Wolfsangel E-Book

John Reinhard Dizon

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

World War Two, 1944. After commando Carl Hansen is called to thwart the Allied invasion in Normandy, a love affair with the French heiress Angelique Dagineau becomes his only reason to survive the cataclysmic battle ahead.

As the Resistance rises across Southern France, the tangled web of intrigue between the corrupt Vichy government forces, the Parisian criminal network and the Communist insurgents begins to unravel.

When Carl learns that Angelique is the target of a massive Gestapo manhunt, he sets on a mission to save her. But can he find her in time?

Leseprobe

Wolfsangel

John Reinhard Dizon

Copyright (C) 2016 John Reinhard Dizon

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2019 by Next Chapter

Published 2019 by Next Chapter

Cover Design by http://www.thecovercollection.com/

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

Chapter One

The skies were black at three o'clock that afternoon.

The hammer rose and fell with methodical precision, the dull thuds echoing throughout the dead silence of the snow-covered terrain. The cries of the victim filled the air as first his wrists, then his ankles, were nailed to the frosty wooden cross. Blood spurted and pooled freely across the ground, spattering the clothing of his grinning torturers.

Once the victim was secured, the cross was raised between those of his fellow captives. They writhed and groaned as their body weight caused unbearable pain to their impaled joints, and their lungs compressed from the distortion of their torsos. The soldiers laughed and taunted them, admiring their fiendish handiwork. One of the soldiers had nailed a sign on the cross over the head of the newly crucified victim. Upon it was a crudely etched wolfsangel (*wolf's hook), a medieval Germanic clan totem. It was the military symbol of the Kingdom (*Das Reich).

“What are we going to do?” one of the victims' friends asked as they crouched behind a rock line in the distance.

“Carl is trying to circle them,” his comrade replied. “It's our only chance.”

“Can you hear me?” the leader of the squad surrounding the crucifixion scene stepped forth, calling into the darkness. “I know you're out there. You can put them out of their misery by coming out with your hands behind your head.”

Another man came forth with a can of petrol in his hand. He handed it to the leader, who raised it aloft.

“It is too cold out here!” the man bellowed. “We need a fire to warm us up! Either you come out and we can leave together to a warmer place, or we'll build a bonfire here!”

Carl Hanson heard the threats and moved as quickly as he dared. He was patrolling the area with two other fire teams when they came across a Red Army recon squad. They killed four of them in a crossfire but ran out of ammo in the ensuing shootout. Captain Ruess and his lieutenants were captured, stripped and beaten in the freezing Siberian temperatures. The Reds found lumber in the ruins of a nearby barn and created the monstrous spectacle on a nearby hill. Hanson had one grenade and four rounds left. He was sure it would be enough.

He crept up the side of a hill on his outstretched limbs like a giant spider, distributing his weight so as to avoid dislodging any rocks or debris. He had his rifle across his shoulders, his grenade in one hand and Mauser in the other. He crawled as far as he dared until his head was level with the ground upon which the torture took place. At once he was startled by a great burst of flames as the crucified soldiers were consumed by the ignited gasoline.

Carl sprung from his position, hurling his grenade into the midst of the soldiers. There was a great roar as the soldiers were scattered about, the crosses toppling atop them. Some reached for their weapons but Carl took them out with a shot to the head. His teammates rushed up the hill to his side, tending to their crucified comrades.

“Mongols,” Sgt. Beckmann snorted as he tore the woolen cap off the partially severed head on one of the Reds, swatting at the ponytail at the base of the shorn skull. “We're seeing more and more of these devils.”

“They spent their time killing each other before the war,” Sgt. Garthaffner grimaced. “They would rape and kill the women in neighboring villages. The survivors' own people would leave the bastard offspring out for the wolves.”

“Carl!” Sgt. Von Hoffman shouted. “Captain Ruess is still alive!”

“Poor bastard,” Sgt. Tollner shook his head.

“Strip the Mongols and wrap him up,” Carl ordered. “Make a pallet so we can get him out of here. Let's take the heads off these pieces of shit and bring them back as well. We'll let them know we're still the meanest sons of bitches in this valley.”

