The Broken Legacy

The Ardennes, 1944. Sitting at the edge of the black forest, where it has been raining for days and where the wind blows mercilessly, everyone is waiting for new orders. It's icy cold, the air menacing and freezing. Every living thing has stopped moving - death. The temperatures had dropped below zero; sheets of ice cover the ground like a white carpet. The same can be said of the great pine trees, smothered in blankets of white wool, standing erect like ice pillars, unyielding, almost unbending and defiant against nature. To the inexperienced eye, the untrained mind, it looks natural, but for some, the images tell another story of something else, something more bitter. It’s the resignation, the surrender, the end of a dream and the closing chapter in the history of a generation, a people, and a man who believed in an evil. The unspoken evil, and they know what it is… kill or be doomed.

But not all were prepared to be doomed; not all were ready to accept this loss, this failure, or that their doomsday had arrived. They believed, like many, that even though this winter might signal death to nature, the pride of a nation- yes, their very survival was at stake, and like nature, they believed in the survival of Germany.

Walter did not.

He knew it was the delusion, the hatred, the pride and stupidity which kept them going. Yes, kept them going to their deaths.

As he looked at the trees, heavy with snow now. His tired eyes snaked slowly to the top of the branches, which were barely visible against the grey sky; he tried to imagine what lay beyond them, and knew that their doom, for now, was shielded and hidden against this almost invisible horizon, behind it a coming avalanche, a cataclysm closing in on all sides. He forced his mind away from thoughts of gloom with difficulty. He had to concentrate; he had to focus…

“What was the plan again?” he asked himself.

He had a plan. The details still sketchy, a daring plan, but still worth the effort. His one last attempt, his one last action, for love.

“My love, my Katja,” he said, breathing deeply, while his voice trembled in concert with a sudden shiver. The rhythms shook his body into action, and he felt the uncontrolled trembling of his muscles crashing down his spine. At that moment his legs felt suddenly dead. It must have been the fear, the dread, and the bitter cold closing in. To the west, the skies were clearing, announcing an opportunity.

“For who?” he wondered.

His great gamble had begun, and it was time for him to go home. Walter knew the war was lost and was speedily coming to an end, but the Wehrmacht (German army) planned to launch a last and desperate counter-offensive to ward off the advancing Allied armies and split them in half and buy time.

“For what?” he shouted.

He feels a dread and overwhelming hopelessness, so intense that it drains every spark of energy out of his body.

“You need to go home, Walter”

He repeats the phrase over and over in his mind. He should simply run away, no time for thinking, no questions, no answers, not even to himself or, for that matter, to anyone, just run. He is desperate. His wife should be giving birth anytime soon, and he had not seen her in almost 6 months. The allies were advancing deep into the heart of the “Fatherland,” and this had made it impossible for him to go home. All leave was cancelled indefinitely, were the instructions; no exceptions.

“All-out war,” the madman declared.

He shifted uncomfortably in his makeshift chair and reflected, in painful anger and irritation, on how he never agreed to his father’s wishes for him to join the military school nor the National Socialists. He did not believe in ideologies; he believed in life. Live and let live, as they say. No taking sides or, worse, participating in ill-fated and aimless uprisings and wars. But his father, the older von Kleist, forced him, the only heir, to enlist as a matter of family honor.

Laughingly odd that his father believed in recovering the greatness of the nation at all costs. Making Germany great again, but sadly he knew nothing of their ‘greater’ plans for Germany. The total takeover, ‘Gleichshaltung’ were the hidden agenda. They were the bullies and gangsters. Walter saw it that way, but his father would hear nothing of it. To him, the screaming man was the savior of the people. Now looking back, he wondered what his father would have made of this situation. No, not a situation, rather, the tragedy of Germany. By now, his elite, his father’s old friends, were either dead, in exile, or running for their lives from the Bolsheviks, Communists, or Russians.

“Pick which one, father! See which one would you run to”

Maybe somewhere the lucky bastards, good or bad, are selling their souls; it’s all the same in the end.

It’s a mess, father! Walter shouted in the silence.

He lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and blew the hazy and cold smoke into the icy draft that engulfed him. His body felt almost frozen, his hands shaking, his fingers stiffly holding on to the cigarette as he looked at the steel monsters that surrounded him. Quietly and under his breath, he whispered, “If he knew, would he have sung a different tune?” His thoughts were flailing like a whip in all directions, trying to hide something solid, but he could not focus as much as he tried. They heard that the army’s bloody retreat, everywhere in the face of overwhelming manpower, inexhaustible munitions, and constant massive bombardment, caused widespread anxiety, fear, and bewilderment among the soldiers. Their morale was low; they had lost their fighting spirit, having seen the horrible loss of lives and the associated misery that goes with it. Yes, the immense suffering had finally broken them, believer and disbeliever all the same, soldier and civilian, every man, woman, and child. In that moment, he knew that this brokenness makes men more dangerous and desperate, driving them mercilessly forward to their deaths.

“This is it!” his mind concluded. No turning back.

Walter was searching for meaning in all this when he stopped abruptly; he halted his thoughts.

“What were they doing?”

-An image: a searing hot poker, red hot and burning, jabbed mercilessly at him-

He suddenly breathed with great difficulty. A deep feeling, an emotion he could not stop, flooded him. The one thing he despised most was the hatred of Jews by ‘these’ men, or was it an evil dressed in nationalism or purely born from suffering and survival?

He, like these ‘Jew haters’, was all German,

“Germans like us!” He said, almost out loud, but quieting his voice, looking around.

“Human beings like us, they love, they hate, and many, given the chance, would die for Germany”

If he had his way, the entire Germany would know that his best friends were among the Jews. With a dry smile, he remembers his dear friend David, the pianist, and his lovely wife Ingrid, whom he came to admire and with whom he and his beloved Katja shared a kindred spirit.

He loved them.

It is those infatuated with racial superiority, believing that one group is inherently better and superior to others. They, the supremacists, the arrogant and single-minded, hated them.

He loved them

“Such wonderful people they are, Germans in the true sense of the word,” Walter proudly reflected.

“What became of them?” he wondered.

Walter vividly remembered those years like yesterday. David and Ingrid, friends of his youth, gentle souls, perfect creatures, he thought. His mind wandered amidst the chill, trying to ignore the blast of a sudden cold and freezing wind seeping through his winter jacket. His mind took another windy turn, interrupting his warm thoughts.

“Yes, the blistering winter”

“I’m sure they have learned from their mistakes in the east. Winter is no ally to anyone. It stands free from control in all human affairs, unrelenting and cruel in judgement,” He thought.

His leather gloves now tight in his hands do not help against the frost biting into his fingers; no fires to be lit, no engines or any machines to warm them, just the heat of one’s own body to try and avoid the worst from happening.

His mind slowly filtered back to the warming thoughts of his friends. Walter remembered the slow-moving days and enjoyment. The days prowling the clubs of Berlin: Places like the Eldorado, Motzstraße No 15 in Berlin-Schöneberg, with its red and blue cabaret dancing girls, the only place where the art-scene crowds congregated, nothing prohibited till… Those were the nights filled with lights, drunken stupors, singing and laughing. The inhibited, almost reckless wild parties. The Kakadu Bar at the corner of Kurűstendamn and Joachimsthaler Straße. Its paved streets lined with Lime trees; Katja loved the silver linden, wonderful scent on warm nights, and his engagement proposal; she said yes, a long kiss and a crazy night. They were all there; David and Ingrid, yes, especially them. People everywhere, a crowd for sure, a wide dancing platform and incredible long bar, the longest in the city. Almost everyone was there, business people and especially the demimonde patrons just before the Nazi’s took power. Those were times when life seemed to have no beginning and seemingly had no end. And Katja, the love of his life, the very soul of his being- yes, she was there. They had plans. Oh yes, and the wedding reception, the best day of his life; she was beautiful, graceful, all from a dream. Yes, economics, political pressures forced the Villad’Este in Hardengergstraße to close down for good.

“What day of days, what a place, what a memory,” Walter thought with bitter delight.

The honeymoon and their plans and the future which awaited them all were interrupted with no apologies and no warning. Germany had changed in an instant.

What happened, how could it have come to this?

Were they too young or naïve to have believed that their world was all there was?

