On Either Side: A World War 2 romance: On Either Side, #1

CHAPTER 1

‘In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hope on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness; I hear the ever approaching thunder that will destroy us too. I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end and that peace and tranquillity will return again.’  Anne Frank.

He stood tall and proud, breath steaming as he eyed across the death calm of the frozen battlefield. Nothing stirred, no birdsong; silent now the crack of rifles and boom of artillery. Just the sinking, musky fog of conflict stubbornly remained; the enemy had gone.

Beneath the ghostly Death’s Head (Tokenkopf) emblem on his Waffen SS cap, blood and sweat matted his ash blonde hair. His quietening eyes, blue as sapphires, continued to survey the scene like a panther searching for prey.  Corpses of men and horses scattered everywhere, pinned to the scene in grotesque throes of death as if the Grim Reaper had swung his cruel scythe in one merciless swoop. The bitter cold grasped the smouldering, torn and ravaged landscape like iron. Burnt-out, smouldering carcasses of tanks and trucks strew the horizon between battle shredded trees silhouetted against the sinking sun like witches fingers clawing at the weary sky.

It was late February 1943 and the German forces were retreating westerly towards the Ukraine following defeat by the Russian Red Army at the Battle of Stalingrad. They were cold and hungry as sufficient supplies of food, ammunition and warm clothes had not reached them. Many thousands of troops loyal to the Fuhrer and the Fatherland had simply frozen to death during the many months of this campaign, a waste of lives in the icy wastes of the region. Many of these men had volunteered from Germanic State countries such as Norway, Sweden and Denmark. But to those who remained, whatever their nationality, an air of despondency now suffocated their loyalty and their patriotism.

Untersturmfuhrer (Second Lieutenant) Karl Wulf was a young man of glorious good looks and proud Aryan heritage. Like so many other young Germans he’d been swept along by the tide of patriotism that ensued after the country’s humiliation and defeat following the Great War. But Germany’s phoenix would rise again from the ashes thanks to their leader Adolf Hitler. Karl was a huge admirer of The Fuhrer and had been a former member of the Hitler Youth. He had joined the SS in 1939 at just 17 years old, when the regiment was the finest, most admired and respected in the whole German army, at a time before its’ great reputation was slighted by savagery and cruelty. Every proud Nazi had wanted to join the SS; and his parents (even his oppressive father) had brimmed with pride when he was selected for the Officer Cadet School at Brunswick, 145 miles west of his home city Berlin. There he excelled in training showing instinctive qualities of initiative and leadership, quickly graduating to the rank of second lieutenant. He had also demonstrated inane bravery and level-headedness in the field and had been awarded the Iron Cross, second class. Karl was a soldier first and foremost, a fighter with a kill or be killed ethic; never a ruthless cowardly murderer as so many in this regiment had become.

On this bitter winter day Karl had been with a squad of almost five hundred SS and Whermacht (regular Army) soldiers when they had encountered a wandering, rogue force of Russian troops and tanks. The battle had been unexpected and fierce, an inferno of hatred, a bullet raged slaughter which had lasted most of the day. Only a few of his comrades in arms remained alive, most of whom lay wounded and huddled behind whatever cover they could find. Among these survivors was his Commanding Officer, Obersturmbannfuhrer (SS Lieutenant Colonel) Fredrik Adler. The Colonel had been shot through the shoulder and Karl had laid him down behind the sanctuary of a stone-frozen horse carcass.

Adler’s immediate junior Hauptsturmfuhrer (SS Captain) Marc Schneider was only a couple of years older than Karl, a man he respected albeit with a distrust of his fascist ideology. Just moments beforehand Schneider had led Karl in an assault on a machine-gun nest that was causing havoc among the German ranks, preventing victory and an end to the slaughter. But as the Captain rose from cover to storm the post he was torn apart by a blizzard of bullets, torso shattered like a water melon smashed by a mallet. This happened right before Karl’s horrified gaze, his brother-in-arm’s flesh and innards splattered onto his face and chest forming a scene so bloody and appalling that it provoked an adrenalin fuelled frenzy within the young man, causing him to storm the nest single handed. In an avenging rage of grenades and gun fire, Karl slayed the seventeen Russians responsible for the Captain’s death, bayonetting the last three with the fury of a blood-lust maniac. The remaining enemy troops withdrew, scurrying away like frightened rabbits.

