El Alamein by Jack Murray (most popular novels of all time txt) 📕

‘Bugger off,’ replied Fischer.

‘I think you’ve a lot of experience you can bring to this position,’ continued Manfred.

‘Bugger off.’ Fischer was inspecting the engine of Manfred’s new tank, a Mark IV no less.

‘Perhaps one day you’ll be my loader.’

That was the final straw and moments later Manfred was being chased round the tank by a spanner-wielding Bavarian intent on murder.

Other changes were less welcome. The news that the regiment commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Cramer was to return to Germany was greeted with universal sadness. Manfred liked the gnarled veteran immensely. Like Kummel, he was a man that believed in leading from the front. He didn’t ask the men to do anything that he was not prepared to do himself. This had nearly resulted in his death the summer before when the Allies had made a major push to relieve Tobruk. Any hopes that Kummel would replace him were dispelled by the news that the new commander would be Lieutenant-Colonel Willi Teege.

The new commander was an unknown quantity, but the reports were good. Quite a few of the men knew him from Panzer Troop School. Cramer’s leaving speech confirmed what they all knew, however. He turned to Hans Kummel at one point and said, ‘I know that it was you who led our regiment to victory. And I ask that you maintain your attitude and aggressiveness, which I have always admired, even under a new commanding officer.’

Cramer was given a rousing send-off from the regiment. He wiped a tear away then ducked his head into the car. Soon he would be on a plane back to Germany. Everyone envied him but there was no hint of begrudgery. He’d earned it. Probably they all had.

As soon as he was gone, life resumed its slow pace. A curious calm had descended on North Africa. The drum and the trumpet of battle lay ahead. For now, the drooping clouds and intermittent showers were giving way to a belligerently blue sky, sun and the first hints of the heat that would burn and blister and brutalise the senses of all who toiled underneath it.

13

Ladenburg (nr. Heidelberg): 1st March 1942

Another day passed in the gradual erosion of Peter Brehme’s police powers. The day began normally enough. Crime in the town was at an all-time low. The Nazis, thought Brehme, had devised the perfect way of reducing crime. Force all likely criminals into the army and give them a war to fight. In the midst of some of the hardest years the country had ever experienced, Peter Brehme had never had it so easy. Nor had he ever been so bored.

The first inkling that this might be coming to end came when he received a call from the mayor, Stefan Lerner, to meet him at his office. This was a monthly affair normally when Brehme gave his report which, of late, had lasted a few minutes and then they had a few drinks. It was as convivial as it was absurd. Brehme looked forward to these meetings. He rarely socialised.

There were fewer soldiers in the square now. Even the Hitler Youth were less visible these days. It wasn’t difficult to understand why. The country was fighting across two fronts. The ‘volk’ required every able-bodied man to do his duty. No doubt boys, too.

He thought about Manfred and felt a stab of pain. His son had been swept along, like all of his generation, by the fantasy propagated by the Nazis. The youth had rebelled against the misery and the discipline of post-war Germany. This was a rebellion not just against the situation but also against another generation. Brehme’s generation. The harsh discipline of their elders had sown seeds reaped by the Nazis. Brehme recalled not only the severity of his own upbringing but also Manfred’s. Had it been effective or had he merely created the raw material that would ultimately be moulded by a man like Hitler? He knew the answer to this question, and it made him sick inside.

Brehme wondered how much Manfred still believed in the ideals indoctrinated by his surrogate parents in the party. Was it still possible to believe in a Fatherland and Fuhrer as he bore witness to the death and maiming of friends and comrades? If he did then his son was a fool. This thought, as much as any other, pained him. Life was the best teacher a man could have. Perhaps even he could still learn something new. And change.

Decades of service in the police force meant that Brehme could not stop himself noticing things. He stopped in the town square and looked around. Everything that was there was meant to be there. Something was missing, though, and it irked him. He could see no one from the Hitler Youth. Not one solitary member. When had they stopped being so visible? Perhaps their absence was a sign that the younger generation was waking up to the reality of Nazism: the horrifying prospect of being sent to some foreign field. And dying there.

Perhaps, instead, young people were merely doing what young people do. Rebelling against the older generations. Brehme smiled grimly at the thought that the older generation would be, by definition, Manfred’s. What remained were the old, the infirm or those too smart or too rich to get swept away by the waves of war.

Brehme nodded to a few of the townsfolk as he walked to the appointment. Otto Becker’s wife said hello to him as she scurried along the square carrying large bags of food.

‘Feeding the five thousand?’ laughed Brehme but she had already passed him.

He arrived at the town hall and bounded up the steps to Lerner’s office.

‘Just go on through,’ said Heike, Lerner’s elderly secretary.

Brehme gave a brief rap on the door and then entered. Lerner was behind a large mahogany desk. Another man was in the room. He was in his thirties and dressed smartly in a grey suit. Brehme recognised him as Gestapo immediately.

Overlooking the scene, like a mother hen, was a large portrait of