SURVIVORS’ CAMP #10, SOUTH OF POTSDAM, GERMANY, 1711 HOURS GMT
Heinrich Himmler woke up as the truck lurched to a stop. It took him a moment to recover his bearings, and he was about to order his men to be more gentle. Then he saw the rounded, flat-bottomed helmets, and knew that he was still a prisoner of the Americans. Day after day he had awoken, thinking that his imprisonment was merely a bad dream, that he would find himself once again master of Germany.
For months of interrogations he had strung his captors along, especially the young, guilt-ridden Sanger, with his pitiful sympathy for the Jews. His weakness had been so easy to exploit, so easy to manipulate. The Allies were now willing to settle for “truth,” as they termed it, and so his life would be spared. He could plan and wait, and look for an opportunity, a crack in their defenses, the inevitable moment when their attention would be focused on the threat from the East, and then he would be free once again.
Calm,
he told himself. They are inferior mongrels, almost as bad as Jews—they must not see his fear. But where had they brought him? Why had they come to a halt?
He was confused. For more than a day he had been driven along by these American captors, and he didn’t understand why they had not yet delivered him to some higher headquarters, some special prison. And he was in the hands of relatively low-ranking soldiers with only a few vehicles in his escort—an insult for a man of his stature. If he had only known they would be this stupid, he could already have had his rescue waiting for him.
“Why are we stopping?” he demanded, when he saw Sanger—it was always Sanger—getting down from the truck cab. The sergeant who had been riding with him—a black man, posted, he was certain, as an intentional indignity—took his time releasing the handcuffs, then pushed him none too gently toward the dim light at the back of the truck.
“There’s some people here we’d like you to meet,” Sanger replied cheerfully. “Why don’t you come along this way?”
It was daylight, Himmler saw. Although he wouldn’t admit it to Sanger, he was grateful for the chance to get out and stretch. He needed to relieve the pressure on his bladder, perhaps even coax something to eat from his captors.
He stepped awkwardly to the ground and walked around the side of the
truck, then froze as he saw the tall gates, the guard towers, the barbed wire fences stretching to the right and left. The fence was lined with gaunt people, unshaven and filthy, staring at him in eerie silence.
“I accompanied Field Marshal Rommel into Buchenwald. I stopped him from shooting a couple of your Totenkopf-SS guards, though I was tempted to shoot them myself. I wanted their testimony. The story of what you and yours did will shame humanity for all time,” Sanger said as he walked.
“Yes, yes, yes,” said Himmler. “You’ve told me that story already. You’ve told me again and again and again. Do you think I’m the Pope and I’m going to canonize you or something?” He laughed at his own wit. “I did what I did because it was right for Germany, and nothing you can do can undo a single act of mine. That’s what strength is, by the way. You’ll never understand that, Sanger, not if you live to be a hundred. You’ll never know what it’s like to be a man. You ran out on us Germans like a little crybaby the first time you gave some old Jew
ein awah
—” Himmler’s mocking use of the baby term for an injury, a “boo-boo,” was the sort of insult he regularly used to belittle Sanger’s sentimentality and weakness, as he saw it. “—and you expect
me
to be impressed by that? Or by these rag-tag old Jews you’ve got locked up over there? I’ve seen Jews in cages before, Sanger. Remember? I put them there.”
“I remember,” Sanger said.
“So you’ve got a few leftovers that didn’t make it into the gas chambers in time. The sad thing is that they’ll breed like vermin and Germans of the future will just have to finish the job we started. That’s the only thing I really regret, Sanger. I didn’t get to finish the job.”
Sanger looked at the camp inmates. “This is a survivors’ camp,” Sanger said to Himmler. “Not like your camps, of course—we actually are feeding these people, giving them coal and clothing against the elements, and providing medical treatment. But they know what it was like in your camps. Many of these came from Buchenwald, others from camps in the East. This is one of the areas where we’re actually successfully cooperating with the Soviets, you know.”
“How wonderful.” Himmler laughed. “The Slavs are sending you some leftover Jews. Even they don’t want them.”
One of the Americans, a short major with murderous eyes, snarled something at the führer.
“Oh—pardon my manners,” said Sanger. “This is Major Smiggs of the U.S. Nineteenth Armored Division. He particularly wanted to be introduced. He was one of the officers of the task force that captured you.”
“How nice for him. He got a medal, I presume?”
“Oh, yes, and a promotion, though I suspect neither of us will be keeping our military rank much longer.”
For the first time, Himmler felt a momentary shiver as he looked up into
Sanger’s face. Sanger was calm and smiling as he looked toward the camp. “As you know, the Western Allies have created a new organization called the United Nations, and one of their first official roles will be taking custody of international criminals such as yourself. Transfer arrangements have been made, and you are to be remanded to them.”
“Yes, yes, I know all that,” Himmler said impatiently.
“They’ve been notified to pick you up here.”
“And where are they?”
“They’ll be here first thing tomorrow morning.” Sanger’s smile widened slightly. “There seems to have been a slight mixup in the paperwork.” He nodded toward the major.
Himmler started to fight then, turning to run for the woods until Major Smiggs took his arm in a grip like a vise. Himmler shrieked and squirmed in that grip, but the American—who was not large, but was very determined—simply dragged him over to the camp’s main entry. Sanger motioned the MPs out of the way and opened the gates himself so that no one else participated in the act.
Pushing the second and final Führer of the Third Reich forward, Smiggs said something in English, something Himmler couldn’t understand.
“Smiggs wants you to know that this is for the children of Buchenwald,” Sanger said, as the major pushed Heinrich Himmler through the gates to sprawl on the muddy ground. The gates slammed shut, and the prisoners moved forward.
“Wait!” cried Himmler, scrambling to his knees in the cold mud. “Sanger, be reasonable! You can’t do this! You’ll be court-martialed! Listen, we can work something out! I have a lot of information—I can tell you things—don’t walk away like that—come back! You can’t! Sanger, please! Don’t do this! I’ll make it worth your while! Turn around, Sanger! Talk to me!”
As the prisoners closed in on him, Himmler started to scream.
It was a noise that went on for a very long time.