Heinrich Hirsch used the textbook tactics dictated by Lenin. In the light of the elections and the temper of the moment he made a temporary retreat by granting a number of small but unimportant concessions.
The stirrings grew. Heidi Fritag and Matthias Schindler emerged as the opposition leaders on a crest of unrest. The two personally petitioned Colonel Hazzard for an American license to form a Democratic Students’ Club on the campus and publish a weekly newspaper. Even though the school was in the Russian Sector, it would be keeping within the contention that the university was rightly under four-power control.
Hazzard warned the youngsters that they would be in danger and out of reach of American help, but they were adamant.
RIAS and the American newspaper announced the granting of the club license followed by an appeal from Heidi Fritag urging the students to join. What happened caught Heinrich Hirsch flat-footed. Over half the students flocked to the Democratic Club.
In the Kommandatura Nikolai Trepovitch raged at the “illegal” organization and promised to break it up. Neal Hazzard did not budge.
In a few days the first issue of the Democratic Students’ Club newspaper paper, Justice, was printed and distributed. The two-page tabloid carried a front-page editorial by Matthias Schindler.
WE DEMAND!
Academic Freedom!
An end to Marxist indoctrination!
Democratic student power!
Texts of Western philosophy!
Courses in religion!
Heinrich Hirsch stood with eyes cast down, figuring out the pattern on the Persian rug. V. V. Azov flung a copy of Justice at his feet.
“The blood of the Soviet Union drenches every millimeter of German soil! Do you think we have spilled it to stand by idly and allow the rebirth of Nazism!”
Hirsch’s voice trembled. “It would be difficult to consider Matthias Schindler or Heidi Fritag as Fascists.”
“All Germans are Nazis at heart!”
My father was not a Fascist, Heinrich said to himself.
“You will learn once and for all, Comrade Hirsch, that no German nationalism is tolerated and the German people will learn that their only salvation is through the Soviet Union!”
The abduction of Heidi Fritag and Matthias Schindler by unmarked cars of the SND was swift and efficient. Schatz’s political police bound and gagged them and whisked them out of Berlin. The kidnap was followed by an Action Squad from the university breaking into the print shop of Justice and destroying it.
The kidnap cars sped south and were swallowed up in the darkness of the Russian Zone of Germany. They halted at a castle on a former Prussian Junker estate near Jüterbog. The captives were hustled into dungeon cells where V. V. Azov, himself, had come to supervise the confessions. They had to be carefully staged, recorded, and photographed.
In the old days Azov was able to estimate within minutes how long a person could hold out. Most of those who had been brought to him during the purges had already appraised their predicament and confessed without resistance, but during the purges they only wanted to keep alive and continue as partners in the crime.
Matthias Schindler and Heidi Fritag held on to something a purged Russian never knew; the usual promise of sleep, food, water, cigarettes did not work.
The commissar could not understand their stubbornness. Five nights and days of round-the-clock questioning failed to break them. Matthias Schindler, with the glistening marks of other beatings from the Nazis, smiled and spit at them.
Heidi Fritag, the damned Jewess, merely sat erect, tight-lipped, defiant.
Azov sweated. He ordered the use of drugs, for he was getting the worst of the questionings. His stomach had turned to fire. The drugs produced blurted ramblings unsuitable as evidence to the world. As a last ditch, he decided upon torture. It had to be done with care so that no visible mutilations would show.
Schindler got it first. He broke and signed a confession.
Heidi Fritag continued to hold out.
She was stripped naked and lashed to a table. Mirrors were rigged up before her eyes so she was able to see the entire length of her body. Candles were placed on both breasts and lit. As they burned lower and lower the hot wax dripped on her. Lower ... lower ... she convulsed with pain. One of Azov’s commissars sat close by, drumming questions into her ear, promising relief.
On the eleventh day after the kidnap a “trial” was held. Heinrich Hirsch was forced to observe everything.
Present in the castle were members of Adolph Schatz’s Special Nazi Detachment, NKVD, and two carefully selected journalists. V. V. Azov sat at the end of the room as an “interested” observer.
Matthias Schindler had been cleaned up so that he might be photographed, and was dragged into the room under heavy sedation.
A prosecutor read his confession. “I admit to undercover activities dedicated to the rebirth of fascism at the university ...”
A sentence of twenty-five years was passed.
Schindler was dragged away and Heidi Fritag was called.
A member of the SND came into the room and whispered into Azov’s ear, “The girl died a few moments ago.” Azov stood and asked to address the court.
“Heidi Fritag has attempted suicide out of guilt. She cannot appear in court. However, we have her signed confession.”
The journalists wrote “interviews” with the defendants in which they expressed extreme remorse for their “crimes.” Tapes were edited and photographs retouched.... People’s justice had been done.
Sean O’Sullivan was brought out of his sleep by a sharp knock on the door. He turned on the lamp. It was three in the morning. Blessing stood at the door.
“Get dressed,” Bless said. “Pack a bag, quick. We’re taking a trip.”
Sean did as he was told without question.
A staff car waited at curbside. Bless got in the front seat next to the driver and Sean in the back. Neal Hazzard was waiting. They sped along the Unter Den Eichen.
“We have General Hansen’s plane standing by at Tempelhof. We’re carrying out a single VIP to London. Keep him company. Write down what he says. See that he doesn’t try to knock himself off.”
“Defector?”
“A big one. Heinrich Hirsch.”
Chapter Twenty-two
V. V. AZOV HAD FORCED Hirsch to attend session after session of the questioning and torture of Heidi Fritag and Matthias Schindler to break this strange streak of resistance in him.
Hirsch watched the whole event like a witness at his father’s death. The circle was complete. He, a victim of tyranny, had now seen the same merciless destruction imposed on an enemy. He, the Communist, had killed in the same manner as his father had died at the hands of the Nazis.
Azov’s attempt to debase his spirit was the final disillusion of what was once a golden idea. He still believed in Communism, but had come to detest the men who had perverted it beyond recognition.
Yet, the last thread of defiance did not break. He would not submit to this final humiliation ... to become a Communist robot without a soul.
Months earlier he had gotten wind of certain happenings in the American Sector that planted a seed of escape in his mind.
Jews, freed from death camps in Poland, trekked west to attempt to get to Palestine, the only door open to them. They were carefully shepherded by young Palestinians who slipped them to French and Italian ports. Immigration to Palestine was deemed illegal by the ruling British mandate.
Although it meant going against his British colleague, Neal Hazzard quietly established a refugee camp for the Jews in the American Sector and saw to it they got what they needed in the way of displaced persons documents.