21. THE CRASH

THE situation in Vienna had become noticeably tense while I was away. The Soviet front was fast approaching the borders of Austria. Hungary had been completely occupied already, as well as about half of Slovakia and all but a portion of Croatia next to the border. At the same time it seemed as if the Americans and British were slowing up; in Italy they had not reached the Po and in Germany they had not yet entered Bavaria.

General Kramer was entirely indifferent to the fact that I was leaving. He went to Karlsbad shortly after my return. While I was transferring my affairs to my friend Nikolai Ayrov, the latter and I managed to do a series of good deeds, which consisted mainly of giving out documents to all who wanted them, enabling them to leave Vienna in a westerly direction. Without such papers it was impossible to get passage on the railroads. Some time earlier I had equipped myself with a duplicate of our Vienna office seal, and now, when people who wanted to flee found themselves up against the stone wall of the bureaucracy introduced by Kramer and his Belgrade adjutants, I was able to help them ‘through the back door’.

In addition to this we developed a means of obtaining papers for those who wanted to go to Italy, since the documents issued by our office were not valid there. We got them through a Volksdeutsche from Russia working in the Vienna section of the East Ministry, an extremely pleasant man who loved Russia and things Russian. All the time I was in Vienna this man, Flescher by name, ran this office, and I know that very few Russians were ever refused a request which it was within Flescher’s power to grant.

He helped Ostarbeiter, prisoners of war, and emigrants whenever they got into trouble. He wrote admonitory letters to camps whose inmates were treated particularly badly. He arranged for passports, apartments, and even financial relief. All this was done with no desire for gain on his part, although at times people made a lot of money through his help. He knew that some of the people who came to him with requests were fooling him and using him for their own ends, but when he was told about it he would answer, ‘What difference does it make? Suppose someone does get something out of me. It’s all the better for him, and none the worse for me.’

When I asked for passes to Italy for several people, he said, after thinking a while, ‘You see, strictly speaking I have no right to do that and could even be punished for issuing such passes. But considering that the days of the Third Reich are numbered, I’ll do it, and I’ll keep on doing it in the future.’

Kramer returned from Karlsbad with the announcement that Vlasov had authorized him and his friend General T. to form a ‘separate corps’ of the R.O.A. with headquarters in Salzburg, and that the Vienna section of the committee must move there immediately. A thorough mess resulted. After an unsuccessful attempt to get a few railroad coaches for themselves, their families, and baggage, the staff stopped appearing in the office, each one searching for some means to get himself out of Vienna. Kramer bought himself a car (where the money came from, no one knew), and his aides tore all over the city searching for gasoline, offering gold, German marks, and American dollars for it.

One morning I went to the office and found it deserted. The rooms were unlocked, the desks stood with open drawers containing all sorts of papers, records of the staff, and lists of volunteers recruited for the R.O.A. in Vienna.

I locked the door and left, returning after lunch with Nikolai Ayrov, and we spent the afternoon burning papers in front of the building, right on the street. Not a policeman appeared.

Vienna continued to be bombed occasionally, but we had noticed a long time ago that the anti-aircraft batteries had stopped trying to defend the city. Everyone said that there was not enough ammunition, that it had all been taken somewhere, either to the Tyrol or to southern Bavaria, where a last ditch defence was being planned and Hitler was supposedly sending the best units of what was left of the German Army and the eagles of the Hitler Youth.

During this period there was one terrible raid on Vienna during which the centre of the city suffered, including many historic buildings – the Cathedral of St. Stephen, the Parliament, the Opera House, the Municipal Theatre, the Rathaus, and others. This raid was pointless and unnecessary; everything was crumbling without help from the bombers.

Most of my friends had already gone west, some to Salzburg, others to Innsbruck in the Tyrol, some to the Italian border. Some, counting on the swift arrival of the Americans, had set out for Munich.

