Armageddon - Max Hastings [322]
The British buried 23,000 bodies on the site of Belsen, and evacuated a further 28,900 people, of whom 2,006 were already dead. One of the doctors who went to the camp in British uniform was by birth a German Jew. This man, Dr. A. R. Horwell, wrote to his wife: “The phrase ‘that’s what we are fighting for’ never had so deep meaning for me . . .” Horwell watched each mass grave being filled in, and a sign placed on it “Grave No. 8 1000 bodies. 30 April 1945.” A few days later, in a British officers’ mess, he was deeply moved to find himself among a group “where there is no sign of discrimination, and where the Jewish padres were the most honoured guests. It made me realise it again: it was worthwhile to be in this war, it is an honour and distinction to wear this uniform.” His wife had expressed her fears for his safety among the German people. He responded: “darling love, I must restrain myself, for fear to become too emotional. I can’t help it, darling; it is a great thing to be back here after all these years—and after all these immense sufferings inflicted upon us and our people, to be here with the victorious army . . . I am very happy tonight, and sad at the same time. Happy, because I have survived, one of the few to see this day; and sad, because I am of the few—so few.” “At Belsen, I felt a curious elation,” said Dr. David Tibbs. “Looking at all these terrible things, I thought: ‘Here is the justification for this war, for all the lives we have lost, for everything we’ve been through.’ ”
At 1640 on the afternoon of 25 April, a reconnaissance group of the U.S. 69th Division met men of the Soviet 58th Guards Division at Torgau on the Elbe. The scenes of warm greetings between allies, filmed by a host of cameramen and screened in cinemas across the Western world, masked a much harsher reality. “Take no initiative in organizing friendly meetings,” a stern order from the Soviet front commanders warned all units. “Where meetings do take place, behave in a friendly way, but inform commanders immediately, and give no information about operational plans or unit objectives.” An American corps commander found his Soviet counterpart eager to toast the armies of Roosevelt, and sought in vain to convince the Russian that Roosevelt was dead. Beria’s representatives were soon reporting instances of “suspicious remarks” by Americans, including that of a U.S. officer who allegedly spoke disrespectfully about the competence of Soviet artillerymen. A British officer complained to the Russians about the treatment of some liberated British prisoners who were savagely interrogated by the Red Army before being thrown into a pigsty with German PoWs. The Russians replied icily that this letter was “grossly impolite, and that if any further such communications were received, they would not be answered.”
Yet statesmanship demanded a loftier vision of the junction at Torgau between the crusaders for freedom and the agents of tyranny. “After long journeys, toils and victories across the land and oceans; across many deadly battlefields, the Armies of the great Allies have traversed Germany and have joined hands together,” said Churchill in a broadcast that night. “Now, their task will be the destruction of all remnants of German military resistance, the rooting out of the Nazi power and the subjugation of Hitler’s Reich.” Field-Marshal von Paulus, surveying the ruin of his country from a Soviet prison cell, observed contemptuously: “If the British and Americans had not dilly-dallied so much, we could have got this whole thing over a great deal sooner.”
ELEVENTH HOUR
BETWEEN THE ELBE and the Oder, the civilians of Hitler’s shrunken dominions awaited their fate in a curious state of submission, even paralysis. “Berlin never seemed so peaceful to me as in the April days before the commencement of the battle,” wrote Paul von Stemann, the Danish journalist, “girls dressed up for spring, little real work left to do, streets empty of traffic.” Robert Ley, Hitler’s labour minister, penned an article for