The gun shots ceased.

An uneasy, baying silence had begun.

Karl was shaking, courage fleeing from his psyche like a sneak-away traitor as the horror of what he’d just witnessed and been involved in seeped from his system, the grip of shock he was forced to slap away as if turning from a back-biting friend. He took a deep breath as duty swilled his conscience and he turned in the direction of where he had left the wounded Colonel. As he did so, several white German helmets rose gingerly from behind ice-shimmering animal carcasses and smouldering, blackened vehicles, emerging like periscopes in tempestuous seas to survey the carnage. He could sense the awestruck admiration in the gazes that trained upon him, eyes that beggared belief at the heroism they’d just witnessed.

As he approached, one of the men, a lanky Private, jumped up and saluted him, slow and respectfully while he gulped air like a beached fish, ‘Sir, what you’ve just done, the bravery I’ve just witnessed with my own eyes...’

Karl interrupted, eying the man dispassionately. ‘Private, I’ve done nothing. We’ve all fought well today.’

‘But Sir...’, insisted the Private trying to continue.

‘Quiet man!’ instructed Karl firmly. The soldier tensed. ‘Now where is Colonel Adler?’

‘He’s alright, Sir, being attended to by a medic’, replied the Private. ‘We moved him over there’, he added pointing at a burnt-out vehicle. ‘He’s behind that four- track, Sir. He’s being well cared for’.

‘Thank you,’ Karl answered, less irritated. ‘Now can you please take some men and search the area for any survivors and collect up all the guns and ammunition you can find.’ Gathering discarded weapons was important as their supply had dwindled. They needed these for rearmament and to prevent them falling into the hands of the enemy should they launch another attack. ‘And Private...be bloody careful,’ he added almost as an afterthought. ‘There might be some communist bastards still out there.’

The soldier straightened and saluted again, clicking his heels together obediently.  ‘Immediately Sir,’ he replied respectfully.

Karl casually reflected the salute then went to search for the Colonel whom he found slumped by the front wheel of the four-track, his wounds being dressed by a member of the KruckenKreuz (German Red Cross). He squatted down to address his superior. Adler’s eyes were screwed shut in his dishevelled, battle-weary face.

‘Sir, it’s Lieutenant Wulf,’ said Karl quietly.

The Colonel’s green eyes snapped open. ‘Lieutenant,’ replied Adler, his voice gravelly and tired. ‘Word has reached me of your magnificent act of bravery.’ He tried to reach out but his arm flailed by his side.

Karl was concerned. ‘Try not to move Sir. Let them attend to your shoulder.’

‘I’m alright Lieutenant,’ replied the Colonel indignantly. ‘More tired than hurt; exhausted by this bloody war and the months of this relentless bloody cold.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I will ensure Herr Himmler hears of your act of heroism.’

‘It wasn’t heroism, Colonel,’ replied Karl. ‘If anything it was rash and foolhardy. I simply saw red and did no more than you would’ve done had you been in my shoes.’

Adler passed a withered, doubtful gaze which met Karl’s. ‘Well we’re getting out of here tomorrow, Lieutenant,’ he replied. ‘We’ve managed to radio for help and there’s a platoon headed our way. We’re going home my friend, those of us that are left.’ He passed a questioning look at Karl. ‘Did Captain Schneider make it?’

‘He’s dead, Sir,’ replied Karl coldly as the horror of the Captain’s slaughter sparked in his head.