I kept delaying my departure. Leaving the Gorskys to arrange for our transportation, I spent my time with Flescher, visiting the Russian workers’ camps around Vienna, making sure for myself that none of the camp commanders were preventing the workers from leaving town if they wanted to. Von Schirach had given orders to that effect but sometimes the commandant would make deals with the management of the factories which were still operating, and hold up the workers.

The workers who left were supposed to be issued a week’s rations and 50 marks.

I expected that few of the Russian workers who had been brought to Germany by force would want to flee to the west. Their only crime in the eyes of the Soviet authorities was that they had observed the different and better life led by the Germans and could compare it with life at home to the disadvantage of the latter. They had a good chance of leniency upon their return to the U.S.S.R. Their life in Germany had not been much better than that of the prisoners of war. Pro-Soviet agents had been energetically at work among them for a long time, threatening them with dire consequences if they tried to escape and were caught. Most of the Russian workers knew no German and had no means of any kind.

Nevertheless, there were still thousands who wanted to go west. What did they want? What were they looking for? Probably many of them could not have explained it. But as the ‘liberators’ drew near, the old fear and hatred of the Soviet regime, unforgotten through the years of the war, began to arise again in the mass of workers, feelings that were more organic than conscious. And many of them fled.

Flescher said that in many of the camps where the Nazi commandants had tried to keep the workers there had been killings and beatings. In one camp the commandant was hanged, two others were knifed, still another was lynched by a mob. Such killings had taken place before, in protest against the cruelty of the camp administration or the guards, but the Germans had seldom been able to find the guilty ones. Now such incidents were happening more and more often.

We were still not ready to leave Vienna. A group of about fifteen of us had gathered, and since the trains were no longer running we had to find some other means of transportation. We collected some money, and Zina and Igor, together with our friend Nikolai Ayrov, who was the leader of a similar group, bought two wagons. One had two horses, the other only one. Our group drew the single horse. It was big and strong and bore the original name of Fritz, but it was lame in one hind leg. This time, unlike that far-off occasion in the northern Caucasus, we were not afraid to travel with a horse. We had in our group a former colonel in the White Army and a Cossack captain, both of whom were excellent horsemen.

We took the wagon to the outskirts of Vienna, on the left bank of the Danube, to the captain’s house. From an Austrian I bought a small radio, to help orient us as to the position on the fronts. The Austrian papers no longer printed correct information, and the Austrians themselves almost never listened to foreign broadcasts although they had every opportunity to do so.

‘It’s strictly forbidden,’ said my acquaintances when I would ask them to pick up the London B.B.C. ‘We cannot break the law.’

The front was now about 30 miles away. All sorts of errands distracted me, and I had not yet assembled the necessary documents for the journey. To ensure that everyone would eat on the way we had to have military documents. After a great deal of trouble I managed to get a few blank Marschbefehl forms. I had the necessary seal, and it was easy to sign the name of the proper official. Klug, my friend in the propaganda department, who had stayed behind, the last in his office, to burn files, issued me a document stating that I was to escort a vital convoy of goods and people to Italy. In this document I was a captain . . .

Since I was a captain I had to acquire a uniform. This I did not succeed in doing, so I had to be satisfied with a military shirt with Cossack shoulder straps which a friend supplied me. In civilian trousers and shoes and without a cap, my military appearance was doubtful. However, a small pistol peeped bravely out from behind my belt.

Nikolai Ayrov did not wait for us but left three days ahead of us with his group. We agreed to meet him in Salzburg. We had decided against the direct route to the Italian border through Klagenfurt, because of reports that advance units of the Red Army had penetrated as far as Wiener Neustadt, which was on the way. There were two other possible routes: directly west to St. Pölten, or, if the worst came to the worst, north-west along the left bank of the Danube.

Everyone was impatient to leave, but we lost another day thanks to Flescher. Although I had said good-bye to him the day before, Flescher arrived in the morning and asked me to accompany him on a visit to a prisoner-of-war camp east of Vienna.