The soldiers carried their woeful burdens over a kilometer back to the rendezvous point where they were loaded into a waiting truck and taken back to their base another kilometer away. They were screaming for medics, who rushed to take possession of the makeshift stretcher and move the burn victim to the emergency tent.

“What in hell happened, Hansen?” Major Wulf and Captain Kahn came to meet them.

“We ran directly into a squad of Red Army soldiers on patrol,” Carl growled as his comrades removed the parcels containing the severed heads from sight. “They took Ruess, Slater and Dietz out and we didn't have enough ammo to push them back. Either we start getting enough ammo to fight out there or we're going to take a hell of a lot more casualties.”

“You know our situation, Hansen,” Wulf grumbled. “Our supply lines have literally been frozen shut out here. The trucks can't make it out this far. HQ has ordered that we ration the ammo out to a clip a man. Do you get anything off the Reds?”

“I wouldn't bring that garbage of theirs to a water gun fight,” Carl scoffed. “No explosives, nothing of value. We found rat and squirrel meat in their rucksacks.”

“Let's wipe the country clean of these bastards and get back home, Carl,” Kahn patted him on the shoulder. “Stalingrad's just a shot away.”

“If they don't do it to us first,” Carl trudged away towards the bonfires lit around the camp, surrounded by freezing soldiers trying to stay alive.

The Third Reich unleashed Operation Barbarossa in declaring war on Russia in the Spring of 1941. The USSR, unable to cope with the blitzkrieg attack of the Luftwaffe and the Panzer tank divisions of the German Army, ceded hundreds of miles of territory in just a few short weeks. They had reached the outskirts of Stalingrad and were within reach of Moscow by autumn. Only the Russian winter arrived early, and the Siberian Express surged down from the Arctic Circle and froze the German Army in their tracks. The Germans found themselves dismally unprepared for the brutal winter. Hundreds of soldiers died of exposure in the subzero temperatures of the night. The Russians, who lived and worked in such an environment all their lives, were able to stem the tide of the German attack and were threatening to regain the ground they had lost just months before.

He was greeted by his joyful comrades as he approached the campfire, fueled by furniture salvaged from the shelled-out homes of Russian peasants in nearby villages. They gave him a bottle of vodka, and he was able to swallow an eighth of a liter in one mighty gulp.

“Here, Lieutenant,” Eric Von Hoffman held out a bottle of barbiturates. “These will help you sleep.”

“You get used to those, and they'll help you sleep forever,” Carl retorted. “You'll get slow enough so even a Mongol can put a bullet in your head.”

“I'll take my chances,” Eric sniggered.

“I won't have any trouble getting to sleep, I've had my workout for the day. You'd better get some sleep, soldier, we're moving into that village down the road in the morning.”

“I got a little more energy to burn, Lieutenant, but I'll be ready.”

“Good,” Carl walked off. “Ivan'll be waiting.”

The Leader Regiment (*Der Fuehrer)'s 1st Platoon was on the move at daybreak, Carl leading his men in a pincer movement around the small village located two kilometers from the Waffen SS camp. Beckmann and Garthaffner led their men along the right flank as Tollner and Von Hoffman circled to the left. They took positions along the perimeter as 2nd Platoon approached slowly in a motorized convoy from the west. The soldiers huddled in the bitter morning cold, rifles at the ready as the village stirred at the sound of the oncoming vehicles.

The SS convoy slowed to a halt as they watched a group of older people converging in the middle of the small village. They watched through binoculars as groups of children came from their shacks bearing small parcels and baskets from which flowers protruded. They handed these to the women, who eventually began trudging through across the snowy ground towards the convoy.

“Damn it to hell,” Major Wulf's voice crackled angrily across their radio sets. “What in hell will they think of next? Get one of our translators up there front and center. Tell those people to go back to their homes. If anyone sees glass or metal we open fire.”

“I see glass, Major,” a rifleman reported over the radio. “Looks like it may be wine bottles, they're in some of the baskets along with bread and cheese.”

“How in hell do we know it's not those Molotov cocktails?” Wulf shouted back. “You get somebody out there who speaks barbarian and move those people back now!”

“The translator's on a motorbike, he's coming up from the rear, sir!” another voice broke in.

