‘We’re trying to find out why my mother visited one of your father’s buildings in the 1960s,’ he said, moving on.
‘And we’re hoping the answer lies somewhere in your father’s past,’ Jean added. ‘Maybe in connection with a wanted war criminal called Volker Strobel.’
‘Ah, Der D?mon von Dachau,’ Rudi said with a flash of his eyebrows.
Tayte imagined Rudi’s father would have told him about his wartime friend, although he thought it likely that most people living in Munich had at least heard of Volker Strobel.
‘Your father was telling us about himself and his friendship with Strobel before the war,’ Tayte said. ‘I was hoping you could tell us a little more about that time. Has your father spoken to you much about the war years?’
‘Very little,’ Rudi said. ‘And not lately. I think you’ll find that most veterans of the Second World War don’t really like to talk about it.’
‘Your father seemed quite keen,’ Jean said.
‘Well, that’s something new. Perhaps it’s because he believes he’s not long for this world.’
‘We’d appreciate anything you can tell us,’ Tayte said.
Rudi stopped walking beside a gilt-framed landscape painting of a rolling cornfield with a distant windmill by a stream. He gazed at it as though trying to recall some of the things his father had told him about the war years. A moment later, he said, ‘I know my father was wounded quite badly. That was in 1941, I think he said. On the Eastern Front.’ He smiled to himself. ‘But they say every dark cloud has a silver lining, and I remember him telling me that something very good came out of it.’
Chapter Thirteen North of Romanovka, Ukraine. The Eastern Front. July 1941.
The hail of bullets from machine-gun fire arrived without warning, splintering tree and bone without prejudice or distinction.
‘Medic! Medic!’
Johann’s cries went unanswered in the chaos that quickly erupted around him. To his right, his sergeant, a young Unterscharführer who had only recently been assigned to him, fell to his knees as blood began to spread across the shoulder of his camouflage smock. A moment later, another bullet caught the side of his head and spun him around to face Johann, the wide-eyed look of anguish and terror frozen on his face as he went down. Johann dived for the cover of a fallen tree, knowing no medic could save the man now.
A cry went up. ‘Ivans! Right flank!’
‘Fire at will!’ Johann called.
Shots were quickly returned, and the brr-brr of the machine gun that had taken the young Unterscharführer sounded again, sending splinters of wood showering over his head.
‘Scheisse!’ Johann knew he had to find better cover, and soon.
Having survived multiple engagements on the Western Front since he’d been sent into action in May the previous year, Johann had come to be regarded as an ‘old hare’ by his Kameraden—even though he was barely twenty-three years old. Now the Leibstandarte had been called upon to assist with Operation Barbarossa in the east—the Ostfront, and Johann had welcomed the opportunity to play his part in defeating communism.
The Leibstandarte, as part of Army Group South under Feldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt, had smashed through the Stalin Line at Mirupol, heading towards Zhitomir amidst growing Soviet Army resistance and torrential rain that had rendered the roads so boggy they quickly became unusable. Forced to head across country, the Reconnaissance Battalion had spearheaded the advance, but Johann and his small company had pushed so fast and so deep into enemy territory that they were soon detached from their main division, which, because of the weather and the terrain, had been unable to keep up.
‘Obersturmführer!’
Johann was still getting used to his recent promotion to First Lieutenant. He rolled onto his side and then crawled on his elbows through the wet woodland ferns towards the rifleman who had called to him as bullets fizzed through the canopy above him. He recognised the rifleman’s voice. It was Schütze Hartmann—a green recruit, fresh from the Hitlerjugend. Johann had thought the experience would be good for him, but he had not anticipated encountering such a fierce Soviet counter-attack so soon.
‘Hartmann, how many are with you?’
‘None, Obersturmführer. What should I do?’
Gunfire was being exchanged to his right and further ahead in the direction his unit had been travelling. He chanced a look above the ferns and saw Sturmmann Sachs with two more Schützen beside him: a machine-gun crew who were making ready their MG34. That was good, Johann thought, but he needed to draw the enemy’s fire, if only to buy them a few more seconds.
‘Hartmann, hold your position,’ Johann called. ‘Return fire!’