no Russian troops would be allowed to board any American train or convoy.

Trepovitch quickly adjusted to the tactic. Without prior warning the rail lines and highways would be shut for hours for “repairs” or due to “technical difficulties.”

Berliners watched it all happen with growing apprehension.

By mid-April the American garrison began to feel the pinch. General Hansen phoned the USAFE commander, Barney Root, at Air Force Headquarters in Wiesbaden.

“We’re going to need supplies flown in to take care of the garrison.”

“How much do you figure, Chip?”

“Eighty tons a day.”

“Eighty tons! Hell, Chip, all we’ve got around here are a couple dozen old Gooney Birds. They can handle only about two tons a flight. Let me get together with my people and see what we can scratch up. Send us a list of requirements and we’ll get it to you somehow.”

Barney Root was able to locate a few Douglas Skymasters in Italy and the Middle East. These four-engine craft had a ten-ton capacity. Crews were called in from bases in England and two days after Hansen’s call the first of them touched down on the runway at Tempelhof to begin the “milk run” to Berlin.

Meanwhile, General Hartly Fitz-Roy worked out some sort of relief for the British garrison and both supplied the French.

At the Air Safety Center, still under four-power operation, and through spies around Tempelhof, Igor Karlovy was able to study the proceedings. In bad weather the planes stacked up overhead resulting in minor chaos. It all confirmed Igor’s findings. The West was having trouble getting in a few hundred tons of supplies a day for their garrisons. The greater task of supplying two million people needing thousands of tons daily was beyond comprehension.

To make matters more tense, Russian fighter planes ran through the corridors on the contention that the corridors were illegal, did not exist, and the skies were Russian-owned.

Into this city came Senator Adam Blanchard.

It had long been fashionable for members of the Congress to tour Berlin, get themselves photographed, make a statement or two for posterity, and generally lend themselves to the “glamorous” situation.

Hansen and Hazzard and other top staff officers were compelled to spend hundreds of hours at Tempelhof welcoming the junketing legislators. Some were hard-working and sincere men desiring to help the situation, others were utter bores and nuisances.... Hansen deliberately lived in a small house without guest facilities.

Adam Blanchard was not a common-garden-variety senator. From the minority party, he held seats on both the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Armed Forces Committee. Although no one could figure what good he could do in Berlin, everyone knew he could do a great deal of harm. The silk-glove treatment was ordered.

Blanchard, as suspected, had come to Berlin with a purpose in mind. He was to run for re-election with a swell of discontent in the party hierarchy of his state. Key industrialists, traditional conservatives, and crusty old isolationists controlled the party machinery. They were sick as hell of being taxed to death to feed undeserving and ungrateful Europeans and keeping a costly American occupation army “over there.”

Blanchard had gone along with the Truman Doctrine earlier, bringing further growls that he was getting a little “pinko” around the edges. The senator was now on tenterhooks on how he would vote for the Marshall Plan. He evaded that issue.

His advisors conjured up the idea of a “fact finding” trip to Germany, and Berlin in particular, after which he would make a declaration to soothe the troubled waters back home.

At the end of four days of briefing and tours in Berlin, Adam Blanchard’s people called a press conference which was arranged for the entire corps, Communists as well as Western journalists in attendance.

“We want to get out of Germany as soon as possible,” Blanchard said. “The first step will be to hand over the authority to the State Department and pare down this costly occupation force.”

“That son of a bitch!” Neal Hazzard said.

“Calm down, Neal,” Sean warned.

“Calm down, my ass.”

On General Hansen’s desk lay a copy of Tägliche Rundschau, the official Russian newspaper in the German language. The headline blared: KEY AMERICAN OFFICIAL CONFIRMS WITHDRAWAL OF AMERICAN FORCES FROM BERLIN.

A sampling of newspapers around the world played the same theme:

YANKS PULLING OUT OF GERMANY

U.S. WEARY OF OCCUPATION COSTS

AMERICAN ABANDONMENT OF EUROPE BEGINS

“This could not have come at a worse time,” Hansen said.

“That bastard just played the Russian trump card. It’s just something like this that will stampede the people.”

“Neal. Get Falkenstein and the other leaders together and get them calmed down.”

“They don’t believe us any more, sir. We’re sitting on our prats letting them shove our traffic all over Germany. General Hansen, we’ve got to face up to the fact that their next move is going to be a complete blockade.”

“I haven’t come to that opinion yet. The Russians are going to be careful about turning world opinion against them.”

“The Russians don’t give a Chinese fart what the world thinks of them as long as they get away with what they’re trying. We’re the ones who are always afraid of how we look.”

“That will be all, Neal.”

“Yes, sir.”

He left. Hansen pushed away from his desk and looked at Sean.

“Colonel Hazzard is right, sir. They’re going to blockade.”

“I know it, Sean, but I can’t let either Neal or the Germans know that I believe it, yet.”

The general left to pick up Senator Blanchard for a luncheon at British Headquarters. The senator’s people were so proud of the headlines they urged him to remain in Germany another week or two. Hansen dreaded the consequences. He considered the matter in the back seat of the longest, blackest, shiniest Cadillac in the American garrison as it sped toward the VIP guest house surrounded by a covey of motorcycles.

The house was a magnificent affair once belonging to Himmler. It sat on the Wannsee Lake. The living room had a great plate-glass wall that could be raised and lowered, a velvetlike lawn that swept to the water’s edge, and a private dock.

Senator Blanchard got into the car beside Hansen, the sirens screamed and the flags on the fenders fluttered as they moved north, skirting the Grunewald and the chain of little lakes as they moved toward Charlottenburg Borough.

Adam Blanchard was a handsome, lean man in his early sixties. He spoke with the smooth assurance of one who had survived many political dogfights over three decades.

He was aware of the coldness of the Berlin garrison after his press conference. In a very nice way he let Hansen know he was annoyed.

“As a matter of fact, Senator, this gives you and me a chance to talk. We are having a very bad time straightening out some misunderstandings as a result of your statements.”

Blanchard knew he was sitting beside one of the few military men he could not bully. He decided upon the blunt route himself. “Your record of antagonism toward the Congress is well known.”

“The basis of my antagonism has always been that the military has been more farsighted than the Congress. The fact that our country was forced to enter World War II unprepared because of a lack of appropriations or appreciation of the danger vindicates my position. You know, Senator Blanchard, if the United States had been strong, there might never have been a Second World War. And only strength will stop a third World War.”

The slap was unmistakable. Before the war Blanchard was among those die-hard isolationists; his new position on the Foreign Relations Committee had not changed the spots on the leopard.

“General Hansen, I admire your candor. Let me speak with equal candor. I have found waste and inefficiency in this military government operation appalling. Incompetence in the military is a subject with which I am familiar.”

“Senator, have you ever been aboard an aircraft carrier?”

“Certainly.”

“That piece of machinery is worth over a hundred million dollars. It takes three thousand men to operate her. She is the most advanced product of the nation’s talents, carrying the most sophisticated electronic devices known to man. Yes, sir, an aircraft carrier is something.”

“What is your point, sir?”

“The officer who commands such a ship makes nine to eleven thousand dollars a year. What do you suppose such a man would get from private industry running a hundred-million-dollar corporation with three thousand employees?”

“Now just a minute ...”

