Chapter Text
May 1945.
Elias stood in front of the heavy oaken doors leading into the Gruppenführer’s office and hesitated, hand already on the brass door handle.
Behind him, the footsteps of soldiers echoed through the marble halls of headquarters. Men were rushing back and forth along the hallways, destroying files, throwing things from windows, and loading important equipment onto requisitioned trucks, both military and civilian. All to make a last mad dash to the west and into the arms of the British and American armies coming ever closer, and away, as far away as possible, from the Russian Red Army leaving death and destruction in its wake from the east.
The smell of burnt paper, the smell of defeat, hung heavy in the air.
Elias loved every second of it.
He’d come to gloat, of course. After fifteen long years serving as little more than a pet project to the Gruppenführer, the end of the war meant he was finally free. He couldn’t wait to shed this label of “honorary Aryan” that had been bestowed on him, a half-Jew. It was a term the Nazis used to classify part-Jews like him who had been found deserving of life, of not being sent to the camps. It was also the title that kept him from belonging to either world. He was neither truly a Jew nor a German.
Elias took another deep breath of that sweet perfume of defeat hanging heavy over the building and straightened his shoulders. He would march into the Gruppenführer’s office in triumph to see him suffer the defeat of the country he loved and the movement he believed in. Then, after this chance to gloat, he’d ensure the Gruppenführer would get a taste of what it had been like for him all these years, being kept like a pet.
Yes, Elias had been allowed to do the things German children did: he walked freely, had ample food, went to school, and even attended university to become a doctor. Other Jewish boys, meanwhile, were first banned from schools, then gassed in the camps. But even so, he'd had never been truly free under the officer's watchful eyes, and he was all too aware of the rude stares and whispered remarks from other Germans with whom he came in contact. They’d known, of course, that he wasn’t one of them and that he never would be. Even now, as a doctor working in an army hospital, the looks and whispers continued. People knew. Sure, he was a doctor, but to many of the other doctors and to most of the hospital staff, he was still first and foremost a half-Jew.
His grip tightened on the door handle and he slowly opened the heavy door. It swung open with surprising ease for its size and weight, revealing in the office behind it the central feature of a large oak desk bathed in mid-afternoon sunlight, which was falling into the room from tall, curtainless windows. The Gruppenführer was silhouetted behind it, his back turned toward the door as he looked outside into the courtyard.
He hadn’t heard Elias enter.
Elias was about to step forward and announce himself when the Gruppenführer made a movement and Elias realized with a shock he had raised a pistol. The sun briefly caught the barrel when he turned the gun, perfectly silhouetted against the bright sky outside, and placed it gently against his temple, his index finger already on the trigger.
Elias’ heart pounded as he leapt across the room, cleared the table, and lunged for the gun. His hand closed around the Gruppenführer’s wrist just as he pulled the trigger, and the limp body slumped backward into Elias’ arms.
He felt an immense surge of anger coursing through his body. “You bastard,” he thought. “You fucking bastard. How dare you kill yourself before I have my revenge!”
He lowered the body to the ground, looking down at the man who seemed now very small indeed as he lay there so lifelessly, but then Elias thought that he didn't look dead. The dead, he knew from his work as a doctor, almost immediately took on a waxy appearance, like oversized movie props or wax figures, and no longer appeared to be fully human. The Gruppenführer did not look like this at all, and Elias’ mind began to catch up with the scene before him.
He realized he saw neither a bullet wound nor very much blood. This meant he’d made it in time: he’d been able to push away the gun just as the Gruppenführer had pulled the trigger. It had been the force of the concussion that had knocked the officer unconscious.
Elias bent over the lifeless body, his practiced fingers feeling for a pulse first at the carotid artery in the neck, then at the radial artery in the wrist. He felt both. The pulses were fast but regular. A trickle of blood coming from the man's ear suggested he’d blown his ear drum, and powder burns to the side of his face suggested the firearm going off close to his face, but he seemed to have been spared more serious injury.
Elias looked up and saw the bullet hole in the wall high above the fireplace to his left. He gave a sigh of relief. He’d have his revenge after all.
But, one thing at a time: first he’d have to figure out how to move the Gruppenführer to the old house hidden deep in the woods near the his former summer residence. This wouldn’t be easy; the German army was fleeing in every direction, and the roads were clogged with civilian refugees from the east. Worse yet, bands of fanatical SS troops and even Hitler Youth boys were roving the countryside, killing “traitors.” They were hanging or gunning down anyone they found without a proper pass or an ID card. As a Jewish doctor moving an unconscious SS-officer, Elias could expect certain death if he were caught.
It also occurred to him that avoiding patrols and trying to move against the stream of refugees was only a part of his problems. Keeping the Gruppenführer from being recognized would be, too, if Elias didn’t want to see his prize scooped up by the Red Army and hung for war crimes.
Right now, however, keeping the him sedated was Elias' primary concern.
He wished he had his medical kit, which was inconveniently sitting underneath his desk at the hospital, three kilometers away. However, being doctor, he always carried some equipment in case he was needed, especially now that bombing raids were a daily occurrence. At the very least he always carried some morphine, which was used both to relieve pain and during anesthesia. He’d probably have just enough to keep the Gruppenführer quiet long enough to get him to the hospital.
A plan began to formulate in Elias’ mind. He would sedate the Gruppenführer and, once at the hospital, dispose of his identification tag, papers, and uniform. Then he would hide him in plain sight: as another wounded soldier in one of the overcrowded wards. It was simple enough.
Elias reached for his morphine kit, opened the small box containing several pre-filled syringes, and placed it on the floor beside the officer’s limp arm. He lifted one of the syringes from the kit and carefully injected the morphine into the radial vein at the Gruppenführer’s wrist. That should keep him quiet for a while.
Having slipped the kit back into his coat pocket, Elias ran down the hallway to fetch the Gruppenführer’s orderly, Rottenführer Schmidt, from his office. He found Schmidt hacking away at his typewriter, seemingly unaware of anything going on around him. You couldn’t blame him: between the sporadic gunfire in the distance and the noise in the building, anyone could have missed a gunshot. Even someone not half-deaf, as Schmidt was.
“SCHMIDT!” Elias shouted, which seemed to get his attention. “The Gruppenführer just tried to kill himself! Help me get him into the car, I’ll take him to the hospital.”
Schmidt rushed around the desk at once and followed Elias into the office. Together, they were able to carry the limp body down the stairs and out into the gravel courtyard where Elias’ car was parked. Being a military doctor, he had access to this vehicle, a gray Opel Olympia that had seen better days, whenever it wasn’t in use by anyone else.
The driver, a very short, easily annoyed SS-Schütze by the name of Rothgerber, was kicking at pebbles on the ground and smoking those awful Russian cigarettes he’d acquired a taste for on the Russian front, when he saw them approach. He put the cigarette out between his fingers and put it into his pocket for later. Everything was in short supply these days, even bad cigarettes. He opened the passenger-side door, which creaked in protest, and helped them put the Gruppenführer into the back seat.
“There’s no need to send any of his things, Schmidt,” Elias said to the orderly. “It doesn’t look like he’ll stay long.” To himself he thought, “and it doesn’t look like his office will still be here in a few days, anyway. Once the Russians overrun it, there won’t be much left of it or of anyone caught nearby.” He said out loud, “We’ll both see you soon.” Schmidt shrugged. Me may have been half-deaf and only a lowly clerk, but he was no idiot and he knew as well as Elias that he would probably be trying to make his way to American lines in a few days, rather than face the Russians.