He rushed Wayne and punched him hard in the gut and then gave him a hard jab to his face. Wayne had never been punched that hard in his life. He dropped to the floor. Not even bothering to pick up his firearm, the Nazi came again at Wayne.
Wayne grabbed two large gongs off the floor and clapped one on each side of the Nazi’s head, forcing his head to involuntarily waver and fall.
With a group of SS Men swiftly closing in on him, Wayne became desperate. If he were lucky he’d be captured; Wayne didn’t feel lucky. He looked around. There was only one place he could now go. He remembered seeing something that would be his only chance.
Wayne bolted into the kitchen. Thank God, there was nobody in there. Wayne surveyed the thick ventilation shaft above the main stove. The outer opening to the airshaft was covered with a tin grating. He climbed up onto the big iron stove. He removed the grating, which came off easily enough, and then crawled into the ventilation shaft. If he had been a little heavier, he would not have fit in, for Wayne had only a minute amount of breathing space. Wayne placed the tin grating back on the opening of the ventilation shaft as best he could from the awkward position that he was in.
Wayne put his hand behind him in the darkness of the shaft to better situate his body. He heard a loud squeak and felt something squirming around. “Ow!” Something had bit him. Wayne’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness, much as one’s eyes do when turning off the light to go to sleep. Wayne looked down to see what had bit him. It was a large black rat. Wayne lifted up his hand to his face. His hand was bleeding. Not profusely, but it was a good size cut. Wayne never knew that rats had such sharp teeth.
Wayne started crawling deeper and deeper into the filthy airshaft. He began coughing incessantly. There was very little oxygen in the shaft to begin with, and all the dust, grease particles, and dirt in it didn’t help matters.
Wayne was terrified. That same fear of death that had gripped him on the Hindenburg overcame him again. What in the world was Dr. Hoffmann doing? Why did she let him stay in Nazi Germany so long?
At the other end of the air shaft, in what seemed like at least 60 suffocating feet to his lungs, Wayne arrived at a grating partition that led to the outside of the Chancellery.
Wayne kicked hard at the grating, which caused the weathered plaster holding it in place to begin to crumble. He kicked harder with all of the strength that he could muster in his legs. The grating finally separated from the plaster. The grating was jerked free.
Wayne crawled out of the ventilation shaft. He was breathing heavily, and his clothes carried a filthy appearance and a foul smell.
The streets of Berlin were alive with the sound of marching boots. A procession of SA Nazi Stormtroopers, the organization originally designed to protect Nazi mass meetings and oppose political rivals, wearing their brown uniforms marched to German military music while they carried torchlights. Joseph Goebbels, head of propaganda, had organized this impressive march on just an hour’s notice. The news of Adolf Hitler’s demise had not been made public yet.
Wayne viewed this procession from his vantage point outside of the Chancellery building. He did not want to be seen by them. He should keep moving, he decided. Wayne ran around the corner and away from where the Stormtrooper march was headed.
The cold air made Wayne shiver. It wasn’t a bitter cold, as Berlin often became during the long German winter, but cold enough for most all of its citizens to complain about. The weather was one thing that the Nazis could not control.
Five blocks from the Chancellery, a drunken SA Nazi on that night had his pistol aimed pointblank at a young man and his wife, who was clearly in the later stages of a pregnancy. The man foolhardily wore a Jewish Star of David on a necklace around his skinny neck. That night the man should have left his religious emblem at home.
“Jewish swine,” the drunken SA Nazi spoke. “The Reich will take care of your kind of vermin for good. Why, I’ll kill you now, swine, before your kind can breed anymore.” The intoxicated, brainwashed Nazi looked as if he could barely stand up straight. He did possess enough energy, though, to lift up his gun and point it at the pregnant woman.
Wayne turned the corner of the street and stopped at the sight in front of him.
The brown shirted Nazi turned and aimed his pistol in Wayne’s direction. Intermittently laughing hysterically and talking, he said, “Watch what I’m gonna do; watch me kill some Jews. Heil Hitler!”
Wayne took a hold of the Nazi’s arm. The gun fired into the air.
The tipsy Stormtrooper was shocked at what Wayne had done, “Traitorous son-of-a-bitch. I have to report you for your… for your getting in the way of a Party member carrying out official business. May you hang high, you bastard.”
He tried to grab at Wayne’s neck, as if he would strangle him if he had the strength to. Wayne struck him hard in the face, knocking the man out.
“Thank you, thank you,” the Jewish man said as he hugged his crying wife.
“Glad to be of help,” Wayne responded.
“You have saved our lives. How can I ever thank you?”
“You just did.” Worried that the gunshot may have attracted attention, Wayne wanted to leave quickly. He thought it strange that the woman’s face seemed oddly familiar to him. She probably just had one of those faces.
The Jewish man gave Wayne a hearty handshake, and did not let go of his hand. “My name is Josef Hoffmann and this is my wife, Greta. Who are you?”
“Wayne Goldberg.” Wayne politely withdrew his hand.
“Wayne, if you ever need anything at all—”
The Jewish man’s name sure sounded familiar to Wayne. “Hoffmann… Hoffmann… Josef Hoffmann…” Wayne knew, of course, why his last name rang a bell. But where had he heard this man’s name recently? All of a sudden, it came to him. To make sure he was right, Wayne asked, “Your unborn child — have you chosen a name?
“Yes,” Josef replied. “If it is a boy, Josef Junior, and if it is a girl, Lisa.”
“I got to get out of here.” Wayne ran off.
Josef called out to Wayne, “Remember, Josef Hoffmann.”
Gestapo vehicles, the identifiable black jeeps with the words State Police etched on the sides in white, approached the area. The SS Nazis picked up Wayne’s trail.
The news of the Führer’s death had been broadcast on radio. All over Germany, people were saddened and in shock at the awful news. Germany’s best hope for a future of employment and prosperity and a recovery from the depression seemed to disappear. The news also broadcast that foul play might have been involved in Hitler’s death, a good chance it being “the work of despicable Communists or Jews, or both working together to once more disrupt the future of Germany.”
One of the Gestapo vehicles pulled up alongside Josef Hoffmann. Inside the vehicle was SS Officer Werner, his face contorted with hate, as well as another SS man.
Josef Hoffmann secretly slipped off his necklace. He wasn’t looking for any more trouble that night.
Officer Werner eyed Hoffmann and his wife suspiciously. Nazis especially loathed pregnant Jewish women. It was believed, mistakenly, by the Nazis, that Jews were trying to have as many children as possible so that one day there would be more Jews in Germany than “pureblood Germans” and so that the Jews could infiltrate every business, factory, university, and so on that they didn’t already have their sneaky paws in. Werner shared this view.
“Have you seen a young man dressed as a servant go by?” Werner asked the couple.
“No,” Josef said.