“The villagers are approaching the trucks, sir,” a tank gunner reported. “They're at a hundred meters.”

“Get someone on the speakers! Order them to halt!” Wulf yelled. “Lt. Hansen, ready to fire on my order!”

“Brains and gravy coming up,” Eric chuckled in his position nearby Carl.

“Not one shot until I give the order,” Carl warned him.

The biker and his passenger arrived at the front of the convoy, the translator scrambling clear as a rifleman gave him further instructions. The Siberian's eyes glazed over with fear as he numbly approached the group of peasants. He called out to them but they continued their wordless approach.

“Damn him!” Wulf barked. “Sergeant, get behind that dog and kick his ass forward or put him down!”

The biker got off his chopper and trotted up behind the translator, screaming orders as the man lurched forth. The greeting party grew nigh and, at length, began unwrapping their baskets and parcels to reveal the presents within.

“Ready! Aim!” Wulf's voice crackled.

“On my order,” Carl shouted to his rifle squads.

At once, about a dozen of the shawled peasants sprang away from the group, brandishing automatic rifles that spat fire into the SS convoy. The translator's head exploded like a gourd, the biker behind him convulsed by rifle fire.

“There are men in the group!” Carl ordered. “Open fire!”

The SS riflemen unleashed a barrage of machine gun and rifle fire that tore the shacks in the tiny village asunder. They were somewhat surprised by the return fire and realized that a partisan unit must have staged the ambush. They were equally dismayed by the fact that women and children had been chosen to bait the feeble trap.

“Put a couple of cannon rounds into those houses, and see if we can get some air support,” Wulf ordered. “Everyone stay covered until I give the word.”

A Panzer tank rumbled out of the convoy and lazily positioned its turret in the direction of the village. The SS commandos watched as the tank seemed to dawdle before spitting a single shell at the tattered village. At once there was a deafening roar as an entire row of shacks exploded into flames and smoking rubble. A second roar took out the opposite side of the village directly in front of Carl's flank.

“Why in hell do they do that?” Tollner muttered. “Sacrificing women and children like that.”

“We'll find a mass grave in those woods up ahead,” Carl exhaled tautly. “The insurgents come to a town and demand that everyone help them fight the invaders. Anyone who refuses is condemned for treason against the State.”

“You know, I hate to say it,” Tollner said quietly as the commandos rose from their positions to investigate the charred ruins, “but there are a lot of people in the SS with that mentality.”

“They're already doing it in the Occupied Territories,” Carl growled. “They're recruiting able-bodied Slavs to work with the Einsatzgruppen units. Do you think those death squads following us around are all native Germans?”

“Death squads,” Tollner spat into the snow. “It provokes things like this. We've gotten reports from interrogated prisoners that the countryside's full of horror stories about SS units gathering villagers and shooting them at mass graves. The way they look at it, they're going into the ground anyway, so why not die fighting?”

“Major,” a voice crackled over the radio. “We've got women and children in the center of the village. We don't think anyone else survived, we'll check the houses once the flames die down.”

“Tell your men to check for tunnels and trapdoors,” Wulf's voice crackled. “Einsatzgruppen (*SS death squad) on the way,”

“You burn to death, and then you get to go to hell,” Tollner shrugged.

“Just like Robert Ruess,” Carl said quietly.

* * *

“What's the prognosis?” Carl asked as he slumped into a chair at Captain Kahn's desk in his spacious tent, thanking him for a cup of tea.

The regiment had proceeded another ten kilometers before it was decided that they would set up camp for the evening. The routine had become the most grueling part of the tour, setting up camp, tearing it down, and the ever-present concern that there were peasants ahead, to either kill or turn over to the Einsatzgruppen. It became a never-ending drudgery that only the bloodcurdling thrill of battle or the haze of alcohol abated.

“Grim,” Kahn responded. “His face and chest were severely burned. It exhausted our resources just to keep him from dying of shock. We're trying to get him on a plane to Krakow but he refuses to go.”

“What?”

“This is a hard situation,” Kahn poured a shot of cognac, passing one over to Carl. “Ruess has family that's married into the Goerings. Apparently he had some calls made. He's calling in some big markers to remain on the field. His SS lawyer says there could be an investigation as to why his unit was ordered to retreat from their battle position.”

