Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [197]
The next morning Azov fell back on years of experience to cover his fears.
Captain Brusilov admonished him for allowing the Soviet Union to get tricked into the labor election. “It is obvious,” Brusilov said, “the German people don’t know what is good for them so their votes are meaningless. Otherwise, they would have never allowed Hitler.”
Azov was further berated for failure to drive the West out of Berlin, but as he spoke he revealed that there was further use for the commissar. Azov breathed easier, knowing he would live a while longer.
“Our sacred mission is to collapse morale of the West before the Foreign Ministers’ Conference next month. The Western ministers must arrive in Berlin realizing that it is a Soviet city.”
Any last pretenses for the benefit of the German people that four-power unity remained was destroyed by a massive assault on the West with the Americans coming in for the heaviest battering. The People’s Radio and the Russian newspapers spearheaded the drive with the planting of rumors and the hurling of falsehoods.
THE NEW ARCHITECTS OF FASCISM, THE ILLEGAL COLONEL HAZZARD AND THE CORRUPT GENERAL HANSEN!
Stories were printed about their “sordid” past and their current secret work on behalf of the rebirth of Nazism. Ugly cartoons depicting them as savages and animals found a daily place on the editorial pages.
SS WAR CRIMINALS FIND SAFETY AND REWARDS IN THE WESTERN ZONE!
NAZI BEASTS FILL WESTERN GOVERNMENTS!
MURDERERS RUN GERMAN POLICE IN AMERICAN ZONE!
IMPERIALISTS USE NAZI OFFICERS TO REBUILD SS FOR A WAR OF REVENGE!
After each session of the Kommandatura, Nikolai Trepovitch printed his version of the proceedings in a column which carried such headlines:
WEST BLOCKS HOT MEALS FOR GERMAN WORKERS!
HAZZARD DELAYS HOUSING PROGRAM!
WEST ADMITS IT IS AGAINST UNIFICATION!
In the Soviet Sector of Berlin, thousands upon thousands of signs covered the walls. Bombed-out buildings wore red banners reading:
THIS BUILDING WAS DESTROYED BY AMERICAN BOMBS. IT MUST NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN.
The Soviet Union advanced the theory that their Zone of Germany had selected communism and their Germans were therefore redeemed and had purged themselves of guilt in the Nazi era. On the other hand, the West which now fostered Nazism stood guilty for all of Hitler’s doings.
The newspapers carried front-page stories and photographs of lynchings in the South, child labor in factories, Chicago gangster murders, race riots, skid row bums, labor strife, Hollywood orgies, poverty-stricken Oklahoma farmers, American backing of South American dictatorships, and oriental war lords. The Western decadence of Henry Miller and boogie-woogie, prostitution in New York, and the striptease joints of New Orleans all came in for special beratings.
This attack was paralleled by stories depicting happy Soviet workers on their collective farms building the socialist future. Social realism in art and literature was displayed alongside the corruptions of Picasso and Hemingway.
The stage was elaborately set in Berlin for a move on the West before the Foreign Ministers’ Conference.
Chapter Twenty-nine
A NEW PLAYGROUND HAD been bulldozed from a rubble-strewn square in Zehlendorf. A baseball team of German boys, trained by GI’s under the youth program, played a team of Americans from the garrison families. Neal Hazzard umpired.
The ball ground was surrounded by curious Germans. In the second inning Hazzard called a particularly bad and obvious decision against the Americans to keep the score within bounds.
The American boys ganged around him screaming in protest. Both German team and spectators were astonished at this defiance of authority ... against Colonel Hazzard, no less. Fortunately, Colonel Hazzard won the argument and the game resumed.
Between innings Lieutenant Colonel O’Sullivan drove up in a staff car. “The Russians have seized the Railroad Administration Building.”
Hazzard looked baffled. It was deep inside the American Sector. “Hansen know about this?”
“He’s on the way