“I haven’t finished yet. It has become fashionable again to portray the military as stupid, shiftless clods. I’ll tell you something about what we’ve got here in Berlin. We have a cross section of the most brilliant brains our nation can produce. Our sector of Berlin is administered by judges, police, labor leaders, engineers who could run any city in the United States with greater efficiency than it is now.”

Blanchard flustered. He had never received such a tongue-lashing by an Army man. “You, General, intend to foster world tension to justify huge military expenditures. I know all about this goddamned country club you’re running.”

“I’m a man in my sixties,” Hansen said softly. “I have $1800 in the bank. In thirty years in the service my wife has had twenty-one places she has called home ... but we know why we are in Berlin. And I also know why you are in Berlin.

“You don’t want to leave here knowing why America must stay because that might make you unpopular in your state. I’m dealing with the same deaf man I dealt with before the war. But don’t think we can leave Berlin, free. We will pay for it with ten thousand per cent interest.

“You’re in a fight, Blanchard, because I’ve got a press corps here who knows what we are trying to do and you start on us and you’ll get it right between the eyes.”

The car passed on the southern circumference of the park holding the Olympic stadium and sports complex, where Hitler once attempted to prove Aryan superiority on the playing fields.

The two men had no more to say.

At the north end of the Olympic Park, the sports administration building now was the location of British Headquarters. A glum Adam Blanchard lit up as the British honor guard came to attention and the band played a “fanfare for a dignified occasion.”

He emerged from the car, walked toward ramrod stiff, swagger stick-bearing Hardy Fitz-Roy and pumped his hand, slapped his back, and waved at the guard as though he were soliciting their votes.

Chapter Thirty-seven

NEAL HAZZARD PACED THE living room of Sean’s apartment angrily. “What the hell is the matter with General Hansen? Is he blind or something?”

“He is being hampered by a little system known as democracy,” Sean answered.

“What about the threat of blockade? Why doesn’t he know?”

“He knows. But he can’t do anything until it is imposed. You know how it is, pal. The military cry ‘wolf’ and no one believes them. The only way it will be believed is when Berlin gets its Pearl Harbor.”

Hazzard shook his head. “We have to stand here flat-footed waiting for the Russians to belt us.”

“That’s because we represent a society dictated by public opinion.”

Hazzard had chewed his cigar beyond mercy, flung it into the fireplace. “Sean. I think I know the people of Berlin as well as anyone.”

“I’ll buy that.”

“They’ve got strong nerves. If we could only give them our guarantee that we are going to stay.”

“We can’t do that, Neal.”

“I know the Russians too. I know them from two hundred and fifty-eight meetings of the Kommandatura with Nikolai Trepovitch. They’ll quit short of a fight.”

“That’s no secret.”

“Goddammit, I’m going on RIAS and tell the people of Berlin this garrison is staying.”

“Neal, for Christ’s sake. If you do guess wrong you can commit us to a bad situation.”

“I’m an old infantryman, Sean. I know that when the battle gets so screwed up the generals behind the lines can’t control it, a few men in the thick of it have to improvise.”

Sean had once stood in Neal Hazzard’s shoes in Rombaden ready to face the wrath of the world for something he believed. He was a soul mate. If there was one single thing that being an American meant to Sean it was the ability to think for one’s self. Not in times of comfort, but under nerve-wracking stress. Hazzard knew he was right. Sean believed it too.

“You’ve got a partner,” Sean said. “How do we do this?”

“I’m going to go over to RIAS and make the announcement right away.”

“With the right moves,” Sean thought aloud, “we can dump Hollweg as Oberburgermeister and stop the Russians for long enough to clean the Adam Blanchard stink.”

“Like my old pal T. E. Blatty says ... let’s get cracking.”

At the invisible boundary between the American and British sectors on Kufsteiner Strasse 69 on Innsbrucker Platz stood a five-story, semi-circular, gray-stone building which had become one of the most powerful locales in the world.

RIAS was the only radio planted deep inside the Russian Empire. A brilliant staff, which refused to be cowed, succeeded in obliterating the Russian propaganda assaults. RIAS was one of the few positions anywhere where the West took the offensive. Each day the reportage of Soviet atrocity was heard by millions of the enslaved. RIAS was a voice in the dark forest of Eastern Europe. To the Russians, the American Radio had become the most hated symbol of the West, and behind every move to get the West from Berlin was the plan to still its voice.

This station was so feared that six hundred Russian jamming stations tried to blot out its signal. To counter this, RIAS staggered its programs to the Russian colonies. Then once a day the entire power output was combined and over a million watts thrown into a single program, which nothing could jam. It is said that when RIAS went on full output it could be received in the silver fillings of your teeth two hundred miles away.

Colonel Hazzard was an old friend at RIAS. He went to the director’s office. All transmissions were ordered to halt to put the full power at the American Commandant’s disposal.

“This is Colonel Hazzard, commandant of the American Sector of Berlin. My friends. I have a most important message from my government. For the past several weeks the Soviet Union and their flunkies, led by Rudi Wöhlman, have deliberately spread a rumor that the American garrison is going to withdraw from Berlin. I am here to nail this new lie dead. An opinion expressed recently by an American senator was entirely his own and has been completely discredited in Washington.”

Hazzard closed his eyes, crossed his fingers.

“An official spokesman of my government has sent me this message and I quote. ‘The United States is in Berlin by irrevocable legal agreements which make Berlin separate and independent of the occupation zones of Germany. This is a four-power city and will remain so. The United States garrison will not withdraw now or in the future until an accord is reached and ratified by the people of Berlin. We will continue to fulfill our obligations.’ End of quote.”

“Colonel Hazzard,” the guard said at the main gate, “General Hansen wants you in his office, immediately.”

Hazzard came to a stop before the general’s desk, eyed an ashen-faced Sean standing nearby.

“You’re fired,” Hansen said.

“Yes, sir.”

“You will proceed with Mrs. Hazzard and your family to Frankfurt and report to the Provost Marshal. You will remain there until I can act on your formal resignation from the Army.”

“Yes, sir. I’m homesick for Kansas City anyhow.”

When Neal Hazzard had gone Hansen sat speechless for ever so long. “I should have done this a long time ago,” he mumbled to his deputy. “He’s a hothead.”

Sean did not answer.

“All right, get it off your chest,” the general demanded.

“You’ve made a mistake, sir.”

“Hazzard takes too damned much on his own. He’s gotten us into hot water before.”

“Rugged individualism. Yes, sir. That’s a bad thing.”

“I said get it off your chest!”

“Yes, sir. This is an army. It is not intended to run on democratic principles. Generals should not go chewing the asses off senators.”

“Goddammit, Sean ...”

“I haven’t gotten it all off my chest, sir. What we need is more blind obedience. You can be friggin’ sure that no Russian colonel would take that responsibility on himself. You can be sure of that.”

Berthold Hollweg was thunderstruck by Neal Hazzard’s broadcast. When Ulrich Falkenstein went home he pretended to be delighted by the American attitude, but in his heart he feared more pressure from Wöhlman, Schatz, and the Russians.

Since Sean had confronted Falkenstein with the sellout, his relations with Hollweg had gone cold. Hollweg’s desire to appease the Russians was so apparent it was becoming an open scandal in the Democratic Party.

“There is so little left of forty years of friendship,” Ulrich said sadly, “we can at least spare each other the sham of wearing two faces now.”

“What are you trying to say, Ulrich?”

“The time has come for you to resign as mayor of Berlin.”

