Storm Front

Chapter Thirteen

Victory Square, Berlin

28 July 1985

“They want us to do what?”

“Round up the BDM girls,” Caius said. “All of them.”

Leutnant der Polizei Herman Wieland blinked in surprise. The Ordnungspolizei rarely had anything to do in Victory Square, although they were required to keep a strong presence near the Reichstag to make sure nothing happened to the tourists. It made a change from patrolling the darker and grittier streets on the edge of Berlin – or, for that matter, being stationed in Germany East. Herman had heard too many stories from policemen who’d gone there, after being offered bonuses that would allow them to retire early, to feel willing to go there himself.

He shook his head in disbelief as he looked over at the nearest group of girls. They were young; the oldest was at least a year younger than Gudrun. And yet, he was to round them up? He knew how to handle rioting Gastarbeiters, he knew how to handle drunken soldiers celebrating their last few days of leave, but arresting young girls? How the hell was he supposed to handle them?

“Get them into the centre of the square,” he ordered, finally. Orders were orders – and besides, such innocent girls wouldn’t be in any real danger. “You keep an eye on them once I get them there.”

He strode over to the nearest matron and frowned at the expression of fear, mixed with indignation, that flickered across her face. He’d never liked the BDM matrons, particularly the one who’d written outraged screeds about Gudrun. Herman had never been one to spare the rod for any of his children, but there were limits. Gudrun’s hand had ached for weeks after she’d been forced to write thousands of lines and Herman would have happily arrested the matron, if there had been any grounds to throw her in jail. His daughter might have lost the use of her hand for the rest of her life.

“This is a police emergency,” he said, fighting down his annoyance. There was no point in frightening the girls, no matter how much he wanted to frighten the matron. “Get the girls into the centre of the square and wait there.”

The matron stared at him. “But…”

Herman met her eyes – he could have sworn she was growing a moustache – and cowed her into silence. The girls tittered, nervously. They had to know that something was wrong, but watching their matron taken down a step or two had to delight them. Herman felt a flicker of sympathy – the matron would take her embarrassment out on the girls once they were alone – and made a mental note to have a few words with her before she was released. The youngest girl in the group couldn’t be more than ten years old.

“Get the girls into the square,” he ordered, coldly. “Now.”

The matron hurried to do as she was told. Herman watched her for a long moment, then turned and walked over to the next set of girls. Their matron, at least, seemed a little more reasonable; she listened to him politely, then started to steer the girls into the square. Herman moved from group to group as more policemen flowed into Victory Square, some keeping a sharp eye on the girls while others were collecting leaflets and examining them with grim expressions.

“Herman,” Caius called. “Take a look at this!”

Herman took the proffered leaflet and read it in growing disbelief. The outside was normal – another set of exhortations to sacrifice for the good of the Reich – but on the inside… he stared in horror as he realised that it was seditious. A writer, an unknown writer, was claiming that thousands of soldiers had been killed or wounded in South Africa, despite the claims that the war was nothing more than a simple police action. And if that wasn’t bad enough, there was a call for action, a call for free elections to the Reichstag and an end to the omnipresent terror. Herman shuddered, suddenly unwilling to even touch the leaflet. How many of the damned pieces of crap had been handed out?

“Someone was given this by a maiden,” Caius said, very quietly.

“Shit,” Herman muttered.

He looked at the girls – and their matrons. They were scared, he saw; whatever humour they’d seen in watching their matrons bossed around by the policemen had faded as the remainder of the square cleared rapidly. Berlin hadn’t seen a major police action since the Gastarbeiter riots in the sixties, but few Berliners were prepared to stand around and risk being arrested. The girls… he swallowed, hard. It was impossible to believe they’d handed out the material wittingly, let alone willingly, but the SS might be harder to convince.

And, as if his thoughts had been enough to summon them, a handful of SS stormtroopers headed into the square, carrying weapons and looking dangerous.

Herman winced, inwardly. Technically, the Order Police and the SS were separate organisations, both reporting to the RSHA, but he knew better than to think he could stand up to the SS. The SS had lost its grip on the police after Hitler’s death, yet they were still very much the senior service. If they wanted the girls, they could take the girls and no one could stop them.

“Herman, Caius, get over here,” his superior bellowed. “You’re needed on the barricades!”

Herman took one last look at the girls, then did as he was told. They’d just have to fend for themselves.

“Andrew,” Penelope said. “Is this normal – or have I just forgotten how to read German?”

Andrew turned to look at her. She’d unfolded her leaflet and was reading it, carefully. Her German was perfect – German was the second global language, after all – and Andrew would have been surprised if she’d had any trouble reading it, yet she sounded as if she didn’t quite believe what she was reading. He took the leaflet when she offered it to him and stared in disbelief as he read the words.

