ARRIVING midday, they drive all dusty and noisy into the compound of the Information Command. A few yards to the left is a magnificent lodge. A glance tells him that the officers have crowded around the windows from their lunch table to watch the famous old team dismount. "Damn," he thinks, "we're not ready to go on show! They'll get a bad first impression, these fucking voyeurs!" He beckons to First Sgt. Taubert, who never moves fast but like a dreadnought, and says in urgent tones, "Sergeant, let's get them out of the vehicles, all of them, and lined up, for instructions and dismissal, full attention." "Let's go, men, snap shit," he snarls, sotto voce, surprising the nonchalant soldiers. They hasten into a fairly neat row, straighten up and render fair semblance of well-drilled soldiers at attention. He pretends to take a report from the Sergeant, orders "Dismiss the Company," and Taubert, who manages an about-face without stumbling, dismisses them properly.
That's fine for them, they just hang around now; but their Captain has to find out what to do with them and that means, since no one is coming out to help him, finding the entrance to the dining room, walking stiffly up to the head of the table, having spotted there a Colonel whom he presumes to be the Commander, throwing a freshly cut salute at him and reporting the company's arrival in proper army style, third person and all. It is appreciated. The quite unmilitary and inexperienced group at the table feel good about having this weatherbeaten crowd bring in a breath of the real War that has eluded them, the War that is already becoming a memory even before they could take part in it.
The High Life begins in the castle above Georgenborn. Full dress at all times except during outdoor recreation. Shiny vehicles. A private room and bath. A quartet playing the quintessential repertoire at cocktails and dinner. Meals served by white-jacketed German waiters. The menu as it once had been, with venison, wild boar, Black Forest tort, strong coffee, fine wines, cordials. Bad Homburg, a sumptuous spa, is nearby. His snobbish British friends should be here to appreciate it; Robbie by now has repossessed his tuna fishery on Elba; he would call all of this, like the "Corny Beef" Hotel Corneuille in Algiers, "Bad Hamburger" or ""Bah, Humbug!"
Lt. Simone Thomas comes up to visit from Seventh Army Headquarters and charms the officers, especially the quaint South Carolinian, Lt. Col. Hardin, who is typical of the close acquaintances of the Captain, so it would seem, not highly educated or intellectual, good-humored, interested in and not hostile to the world about, and bearing a regional or ethnic stamp. A recipe that cooks up guys like Tom Crowell. Col. Hardin has a Lt. Horsey as sidekick, a little large- spectacled guy -- both of them are ugly -- who, when in the cups, delights the Captain by chanting a poem from the uttermost recesses of the unreconstructed Confederacy, beginning "Ah hates the Constitution.." (Col. Hardin smiles apologetically over his unconscious ventriloquy.)
Col. J.B. Stanley is in charge, a sweet character. He has a bosom companion, a stage beauty named Maggie Hammerstein. The only other pretty woman around is an Icelander, faithful to a husband who has disappeared into the British navy somewhere, and with whom the Captain becomes friend and demi-lover as the days and cocktail hours pass. He has a lot of time to read, for he is still carried as Commanding Officer of the Seventh Army Team, largely inoperative. He has stated firmly to all and sundry that he will escape to the Big PX upon his first opportunity.
He dropped in upon the men of his company from time to time. The distance between them was growing within the larger framework of the Information Command. They were well fixed and awaiting the call to go home. Jill had written with some concern as to whether he had achieved the 85 points -- five for this and five for that campaign, and for a medal, and a landing, and a wife and a child and a wound and a couple of other merits and hardships, like being over a long time -- that were supposed magically to transport a soldier home; he had 120 points and could have claimed even more; there were only a few thousands like him in the European Theater; practically all of his men had the 85 points. He was beginning to send the worst cases home, holding his own worst case back a bit. The several who wished to stay had already been well assigned.
