Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [141]
Atop the Brandenburg Gate the Quadriga of Victory once had her chariot drawn by four lusty steeds. The chariot had no wheels, the horses no legs; they lay in a heap and a limp red flag hung over the prostrate shambles. The gate itself remained up only from memory. Great chunks of the massive columns had been bashed away.
He looked back down the Unter Den Linden to the gutted shells of the massive buildings of the opera and the university, the museums and the cathedral, and he walked through and toward other gutted shells of the Reichstag.
The magnificent floral wonders of the Tiergarten were ravaged. The Column to Victory of other wars dismantled and Victory Alee a lane of strewn rocks.
For three days he picked his way across that expanse of three hundred and fifty square miles that once constituted Berlin. Only an ugly scar on the landscape was left in this place of beauty and pomp, ideas and energy. The great forests were in ruin; the hunting lodges of the electors of Brandenburg and the castles were battered beyond comprehension; the workers’ houses were in ashes, and the lakes and rivers putrid.
You are my old love,
Berlin remains Berlin ...
After a number of days, Ulrich was able to locate the first of his old comrades, Berthold Hollweg, who existed in a clapboard hovel on the Teltow Canal below Tempelhof Airdrome. It was a single room, earthen floor, windowless, toiletless. There was a futile attempt to grow a few scrubby vegetables among the rocks and weeds.
In the old days, Hollweg had held a number of high posts in the Democratic Party. He had been chairman of Brandenburg Province and held a seat in the Reichstag until the last free election.
Time and tide had reduced him to the meagerest level of existence. He had aged as Ulrich had aged. The first moments of seeing each other were filled with disbelief, and then Hollweg recounted the past.
“When your trial was over and you were sent away, that signaled our end. Some fled, some disappeared, others blended into the scenery to make themselves anonymous.”
“What about our Jews? Ginsberg, Jacobs, Adler, Davids? They were among the heart and brains of the labor movement.”
Hollweg shook his head. “They are all dead. For a time we made an attempt to hide Adler and his children, but they had to leave.”
“You turned them out?”
“It was next to impossible to hide a Jew in Berlin. Adler understood ...”
Frau Louise Hollweg began to weep at her husband’s recollections.
Tell me about Wolfgang,” Ulrich whispered harshly.
Hollweg lowered his eyes, spoke blankly. “From the moment you were sent away the Gestapo watched him day and night. We knew he was being used as bait. We had to split up. It was impossible to hold a meeting. Spies were everywhere. Things got so bad we couldn’t even recognize each other when we passed on the street. Wolfgang was a contact. Finally ... we had to tell him to stop trying to see us. It was the only way to survive. Ulrich ... spare yourself the rest of this ...”
“Go on.”
“When the plot was made against Hitler, Wolfgang became involved and he got many of the old comrades involved. His job was to print the proclamations that Hitler was dead and to get them posted around Berlin with the announcement of the new government. The plot failed. Hitler went insane with vengeance. Wolfgang was among the first dragged into a People’s Court. You know the procedure.”
“Was there no one who spoke for him? Not a single German voice!”
“In many ways, Ulrich, it was better you were in Schwabenwald. You will never know how totally crushed we were.”
There was no use to berate Hollweg, only pity him. “And what of you, Berthold?”
“We lost our son on the Russian front. Me? I went from one job to another, each time hounded by spies and the Gestapo. I was forced to reduce my existence. In the end I was a doorman at the Adlon Hotel, but even there the Gestapo thought I saw too many important people come and go. I found my true niche in life as guardian of the men’s toilet at