Winter, 1939, Regensburg
ERICH
I had just woken up on a bright winter’s day. I always did the same thing every day upon arousing from my bed. I had coffee brought to me, along with a newspaper, and would sit, not reading it, half-awake on the balcony. The newspaper was just a prop that I used to seem alert.
A man in my position always must be alert. Being awake is not sufficient, because people take advantage of men when they are not able to think, when their minds are slow. My mind was always fast, speeding like a car toward a fast turn on a cliff. There would be carnage if I didn’t make the turn exactly as needed. As the road demanded I take it.
As usual for me, I sat in my uniform trousers and an undershirt. I depended on the cold air combined with the coffee’s caffeine to make me conscious. It took a good fifteen minutes to half wake up aided by the chill wind and the hot beverage cupped in my hand that morning, as it did every morning. However, as I averaged three hours sleep a night—it took a little more than caffeine to become able to function. I sometimes thought I would not make the turn and that I would careen off the edge—but I always somehow managed. As the head of the ghetto—as an obergruppenführer, I had to be able, more than most men, to attend to my essential duties.
I looked into the palm of my hand. It was my happy pill, a magic pill. The pill that made my eyes widen with an ability to analyze, with precision, the surrounding situations. Pervitin; I popped four into my mouth—and took a swig of the now tepid coffee to send the medicine down. It was twice the dose that my doctor recommended. I didn’t take orders from doctors. Military doctors took orders from me. I was a man in full control. I had prescribed myself this dose, and it was less than the amount many of my men each took. Fifteen minutes later and I was as lucid as one could be.
I yawned a last yawn and outstretched my arms to fully extinguish any remnants of faded exhaustion. As I stood up on my deck, overlooking my ghetto—I saw a commotion to the right, at the gate where the intake of prisoners took place. It was usually quite orderly as my SS guards made sure that they made an example of anyone who didn’t stay orderly while being processed.
However, I could ascertain that the sound was coming from a woman and that the guards were doing nothing to stop her incessant and disrespectful wailing. She was bawling, whining and making a scene. I couldn’t understand why they were allowing her to act like this. A fucking Jew. Anger came upon me and I decided to go deal with this myself. I would discipline not only the offending Jew but those not controlling the situation as well.
I rushed to put on my uniform; my jacket was slightly askew and I didn’t put on my hat. Upon reaching the ground floor and walking within earshot of the milieu, I suddenly could see the woman’s features clearly. An unexpected feeling slapped me against the face. I was smitten with her.
I felt as if an arrow had been shot through my heart. I was not a man given to affection but somehow I felt something akin to that feeling. I looked at her pursed lips—the anger on her face. Her sun-kissed skin and blonde locks. She had a perfect hourglass shape that teenage and twenty-something women just didn’t have. She looked to be in her early thirties and was wearing a pearl necklace that indicated her wealth, as if her pretentious soliloquy didn’t make that point, without the aid of such accouterments.
“I am a woman of means, you cannot treat my husband and daughter like common criminals.”
“Ma’am, you are testing our patience,” one of the guards said rather calmly, as he pushed the spectacles falling off his face back onto his nose.
“I am not going to sit back and …”
“Ma’am, your husband and daughter are Jews. They have to live in the ghetto now by law. I understand it is a law that you do not understand. But then again …”
“My husband is half-Jewish. I wouldn’t have even married him if I considered him a Jew. This is absolute insanity. He wasn’t Jewish before and now he is?”
“Half counts as Jewish,” said the soldier dispassionately.
I was watching this with fascination. I wondered if I were in love with her and her pouty lips. I liked her anger. I had never felt this way for a woman before. Her voice was like silk—even when she was raising it. It made me lust for her to yell more, to hear her passion.
Her arm stretched toward the two people she was talking about—the man and the woman. The man had dark hair and a proud face. He looked like he was from money and didn’t look Jewish. He didn’t fool me though, as I knew they could hide well in good clothing. The girl looked identical to her mother—only a teenager and not nearly as well developed. She didn’t have the ample breasts and beautiful ass her mother possessed.
I was behind a pillar and could see them, but was quite sure they couldn’t see me and wouldn’t have noticed me anyway—silently stalking them. I was close enough that I could see the woman’s gray eyes, which I glanced at as my eyes made their way down to her waist. From there my eyes flicked back up to her breasts, and I decided then that I would have her. My loins started to come to life, a confirmation of my decision, and I lightly licked my lips, imagining her naked and underneath me.
I walked confidently up to the gate from inside where I had been watching from my perch.
I went up and yelled, grinning, “Stop at once!”
The two guards at the wrought-iron gate and the intake guard all stood to attention and said, “Yes, sir.”
