He broke off suddenly, as he realized how empty his threats were.
‘You’ll pay for this stunt of yours, Endrigkeit!’ he said through gritted teeth, before adding, quite calmly and impersonally: ‘You are to place yourself and your squad at Lieutenant Colonel Braun’s disposal for the defence of the village.’
No one in the intelligence division had any more time to think about the ‘Lakosch case’. First Lieutenant Breuer was immediately requisitioned by the new base commander. Lieutenant Colonel Braun’s frenetic activity knew no bounds. He was constantly having new brainwaves, and the orders he issued, in a hoarse croak of a voice, were frequently unintelligible. Breuer was on his feet from dawn to dusk without pause. He had to go round visiting units and brief detachments on defensive techniques; provisions, weapons and entrenching tools had to be found from somewhere. Stubbornness and ill will led to friction and clashes. From the outset, this was particularly the case up at the forward position on the road, where, with the help of the military police, the bands of soldiers streaming back from the breached front were to be intercepted. Men from the most diverse units pitched up there, exhausted, with no officers in charge and in some instances without any weapons. If the accounts they gave – a blend of truth and skittish fantasy – were to be believed, then German forces at the western front of the Cauldron had been wiped out. Two completely distraught medical orderlies recounted how Russian tanks had broken into their dressing station. Total panic had ensued. Stretchers with wounded men on them were simply left out in the open and abandoned. A captured Russian major who had been among the serious casualties had been swiftly ‘dispatched’.
‘What – you shot the wounded Russian?’ those listening cried in horror. ‘And left the body next to your German comrades? Are you crazy or what? You know what’ll happen to our wounded now, don’t you?’ The two men fell silent. Finally, one of them said, ‘Look, it’s all the bloody same now. The Russians are killing everything that moves anyhow!’
Only late in the evening did Breuer finally find the opportunity to request some free time from the lieutenant colonel in order to sort out his own affairs. He was dismissed brusquely. When he got to his bunker he found it empty. The men had already left. The little stove was glowing red-hot, and papers were lying scattered on the floor. Corporal Herbert had evidently burned all the files and dispatches that had accumulated again over the past few weeks. Breuer cast his eyes around the room, over the cracked clay walls, the rough plank table that had served as his and Wiese’s bed, the telephone, the little flickering storm lantern, and the slogan on the wall, already rather yellowed and faded. ‘I break on through and never look back…’ His thoughts were calm and collected. So this was the end. There would be no breakthrough and no future. Now they’d perish here on a distant foreign field, abandoned, forgotten, and with no hope of even a grave… It wasn’t death itself that frightened him. But he had a strong sense that he’d lost all faith in the point of his impending demise.
What are we dying for exactly? he asked himself. For the Fatherland? That could scarcely be defended from their position here on the Volga. For metal ores, oil and wheat? No, not for those commodities either. To save the Eastern Front, then? Well, if the twenty-two German divisions had been on the other side of the river, west of the Don, they might have stood a chance of saving the Eastern Front, but not here. So for what? Just because Hitler had once boasted ‘Once we’re dug in somewhere, there’s no shifting us’? Was that the reason they were being cut down here like robbers and bandits?
Breuer sat down at the table and rested his fevered brow in his hands. The only good thing was that they wouldn’t have to advance any more, into a witches’ cauldron where they would all be wiped out; better that they were making a final stand here, at this spot that he and his comrades had made into a little piece of home. Breuer would never have wanted to wish away the last few weeks he had experienced here. Sometimes, it seemed to him that they had been the most worthwhile part of his entire life. Every song that the men had sung together, every poem that had been read out loud, every word that had been spoken during the long hours of the night had had real resonance and value and depth here and had helped give them all inner strength. At one stage, he had hoped that these six weeks spent in the earth bunker outside Stalingrad might be a fresh start, a first step towards a new land. And no, it turned out not to have been a beginning, but an end after all.
Breuer looked up. There on the wall hung the photograph of his family still. His wife holding the baby on her lap, and their elder child standing beside her, his arm round her shoulders. Her smile radiated out into the room. That had been taken back then, in peacetime… Should he write to her? And what should he write? He knew that she was brave, but would she be strong enough to endure the truth, this truth? Might it not be better to leave it to the official Wehrmacht communiqué to report the demise of the Sixth Army? Sure, it wouldn’t represent the truth, but it would be the kind of bland statement that would soothe the pain. Breuer pulled a little packet from his map case. The letters that his wife had written to him while he was on campaign. He carefully unfolded the sheets and began reading. He was taking his leave of her. But as he read certain sentences, he pulled up short. They struck him as unfamiliar, somehow new. Puzzled, he looked at the date: 8.12.1940… Oh, right, that was when he’d been in France, luxuriating in peace and quiet. In those circumstances, he could well have skipped over parts of her letters. He read the lines through again:
You see, I’ve always taken the view that you can never be said to really love another person unless you allow them to put themselves in harm’s way. For in most cases, fearfulness for another person is nothing more than the cowardice of egotism. On the other hand, I honestly believe that true love’s preoccupation is to be constantly ready to support your partner wholeheartedly and to the best of your ability in all the dangers that might befall him…
Breuer put down the letter. He felt closer to her again, and he felt he could find the right words now. He started to write:
11.1.1943, OUTSIDE STALINGRAD
DEAR IRMGARD!
I am sorry to be the bearer of painful tidings. What you may already have surmised is true. We are encircled. And there’s no prospect of being rescued any more. The end is near. I can’t tell you in just a few words what’s happening here. A great crime is being committed, and one day our countrymen will call the guilty parties to account.
My dear Irmgard, we will surely never see one another again. At this sad time, I want to thank you for all the years of work and the cares and worries we shared and for all the happiness we enjoyed.
Even now I feel your closeness. From now on, you’ll have to be both mother and father to our boys, and looking after
them will give you the strength to carry on. Bring them up to be good and upright men, who will fight for justice and the truth and for brotherly love one day. And when they’re older, tell them that their father too once believed that he was living and dying for a noble cause. Irmgard, my darling, farewell!
Breuer sealed the envelope and put it in his coat pocket. And once more he picked up the bundle of letters from his wife. He held them in his hand, spread out like a fan, and drank in the sight of the familiar handwriting. Then he shuffled them all back together again and slowly tore the sheaf of letters into tiny pieces. He also took the photograph down off the wall and shredded it. He threw the pieces into the stove. Flames leaped from the glowing red embers and crackled up into the flue. Then the first lieutenant picked up his machine-pistol, which was hanging on the wall. He checked it carefully and clipped in the magazine. Slinging it round his shoulders, he took one last look around the room, turned out the lantern and walked out.