There were both uniformed Berlin municipal policemen and plainclothes SD men stationed there, wall king slowly back and forth in front of the sandbags stacked against the building. None was wihing to remind an Obersturmbannfuhrer SS-SD that parking was prohibited in front of the Foreign Ministry.
Muxer got behind the wheel, and they drove off.
“Drive by my house, will you, Muller?” von Heurten Mitnitz said.
KI have to go inside for a moment.” Muller nodded.
Going to Zehlendorf and then back downtown would give them a few minutes to tallk in privacy. There was nothing suspicious in a man going home on his way to lunch to pick up something he had for gotten.
Muxer drove past the Zoological Gardens and then down the Kurfurstendamm to Brandenburgischestrasse. Two blocks into it, the street was blocked by a mountain of rubble and two wholly unnecessary policemen waving directional signs to order them onto a detour. Von Heurten-Mitnitz saw the shell of a department store where he had once bought underwear.
A lane just a car wide had been cleared through the rubble on the side street, and Muller’s Opel bounced over loose bricks and masonry.
And then, as suddenly as it began, the destroyed area gave way to a neighborhood that, save for blacked-out windows and signs indicating air-raid shelters, seemed untouched by the war.
They’ll be back, von Heurten-Mitnitz thought, sooner or later, but inevitably. And this neighborhood, too, will be a mound of smoldering rubble.
KTHE Russians have stopped von Manstein,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said.
On 23 November, the German Sixth Army, which had reached the suburbs of Stalingrad, had been encircled by the Russian 1st Guards and 61st Armies. On Goring’s assurance that the Sixth Army could be supplied by air, Hitler had forbidden any attempt to break out of the encirclement.
When it became apparent that the Luftwaffe could not supply the Sixth Army, Hitler had ordered General Erich von Manstein to assume command of Army Group Don at Rostov, and to break through the Russian forces.
Von Manstein had attacked with an armored corps from Kotelnikovo on 12 December. After suffe ring severe losses, the German attack had been stopped twenty miles short of Stalingrad on 19 December.
“Oh?” Muller responded, not very surprised. “Now what?”
“Now nothing,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said. “Von Manstein has nothing more with which to attempt a relief. Von Paulus is doomed.” General Fredrich von Paulus was the Sixth Army’s commander.
“So there goes another quarter of a million men,” Muxer said.
“Yes, that’s true, “von Heurten-Mitnitz said. It was almost a minute before he spoke again.
“There is some good news,” he said. “You may now call me sir. I have been appointed Brigadefuhrer (Brigadier General) in the SS reserve.”
“I saw your picture in Die Sturmer,” Muller said dryly. KHOW did you manage to pull that off?”
“Under the new compulsory service regulations, I was about to be ordered to join my regiment as Hauptmann von Heurten-Mitnitz.”
“You may wish you were a captain in the Pomeranian Infantry,” Muller said.
“I believe they are now part of Von Paulus’s Sixth Army in Fortress Stalingrad,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said, and then abruptly changed the subject, KWE have heard, I think, from our friend Eric.”
“What do you mean, think’?”
“I have received a postcard from Bad Ems,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said. “I want you to have a look at it and let me know what you make of it.” Muller nodded his head and didn’t say a word until, as he pulled to the curb before the small mansion in Zehlendorf, he said,
“Bad Ems?
What the hell is there in Bad Ems?”
“It is argued by some historians that a telegram sent from Bad Ems triggered the Franco-Prussian War, “von Heurten-Mitnitz said. He handed Muller the postcard. “Here, you figure it out.”
“Why is it in this?” Muller asked, indicating a glassine envelope.
“I thought perhaps there might be a fingerprint on it,” von Heurtenmitnitz said. KOR am I letting my imagination run away with me?
” Muller shrugged.
Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz stepped out of the Opel Kapitan into the snow-covered street and walked up to the gate in the fence in front of his house. Inside, he told his housekeeper that he’d stepped into slush and soaked his feet. Then he changed his shoes and socks and went back to the car.