War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 360

Chapter 27

Two years later

J

ohann sat in the barracks listening to a music program on the radio. About a year earlier the two engineers in the barracks had pieced together a radio from parts organized at the factory or bartered with the townsfolk.

The program was interrupted by the hourly news report nobody listened to. But something caught Johann’s attention and he shouted, “Quiet!” What he heard sent his heart pounding like a jackhammer.

“What has you launching like a rocket?” someone asked.

“Lads, you won’t believe it, but as we speak, the German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer is making a personal visit to Moscow,” Johann answered.

“What’s he want there? Curry favors with the Russians?”

“They say it’s to establish diplomatic relations,” Johann said.

“Diplomatic relations? What about they let us go first?”

“From what I gleaned from this news report; that’s exactly what Adenauer offered. Diplomatic relations in exchange for the release of all POWs and abducted civilians still in the Soviet Union.”

A hissing went through the barracks, despite Martin’s warning. “We can’t get our hopes up. Remember what happened two years ago.” But nobody wanted to listen to him.

“What else did the reporter say?” Kurt asked.

“Nothing.” During the following five days of Adenauer’s visit in Moscow, the

plenni

were glued to the radio, taking turns listening to every news report they could get ahold of and translating it for those who didn’t speak Russian. They scoured

Pravda

for hidden meanings in the articles and even engaged the political officer at the factory in a conversation about Adenauer’s visit and the possible implications for them.

Johann and the others spent five days in an emotional whirlpool. Hope alternated with disappointment, relief with tension. The negotiations seemed stuck and nothing moved forward. Establishing diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union would mean relinquishing the sole right of representation of Germany, effectively cementing the separation of Germany into two nations. It was a bitter pill to swallow.

The final event of the state visit was a ballet performance in the renowned Bolshoi Theatre. Very befittingly, the Soviets had chosen Prokofieff’s version of Shakespeare’s drama

Romeo and Juliet

. The ending scene featured the handshake of the hostile Counts Montague and Capulet over the graves of their children. After the applause for the ballet dancers ended, Nikolai Bulganin and Konrad Adenauer publicly repeated the handshake for the entire world to witness.

The next day it was official. The camp commandant announced that as of now, the prisoners were free men to do as they pleased and preparations for the return of all 9626 registered prisoners of war that remained in the Soviet Union would start immediately.

“

Heimkehr!

” The shout rang out across the camp and could probably be heard across all of Kazakhstan. “We go home! Home!”

One week later,

Johann and his fellow prisoners boarded a train to Germany.

“Can you believe it?” Kurt asked as he leaned back against the wooden seat.

“Not yet. I’m still waiting for them to stop the train and say it was all a mistake.” Johann had been a hairsbreadth away from release more times than he cared to remember and every cell in his body stayed strung tight, waiting for disaster to strike.

“You need to have faith,” Martin said. “This time it’s for real.”

“Maybe.” Johann shivered as he relived the brutal experience of previous train rides. He felt a sudden urge to vomit at the phantom stink of feces. The maddening thirst overtook him, making him want to scream with pain. Deep-rooted memories of raw, unabated hunger. Men dying all around him and the rotting corpses emitting the most disgusting stench.

He shook his head to dispel the memories. This time, the journey was different. The

plenni

had received clean clothes, and they traveled in passenger trains instead of the dreadful cattle cars. They were free to walk around. Once a day the train stopped to load food and water for the passengers.

He should be grateful, and he was, but while the train continued its westward journey, Johann’s soul wept for the men left behind – the ones he’d known and the many nameless men, thrown off the trains, hastily buried in the loamy Russian soil, worked to death, starved, succumbing to illness and cold.

Johann and the other late returnees knew they were the last sorry batch of men, ten thousand who’d survived an endless ordeal. So many had died in captivity. One and a half million. He mourned for each and every one of them, hoping they’d found peace on the other side.

The train stopped in Brest-Litowsk, the border town between the Soviet Union and Poland. Because of the change of the gauge, the ex-

plenni

changed trains.

When Johann stepped onto the platform, he was once again transported back in time. Approximately ten years earlier he’d been in the same place, headed eastward. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

A sudden fear permeated his body. What was Germany like? He’d last been in his hometown, Munich, during the war when it had been bombed to ruins. How did the people live? What did they do in their leisure time?

And… would Lotte still love him when she saw him again? She had sent him photos of herself over the years, but he hadn’t been able to do the same. What if she only loved the handsome young man he’d been ten years ago and not the broken forty-year-old ex-prisoner he was now?