The G.I. Bill was hardly exciting to the men, nor even to him, strange to say, who had approached within hailing distance of a doctor's degree. It came rather late, and was not fully appreciated: its offer of a college education with full tuition and allowances for living and books, a perfect generous act of the Congress that did more than anything else to smooth out, lengthen, and make profitable the otherwise dismal period of refitting socially the veteran. But the men long overseas felt themselves beyond the exciting promises of veteranship. Finding a job and a girl and knocking around: these seemed all of the good life that most men would admit to. They were already talking about the good old days at Schloss Strassberg.
When Simone Thomas put in an appearance all cheery with a thoroughbred dachshund in tow, they gave her big brotherly smiles; and when the Captain was left with the dachshund, and the massively muscled low-slung beast tripped him and dashed off into the woods, they did not laugh and jest but joined in seriously combing the woods in search of the animal. It was not to be found. He tells Simone that he will send her a real American dog after he gets back home. He does not; but they do meet again.
On August 6, as the Plane carrying the Atom Bomb to Japan is being armed, he writes Jill of such other matters,
Darling,
I got up bright and early this morning to get rid of a pile of work that had piled up over the week-end in order to get started on a letter to you. I can now report with pride that the task has been accomplished in one hour and I can enter the second phase. You ought to see me apply myself to work. I can't stand it and therefore get rid of it as soon as possible in what is sometimes an almost revulsive frenzy. I would be more concerned over my attitude if it weren't so constructive in its effects. When it's over and I'm left with so much free time, I wonder why I was so energetic about it.
I must go over to Frankfurt sometime today to see if they've received a quota for home yet. It's quite a job to keep one's burning interest in the issue concealed. I know that if a clerk should turn his back while cutting the orders I've cut my own name into them before you could wink an eyelash.
I heard a concert Thursday night by the newly revived Wiesbaden Symphony Orchestra that I don't think I mentioned to you yet. It was a programme of Brahms, Mendelssohn, and Tchaikovsky mostly, standard stuff and played without much inspiration. The hall was too small for the sixty-piece orchestra and the acoustics were very bad but the audience of some five hundred Germans ate it up. There were a few Americans in uniform present. I thought that this being the first concert since the occupation the Germans couldn't help but be impressed by the new color of the uniforms and the absence of all their old traditional insignia, songs, flags, etc. but I don't think they are very imaginative except on the subject of Cossack cavalry, and flying fortresses.
After the concert I was standing outside the building, preparatory to driving off, and talking with Curtis, the Red Cross representative in this zone, and noticed out of the corner of my eye a tall officer who had come up to us. I thought it was our Lt. Keller and paid no attention to him until I finished with Curtis. Then I was amazed to see Tom Stauffer there. (He might well be: he last saw Tom as a KP, busy among a lot of pots, upon his first day in the Army, at Camp Grant.) We exchanged greetings. Naturally Tom would seek out a cultural event if it were in Darkest Africa. He said he was going to work with the Group Control Council in Berlin and seemed for some reason to be embarrassed by the fact. He's a first Lt. and I don't believe he's been over for long. As weird as ever, though. I wonder what havoc he'll wreak in Berlin. Wally's [Wallenberg's] newspaper goes off the presses in a day or so there incidentally. It's the most important press job in Germany now certainly; it will be in direct competition with the Russian papers on the newsstands.
Saturday night Simone Thomas drove up with Col. Landstrom who is our representative at Seventh Army Headquarters for dinner and the Sat. Night concert we have here. She is a fine party girl, buzzes all over the place, is very lively and always smiling, she is uninhibited and without illusions of any sort which does credit to her family. Her attitudes in politics are in correspondence. She is not sensitive or jealous towards Americans as so many French are, especially from the middle classes. We had a lot of champagne and things for dinner and afterward while the musicians rested, Bass on the piano and I on the violin accompanied bad singers in drinking songs. Then I played "Love in Bloom" by popular request just as well as Jack Benny.
