The Kindly Ones

The noose was tightening. The Adlon had closed its doors; my only diversion was drinking schnapps at the Kurfürstenstrasse, or at Wa

Soon the Kurfürstenstrasse too had to be evacuated. The remaining officers were dispersed; Müller withdrew to his emergency HQ, in the crypt of the Dreifaltigkeitskirche on Mauerstrasse. The Bendlerstrasse was practically on the front line, the liaisons had become very complicated: to reach the building, I had to thread my way through the rubble to the edge of the Tiergarten, then continue on foot, guided through basements and ruins by Kellerkinder, filthy little orphans who knew every nook and crany. The thunder of the bombardments was like a living thing, a multifaceted and tireless assault on hearing; but when the immense silence of the pauses descended, it was worse. Entire sections of the city were burning, giant phosphorous fires that sucked in the air and provoked violent storms that fed the flames even more. Heavy, violent, brief rains sometimes extinguished a few fires, but mostly intensified the smell of burning. A few planes were still trying to land on the Ost-West-Achse; twelve Ju-52s transporting SS cadets were shot down on approach, one after the other. Wenck’s army, according to the information they deigned to pass on to me, seemed to have vanished into the woodworks somewhere to the south of Potsdam. On April 27, it was very cold out, and after a violent Soviet assault on the Potsdamer Platz, driven back by the Leibstandarte AH, there were several hours of quiet. When I returned to the church on Mauerstrasse to report to Müller, I was told he was in one of the a