In his surging panic he toyed with the idea of running away and staying in the country that had become his fate. But Kurt’s voice grounded him in reality once again: “Hey, man, what do you think I should say?”

“Say to what?” Johann shrugged off the disturbing thoughts and focused on his friend.

“They’re giving us the choice to go to East Germany or West Germany.”

For Johann the choice was clear. Lotte lived in Bonn, so he’d go to the West. “Isn’t your family in the Soviet zone?”

“My parents are…” Kurt looked quite miserable. “But I don’t really want to stay under the red thumb.”

“Then don’t.” Johann could understand his friend’s feelings. Being in East Germany didn't make one truly free from Soviet despotism. In the camps he’d often met men from the so-called communist brother countries who had been convicted in a trial equally as phony as Johann’s own.

“But how?

“Simply tell them your relatives live in the West, let’s say in… Bonn.” Johann suggested. “I don’t think they are able to find out whether that’s the truth or not.”

Kurt seemed uncertain but nodded.

“Look at it this way: the Russians have been lying to us for ten years, now you return the favor and lie once to secure a better life for yourself.”

The train whistled and the men hurried to board the wagons. Nobody wanted to be left behind, not so close to freedom. During the journey traversing Poland, men in the bluish-green uniform of the

Volkspolizei

, the East German people’s police, entered the compartments and started to ask the ex

-plenni

whether they wanted to get off in East Germany or travel on to West Germany.

Very few wanted to stay in the East, which obviously didn’t please the policemen.

One of them handed out black-and-white photographs of emaciated women dressed in rags, holding dirty children by their hands. “This is what the West looks like.”

Johann squinted his eyes. He had no doubt the picture was real, but from Lotte’s descriptions in her letters things had changed considerably in the past five years. When given the choice to believe her or the

Vopos

, the decision was easy.

“And this…” The

Vopo

handed out newspaper articles of clean, well-fed and well-dressed children with large cornets of colorful cardboard in their hands on their first day of school. Another picture showed athletes competing in several disciplines during the GDR championships. All the pictures gave the impression of happy people in a happy nation. “…is the Democratic Republic of Germany.”

“Why would you want to go to the imperialist West if you have the chance to live in the happy democratic East?” the other

Vopo

asked.

Johann decided to indulge them. “It sounds tempting. But first I have to go and find my girl in Bonn. Then I’ll tell her everything you told me and I’m sure she’ll want us to move to the GDR.”

The

Vopo

stared at him, slightly shaking his head. “No need, there’s only one chance for you to accept our generous offer and that’s now.”

The policeman’s words confirmed Johann’s suspicions and he politely declined. He hadn’t actually needed this confirmation to make up his mind, because he’d seen the contents of the care packages coming from the East and compared them to those coming from the West. It was pretty clear where he wanted to go. Even if it weren’t for the economic advantages, and for Lotte, he still wouldn’t want to stay under Soviet rule. Every single minute in their sphere of influence was one minute too long.

Rattling wheels lulled him into sleep as the train crossed Poland and finally stopped at the border to East Germany in Frankfurt an der Oder. Johann woke with a start as everyone was ushered from the train.

Fear rushed up his spine when he saw the same policemen from the train chatting up their colleagues waiting on the platform. But the moment of panic passed when he was sent to join an ever-increasing crowd of men, waiting for another train to take them to the West.

Very few men had decided to stay and were marched off into a welcome camp, from where they’d be distributed to their final destinations in the Soviet zone of Germany. Johann didn’t envy those men. They had chosen this place not because they valued the generous offer, but to be reunited with their families.

He hoped things weren’t as bad as the rumors indicated. Certainly, they had to be a million times better than in the Soviet camps.

After two days’ wait, the journey continued. They passed through Berlin – the former capital of Germany – Leipzig, Weimar, Erfurt, Eisenach and then reached the zonal border between the two Germanys in Herleshausen.

The train stopped and men in green uniforms peeked inside. “

Bundesgrenzschutz

.”

“West German border police?” Johann asked, suppressing the slight tremble in his voice.

“We sure are, and happy to welcome you home,” the policeman said with a broad grin. “Please get off the train.”

Everyone disembarked and walked the hundred yards to the inner German border. The entire time, Johann’s anxiety plucked at his insides, screaming that something would go wrong in the last minute.

But the moment he passed the white turnstile, all the tension fell finally off his shoulders and he felt free.

Free!

In a sudden outburst of emotion, he followed the example of others and knelt down to kiss the native soil.

After ten and a half horrific years he had returned home.