‘My God in Heaven!’ burst the Colonel. He paused while remorse poisoned his thoughts and haggard his face. He looked at Karl with steely eyes. ‘It’s without doubt thanks to you that these few of us left here are still alive, that 30 or 40 of us will get to see our mother’s again.’ He hardened his gaze at Karl. ‘It is my duty, Lieutenant, to make sure a full account of your actions and bravery here today reaches high command and I will recommend you for promotion and award.’

Karl stood and saluted the Colonel as another voice drifted to his ears, calling his attention. He recognised the willowy figure, the man he had asked earlier to search for survivors and weapons. He and four other German troops dragged forward two Russians, limp like rag-dolls and clad in mud and blood smeared khaki trench coats.  Karl approached them and their captors threw the prisoners down onto the ice and oily mire with an avenging mercilessness and ire of contempt.

The private pointed a machine gun menacingly down at the terrified men grovelling in the mud. ‘Shall we shoot them, Lieutenant?’  he asked.

Karl looked to the Colonel who had closed his eyes again and appeared disinterested. He then glanced at the shameful figures sprawled helplessly in the mud. Hatred iced his blue eyes, tempted by the private’s suggestion. But it was unnecessary to add to the death toll, nothing could bring back Schneider and the others who’d sacrificed themselves that day.  ‘No, Private, the killing is done,’ he said, sighing resentfully. ‘They too will see their mothers again. Tie them up, they’ll leave with us tomorrow.’

Lieutenant Wulf then searched amongst the carnage, looming shadows and twisted metal, for survivors most of whom were bunched or laid on the frozen ground, wounded like the Colonel, belligerent in pain and anguish. He took time to talk to each man, reassuring them and taking their names to arrange medical attention as would be necessary. The evening was fast closing in and the temperature dropping rapidly. They would need a fire but there was danger in lighting one as it might lure unwelcome attention to their location. But he considered it a risk worth taking as all their equipment for sleeping in the cold had been obliterated during the fighting of that day. It was a priority for him to keep these brave men warm in the sub-zero temperatures. So he ordered a large fire to be built out of shattered crates and torn canvas, then escorted the Colonel, arm over shoulder, to the fireside and sat him down on an upturned wooden crate. Then the other survivors (34 including the 2 Russians) clambered and limped in bedraggled, pitiful hunched bunches to the welcoming, flickering heat that licked and thawed the frozen air. Some slumped beside the fire others sat on crates, wrapped and huddled around the flames that danced in their eyes and played over their faces, steam lifting from their damp clothes like rising ghosts.

Karl then dispatched a posse of six uninjured men to search through the remnants of battle for anything to eat or drink. Within half an hour they returned carrying two large crates of Russian vodka and another full of bread, bacon and eggs. Everyone was ravenous, a chasm in their stomachs left in the wake of adrenalin and fear. So after frying and toasting the food in the raging flames, bacon on sticks, eggs on sheets of bent metal, Karl handed each man a steaming hot sandwich, chunks of bread stuffed with charred eggs and bacon. It was simply the best meal they’d enjoyed for weeks, a silence of gluttony washed down with vodka, all except for one of the Russian prisoners whom Karl noticed wasn’t eating.

‘Eat up man,’ he demanded to the Russian. ‘I don’t know what our prisons are like but that’s probably the best food you’ll have for many months.’

The prisoner remained silent so his comrade sat next to him replied, best he could. ‘It not possible, he Zhid.’

‘You mean Yid? A Jew?’ asked Karl.

‘Yah, a Jew. No pig allowed.’

Colonel Adler’s ears pricked up. He tried to stand but a shard of pain nailed his shoulder. Instead he looked at the prisoner as a snake might its’ prey. ‘A fucking Jew,’ he shouted with all the strength he could muster. ‘I can’t share my space around this fire with a fucking Jew.’ He lasered his glare at the man. ‘Someone shoot the bastard, that’s an order!’