I asked, turning to the nidus of my lust, “Frau …?”
“Frau Eisner, you may call me Frau Eisner.”
“Frau Eisner, you have been wronged by my men, as you are not Jewish. I will give special dispensation for your daughter and husband. And I want to hear your grievance. I do, I want to help you and I will help you.”
“First, please if you will—allow me to speak to my guards in private,” I said, hiding my forked tongue.
Frau Eisner nodded.
The three guards followed me to the pillar about fifteen paces away, where I had first watched this scene.
“Ok, boys, I want that Jew husband of hers killed,” I stated in a calculated manner.
I turned to the intake guard and said, “I want you to treat him nicely in front of her—like he is a special guest. I then want you to give him to Gerhard. Tell him that he has been fucking an Aryan and that I would appreciate it if he took care of him brutally and swiftly.”
“Yes, Obergruppenführer Beck.”
“And as for the girl, I want you to hold her in the basement of my house. Take her there as gently as you can and serve her some sweets and tea. Well, what are you waiting for … go … now!”
I waited for a moment—until I saw the man and the girl pass me. I smiled at them. A smirk more than a smile really. I rarely smiled, and I gave them dirty smirks.
I walked back to the entrance—to the gate where the woman was crying and sniffling.
“I thought you would help me, Herr …”
“You can call me Erich. And yes, I did help you—did you see how gently they were taken away? I chastised my men and ordered them to take your husband and daughter to the best part of the ghetto—my mansion. They will be in very nice and adequate rooms in the basement. I cannot release them right now, on my order alone, as it is against the law, but I can look into it. I will—I will look into it tomorrow when I have a call with Reichsführer Himmler.”
Frau Eisner looked shocked. “You would do that for me? Speak with Heinrich Himmler? You are such a kind man …”
“Say nothing of it. It is nothing—I would do it for anyone. But I imagine that you may wish to be close to them—you are welcome to stay in my mansion where they will also be staying.”
“With them—in the basement?” she asked, causing me irritation, which I masked as consideration of her statement, that was really a request.
“Oh, well, no. Not in the basement, I cannot afford to call attention to the fact that I am giving them special treatment. It wouldn’t bode well for our plan to have them released.”
I started to think this was too easy; I almost became bored with her as she was naïve enough to believe my story without suspicion.
But then she questioned me and my loins moved, so much so that I wondered if she saw the lust beneath my trousers.
“So, it is our plan, is it? What is it that you are doing—why are you trying to help me?”
I didn’t think, I just said it, “Because I am going to fuck you.” I couldn’t help myself, I wanted to tear her clothes off right there.
I was very surprised that her face didn’t contort into anger as it did before with the guards. It didn’t do anything at all. Her face was static, not a poker face—it just wasn’t giving me information as to what she was thinking.
She then shocked me, and came up to my ear, tickling it with her whispered voice. Making me stand on end.
“What is your first name?”
“Erich,” I said haltingly. She had me in her spell.
She whispered, brushing her lips against my ear, pressing her breasts into my chest while her knee lightly and erotically massaged my groin, “You will take me to your house. If I am not allowed in the basement, you will let me sleep there—but not with you. I am not going to ‘fuck’ you. Do you understand? You may look at me from afar, I will keep you company for the night. But there is no sex and you will still call Mr. Himmler on my behalf.”
I stuttered, “Yes, yes. Frau … oh … yes, Frau Eisner.”
She stepped back.
“Anna, my name is Anna.”
I literally shook my head to get my senses back from her seduction and said, “Well, dear Anna, please follow me.”
I brought her to my office, though I would have preferred to take her to my bedroom.
“Please sit down, Anna, by the fire, in my chair. I will have dinner prepared for us.”
I shouted for a guard at the door and let him know that I wanted dinner made, a fine dinner; Rouladen …
“I cannot stand Rouladen, Erich.”
“Well, then, have the chef prepare a gourmet Italian dinner with red wine and several bottles of Riesling.”
“I detest Riesling, Erich,” said Anna, smiling.
The soldier looked at me for direction.
“She told you she doesn’t like Riesling—you heard the lady. Don’t stand there looking like a fucking idiot. Bring some other …” I looked at her for direction. I wanted to please her, but she gave me no indication of what she wanted.
“Bring a wide selection of wine and beer. Have red and white wine. Hefeweizen, Dunkel and Pilsener beer.”
When my guards came up to let us know that the dinner was ready, Anna started to annoy me.
She said lazily, “I don’t want to go eat, I am not even that hungry—why don’t you have them bring up the food and I will eat some—and I suppose I will have a drink from whatever selection they have.”
