Cold War

On the landing, he nearly collided with Christian von Feldburg, coming out of the apartment opposite. Together they started down the stairs in the wake of the three young men who shared the flat under the Liebherrs’. Jakob knew that all three men, who went by names such as Meyer, Schultz and Braun, were black marketeers who also sold homemade schnapps of very dubious quality. They had served together on U-boats. They were cynical but young, fit and tough.

By the time he reached the ground floor, Liebherr lagged behind the younger men. Emerging from the front door, he found a large crowd had collected around the entrance of the adjacent apartment house. In addition to the woman’s frenzied shrieking, people were shouting and calling insults. The crowd blocked the way between the door and the canal. Jakob glanced towards the street and spotted an American car of some sort with police licence plates.

Ahead of him, Feldburg and Kapitaenleutnant “Meyer” pushed their way through the crowd, Meyer’s two crewmen in his wake. Abruptly a shot rang out. Everyone froze and silence crashed down over the crowd. The only sound was the rustling of the wind in the chestnut trees.

Horrified, Jakob forced himself forward. He pushed through the stunned crowd to find three policemen holding a man crumpled up between them; a fourth policeman held a pistol pointed at the sky. One of the police officers looked straight at Jakob and barked, “Tell these fools to back off or next time I’ll shoot to kill!”

“First tell me what is going on here,” Jakob countered moving cautiously closer. His heart was pounding furiously in his chest, but if you learned anything in a concentration camp it was not to show fright or anxiety. The thugs of both fascism and communism fed on fear.

“We are making an arrest—”

“They’re Markgraf’s men!” someone shouted from behind Liebherr. Markgraf was the Chief of Police installed by the Soviets as soon as they had conquered the city.

“My husband is innocent!” screeched the hysterical female voice that had shattered the afternoon’s peace. From the doorway she wailed, “He’s done nothing — NOTHING!”

“He’s a capitalist warmonger who has been gouging the proletariat —”

“He runs a barbershop!” the woman yelled back an octave higher than her normal voice. “We can hardly make ends meet!”

“Shut up or I’ll arrest you as well!” the police officer with the pistol retorted, lowering the barrel of his pistol so that it pointed at the woman in the door.

She answered by flinging open her arms and howled, “Shoot me! Shoot me! I’d rather you shot me than left me here without my Paul! Shoot me!” it turned into a long, drawn-out keen of grief.

The officer turned away as she sank to her knees in despair and snapped at his men. “Get him in the car!”

The other three policemen started shoving and dragging the stunned victim towards the waiting vehicle. The crowd didn’t part, but it didn’t stand firm either. The police officer narrowed his eyes, and his pistol swung back and forth as if looking for a target.

Jakob was no more courageous than the others. His mouth went dry, and he felt his muscles cramping up. He hated being defeated. He hated giving in, but he recognised the look in the policeman’s eyes. He would have liked to kill someone.

The police shoved their victim into the back seat, and two of them squeezed in beside him while the third went around to the driver’s seat. He climbed in behind the wheel and turned the key in the ignition. Only then did the man with the pistol start backing towards the car. He kept his pistol pointed at the crowd, his eyes daring anyone to make a move. His lips were curled in a sneer of contempt. He opened the door with his free hand and then in a swift movement, spun about and dropped inside.

No sooner had his door slammed shut than the crowd erupted. Several young men grabbed bricks from the heaps lying beside the pavement and threw them at the car. Several hit the side, boot and bumper, crashing and crunching as the metal buckled. The driver started to pull away from the curb, but the crowd chased after the car. More bricks and cobblestones rained down on the boot and the back window shattered. From the corner of his eye. Jakob registered that someone was drawing a pistol. In horror, he turned and saw Meyer start to take aim. “NO!” he shouted and knocked his arm away. “If you shoot a policeman, you’ll be the next victim!”

“They aren’t policemen!” someone shouted in answer. “They’re Stalin’s pet wolves!”

With the police car now far out of range, the crowd turned their rage on Jakob as a representative of their city government.

“They steal from us and kidnap and intimidate honest citizens!”

“When are we finally going to get protection from the criminals in police uniform?”

“We want police who aren’t Soviet stooges!”

“So do I!” Liebherr responded, raising his voice to be heard above the snarling of the others. “Believe me! No one wants real police more than Mayor Reuter and I!”

“Then do something!”

“How many more people are you going to let them kidnap?”

“When are you going to stop the theft? We have almost nothing left as it is!”

The hostility around him was so powerful that Liebherr was relieved to feel Christian von Feldburg move up beside him. He had his hand inside his jacket, and Liebherr sensed that he, too, was fingering a pistol. Feldburg was joined a moment later by Meyer, whose pistol was still in his hand.

Encouraged by this support, Liebherr raised his voice again to project authority as best he could. “Mayor Reuter is trying to recruit men for a new police force. If any of you wish to volunteer, let me know and I will see that you speak to the right people.” To his relief, this announcement harvested so much excitement that the hostility snapped. People started talking among themselves, while several of the women turned to comfort the woman sobbing in the doorway.

Liebherr joined them, sinking down on the front step to ask the name of the victim. He would, of course, protest to the Chief of Police, but he knew he would earn nothing but a sneering rebuff. Markgraf did not recognise the authority of the elected city officials; he took his orders solely from the Soviet Military Government.