As we were approaching the camp, moving slowly through the flood of refugees from the east, we could hear the sound of artillery fire. The front was quite near, but there were few German soldiers around and the only army vehicles we saw were moving west, away from the front.

The camp turned out to be a group of dirty barracks surrounded by barbed wire. There were two guards at the gate, but they let us through without a word. A crowd of men were moving about in front of the barracks, dressed in olive-drab Soviet military overcoats with the letters S.U. painted on their backs in black. A grey-haired prisoner approached us and introduced himself as the camp elder.

‘Call the men together,’ said Flescher. ‘I want to speak to them.’

‘Everybody’s here,’ said the spokesman. ‘All you have to do is shout.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Flescher. ‘How many men have you got here?’

‘A little less than 2,000.’

‘What’s their attitude toward the possible arrival of the Red Army?’

‘I’ll be damned if I can figure it out,’ shrugged the elder. ‘Of course, a lot of them would like to run for it, and our guards have said that they will let anyone out who wants to go, but they can’t make up their minds. Where can you go without documents and without money? And in the last few weeks the Soviet propagandists have achieved results. They promise that Stalin will forgive everybody. They hanged two men last night who were trying to persuade everyone to leave camp. See, the bodies are still there.’ He pointed to two motionless forms by the barbed wire.

‘All right, make the men be quiet. I’ll talk to them,’ said Flescher.

The elder began to shout, ‘Quiet, quiet everybody! Listen! We’re going to get the latest news. Bring a table, quick!’

A table appeared from somewhere and Flescher got up on it, handing me his thick briefcase. When the men had gathered around him and become reasonably quiet, he began:

‘Listen, soldiers! Germany has lost the war. Surrender is possible any day now. Units of the Red Army may be here tonight. There won’t be any resistance until Vienna. You are free to do as you like. Those of you who want to can stay here and wait for the Russians. Or you can start moving toward them. Or those of you who want to can go west to the places the Americans and English will occupy . . .’ At this point everyone started shouting at once. I could distinguish a few of the phrases:

‘Who is he, what does he want?’

‘Down with the Fascist agitator!’

‘Let’s get him!’

‘Quiet, let’s listen to him!’

‘Shut up, you bastards!’

‘Down with the Communists!’

The elder and a few men that he called over gathered around us. I began to be somewhat frightened. If anything happened, it would be impossible to get away. I glanced back at the gate and saw the two guards looking with curiosity at the boiling mob. Flescher stood on the table, very pale, waiting for a chance to speak. After a short time he took advantage of a break in the noise to continue.

‘I beg you hear me out! Nobody’s trying to force anyone to go anywhere. But nobody should try to interfere with anyone either. I cannot do very much for those who want to go west. I can only issue group documents, one for every group of fifty men, to go to Munich, and 50 marks for each man. You’ll also get some rations . . .’

The shouting began again. Under pressure from the crowd the table began to shake, but Flescher kept his balance. ‘Those of you who want to go west,’ he shouted over the noise, ‘leave the camp one by one. You’ll get your money as you come out. There will be a document for each group.’

He jumped down off the table, and just in time. A piece of metal, hurled by somebody in the crowd, flew over the table and hit someone on the head.

Surrounded by several prisoners, we reached the gate safely.

The guards let us through with obvious unwillingness. I think it would have amused them more to watch us being lynched in there. There were about six prisoners with us, headed by the elder. Flescher turned to the guards.

‘Hold your guns ready. Let them out one at a time. If there’s any kind of disorder, fire in the air.’

‘And who might you be?’ one of the guards asked suddenly. ‘You’d better go and find Hitler and save him, and leave these people alone. They want to go home, and where are you herding them to?’

Flescher grew still paler. ‘Silence, dog! It’s none of your business. Do what you’re ordered to!’

The guard backed up, holding his submachine gun pointed at Flescher. The latter suddenly whipped out a revolver and fired. The guard, wounded in the arm, dropped his weapon. At that moment the camp elder knocked the other guard’s gun out of his hands. Flescher nodded approvingly.