Hollweg paled, grew faint. He recovered enough to become indignant.

Ulrich stopped him by throwing before him a copy of the reports that damned him as a Russian collaborator. Berthold Hollweg lifted the first page and began to read, then turned his back and wrung his hands.

“The truth!” Falkenstein demanded.

“They made me sit for hours in an empty office in police headquarters,” he muttered. “Schatz came ... three, four nights a week ... I was followed everywhere ... they threatened to kill my little grandson ... you can’t imagine what it has been like!”

“Yes, I do know what it is like.”

“Great God! All men cannot be like you!”

Ulrich Falkenstein’s final disdain ruled out pity. “Was there nothing left for the things we lived for? Was there nothing left of the memory of our comrades that Hitler destroyed? Was there nothing left to cry out in anger at Rudi Wöhlman? Was there nothing left?”

Hollweg wept.

“Fool!” Falkenstein cried.

“You are the fool!” his friend screamed back. “How long will the Americans stay before they are sick of the German business? How much blood will they spill for us? Do you really believe the Russians can be stopped? You are the fool, Ulrich! I cannot live through it, again.”

Ulrich flopped his arms helplessly. Beneath him writhed a person whose innards were eroded by the political terror of two decades.

Falkenstein unfolded a sheet of paper, placed it before Hollweg, and handed him a pen. “You will sign this. It is your resignation from the Democratic Party and as Oberburgermeister of Berlin.”

Chapter Thirty-eight

IT HAPPENED WITH LIGHTNING speed!

The session of the Berlin Assembly came to order in the red-brick, churchlike structure on Rathaus Strasse. The banner of the city with its symbolic Berlin Bear looked down on the great room from behind the rostrum.

During the early morning hours, Ulrich Falkenstein had quietly marshaled his forces and held secret meetings with the leaders of the Conservatives and Christians. The air was still supercharged by Colonel Hazzard’s broadcast. A new ounce of courage was in them all.

The chief clerk of the Assembly stood, and read the resignation of Berthold Hollweg as Oberburgermeister.

Rudi Wöhlman never knew what hit him! Before he could gain his wits, the free parties had elected Ulrich Falkenstein to the office.

Collaborating with the American guarantee, Sean had used this precious timing to inflict a catastrophic setback on the Russians. It was the first real display of offensive action as against defensive reaction.

General Hansen was too wise not to understand the temper of the moment. He displayed another quality of his many-sided character by the admission that he had made a mistake and he set out to rectify it.

Hansen now took responsibility for Hazzard’s broadcast and argued with the State Department that it was entirely within his discretion and general American policy. Washington now was faced with rebuking their military governor publicly. They backed down with an announcement of their own: THE AMERICAN GARRISON IS REMAINING IN BERLIN.

“General, we have contacted Colonel Hazzard in Frankfurt. He is on the line.”

“Neal?”

“Speaking.”

“Hansen, here.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Neal, on second thought, Berlin needs you more than Kansas City.”

“To hell with Berlin, General.”

“I’m trying to say, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to, General. I knew what I was doing. I’m the one who is sorry I had to put you in hot water.”

“Will you come back?”

“No, sir. I’m tired of sleeping with a pistol under my pillow. I’m tired of my wife being threatened. I’ve got children sixteen and seventeen years old. I want to get a quiet job and have enough money to put them through college. General, I’ve got a wife in the next room crying her heart out. She really hasn’t enjoyed the country club we’re supposed to be running in Berlin. I’ve never seen Claire cry before ... not in twenty-two years of this. We’ve just had a belly full.”

Sean lifted the extension. The general nodded that it was okay to speak. “This is Sean. We need you here.”

“Find another pigeon.”

“Listen, dammit. Hollweg resigned as mayor and Falkenstein was named in his place. The Russians never knew what hit them.”

“You’re kidding ...”

“We’ve got to make this stick. Your pal Trepovitch is screaming for an emergency meeting of the Kommandatura. You’ve got to go in for us.”

“Hold on.”

Both of them could hear him talking to Claire Hazzard. We’ve got to go back, he was saying. No I can’t guarantee it won’t happen again.

“General, if we get a plane this evening we should be in Berlin by midnight.”

“I’ll dispatch mine right away,” Hansen said.

When the call was over Hansen said to Sean, “I wonder if Senator Blanchard thinks a shiftless clod like Neal Hazzard really earns his eight thousand bucks a year?”

“Veto! Veto!” Nikolai Trepovitch said darkly. “We veto the resignation of Berthold Hollweg. He must continue to serve in office. Therefore, the election of Ulrich Falkenstein is illegal ... and we veto that too.”

Hazzard, the chairman of the month, recognized T. E. Blatty.

“I say, General Trepovitch, you can’t veto Hollweg’s resignation. It is clearly permitted under a constitution which you personally agreed upon and gave to the city of Berlin. Nor do I see how you can veto Herr Falkenstein as it specifically states in Article Twenty-three of the same constitution that the Oberburgermeister shall legally be voted into office by the Berlin Assembly. You just can’t go around vetoing, my dear fellow.”

“We have substantial suspicion that Ulrich Falkenstein is engaged in black-marketeering. We demand an investigation.”

“No dice,” Neal Hazzard said. “Either present charges or forget it.”

Trepovitch began banging on the table. “It is a Western plot! We will never allow Falkenstein in office!”

An advisor whispered into the Russian commandant’s ear. He was warned to beware of an American trap. Remembering how Hazzard allowed the new labor union to form in the American Sector there was a danger he might try the same trick with the city government. Under no circumstances could the Soviet Union risk removal of the Assembly and Magistrat from the Soviet Sector.

“For the sake of Allied unity,” the Russian began hollowly, “I shall propose a compromise. We will accept Hollweg’s resignation on the condition that Falkenstein’s illegal election is set aside. We will agree to Hanna Kirchner as acting mayor until the problem is fully worked out.”

Hazzard smelled victory, but Blatty was at it. “Don’t you know,” the Englishman said, “that we can’t do all this mucking around without consent of the Berlin Assembly.”

As chairman, Neal Hazzard called a recess before Blatty went off on a full-scale parliamentary tangent.

In his office he reached Ulrich Falkenstein and advised him of the Soviet proposal.

Falkenstein was delighted. “Hanna will make an excellent Oberburgermeister. The Russians believe that because she is a German woman they have found another weak spot like Hollweg. They have picked on a tough hen.”

“How about the Assembly?” Hazzard asked.

“I am certain I can get them to agree.”

For the following half hour the three Western commandants locked themselves up in Blatty’s office, the other two convincing the Englishman to accept the compromise. If the Kommandatura were to “suggest” this to the Berlin Assembly, perhaps the Assembly would make the accommodation.

At last Blatty gave in.

Hanna Kirchner was “suggested” and the Berlin Assembly approved her as acting Oberburgermeister. She had achieved the highest political position of any woman in Berlin’s history.

On People’s Radio from the Russian Sector, the “voice of the masses” brought Berthold Hollweg to the microphone.

“My fellow Berliners,” his weary voice said, “I have resigned as Oberburgermeister of Berlin because I found it impossible to conduct the office under the constant threats of Colonel Hazzard and his imperialist henchmen Blatty and Belfort. They imposed upon me a reign of Fascist terror and attempted to have me work against the working class of Berlin. My conscience could no longer bear it. I have asked Comrade Rudi Wöhlman to allow me to serve the interest of freedom through the Democratic Party in the Soviet Sector in the anti-Fascist front.”

