NOT ONLY JEAN-PAUL VARIN but all the good people of Nogent-Plage had definite feelings about the Feldwebel Hans. If one had to be occupied by the Germans, the villagers all agreed, it was better that he should be in town.
“Why, the Herr Oberst is the son of a baron, if his brother is killed in the Luftwaffe he too will be a baron. Ah, say what you like, monsieur, blood does tell. He’s part of that old Schleswig-Holstein aristocracy. You know what those people are like.”
“How true, madame, how true! Besides, he is a man of the world, not merely an ace of the football. He plays the cello and appreciates the good wine of Bordeaux—and the Normandy cider too, yes indeed. Well, his mother was French, you know, from Sedan. To my way of thinking, he might just as well have been French. Yes, I agree....”
“Eh bien, his mother was a De Mezière from Sedan. For me he is no militarist, but really a civilized type. He loves the children in town and they love him. Why, monsieur, he is their hero. That Varin boy follows him everywhere. You know the Herr Oberst was the great defensive back for Bayern of Munich. Once before the war he played for Germany, at the age of nineteen, too!”
“Yes indeed, the boys and girls love him. If I call my René, and he doesn’t answer, I know he is watching the Herr Oberst coaching football.”
“To be sure,” interjected a fat woman. “I, for one, shan’t forget either when the partisans burned the bridge at Verville and that Hauptmann tried to take my husband off to Germany, last year. Ah, no, I told the Herr Oberst. Look, my husband was beside me in bed that awful night. He believed me. He even convinced the High Command. He has connections, you know.”
Now the villagers were all talking at once.
“Ah, yes, only he could have done it. Why not? A supply sergeant, perhaps, but he understands and respects French culture and French civilization. Naturally, his mother was French. But yet after all, he is German....”
“Yes, monsieur, most of these barbarians know neither France nor the French. Well, this man is no stony-faced Prussian such as some we’ve had stationed in this town since 1940.”
“Indeed, madame, I recall when the town had to be evacuated, remember, at the time of the big raid on Dieppe. The Herr Oberst interceded for us with the Kommandant at Caen, you recall? Those who really lived here were permitted to stay. Oh, I am entirely in accord with you. We are truly fortunate to have him here in Nogent-Plage. Truly....”
“Fortunate to have him,” that was how the villagers felt about the Feldwebel Hans Joachim Wolfgang von und zu Kleinschrodt, to give him his full name. And he was the one German soldier who seemed to be permanently stationed at Nogent-Plage, which after a while became a rest camp for troops from the Russian front. Usually a regiment or a battalion stayed only a few weeks or a month in this village on the Normandy coast. Then one wet, foggy morning the siren would blow. That piercing noise meant the end of peace and repose for those Germans. From work, from relaxation, from the football game on the beach coached by the Feldwebel, they hustled back to their billets, fear in every heart. Early on in the war when Hitler's forces were winning from Crete to Norway and each month a different nation was gobbled up by the Greater Reich, the troops had left for the East singing and cheering.
Then the war was a glorious romp. But two winters in the snow outside Moscow changed this. Now they hardly spoke as they packed and made ready to depart. Sullenly they collected the regimental baggage, silently loaded the transport wagons. When the short, sharp whistle of the Ober-Feldwebel rang out, they would line up along the Grande Rue dismally waiting inspection and the command to move off.
“Achtung! Right face! Forward... hup... hup....”
So, off in columns of four down the coastal road to entrain for the East. Nowadays the villagers of Nogent-Plage made an event of this. They lined the streets, watching not without pleasure the grim faces of the soldiers, making sardonic remarks the Germans could not understand.
“Hein! They don’t seem quite so happy to say good-by, do they?”
“Would you, my friend, with the Russian bear breathing down your neck?”
“Ah, but remember, they used to have nothing but motorized equipment. And all that new English matériel captured at Dunkerque. Remember, madame? That has worn out now. Look at those poor old horses. And the wagons falling apart....”
No, the war was no longer glorious for the Germans. Troops of different regiments came and went, only the Herr Oberst remained. It was a corps decision to leave him at Nogent-Plage. He was valuable there because he had a quality few of his countrymen possessed. The villagers hated the occupying forces with a fierce Norman hatred, looking and longing for only one thing—the Allied invasion and freedom from German domination. The Herr Oberst knew this quite as well as anyone. Yet, thanks largely to him, order prevailed in the village. There were no shootings, no terrorist attacks, no raids as in other towns along the coast. So far as the Germans could tell, the villagers never tried to signal planes or ships. Never had a Gauleiter been summoned from Berlin to restore order. In fact, the High Command at Caen had such a good opinion of Nogent-Plage that it considered awarding the town a medal for its correct attitude toward German troops.
Certainly nobody ever called the Feldwebel a keen soldier. He obeyed orders and did his duty. That was all. In private life he was a von und zu Kleinschrodt, younger son of an ancient Baltic military family famous in the history of his country. His father had been a Colonel of Uhlans in the First World War. Brought up in the army tradition, he had, perhaps, had too much of it. Not only did the big, seemingly awkward young man look out of place in uniform beside his brisk, competent, Heil Hitlering comrades, but the way he saluted, even his reports, left much to be desired. Many a commanding officer at Nogent-Plage had tried to reform him and given up the attempt. Because of his family and his connections he was no laughing stock—in fact, quite the reverse. Yet he was not entirely in favor with the High Command at Caen.
What attracted the people of Nogent-Plage to the Feldwebel was not merely his fame as an athlete, but his agreeable manner, so different from that of many of the Germans. Also there was his love of music. As he was an indifferent soldier, he was an indifferent musician and played the cello, to tell the truth, rather badly. However, he enjoyed playing with Georges Varin, the local schoolmaster and father of young Jean-Paul. Monsieur Varin was an equally bad violinist, but often, when the priest came to accompany them of an evening on the sadly inadequate piano, the three sat immersed in Bach and Beethoven until long after curfew. As a consequence, on those nights, the padre was forced to stay with the schoolmaster until morning.
In the single café in town, the Bleu Marin, the German soldiers, playing the harmonica and singing as they drank their beer, were ignored by the French natives. But whenever the tiny bell on the door tinkled ever so slightly and the Herr Oberst entered, the fishermen at their belote game glanced up and nodded pleasantly. When the curfew sounded they picked up their cards, avoided the gaze of the harmonica players, and left, bidding the Feldwebel good night on the way out.
“Guten Nacht, Herr Oberst,” they said to him.
“Eh... bon soir, bon soir, messieurs,” he replied.