Army Group North was driving up along the Baltic toward Leningrad, and a Special Action Unit followed close behind.
Counting officers and men, there were about three thousand of these travelling executioners all told in the four units. They were setting out to kill between three and four million people, which figured out to more than ten thousand murders for each man. It was clearly beyond them. The plan was to start the process, and then recruit native anti-Semites and German soldiers to complete the gruesome, unheard-of, but entirely real job they were setting out to do.
The Germans in the ranks of the Special Action Units were recruited mainly from the civil services: policemen, detectives, clerks, and the like. There were no lunatics or criminals among them. The officers were mostly lawyers, doctors, or businessmen, who through age or disability could not fight in the army. Many had high university degrees; one officer had been a theologian. Officers and men alike were good Germans, the sort of men who did not drive past red traffic lights, who liked opera and concerts, who read books, who wore ties and jackets, who had wives and children, who for the most part went to church and sang hymns, and who worked in little weekend gardens. Obedience was a German virtue. They had been recruited and ordered to kill these people. They had been told that the Jews were Germany’s enemies, and that the only way to deal with them was to kill every last one of them, down to the babes in arms and their mothers. This word came from above. A prime German virtue was to accept such words from above and carry them out.
Strangely, the Jews already in German hands, in the territories stretching west from the invasion line to the Atlantic Ocean, were not yet being killed en masse. Nor was a program even under way to kill them. A mistaken idea exists that the Germans began killing Jews as soon as Hitler took power in 1933. That is untrue. They robbed the Jews, as they later robbed all the peoples they conquered, but the extortion was usually done under legal expropriation rules. Jews were often insulted, sometimes beaten, sometimes tortured, sometimes done to death or worked to death. But as late as June 22, 1941, only a few concentration camps existed, and most of the inmates were German opponents of Hitler. The existence of the camps filled the Jews with terror, but the Germans themselves were terrorized, too.
By June 1941 the European Jews were living a vile life and were yielding the last scraps of their property to the squeeze of German law. But they were living. “One can live under any law,” a German Jewish newspaper put it.
So it happened that a Jew was safer behind the German lines, just then, than ahead of them. The Warsaw Jews, for instance, had reorganized themselves under the draconic Nazi rules. Though overwork, starvation, and disease were taking a toll, they were in the main managing to survive. At this point the Jastrows would have been somewhat better off not to have left Warsaw.
But Berel Jastrow, astute as he was and schooled in living with anti-Semitism, had not anticipated the Special Action Units. They were something new.
Adolf Hitler had given the order for the Einsatzgruppen back in March, so they may not have been much in his mind on June 22. He was following the progress of the invasion in a map room, where the light remained cool and gray long after sunrise. Disliking sunshine, the Führer had ordered his eastern campaign headquarters, which he dubbed Wolfsschanze, to be built facing north. A rail spur in a forest of east Prussia, not far from the jump-off line of Army Group North, led to this “Wolfs Lair,” a compound of concrete bunkers and wooden huts surrounded by barbed wire, watchtowers, and minefields. Wolfsschanze, in fact, singularly resembled a concentration camp.
At the elbow of General Jodl stood one of the youngest and newest of German generals, Armin von Roon. Hitler did not like Roon and showed his dislike by abruptness. Roon came from a titled family, and spoke a polished Berlin German that contrasted sharply with Hitler’s folksy, coarse Bavarian speech. His uniform, faultlessly tailored, contrasted too with Hitler’s oversize, baggy soldier’s coat. Above all, Roon had a beaked nose that looked a bit Jewish. But as a colonel in Operations, he had taken part in three elaborate Barbarossa war games. His memory was unusual; he knew to the hour the projected advances and had the picture of the thousand-mile-wide battlefield by heart. The Soviet Union was for Roon rather like a table model, spectacularly larger than the ones used in the games. The troops were men, instead of pinned and numbered flags, but the principles and the scenario were the same, at least to start with. (At the Nuremberg trials, Roon denied knowledge of the Special Action Units, until confronted with the order to kill the commissars, countersigned by him for the Operations Section. Then he recalled it, but pleaded ignorance of the Einsatzgruppen’s other purpose. The tribunal judged this farfetched, like some other points in Roon’s defense.)
