Finally his replacement arrived. Blobel didn’t drag things out: he gave us a brief farewell speech and took the first train to Kiev. No one, I think, missed him, especially since our new commander, Standartenführer Dr. Erwin Weinmann, stood in positive contrast to his predecessor. He was a young man, just a few years older than I, restrained, with a worried, almost sad face, and genuine National Socialist convictions. Like Dr. Thomas, he was a medical doctor by profession, but he had been working for several years in the Staatspolizei. He immediately made a good impression. “I spent several days in Kiev with Brigadeführer Thomas,” he informed us right away, “and he explained to me the immense difficulties the officers and men of this Kommando have had to face. You should know that it hasn’t been in vain, and that Germany is proud of you. I’m going to spend the next few days familiarizing myself with the Kommando’s work; to that end, I would like to have a frank, free discussion with each of you, individually.”
Weinmann brought us some important news. Von Reichenau had finally been replaced at the head of AOK 6, in the beginning of the year, by a newcomer to the theater of operations, General der Panzertruppe Friedrich Paulus, one of his former chiefs of staff who, since 1940, had been in charge of planning at OKW, and whom he had recommended. But Paulus had already lost his protector. On the eve of Weinmann’s arrival in Kharkov, after his morning run in twenty below, von Reichenau had collapsed, struck down by a heart attack according to some, a stroke according to others; Weinmann had learned about it on the train from an officer from the AOK. As Reichenau was still alive, the Führer had ordered him flown back to Germany; but his plane crashed near Lemberg, and they found him still strapped into his seat, his Feldmarschall baton in his hand, a sad end for a German hero. After some hesitation, Generalfeldmarschall von Bock was appointed in his place; on the very day of his nomination, the Soviets, trying to capitalize on their successes around Moscow, launched an offensive starting in Izyum, south of Kharkov, toward Poltava. It was now thirty degrees below zero; almost no vehicles were circulating, resupply had to be carried out in panje carts, and the Rollbahn was losing more men than the divisions at the front. The Russians had rolled out a formidable new tank, the T-34, invulnerable to the cold and terrifying for the Landsers; fortunately, it couldn’t hold up to our .88s. Paulus transferred AOK 6 from Poltava to Kharkov, which brought some excitement to our city. The Reds were definitely aiming to surround Kharkov, but their northern pincer never budged; the southern branch pushed through our lines and was contained with difficulty near the end of the month, in front of Krasnograd and Paulograd, which left an enormous salient seventy kilometers long wedged into our front line, a dangerous bridgehead this side of the Donets. The partisans, at the rear of our lines, were intensifying their operations; even Kharkov was becoming unsafe: the attacks, despite fierce repression, were multiplying; no doubt the open famine now rampant in the city contributed to it. The Sonderkommando wasn’t spared. One day toward the beginning of February, I had a meeting in an office of the Wehrmacht on the Tereleva Maidan in the center of town. Hanika accompanied me to try to find something to improve our rations, and I left him to his shopping. The discussion was short; I left quickly. At the top of the steps, I paused to breathe in the cold, sharp air, then lit a cigarette. I contemplated the square as I inhaled the first few drags. The sky was luminous, that pure blue of Russian winters that you don’t see anywhere else. On the side, three old Kolkhozniks, sitting on crates, were waiting to sell some meager shriveled vegetables; on the square, at the foot of the Bolshevik monument to the liberation of Kharkov (the 1919 one), half a dozen children, despite the cold, were playing with a tattered rag ball. A few of our Orpos were shuffling about a little farther down. Hanika was standing at the corner, near the Opel, whose driver was letting the engine run. Hanika looked pale, withdrawn; my recent outbursts had shaken him; he was getting on my nerves too. Another child emerged suddenly from a little side street and ran toward the square. He was holding something in his hand. When he reached Hanika he exploded. The detonation blew out the windows of the Opel; I could distinctly hear the glass tinkling on the pavement. The Orpos, panicked, started firing volleys at the children playing. The old women screamed, the ball of rags came apart in the blood. I ran toward Hanika: he was kneeling in the snow and clutching his stomach. The skin of his face, speckled with acne, was terrifyingly pale; before I could reach him his head fell back and his eyes, I saw this, his blue eyes faded into the blue of the sky. The sky erased his eyes. Then he fell on his side. The boy was dead, his arm torn off; on the square, the policemen, shocked, approached the old women who, howling, craddled the limp bodies of the children in their arms. Weinmann seemed more concerned by the blunder of our Orpos than by Hanika’s death: “It’s unacceptable. We’re trying to improve our relations with the local population and we kill their children. They should be court-martialed.” I was skepticaclass="underline" “That’s going to be difficult, Standartenführer. Their reaction was unfortunate, but understandable. What’s more, we’ve been making them shoot children for months; it would be hard to punish them for the same thing.”—“It’s not the same thing! The children we execute are condemned! These were innocent children.”—“If you will allow me, Standartenführer, the basis on which the condemnations are decided makes such a distinction somewhat arbitrary.” He opened his eyes wide and his nostrils quivered with rage; then he changed his mind and calmed down all of a sudden. “Let’s move on to another matter, Hauptsturmführer. I’ve been wanting to talk with you anyway for several days now. I think you’re very tired. Dr. Sperath thinks you’re on the verge of nervous exhaustion.”—“Excuse me, Standartenführer, but allow me to reject that opinion. I feel fine.” He offered me a cigarette and lit one himself. “Hauptsturmführer, I’m a doctor by training. I too can recognize certain symptoms. You are, as the expression goes, completely fried. You’re not the only one, either: almost all the officers of the Kommando are at the end of their tether. In any case, because of the winter we’re already experiencing a strong decrease in activity and can permit ourselves to function for one or two months with reduced staff. A certain number of officers will be either relieved or sent on a prolonged medical leave. The ones with families will go back to Germany. The others, like you, will go to the Crimea, to one of the sanatoriums of the Wehrmacht. I hear it’s very nice there. You might even be able to go swimming, in a few weeks’ time.” A little smile passed over his narrow face and he held out an envelope to me. “Here are your travel authorizations and your certificates. Everything is in order. You have two months; after that we’ll see. Have a good rest.”