THE RIVER
A Polish platoon was driven into the river and mown down by MG fire. A German battalion was decimated in the vicious fighting for the medieval houses in the southern sector. A Jäger battalion attacked from the southwest and a Volksgrenadier battalion from the west. Stukas were buzzing in the sky and came howling down on target – the Polyteknikum. The Vistula was crossed by infantry in storm boats – Stosstrupps were deployed, exhausted and withdrawn. A truck loaded with ammunition drove up to a house, unloaded the ammo and loaded up with wounded men.
COMBAT ZONE
It was fought above and under the ground. In entertainment halls, lobbies and corridors, in ruins, cellars, sewers and offices, in industrial plants and power plants – Goliath robots crawling forth and climbing piles of rubble and broken bricks, StuGs and SPWs barking like crazed metallic dogs through a chaotic, fractal landscape – German shock troops moving like ghosts through a blackened workshop, fighting with grenades, even hand-to-hand with Poles who seemed almost eager to die if they could take a German with them. In the sky, Allied planes dropping canisters to the rebels; in the east, the waiting Russians.
GREY SKY
Dead façades, drab house fronts, grey sky and a crow flitting by. The smell of cordite and burned rubber.
Arno stood on a cleared street, StG in his hand. Seeing a group of officers some distance away, he wondered if he should go and ask them about the situation. In another direction he saw his orderly standing around – and behind him, on a side street, the platoon was ready for more of the same.
Arno took it all in. He also saw a parked Kübelwagen, empty cases in the gutter and blasted buildings looking down over a park of splintered trees. He saw smoke drifting by in the street, smoke from a burning tank 300 metres away – he saw pallets outside a loading bay, a flag hanging dead on its pole, a haggard cat hiding under a truck. Two soldiers in summer tunics passed by, one of the soldiers carrying a MG 42, the other ammo boxes.
SUMMARY WARZSAWA
The Warsaw Uprising was completely put down and quelled by early October 1944. 63 days of some of the fiercest fighting since Stalingrad. The exhausted but victorious Germans had orders to treat even the many non-uniformed Home Army fighters captured as Prisoners Of War, so 15,000 Poles were shipped to detention centres. The civilians who had stayed and survived were expelled. The Germans then razed the city to the ground. Demolition Commands primed their explosives and detonators, lit their fuses and blew up the buildings that had survived. Scarcely one stone was left upon another. The ruined desert that had been Warsaw was left as No Man’s Land between the German and Russian lines.
Battalion Wolf was transferred back to Germany. Some equipment was replaced, but to get the losses in personnel made good just wasn’t possible at this stage. Arno saw his platoon reduced to an MG squad and a rifle squad.
23
The Plane Ride
This is the story of what happened to Arno Greif on October 27, 1944 and beyond. Battalion Wolf at this time was quartered behind the front. After Warsaw it had been occupied with routine chores. And this day, October 27, it would be redeployed for some logistical purpose known only to the Top Brass. The north wing of the Eastern Front was quiet at this time, the Russians still waiting behind the Vistula. Eleswhere in Eastern Europe the Russian advance continued, but this is irrelevant right now. In the west the Allies had broken out of Normandy and driven the Germans out of France, but the Allies were eventually halted at the German border. By the early winter of 1944 the German Army still defended a virtually unbroken German border in the west.
On October 27 Arno slept in a barn in a Polish village, this being the platoon’s quarters in the General Government. He had a strange dream: He stood on the balcony of a fortified palace and looked down over a stormy neighborhood. Turbulent clouds racing across the sky. Later in this dream he would meet a man inside the Palace, his soul guide Ringo Badger. He had already met this figure several times: First in June 1938, then in Grand Hall on March 29, 1944 during the breakaway from Hube’s Pocket, then in Point 31 in Belarus.
Arno stood on the balcony and gazed over the storm-tossed trees below. The scudding clouds glowed red on the underside for they re-cast the glow of the burning earth; it burned in the valley below the castle and even beyond it.
Arno regaled his lungs with the smoke that hung thick in the air. Ah yes, he thought in the dream, this was a bit unsettling but still nice to see for a fire-eater like him. Wild fire tore over the fields, consuming grass and trees lining a brook. Towards the south a whole stand of blood maples were suddenly engulfed by the flames.
As he stood there, Arno saw a ship come sailing through the air, a mysteriously soaring galley with an elegantly dressed man at the helm. The man steered the ship through the turbulent skies, approaching the castle and stopping at the balcony. Arno called on some helpers and had them secure a gangway they had in store. The ship’s captain stepped out on this, jumped down onto the balcony and was welcomed by Arno.
The Captain was called Moskons, a sturdy, bearded fellow in a fur coat and a black bear-skin busby on his head. He said:
“I’m merely the herald of a greater man, Ringo Badger.”
“Indeed,” Arno said. “Him I know.”
“Indeed you should.”
Moskons made a sign to the ship. And there, on the gangway, appeared Ringo Badger, tall as Arno remembered, with an elongated face and a noble nose, dressed as usual in a red and yellow hood, a green tunic, blue breeches and boots.
“Greetings, Ringo Badger.”
“Greetings, Arno Greif,” the Badger said. “Still I walk by your side.”
The newcomers were ushered into the hall, the banqueting hall that Arno, in the dream, ruled. At a long table his foremen and captains were seated.
The Sky Captain and the Badger were shown to their places, on either side of Arno at the head of the table. The Badger took a goblet of wine. When he had drunk from it he said to Arno:
“I am your soul guide, your spiritual escort in Dreamland and other dimensions.”
“Say something spiritual, then, if you’re my spiritual escort.”
“I can only remind you of what you already know: Hold on to your essence, your IAm-impulse.”
Arno nodded, took a sip of wine from his goblet and said:
“True, the I Am-impulse must never be forgotten. I Am, indeed I Am.”
Pause. Then the Badger:
“Otherwise, Mr. Greif, my dear Arno, how goes it in the war in the everyday world? Had enough of the killing?”
“What a question. I serve in an Army in a war, doing my duty. I wear a uniform and the uniform is a token of service. And if that means meeting my people’s enemies in combat, then I’ll do that.”
“You do, eh?”
“I’m doing my darndest, solving my operational tasks.”
“OK,” the Badger said, ”just checking.”
The storm raged on; outside, the fires were still burning. Then Arno said:
“Would you like a guided tour of my residence? It’s a fascinating castle, there are many nooks and crannies, plus a ceremonial hall, an art collection, an arsenal and a throne room – with a throne made completely of silver.”
“Oh, you’re too kind,” the Badger said. “But I have to leave immediately. I’m going off to Delsadore to play on the sounding stones they have.”
“Music, eh? How nice.”
“Indeed. Praise the Lord for the gift of music.”
“Farewell then.”
“Farewell,” said the Badger, got up, put on his cap and left the room.