Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [172]
And then they came to Rombaden, where the plum was to be the Romstein Machine Works.
They arrived in a convoy of cars late in the afternoon and before receiving billets went to the Rathaus to the offices of the military governor and the Oberburgermeister for the official welcome. At first a few curious people gathered at sight of the Russians. Then the word spread that Major O’Sullivan had returned.
Within minutes hundreds of people had poured from the buildings on the square and the city band was hastily assembled. When they all left the mayor’s office they were greeted by a rendition of “God Bless America”—in waltz time.
Igor and his Russian companions were stunned by what was happening. They knew by now that O’Sullivan disliked Germans intensely and had been a stern master. What a strange welcome for a conqueror!
The spontaneous outpouring continued. School children paraded before him on the Rathaus steps, bowed, and curtsied, and the portico became filled with bouquets of flowers. Everyone wanted to shake Major O’Sullivan’s hand.
Then beer barrels rolled in on horse-drawn brew wagons and an impromptu festival took place right on the spot.
General Lipski allowed his group to mellow a bit. As Igor watched the folk dancing he remembered his dozens of trips to East German cities, where all that ever greeted him was fear. And as the Germans nodded and bowed and smiled to O’Sullivan he remembered the look of hatred in the eyes of the Polish people in Warsaw.
O’Sullivan was intimate with the destruction of the Machine Works. Russian agents had sent back false reports.
The tour went on. Knowing now that the original briefings in Frankfurt would be borne out, the Russians began to relax.
Darmstadt: September 11, 1944. RAF raid. 300 planes dropped multi-thousand incendiaries in 45 minutes gutting 72% of the city and turning it into an inferno. It took a week for the place to cool off.
Mainz: Rail center and arteries destroyed. Center of city a mass of brooding stone.
Offenbach: 60% destroyed. 93% of war-effort factories destroyed.
Kassel: Wartime armaments factories made it a priority for Allied bombers. Not even Berlin took such a pounding for its size. Inner city entirely leveled.
And so it went in one city after another. The political section of the group spoke among themselves about the efficiency of American Military Government, the de-Nazifying procedures, the new legal codes and the speed of open elections.
Wiesbaden. The inspection of the American Zone was coming to an end. Now they saw an undamaged German city. And this, too, made a mark on Igor Karlovy. It was a great, plush old spa of sumptuous beauty, the likes of which he had never seen, something he had believed existed only for czars. The Taunus Mountains looked down on lush forests and the people had bathed in spas from the times of the Romans. Seeing this unspoiled place enabled Igor to put together bits of the ancient German culture that he had seen in the jigsaw of rubble.
At the Schierstein Harbor they boarded the yacht City of Cologne, which once belonged to Adolf Hitler, and sailed down the Rhine to the little sporting town of Rüdesheim and docked. Here the full splendor of that fabled river revealed itself. The Watch on the Rhine, the statue of Germania, stood high above the magnificent terraced vineyards.
German school children gathered to sing a welcome in their high-pitched voices. They sang the traditional “Lorelei” and the village dancers and band and singers added their odes to the ethereal beauty of the Rhine.
This was a side of Germany Igor Karlovy had never known. In the warmth and sentimentality of their songs, so like his own, he realized there was something in the German character other than brutality and militarism. How puzzling! But after all, did he not love a German woman? Had he not seen these things in her?
After an elegant banquet at the centuries-old mansion of Krone they tasted the wines at Castle Crass. As ancient wine-tasting ceremonies ensued, the party loosened up, and then