“Investigation!” Carl thundered. “We told them to withdraw because they were surrounded by terrorists! They told me to retreat as well and if I had, we wouldn't be in this spot because this fellow would be toast!”

“We have to remember that he is in an extreme state of trauma right now,” Kahn sipped his drink. “He's trying to turn himself into Captain Ahab and kill the Red whale. He's not going to be able to get back on the field and command troops for quite some time. Hopefully he will accept his situation and resign his commission before it creates a problem.”

“You know he's been reckless bordering on suicidal out there. It's like following a pack of mad dogs. He's lost three lieutenants since we've been here. If he decides to stick to procedure and send his lieutenants without him, more men will die.”

“Come now, Carl. Men will die regardless. This is war, and even worse, this is the Waffen SS. You trained under Eicke, you knew what you were getting into. Look, if this was a game of chess, you'd be a grandmaster. You're a legend, at your age. The reason why you're still alive is because of your wizardry on the field. Strategy, tactics, incredible skill, you've got it all. Unfortunately so did Ruess, but he thought he was invincible. The ways of God are great and terrible, and sometimes we learn our lessons in the most horrific ways, especially in this life we've chosen. Ruess is not accepting his lot, and all we can hope is that someone in authority will intercede before either he or his men suffer even greater loss.”

“So he thinks he's going back out there,” Carl exhaled tautly. “He's broken the rules, you know. He's brought witness against his comrades. No one outside his team will ever risk their lives for him again.”

“No one can ever hear such words, Carl.”

“I speak to you as a friend. I only ask that you do everything in your power to stop this lunacy.”

“I'm meeting with the Colonel this evening. There is a very important directive from Berlin that will be addressed. Afterwards I will bring this concern to him directly.”

“It's in God's hands, eh?

“God or the Devil?”

“Does it make a difference?”

“Not out here,” Kahn shook his head ruefully.

The Leader Regiment began its slow withdrawal towards East Poland in the same direction from which they had come. It was easy to see where they had been welcomed by the civilian populace as liberators from Communist repression, and where the people rose up out of fear of rumored Nazi genocide. There were also some towns through which the regiment had passed peacefully but were now smoking ruins after acts of arson and murder by Red activists.

Colonel Stadler met with Majors Wulf, Diekmann, Kampfe and Weidinger the next morning to inform them of stunning developments on the Western front. He had gotten word that the Allied Expeditionary Forces had launched their invasion of Europe on the coast of Normandy just hours ago. OKW (*German Military Command) had decided that they would recall the Kingdom Division from the Eastern Front and redeploy them to Normandy to repel the invasion force.

The news crackled through the division like electricity as the soldiers were ecstatic with joy. They were stationed in France just two years ago, and for those who remembered it was as paradise compared to the Russian wastelands. The trip across France would be as a mini vacation, regardless of the desperate battle ahead. Most of the soldiers of the division were fully confident that they would throw the invaders back into the sea.

It was late on the evening of June 4th, 1944 by the time the Leader Regiment reached their destination, about seventy kilometers from the Polish border. They estimated that they would reach the German border by June 5th, and would most likely cross into France by June 6th. They fully expected to engage in combat against the Allies by June 10th at the latest. The Division Commander, General Lammerding, instructed his colonels that his men were to relax and recuperate as best they could in preparation for the life-and-death struggle ahead.

Carl and his teammates had just the place in mind.

Sasha's Inn was a well-known bed and breakfast motel in a small village outside Uman where the proprietor, Sasha, had moved from Poland after leaving Germany shortly after the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938. She was a beautiful Russian woman who had married a German Jew, and he sent her ahead to Krakow so he could consolidate his affairs. He was murdered by the SA during Kristallnacht but his brother-in-law was able to complete his dealings and send the money to Sasha. She fled to Russia after the German invasion and bought the bed and breakfast, which flourished as Polish Jews began migrating to Russia to escape the Nazis' efforts to address the Jewish problem. No one knew what to expect when the Germans invaded Russia, but they were delighted by Sasha's Inn and boarded its officers there in return for handsome compensation.