Chapter Thirty-nine

ERNESTINE OPENED THE DOOR quickly, put her finger to her lips and stepped into the hall.

“Shh,” she whispered, “Uncle Ulrich has dozed at his desk. I don’t want to awaken him.”

Sean helped her into her coat, took her arm, and led her to the Horsche sedan.

“What time does the concert start, Colonel?”

“I have a confession, Fraulein Falkenstein. I lured you out tonight under false pretenses.”

“So?”

“We have met four times. One piano recital, one dramatic reading of Goethe no less, one museum exhibition, and one opening of a play. The way I look at it is this ... there is only so much culture a man can absorb.”

“And what do you have in mind, sir?”

“A table at a nice French restaurant on the Tegeler Lake. Are you angry?”

“As a matter of fact, there is only so much culture a woman can absorb.”

He clicked on Armed Forces Network, where there was apt to be music no more serious than Glenn Miller, and swung to the northern end of the city past the medieval borough of Spandau.

In the middle of the French Sector, the Jungfernheide and the Tegel forests surround the Tegeler Lake. At the lake’s edge the French Officers’ Club operated a lovely restaurant for occupation forces.

It was that kind of warm and balmy night that, with the freshness of the woods, made Berliners boast about their rare brand of air. Their table was ready on the outside terrace.

“What a lovely idea,” she said.

Sean excused himself as he always did when they arrived at a destination. She watched him leave to phone in to Headquarters and give his whereabouts.

After their first date they did not see each other for ten days, until Ernestine phoned him to ask him to the opening of a play. She was glad he had decided to drop the “cultural” pretext as a reason for seeing her. They were quite at ease with each other now, in a formal sort of way. What was it besides his rugged good looks that made him so attractive? The inevitable comparisons with Dietrich Rascher and the other men she had known came to mind. She realized that Sean and her uncle were the most interesting people she had ever known. His range of knowledge and his ability to express it seemed limitless, like the teacher he was.

There was a certain peace within Sean that was apparent. He did not need to prove the masculinity that obsessed most German men. He was certain of himself about so many things.

The opening of a warm and sentimental side began when Sean tried to apologize to her. No German boy would so humble himself; it was a new experience for her.

But there were other moments when she felt she could read his thoughts and those thoughts were ugly. He constantly seemed to be reminding himself he was sitting with a German woman, asking himself why. “German woman ... leper.”

Ernestine was curious to know if she could loosen him from an obsessive hatred of Germans. Or was their friendship nothing more than two lonely people who needed to talk to each other? Would Sean’s hatred always lurk and suddenly be triggered?

He returned to the table.

The menu was a bit on the thin side, but the French could do wonderful things with sauces, even over Rhine River eel. Fortunately, there was no shortage of champagne.

He raised his glass. “To our first noncultural affair.”

Their other encounters had given way to a rising number of long silent spells, lingering glances, and greater occasion of the need to touch each other. In this setting both of them knew that these feelings had to find their way through. It became a moment of both anticipation and fear.

She reached over and took his plate. “Here, let me cut that for you. Only an old eel fresser can do it properly.”

Sean watched her movements as she made thin, true slices down the middle of the fish and removed the backbone. He thought she did everything delicately.

They were conscious of their own silence. They drank and watched the lake, and were annoyed by the intrusions of the waiter. Sean tipped the last of the bottle into her glass.

“Prosit!” she said without thinking, but Sean did not react to the German toast.

He ordered another bottle of champagne.

Ernestine giggled. “I should have warned you. It does not take much to make me tipsy.”

Her eyes shone and she was radiant. The barriers were tumbling.

Behind them, the musicians switched from French to a German medley. Ernestine hummed, then sang, and her voice was sweet too. She remembered that she had not sung for years and years. “You are a pretty man ... yes, you are a pretty man ... that is better, Colonel ... you do have such a nice smile when you use it.”

Du kannst nicht treu sein—

Nein, nein, das kannst du nicht,

Wenn auch dein Mund mir

Wahre Liebe verspricht.

In deinem Herzen

Hast du fuer viele Platz,

Darum bist du auch nicht

Fuer mich der richt’ge Schatz.

Ernestine thought she saw his face grow tense at the German lyrics and stopped singing.

“Please go on,” he said.

There, the damned hypersensitivity again. “It is nonsense. A silly, sentimental song.”

Sean took her hand. “I am very glad we decided to become friends.”

“May I have some more champagne?”

“I don’t want to give you a hangover on our first non-cultural meeting.”

“I wish to get utterly drunk. I have been prim and proper for lo, six hundred years. I am going to kick off my shoes, forthwith, and wade into the lake and make you carry me to the car ...”

Sean poured her another glass.

She sipped long and sighed deeply. “Oh Lord, it is lovely here. It hasn’t been so lovely for so long.”

‘To a lovely friendship,” he said.

She tweaked his nose. “We have a nice German custom when people decide to become friends ... oh, excuse me, Colonel ... you don’t like German customs.”

“If it’s a nice one.”

“Extremely nice. First, you hold your glass and I hold mine. Now, we reach over ... .so ... and intertwine arms. There. Now, we drink.”

“This is a nice custom.”

“The best is yet to come.”

They sipped from each other’s glass, their locked arms brought their cheeks close.

“After a kiss we can call each other by the familiar form of ... Du.”

He felt the velvet of her cheek. “I like Du,” he said.

“And I like Du.”

“Du smell good.”

“I wore it for Du.”

Their lips touched.

“Hello, Sean.”

“Hi.”

Even on the veranda lit with little more than moonlight it was difficult to miss the hulking form of Shenandoah Blessing as he spoke to the headwaiter, who, in turn, pointed to their table.

“Sorry to disturb you,” he said.

Sean tumbled back to life, excused himself.

“Take the young lady home. I’ll meet you at Security soon as you can get there. I have your fatigues and side arms in my jeep.”

“Was gibt’s?”

“Don’t know, but it sure smells big.”

Chapter Forty

WHEN SEAN REACHED A secret room in the basement of Headquarters, Blessing was there with a dozen hand-picked enlisted men from the Constabulary. Likewise, a British Major Whitehead and a squad of their military police were present. General Hansen, General Fitz-Roy, and the Commandants Hazzard and Blatty were there. General Fitz-Roy addressed them:

“You gentlemen have been selected and assembled for a secret, urgent, and delicate mission. Within forty-eight hours our headquarters will issue a joint communiqué announcing a currency reform in the American and British zones of Germany.

“Further, it is now anticipated that the American Congress will enact the Marshall Plan into law momentarily. These two events will no doubt bring a violent reaction from the Soviet Union.

“We anticipate the Russians will attempt to issue their own currency and make it universal in Berlin. We are here to prepare for that eventuality.

“Your mission tonight is to fly to Munich and proceed to a destination known as Hüttendorf, where you will bring back a special currency for Berlin. We will hold it ready if the Soviets try to eliminate four-power currency.

“Captain Horniman of British Intelligence will brief you in detail.”

Horniman spoke for an hour outlining the mission. It had been meticulously plotted.

With a final warning that no one was to make contact with persons on the outside, the briefing ended.

