Two Brothers

A Whimper and a Scream Berlin, 1920

THE KAPP PUTSCH, as it came to be known, lasted less than a week. While Berlin shivered in the cold and stood in line at standpipes for a trickle of icy water, Kapp, the would-be dictator, spent a lonely five days shuffling about the President’s Palace, staring forlornly out over the Wilhelmplatz, wondering how to bend the nation to his unalterable will. Eventually he decided that he couldn’t and instead took a taxi to Tempelhof airport and got on a plane to Sweden, never to be a head of state again.

Berlin was jubilant and hundreds of thousands gathered on Unter Den Linden to watch as Kapp’s Freikorps troops marched out under the Brandenburg Gate through which they had strutted in triumph less than a week earlier.

Frieda and Wolfgang decided to join the celebration.

‘This is a big day for Berlin,’ Frieda said excitedly as they worked their way into the crowd, pushing the pram before them. ‘It’s not often that a bit of union solidarity gets the better of an army. Solidarity, that’s all you need.’

‘All I need,’ Wolfgang replied, seeing a stall selling beer and fried potatoes, ‘is a drink. This is a party after all.’

There was indeed a carnival atmosphere in the crowd. Hawkers were out in force and there were numerous street musicians busking for pfennigs. But as the retreating army could be heard approaching, the mood of the crowd began to change, turning sullen and angry as Charlottenburger Chaussee and Unter Den Linden rang to the harsh crash of thousands of hobnail boots smashing in deadly unison on the stone flags.

‘Shit,’ Wolfgang whispered nervously, ‘this has got to be the first time German soldiers have paraded through the Brandenburg Gate to complete silence.’

‘These aren’t soldiers,’ Frieda replied, ‘these are just crazy thugs.’

‘Well, I don’t like it,’ Wolfgang muttered nervously. ‘It’s weird.’

‘Too late now,’ Frieda observed.

So they stood with their pram as the hated columns marched past them and on through the great stone columns of Friedrich Wilhelm’s famous gate. Ragged-looking men with bitter angry faces. Soldiers still, despite what Frieda said, in old army uniforms and coal-scuttle steel helmets.

‘What’s that funny crooked cross,’ Wolfgang hissed, ‘painted on some of their helmets?’

‘I don’t know,’ Frieda said. ‘Actually, I think it’s Indian.’

‘Indian?’ Despite the strange solemnity of the occasion, Wolfgang almost laughed.

‘Yes, Buddhist or Hindu. I’m not sure which. I think it’s called a swastika.’

‘Buddhist?’ Wolfgang observed incredulously. ‘That is just fucking weird.’

The silence seemed to deepen now. As loud almost in its way as the marching boots.

Frieda was to remark later that it was beautiful. That the silent contempt of a great city spoke more loudly than any amount of shouts and noise. Wolfgang disagreed. He thought it was terrifying from the start. That people had remained silent only out of fear. Fear of what those marching men were capable of. Of what might happen.

Of what did happen.

The column was almost past when it began. The vanguard of the troops were already nearly at the bridge over the river Spree and still the sullen mass of people kept their silence and the strutting troops their order. The two sides remained apart. The strange truce held.

And then, close to where Wolfgang and Frieda stood, their pram in front of them, a boy called out.

His high, half-broken voice clear despite the ringing, echoing noise of synchronized boots. Perhaps if the boy hadn’t been so young and his voice so shrill it wouldn’t have been heard, lost instead amongst the rhythmic crashes.

But the boy was no more than twelve or thirteen.

‘Piss off, you bone-headed bastards,’ he shouted. ‘Vlad Lenin for German Chancellor!’

Instantly two of the troopers broke ranks and pulled him from the crowd. A woman screamed and onlookers stood momentarily in shock as the Freikorps men clubbed the boy to the ground with their rifle butts, knocking his teeth from his mouth with the first blow. Then men and women from the crowd ran forward trying to save the dying boy, surrounding the two troopers and grabbing at their flailing rifles.

‘Oh God!’ Wolfgang shouted. ‘Get the babies out of the pram, get them high, quick, above your head. Quick!’

In that instant the silent crowd around them became a furious mob. People from behind surged forward while some in front stepped back. Immediately the little buggy went over, twisted and trampled underfoot in the very moment that Frieda and Wolfgang had snatched their babies from it.

‘Back! Back!’ Wolfgang barked. ‘For God’s sake don’t lose your footing.’

Terrified, each holding an infant above their heads, they struggled to move away from the trouble, pushing against the mob, staring into the contorted faces of outraged citizens who were trying to force their way towards it.

‘Let us through! We have babies,’ Frieda cried.

Some, immediately in front of her, tried to give way but those behind them kept pushing, imagining in that frantic moment that in their numbers they could be a match for well-drilled soldiers. The terrible minutes that ensued were to teach them their mistake.

A harsh voice called out. An order given and a bugle sounded. Instantly and as one man the troops brought their boots down to a crashing halt and then with another crash they executed a faultless quarter-turn to face the seething crowd. Then another shout, another bugle blast, and with a slap and a rattle the field-grey lines brought their rifles to the shoulder.

At this point the nightmare could have ended. Already the crowd had paused. Faced with so many gun barrels raised as one and hearing the sinister double snap of massed rifle bolts cocked in perfect unison, the unarmed civilians checked themselves mid-stride and began to fall back. Here now could have been an end to it. The boy who had dared to insult the mighty Freikorps was already dead and his would-be avengers had been properly subdued.

But this was Germany. This was Berlin in 1920, and the genie of violence never returned to its bottle once released, no matter how briefly the stopper had been off.

‘Fire!’ the voice shouted.

No bugle was needed this time, a volley of shots followed on the voice instantly, sending a fuselage of bullets thudding into the chests and faces of the stunned citizens.

As people fell dying to the pavement the rifle bolts double-clicked again but this time their perfectly drilled rhythm went unheard beneath the screams.

‘Fire!’ the voice shouted again and a second round of bullets tore into the people, into their backs now as the crowd was already in full retreat.

There was no third round. The anonymous voice spared the defenceless people that, but hundreds were already dead and more were dying in the blind panic of flight.

The Stengel family were just a few steps ahead of that panic, just emerging from the crowd as the first shots were fired. Wolfgang’s quick thinking had certainly saved Paulus and Otto’s lives, and possibly his and Frieda’s too, but they did not stop running for almost two kilometres and never once paused to look back.

At the Brandenburg Gate the troops were left alone with their victims. The voice cried out once more, then the Freikorps reformed their column and marched out of the city.

The following morning the briefly deposed government returned to office and the water was turned back on.