Until three hours after sunup of the invasion day, Roon dodged the Leader’s harsh nagging questions about the trend of ground operations. Then he gave his judgment that things were going better than planned in the north; much better in the center; worse in the south. It proved an accurate estimate, and for a long period thereafter Hitler warmed to the beak-nosed general.
Here then was the laying down of the first cards in the giant poker hand. Hitler and his staff had guessed that the Russians would mass most strongly in the center, north of the Pripet River bogs, to shield their capital. But whoever had disposed of the Russian forces—Stalin, or the generals to whom he listened—had bet that the Germans would make their main drive south, to seize the Ukrainian farmlands and the Caucasus oil fields. Perhaps this judgment had come from reading Mein Kampf, in which Hitler openly called this seizure his life’s aim. At any rate, the largest mass of Russian defenders lay south of the marsh. Thus the battle line was unbalanced. The Germans found themselves slowed in the south, but punching through with surprising ease toward Moscow. The first big Russian city in their path was Minsk.
When the sun rose in Rome, Aaron Jastrow was already working at his desk, in his suite in the Hotel Excelsior. By now Dr. Jastrow’s book on Constantine needed only four or five more chapters, and he was very happy with it. At precisely eight as usual, the unchanging waiter brought the unchanging breakfast. Jastrow finished it and was settling back at his desk when a bedroom door opened noisily, and Natalie waddled in, wearing a pink bathrobe. Pregnancy, beside making her shapeless, had hollowed her cheeks and her eyes, and exaggerated her full mouth. “My God, have you heard the latest?”
“Has something good happened?”
“That depends. The Germans have invaded Russia.”
“What! Are you sure?”
“It was just on the eight o’clock news.”
“Bless me.” Jastrow took off his glasses and rubbed them with a handkerchief. “Why, when did it start?”
“At dawn today.”
“Well, I declare! The villain with the moustache is really throwing himself into his part, isn’t he? A two-front war again!”
Natalie walked to the serving table on wheels that bore the breakfast remnants. “Would this coffee still be hot?”
“Yes, help yourself.”
“The doctor told me not to eat or drink before he examined me, but I can’t help it. I’m ravenous.” Natalie began to wolf a sweet roll with coffee. “You’d better call the ambassador.”
“I suppose so. But Russia’s very far off, and what difference can it make to us? It’s pleasant, really, to think of Hitler dwindling off into Russia. Shades of Napoleon, let us hope.”
“If Finland gets dragged in, the Vaasa won’t sail.”
“Dear me, yes. You’re completely right. Any news about Finland?”
“Not that I heard.” Dropping heavily into a chair, Natalie glanced around at the broad room, furnished with maroon plush chairs and sofas, gilt mirrors, and marble statues. “God, this suite is oppressive. Just to get out of it will be so marvellous!”
“My dear, it’s spacious, and we’ve got it for the price of two small rooms.”
“I know, I know, but why not? The hotel’s empty, except for Germans. It’s giving me t
he creeps.”
“I imagine they’re in every hotel.”
Natalie said with a gloomy look, “No doubt. Yesterday I recognized a Gestapo man on the elevator. Bryon and I saw him in Lisbon. I know he’s the same one. He has an odd scar like this”—she made an L in the air with one finger—“on his forehead.”
“Surely that’s a coincidence. Did he recognize you?”
“He gave me quite a stare.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it. Those men stare for a living. What did the doctor say yesterday, by the way? Everything normal?”
“Oh, yes.” She sounded uncertain. “He just wanted to see me once more. I’m going to bed now for a while.”
“To bed again?”
“He wants me to rest a lot. My appointment’s not till noon.”
“Well, all right. I do have this chapter just about ready for smooth copy.”
“Aaron”—Natalie paused, chewing her underlip—“he doesn’t want me to type for a while. It tires my back. Just until this fatigue clears up.”
