They were just rumours, although those troops that had liberated Dachau, Belsen, Mauthausen, Ohrdruf, and a hundred other places would vouch that rumours of that kind had a habit of becoming reality.
This rumour had turned out to have an appalling individual reality all of its own.
Auschwitz.
With an awful irony, the ex-SS units of the Foreign Legion would now drive through the very worst of the Nazi concentration camps on their way to their new positions.
1454 hrs, Tuesday, 24th December 1946, Villa Speer, Schloss-Wolfsbrunnenweg, Heidelberg, Germany.
“Deutschland!”
Four voices shared the toast.
The glasses were drained and smashed, as tradition dictated, the fireplace suddenly glistening with sparkling fragments.
“Now, I am conscious that you all have some distance to go, but I felt it very necessary to confirm our decision on a certain matter before we enjoy our celebrations with our families. My apologies that we were interrupted previously.”
One of the family’s children had burst in excitedly, halting their discussion at the moment of decision.
Which had thrown out their timings, meaning that two of the three visitors were now overstaying their allotted time.
Rudolf Diels wasn’t married or greatly endowed with family that accepted his presence without rancour, so Christmas was decidedly not a family affair. However, he had decided which of his current string of women he would spend Christmas with, and he was keen to get back to her bed in Aschaffenburg with as little delay as possible.
In a 1944 air raid, Horst Pflug-Hartnung’s family had been placed well beyond the reach of man, so Christmas meant much less to him than many others. His inclusion in the Speer family celebrations was gratifying, and he had dared not refuse, although he wished to be somewhere quiet… and alone.
Von Vietinghoff had family in Mainz, and wished to get on the road, although not at the expense of having input on the main subject of the day’s discussions.
Speer moved closer to the standing men and lowered his voice.
“Can I confirm that we’re agreed on direct action to remove our concerns?”
Each man spoke, each one in the affirmative.
“For both cases?”
Again, they agreed.
“Staggered. They must not be too close together, for fear of arousing suspicion.”
Pflug-Hartnung spoke in his normal flowing fashion.
“That will not be a problem, Kanzler, and there’ll be no link to us in any way as it will be done simply and effectively. I already have method in mind. Do you wish to know?”
All three listening shook their heads, sharing mutters about leaving the details to the intelligence officer.
Speer clapped his hands with joy, wringing together as the burdens of state were suddenly lifted and he could now enjoy Christmas in all its glory.
“Excellent, Kameraden. Then I need detain you no further. A very merry Christmas to you and your families. Let me see you out.”
“May I use your phone, Kanzler?”
“Of course, Horst. Be my guest.”
Speer enjoyed his intended humour and left Pflug-Hartnung to make two telephone calls, calls that were seeming innocuous but that activated men intent on murder.
1535 hrs, Wednesday, 25th December 1946, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland.
We know that a man can read Goethe or Rilke in the evening, that he can play Bach and Schubert, and go to his day’s work at Auschwitz in the morning.
As Camerone had advanced, many units passed by Auschwitz-I, the camp inside the village.
Shocking reports started to filter back.
As word spread, more and more of Camerone’s leadership found time to come and see for themselves, Knocke’s order to avoid all installations somehow forgotten in the growing consternation that affected every unit within the division.
Based around the pre-war billet of a Polish cavalry battalion, Auschwitz-I was ‘tidier’ than previously imagined, in as much as it was not in ruins and had not been trashed by the local populace, although the twin additions of gallows and a small gas chamber were stark reminders as to its recent grisly purpose.
It was an organised place, properly laid out, and could, without the knowledge of what it had been, have easily returned to its military configuration or something similarly ordinary, with very little effort.
The sign above the main entrance now almost seemed to taunt those who walked under it, and many wondered if it had provided any comfort or hope of normalcy for those who had been herded underneath it during the camp’s operational years.
‘Arbeit macht frei.’
‘Work sets you free.’
Inside the compound, evidence was easily found as to its recent purpose, from the execution yard, its bullet holes almost shouting out about the lives taken on a sadistic whim after mock trials, to the small but efficient gas chamber, complete with ovens for immediate destruction of their victims.
The minute standing cells for up to four prisoners, where simple incarceration so often ended in death.
The piles of belongings, of suitcases, personal effects, shoes… so many shoes… the utter tragedy of a huge number of artificial limbs, removed from Jews, Gypsies, and others, many of whom had almost certainly sustained their loss in German uniform during the Great War.
The human hair… bag after bag of it removed from the living and the dead, to be used by the German war industry.
The Soviet engineers, under NKVD orders, had dressed the entire site in much the way that the Red Army had found it in 1945, but with the addition of signs, some placed on the bodies of the dead, others simply nailed on doors and walls.
The messages were everywhere, different texts expressing the same basic sentiment, intended to undermine the bonds between the legionnaires and their ex-SS comrades.
The piles of bodies, exhumed for the purpose, added weight to the accusations.
Lynched decomposing men and women hung from every high point, most with a placard that marked the reason for their death at the hands of the SS camp guards.
‘Jude’
‘Roma’
‘Homosexuelle’
And yet, Auschwitz I had been, and was now, the lesser evil in so many ways.
For some reason, only one or two units were routed past Auschwitz-II Birkenau, the real killing machine in the Nazi’s extermination programme, and they did not stop to investigate the silent lines of barbed wire and huts, as orders drove them further on towards the Vistula.
Perhaps their eyes did not see or perhaps their brains failed to acknowledge that such barbarity was possible in a civilised world.
Christmas Day arrived and saw most of Camerone in place and celebrating as best a soldier can in the cold of a Polish winter.
Some officers went back, keen to discover the secrets of the huge second camp; others merely got caught up in the boredom of the day and were swept along in the steady stream of legionnaires that went to see what all the fuss was about.
That attitude did not survive first contact with the sights on offer, and very soon tension and anger ruled.
The Soviets had excelled themselves.