According to the plan they were to proceed in twos, threes, and fours to Tempelhof over a staggered time so their arrival would not create suspicion. A four-engined Skymaster was in ready named “Cherry Picker.” The flight plan called for Hamburg with the passengers listed as troops going on furlough or routine military business. After a roll call, Tempelhof tower cleared the Cherry Picker slightly after midnight and she swept over sleeping Berlin into the northern air corridor toward Hamburg.

Sean had worked secretly on certain details and aspects of the currency reform. Now that there was no doubt that cooperation with the Russians was impossible new currency would be needed for the planned merging of the Western Zones. It was an integral part of the raising of German production levels, halting inflation, opening up consumer goods, rebuilding and establishing a trade balance.

Yet, the currency reform was a daring tactic in that it issued the Russians a direct challenge. By legal agreement, Berlin was a four-power city not belonging to any Zone. Therefore, the currency to be used in Berlin would be marked with a “B.”

The Cherry Picker passed out of the Soviet Zone at the Dannenberg beacon beyond Soviet surveillance and instead of continuing for Hamburg she swung south.

At the Munich airport a convoy of closed armored trucks stood by at their parking space. As the Cherry Picker cut engines, a company of infantry surrounded her restricting the pilot and crew aboard. It was daybreak.

Members of the mission boarded the waiting vehicles according to preassignment; they drove south from the city into the rolling foothills of the mountains in the direction of the Austrian frontier. This was Bavaria in its unspoiled form.

Off the main road they passed through villages filled with decorative wooden houses with brightly colored murals on their outside walls, churches with tall towers and onion-shaped domes, and cobblestone streets and still lakes. It was one of the few corners of Germany untouched by the war.

Once past Tegernsee the hills grew more severe and the forests thickened. The convoy swung onto a dirt road blocked by a guard station.

HNTTENDORF 3 KMS. PASSAGE ON THIS ROAD IS FORBIDDEN!

They plunged into the forest and threw up a swirl of dust; the land was void of human life. The rising sun flickered through the trees as they passed another series of roadblocks and were checked through carefully.

So far as the Germans in the area knew, Hüttendorf, a tiny village of ten families, had been confiscated in total as a stockade for upper-echelon Nazi war criminals. Trained never to ask questions during the Hitler era, they said nothing and knew nothing about this “forbidden” place. The village was surrounded by a wall of barbed wire.

Colonel Hill, the C.O., met Sean and Major Whitehead at the main gate and led them to an inner compound completely walled off from the outer village and watched by an intricate guard system.

Inside the compound Germans and Americans had volunteered to live for four months with no contact with the outside for the purpose of establishing an engraving and printing plant for the manufacture of the new currency. The security was in the hands of select personnel who also volunteered to be isolated.

Inside the inner wall stood a half-dozen buildings; two barracks, the former community barn, and three other wooden constructions holding the plants and warehouse.

The convoy was lined up alongside the barn. Colonel Hill unlocked the door. The barn was filled with neatly crated boxes containing billions of marks in the new money. The special Berlin B marks were triple-checked and loaded. Signatures were traded, another roll call made. This was the sixteenth roll call.

The convoy rolled back to Munich, where the Cherry Picker was loaded. To further avoid suspicion, half the mission was left in Munich confined to tightly guarded quarters.

The Cherry Picker took off to retrace the earlier flight, reversing the procedure and pretending to be coming from Hamburg.

Late that evening six tons of wooden crates were unloaded at Tempelhof marked BOURBON, GIN, SCOTCH WHISKEY, AND VODKA.

Russian agents reported to Soviet Headquarters that a large shipment of liquor had arrived. This led to a great deal of mirth in the Russian Command. Obviously the West was feeling the pinch of the traffic harassment. If there was going to be a blockade, the West did not intend to run out of liquor. What made it doubly funny to Nikolai Trepovitch was that the British and Americans had forsaken the French by failing to bring in wine.

Sean O’Sullivan, Blessing, and the rest of the men in the mission were confined to McNair Barracks until public announcement of the currency reform was made.

Chapter Forty-one

JUNE 17, 1948, IS A DAY that will live in humanity’s memory. The Congress of the United States enacted into law the European Recovery Act. The weary, the hungry, the frightened were told that the Marshall Plan would bring them tractors and butter and hope. The Marshall Plan was the light to rekindle the flame of freedom.

On June 18 the British and American headquarters jointly announced the currency reform for Germany, except Berlin. And with this, the Soviet Union’s march to the English Channel came to a halt.

It was widely announced that Marshal Alexei Popov had an extraordinary proclamation. Every radio set in Berlin was tuned to People’s Radio as the Russian took to the air.

“The conditions under which the West was invited to Berlin no longer exist. Because of broken Western treaties their presence in Berlin has become illegal.

“Berlin is geographically, economically, and historically part of the Soviet Zone of occupation. Four-power occupation is hereby ruled null and void.

“As of tomorrow, the former currency is no longer of value in Berlin. The Soviet Union will issue new currency which will be the only legal money in the city.”

Sean went to the general’s office where Neal Hazzard had set up a billow of cigar smoke.

“Sean,” General Hansen said, “you know Ulrich Falkenstein better than any of us. Shoving our currency in against the Russians isn’t going to be enough. There is no doubt that the Berliners will give an expression of where they stand. The danger is not from the Berliners; it’s from the Communists. We need the B marks approved by the Assembly. Can Falkenstein do it?”

If not Falkenstein, then no one, Sean thought, but it would be difficult. The City Hall sat inside the Russian Sector. The free assemblymen would be in danger.

“It will be tough,” Sean said.

“I say Falkenstein is strong enough to pull them through,” Hazzard said.

“He’s the leader,” Sean agreed. “That’s the one thing a German understands ... follow the leader.”

“And that’s the one reason I’ll never buy these people. They won’t stand up for an idea because it’s a good idea,” Hansen said.

“It’s a hell of a lot better to follow Falkenstein than Hitler,” Hazzard answered.

“What a hell of a funny place,” Sean said. “Our ally is now our enemy and our enemy is now our ally. Well, sir, we all agree that Falkenstein is the best of the lot.”

“And I don’t trust him,” Hansen said.

“General, I don’t think you trust any politician.”

There was a relief of laughter.

“At least he’s as good as Senator Blanchard,” Hazzard added.

“All right, all right, send for him,” Hansen said.

“I don’t think we’d better do that, sir,” Sean said.

“Why not. You two are selling me this guy.”

“What we are now asking is that the people of Berlin become our partners.”

“What the hell are you driving at, Sean?”

“We need Ulrich Falkenstein and the Berliners as much as they need us. No more, no less. We can’t go into this partnership acting as conquerors. Falkenstein won his right to be our equal in a concentration camp. I think this occasion calls for us to get in a car and visit him at his home.”

“I second the motion,” Neal Hazzard said.

Andrew Jackson Hansen was appalled at the notion, but the point had been made. Things were changing. He grumbled to Sean to order a staff car.

Falkenstein’s maid nearly passed out when she opened the door.

“You want to kick it off, Sean?” the general asked.

“Herr Falkenstein. We have flown in five hundred million marks of the new currency. It is exactly the same as that in the zone except it is stamped with a B. We are prepared to disburse it to the banks in our sectors within an hour.”

Well, well, well, Falkenstein thought to himself. They were answering the challenge with the strongest indication yet of a determination to remain in Berlin. “I am certain you have examined the consequences.”

“Any consequence is better than handing them the city.”

“After we make our announcement, we want the Berlin Assembly to pass a resolution favoring our B marks,” General Hansen said.

