23

The truck was open, and the men traveling in the back had no protection from the night air.

Almost all of them were silent, focusing on what was about to happen. Their brown shirts barely kept out the cold, but that didn’t matter, as they would soon be on the move.

Jürgen crouched down and started beating the metal floor of the truck with his cudgel. He’d acquired this habit on his first outing, when his comrades still regarded him with some skepticism. The Sturmabteilung, or SA—the Nazi party’s “storm troopers”—was composed of hardened ex-soldiers, people from the lowest classes who could barely read a paragraph aloud without stammering. Their first response to the appearance of this elegant young man—the son of a baron, no less!—was rejection. And when Jürgen had first used the floor of the truck as a drum, one of his companions had given him the finger.

“Sending a telegram to the baroness, eh, boy?”

The rest had laughed nastily.

That night he’d felt ashamed. Tonight, however, as he began to strike the floor, all the others were quick to follow him. The rhythm was slow at first, measured, distinct, the blows perfectly synchronized. But as the truck approached its target, an inn close to the central train station, the pounding grew until it was deafening, a roar of noise that filled them all with adrenaline.

Jürgen smiled. It hadn’t been easy to win their trust, but now he felt he had them all in the palm of his hand. When almost a year earlier he had first heard Adolf Hitler speak and insisted on a party secretary filling in his membership to the Nationalist Socialist German Workers’ Party then and there, Krohn had been delighted. But when, a few days later, Jürgen had applied to join the SA, that delight had turned to disappointment.

“What the hell do you have in common with those brown gorillas? You’re intelligent; you could have a career in politics. And that patch on your eye . . . If you start the appropriate rumors, you could make that your calling card. We can say you lost your eye defending the Ruhr.”

The baron’s son paid him no attention. He had joined the SA on impulse, but there was a certain subconscious logic to what he had done. He was attracted to the brutality inherent in the Nazis’ paramilitary wing, their pride as a group and the impunity for violence that this offered him. A group into which he hadn’t fitted to begin with, and where he had been the target of insults and jibes such as “Baron Cyclops” and “One-Eyed Pansy.”

Intimidated, Jürgen had put aside the thuggish attitude he’d assumed with his school friends. These were real tough guys, and they’d have closed ranks immediately if he’d tried to gain anything by force. Instead he had won their respect bit by bit, demonstrating his lack of scruples each time they, or their enemy, had a meeting.

A squeal of brakes drowned out the violent sound of the cudgels. The truck stopped abruptly.

“Get out! Get out!”

The storm troopers crowded together at the back of the truck. Then twenty pairs of black boots tramped over the wet paving stones. One of the storm troopers slipped into a puddle of dirty water, and Jürgen hastened to offer him an arm to help him up. He’d learned that gestures like this would win him points.

The building that stood opposite them had no name, only the word TAVERN painted over the door, with a red Bavarian hat drawn alongside. It was often used as a meeting place by a division of the Communist Party, and at that very moment one such meeting was coming to an end. More than thirty people were inside, listening to a speech. On hearing the squeal of the truck’s brakes, a number of them raised their heads, but it was too late. The tavern had no back door.

The storm troopers entered in ordered ranks, making as much noise as possible. A waiter hid behind the bar, terrified, while the first ones in seized beer glasses and plates from the tables and hurled them at the counter, the mirror above it, and the shelves of bottles.

“What are you doing?” asked a short man, presumably the tavern’s owner.

“We’ve come to break up an illegal meeting,” said the head of the SA platoon, stepping forward with an incongruous smile.

“You have no authority!”

The head of the platoon raised his cudgel and hit the man in the stomach. He fell to the ground with a groan. The leader gave him a couple more kicks before turning to his men.

“Fall together!”

Jürgen immediately moved to the front. He always did this, only to take a discreet step back to let someone else lead the charge—or take a bullet or blade. Firearms were now forbidden in Germany—this Germany that had had its teeth removed by the Allies—but many war veterans still had their regulation pistols or weapons they had taken from the enemy.

Standing shoulder to shoulder in formation, the storm troopers advanced toward the back of the tavern. The Communists, scared out of their wits, began to throw anything they could get their hands on at their enemy. The man marching next to Jürgen was struck full in the face by a glass jug. He staggered, but those marching behind caught him, and another came forward to take his place in the front rank.

“Sons of bitches! Go suck your Führer’s cock!” shouted a young man in a leather cap, picking up a bench.

The storm troopers were less than three meters away, within easy reach of any furniture thrown at them, so Jürgen chose this moment to fake a stumble. A man came forward and joined the front.

