The Second Objective

1

Grafenwöhr, Bavaria, Germany

NOVEMBER 3, 1944

Bernie Oster arrived in Nuremberg after traveling through the night alone on a passenger train. He carried classified, stamped orders handed to him the previous day by his commanding officer in Berlin. He had been told to pack nothing and change into civilian clothes before soldiers escorted him directly from that meeting to the train. After showing his papers to the SS officers at Nuremberg Station, he was led into an empty holding area and left there without explanation. At noon, after a dozen other men had joined him in isolation, they were loaded into the back of a blacked-out transport truck.

They were ordered to keep silent. The men exchanged only wary looks and nods. None of his fellow passengers wore uniforms either, but Bernie surmised from their appearance and manner that they were all soldiers or sailors. Sitting alone in a corner, he chain-smoked cigarettes, wondering where the other men had come from, what they all had in common. His CO had given him no details during his briefing, only that Bernie had “volunteered”-without being offered the choice-for a special assignment that required immediate transfer. Fifteen hours and hundreds of kilometers later, he found himself in a part of Germany he’d never seen before.

Soon after they started driving, the most agitated passenger blurted the questions they were all thinking: “What are we doing here?…What do they want with us?”

Bernie didn’t answer. The risk that any of these other men could be an SS plant, placed among them to monitor their conversations-or provoke them by asking those same questions-was too great. He already had reason enough to fear for his life. Perhaps these other men did as well; none of them answered.

Peeking through a seam in the canvas, Bernie saw they were on a highway moving through stark gray countryside-bare trees, fallow fields, barren wilderness. Halfway through their second hour, they turned onto a remote road threading through a dark wood. Half a mile on, they approached the entrance to an elaborate compound, surrounded by steel-framed gates and barbed-wire fences that stretched into the trees as far as the eye could see.

It looked like a prison camp. Guards in unfamiliar uniforms patrolled the parapets and block houses above the walls. Machine guns had been placed on the towers, their barrels pointed to the interior. His stomach turned over.

So that’s it. I’ve been found out.

The truck braked to a stop just short of the gates. The back canvas parted and two armed guards waved the passengers out at the point of a bayonet, their eyes flinching at daylight after the long, dark ride. An SS officer waited to escort them through the open gates. Bernie noticed that the guards on the walls and towers all had broad Slavic features. He heard an exchange between two of them in some unfamiliar, guttural language. The gates clanged shut behind them. Bernie wondered if these walls had been put up to keep others out or to keep them in.

The compound appeared to have been built for military purposes. He could see deep tank tracks in the mud, an artillery range in the distance. The guards led them into a low, empty barracks built from freshly cut logs, where sandwiches and bottles of beer had been set out for them. They sat on crude wooden beds and ate in silence as the guards watched. After a brief rest, they were led, one by one, to another cabin that Bernie could see through a window across the compound. None of them returned. Bernie was one of the last men summoned.

Two SS officers, a lieutenant and a captain, waited behind a desk in the building’s only room, facing a single empty chair. Black-jacketed SS grenadiers stood sentry at the door, holding MP40 submachine guns.

The lieutenant ordered Bernie to empty his pockets on the table, including his military identity card, traveling papers.

“Your paybook, as well,” said the lieutenant.

He collected the items in an envelope and put the envelope in a desk drawer. Without them, Bernie knew that as far as the army was concerned, he no longer existed. His heart thumped in his chest, and he was sure that the fear he’d been struggling to suppress showed on his face. He’d been dreading a moment like this for months: discovery, torture, execution.

The captain didn’t look up at him once from his notes while the lieutenant ordered him to sit and began asking questions, in German, reading from a dossier.

“Private First Class Bernard Oster.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What is your unit?”

“The 42nd Volksgrenadier Division, sir. Mechanized Brigade.”

“Your duties there?”

“I’m a mechanic in the motor pool, sir. Attached to central command headquarters in Berlin. I take care of the officers’ cars.”

“Is that your only responsibility?”

Here it comes, thought Bernie.

“No, sir. For the last month I’ve worked in the radio room. As a translator.”

The lieutenant showed something on the dossier to the captain. He looked up at Bernie for the first time. A slender man in his early thirties, with slicked black hair and steel-gray eyes that stared through Bernie like an X-ray. He gestured to his lieutenant: I’ll take it from here.

“You were born in the United States,” said the captain, in crisp English.

“Yes, sir,” said Bernie, trying not to look surprised.

“Your parents emigrated there in the early 1920s, after the last war. Why?”

