Winter of the World

‘I think you might be all right,’ Erik said. If not, he knew what would happen. On the foot less badly affected, Weiss would amputate the toes, cutting them off with a big pair of clippers like bolt cutters. The other leg would be amputated below the knee.

Weiss came a few minutes later and examined the boy’s feet. ‘Prepare the patient for amputation,’ he said brusquely.

Erik was desolate. Another strong young man was going to spend the rest of his life a cripple. What a shame.

But the patient saw it differently. ‘Thank God,’ he said. ‘I won’t have to fight any more.’

As they got the boy ready for surgery, Erik reflected that the patient was one of many who persisted in a defeatist attitude – his own family among them. He thought a lot about his late father, and felt deep rage mingled with his grief and loss. The old man would not have joined in with the majority and celebrated the triumph of the Third Reich, he thought bitterly. He would have complained about something, questioned the Führer’s judgement, undermined the morale of the armed forces. Why had he had to be such a rebel? Why had he been so attached to the outdated ideology of democracy? Freedom had done nothing for Germany, whereas Fascism had saved the country!

He was angry with his father, yet hot tears came to his eyes when he thought about how he had died. Erik had at first denied that the Gestapo had killed him, but he soon realized it was probably true. They were not Sunday School teachers: they beat people who told wicked lies about the government. Father had persisted in asking whether the government was killing handicapped children. He had been foolish to listen to his English wife and his over-emotional daughter. Erik loved them, which made it all the more painful to him that they were so misguided and obstinate.

While on leave in Berlin, Erik had gone to see Hermann’s father, the man who had first revealed the exciting Nazi philosophy to him when he and Hermann were boys. Herr Braun was in the SS now. Erik said he had met a man in a bar who claimed the government killed disabled people in special hospitals. ‘It is true that the handicapped are a costly drag on the forward march to the new Germany,’ Herr Braun had said to Erik. ‘The race must be purified, by repressing Jews and other degenerate types, and preventing mixed marriages that produce mongrel people. But euthanasia has never been Nazi policy. We are determined, tough, even brutal sometimes, but we do not murder people. That is a Communist lie.’

Father’s accusations had been wrong. Still Erik wept sometimes.

Fortunately, he was frantically busy. There was always a morning rush of patients, mostly men injured the day before. Then there was a short lull before the first new casualties of the day. When Weiss had operated on the frostbitten boy, he and Erik and Hermann took a mid-morning break in the cramped staff room.

Hermann looked up from a newspaper. ‘In Berlin they’re saying we’ve already won!’ he exclaimed. ‘They ought to come here and see for themselves.’

Dr Weiss spoke with his usual cynicism. ‘The Führer made a most interesting speech at the Sportpalast,’ he said. ‘He spoke of the bestial inferiority of the Russians. I find that reassuring. I had the impression that the Russians were the toughest fighters we have yet come across. They have fought longer and harder than the Poles, the Belgians, the Dutch, the French, or the British. They may be underequipped and badly led and half starved, but they come running at our machine guns, waving their obsolete rifles, as if they don’t care whether they live or die. I’m glad to hear that this is no more than a sign of their bestiality. I was beginning to fear that they might be courageous and patriotic.’

As always, Weiss pretended to agree with the Führer, while meaning the opposite. Hermann just looked confused, but Erik understood and was infuriated. ‘Whatever the Russians may be, they’re losing,’ he said. ‘We’re forty miles from Moscow. The Führer has been proved right.’

‘And he is much smarter than Napoléon,’ said Dr Weiss.

‘In Napoléon’s time nothing could move faster than a horse,’ said Erik. ‘Today we have motor vehicles and wireless telegraphy. Modern communications have enabled us to succeed where Napoléon failed.’

‘Or they will have, when we take Moscow.’

‘Which we will do in a few days, if not hours. You can hardly doubt that!’

‘Can I not? I believe some of our own generals have suggested we halt where we are and build a defence line. We could secure our positions, resupply over the winter, and go back on the offensive when the spring comes.’

‘That sounds to me like treacherous cowardice!’ Erik said hotly.

‘You are right – you must be, because that is exactly what Berlin told the generals, I understand. Headquarters people obviously have a better perspective than the men on the front line.’

‘We have almost wiped out the Red Army!’