Soldiers were not the most civilized of men in the first place. The way the invading Germans had behaved in 1941 had enraged all Russians. The government was fuelling their wrath with talk of revenge. And now the army newspaper was making it clear they could do anything they liked to the defeated Germans.
It was a recipe for Armageddon.
Erik von Ulrich was consumed by a yearning that the war should be over.
With his friend Hermann Braun and their boss Dr Weiss, Erik set up a field hospital in a small Protestant church; then they sat in the nave with nothing to do but wait for the horse-drawn ambulances to arrive loaded with horribly torn and burned men.
The German army had reinforced Seelow Heights, overlooking the Oder river where it passed closest to Berlin. Erik’s aid station was in a village a mile back from the line.
Dr Weiss, who had a friend in army intelligence, said there were 110,000 Germans defending Berlin against a million Soviets. With his usual sarcasm he said: ‘But our morale is high, and Adolf Hitler is the greatest genius in military history, so we are certain to win.’
There was no hope, but German soldiers were still fighting fiercely. Erik believed this was because of the stories filtering back about how the Red Army behaved. Prisoners were killed, homes were looted and wrecked, women were raped and nailed to barn doors. The Germans believed they were defending their own families from Communist brutality. The Kremlin’s hate propaganda was backfiring.
Erik was looking forward to defeat. He longed for the killing to stop. He just wanted to go home.
He would have his wish soon – or he would be dead.
Sleeping on a wooden pew, Erik was awakened at three o’clock in the morning on Monday 16 April by the Russian guns. He had heard artillery bombardments before, but this was ten times as loud as anything in his experience. For the men on the front line it must have been literally deafening.
The wounded started to arrive at dawn, and the team went wearily to work, amputating limbs, setting broken bones, extracting bullets, and cleaning and bandaging wounds. They were short of everything from drugs to clean water, and they gave morphine only to those who were screaming in agony.
Men who could still walk and hold a gun were sent back to the line.
The German defenders held out longer than Dr Weiss expected. At the end of the first day they were still in position, and as darkness fell the rush of wounded slowed. The medical unit got some sleep that night.
Early on the next day Werner Franck was brought in, his right wrist horribly crushed.
He was a captain now. He had been in charge of a section of the line with thirty 88mm Flak guns. ‘We only had eight shells for each gun,’ he said while Dr Weiss’s clever fingers worked slowly and meticulously to set his smashed bones. ‘Our orders were to fire seven at the Russian tanks, then use the eighth to destroy our own gun so that it could not be used by the Reds.’ He had been standing by an 88 when it suffered a direct hit from the Soviet artillery and turned over on him. ‘I was lucky it was only my hand,’ he said ‘It might have been my damn head.’
When his wrist had been taped up, he said to Erik: ‘Have you heard from Carla?’
Erik knew that his sister and Werner were now a couple. ‘I haven’t had any letters for weeks.’
‘Nor me. I hear things are pretty grim in Berlin. I hope she’s all right.’
‘I worry, too,’ said Erik.
Surprisingly, the Germans held the Seelow Heights for another day and night.
The dressing station got no warning that the line had collapsed. They were triaging a fresh cartload of wounded when seven or eight Soviet soldiers crashed into the church. One fired a machine-gun burst at the vaulted ceiling and Erik threw himself to the ground, as did everyone else capable of moving.
Seeing that no one was armed, the Russians relaxed. They went around the room taking watches and rings from those who had them. Then they left.
Erik wondered what would happen next. This was the first time he had been trapped behind enemy lines. Should they abandon the field hospital and try to catch up with their retreating army? Or were their patients safer here?
Dr Weiss was decisive. ‘Carry on with your work, everyone,’ he said.
A few minutes later a Soviet soldier came in with a comrade over his shoulder. Pointing his gun at Weiss, he spoke a rapid stream of Russian. He was in a panic, and his friend was covered in blood.
Weiss replied calmly. In halting Russian he said: ‘No need for the gun. Put your friend on this table.’
The soldier did so, and the team went to work. The soldier kept his rifle pointed at the doctor.
Later in the day, the German patients were marched or carried out and put into the back of a truck which drove away east. Erik watched Werner Franck disappear, a prisoner of war. As a boy, Erik had often been told the story of his Uncle Robert, who had been imprisoned by the Russians during the First World War, and had walked home from Siberia, a journey of four thousand miles. Erik wondered now where Werner would end up.
More wounded Russians were brought in, and the Germans took care of them as they would have of their own men.
Later, as Erik fell into an exhausted sleep, he realized that now he, too, was a prisoner of war.