“Carl! Heinz!” the worried look on her face broke into joyous relief upon seeing her old customers at the door. “How wonderful it is to see you again!”

Heinz Barth was Carl's fellow lieutenant in the Company, and they had spent a memorable time at Sasha's during the Company's first trip through the village. As soon as they arrived in town they agreed to high-tail it to the inn.

“You're not closed, are you?” Heinz asked.

“Not for you,” she smiled. “Come on in.”

It was daybreak, and most of the regimental troops knew the drill in setting up camp and establishing their perimeters for the duration of their stay. SS riflemen chose the optimum positions in setting up sniper nests, as fire teams fortified checkpoints to monitor the flow of traffic in and around the village. Supply teams ran hoses down wells and merchants negotiated painfully with the soldiers, mindful of their responsibility to their neighbors not to sell out their stock to the detriment of the community.

“Where's Captain Ruess and his lieutenants?” she asked as they sat at the small bar in the parlor.

“We had an ugly scrape just down the road,” Heinz ran his fingers through his shaggy blond mane. “Ruess was badly injured. The others didn't make it.”

“How terrible,” she murmured, fixing them glasses of wine and cognac, trying to absorb the shock of the news about Ruess. “Were you forced to retreat?”

“Actually we're on the way back to Poland,” Carl thanked her for the wine. “They decided to give us a break. They felt that zero temperatures would be more tolerable than sub-zero.”

“We're low on supplies right now,” Sasha was apologetic. “Do you think…?”

“No problem,” Carl snapped his radio from his belt.

Within minutes an SS rifleman brought a rucksack full of steaks, sausages and chicken. Sasha was profusely thankful and soon had a couple of steaks on the stove in the kitchen along with boiling potatoes and cabbage.

“Let's sit by the fireplace,” she entreated them. “I so want to hear more about your studies in France while you were at the University at Gottingen, Carl. I find French art so fascinating.”

“I think I'll need a double when you go back to the bar,” Heinz rolled his eyes.

They chatted on into the day, pausing only to allow the officers to enjoy a sumptuous meal. After sunset, the two men decided to retire to their rooms as Captain Kahn arrived for dinner, bed and bath. The Waffen SS was notorious for its laxity regarding fraternization, yet the notion of lieutenants socializing with the captain could well be construed as favoritism in a different time and place in a highly competitive SS infrastructure.

“Nightcap?” Heinz held out his cognac bottle.

“I think I'd better get some rest,” Carl decided. “Riding shotgun on a Panzer truck for twenty hours, and talking culture and politics with Sasha for six hours has just about done me in.”

The commandos retired into their rooms and collapsed into a deep slumber. Only Carl was disturbed by a rustling below his window, and rolled out of bed to investigate without standing or turning on the lamp. He peered into the shadows below and perceived two figures darting through the bushes. He moved from the window and retrieved his rifle, slipping on his boots before crawling to the wall adjoining Heinz's room. He knocked quietly before crouching to the door and entering the corridor.

“Carl!” Heinz hissed as he emerged from his room brandishing his rifle.

“There's movement outside,” Carl informed him. They tiptoed downstairs into the parlor where the fireplace continued to smolder. At once they saw Sasha coming into the room carrying an object in her arms. Carl was about to whisper to her when they saw Sgt. Beckmann creeping in through the front door. He aimed and fired, dropping Sasha and her burden to the carpet as chaos broke loose outside.

“She's the owner!” Carl thundered. “What did you do!”

“The captain had me posted on guard outside,” Beckmann insisted. “The property's crawling with insurgents!”

“She was carrying a log for the fire!” Heinz snapped at him.

“What in hell's going on out here!” Kahn burst out from his room on the second floor.

“Hans, get him out of here! Move out the back, we'll distract them at the front door!” Carl ordered.

Kahn ran down the stairs and followed Beckmann to the rear exit. Carl and Heinz threw kitchen chairs through the curtained parlor windows, firing at the insurgents as the glass shattered across the cobbled garden outside. The rebels took up positions across the lawn and began returning rifle fire. The commandos began retreating towards the rear exit but stopped at the sound of breaking glass and the sudden bursts of flames throughout the motel.

“Molotov cocktails!” Heinz hissed.