“As I understand, there was little or no work in Germany then,” said Bernie. “Economic hardship.”

“Your father is an industrial chemist. He worked for Pfizer, on Long Island.”

“That’s right.”

“And you were raised and educated in New York.”

“Brooklyn. Yes I was, sir.”

“When did your family return to Germany?”

“In 1938. I was fourteen.”

“Why?”

Bernie hesitated. “For the same reason we left in the first place. My father lost his job in the Depression. He had no way to support his family. As a scientist and a German citizen, he got an offer from the new government to go home and work here.”

The captain betrayed no reactions. Judging from the man’s shrewd manner, he knew the answer to every question he was asking. His steady, unblinking gaze sent waves of fear through Bernie. When the SS took an interest in someone, he had a way of disappearing, even if he had nothing to hide. Bernie felt sweat dripping down under his arms.

“Your father works for IG Farben, in Frankfurt,” said the captain.

“Yes, sir.”

“Has he ever discussed his work with you?”

Is that what this is about? My father? Not what happened in Berlin?

“No, sir. I believe it is classified.”

“You began military service sixteen months ago,” said the captain. “When you turned eighteen. You made no attempt to enlist prior to that.”

“I was still in school, sir-”

“Nor were you ever a member of the Hitlerjugend.”

The captain’s eyes bored into him. Bernie felt rattled to his core, certain the man could read the thoughts he tried to keep from his mind. Did he know that within months of returning to Nazi Germany, his father had been warned by his bosses at IG Farben that if he ever tried to leave, his family would be killed? Or that Bernie’s own hatred of the Nazis had only grown greater after he was drafted? He’d come to Germany against his will, with an American teenager’s skepticism intact, immune to the Nazis’ nationalist fantasia. With their fixation on pomp and ritual, he’d thought them coarse and buffoonish. Then he and his family had watched in horror as they brought Europe to its knees.

Bernie’s mind raced to the one question that mattered: Did this man know that when they learned about his language skills and moved him to the radio room, Bernie had twice altered his translation of intercepted American intelligence reports about troop movements, trying to mislead his superiors about their intent? Fighting his own private resistance, probably ineffectual, certainly reckless. He’d waited a month before trying again, sure they were watching him. His second attempt had come just a week ago.

Had they only been waiting for him to stick his neck out again? Why else would they have brought him here?

“I was older than the compulsory age when we returned from America,” said Bernie. “My father wanted me to finish my education.”

The captain stood up and walked around the table. “Why has your father never joined the National Socialist Party?”

“I’m afraid you’d have to ask him, sir-”

“Is he a patriotic man?”

“He’s always thought of himself as a German first. That’s why he came home when he had the chance-”

The captain pulled his pistol and held it firmly to Bernie’s forehead.

“And how do you think of yourself, Private?”

Bernie swallowed before answering. “As my father’s son.”

“You are an American citizen.”

“I have dual citizenship, German and American.”

“And if you had to choose?”

“I’ve never been given a choice-”

“I’m giving you one now.”

Bernie never took his eyes away from the captain’s, convinced that the slightest slip would make him pull the trigger. “Speak with my commanding officers if you think my allegiance is in question.”

The captain kept staring at him. Bernie remained at attention, eyes forward, trembling.

“We have spoken with them. Isn’t there anything else you wish to tell me?”

Bernie looked right at him. “No, sir.”

Another moment, then the captain lowered the pistol and holstered it. Bernie had passed the test. His knees nearly buckled.

“You’ve volunteered to become part of a new brigade. English is a requirement. Yours is excellent, for obvious reasons. Is it safe to say you also have knowledge of American culture? Movie stars. Baseball. Current events.”

“I’ve been away for six years, sir.”

“You read newspapers, don’t you? America is still of interest to you. You can answer the question honestly, son; it’s only natural. It was your home for fourteen years.”

Bernie saw the trap beneath the question, and asked neutrally, “Why, sir?”

“Your experience can be of value during our training. We may call upon your expertise in this area.”

“I’ll help any way I can, sir.”

“I am Captain Stielau. You will report directly to me. You look relieved.”

“Do I? I suppose I am, sir.”

Stielau seemed amused by Bernie’s reaction, then turned to his lieutenant: “Category One.”

The lieutenant wrote Bernie’s name on a roster with four columns. Bernie saw that his was the first name in the first column.

“May I ask the purpose of our new brigade, sir?”

“Yes,” said Stielau.

Bernie hesitated. “What is the purpose of our new brigade, sir?”

“I said you could ask. I didn’t say I would tell you. You’re dismissed, Private Oster.”