“I see.” Jastrow sighed, and glanced around the room. “I agree, this place is not very cheerful. When I think of my lovely house standing empty… Natalie, do you suppose this Russian war changes things at all? I mean—”
“Jesus Christ, Aaron,” Natalie snapped most disagreeably, “are you going to suggest you might still remain on the same continent with the Germans?”
“My dear”—Jastrow made a very Jewish gesture, a hunching of shoulders and an upward wave of both hands—“don’t be impatient with me. You were a baby in the last war, but to me so little time has elapsed between them! It’s just a continuation after a truce. Well, the talk we had then of the Huns spearing Belgian babies on bayonets and cutting off the breasts of nuns! And then I spent a year in Munich with some truly wonderful people. There are Germans, and Germans—oh, gracious, did I tell you that there’s a letter from Byron?”
“What? Where?”
“The waiter left it in the hall, I think.”
She ran heavily out of the room, snatched the white envelope, took it to her bedroom, and read it panting. It was a dully written letter, with no news except that he had been detached from the S-45, to go to a new fleet submarine, the Tuna, in the Pacific, and that Lieutenant Aster had been ordered to an older boat, the Devilfish. But the words of love and loneliness were plentiful, if banal. She undressed, got into bed, and greedily read and reread the pages until the sentences lost meaning.
The Italian doctor had told her that the blood stains, only two or three small ones, might mean nothing, but that she had to rest, to be sure of keeping the baby. Natalie intended to spend the next two weeks in bed.
The line between night and day glided across the Atlantic Ocean, for the most part passing over fluffy cloud and empty wrinkling blue water; very rarely, over specks in orderly rows, and other specks randomly scattered. The orderly specks were convoys; the random specks, German submarines trying to hunt them down or American ships trying to spot the submarines and warn the convoys. Bringing light and warmth indifferently to the hunters and the hunted in this far-flung three-way game, which the participants called the Battle of the Atlantic, the sunrise slid onto the next landmass, the New World.
Soon the windows of the CBS building in New York flamed with morning sun, but in the tomblike broadcasting floors there was only the same timeless electric light. The corridors and cubicles of the CBS news section, despite the early hour, were swarming and bustling. Hugh Cleveland, badly in need of a shave, sat at his old desk, scrawling on a yellow pad and puffing at a long cigar. He had not quit the Who’s in Town program, despite the popularity of the amateur hour. The news feature show would still be his bread and butter, he liked to say, when the amateur fad was forgotten. Out of the portable radio on his desk came the sonorous accents of Winston Churchill:
“No one has been a more consistent opponent of Communism than I have… I will unsay no word that I have spoken about it. But all this fades away before the spectacle which is now unfolding…. I see the ten thousand villages of Russia, where maidens laugh and children play. I see advancing upon all this in hideous onslaught… the dull, drilled, docile, brutish masses of the Hun soldiery, plodding on like a swarm of crawling locusts…”
His telephone began to ring. He tried to ignore it, then snatched it and snarled, “Goddamn it, I’m listening to Churchill…. Oh! Sorry, Chet. Listen, if you’re near a radio, turn the guy on. He is sensational!” Leaning back in his swivel chair, he cocked one ear toward the radio, holding the phone to the other.
“Behind all this glare, behind all this storm, I see that small group of villainous men who plan, organize, and launch this cataract of horrors upon mankind…”
“Chet, of course I thought of it. The minute the news broke, I sent a wire to the Russian consulate here. Naturally, I couldn’t get through on the telephone. About an hour ago, they finally called me. Madeline Henry’s gone over there, and they’ve promised they’ll send somebody back with her. No, I don’t know who, not yet. Hell, this morning their scrubwoman would be news!”
“Can you doubt what our policy will be? We have but one aim and one single, irrevocable purpose. We are resolved to destroy Hitler and every vestige of the Nazi regime. From this nothing will turn us—nothing…. Any man or state who fights against Nazidom will have our aid. Any man or state who marches with Hitler is our foe…
“The Russian danger is our danger, and the danger of the United States…”
Madeline scampered into the office, red-faced and shiny-eyed, and wildly pantomimed at her boss.
