THE CHATEAU DE VARENNES on the outskirts of Normandy was a busy place that June day. As Headquarters of the Northern Command, it was the nerve center of the defense of the entire region. From a peak of the roof of the Chateau hung dozens of telephone wires that went off in every direction. Camouflaged Mercedes deposited staff officers carrying black briefcases under one arm. Dispatch riders roared up on olive-drab motorcycles. Inside, in a large corner apartment on the second floor that had once been an upstairs sitting room, two staff officers were in earnest consultation.
Behind a desk in this office sat the Baron General von Wenig, chief of staff of the Northern Command. He was a strong, stocky man with close-cropped hair and a stretched-out mouth used to giving orders and having them instantly obeyed. He looked out through French windows at a cherry tree in blossom and the park beyond, where the grass was green in the spring sunshine.
“Ah, I see. You could do nothing with him.”
“Nothing,” answered the other man, also a general, tall, tanned, stalking the carpeted room. “Absolutely nothing. He seems to me to exist in a world of his own. However, as you know, it is difficult to talk on the telephone in times such as these. One doesn’t dare speak openly with so many listening in. But he seems determined.”
“He seems to me determined to die. I’ve heard medical men talk of a death wish. Now I begin to understand. Doesn’t he realize, Klaus, that it is far better to die for one’s country under English gunfire than to die from the bullets of a firing squad?”
The tall officer walking up and down nodded. He had a fine, intelligent face, sensitive yet strong. His hair was neatly brushed back from his forehead and this gave him a spare, well-groomed appearance. When he spoke, his eyes had a kind of irony in them, as though he had seen everything.
“Yes, naturally, he knows. He understands the army viewpoint. He must realize this has been done numberless times in the last war. But he cannot bring himself to shoot those six French.”
“But Klaus, he knows the necessity for firmness in dealing with franc-tireurs. They are enemies of his country. In short, they are murderers.”
“True, but he claims they are simply men of the village.”
“Makes no difference. They must be made an example of. Otherwise he is a traitor to the Army. Doesn’t he see that? If we didn’t take measures, we should have riots throughout our rear, with those damned British and Americans firing at us from the sea. This is the overriding consideration. My God, he is disobeying the orders of a superior. There is only one thing to do.” The seated man slammed his fist down on the desk.
“Heinrich, permit me. It isn’t as easy as all that. This young man believes he is right.”
“He believes what? What is right? Does he believe in a duty to the land of his birth? His father died for the Fatherland here in France. Does he believe in tradition? In family obligations? Does he, Klaus? His brother risks his life daily in the Luftwaffe, and this young man sits comfortably in a seaside village discussing right and wrong. Let us not waste time on the matter. You and I know that were it not for his connections at home, he would be behind bars right now. Tell me, who is replacing him at Nogent-Plage?”
“A certain Leutnant Rancke from Blockhouse 262B, about five miles east.”
The man behind the desk half rose. “Not Rancke. R-A-N-C-K-E?” He broke into an agonized scream. “That fellow was attached to my division at Anzio last year. He is worthless, absolutely worthless! Quite incapable of making a decision on anything, even the smallest matter. My God, what is the Wehrmacht coming to? Surely we are down to the dregs if we have to depend on the likes of Rancke! We cannot entrust even a small garrison such as Nogent-Plage to this idiot. Until that Oberleutnant gets back tomorrow from Ostend, we must find a replacement. Not Rancke. Meanwhile, as I see it, there is only one thing to do. You are taking over Wissant tomorrow from Straub, right? Then you must leave immediately, stop off and see von Kleinschrodt yourself, persuade him....”
“Jawohl, Herr General.”
“At once. You are an older man, a career soldier, not only his family friend, but someone he trusts and respects. He knows you and takes your advice. I shall cancel the order for Rancke and get that man back from Ostend. You take over Nogent-Plage until he arrives.”
“But suppose the boy refuses to carry out orders. Suppose he refuses to execute those Frenchmen.”