‘Take the weapons yourselves and maintain order. Nobody who wants to go is to be held up. Is that clear?’

‘Quite clear, Comrade Commander!’ a few voices answered simultaneously. A crowd had collected near the gate and was watching us through the barbed wire. Flescher took some Marschbefehl forms out of his briefcase and handed them to me.

‘Write their names down on the other side.’

‘Let them out one by one,’ he added, turning toward the spokesman. The gate was opened. There was a moment of confusion. Nobody came out. The roar of many voices hung over the camp. Then the first men began to come.

‘Name?’ Flescher asked.

‘Andreev, Ivan,’ said the first. I wrote it down. Flescher drew a bill out of an envelope full of money and gave it to him, showing him where to stand. They began to issue in a steady stream. When fifty men had collected and elected a group leader, Flescher gave him a document with a roster on the back and commanded: ‘Group, attention! You’re free! To the west, forward march!’

The second, third, and fourth groups were collected and sent off. Most of them came through the gate empty-handed, but some had small bundles of belongings. The noise in camp did not diminish. There were shouts of ‘Bastards, traitors to the fatherland! Fascists!’ and other answering shouts, ‘Spies! God-damned N.K.V.D. swine! You didn’t get away with it, you sons of bitches!’

The two prisoners standing at the gate with submachine guns shouted, ‘Don’t crowd, men! Get in line. You’ll get to America, don’t push! Hey, you there, no fighting! Hey!’ And they would fire into the air whenever serious fights started. A tall, gaunt prisoner, who had relieved another on the submachine gun, shot a man through the wire.

‘Hey, what are you doing?’ Flescher dashed at him.

‘That’s the worst one of all, Comrade Commander,’ the man with the gun answered calmly. ‘He’s been making up lists for a long time to give to the N.K.V.D. if they came. A dog deserves a dog’s death. They’ll all thank me for it. Listen, see, it’s quieter already. More men are coming out.’

He was right. Things went more smoothly. When the camp was half empty Flescher handed the blank forms and the money to the elder.

‘You fix the rest up yourself. There will be enough money. There was 100,000 marks when we started. All the passes are signed. Good luck!’

The elder shook hands with us warmly.

‘Thanks for coming. We didn’t know what to do. Some of the men were talking about hanging themselves before the “liberators” come, God damn them . . .’

In the car I asked Flescher where he had got so much money, and all the passes. He shrugged his shoulders.

T took the money out of the bank,’ he said. ‘It’s all that was left in the East Ministry account. Rosenberg won’t need it any more. I have some more money at home. I got the blank forms from a regimental commander that I know, a very good man.’

‘When are you going to leave Vienna?’

T don’t know. I’m going to stay here till the last moment, while I can still do something. What about you?’

‘I’ve been meaning to leave for the last three days. Everything’s ready.’

‘Have you got a car?’

‘A car? Hell no. One horse and a wagon for fifteen people. We’ll walk.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me before? I could have found you one. But it’s too late today. And tomorrow, who knows what will happen? Which road are you taking?’

T don’t know, probably west to St. Pölten. Why?’

‘Don’t go that way. Vienna is being by-passed on the south and the Reds might get to St. Pölten ahead of you. Go along the left bank.’

‘All right, if you say so.’ I got out of his car at my house and shook hands with him warmly. ‘Maybe we’ll meet again; I hope so. Goodbye.’

‘I doubt it,’ said Flescher. ‘There will be a mess now. If you can, get out of Germany and Austria. Things won’t be good here . . .’

His car pulled away and disappeared around the corner.

There was a note from Zina on the table in my room, ‘Everything is ready for us to leave. Come to the captain’s immediately. We’re starting tonight, can’t wait any longer. Dinner’s in the kitchen. Bring the radio. Zina.’

I was a bit annoyed at the categorical tone of the note. After all, I was the leader of the expedition and had all the necessary documents in my pocket. But after I had tuned the radio in to the B.B.C. and laid the dinner out on the table, I felt considerably better. They couldn’t leave without me, anyway.

