A Man Without Breath

‘Yes. Only it seems to me – to all of us at the castle – that total war is what we’ve had on this front since day one, and I don’t recall anyone asking any of us if this is what we wanted.’ Ahrens nodded at a line of new trees. ‘Over there is the road to Vitebsk. Vitebsk is less than a hundred kilometres west of here. Before the war there were fifty thousand Jews living there. As soon as the Wehrmacht took over the city, the Jews living there started to suffer. In July of 1941 a ghetto was established on the right bank of the Zapadnaya Dvina River and most of the Jews who hadn’t run away and joined the partisans or just emigrated east were rounded up and forced to live in it: about sixteen thousand people. A wooden stockade was built around the ghetto, and inside this conditions were very hard: forced labour, starvation rations. Probably as many as ten thousand died of hunger and disease. Meanwhile, at least two thousand of them were murdered on some pretext or another at a place called Mazurino. Then the orders came for the liquidation of the ghetto. I myself saw those orders on the teletype – orders from the Reichsfuhrer SS in Berlin. The pretext was that there was typhoid in the ghetto. Maybe there was, maybe there wasn’t. I myself delivered a copy of those orders for Field Marshal von Kluge informing him of what was happening in his area. Later on I learned that about five thousand of the Jews who remained alive in the ghetto were driven out into the remote countryside, where they were all shot. That’s the trouble with being part of a signals regiment, captain. It’s very hard not to know what’s going on, but God knows I really wish I didn’t. So, to answer your question specifically – about that beehive you were referring to: halfway to Vitebsk is a town called Rudnya, and if I were you I should confine my inquiries to anywhere east of there. Understand?’

‘Yes sir. Thank you. Colonel, since you mentioned the Mahatma, I have another question. Actually it was something my boss mentioned to me back in Berlin. About the Mahatma and his men.’

Ahrens nodded. ‘Ask it.’

‘Has anyone from the propaganda ministry ever been here?’

‘Here in Smolensk?’

‘No, here at the castle.’

‘At the castle? Why on earth would they come here?’

I shook my head. ‘It doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’d been here to film all those Soviet POWs you told me about, that’s all. To help prove to the folks back home that we were winning this war.’

Of course, this wasn’t the reason I’d asked about the propaganda ministry, but I couldn’t see how I could explain my suspicions without calling the colonel a liar.

‘Do you think we’re winning this war?’ he asked.

‘Winning or losing,’ I said. ‘Neither one looks good for Germany. Not the Germany I know and love.’

Ahrens nodded. ‘There have been days,’ he said, ‘many days, when I find it hard to like what I am or what we’re doing, captain. I, too, love my country but not what’s being done in its name, and there are times when I can’t look my own reflection in the eye. Do you understand?’

‘Yes. And I recognize myself when I hear you talking treason.’

‘Then you’re in the right place,’ he said. ‘You hear as much as we do in the five hundred and thirty-seventh, then you’ll know that there’s plenty of treason talked in Smolensk. This might be one reason why the Leader is coming here on a morale-building visit.’

‘Hitler’s coming here to Smolensk?’

‘On Saturday. For a meeting with Von Kluge. That’s supposed to be a secret by the way. So don’t mention it, will you? Although everyone and his dog seems to know about it.’