Europe Central (47 page)

I believe you, Andrei, she’d wearily replied. You don’t have to argue the matter with me. But please lower your voice; somebody might be listening . . .

No, General, they have their honor, Boyarsky had insisted in turn. There’s a positive mist of propaganda in this war; it obscures everything! I won’t deny that reprisals were taken against a few Yids right here in Vinnitsa, but their cases got thoroughly investigated beforehand. I’ve been told that they were all Stalin’s hangmen.

But women and children—

It wasn’t like you think. They’re all partisans! And it was humanely done. When the Jews saw how easy it was to be executed, they ran to the pits of their own free will. After all, have
you
been tortured here? If not, then how can you assume that they were coerced in any way? Just think about that. And these
whom everybody keeps complaining about, they’re actually quite noble in their way. You know how an
-man takes out one of our K.V. II tanks? I’ve seen it myself. First he shoots off a tread. Then he charges right up and plants a grenade inside the muzzle of the cannon! You have to admit—

Let’s be rational, Vlasov interrupted him. Nobody runs to get shot unless—

I know it’s hard to explain. So let me ask you something else:
Do you want to live without hope?

I beg your pardon?

General Vlasov, until the war’s over we won’t be able to calculate the number of victims on both sides. But think back on the purges of ’37—

But—

Excuse me, General! Think back on the mass arrests, the horrors of collectivization, the disastrous and utterly unnecessary casualties of the Finnish War. How would you sum all that up?

In a quiet earnest voice Vlasov replied:
Lack of realism.

(And indeed, it had always struck him as not only unrealistic but unreal. He seemed to see his wife, brown-eyed queen of his integrity, feebly rising up from her bed of illness to say: Can you be sure? Andrei, did you
see
Stalin’s men murder all those millions? Can you live with yourself if you’re wrong?)

All right, Boyarsky was insisting. And wouldn’t it be
realistic
to hope that the other side might be better? Because the side we come from is so impossibly evil—

As it turned out, the man with the white death’s head wasn’t Second Lieutenant Dürken at all, only a sort of doorkeeper. He inspected the pass which the guard presented, signed a receipt for Vlasov, and led him into a waiting room, where he indicated a bench. Both of them sat down. Feeling intimidated, Vlasov would not have launched any conversation, but his keeper kept looking him up and down with bemusement and finally said: General Vlasov, we have something in common. You survived and defended yourself in the Volkhov pocket. I myself was surrounded by your armies at Demyansk!

That would have been our Eleventh, our Thirty-fourth, and then our First Shock Army . . .

That’s correct. You commanded Second Shock Army, I believe?

I—yes.

Fanatical fighters! laughed the
-man. You put a lot of pressure on us even after we forced you to the defensive!

Thank you . . .

Don’t be despondent, General. You may be a Slav, but I respect you as a man. Care for a smoke?

Yes, please.

I’m curious. A shock army is what exactly?

An instrument of breakthrough, Vlasov replied a little stiffly.

Ah. The Lieutenant is almost ready to see you. He didn’t have time to finish reading your file until now. He feels that preparation is especially important in a case like this.

What exactly do you mean?

The Lieutenant will see you now.

And he led Vlasov into a room which was painted white.

Second Lieutenant Dürken did not rise. Smiling, he said that he was quite ready to grant Vlasov’s men the status of
semi-allies.

I must request that you clarify, said Vlasov, feeling all his apprehensions return.

In due course. I see here that you joined the Communist Party in 1930, General. Did you take that step out of political conviction?

At that time, yes.

In other words, your present attitude may or may not be different. All right. We’ll get to that. I’m very interested in Communism as a phenomenon. How about you, General?

I don’t know what you mean.

Your form of rule was discredited long ago by Plato. In the
Republic
he points out that true democracy is mob rule. And that’s what you Slavs have. Why do you think we were able to conquer you so quickly? Because mob rule purged the best thinkers in your officer corps!

I beg to disagree, Vlasov replied. Those purges were organized by the Soviet leadership—

That’s not important. The point is that unlike our system, Communism leaves no place for individual merit. I’ve heard that you admire General Guderian. Well, we Germans also give credit where credit is due. Some of us don’t mind calling your Tukhachevsky a genius, even though—well, it was out of
fear
of his genius that you shot him. We would have made him a Field-Marshal!

I myself have often wished we’d followed his line with respect to tank development—

Ah, you use his name, General Vlasov, but can you quote him? No doubt the tyrannical Jewish-Bolshevik regime—

With an ironic smile, the Russian recited:
It is necessary to observe the promise of privileged treatment to those who surrender voluntarily with their arms.

Oh, he said that? Hm. Perhaps he wasn’t ruthless enough for today. Anyway, you shot him.

Lieutenant, it wasn’t I who pulled the trigger!

Of course it’s
never
anyone in particular! But does Stalin really exist, or is he just the convenient projection for a hive of Jews?

