The Kindly Ones

I had soaked my handkerchief in a bucket and was holding it over my mouth to go forward; I had also soaked my shoulders and cap. In the Wilhelmstrasse, the wind roared between the ministries and whipped the flames licking the empty windows. Soldiers and firemen were running everywhere, with little result. The Auswärtiges Amt

looked severely hit, but the chancellery, a little farther on, had fared better. I was walking on a carpet of broken glass: in the entire street there wasn’t one window left unbroken. On the Wilhelmplatz some bodies had been stretched out near an overturned Luftwaffe truck; frightened civilians were still coming out of the U-Bahn station and looking around, horrified and lost; from time to time a blast could be heard, a delayed-action bomb, or else the muffled roar of a building collapsing. I looked at the bodies: a man without pants, his bloody buttocks grotesquely exposed; a woman with her stockings intact, but without a head. I thought it especially obscene that they were left there like that, but no one seemed to care. A little farther on, guards had been posted in front of the Aviation Ministry: passersbys shouted insults at them or sarcastic remarks about Göring, but didn’t linger, no crowd was forming; I showed my SD card and went through the cordon. I finally arrived at the corner of Prinz-Albrechtstrasse: the SS-Haus had no windows left, but otherwise didn’t seem damaged. In the lobby, troops were sweeping away the debris; officers were hoisting boards or mattresses to cover the gaping windows. In a hallway, I found Brandt giving instructions in a calm, flat voice: he was especially concerned with getting the telephone restored. I saluted him and informed him of the destruction of my offices. He nodded: “Well, we’ll take care of that tomorrow.” Since there didn’t seem to be much to do, I went next door, to the

Staatspolizei

; they were busy nailing up the doors that had been torn off, as well as they could; some bombs had struck nearby, an enormous crater disfigured the street a little farther on, and water was escaping from a burst pipe. I found Thomas in his office drinking schnapps with three other officers, unbuttoned, black with filth, laughing. “Look at you!” he exclaimed. “You’re a sorry sight. Have a drink. Where were you?” I briefly told him about my experiences at the ministry. “Ha! I was home already, I went down to the basement with the neighbors. A bomb came through the roof and the building caught fire. We had to break down the walls of the neighboring basements, several in a row, to come out at the end of the street. The whole street burned down and half of my building, including my apartment, collapsed. To top it all off, I found my poor convertible under a bus. In short, I’m ruined.” He poured me another glass. “Since misfortune is upon us, let us drink, as my grandmother Ivona used to say.”

In the end I spent the night at the Staatspolizei. Thomas had sandwiches, tea, and soup delivered. He lent me one of his spare uniforms, a little too big for me, but more presentable than my rags; a smiling typist took charge of switching the stripes and insignia. They had set up folding cots in the gymnasium for about fifteen homeless officers; I ran into Eduard Holste there, whom I had briefly known as Leiter IV/V of Group D, at the end of 1942; he had lost everything and was almost crying with bitterness. Unfortunately the showers still didn’t work, and I could wash only my hands and face. My throat hurt, I coughed, but Thomas’s schnapps had cut the taste of ash a little. Outside, we still heard explosions. The wind roared, raging and relentless.