“Not my favorite after-dinner choice,” Carl growled.

They raced back upstairs and started for Carl's room but noticed the wisps of smoke and brightness coming from under the door. They opted for the bathroom and turned on the faucets but found that the water supply had been cut off.

“Cute,” Carl smirked. “We'll have to go through the ceiling.”

“And how do you propose to do that?”

“Bend over,” Carl retorted. Heinz shook his head and braced himself against the sink as Carl pulled off his boots and hopped up on his back. Carl pulled out his bayonet knife and began hacking furiously at the ceiling. It began giving way under his manic assault, and soon plaster chips gave way to wooden splinters before Heinz could hear the breaking of the roof tiles above.

“Come on!” Carl jumped off his back. He boosted Heinz up, and Barth clambered through the hole before Carl pulled his boots back on and hurtled off the sink up in the aperture.

He was barely able to maintain his footing on the slanted roof before the insurgents below heard their boots on the tiles. Carl and Heinz began firing and saw a couple of shadowy figures drop lifeless in the bushes. As return fire began rattling the tile around them, they discarded their rifles in favor of their rapid-fire, high-powered Mausers. They spent agonized moments huddling by the chimney stack, exchanging fire with the insurgents before they heard shouted orders in German along with the approaching sound of vehicles.

“Saved by the cavalry,” Carl exhaled.

“Not a minute too soon,” Heinz gasped.

The commandos slid down the tiled roof and dropped onto the ground as their comrades rushed to meet them.

“Is the Captain okay?” Carl asked.

“Beckmann got him out just in time,” a rifleman replied. “He was their prime target, they were ordered to assassinate any officers in the house. Apparently someone notified the Reds that Sasha had officers staying here the last time we came through.”

“They didn't mention anything to her,” Carl said ruefully. “She was killed carrying wood to the fire.”

The reinforcement troops made short work of the insurgents, taking out most of them with machine gun fire and executing those who surrendered. Carl's face reflected his distaste as he reported to Captain Kahn at his command post.

“Thanks for saving my life, Carl,” Kahn poured a shot of cognac at his table, which Carl declined.

“It didn't have to go down like that,” Carl was adamant. “The woman was carrying a log to the fireplace. What did Beckmann think it was, a rocket launcher?”

“I gave Beckmann orders to shoot to kill if there were any problems,” Kahn said flatly. “I know you were friendly with the woman. Accept my apology.”

“Case closed. So what's with this take no prisoners thing? There are people living in this village looking out their windows. Don't you think they're going to tell the Mongols what they've seen? I thought we were incorporating these territories into the Reich, not killing everyone in sight like those jackals in the Einsatzgruppen. We're telling them that they have no choice but to fight to the death. I don't see that saving lives on our end.”

“I don't dictate policy, Carl, I follow orders like we all do. Berlin ordered us to crush all resistance with no exceptions. I'm not in the Einsatzgruppen, I don't control them. I'd like to put all those murderous bastards under a tank and mash them flat. Unfortunately they're assigned to every Waffen SS division in the service. Do you think we're the only ones being followed by those scavengers?”

“We may not be able to stop them, but we don't have to be just like them.”

“We're not, Carl,” Kahn insisted. “We're not.”

“I hope to hell things change when we go back to France,” Carl turned to leave. “I hope to hell none of us have developed a taste for this.”

“Things'll get a lot better,” Kahn smiled, raising his glass. “Vive la France.”

“Vive la France,” Carl grinned.

He was thinking about Angie.

Robert Ruess had graduated from the University of Hamburg in 1935, just four years before the outbreak of the war. He was torn between teaching science and accepting a job in research in the private sector, yet both were low-paying jobs by bourgeois standards in post-war Germany. He also had a dynamic spirit which yearned for something beyond the confines of the classroom and the laboratory, and considered a career in the military though the financial reward seemed just as dismal.

Magdalene Fock was a second niece of Baron Carl Fock, the father of Carin Fock, who was the first wife of Field Marshal Hermann Goering. She was a beautiful woman with flowing red hair, a statuesque figure, china blue eyes and a sensuous, full-lipped mouth. She and Ruess met during their junior year at the University, and it was a tempestuous relationship from the outset. She had hopes of one day ascending into Germany's upper class, and urged Ruess to join her vision quest in realizing her dreams.