He exists, all right. I’ve met him. These are very peculiar things you’re saying, said Vlasov in a tone of exasperated pride. And, if you don’t mind my saying so, you haven’t conquered Russia as of yet.

Oh, come. Leningrad and Moscow may hold out another six months, but what then? You’ve been known to say that yourself! Most of your high-quality elements were destroyed long before we came. Consider yourself fortunate, General, that you were captured in time to be saved . . .

What do you truly want?

We want a democracy of the best, a society in which all aristocrats are free and equal, so that they’ll give their best to the State. Imagine an officer corps with free rein! No more purges . . .

And everyone else?

Serfs, of course. For now, we need them for their productive value. Later on, when robots can take their places, we won’t require them for anything.

You’ll exterminate them?

Of course not. We’ll let them share in our accomplishments, as long as they obey us unconditionally. The measures which we’re obliged to take in wartime are simple self-defensive necessity.

Is it true that you’re shooting all the Jews?

Propaganda! They’re all being resettled in labor camps to help the war effort. But let’s not waste time talking about those vermin—

Vlasov hesitated. Then a bitter smile traversed his face. Between thumb and forefinger he began turning and turning a certain memory-token: Geco, 7.65 millimeter.

In the end, he could not bring himself to cooperate with Second Lieutenant Dürken, whose attack upon his moral defenses had lacked depth and evinced a vulgarly linear character. But at the urging of Colonel Boyarsky, he wrote a letter directly to the Reich, requesting permission to establish an autonomous Russian National Army. It’s said that when the authorities received it, they adorned its margins with exclamation points.

11

At last the enigmatic organization Fremde Heere Ost dispatched one of its own, a certain Captain Wilfried Strik-Strikfeldt, who was to play a crucial role in the Vlasov game—indeed, he might have been more important than Vlasov himself. As it happened, Strik-Strikfeldt was a Baltic German who’d been to university in Saint Petersburg. Our Führer teaches that blood calls to blood; and in this case racial kinship did facilitate the project. With his wry, half-ruthless smile, his merrily narrowed eyes and clean high forehead, his military crewcut and naked ears, Strik-Strikfeldt achieved a dashing appearance. Vlasov liked him at once.

Sitting alertly in chairs made of crooked birch-limbs, enjoying the July days on the dusty plain of Vinnitsa, they faced one another across the long table. Beside each of them sat German officers with their military caps on, and then at the next table, which was well within earshot, a German in dark glasses pretended to be reading a newspaper while a female stenographer typed everything. Behind her, the log cabin barracks lay sleepily silent, and trees rose all around.

Strik-Strikfeldt had already begun to feel like a new-made American millionaire. This Russian general was decent, intelligent, capable, and ready to be guided by somebody who didn’t make Dürken’s mistakes.
Vlasov spoke openly,
he remarks in his memoirs,
and I did also, insofar as my oath of service permitted me.

How peculiar life is! he remarked. I fought in the Imperial Russian Army and now I’m serving on the German General Staff. Sometimes I can hardly catch my breath—

Vlasov smiled sadly, eyeing the lyre-like decorations on his dark collar, and the German eagle below.

Not really disconcerted, Strik-Strikfeldt continued: My dear fellow, do you think Stalin would have allowed me to enlist as the lowest private in the Soviet Army?
Eight grams
was what he would have fed me. Eight grams of lead—

I suppose you’ve seen my memorandum, said Vlasov, a little impatiently.

To be sure. A number of us have studied it. Have I mentioned that before the war I used to run a business in Riga? Don’t think I’m indifferent to Mother Russia! And let me tell you something.
Now is the time,
when the territorial situation is so fluid, to push through certain measures. I swear to you, we can make good all Russia’s losses . . .

Clasping his hands, Vlasov replied in a harsh voice: Only if I put human values before nationalist values would I be justified in accepting your aid against the Kremlin.

My, my, but he goes straight to the point! I admire your earnestness, General. Well, we have several issues to discuss, but it’s not impossible that I can help you.

Vlasov waited, perceptibly anxious.

First of all, we need to know your attitude on the subject of the Stalin government. I suppose you’ve suffered—

The Soviet regime has brought me no personal disadvantages, said Vlasov flatly.

Ah.

The tall Russian sat glowering at him, so Strik-Strikfeldt, who was very cunning in such situations, said: And doubtless you were given every assistance and reasonable orders in carrying out your command—

Wilfried Karlovich, at Przemysl and at Lvov my corps was attacked, held its ground and was ready to counterattack, but my proposals were rejected. At Kiev we were commanded to hold almost to the last man, to no purpose except to hide the vanity and incompetence of our leadership; you know as well as I how many thousands died as a result. When they refused to allow Second Shock Army to pull out of the Volkhov pocket while there was still time, that decision murdered more and more and
more
—