The Ostland Protocol (eBook)
308 Seiten
tredition (Verlag)
978-3-384-36513-2 (ISBN)
Prologue
11 January 1941
It was bitterly cold. He stamped his feet hard on the uneven ground at regular intervals as he walked down the long side of the factory hall. The pain shot up his legs, but it was better than numb feet. Anything but frostbite. He looked down the passageway that led to the front of the building. Rough, unfinished concrete. The walls had probably once been white, but almost everywhere the paint was peeling off. Through the misty glass he looked out over the snow-covered field and the little birch grove beyond. It was quiet outside. Very quiet. A relief really after the non-stop aircraft overhead and the massive artillery fire of the previous week. Up to two or three days ago, you could still hear occasional thundering. At the start there had still been gunfire and artillery, but since then it had fallen quiet. The whole front seemed somehow frozen under the snowfall from two days ago and it had not moved since. He looked at his watch – two and a half hours until he went off duty. Then he would trudge five hundred metres through the snow and warm up in the troop quarters. The others would give him funny looks because he had not been with them outside and he would try to get some sleep. Then four hours later he'd be back here, guarding this shitty, crumbling, draughty, freezing factory hall. He would guard the hall and the two solitary corpses lying on camp beds in a corner. Because there was no doubt that those were corpses under those sheets. He gazed absently at the swirling clouds of his breath. Was it colder outside than in here? Of course it was, though it was hard to imagine. When he finished his watch and went back into the open air, the cold would pounce on him like a wild animal, although right now he thought he would never feel warm again as long as he lived.
He wondered how they’d died. Why hadn’t they been laid out in the room next to the field hospital like the others, but instead been left lying here alone since yesterday? And why had they declared a four hundred-metre exclusion zone around the building?
They had been kept in this building for four days. Thank God he had only had to stand guard in the hall since yesterday, when nothing had been moving any more. Only the two camp beds covered with white sheets, under which you could see the outline of two bodies. But his comrades who had stood guard during the two previous days had looked terrible when they returned to the troop quarters. And even from a considerable distance away, you could hear the roaring and screaming of the dying pair. The guards had disappeared before anyone could ask them questions. Moved to other units, recalled, maybe given leave. All very strange. In the lonely hours of his guard duty, he could have walked across the hall and pulled back the sheets. But not knowing how the pair had met their miserable end, it wasn’t hard to curb his curiosity. Curiosity killed the cat! Somewhere, in some other life before the war, it seemed an age away now, he had come across this English saying and always wondered which cat it was talking about.
Voices and footsteps at the dark end of the passageway. Imperceptibly he tensed and waited to see who would step into the dim light of the factory hall. Two silhouettes appeared in the passage opening. He immediately recognised the man on the left as Dr. Köhler, the regimental doctor, and relaxed a little. The other had to be top brass. He wore the peaked officer's cap and even wrapped from boots to cheekbones in a thick sheepskin coat, he radiated authority. They walked nearer and he could make out the face of the unknown man. No one from the regiment. From a different regiment? Maybe division HQ?
He gave a stiff salute. “Private Weidlich on death watch duty, nothing to report!”
The two men nodded and entered the large hall, walking past him without paying him further attention. Their footsteps echoed through the high-ceilinged space illuminated by the reflection of the sun on the snow. Weidlich remained standing where he had been all the time.
“How many did you have in your regiment?” asked the officer.
His voice was pleasant, but firm and somewhat strained, as if he didn’t really want to hear the answer.
“These two,” replied the regimental doctor.
The other man raised an eyebrow and then nodded appreciatively, “Only two? That’s excellent. Really excellent. Have the men got wind of what’s going on?”
“Yes, although we isolated them here as quickly as we could.”
“Then how could they have found out?”
“Are you joking? First that order about the water. And then suddenly two comrades fall down, writhing in convulsions and screaming like they've been stuck on a spit? I can rattle on about epilepsy as long as I like, but with the two of them not being taken to a normal field hospital but isolated here instead, and then a four hundred-metre exclusion zone declared around the isolation unit…”
“Four hundred? The order was for two hundred.”