After Goering had been appointed Interior Minister of Prussia, giving him full authority over the largest police force in Germany, the Nazi power play was in full swing. Goering incorporated the political and intelligence departments of the Prussian Police into his new organization, the Gestapo, which he placed under control of Heinrich Himmler. Himmler and his right-hand man, Reinhard Heydrich, were slowly developing their own elite force, the SS, into Adolf Hitler's Praetorian Guard. Himmler, already in control of all police forces outside Prussia, became the most powerful law enforcement official in Nazi Germany overnight.

The Nazis' hatred of Communism mirrored that of the Ruesses, who married shortly after graduation. It was Goering's meteoric rise that convinced the Ruesses to hitch their wagon to the swastika. Ruess first joined the SS, then took a position in forensics science with the Gestapo. He continually badgered Magdalene as he grew dissatisfied with his assignments, she in turn having him transferred via family connections to the SD (*SS intelligence). Unknown to Magdalene, he had established contact with SS General Theodor Eicke, and enrolled in officer candidate training with the Waffen SS.

Magdalene was furious but stuck by Ruess until he graduated and was assigned to the Kingdom Division at a respectable pay rate. Between their protracted battles over Ruess' failed attempts at breaking the glass ceiling restricting their social climb, the Ruesses were often seen at the finest social and cultural events in Hamburg and were continually recognized as a striking couple. They delighted in long walks along the Elbe near their home in Hamburg by day, and frequenting the City of Bridges' places of interest by night. The Deutsches Schauspielhaus (*German Theatre), the Kunsthalle Hamburg Museum of Art and the Hamburg State Opera were among their favorite haunts. Magdalene often exchanged cards on holidays with her famous second cousin and alluded to those contacts with their acquaintances as they rubbed elbows when Ruess' schedule permitted.

Ruess was mindful of those better times when he strolled along the outskirts of Uman, a small town about fifty kilometers south of Kiev with Sasha, proprietress of her self-named cozy little inn. The Division was on its way across the Dnieper River into the Eastern Ukraine to suppress a series of terrorist attacks against the German Army and discovered Sasha's Inn, where Ruess, Captain Kahn and their lieutenants immediately sought lodging. Sasha made quick friends with Ruess, his lieutenants Dietz and Slater, as well as Carl Hansen and Heinz Barth, spending a merry evening of music, wine and cheese before the fireplace in the drawing room after dinner upon their arrival. Ruess and Sasha were the early risers on Sunday morning and decided on a stroll after tea.

“How long do you think the killings will go on after the war is over?” Sasha asked, her Nordic features striking in her natural environment.

“I don't think society condones killing outside of war,” Ruess replied, his own ruggedly handsome features accentuated by his classic black officer's uniform and his heavy leather trenchcoat. “Unfortunately wars are not always recognized or declared.”

“Such as the war against the Jews?” she lowered her eyes.

“The cause of war is not always what the combatants make it seem,” he lit a cigarette and gave it to Sasha before lighting one for himself. “Almost every war since the beginning of time has been about economics, one side coveting the resources of the other. Race, religion and politics are purely semantic. Hitler feels that Communism is a ruse by the Jews to seize the assets of the working class by taking control of the government. Many see this as a war against the Jews; I see it as a war against Communism. Once Marxism has been destroyed, the Jewish question will prove inconsequential.”

They watched as a hawk swooped down in pursuit of a jackrabbit scampering frantically for the treeline ahead. As lightning, Ruess scooped up a handful of snow, packed a ball and fired it at the hawk, which flew away.

“How terrible is nature,” she took his arm. “The rabbit lives so the hawk must starve.”

“Yes,” he patted her hand, “and so the German prospers at the expense of the Jew.”

They walked arm in arm back to the inn, Ruess turning to her and touching her face before they entered.

“You're a beautiful woman, Sasha, with such a good heart and a wonderful personality,” he smiled. “I am looking forward to returning and seeing you again. Remember, you will do well.”

“Thank you, my friend,” she reached up and kissed him. He next took her into his arms and gave her a long, passionate kiss before they headed back to reality.