“No, it’s not normal,” he said. The British had had some links with the German underground, he’d heard through the grapevine, but the underground had largely gone dormant since the end of the war. He’d always assumed that its members had made their peace with the regime or had been quietly purged. “It isn’t remotely normal.”

He swore under his breath as he heard shouting ahead of him. A line of policemen had appeared out of nowhere and were hastily setting up metal barricades, trapping the two Americans – and hundreds of Germans – within Victory Square. He looked behind him and saw a number of young girls, wearing the same strikingly ugly uniforms he’d seen on the girl who’d given them the leaflets, being herded into the centre of the square. There would be no point in trying to go back, he was sure. The Berlin Police would have sealed off all the exits by now. If the girl they’d seen was trapped within the square, she was dead.

“I can hide the leaflet in my pants,” Penelope said. “I…”

“They may check,” Andrew said. He had to smile. He hadn’t expected Penelope to suggest hiding the leaflet anywhere intimate, although it was pointless. “And if they find a hidden leaflet, they will try to make life uncomfortable for us.”

Penelope blinked. “They can’t do that, can they?”

Andrew frowned. “You should have read your briefing notes,” he said. He put both of the leaflets in his pocket and gave her a wink. “They have been known to take Americans into custody if they think they have good cause. It’s happened to me before.”

He gritted his teeth at the memory. In theory, the policemen should either wave them on or provide an escort back to the embassy; in practice, they might be taken into custody and held until their credentials were checked against the Foreign Ministry’s records. The Berlin Police might be relatively gentle, but the SS would insist on a strip search, perhaps even a cavity search. They’d certainly insist on a full search if they thought Penelope was hiding something in her underwear. The embassy would protest, of course, and there would be a series of unpleasant exchanges, but nothing effective would be done.

“Remain calm and let me do the talking,” he said. Thankfully, they did have a legitimate reason to be in the square. “If they split us up, remember your instructions and follow them.”

Penelope nodded, her face pale. Embassy staff, even the ones who rarely left the building during their entire term in Germany, were carefully briefed on what to do if they were arrested or otherwise taken into custody. Cooperate, within limits; inform the Germans, at once, that holding an embassy staffer prisoner would cause a diplomatic incident; don’t sign anything, no matter what the Germans said. Andrew hoped she’d be fine; there were limits, unfortunately, to just how far training could actually go.

They joined a line of civilians waiting to go through the barricade and watched, grimly, as the policemen frisked the civilians, sometimes removing copies of the leaflets, before allowing the civilians to go onwards. A couple of middle-aged men were sitting on the ground in handcuffs, although Andrew couldn’t tell what they’d done to get arrested. He braced himself as the line moved sharply onwards, then met the policeman’s eyes when his turn came.

“My card,” he said, holding up his diplomatic ID. “We’re attached to the embassy.”

The policeman’s eyes narrowed sharply. Andrew could practically see the internal debate behind his eyes. If he frisked them both and the embassy complained, his career would be sacrificed to avoid a diplomatic incident. But if he let them go and his superiors found out, his career would be smashed flat. It wasn’t a surprise when the policeman motioned the two Americans to stand aside and called his superior on the radio. Moments later, a grim-faced man in an SS uniform arrived. Andrew was surprised to realise that he didn’t have any rank insignia at all.

He glared at Andrew, then addressed him in heavily-accented English. “Why were you in the square?”

“We had a meeting with Mr. Aldrich of the Ministry of Finance,” Andrew said, calmly. “We are currently heading back to the embassy to file the paperwork for the latest trade deal.”

And if you treat us badly, the deal may be wrecked, he added, silently. He was sure the officer would pick up on the subtext. You should let us go right now.

The officer’s mouth worked for a long moment before he said anything. “I will check it with the Ministry,” he said. “Wait.”

Andrew gave Penelope’s hand a reassuring squeeze as the officer lifted his radio and called the Ministry of Finance. Aldrich, he was sure, would tell the officer that there had been a meeting and an important trade deal, encouraging the officer to just let them go without further ado. But if someone had pulled off a coup in the middle of Berlin, handing out leaflets to hundreds of people, who knew what would happen? The SS might even try to arrange accidents rather than risk the news getting out.

“Mr. Aldrich vouches for you,” the officer said, finally. He waved to a pair of policemen, who strode over and scowled at the two Americans. “Escort these two back to the American Embassy and ensure they don’t get lost along the way.”

“Jawohl, Mein Herr,” the policemen said.

“Come on,” Andrew said, as the policemen motioned for the two Americans to follow them past the barricade. “We need to get back home before it’s too late.”

Penelope looked as if she wanted to ask questions, but thankfully she had the sense to keep her mouth shut. Andrew had no doubt that the policemen would overhear anything they said and report back to their superiors. They could discuss the leaflets once they got back to the embassy and then decide what, if anything, they should do about them. He tried to remember what the girl had looked like, but – if he were forced to be honest – he’d paid more attention to her uniform than her face.