“You obviously haven’t had any cases near HQ. You should have heard those chaps bellowing, four hundred wasn’t even enough. If it had been two hundred, there’d have been no point setting up an exclusion zone. At night they could still be heard screaming from the troop barracks, on the first night anyway. After that their strength gave out.”
“I want to see them,” said the officer evenly.
The doctor looked at him uncertainly. “Are you sure? It's a ghastly sight, even for a doctor.”
“Do it.”
The doctor bent down, grasped the edge of a sheet and raised it. Weidlich could see nothing from where he was standing, the position of the two men blocked what was revealed under the sheet. The officer turned away abruptly and fought for composure.
“Those bastards,” he swore, as the doctor replaced the sheet, “those filthy pigs. And they talk about Untermenschen…” He turned on his heel and stormed past the guard. Weidlich saw a glint in the officer's eyes. Tears? Dr. Köhler followed him out more slowly, but he also seemed ill at ease.
12 January 1941
Leaning over the map table, Colonel von Zielinski traced a line with his finger and then stood upright again. “It can't be,” he muttered. He bent forward again. His finger traced the same slightly irregular semicircle as before. “Möglingen, read out the names one more time.”
The man he addressed, a few years younger than himself, answered “Yes, Colonel,” and began slowly to read out a series of place names. With each name, the commander's outstretched index finger advanced a few centimetres until, as before, it completed the crooked semicircle.
“Müller, I want to talk to division.” Müller picked up the handset and spoke to the switchboard operator then hung up.
While the connection was being put through the various switchboards, Zielinski wondered aloud: “Why are they removing us from here and sending us to the other side of the pocket? And on such a tight and precise schedule?”
He looked questioningly at the lieutenant colonel. He shrugged. “Have you verified the order?”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“So there can be no mistake, no interference from the Russians?”
“No, Colonel. I called division HQ. They confirmed it.”
“And nothing about a replacement unit to occupy our position?”
“No, Colonel.”
The telephone rang and Müller held up the receiver: “Division HQ, Colonel.”
Zielinski went and stood by the telephone table, lifted the heavy Bakelite earpiece and held it to his ear. “Zielinski here.”
From the receiver came a shrill reply.
“Yes, I know Möglingen has already called. Is it at least clear who'll be plugging the hole we're tearing in the pocket?”
More shrill chatter at the other end.
“No, it is not enough. Not by a long shot. Put the chief on the line.” A brief reply. “I don't care. I want to talk to him, now.” A few beats of silence followed. “Excuse me, Lieutenant-general. I just wanted to… yes, Möglingen told me… The whole division?” Zielinski opened his eyes wide. Amazement and disbelief showed on his face. “Could you repeat that? … Yes… The pocket will be… With your permission, Lieutenant-general, there are over half a million heavily armed Russians in the pocket… Yes… Yes of course… Yes, I understand.”
He stared straight ahead and very slowly put the receiver back onto its cradle. He gazed blankly through the window until Möglingen cleared his throat: “Colonel?”
As if emerging from a deep sleep, the regimental commander murmured: “All units securing the pocket to go to a new deployment line further east … the pocket is being dissolved … more than half a million enemies to our rear. Just keep marching as if they weren't there…” His gaze went to Möglingen. “Have the orders issued and calculate within the given timeframe as generously as possible.”
“Colonel, the time frame is very tight. I don't know…”
“Do your best. Over the next few days, 800,000 men around Moscow will be moving eastwards. Expect the odd...
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 23.9.2024 |
|---|---|
| Verlagsort | Ahrensburg |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Themenwelt | Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror |
| Schlagworte | Agents • Alternative history • alternative reality • Espionage • Gestapo • Intelligence • National Socialism • Nazi Germany • Nazis • State Security • Third Empire |
| ISBN-10 | 3-384-36513-5 / 3384365135 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-3-384-36513-2 / 9783384365132 |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
| Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
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