By now the Red Army had occupied Silesia, the Americans were about to cross the Rhine; and Vlasov stood regarding the horizon with a twisted old face, heavily burdened by the horn-rimmed spectacles. His Russians nudged each other when they saw him, proudly infecting one another with the hope they craved more than hot soup: There goes our general! They say he often gets the Führer’s ear…—Munitions, maps, impossible orders, devoted counter-attackers silhouetted against snowy fields, these wouldn’t help him much. No matter what, he’d be compelled to withdraw into a shortened line.
He requested a copy of Guderian’s famous Panzer manual, but they told him that they wouldn’t be giving him any tanks, so… He said to them: Even under Bolshevism I was permitted to keep this book! and they shrugged.
From behind two machine-guns implanted in a heap of snowy mud, a Waffen-
-lieutenant wandered up to Vlasov’s men and said in hearing of Vlasov himself: Ha, ha! Now I’m glad we didn’t finish you off! It’s an honor, you know, to be permitted to fight for Germany.
On the night of 13-14.2.45, the British and the Americans burned thirty-five thousand people, mainly civilians, in an incendiary bombing raid in Dresden. This slightly bettered the Nazi achievement at Babi Yar, where only thirty-three thousand Jews had been machine-gunned. Goebbels proposed shooting one Allied prisoner for each victim. When somebody told Vlasov, he replied: Kroeger keeps filling up my glass and perhaps he thinks that’s how to manage me. He’s wrong. I can see and hear…
Not long after that he got his marching orders at last and set off, leading his ill-equipped men into the snow, while a tank-gun pointed overhead. He’d do what he could. They reminded him of his doomed Siberians in the Volkhov pocket, fighting Fascists with antitank rifles. (He came across two of his hungry men fighting over a rotten potato, and said to them: We can’t beat Stalin with open fingers, only with a clenched fist. Stick together, boys!—and they made up at once, gazing at him with awed faces.) Could he repeat his bygone achievement at the Battle of Moscow? Again and again he told the -handlers how his breakthrough echelon had thrown back the Fascist Army Group Center. They smirked nervously, warming their hands in their pockets; for even they could see that he was addressing the ghost of his integrity, who, pale and brown-eyed, had taught him how to feel.
Another Katyusha rocket illuminated the night with shards of terror, but this Vlasov was saying: Once Comrade Stalin himself gave me a division on its last legs. Well, when I got through with it, it won a competition!
(Where was it now? Hands and rags dangled down from the smoking pyre.)
They sent him to a zone of murderous impossibility. If he “used up” all his men, he could only have delayed the enemy for a few hours. He might as well have marched everybody to Auschwitz to get worked to death! From the girls’ school which was now his headquarters (Kroeger had already pinned up a poster of HITLER—THE LIBERATOR), he radioed the new commander of Army Group Vistula.
Frankly, Vlasov, I can’t understand why you Russians even want to fight. With the front going to hell, how can two divisions make any difference?
With all respect, that’s not the issue. We urgently require artillery support to—
The artillery’s not available. Why don’t you just attack in waves? You Russians are famous for, you know, overrunning positions through sheer—
Herr Colonel-General, the German cadets who tried that were all wiped out yesterday. Moreover, the river’s flooded, so our offensive front is limited to a hundred meters. Naturally, the enemy have trained their guns on that spot—
I really have to say that after all we’ve done for you, a bit more enthusiasm might… Do you have any proposal whatsoever?
Air support—
Out of the question. You’re living in the past, Vlasov. I order you to neutralize that bridgehead without further delay.
Colonel-General Heinrici, I’m not under your command.
Oho! Now it comes out! You see, I knew you were an unreliable element! Don’t think I won’t report this! So you refuse to acknowledge German authority?
According to the Prague Manifesto, we’re your formal allies. Our status is—
Toilet paper! The important thing is, will you do something about that Russian position or not?
No longer caring how this would end, Vlasov demanded: Could you at least supply us with ammunition?
Capture it from the enemy.
Without adequate support the operation is pointless. I request permission to withdraw my men to another front.
I’ll be obliged to speak to Himmler about this, Heinrici said curtly.
As you wish. Good day, Herr Colonel-General.
Heil Hitler!
The conversation terminated. Vlasov lit a cigarette. His deputy Zherebkov, whom he’d already ordered to seek an understanding with the Western Powers, exchanged with him a salvo of knowing bitter smiles.
Well, sir, what else can we expect?
Vlasov frowned.—Send in the regimental commanders. We’ll hear their assessment.
You don’t mean—
I’m going to telephone Himmler and tell him we’ll attack, but under protest. That’s the only way to save ourselves. You and Bunyachenko will take command. I’ll go to Berlin for a few days. When the attack fails, break it off and tell Himmler you can’t act again without my authority.
I understand.
Before the action, instruct the commanders privately to save as many of our men’s lives as possible. That can’t come from me, because I’m…
Yes, sir. And in Berlin will it still be possible to—
Actually, I’m not going to Berlin at all. I’ll be in Karlsbad visiting my wife.
On 13.4.45, the Russians conquered Vienna. Shortly after that, thanks to the convenient contraction of the front, he was able to see Heidi for the last time. She’d become even thinner, and much more dependent. In honor of his coming, she’d painted her lips as bright a red as the service colors of the Luftwaffe flak division, and her mother brought out hot water which was seasoned with real coffee. The two women kept praising him, for they believed that he’d performed another miracle of breaking out of Russian encirclement. He sat there stiffly, unwilling to pain them with the true case; fortunately they weren’t suspicious at all; they’d never read an untrue line in Signal magazine.—Don’t worry, her mother was saying. The Führer won’t allow the Russians to get us. He’ll gas us instead.—They drank schnapps together. Heidi’s mother wanted to know whether he had passed through Reichenhall when he came, for that was a very pretty, very German little town. When they raised glasses for the toast, Heidi’s hand began shaking. Vlasov cried out: Here’s to disappointed hopes! and then they drank in silence.
I suppose you lovebirds want to be alone, said his mother-in-law, while Heidi smiled mechanically, plucking at her wasted face. A concussion sounded far away. Vlasov gazed at the blackout curtain. The stuffy, shabby little kitchen constricted him so much that he could hardly breathe.
(Yes exactly—disappointed hopes! Just as the Führer himself, enslaved by positional illusions, had consistently refused to allow the Ostfront to contract under enemy pressure, and thereby permitted the Russians first to break through, then encircle many of his most crucial units, so Vlasov for his part had withheld from his various hopes the power of mobility. Faith masqueraded as reason; spearheads of circumstance isolated those static hopes of his, and the hopes perished.)