“That is a tall order.”

“We think you are a tall man,” Hazzard said.

Falkenstein’s mind ran in practical channels. Would he be able to hold his people together and push a vote through in the Russian Sector? Yet, the Americans and British were committing themselves to risk, too, for the first time.

The alternative? Give the city to Rudi Wöhlman. How long would it last? As long as Prague ... as long as Warsaw.

Falkenstein did not like the alliance with the Americans. They were hedgy. They came to him only out of self-interest Yet, there was no one else, there was no place to go.

“When do you plan to announce the B marks?”

“Over RIAS in the morning so that it will be covered in the afternoon papers.”

Falkenstein nodded. “I have a busy day’s work then.”

“There is a question I am forced to ask,” General Hansen said. “Knowing what might happen, are the people of this city going to hold?”

“And you, gentlemen. Will you hold?”

“I don’t know,” Hansen answered. “If we do leave we will pay for it with the blood of unborn generations. But the question is here and now. At this moment we have a way out and you don’t. How are the people of Berlin going to choose to go this time?”

With his hot and cold love of the city, Ulrich Falkenstein had made himself believe that Berliners were different ... but they had endured the Nazis, the bombs, the rape of their city. Was there enough left in them to resist? Would fear of the Russians band them together to accept this half-hearted alliance with the Americans; or would the history of the past tell them that resistance is useless and would they then stampede to the Russians as the best way to survive?

He looked directly at the American military governor. “You have my word, sir, that so long as the American garrison remains in Berlin, the people will stand with you.”

They shook hands. Hansen and Falkenstein looked at each other with a mutual lack of warmth.

Chapter Forty-two

THE DAY AFTER THE announcement of the B marks, the Soviet Union suspended canal and rail traffic for “technical” reasons and the movement on the autobahn slowed to a trickle.

Hovering on the brink of a complete blockade, Ulrich Falkenstein presented a bill to the Berlin Assembly to accept the Western currency.

Rudi Wöhlman used the full bag of parliamentary tricks to stall and the SND of Adolph Schatz worked overtime to apply terror on the assemblymen.

On the day of June 23, 1948, the. vote could no longer be delayed. As he had done many times before, General Hansen sent Sean O’Sullivan into the eye of the hurricane. He was dispatched to the office which the Americans kept at the Berlin City Hall.

Berlin’s Rathaus sat well inside the Soviet Sector a short distance from the rubble-strewn Unter Den Linden and two full miles away from the junction where the British, American, and Russian sectors came together.

The former Lust Garten at the end of the Unter Den Linden had been cleared and made into a huge plaza, renamed Marx-Engels Platz, and served as a massing place for shows of Soviet solidarity.

On this day Action Squads from the factories, the university, the political clubs, and the youth groups assembled in the plaza and placards were passed among them.

DOWN WITH THE IMPERIALIST WARMONGERS!

AMERICANS, GO HOME!

PEACE AND PROSPERITY THROUGH OUR SOVIET COMRADES!

HITLER! HANSEN! HAZZARD

!

On cue they filed out of the Marx-Engels Platz, crossed the bridge over the Spree River, and took up their posts at the Rathaus and at the Magistrat a block away. The police were nowhere to be seen.

The arrival of the first Democrats from the Western Sectors started catcalls and shoving. As more came some rocks were hurled and the last through were mauled and the clothing torn from them.

In his office Ulrich Falkenstein received word from one of his floor deputies that the Communists were creating pandemonium, refusing to come to order. He walked to the balcony overlooking the Assembly and watched the Communists throwing ink bottles, shouting, and stomping.

“Call Lieutenant Colonel O’Sullivan.”

Sean watched for some ten minutes. Every attempt to bring order was drowned out.

“All right,” Sean said at last, “you’ve got my clearance.”

Falkenstein walked down to the floor and over to Rudi Wöhlman, who stood on a desk top exhorting his people. He tugged at Wöhlman’s trouser leg and motioned for him to come down.

“Comrade Wöhlman,” Ulrich said, “if you do not establish order in your ranks in one minute we are authorized to leave and conduct the business of this Assembly in the American Sector.”

Wöhlman had been warned by V. V. Azov not to let such a thing happen. He got his people quiet, held a quick caucus, and announced a boycott of the “illegal” bill before the Assembly.

With the Communists refusing to vote, the Berlin Assembly voted in behalf of the Western B marks, rejecting the Russian currency unanimously.

When the session ended, the physical violence outside reached a new peak with Hanna Kirchner being severely beaten at the Magistrat and hospitalized along with two-dozen assemblymen from the free parties.... But the vote stood.

Any comradery that once existed between Neal Hazzard and Nikolai Trepovitch was gone. Hazzard looked angrily at the Russian at what was obviously going to be one of the last meetings of the dying Kommandatura.

“You have used the Red Army as thugs, bullies, and hoodlums to terrorize defenseless people in country after country. Is this your glorious way of life? Threatening to starve two million people. You were not wanted in Poland. You were not wanted in Czechoslovakia and you’re not wanted here in Berlin. I only regret that my country was not in Prague and Warsaw to prevent their rape.”

Trepovitch was pale. He was ill from the strain of the past days. “The Soviet Union vetoes the illegal action of the Berlin Assembly,” he recited.

As the Russian spoke, an aide whispered to Neal Hazzard that General Hansen was on the phone. Neal was excused and left the conference room for his office.

The instant he was gone, Trepovitch sprung to his feet “The Americans have walked out of the Kommandatura!”

“Nonsense,” T. E. Blatty answered, “he slipped me a note requesting to be excused to take a phone call.”

“A lie! This was a direct provocation! The Americans have deliberately walked out in the middle of my arguments! The Soviet Union will no longer tolerate such indignities!”

And with that, the Russian led his staff from the Kommandatura, duplicating Marshal Popov’s abandonment of the Supreme German Council. The flag of the Soviet Union was lowered from the staff before the building, never to be raised again.

The free parties of Berlin called for a unity rally in the still battered great Olympic Stadium. It was jammed to overflowing with 125,000 aroused Berliners. Yet, it was an orderly demonstration as only German demonstrations can be. The passion in them was under control.

As their leaders arrived and mounted the rostrum a swell of cheers arose, but the great ovation was reserved for Colonel Neal Hazzard, who clasped both hands over his head like a victorious fighter.

Those on the rostrum who led the Democrats and Christians and Conservatives realized that the people cheered the man rather than his nation, for the alliance was shaky.

Hanna Kirchner came from her hospital bed and the thunder swelled. One by one they stood before their people and begged them to be firm and begged the world to look upon them. And then, Ulrich Falkenstein:

“Berliners! We have been asked if we have the courage to stand! Give me your answer!”

A long and loud plea for freedom swelled the air!

“Hear us in Moscow! Hear us in Washington! Hear us in London! The spirit of Berlin was never Nazi and will never be Communist! From the depths of our souls, our will to be free will build a mighty dam that will beat back the raging Red Seas which try to drown us. Berlin will be free!”

The next day the Soviet Union announced that the bridge on the Elbe River was closed for “repairs.” Berlin was blockaded by land and by sea.

Part 4

The Last of the Gooney Birds

Chapter One

ANOTHER MORNING.