After eating I rested a little. The radio announced that northern Germany had been cut off from the south, that Berlin was almost surrounded, that American troops had entered Bavaria, that the fall of Vienna was expected in a couple of days . . .

It was growing dark fast. I took the radio under my arm, said goodbye to the janitor, asking him not to disturb the papers in my apartment before the Reds came – there was a lot of anti-Soviet literature there – and left the house.

The streets were empty. I could have taken one of the rare evening trolleys, but I preferred to walk the length of the city. I felt no fatigue at all, though the day had been a hard one.

I came out into the Ring by Schwarzenberg-Platz, reached the ruined Opera House, and turned into the narrow streets of the First District. Here and there I passed wrecked buildings. The pavements in some places were blocked with debris, which for several days now no one had tried to clear away. There was very little light. Only an occasional blue bulb partially disclosed the extent of the damage.

Poor beautiful Vienna! What will happen to you when you come into the possession of my countrymen? Almost as if in answer to my thoughts the distant hum of airplane engines came to my ears. There was no airraid alarm. The anti-aircraft batteries had been silent for several days. In the distance I could hear the reports of exploding bombs.

Crossing a canal, I walked along the Prater. Thoughts ran through my mind at random. I had come to know so many streets and attractive places in Vienna. For some reason I thought of our walks in the Vienna woods and the small restaurant on a hill where we had had dinner when we happened on it by accident as we wandered through the thick growth of trees. Then I remembered swimming off a boat in the Danube and how I had almost drowned while making for an island with little Nina on my shoulders. I remembered the ‘giant wheel’ and the ‘Lilliputian train’ on the Prater, and then a moving-picture with the Italian tenor Beniamino Gigli.

Halfway over the big Franz-Josef Bridge I stopped and looked at the Danube. If it flowed in the opposite direction, I thought, it would be red with blood. A few miles downstream the Red Army was crossing to the left bank.

The suburbs were beginning. I increased my pace, finding my way with difficulty through this unfamiliar section where there were no street lights on at all.

It was midnight by the time I found the captain’s house. Everyone was there, but no one except little Nina was asleep. The wagon, heaped high, stood in the gateway. Fritz was chewing his oats in a detached way in the yard. I had a distinct sensation that something was missing from this picture. Then I realized what it was. Our puppy, a big dog now, was not there. Some months earlier, having nothing to feed it, we had to give it away to a friendly German who worked as a guard at the airport.

We crowded into a small room. I told them the latest news and explained that we would have to move along the left bank to Krems, where we might cross to the other side if the situation permitted. This seriously lengthened the journey to Salzburg, but we had no choice. The risk of falling into the hands of the ‘comrades’ was too great.

Everybody decided to try to get some sleep before the hard day ahead. I went outside and stretched out on the wagon on top of the baggage. I still had no desire to sleep.

Another period of my life has ended, I thought. Again I’ve got to run for it. Where? How far will I have to go this time? Where will the end be? When can I stop being a fugitive and become a normal human being? I was confused. I tried to ask myself whether I had made any mistakes during the year I had lived in the Reich, but I put aside my own questions. What meaning could they have, especially now? In any case tomorrow’s flight had been determined by events that happened long before. Where? In the Ukraine? In the Caucasus? In Soviet concentration camps? The devil himself couldn’t answer that question. Well, my conscience was clear at least in one respect: I had never caused any hurt to the people I met during my wanderings. Perhaps if anything I had done more good than was expected in those troubled and self-serving times. And what about the political question? From a ‘general’ point of view, how did my conduct in the past year appear? At this point I experienced a complete loss of interest in this process of self-analysis. I noticed the sky in the east begin to grow light and at the same time became conscious of the dull echoes of artillery fire in the same direction.

Jumping off the wagon, I yelled as loudly as I could, ‘Everybody up! Time to get off!’