Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [149]
“Now, Comrade Hirsch, why are the Americans and British here?”
“As a symbolic token.”
“Ask ten Americans what they are doing in Berlin and you will get ten different answers. Most don’t know. However, we do know.”
Hirsch became irritated as the dialogue of justification continued.
“If Berlin is not evacuated by the West it will turn into an outpost of spying against us,” Azov said. “And the longer they remain the greater the risk of building Germany for a war of revenge.”
“How do we serve our purpose by stocking our own bins with Nazis?”
Azov smiled, and kept walking around a trap. “This question has been pondered by the Politburo of the Communist Party, by Comrade Stalin, by our great dialecticians. We realize that the Nazis are so deep in every phase of German life that we cannot carry on normal functions without using them. At the moment, the West is our greatest enemy. You yourself worked at persuading German prisoners over to the anti-Fascist bloc.”
“Using common soldiers and officers is one thing. Using SS men and hiding wanted Nazi war criminals is another.”
Hirsch was neither to be convinced nor bullied. He was adamant.
“Many Nazis,” Azov said, “are truly repentant about their past. They have seen the light through Communism.”
They have saved their asses through Communism! Anger began to gnaw at Hirsch. He knew now he had to keep his tongue from wagging further. The whole sordid business was becoming a windfall for hundreds of Nazis all over the Soviet Zone. If the Nazi could be of use, there was a simple formality to purge him of his past. The Russians knew they would be willing workers for the Communists for their past records were held over their heads as blackmail.
Azov saw the young man was backing off, and applied the final wisdoms. “We who believe in world Communism must overlook a few injustices in the light of the over-all aspirations.”
Heinrich’s eyes flashed black. Those were Hitler’s words and the Nazis’ excuse to justify criminal behavior and genocide. But what was so different? Hadn’t the Soviet Union always found an excuse for purges, deportations, privations? Hadn’t the excuse always been that it was justified for the great goal? Hirsch packed his notes quickly and left.
The exchange continued to annoy the commissar. He knew that Heinrich Hirsch was disciplined to realize the consequences of challenging a Moscow decision. But Hirsch had done the same thing earlier in protesting the removal of war reparations and he knew Hirsch had gone to Marshal Popov regarding the behavior of the Red Army upon entering Berlin.
Azov wondered what this strange blind spot was in the man that gave him the effrontery to break party discipline.
For a long time he had sensed this flaw in Hirsch’s character, felt he gave too much loyalty to being a German. He smelled that Hirsch was groping for independent German thought and action. This touched upon the two cardinal sins of nationalism and deviationism.
Yet, Azov was reluctant to take measures against him. He was the most brilliant member of the German Liberation Committee—Adolph Schatz was a clod and a bully, Heinz Eck a pawn. Rudi Wöhlman was clever and a good organizer but never added new ideas for he was determined only to please and to stay out of controversy.
But Hirsch had ingenuity, was sharp in analyzing the West, was brilliant. Yet, the damned blind spot was there, a flaw in his strain. He is half Jew, Azov thought, all Jew by character. Stalin had an uncommon suspicion of Jews. Azov recalled many a night he was summoned to Stalin’s villa and handed a list of Jews to purge. Stalin had an intuition about Jews. But, for the time, Hirsch was needed.
Heinrich Hirsch ordered his chauffeur to drive him to People’s Proletariat Party Headquarters.
He damned himself for not holding his mouth. The entire discussion was an invitation to receive a knock on the door in the middle of the night. Yet, he was unable to contain himself,