The Kindly Ones

The Reichsfürer also took advantage of the occasion to introduce to us the SS-Brigadeführer and Generalmajor der Polizei Dr. Thomas, who had come with him to replace Dr. Rasch as the head of the Einsatzgruppe. Rasch, in fact, had left Kiev on the second day of the action, without even saying goodbye: Thomas, as always, had anticipated events correctly. Rumors were flying: people speculated about his conflict with Koch; some said he had collapsed during the action. Dr. Thomas, who had the Iron Cross and spoke French, English, Greek, and Latin, was cast in a different mold: a doctor specializing in psychiatry, he had left his practice for the SD in 1934, out of idealism and National Socialist convictions. I quickly had occasion to get to know him better, since as soon as he arrived he began visiting all the offices of the Group and the Kommandos and talking individually with the officers. He seemed especially concerned with the psychological troubles of the men and officers: as he explained to us, in the presence of the Leiter from Ek 5 who was taking over my caseload, and of several other SD officers, it was impossible for a sane man to be exposed to such situations for months on end without suffering aftereffects, sometimes very serious ones. In Latvia, in Einsatzgruppe A, an Untersturmführer had gone mad and killed several other officers before he himself was shot; this case profoundly worried Himmler and the hierarchy, and the Reichsführer had asked Dr. Thomas, on whom his old specialty conferred a particular sensitivity to the problem, to recommend some measures. The Brigadeführer quickly promulgated an unusual order: all those who could no longer force themselves to kill Jews, either out of a sense of conscience or out of weakness, should present themselves to the Gruppenstab to have other tasks assigned to them or even to be sent back to Germany. This order gave rise to lively discussions among the officers; some thought that recognizing your weakness officially in this way would leave damaging traces in your personal file, and would limit any chance for promotion; others, on the contrary, declared they were ready to take Dr. Thomas at his word, and asked to leave. Still others, like Lübbe, were transferred without having asked for anything, on the advice of doctors from the Kommandos. Things were slowing down a little. For my report I had decided, rather than just delivering a stack of photographs, to make a display album. That turned out to be quite a job. One of our Orpos, an amateur photographer, had taken several rolls of color film during the executions, and also had the chemicals to develop them; I had some equipment requisitioned for him from a small photographer’s studio so he could prepare prints of his best pictures for me. I also collected some black-and-white photographs and had all our reports dealing with the action copied on good paper, provided by the supply officer of the Twenty-ninth Corps. A clerk from the Stab wrote out captions and a title page in his fine official script, with The Great Action of Kiev as a title, and in smaller letters, Reports and Documents, with the dates. Among the specialized Arbeitsjuden kept in the new Syrets Lager, I unearthed an old leatherworker who had restored books for some Party offices and even made fancy albums for a conference; von Radomski, the camp commander, lent him to me for a few days, and with some black leather found among the confiscated goods, he bound the reports and the pages of photographs for me, in a cover embossed with the insignia “Sk 4a.” Then I presented the book to Blobel. He was delighted; he leafed through it, went into raptures over the binding and the calligraphy: “Oh, I’d so like to have one too, as a souvenir.” He congratulated me and assured me it would be given to the Reichsfürer, and even shown to the Führer himself; the whole Kommando could take great pride from it. I don’t think he thought of this album as I did: for him, it was a trophy; for me, it was a bitter remembrance, a solemn reminder. I discussed it that night with a new acquaintance, an engineer from the Wehrmacht named Osnabrugge. I had met him in the officers’ Kasino, when he had offered me a drink; he had turned out to be an interesting man, and I liked talking with him. I spoke to him about the album and he had this curious thought: “Every man must do his work with love.” Osnabrugge was a graduate of a polytechnic university in the Rhineland, specializing in bridge construction; his vocation fascinated him, and he spoke eloquently about it: “You understand, I was trained with a sense of cultural mission. A bridge is a literal and material contribution to the community; it creates new roads, new links. And also, it’s a beautiful thing. Not just to look at: if only you could understand the poetry of the calculations, the tensions and forces, the arches and cables, how it’s all balanced by the play of mathematics!” He himself, however, had never built a bridge: he had drawn up some plans, but none had been realized. Then the Wehrmacht had sent him here to assess the bridge destructions carried out by the Soviets. “It’s fascinating, really. Just as no bridge is ever built in the same way, no bridge blows up in the same way. There are always surprises, it’s very instructive. But still, it pains me to see it. They’re such fine works. If you like, I can show you.” I accepted with pleasure; I had some free time now. He made an appointment with me at the foot of the largest of the destroyed bridges over the Dnieper, and I found him there one morning. “It’s really impressive,” he commented, examining the debris, hands on hips, motionless. This immense metal bridge with arches, built just under the cliffs of Pechersk, rested on five massive stone pillars; three whole spans were in the water, cut clean off by the explosives; across the river, two sections were still standing. The corps of engineers was building a floating bridge right next to it, with girders and wooden beams thrown across large inflatable boats; they had already reached almost halfway across. In the meantime, traffic was carried by means of barges, and a crowd was waiting on the bank, soldiers and civilians. Osnabrugge had a motor boat. We went round the pontoon bridge being built and he slowly drew alongside the twisted girders of the collapsed bridge. “You see,” he showed me, pointing at the pillars, “there they even brought down the supporting arch, but over there they didn’t. Actually it wasn’t necessary, all they had to do was blow the load-bearing elements and all the rest would have come straight down. They overdid it.”—“What about the pillars?”—“They’re all good, except maybe the one in the middle. We’re still checking it. Anyway we’ll definitely rebuild it, but not right away.” I looked around while Osnabrugge pointed out more details. At the top of the wooded cliffs, transformed by autumn into an orange-and-yellow blaze, with touches of bright red scattered about, the golden cupolas of the lavra were glittering in the sunlight. The city lay hidden behind it, and we couldn’t see any houses on that side. Farther downstream, two other demolished bridges barred the river. The river flowed lazily between the half-sunken girders; in front of us, a barge loaded with peasant women in colorful scarves and sleepy soldiers calmly advanced. Contemplating the long seaweed undulating beneath the surface, I suddenly had a kind of dual vision: I could clearly see the seaweed and at the same time I thought I saw the bodies of Napoleonic hussars, in apple-green, bottle-green, or yellow uniforms, with cockades and ostrich feathers waving, drifting with the current. This was very intense, and I must have spoken the emperor’s name, since Osnabrugge suddenly said: “Napoleon? I actually came across a book about Eblé before I left—you know, his chief engineer? An admirable man. Almost the only one, aside from Ney, who got his feet wet, literally, and the only one of Napoleon’s superior officers who died, too. In Königsberg, at the end of the year, as a consequence of his bridge work over the Berezina.”—“Yes, the Berezina, that’s famous.”—“We crossed it in less than a week. Did you know that Eblé had two bridges built over it? One for the men and one for the wagons, and the officers’ carioles of course.” We were heading back toward the shore. “You should read Herodotus,” I said to him. “He has some fine stories about bridges too.”—“Oh, I know, I know that.” He pointed to the engineer’s floating pontoon: “The Persians were already building on boats, like that.” He made a face. “Better, probably.” He left me on the shore and I shook his hand warmly. “Thanks for the expedition. It’s done me a lot of good. See you soon!”—“Oh, I don’t know. I have to leave tomorrow for Dniepropetrovsk. I have to examine twenty-three bridges in all, can you imagine! But I’m sure we’ll meet again one of these days.”