Another gathering of Germans over the boulevard from American Headquarters. They stared through a Berlin mist as the color guard marched to the flag pole and continued to watch silently as the Stars and Stripes went up the staff, unfurled, fluttered. Certain now that the Americans were in Berlin for another day, the clump of Germans broke, carrying lunch buckets, shopping bags, briefcases, and trudged toward the U Bahn.

Outside city limits three divisions of Soviet troops with heavy armor continued nerve-wracking maneuvers, ostensibly poised to strike into the Western Sectors.

People’s Radio increased the tension. They began with a water-shortage scare, then a rumor that the West had annexed the Ruhr. “Food riots sweep West Berlin as thousands are thrown out of work. Babies are dying from lack of milk! This cruel imperialist policy is bringing new untold suffering to the workers!”

On the third floor of American Headquarters, General Andrew Jackson Hansen wrestled with the most pressing of his problems. Barney Root, the USAFE commander, had been able to fly in between eighty and a hundred tons daily of supplies and the British were flying in enough to handle their own immediate needs. But now, food for the entire population of Western Berlin was in a growing crisis.

With the food shortage was a power shortage. Before the war there had only been a single power plant in the Western part of the city. It stood on the Hauswehr Canal opposite the West Harbor, the inland barge port.

This plant was the most modern in Berlin, but used mainly as an auxiliary during peak hours. The Russians had stripped it and only a few of the generators had been replaced. Most of the power for the Western Sector came from Saxony through Russian-controlled lines.

The Russians cut the electricity, causing an industry shutdown and a sweep of unemployment.

Sean O’Sullivan worked with the Magistrat experts to determine the immediate situation. He brought the grim tidings to Hansen.

“We have a thirty-six day supply of coal for the power plant. We can generate enough power to run our own installations, move minimal transportation, prevent a communications collapse, and keep certain emergency facilities going. No coal for German civilians, and almost none can be spared for industrial purposes.”

Hansen lifted the receiver of his red, emergency phone and told the switchboard to put him through to Army Headquarters in Heidelberg. Commander of combat forces Lieutenant General William Warren Crossfield answered on his red phone.

“Scramble the conversation.”

Each pressed a scramble button, a device to jumble their voices against a phone tap.

Crossfield spoke excitedly. “We just heard news of the food riots. Do you need help?”

“There aren’t any food riots. That’s Radio Moscow crap. There was a little excitement over a water-shortage scare, but we’ve settled them down. Billy, I want you to assemble an armed convoy and have it stand by.”

“Are we going to try to break through the autobahn?”

“If Washington lets me.”

“Chip, I’ll personally lead that convoy but we’d better not have our bluff called.”

“The Russians are the ones bluffing.”

William Warren Crossfield had commanded an Army Group north from Southern France and over the Rhine. He was not given to being a flashy leader, but he was a shrewd, steady tactician who had an immaculate grasp of logistics, supplies, support, and all the other nuances of battle ... and he was a cold-blooded realist.

“We’re playing with fire,” he said, “and we don’t have a damned thing to put it out with.”

“It’s not that kind of a fight. This is a battle of will power,” Hansen answered.

“Maybe you’re right, Chip, but I know that Marshal Popov knows that the whole United States can’t call up two reserve divisions of infantry.”

A few hours later General Hansen arrived at USAFE Headquarters in Wiesbaden for a conference with General Barney Root.

“You’ve got to think of flying in five, six, seven hundred tons of supplies a day. We need coal as badly as food, and somehow we’ve got to get some more generators in.”

Barney Root stared at Chip Hansen as though he were crazy. “Would you repeat that?”

“If I can’t sell Washington on an armed convoy, I’m going to sell them on supplying Berlin by air.”

Barney relit his cigar butt. “Three years ago we had twelve thousand aircraft in England and on the European continent. Right now our air transport consists of eighty-two worn out Gooney Birds. My crews are punchy. They’re flying almost triple the number of hours we consider safe.

We didn’t even ask them to fly this way in the war. Chip, I haven’t got enough spare parts in Europe to rebuild the ass end of a Piper Cub.”

“Barney, I intend convincing Washington to send over Skymasters to replace the Gooney Birds and I’m going to ask the President to recall Hiram Stonebraker.”

“Look, I’m with you all the way. I’ll keep scratching around for aircraft and crews. I’ve already assigned Shorty MacDonald on the Berlin supply run exclusively. He’s the best transport man we’ve got.” Barney Root squashed out the dead cigar.

“You don’t believe in this, do you?” Hansen said.

“I’m a bomber man. I don’t know enough about transports.”

“You don’t believe in it?” Hansen repeated.

“You’re going to need a hell of a lot more than Stonebraker and Skymasters.”

Back in Berlin the sound of Russian gunfire could be heard in the suburbs.

Communist agitation cars roamed the streets broadcasting food scares, blaming the situation on Western greed, justifying the blockade by swearing the bridge over the Elbe had collapsed.

Lil Blessing had been looking for Calvin for an hour. She sent the other children in the neighborhood to scour around for him. This was unlike little Cal.

Trying to avoid panic, Lil sat by the phone on the brink of calling Bless when she heard muffled sobs coming from the hall closet. She threw open the door. Cal was huddled in a corner, ran into his mother’s skirts, and buried his face.

She lifted him, torn between kisses and a scolding, carried him to a rocking chair, and tried to calm him. After a while his sobs softened to spasmodic jerkings.

“What’s all this about, Calvin Blessing?”

“Everybody in school said it.”

“They said what?”

“The Mongols are coming back and chop our heads off. The German kids have seen them before.”

Lil pressed the boy closer to her.

Yes, People’s Radio had announced that Mongolian regiments had joined the maneuvers outside the city to rekindle the memory of Berlin’s capture and Cal’s fears were echoed by everyone.

“You think your daddy is going to let anyone hurt you?”

“I want to go home.”

This is our home, Cal.”

“Teleconference with Washington is ready, General.”

In the vaulted room beneath Headquarters in Berlin, Hansen was joined by Generals Crossfield and Root. Sean O’Sullivan wrote out the first message, handed it to the teletype operator. In a moment the message was coded, radioed to Washington, decoded, and flashed on a screen in the Pentagon.

THE FOLLOWING ARE BERLIN PARTICIPANTS: GENERAL HANSEN, MILITARY GOVERNOR; OSCAR PENNEY, POLITICAL ADVISOR, STATE DEPARTMENT; LT. GENERAL CROSSFIELD, COMMANDER GROUND FORCES; LT. GENERAL ROOT, COMMANDER USAFE; BRIG. GENERAL HAZZARD, COMMANDANT, BERLIN; LT. COL. O’SULLIVAN, SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO HANSEN.

Washington returned their complement:

FOLLOWING PARTICIPANTS: GENERAL COLLOWAY, CHIEF OF STAFF, U.S. ARMY; HARRY KING, SPECIAL ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT; LT. GENERAL BRONSON, DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF, OPERATIONS, U.S. AIR FORCE; JOSEPH PECK, STATE DEPARTMENT, CHIEF OF GERMAN DESK.

Hansen jotted out the first message. Barney Root nodded approval and Billy Crossfield gave a reluctant okay. It was handed to the teletype operator.

TOP SECRET: BLOCKADE EFFECTIVE. SITUATION DESPERATE IN TWO WEEKS. REQUEST PERMISSION SEND AN ARMED CONVOY UP AUTOBAHN AFTER ANNOUNCTNG OUR INTENTION TO RUSSIANS. CROSSFIELD, ROOT IN AGREEMENT. GO AHEAD.

