of mistakes and the eternal appeal of hope.
It was like a scene from the Stone Age. The grenadiers, the glory of the nation, the builders of the New Germany, were no longer travelling the road to victory. Lenard looked at these men bandaged up in rags. With a poetic intuition he understood that this twilight was the end of a dream.
Life must indeed conceal some strangely obtuse inertial force. How was it that the dazzling energy of Hitler and the terrible power of a people moved by the most progressive of philosophies had led to the quiet banks of a frozen Volga, to these ruins, to this dirty snow, to these windows filled with the blood of the setting sun, to the quiet humility of these creatures watching over a steaming cauldron of horsemeat?
32
Paulus's headquarters were now in the cellar of a burnt-out department store. The established routine continued as usual: superior officers came and went; orderlies prepared reports of any change in the situation or any action undertaken by the enemy.
Telephones rang and typewriters clattered. Behind the partition you could hear the deep laughter of General Schenk, the head of the second section. The boots of the staff officers still squeaked on the stone floors. As he walked down the corridor to his office, the monocled commanding officer of the tank units still left behind him a smell of French perfume – a smell that blended with the more usual smells of tobacco, shoe-polish and damp, and yet somehow remained distinct from them. Voices and typewriters still suddenly fell silent as Paulus walked down the narrow corridor in his long, fur-collared greatcoat; dozens of eyes still stared at his thoughtful face and aquiline nose. Paulus himself still kept to the same habits, still allowed the same amount of time after meals for a cigar and a talk with his chief of staff. The junior radio-officer still burst into Paulus's office with the same plebeian insolence, walking straight past Colonel Adam with a radio message from Hitler marked: 'To be delivered personally.'
This continuity, of course, was illusory; a vast number of changes had imposed themselves since the beginning of the encirclement. You could see these changes in the colour of the coffee, in the lines of communication stretching out to new sectors of the front, in the new instructions regarding the expenditure of ammunition, in the cruel, now daily spectacle of burning cargo-planes that had been shot down as they tried to break the blockade. And a new name was now on everyone's lips – the name of Manstein.
There is no need to list all these changes; they are obvious enough. Those who had previously had plenty to eat now went hungry. As for those who had previously gone hungry – their faces were now ashen. And there were changes in attitude: pride and arrogance softened, there was less boasting, even the most determined optimists had now started to curse the Fuhrer and question his policies.
But there were also the beginnings of other, deeper changes, in the hearts and minds of the soldiers who until now had been spellbound by the inhuman power of the nation-state. These changes took place in the subsoil of human life and mostly went unnoticed.
This process was as difficult to pin down as the work of time itself. The torments of fear and hunger, the awareness of impending disaster slowly and gradually humanized men, liberating their core of freedom.
The December days grew still shorter, the icy seventeen-hour nights still longer. The encircling forces pressed still closer; the fire of their guns and machine-guns grew still fiercer. And then there was the pitiless cold – a cold that was unbearable even for those who were used to it, even for the Russians in their felt boots and sheepskins.
Over their heads hung a terrible frozen abyss. Frosted tin stars stood out against a frostbound sky.
Who among these doomed men could have understood that for millions of Germans these were the first hours, after ten years of complete inhumanity, of a slow return to human life?
33
Lenard approached Army Headquarters. He felt his heart beat faster as he saw the ashen face of the sentry standing beside the grey wall. And as he made his way down the underground corridor, everything he saw filled him with tenderness and sorrow.
He read the Gothic script on the door-plates: '2nd Section', 'ADCs' Office', 'General Koch', 'Major Traurig'. He heard voices and the clatter of typewriters. All this brought home to him the strength of his filial, fraternal bond with his brothers-in-arms, his Party comrades, his colleagues in the SS. But it was twilight and their life was fading away.
He had no idea what Chalb wanted to talk about, whether or not he would wish to confide his personal anxieties. As was often the case with people who had been brought together by their work in the Party before the war, they paid little attention to their difference in rank and talked with comradely straightforwardness. Their meetings were usually a mixture of serious discussion and friendly chat.
Lenard had a gift for laying bare the essence of a complicated matter with the utmost concision. His words were sometimes relayed from one report to another right up to the most important offices in Berlin.
He entered Chalb's office. It took him a moment to recognize him. And he had to look hard at his still plump face before he realized that all that had changed was the look in his dark, intelligent eyes.
A map of Stalingrad hung on the wall. The 6th Army was encircled by a merciless band of flaming crimson.
'We're on an island, Lenard,' said Chalb, 'surrounded not by water, but by the hatred of brutes.'
They talked about the Russian frost, about Russian felt boots, about Russian bacon fat and the treacherous nature of Russian vodka – how it first warmed you up only to freeze you later.
Chalb asked if there had been any changes in the relations between officers and soldiers in the front line.
'When it comes down to it,' said Lenard, 'I can't really see much difference between the thoughts of a colonel and the thoughts of the privates. There's precious little optimism in either.'
'It's the same story at HQ,' said Chalb. He paused to give his words greater effect and then added: 'And the Commander-in-Chief's the worst of all.'
'Nevertheless,' said Lenard, 'there have been no deserters.'
'I've got a question for you,' said Chalb. 'It has a bearing on something very important. Hitler wants the 6th Army to stand firm, while Paulus, Weichs and Zeitzler are in favour of capitulating in order to save the lives of the soldiers and officers. My task is to make discreet soundings as to the possibility of disobedience on the part of the encircled troops.'
Aware of the gravity of this question, Lenard thought for a moment in silence. He then said he'd like to begin with a particular example and said a few words about a certain Lieutenant Bach.
'There's one rather doubtful character in Bach's company. He used to be a general laughing-stock, but now everyone's trying to get in with him… That made me start thinking about the company and its commanding officer. When things were going well, this Lieutenant Bach was wholeheartedly in agreement with the policies of the Party. But I've got a feeling he's begun to think differently. And I've been wondering what it is that draws the soldiers in his company to someone they used to look on as a cross between a clown and a madman. How would that character behave at a critical moment? What would he say to the other soldiers? How would their commanding officer react…? There are no easy answers to these questions. But there's one thing I can say: the soldiers won't mutiny.'
'Now we can see the wisdom of the Party more clearly than ever,' said Chalb. 'We never hesitated not only to cut out infected tissue from the body of the people, but also to cut out apparently healthy tissue that might become infected at a critical moment. Rebellious spirits and hostile ideologues were purged from the Army, from the Church, from the cities, from the villages. There may be any amount of grumbling and anonymous letters, but there will never be a rebellion – not even if the enemy encircles us in Berlin itself. For that we can thank Hitler. We should give thanks to heaven for sending us such a man at this time.'
He stopped for a moment and listened to the slow rumbling over their heads. In the deep cellar it was impossible to tell whether this was the German artillery or the explosion of Soviet bombs. After the rumbling had gradually subsided, Chalb said: 'It's quite unthinkable that you should merely be receiving the rations of an ordinary