“Look, you are going to come down and eat with me. I have had an excellent dinner made and …”
“Oh, you are accustomed to telling people what to do. You must have forgotten—but allow me to remind you—I am German, not Jewish. You will not order me around.”
My annoyance melted. Her slight anger attracted me as it had earlier that day.
I turned to the guard and said, “Bring up the food and drinks and we will eat over there at my desk. Pull two chairs over for us.”
As we ate the veal and drank—me a Hefeweizen beer and her a glass of red wine—we didn’t talk. The few times that I tried to bring something up about her background or mine she would look at me and give a perfunctory answer.
Then she said, “You said you wanted to fuck me earlier, is that right, did I hear you correctly.”
“Yes,” I said, smiling. I liked this conversation—where it was going.
“Well, is that how you seduce all the ladies—you tell them that you want to fuck them? Don’t you realize that the way you sleep with someone, my dear, the way you do that as a man, is you act like you don’t care if you do. You act like that and then you can fuck them.”
I didn’t know what to say but said, “I am sorry if I offended you. I think you are the most beautiful—the most enchanting, the most …” I couldn’t think of the other word I wanted to say …
“… you feel seduced by me.”
“Yes, that is what I feel. Exactly.”
“Erich, I have done nothing to seduce you—it is you who are trying to seduce me. You think me beautiful. Many men do, and I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but it is true, and I don’t sleep with them. That would make me a whore, which I am not.”
I got courage to say, “Well, you aren’t a whore, I am sure. But if you want my help—what do I get in return?”
She ignored my question. “You are fortunate that you are a handsome young man. A handsome young man in authority. I like a man in uniform. I like men that think me beautiful like you do and I don’t get that attention all the time anymore as I am married.”
Her words intoxicated me. I took a swallow of my beer, I was speechless. I wanted her to go on, I didn’t want to interrupt her.
She became silent for what seemed like two minutes as we stared at each other, and she took a sip of red wine. I purposely stilled my servile-like attraction for her and sat up with my shoulders back in my chair. This helped my confident demeanor return. I could see something I had been blind to before. My attraction for her had not waned, but I could see her attraction—she fancied me. It wasn’t so strong as mine for her, but it was there and she wasn’t feigning the attraction.
“I don’t love my husband,” she said, her voice returning.
“You don’t—I saw how you pleaded for him and for your daughter.”
“For Edith, yes, I love Edith very, very much. But Richard, he is a Jew. I don’t like Jews, probably any more than you do. When we got married, he never told me he was part Jewish. To be fair, he is only half and didn’t know any more than that his Father was ethnically Jewish. He has no other affiliation to that animal race.”
I smiled and replied, “He is a dog, not just because he is Jewish, but for not disclosing that to you.”
“I agree, Erich, but he is still my husband and I have a loyalty, a sort of love and affection for him. I don’t want him hurt and I would like to see him free of this ghetto. He won’t be with me—but I would like him free.”
“I am sorry, Anna, I cannot make that happen. It is against my duty.”
She smiled. “I thought you’d say as much. I never believed your Himmler story.”
“Yes, well, I can ensure that he won’t be killed and that he will be treated well here. I assure you that,” I lied, “I am the head of this ghetto, among other duties, and I will let no harm come to him.”
“Yes, finally you tell the truth and say something that I can actually trust and believe.”
I half grinned, in affection. She smiled back.
“Thank you for that, Erich. But you know I care far more about Edith. I must have her free, you understand that, don’t you? There is no compromise on that.”
“Yes, I know that and she will be free. I have more discretion as she is only a quarter Jewish. I will let her go at once. And you. You are free to go, of course, as you know.”
I swallowed hard; I had given her all of my cards, she could leave with Edith and I would have no way to stop her. I would have no right, nothing to hold over her.
“I knew that she would be let go. What kind of quarters is she in—is she being touched by your men?”
I stood up and put my arm over my chest and swore, “Any man who guards her knows that they will answer to me dearly if they were to touch one hair on her head. And I promise, she sleeps on a bed as nice as mine tonight.”
Anna stood up and smoothed down her dress. “Erich, dear, you haven’t shown me your bed. I mean your bedroom. Isn’t it rude to not give me a tour of the house?”
“Oh my, my apologies, Anna. My bedroom is just adjacent to this office.”
My loins ached for her. So bad was the aching that I almost bent her over the desk.
“Follow me, Anna,” I said, grabbing her wrist and—with a pull that let her know I was in charge now—leading her to my bedroom.
Upon entering the bedroom, I closed the door and pushed her down onto the bed, locking lips with her, and was surprised to find in her mouth lived the same hunger for me that I had for her.