Just in time. Benches flew across the room, there was a groan, and the man who’d just taken Jürgen’s place slumped forward, his head split open.

“Ready?” cried the head of the platoon. “For Hitler and Germany!”

“Hitler and Germany!” the others cried in chorus.

The two groups charged at each other like children playing some kind of game. Jürgen dodged a giant in mechanic’s overalls who was heading toward him, striking his knees as he passed. The mechanic tumbled, and those behind Jürgen began to beat him mercilessly.

Jürgen continued his advance. He jumped over an upturned chair and kicked a table, which smashed against the hip of an old man wearing glasses. He fell to the floor, dragging the table with him. There were still some scribbled bits of paper in his hand, so the baron’s son deduced that this must be the speaker they had come to interrupt. He didn’t care. He didn’t even know the old man’s name.

Jürgen went straight over to him, taking care to tread on him with both feet as he made his way toward his real target.

The young man in the leather cap was fending off two storm troopers using one of the benches. The first of the men tried to outflank him, but the young man tipped the bench toward him and managed to get him in the neck, knocking him down. The other man lashed out with his cudgel, trying to catch the man unawares, but the young Communist ducked and managed to bury his elbow in the storm trooper’s kidney. As he doubled over, contorted with pain, the man broke the bench over his back.

So this one knows how to fight, thought the baron’s son.

Normally he would have left the toughest opponents for someone else to deal with, but something about this skinny young man with sunken eyes offended Jürgen.

He looked at Jürgen defiantly.

“Come on, then, you Nazi whore. Afraid you’ll break a nail?”

Jürgen sucked in his breath, but he was too cunning to allow himself to be affected by the insult. He counterattacked.

“I’m not surprised you’re so keen on the Reds, you scrawny little shit. That Karl Marx beard looks just like your mother’s backside.”

The young man’s face lit up with rage and, hoisting up the remains of the bench, he charged at Jürgen.

Jürgen had planted himself broadside to his attacker and he waited for the attack. As the man lunged at him, Jürgen moved aside and the Communist fell to the floor, losing his cap. Jürgen hit him in the back with his cudgel three times in quick succession—not very hard, but enough to take his breath away while still allowing him to get to his knees. The young man tried to crawl away, which was exactly what Jürgen wanted. He drew back his right leg and kicked hard. The toe-capped boot struck the man’s stomach, lifting him more than half a meter off the ground. He fell back, struggling to breathe.

With a smile, Jürgen laid into the Communist viciously. His ribs crunched under the blows, and when Jürgen stood on his arm, it snapped like a dry branch.

Grabbing the young man by the hair, Jürgen forced him to rise.

“Try saying what you said about the Führer now, Communist scum!”

“Go to hell!” the boy babbled.

“You still want to say stupid things like that?” shouted Jürgen, incredulous.

Grabbing the boy even more tightly by the hair, he raised his cudgel and aimed it at his victim’s mouth.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

The boy’s teeth were nothing but a handful of bloody remains on the tavern’s wooden floor, and his face was swollen. In an instant the aggression that had fed Jürgen’s muscles ceased to flow. Finally he understood why he had chosen that particular man.

There was something of his cousin in him.

He let go of the Communist’s hair and watched as he fell limply to the floor.

He doesn’t look much like anyone anymore, Jürgen thought.

He raised his eyes and saw that all around him the fighting had stopped. The only ones left standing were the storm troopers, who were watching him with a mixture of approval and fear.

“Let’s get out of here!” shouted the head of the platoon.

Back in the truck, a storm trooper Jürgen had never seen before, and who hadn’t traveled with them, sat down beside him. The baron’s son barely looked at his companion. After such a violent episode, he would usually sink into a state of melancholic withdrawal, and he didn’t like anyone to disturb him. Which was why he snarled with displeasure when the other man spoke to him in a low voice.

“What’s your name?”

“Jürgen von Schroeder,” he replied reluctantly.

“So it is you. They told me about you. I came here today especially to meet you. My name’s Julius Schreck.”

Jürgen noticed the subtle differences in the man’s uniform. He wore an insignia with a skull and crossbones, and a black tie.

“To meet me? Why?”

“I’m setting up a special group . . . people with guts, skill, intelligence. Without any bourgeois scruples.”

“How do you know I have those things?”

“I saw you in action back there. You went about it cleverly, not like the rest of this cannon fodder. And then there’s the matter of your family, of course. Having you on our team would give us prestige. It would distinguish us from the riffraff.”

“What is it you want?”

“I want you to join my Stosstruppen. The elite of the SA, who answer only to the Führer.”