‘Nine!...nine!’ pleaded the Jew’s Russian associate desperately. ‘No! Sir...Please!’ he begged at Adler.

Karl intervened calmly. ‘Colonel it’s only for a few hours until our relief arrives. I beg your compassion, Sir. He’s going to have a rough time ahead as it is.’

Adler relented, his wounds still too sore to warrant further exertion. ‘Very well, Lieutenant. Just keep the Jew away from me,’ he said wearily.

Rank, seniority and, to some extent, nationality were forgotten that night as the blaze licked upwards to the star-studded winter sky. There was a happy comradery, a bond that only the horrors of warfare can engender. Happy laughing faces, infused by vodka, bathed in heat and the flickering tangerine luminescence of flames.  They talked and laughed as animated shadows pranced between them like court jesters, sung Lili Marlene, Mein Regiment Mein Heimatland and Das Deutschlandlied over and over again to a clattering orchestra of mess tins and boots. The vodka swilled and bubbled in gulps until dawn when the rumble of diesel engines thundered towards them. The relief platoon had arrived. They were going home.

Karl was chauffeured through the war-torn streets of his home town, Berlin, sat in the rear of a black Mercedes staff-car, swastika flags flapping from the bulbous front wings, jubilant, nationalistic emblems of glory. He had been flown from a field aerodrome near Kiev, landing in Berlin a few hours later and then collected by the car. All had been organised with typical German timing and efficiency so that there were no delays with travel, not even time to wash properly nor to change his clothes. This was something he considered a priority since he still wore the blood and mud soiled camouflaged combat uniform he’d worn for the last week or so. And he smelt bad, a smell of battle, sweat and blood much of it being from poor Captain Schneider’s bullet torn torso. Being a soldier in the SS was not always compliant with personal hygiene.

The city was barely recognisable, the street scene further obliterated by British bombers since his last visit several months beforehand. That had seemed bad enough but now he only recognised a façade here and there, a statue or fountain choked in dust and rubble. It was saddening, hollowed his heart as he recalled the alleys and squares he’d played in as a child which had rang with their laughter; now lying silent, entombed beneath a carpet of debris. Does the spirit escape the body through that fatal laceration? It seemed to Karl that the city had lost its’ soul. The houses and offices that had once stood so arrogantly in ornate gothic terraces, now skeletons of their former glory, yawning to the elements with missing walls and roofs, like gaping flesh-less skulls. Mangled floor and roof joists straggled together like broken ribs, ragged furniture and sodden curtains hanging despondently like tears grieving the carnage. Here and there a spire or pinnacle pierced up to the heavens as if pointing in warning to the peril expected from the night sky. The roads had been cleared of bomb debris and people meandered around between rubble piled up in heaps and pushed against the foot of the buildings.

‘I presume you’re taking me home?’ asked Karl, switching his attention from the window to the driver. ‘I’m looking forward to a hot bath and decent meal. Do you know where my mother and father live? ’ He loved his mother but resented his father. His father was an autocrat, had been an ambitious and successful Berlin banker between the wars, one who’d been ruthless to achieve his goals. Back then he’d shown no interest in his son and had sent him away to an English boarding school at the tender age of just eight, denying him that reverie of childhood, toy trains, tadpoles and puppy dogs. Karl’s mother had pleaded tearfully for her little boy to remain at home but her husband stuck his ground heartlessly, a cruelty he inflicted on her with malignant, belittling pleasure. He continued speaking to the driver. ‘Does my mother know that I’m home yet?’

‘I am not privy to information about your parents, Sir,’ replied the driver sedately. ‘My orders are to take you to SS Headquarters in Prince Albert Street where Reichsfuhrer Himmler wishes to see you.’

That statement exploded and slapped awake Karl’s reasoning. The great Heinrich Himmler himself? thought Karl a little anxiously. Why would he want to see me? He addressed the man at the wheel again. ‘Driver, I can’t possibly go and see one of the most powerful men in the whole