“Then of course you must do it. He should be made to attend as a witness. Everything done strictly according to regulations, General. Leave him in command until his lieutenant returns. Then we must court-martial him, as soon that is, as we have repelled the invasion.”
The General Froelicher, speeding along in the Mercedes on Route Nationale Number 40 glanced through the haze out to sea. It made him recall the big estate on the Baltic, and the Colonel von Kleinschrodt who had been his dearest friend and a comrade for three years in World War I. He did not like his mission in the least as he thought about the boy. A strange, quiet youth, different from the others, except that he liked football and, I must admit, always played it excellently. I remember once on a wild boar hunt on the family place, he was then about ten or twelve. By mistake somebody shot a stag. The animal dropped, but did not die. I recall he writhed on the ground until one of the beaters went up and killed him. As the blood poured from the stag’s head, the boy took one look and fainted. Just like that... he fell to the ground....
All the way to Nogent-Plage he thought and worried about the interview to come. Finally they drew up before the Bloch villa in Nogent-Plage. Outside in the Grande Rue, Madame Dupont was hobbling along, nodding and bobbing her head to the other women, the inevitable black string bag in her hand. Observing a vehicle approaching in a cloud of dust, she hastily stepped onto the sidewalk. With these young army drivers one was never safe.
The car stopped with a screaming of brakes. It was covered with a film of sand that could not obscure its high polish. A soldier jumped out and smartly held the rear door open, clicking his heels together. And an officer stepped onto the pavement.
He was tall, well-tanned, with fine features. There was a row of ribbons on his tunic. She recognized the Ritterkreuz and the Order Pour Le Merité, one of the highest combat decorations of the German Army. Somehow the aristocratic-looking officer and his whirlwind arrival reminded her of the white horses, the plumes, and the gleaming breastplates of the Garde Republicaine of her youth.
Ah, she thought, what smartness, what discipline! No wonder we French could not withstand these people. Surely there is no Army like this. We had only ineffectual troops like Monsieur Varin and young Pierre Marquet, the farmer’s son. A nice man, Monsieur Varin, to be sure, certainly, but careless in his dress. And actually, a Communist. He doesn’t even conceal it, either.
The smart officer returned the salute of the soldier at the door of the car, saluted again with a glove in his hand as the sentries before the Bloch villa came to attention, and went inside.
In the office of the Hauptmann Seeler, the Feldwebel sat by himself where he had been sitting alone for over an hour. The clock on the wall of the silent room showed more than sixty minutes past time for the execution. The Feldwebel was more lonely than he had ever been in his life. This loneliness hurt. There was nobody to help, to talk with him, to advise or even disagree with him. The decision was all his. He, too, had heard the big car arriving. Since a car was an event in Nogent-Plage at the moment, it could mean only one thing. Someone from Headquarters had come to place him under arrest, perhaps bringing a replacement to command the garrison. They waste no time in the Army, he thought, as he caught the slamming of the car doors, the sound of the front door opening, the crisp clicking of the sentry’s heels. An officer of importance, no doubt the Major Kessler himself. He was ready. The terrible uncertainty was over, the doubts and hesitations finished. The Feldwebel felt glad. Standing straight, he put on his cap, yanked down his tunic, and waited for whatever was to come.
A stomping of feet in the corridor. Then the orderly knocked and simultaneously threw open the office door. The Feldwebel felt the pride in his subordinate’s tone as he announced the visitor. Not every Feldwebel was called upon by a staff officer. Let alone a general.
“The General Froelicher,” affirmed the soldier, saluting and holding the door open stiffly, then quickly closing it.
The Feldwebel had expected anything but this. He was astonished, bewildered, but he, too, clicked his heels and saluted. The visitor came toward him, arms outstretched.
“My poor boy, my poor boy....” He embraced the younger man. Suddenly a little of the aching and loneliness ceased. Someone cared.
“My boy, my boy....” The visitor stepped back, holding him tightly by the forearm, looking into his eyes.