It could have been worse, he told himself, firmly. Crowds were already gathering past the barricades, staring into the square. It could have been a great deal worse.

“There’s a crowd gathering,” Caius muttered. “Word is spreading.”

Herman looked past the barricade and swore, inwardly. Frisking everyone and then letting them leave might have been a mistake. By now, word was spreading through Berlin that the police were holding nearly fifty BDM girls in the square and worried parents were heading to the centre of the city, despite the risks. And what would happen, he asked himself, if the SS insisted on taking the girls away for further interrogation?

No one would care if they were a bunch of Gastarbeiters, he thought. It was perfectly true, after all. But young German maidens… their parents will be up in arms!

He cursed the leaflet-writers under his breath. Whoever they were, they’d neatly put a finger right on the Reich’s weak spot. The SS couldn’t take the girls, he told himself; they’d be riots, mutinies, even an uprising. He honestly wasn’t sure what he’d do, if Gudrun had been among the girls who’d been arrested. Hell, there were at least a dozen policemen he knew who had daughters in the BDM. What if they’d been arrested?

His radio buzzed. “The girls don’t seem to have any of the leaflets,” a voice said. “We’re letting them go with a warning.”

Herman allowed himself a moment of relief as the girls were released, heading back to their parents, then found himself dragged into helping to pick up the leaflets and dump them into rubbish bags. They’d be transported to the RSHA, where the SS would pick over them in the hopes of finding something – anything – they could use to track down the writers and arrest them. Herman rather doubted they’d find anything. Whoever had written the leaflets wouldn’t leave fingerprints; hell, gloves were part of the BDM uniform. He gritted his teeth in anger as he tossed the final bag into the SS truck. Bringing the leaflets to the centre of the Reich had been madness.

“We’ll be working late tonight,” Caius commented. “The Captain was saying we might be staying on duty until nine.”

“I’ll miss my wife’s dinner,” Herman muttered. He wasn’t fool enough to say it any louder, not when his superiors might hear. “She won’t be pleased.”

“I dare say she doesn’t have a choice,” Caius said. “And neither do the rest of us.”

She kissed me, Horst thought, as he returned the van to the garage. The owner examined it quickly, checked the gas in the tank and then grudgingly returned the deposit. She kissed me.

He couldn’t help feeling excited, even though he knew it was probably nothing more than a reaction to stress and then the relief of knowing they’d managed to get clean away. Gudrun had a boyfriend. She’d think better of what she’d done in the morning, after she had a chance to sleep. She’d…

Sure, his own thoughts mocked him. How likely is it that Konrad will recover?

Horst was no doctor, but he’d read Konrad’s medical report – and the summery – very carefully. It was quite likely, when his family were informed about his condition, that they would be urged to pull the plug, cutting off his life support. The damage to his legs was quite bad enough – Horst had shuddered when he’d read the description – but the brain damage was worse. Konrad would be a drooling imbecile for the rest of his life. How long would Gudrun stay faithful when she knew, deep inside, that her boyfriend was gone?

And yet she doesn’t know what you are, he reminded himself. What will she say when she finds out the truth?

It wasn’t a pleasant thought. Sure, Gudrun had accepted Konrad – but Konrad had never tried to hide the fact that he was an SS trooper. Horst had; no, Horst had done a great deal worse, even though he was now trying to help Gudrun and her friends. He’d come to her, pretending to be a student, and befriended her, intending to betray her if she did anything worth reporting. How could she forget that, if she found out?

He sighed. He was no virgin. There were brothels near the Hitler Youth camps in Germany East – another feature that wasn’t present anywhere else – and he’d been taken there by the older boys once he’d plucked up the nerve to ask. The women there had been Untermenschen, sterilised just to ensure they didn’t become pregnant and give birth to half-caste children. They’d done whatever they’d been told…

Gudrun is different, Horst told himself. She’d never just roll over for anyone.

He cursed his own feelings as he started the walk back to the university. He’d never tried to court a girl in Germany East, not when he’d known his duty would lead him elsewhere… and besides, he’d had to remain unattached at the university. He couldn’t allow himself more than a brief affair. Now, he found himself unsure of how to proceed, or even if he should proceed. He couldn’t help cursing his own training. He’d been so sure that Gudrun was just reacting to her relief that he hadn’t been able to bring himself to give in. And yet he’d wanted to give in…

And how much of that, he asked himself, is driven by your own relief?

It was a pointless argument, he told himself firmly. Gudrun probably wasn’t really interested in him – and even if she was, it would be unwise for them to become involved until the whole affair was over. And yet, Horst knew just how likely it was that they’d all be arrested, tortured and executed. They might as well enjoy themselves while it lasted…

Confused and tired, Horst slowly made his way home.