And I was going to steal it from him...
IN APRIL OF 1943, I first faced my death on the second week of my employment.
Lest you think me of a timid nature and overly dramatic, I shall relay to you the first of many such events which sowed the seeds of a conviction that my survival might be in question.
I had just commenced my tasks for Colonel Erich Himmel of the Waffen SS, and at first it appeared that serving as the Colonel’s adjutant was certainly an insurance policy among the many uninsured. Himmel’s Commando was presently hosted in one of the many glorious castles astride the eastern banks of the Rhine, not far from Rüdesheim, a tiny village nestled in a bend of the swollen waters of the river. Early spring had blessed the rolling hills with greenery and flowers, cool morning fogs caressed the church spires, and as we were far from any of the industrial cities, the Allied bombings were no more threatening than, or discernible from, the occasional spates of evening thunderstorms. Surely, no matter the dangerous adventures to be undertaken by the unit, I would remain here in this virtual paradise of tranquility, while the SS did its duty elsewhere.
Inasmuch as I was not a combat soldier, and had never been trained as one, at first I served the commander in the only threadbare suit I owned. It was a loose and comfortable gray tweed, hanging a bit on my scrawny frame, but perhaps it comforted me somewhat, offering the illusion of being nothing more than a civilian secretary. I began by simply serving the commander his coffee and cakes, meals of goat cheese and rough breads, tending to the condition of his uniforms and boots, and making sure that his supply of eye patches was in order. He had lost his left eye early in the war, a wound that he dismissed as a blessing, for it obviated the requirement to squint when he fired his pistol.
At first, the commander barely seemed to notice me, and he hardly spoke to me except to issue terse but polite instructions.
“Shtefan, bring me this. Shtefan, bring me that.”
I responded quickly and efficiently, although it was difficult to click my heels along with my stiff bow at the waist, for I still shuffled along in a pair of church dress shoes, worn down to the soles and beyond.
The commander’s captain and lieutenants rarely gazed in my direction, as if I were a ghost. But soon, a young, dark-eyed lieutenant named Gans approached me in Himmel’s presence, carrying a carelessly folded uniform in his arms.
“You can have it,” the commander stated, not looking up from a sheaf of orders on his desk. “It belonged to Fritz Heidt, but he is dead.”
“That is...most generous,” I stuttered, while cringing at the idea. “But my suit is just fine, Herr Colonel.”
Himmel glanced up from his paperwork, and seeing that narrow squint, I hurried off to don the filthy thing. The trousers fit adequately, aided by the thick braces over my bony shoulders, but in the tunic there was a neat bullet hole just above the heart. I swallowed hard as I buttoned it, then reasoned that the odds of yet another bullet striking the garment in exactly the same place were in my favor. The high boots that were issued me were small and damp, but manageable. As yet, I had no army stockings, and my left heel kept sticking to the leather. It was not until that evening that I realized there was still blood in the boot.
I did not then surmise, until the castle began to bustle, that the issue of my fresh costume was the portent of an upcoming mission.
Until that eve, the men had been relaxed, at least when protected from Himmel’s view. At night they stood the watch or slept within the castle walls, but during daylight they pursued the business of elite combat troops in respite: meticulously cleaning their weapons, shining buckles and boots, replenishing ammunition, and occasionally roughhousing with each other like a pack of wild pups. As their uniforms had all sustained various degrees of damage, they would summon the local Hungarian refugee girls and, assuming that every female possesses the inherent traits of a seamstress, oblige them to cut and sew and repair loose buttons.
If a girl was particularly comely, a younger member of the troop would be posted to alarm if an officer approached, while a trio or so of his comrades raped her in the wine cellar. These assaults were horrific in nature, yet strangely devoid of violence, and once I witnessed a rumpled teen leaving the quarters with tears tracking her face, yet grinning a quivering smile. She carried a pile of breads and cheeses in her arms, along with two bottles of port, the apparent rewards for submission without a scream. The next time I saw her, she appeared in the courtyard and made straight for the cellar, unbuttoning her blouse as she clipped along, eyes cast downward, a happy quintet of SS on her heels. These incidents assailed my sense of honor, gentility and romance, yet I dared not object. It would be some months before I understood that war and the proximity of death could make beasts of even princes.
Occasionally, the troops would test their weapons immediately after repair. I admit that it took quite some time for me to acclimate myself to this practice. The violent activity would be barely prefaced with a warning shout of “Ich schiesse!” and then the racket of a machine pistol would echo much too close. On the first time this occurred, I hurled myself to the ground, sending the Colonel’s tea tray spinning as I flopped into a miasma of mud. The group of commandos who witnessed my squirming shock regaled themselves with laughter for many minutes, and I, red-faced and smirking like a fool, was instantly baptized with the nickname “Fish.”
In any event, it was late in the eve after acquiring my uniform when Himmel suddenly stomped into the small maid’s chamber in which I’d fashioned my quarters. I lay upon a straw mattress, wearing my trousers, braces, a rough undershirt, and reading a Hans Christian Andersen Märchenbuch by the light of a candle.
“Up, Shtefan! Up! Up! Up!”
The Colonel had an unusual spring to his step and a strangely euphoric glint in his eye, traits I would come to recognize and fear as the harbingers of action with the enemy.
He disappeared and I dressed quickly, still buttoning my tunic and working my tender feet into my boots as I hurried to his makeshift office, the grand salon of the castle. A fire was crackling in the hearth, and a wooden door had been laid upon a pair of sawhorses, making for a plotting table. A large map had been laid out, with hand grenades serving as paperweights to stay the corners. Officers surrounded the table, including Captain Friedrich, a nearly white blond and frightening creature of extreme height, and three lieutenants. The company armorer, a husky, gap-toothed sergeant named Heinz, was in attendance as well. I would also come to learn that his presence at any briefing boded ill for the faint of heart.
“That is all,” Himmel was saying. “Have the men ready in ten minutes.”
The officers responded with heel clicks and those robotic bows, and they rushed off to their assignments. Himmel quickly turned to a wooden footlocker at the base of his desk and, without looking to confirm that I was actually present, spoke to me.
“Fold up the map,” he ordered.
I carefully removed the potato-masher grenades, lifting them with the timidity of a novice butcher extracting his first entrails, and I folded the map along its creases. I noted that it was a detailed terrain of a section of the northern Italian border, which was far away to the south.
“Put it in my rear pouch.”
He meant the leather satchel that was affixed to his combat webbing, that heavy harness that contained his pistol ammunition, grenades, a water bottle and his SS commando blade, engraved with a swastika and the words Meine Ehre Heibt Treue—My Honor’s Name Is Loyalty.
“Come here.”
I turned to him then. He was standing next to the footlocker with a strangely mischievous grin on his face, as if he was attempting to suppress a private joke. In his hands was a leather pistol belt. I walked to him.
“Hold out your arms.”
I extended them, expecting him to lay the belt across my wrists.