“Yes, my General.” He was not far from tears, and the older man realized it and broke in.
“General! General indeed! I am still your godfather, am I not? I am still old Uncle Klaus. I had to see you, Hans. This is all so terrible.”
He moved away, sat down, crossed his legs, showing an expensive pair of leather boots burnished with age and constant polishing. He took out a cigarette case of gold and extended it. “Have one. They are Turkish. Very good.”
The Feldwebel refused politely. To have accepted would have been a kind of surrender at the start. However, he pushed a small china ashtray across the desk to his godfather. “You know, you cannot imagine what it means to see you at this moment, Uncle Klaus.”
The general, elegant, poised, lit his cigarette with a gold lighter. “Of course. You need help. That is what godfathers are for, my boy. Now tell me. What is this all about? Frankly, I don’t understand.”
The Feldwebel started to talk. He desperately needed and indeed wanted to tell the whole story to this man he loved and respected, who knew him so well, who had been part of his existence since childhood. But it was difficult to begin. Although the Froelichers were old family friends and neighbors back home along the Baltic Sea, they were traditional army people. How could the general be expected to understand? It would make no sense to him.
“You see, Uncle Klaus.... I don’t quite know how to put it. I have been ordered to do something I cannot bring myself to do.”
“Hans, my boy, I didn’t come here this afternoon when we are all in such danger to deliver platitudes or preach a sermon. The situation we face is much too serious. I came to save you from yourself.”
The younger man nodded. He looked at his godfather, using an old expression of his mother’s. “Um Gottes Willen.”
“All right. Now tell me everything. I know you have been ordered to execute six hostages. I realize you do not want to do it. But what makes you feel you are more important than the German Reich? Isn’t that a bit egotistical?”
The face of the Feldwebel flushed. “I don’t feel that way at all, Uncle Klaus, and you must know it. I am merely a noncommissioned officer who has never seen battle, the only soldier in Nogent-Plage who doesn’t wear a row of combat ribbons on his chest. The only one. I am unimportant. I realize this. But, Uncle Klaus, I am me. What I am asked to do betrays myself.”
“Hans, my boy, you know you are in the wrong, don’t you now? To set your own opinion against that of your country at war? You must see that. You are not in contact with realities, my boy. These people are our enemies. We have occupied them with firmness, but correctly, and with politeness. We have even been lenient with them at times. Yet they still resist. They do not want us here. They hate us, Hans. Many good German soldiers in France and in Italy and Russia, too, have carried out equally distasteful orders. This is accepted military practice.”
“I am well aware of that, Uncle Klaus. But once again, I am me. They are other people. I am Hans Joachim Wolfgang von und zu Kleinschrodt. This disobedience of orders is the most difficult thing I ever did in all my life, believe me.”
“Of course. Your gesture is a fine one. I respect it. I am a liberal. I can see your side as perhaps some of my colleagues would not. It does you great credit, Hans. But do you appreciate the consequences? You will most certainly be court-martialed for refusing to carry out a direct command. Nogent-Plage is in the front lines now. You cannot have an Army which obeys some orders and doesn’t obey others. We obey all orders, the orders of our superiors, the orders of the Führer. If you go through with this, nothing I can do will save you. Nobody can save you. And you are one of the young Germans who should lead the Fatherland of tomorrow. Hans, my boy, we look to you to carry out our hopes for the future, to help govern Europe unified by the Greater Reich.”
Suddenly his voice became weary. Now the general was no longer a trim, alert staff officer, but an aging, tired man who had carried the burden long years and was appealing to the next generation. The spark had left him. His eyes grew black with fatigue.
Feldwebel Hans moved his head as if in acquiescence. His eyes caught the clock on the wall. It was an hour and a half beyond the time set for the execution, and those six hostages still waited in the cellar.
“Let me say just one thing, my boy. In life, you will find that the things we long for beyond all others, the things we really desire most, are the things we cannot have. Life is that way, full of disappointments for us all. Believe me, nobody escapes this.”