She wrote a letter informing him of the pregnancy. He had only a week of leave and time to go home and say his farewell before everyone was recalled after the Stalingrad strategic retreat… or so they said. It was a disaster, and they all knew that. There were so many, in fact, too many, and nothing could explain it away; the war was lost. Millions of lives lost. Walter thought about the future, his unborn child.

Will their world be different? He wondered.

“Will they be able to avoid all this type of lies, the subterfuge, and perhaps live in a world of truth, a better world?” The answers eluded him.

The dilemma of being caught between his duties for his country, the love for his wife, and his friends would not deter him; he had to go, and for her sake, to avoid what was to come to everyone in its wake. Walter heard about a plot months ago by high-ranking officers in the inner circle, and that they were making plans to escape. Most of them officers. “SS Schutzstaffel-protection squads-” They were aware of the consequences of surrender. The repercussions of wholesale bloodshed and slaughter of the innocent were enough incriminating proof of war crimes and inexcusable and unforgivable in a court of law. This knowledge motivated their daring escape plan, and Walter wanted in. He needed to save Katja, and he had no choice but to join them. He knew the risks. The stakes were high. The price?... worth it.

Walter knew that if the conspiracy were to be discovered, all of them would face immediate death by hanging “on the end of a piano string”, “so brutal and uncivilized.” he shrugged.

Thinking that, he grimly grasped the other truth: if they got caught by the enemy -Allies or Russians- his rank as an SS officer would mean immediate execution. There would be no time to explain, and he would be damned either way. His fate is sealed. His concern, however, was not so much being captured and killed, but his thoughts dwelled on the advancing Russian army coming in from the east. The war and the lust for revenge spawned beasts with an unquenchable appetite for violence and extreme brutality. No German will be spared, especially women. They were treated with barbarity and cruelty, shown no mercy. Katja’s safety and their unborn child are the only reason why he should take the risk, Walter knew.

The drive to the estate would take him two days if all went well, he thought. He considered the blockades, checkpoints, and knew that being caught “away” from his unit without proper papers would arouse suspicion; many soldiers went on “AWOL” these days, and when caught, no arrests were made; it was simply treated as treason, and you got shot on the spot.

“These are dangerous times”.

Higher-ranking officers were summoned to Berlin for briefings to finalize the offensive “Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein” -Operation on the Rhine-. Not the last insane orders coming from the madman, but his last major gamble. Walter will take this chance and make his way home...

He accompanied the group of officers and co-conspirators, all members of the escape plan, to a meeting under the pretext of a specially formed unit necessary for surveillance, communication, and administrative functions. After the long stretch from the Ardennes forest, a four-night journey in rail carriages, there were stoppages, delays, and detours because of the constant threat of air attacks and bombed-out railway tracks along the way; the group arrived at the heavily damaged Anhalter Bahnhof railway station about 1 to 2 km away from the Reich Chancellery. The station closer to Potsdamer was too dangerous to use. There, the group separated from the “official” group going to the bunker and made their way further into the heart of Berlin, each one with a different travel agenda, going in different directions. Most made their way home to make their final arrangements and prepare their belongings to make their way to the ultimate rendezvous point in Kiel.

Why Kiel? It was situated approximately 250 km away from Berlin. Toward the end of the war, in December 1945, many U-boats were scuttled and moored at this location during Operation Regenbogen. The planners devised that this busy port would draw little attention to the group’s activities. Nothing could be sent closer into Berlin, although multiple rivers flowed from there and back into the North Sea. No U-boat could go inland because the River Spree flows to Havel and then to the Elbe and finally back. This the planners offered problems, which made it impossible for their intended vessel to sail closer to the city. In any case, U-boats were far too big. The waters were shallow and narrow, and there were endless bridges, locks, and tight bends. These rivers were only good enough for barges and not submarines. To add to the problem, the canal routes to the sea required them to pass through multiple locks. These were slow, highly visible, and easy to sabotage or bomb by the enemy. They needed fast access to open sea. So, Kiel was the only alternative for escape. What awaited them, no one knew. Was it going to be some sort of invisible “new tech” ship or plane? No one was sure. It was rumored among them that some new technologically advanced prototype of a “wonder” vessel was going to spirit them to safety.

Their hopes were high, so was their desperation.

Walter had other traveling plans. He planned to drive home.

He broke away from their plans…