War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 350

Chapter 17

A

day passed, then two, then a week and Johann still had no idea why he was in prison. But he knew that the transport home had left without him.

He and the others were constantly transferred from one overcrowded cell to the next one. More unfortunate Germans were brought to the prison and with the news they shared, the puzzle in his head started to form a clear picture.

The first transport, in fact, had left the camp with both Reiner and Helmut on it. As much as Johann was happy on their behalf, he also felt the sting of loneliness. Deprived of his two close friends his future looked even bleaker.

Apparently, the arrest had something to do with the interrogations by the MVD a while back. Johann thought he’d fared quite well, not admitting to any of the crimes he’d been asked about many times. But who knew?

Being confined in the prison cell gnawed at his intestines and he missed the relative freedom of the camp. Going outside. Seeing the sky. Moving about without stumbling over the limbs of other prisoners. The only silver lining was that he didn’t have to work. It made the meager rations look slightly less daunting. But the idleness was a double-edged sword, because it gave Johann’s brain time to think – and worry.

He worried day in, day out, racking his brain for a clue about why he was there. Until on the seventh day of his arrest the guards took him from his cell.

“Today’s your trial,” the guard said, shoving him into the back of a police car with a handful of other

plenni

.

“Where are you taking us?” Johann asked, but the guard had already locked the door.

About twenty minutes later, the car stopped in front of the MVD building, another concrete monster built with the blood and sacrifice of German POWs. Usually Johann would have grinned at the irony, but he was way beyond feeling anything but trepidation.

Upon arrival, the men were separated and placed in small two-by-two-yard cells. More endless hours of waiting began. Johann slumped on the floor, unable to keep the demons from attacking his soul. In an effort to stay sane, he forced himself to scrutinize the cell and noticed scribbling on the walls.

He got up, approached one of the inscriptions and deciphered

Harald Krupp, 25 years

. Suspicion invaded his soul and he walked over to the next note scratched into the wall.

Fritz Berger, 25 years

. Dizziness threatened to overwhelm him as he began to understand. Frantically he seared for more scribbled testimonies.

Martin Becker, 25 years. Heinz Langer, 25 years. Konrad Maier, 25 years.

Twenty-five years! Every single one of his unfortunate predecessors had been given a sentence of twenty-five years. Johann’s legs gave out and he sank to the floor, screaming out his fear, his anguish, and his despair. It all came spewing forth until his voice was hoarse and only cracked whispers erupted from his throat.

His life lay spread out in front of him. A good Wehrmacht soldier, following orders. He wasn’t an angel, because no man with a weapon in his hand could be called that, but he’d drawn a line where civilians were concerned.

Like most of the Wehrmacht, he felt a stark disdain for the Waffen-SS and their atrocious behavior. He closed his eyes at the awful memories of the events in Baluty. His unit was tasked with retaliating against a village of partisans for blowing up a bridge. They gathered all the males in the village. Bile rose in his throat as he relived the gruesome scene. The SS arrived, and he pulled out his own men with some pretense, but it was too late. They all witnessed the killing of every one of the village menfolk.

That was the day he finally stopped believing in Hitler and his war. Nothing justified the atrocities committed.

Shame rose in Johann. He couldn’t absolve himself of guilt. He had been a staunch believer in Nazism from the very beginning. Hitler’s promise to make Germany great again after the unjust Treaty of Versailles had been fuel to a nation’s wounded pride and Johann had fallen for it. He’d fallen for the racist ideology and the fraudulent scheme of making the Jews the scapegoat for all the evil in the world.

His ears burned with shame as he reminisced. The great master race had lost the war and the inferior subhuman Russians now held the upper hand. Wasn’t this proof enough for the ridiculousness of the notion of racial superiority?

And hadn’t Eden proven that Jews could be kind and compassionate? When everyone else had dropped him like a hot potato, she’d been the only one to help, despite knowing that he was a Nazi and hated her kind. But she’d been committed to the truth, nothing else. And he’d never been able to offer her his thanks.

I hope she survived the war.

Was this trial God’s punishment for sins committed?

Johann pushed the frightening thoughts aside, and his mind wandered to his dead parents and then to Lotte. In his loneliness, he relived each moment they had spent together like a slow-playing motion picture in his head.

Lotte had stolen his heart from the first moment he’d met her. Thinking about her sweet face and the soft feel of her lips on his own brought a smile to his face. For her he had to be strong.

The door opened

and a guard said, “Come. Your trial is on.”

Johann followed the guard through endless hallways until they reached the courtroom. At the front stood a large table covered with a bright red tablecloth. Behind the table sat three uniformed Soviet officers, projecting an air of authority.

On the left side of the table sat a man and on the right side a woman with a typewriter in front of her, presumably the court reporter. There were no other people in the room, apart from him and the guard. And no chairs.

Johann approached the table, unsure what he was supposed to do.

The most senior officer, with the insignia of a captain, began talking and after each sentence, the man on the left side of the table translated. First, they asked for his personal information and if he understood the charges.

“I don’t,” Johann said.

“Do you want a defender?”

“Yes.”

“There is a fee involved.” The translator shuffled his papers and said, “It’s one thousand rubles.”

Johann bit back a sarcastic remark. Everything in the Soviet economy had a fee involved. At the beginning of the year, the

plenni

had first received a

salary

for their work. In good months it amounted to one thousand rubles, but only a maximum of one hundred fifty rubles was paid out to the prisoner. The rest was spent on taxes and for food and accommodation in the camp – a great scheme to press out even more work from the prisoners with the lure of letting them keep some money to buy essentials like food or a warm blanket.

“Then I will have to defend myself,” Johann said.

“If this is your wish.”

It’s not my wish but you bloody bastards don’t give me a choice.

“Captain Gorky will now read the accusations levied against you,” the translator explained and then translated the captain’s words.

“You are charged on two counts: murdering the peace-loving Soviet civilians and stealing from the peace-loving Soviet civilians.”

Johann suppressed an angry hiss. Those were the same accusations that damn Commander Toporov had thrown at him dozens of times. “I have never done any such thing. Before being captured in Warsaw, I’d never even set foot in the Soviet Union.”

“Poland is part of the great communist empire and as such all crimes committed against the peace-loving Polish civilians are considered crimes against the Soviet people,” the translator said. “So, do you admit to terrorizing the peace-loving Soviet population?”

“I do not. I never terrorized civilians.”

“It has come to the court’s attention that you participated in the massacre of Baluty. Is that correct?”

“No.” Johann paled. In a moment of inadvertence at the camp he’d talked about the awful massacre he’d witnessed. Apparently one of the listeners had been an informer with nothing better to do than rat Johann out.

“So you never were in Baluty?”

“I was. But my unit pulled out as soon as the SS began killing the village people.”

“You did nothing to stop them from killing innocent and peace-loving villagers?”

Johann sighed. “I couldn’t do anything. My rank didn’t allow me…”

“Enough. You stood by and watched your countrymen slaughter innocent people.” A short conversation in Russian ensued and at the end the translator announced, “The court finds you guilty as charged of murdering peace-loving Soviet civilians.”

The second charge, for stealing, followed a similar line of reasoning. Because Johann had eaten meat during his time in Warsaw, he was found guilty of having stolen pigs from the Polish farmers.

It probably didn’t matter. What difference did stealing make when he’d already been found guilty of murder?

The so-called trial lasted less than ten minutes and they proclaimed him guilty on all counts. After another minute or two of consultation the translator announced the verdict: “Leutnant Johann Hauser, you are hereby sentenced to serve twenty-five years of hard labor.”