Again the young man seemed to acknowledge the words, to accept them, but he did not speak. Finally he looked at his godfather. “My uncle, I hardly know... I am not sure.... I am not conceited enough to be certain, but in my deep heart I feel it is wrong to kill these six men. It is worse than wrong; it is evil. José Marti said once: ‘He who witnesses a crime and does not protest, commits it himself.’”
Now the general was taken aback. “Who on earth is José Marti?”
“He was a Cuban.”
“A Cuban!” A lesser breed, the scorn in the tone of the general plainly indicated.
“Yes, a Cuban revolutionary, a great patriot. He is a hero even today throughout South America. I believe he was killed by the Spaniards, I am not sure. Anyhow, he was telling us a truth, Uncle Klaus. By the way, have you ever read Rilke?”
“No.” The general felt slightly uncomfortable. He suddenly realized that his godson was in some ways older than himself. Truly this boy had matured. There was a new firmness about the mouth. It was not unimpressive. Here was a twenty-year-old standing up against the authority of the Wehrmacht. For a few seconds the general was caught up in admiration of his godson. Why, I was like him as a young man, he thought. I had faith. Whatever happened to me? Why did I never take a stand against Adolf Hitler? Or at least have the guts to resign my commission. Why did I sit back and accept it all as my friends and colleagues did, until we discovered he owned us entirely, and it was too late? Why?
Reluctantly he returned to the somber situation at hand. He pulled a paper from his pocket and took out glasses.
“Hans, my boy, this is a brutal thing we are doing. I agree. But war is brutal. Only by being brutal can we save the lives of the good German soldiers under your command. Sometimes, like yourself, I have doubts. Then I always come back to this, an activity report which I cut out and kept. It is Herr Himmler, then Gauleiter of Poland, speaking: ‘If the local population from the Nazi point of view is hostile, racially inferior, or composed of criminal elements who attack German troops in the act of carrying out their duties, all those suspected of supporting these terrorists are to be shot and the women and children deported.’ Now we did this in the First World War to protect our troops; we did it here in France at Oradour, we did it at Lidice in Czechoslovakia, and we did it many times in Poland. In Nogent-Plage I consider we have really been most lenient.”
“But Uncle Klaus....”
“Wait! Listen to me. It is past midafternoon. We may well have the invasion any minute, at any place along the coast. I speak to you, Hans, in the name of your father whom I so deeply loved. Think! Reflect! Obey your superiors.”
“But don’t you see, I cannot excuse myself by depositing my conscience with my superiors. Sometimes disobedience is not wrong. Believe me, Uncle Klaus, there are times when it is not wrong. To disobey when your whole being tells you to is obeying your conscience.”
“Nonsense, my boy, nonsense! Suppose everyone did that? What kind of an Army would we have? Would we be here? Would we be on the Vistula? Would we hold everything from Narvik to Rome? What would happen to us if everyone acted as you are doing?”
“What everyone does is their concern. What I do is mine.”
“Hans! For the last time, I beg you, no matter what you feel, no matter the rights and wrongs and your inner struggle which I respect, obey the orders of your superior officer. Were you not a von und zu Kleinschrodt, do you know what would happen to you?
“We would tie you to the rear of an army truck and invite you to run until you were so badly cut up you would collapse and give in. That is what we would do. You are betraying your family and your class.”
The young man sat motionless behind the desk in misery. Although he loved his godfather and trusted him, although he was so close to him that he felt his presence deeply, he was still terribly alone. But he gave no sign of yielding. A tiny spiral of smoke rose from the ashtray as the cigarette burned out. There was a sad, heavy silence. Neither man spoke.
Then the general rose, his chair scraping the floor. He pressed the buzzer on the desk. The orderly entered immediately, standing at attention before the general.
“Where are the six prisoners?”
“Downstairs, sir. In the cellar.”
“Bring them up.”