“Hang on, Chet, she’s here.” Hand over the receiver, Cleveland said, “What luck?”
“I got the ambassador. He’s here in New York, and I got him.”
“Holy Jesus! Are you kidding? The ambassador? What’s his name, Ouskinsky?”
“Oumansky.” She nodded excitedly. “He’s coming here at ten to nine. The consul’s bringing him.”
“Hey, Chet, listen, will you? That girl has got Ambassador Oumansky. I swear to Christ! Oumansky! Listen, I’ve got to get ready for him. Sure, sure. Thanks.” He slammed down the receiver. “How’d you do that, Madeline? Why isn’t he in Washington?” Churchill’s voice was rising in peroration. Cleveland snapped off the radio.
“Hugh, I asked to see the consul and told this beefy girl at the desk that I was from the Who’s in Town program. That’s all. Next thing I knew I was in this big office, with a huge picture of Lenin staring down at me, and there was Ambassador Oumansky, and he said he’d come on the show. He’s a nice man, with wonderful manners.”
“Fantastic! Terrific! Marry me!” Cleveland looked at his watch and passed a hand over his bristly face. “Christ! The Bolshie ambassador himself! What luck!” He jumped up, pulled the small girl into his arms, and gave her a kiss.
Madeline broke free, blushing darkly, glancing over her shoulder at the open door, and straightening her dress.
“You’re a doll, Madeline. Now listen. While I clean up, how about drafting an intro and some questions and bringing them to me in the dressing room?”
The ambassador arrived promptly. Hugh Cleveland had not met a Russian Communist in his life, and he was amazed at Oumansky’s excellent clothes, natural bearing, and smooth English. The consul was even smoother. The two Russians settled themselves, perfectly at ease, at the microphones.
“Mr. Ambassador, it is a privilege for me, and for Who’s in Town, to welcome you at this historic moment—” Cleveland began, and got no further.
“Thank you very much. Since our two countries are now in a common struggle,” Oumansky said, “I welcome the opportunity to give the American people the assurance of my country’s fighting spirit on your popular program, Who’s in Town. Allow me to read from Mr. Molotov’s broadcast.”
The consul handed Oumansky a typewritten document, to the horror of Cleveland, whose iron rule it was to cut off prepared statements.
“Well, Mr. Ambassador, if I may s
imply say—”
“Thank you. For brevity I have abridged the speech, but here are significant portions of Foreign Minister Molotov’s exact words: ‘Without any claim having been presented to the Soviet Union, without a declaration of war, German troops attacked our country, and bombed from their airplanes our cities…’”
Cleveland held up a hand and tried to speak, but the ambassador rolled right on: “‘This unheard-of attack on our country is perfidy unparalleled in the history of civilized nations. It was perpetrated despite a treaty on nonaggression between the USSR and Germany, which the Soviet government has most faithfully abided by…’”
“Mr. Ambassador, about that treaty, if I may ask just one—”
“Excuse me, I shall continue, and perhaps if time permits we can have a discussion too,” Oumansky said with unruffled charm, and he went on reading sentences and paragraphs neatly underlined in purple ink. Cleveland made two more vain efforts to interrupt, which the ambassador pleasantly ignored, proceeding to the last lines on the last page:
“‘The entire responsibility for this predatory attack on the Soviet Union falls on the German Fascist rulers…
“‘The Soviet government has ordered our troops to drive the German troops from the territory of our country…
“‘Ours is a righteous cause. The enemy shall be defeated. Victory will be ours.’
“To these eloquent words,” said Oumansky, “I have little to add. I must return to my many official duties, and I thank you for this opportunity.”
He passed the paper to the consul, smiled at Cleveland, and moved as though to rise. Desperately, Cleveland struck in, “Mr. Ambassador, I know how pressed you are in this tragic hour. I won’t detain you. Just tell me this. How will the American Communists react to the news? They’ve been violently advocating neutrality, you know. They campaigned tooth and nail against Lend-Lease. Are they going to make a fast about-face now?”