In several moments a message started appearing on the screen.

TOP SECRET: PECK, GERMAN DESK. STATE DEPARTMENT IDEA IS TO MAKE OFFER TO WITHDRAW B MARKS FROM BERLIN IN EXCHANGE FOR GUARANTEED ACCESS RIGHTS TO CITY.

“In a pig’s ass,” Neal Hazzard grumbled. “Take it easy, Neal.”

“Yes, sir.”

They huddled, discussed it quickly. All agreed that the proposal spelled disaster.

TOP SECRET: PENNEY, POLITICAL ADVISOR STATE DEPARTMENT. ADVISES WITHDRAWAL B MARKS FATAL OUR POSITION AND COLLAPSE CONFIDENCE GERMAN AND ALLIES.

A general uneasiness fell on them as they waited for an answer from Washington. The next transmission came from the Chief of Staff of the Army.

TOP SECRET: NOTHING IN CONTINGENCY PLANS TO COVER ARMED CONVOY.

Peck of the German desk continued the message:

ATTEMPTING RENEWAL DIPLOMATIC DISCUSSIONS RUSSIANS. SAME TIME PUT BERLIN QUESTION ON UNITED NATIONS AGENDA. RASH ACTION NOW MAY ENDANGER TALKS.

Eric the Red’s blood pressure began rising. It was beyond his comprehension that the State Department could be so naive as not to know that the Russians would stall talks until the city was on the brink of starvation.

TOP SECRET: REPEAT. IT IS OUR CONSIDERED OPINION WE CAN BREAK BLOCKADE BY IMMEDIATE SHOW OF STRENGTH. REPEAT REQUEST PERMISSION TO SEND ARMED CONVOY ON AUTOBAHN.

As the chips were down, the tension could be read on their faces.

TOP SECRET: REQUEST DENIED.

They were deflated, and talked among themselves quickly, trading ideas.

TOP SECRET: REQUEST YOU CONSIDER MOVING B-29’S WITH ATOMIC WARHEADS TO BRITISH BASES AS PSYCHOLOGICAL DETERRENT.

From Washington, a thread of hope.

IDEA ALREADY UNDER CONSIDERATION. FOR YOUR INFORMATION CODE NAME TOP HAT.

“Well, they’re not completely dead,” Hazzard said.

“We can’t leave it hanging this way,” Hansen said.

TOP SECRET: HANSEN SENDS. REQUEST URGENT MEETING JOINT CHIEFS AND NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL IMMEDIATELY. ADVISE.

TOP SECRET: KING SENDS. WHEN CAN YOU BE IN WASHINGTON?

TOP SECRET: WILL ADVISE MY ETA. ANYTHING FURTHER?

WASHINGTON: NOTHING FURTHER.

BERLIN: OUT.

Hansen’s rubbery face was knotted as though he were in pain. If Washington decided to move the B-29’s it might throw the Russians off long enough for him to make a last appeal.

Back in his office, his aide called Tempelhof to have the general’s aircraft commander prepare for the trip.

Hansen phoned his wife, instructed her to pack, as she had done for him a thousand times, and bring his bags to Tempelhof. As he swept out of the main gate, an ever-present knot of Germans waved to him. On the way to the airport he droned instructions to his people.

His plane was in ready upon his arrival, warming up under the canopy. His Air Force captain and his aide hastily cleared a flight plan with Operations.

Hansen shook hands with Barney Root and Billy Crossfield, Sean, and Neal Hazzard.

“We’ll be here when you get back, General,” Sean said.

In a few moments Agnes Hansen arrived.

“Mother,” he said, “you don’t know how hard it is for me to leave you here alone but you do know why you must stay.”

She smiled. “If you have time, call the children from Washington.”

“Damn,” he said, “you’re a good trooper.”

They watched as the General’s Skymaster lifted him from the runway and banked out of sight.

Chapter Two

SEAN GROANED LIKE A happy puppy as the sun poured down on his back. It was the first real hot spell of the summer, driving off the fogs and mists and the first time he had had enough free hours to relax by the lake.

At that place where the Little Wannsee and the Greater Wannsee merged with the Havel River there was a strip of luxury mansions. The waters were still, with no breeze to billow disappointed sails. An occasional barge glided into the canals toward the Russian Sector.

Overhead there was a constant drone of American Gooney Birds pulling up from Tempelhof, and just over the lakes their British counterparts, the Dakotas, were landing on the Gatow airstrip.

There was a thin strand of imported-sand beach behind which rolled a long, lush lawn and this was filled with patio chairs and umbrellas, and there was a pool. The great house had been converted into an American Officers’ Club. Like most of the other mansions on this strip, it once belonged to a top Nazi who had stolen it from a Jew who could not return from the grave to reclaim it.

Ernestine sat alongside Sean, her head on her knees, arms about her legs. She knew the eyes of every American officer looked her over. She had not been looked over this way for a long time and she liked it.

The American women were looking her over also, in grudging admiration. Sean was breaking that unwritten law against bringing a German girl into their midst, socially. Well, she could hear most of them say, she is not as bad as most German girls ... after all she is the niece of Falkenstein ... and a pretty thing ... if you like the type.

The gossips did not matter much to Ernestine. The day mattered. Sean mattered. ... Long ago she was in a tiny boat on the Wannsee and she told Dietrich Rascher she wanted to sail up to the canals, and then into the sea and away ... forever and ever.

Ernestine did not believe she could ever come to this place again and be happy. The other love had ended in blackness. There was a tiny promise that this might be the first real happiness of her life.

She took a handful of sand and let it trickle through her fingers on Sean’s back. From his drowsing, he reached behind him to brush away an imaginary fly. She persisted.

“Let me sleep, woman.”

“A handsome young colonel asked me to come to the beach with him. Tell me, old man, do you know where he went?”

Sean rolled over on his back and stretched as the sun greeted his face. “Jesus, what a day.”

Ernestine knelt above him so that her warm flesh touched him.

“You are like the other woman who sits on that rock on the Rhine whistling to poor souls and making them crash on the rocks seeking her mystic charms.”

“Sean, it is getting too painful to be funny.”

He sat up so they were side by side looking into the other’s eyes.

“You and I would be like a couple of freight trains hitting each other head on.”

“Does it have to be that way?”

“Yes.”

“Damn you. You sound like Uncle Ulrich.”

“He’s a wise man,” Sean said, and lay back on the sand and stared at the sky. She lay beside him. Their eyes followed a Dakota circling, then falling toward the treetops and out of sight.

Chapter Three

SHENANDOAH BLESSING SAT AT Cal’s bedside until the boy fell asleep. He padded into the living room and turned on the radio to American Forces Network for a delayed broadcast of a baseball game between the Cards and the Brooklyn Dodgers. Lil handed him a bottle of beer and a hank of yarn. He put his big paws through the wool, sneaking a sip now and then as she wound it into a ball.

There was too much truth in the little boy’s fears and no one knew the urgency better than he. For several weeks Bless headed a special detail to train people recruited from the free political parties, the free union, and the Western Sector students in the tricks of in-fighting, riot control, and all of the brawling tactics known to the Communist Action Squads—plus a few of Bless’s own innovations.

These Order Companies were quick to spot Communist agitation cars and troublemakers. It was becoming unprofitable for the Communists to cross into the Western Sectors as the Order Companies toughened.