So what did Huber do during the day? Visit the depot and talk with his acquaintances among the bus drivers? Was this a life? Perhaps. Arno himself wasn’t much for small talk but he realised that others liked to sit down and chat, talk about sports, the weather, events…Well, what can I say, Arno thought. The cards of destiny fall in various ways. And we all have our cross to bear. I myself have to deal with my war, and Huber has to deal with his. And now I’ve stretched out my hand, now we’ve met.
It was time to go out, time to dine – so they left the apartment and headed for the car, Huber being steered in his wheelchair – and off they went and checked into a Kneipp. It was a rather high-end restaurant in a secluded house, halfway to the centre of town. The hall had exposed beams of varnished oak; there were woven cloths on the tables and rustic rugs on the floor. The tables were standing in booths, fine for private conversations. And the menu was solid, with a choice of fish and meat. Hare was what was recommended, so hare they had, all three of them.
They ate and drank and talked about this and that. Bauer told, for example, of the veteran gatherings that he had visited. Battalion Wolf counted as part of Battle Group G, with which it fought under from 1943 through 1944. So its veterans were organised as Kameradenwerk Kampfgruppe G. This organisation had regular meetings in Würzburg once a year. Huber wouldn’t go there, he simply had no wish for it, but Bauer used to do it. And Arno probed the opportunity to come along next time around, which Bauer agreed to arrange.
They ate their roast hare and they had a few beers – except Bauer, who was driving. Arno now had the urge to read his poem. He said:
“My dear Huber, it was nice to meet you. Yes, of course: I know that I, back in the day, maybe wasn’t the most social chief around. But…”
“OK,” Huber said, “that’s alright. We rather appreciated you anyhow. You knew your stuff. We felt safe with you. We needed no smiling sissy to lead us, some Kindergartenfräulein.”
“Fine. Thank you. And if you wanted some chief to talk to, you had Monsieur here…”
He was referring to Bauer, who smiled broadly at this.
“Now,” Arno added, “I want to read a poem. A poem that I found. That is to say, I haven’t written it myself. No, it’s by a certain Börries von Münchausen.”
“The man on the cannon ball? Riding a cannon ball into a fortress and everything?”
“Well,” Arno said, “the poet was related to the man who wrote about Baron Münchausen’s adventures. And he, the younger one, wrote this poem about a soldier during the Thirty Years’ War. The poem ends like this:”
Arno here read from his note: “Hinter schlagenden Trommeln durch welsches und deutsches Land – / Bruder, ich weiss ja, mein Los war klein, / war doch viel Blut und Schweiss darein. / Bruder, gib mir die hand, / zu Münster ward Friede, nun schlaf ich in deutschem Land!” (“Behind beating drums, through German and foreign land, / I know, brother, I wasn’t so lucky, / but there was much blood and sweat in this. / Brother, give me your hand, / in Münster there was peace, now I sleep in German lands.”)
The invalid nodded. He drank his beer and repeated: “‘Zu Münster ward Friede, nun schlaf ich in deutschem Land’… Good. Thank you, Mr. Feldwebel. Can I keep it?”
“Sure,” Arno said and gave him the note with the poem. Thus it fell on good ground. Arno had done what he could. He had stretched out his hand toward a subordinate – toward all his subordinates, Huber was a symbolic figure. Arno had stretched out his hand as a brother, not as a foreman. And the gesture had been accepted. Arno enjoyed this to the full. The feeling stayed with him the rest of the day: While driving back to Huber’s apartment; while they were sitting in the apartment and rounded off the meeting with some chit-chat, and even while Arno and Bauer went home, through the twilight lands toward Munich. It was the “Bruder, gib mir die Hand” part which struck a tone, Arno realised.
Going towards Munich along the Autobahn, Arno came to think of something else, saying, “So Lutzow killed himself?” thereby re-connecting with what they had said on the way there.
“Indeed,” Bauer said. “Lieutenant Guntz, chief of 2nd Platoon, however, he’s now a Bundeswehr Colonel.”
“Well whaddaya know. And what about Wistinghausen?”
“He died of a heart attack last year. Natural causes, it’s said.”
As promised, Bauer eventually brought Arno along to a veterans’ meeting with the Kameradenwerk Kampfgruppe G. They met, very privately, in Würzburg in February 1966. There, too, Arno read the von Münchausen poem. It was appreciated. Otherwise, the evening was rather merry. He again saw Tauber, Sachs and Ilo as well as Colonel Guntz, in civilian clothes but with military bearing and a diplomatic way of expressing himself.
This was as befitted a man of his status, the former Wehrmacht Lieutenant having become a regimental officer in the Bundeswehr. Of course, Bundeswehr officers weren’t allowed to be heard saying anything controversial about World War II battles. It could ruin a career, or at the very least end up noted in the records, for the Bundeswehr man who talked a bit too loosely in the company of wartime comrades. But when they’d downed a drink or three, tongues could still loosen….
The veterans’ meeting Arno attended was fine and merry and as good as you could expect. There were happy smiles and handshakes. Arno ate and drank and had a good time. He even laughed, the old fire-eater. Generally, however, he felt that these meetings didn’t give him anything. The past was in the past. There was for him no energy in reliving the past. At least not collectively. He was and remained a recluse who wanted his war memories for himself.
38
Operational Scouting
Arno lived together with Renate. One day in September 1966 they sat and drank tea in the living room. Arno was wearing slippers, trousers and a cardigan while Renate was wearing a green blouse and light brown corduroy slacks. Arno talked about an old project, of systemising his creed into that of an “Operational Scout”. As the private investigator he was, as a security consultant and urban scout, employed in Bauer’s firm, he lived and breathed the operational lifestyle. This was a continuation of his life as a soldier and now, more than ever, he wanted to formalise it in some way.
Explaining his creed to Renate Arno said, “I’m an Operational Scout.”
“What’s so operational about it then?” Renate asked and sipped her tea.
“I do things,” Arno said. “I conduct operations: scouting, checking things up, gathering facts. Like checking up on cold cases, cases the police won’t even touch. Working for companies wishing to check out thefts and shady operations.”
“But your job, your title’s not ‘Operational Scout,’ is it?”
“No, it’s Security Consultant. But I operate; I live on the edge constantly. I’ve always lived like that, always praising a philosophy of action. Before the war, at home in Sweden, I read Nietzsche and the Bible. I did sports, I was an active man. You must shape your life positively and actively. Going to church and kneeling to the priest, I consider obsolete. Surely you should link up on the mystery of existence, and probably Christ can inspire this, but to do it once a week in a temple is not for me. I’m an Operational Scout, I shape my life positively and actively, I raise myself mentally – with my scouting job, just like I did in my war days.”