Sunday morning I went with Kvam who controls theaters to Wiesbaden to look in on a revue which was cheap and bad, a violin player that made me feel cocky even.
Last evening was very quiet. I read Bret Harte's Story of a Mine and took a long walk with Col. Hardin and Lt. Horsey.
On August 7, he writes briefly that they have heard of a great bomb, and, seemingly indifferent, talks of other matters. But, next day, he writes at length about the Bomb:
Jill Darling,
As our very clever little Morning Bulletin put it this morning, today is AB + 3. So far most of the news programs have given us superlatives in fact and expression more than anything else about the bomb. It is very difficult to conceive but everyone is awed and although hopeful of its bringing to an early end the Japanese war a little dismayed by the future prospects of life on this earth. It certainly should make any future war impossible. Perhaps it can accomplish what peace conferences cannot accomplish, and once more, remind man that he is incapable of willing and planning any of the big things of his life, but must wait for a catastrophe to direct him. I understand that the New York Times was ready with forty pages on the bomb, not only a good piece of journalism but giving the devil his due. The consequences are being analyzed by people with more time and research materials than I and I suppose I will get to read about some of them in due time. Meanwhile this morning it occurred to me that just as the British Labor Party gets into power to take over the coal industries, the coal industries may be soon replaced by this new source of power. Another first consequence of the application of the new power will be the hastening of socialism, because the power is so enormous and important as to tie people together almost inextricably.
A local by-product of the news was that Lt. Rosette of the 6871 was more depressed than ever last night. He is a medievalist of the Hutchins, T. S. Eliot ilk, convinced of the malignity of material progress and of the greater happiness of other peoples in other times. He says he can't find life in America compatible with his way of living and plans to live in London, Paris or somewhere on the continent after the war. He was with Newsweek before going into the army and was with OSS just before going into Inf Control. I can't find much sympathy for him. It is such an absurd escapism and of course it is completely selfish. I would feel for him more if he didn't think he was basing it on a true philosophy.
The soldiers talk a lot about the Bomb. They are awed, perhaps all the more because they see all about them the effects of thousands of bombs and high explosive projectiles. At the same time, they are not inclined to see in it anything especially immoral, because they measure its murderousness against the otherwise loss of a million American lives to take Japan. Since they believe that this anyhow is the last war that they will see, they are not preoccupied with the handling of the Bomb in the future or whether more will be made. They assume there would be a halt to their manufacture; there would be no more bombs made after the annihilation of Nagasaki. After all, against whom would the nuclear bomb be employed? No aggressive power remains to threaten a peaceful world. The idea of a Cold War hardly occurs to anyone.
He walks about the castle gardens, pondering a formula for Europe. No one speaks of the United Nations as the organization that is to settle a New Europe into a New One World. This is the way he would like it and he perks up when he reads that the United Nations might even set up its headquarters in San Francisco, where it starts up life, for he would see combined there two dear wishes, to live in San Francisco and to work for world federalism.
He had given up the idea of becoming a Professor. He thought of going into publishing on the West Coast or in Chicago, rather than New York where, though he did not know, "everybody who was anybody" in the industry worked. He thought that the center of world politics would now shift to the United Nations and to Washington, and to the free media of communications, in publishing, in the press, where he pictured himself, rather prematurely, as qualified.
The Colonel asked him in an informal way if he would like to go with his party to Berlin, to join the Allied Control Mission there, promoted to Major to begin with. The Colonel liked to live well. It would be a ball. He was gratified. He could be integral to whatever the Allies would be doing with the prostrate monster Reich. He could justify staying or returning so far as his little household was concerned: Jill and Baby Cathy could be brought over soon enough. At this point especially, but, in general, too, as ought to be quite clear by now, he did like Army life and felt more at home in the Army than anywhere else in the world except -- and this was in his imagination -- the University of Chicago neighborhood -- an increasingly vague dreamland.
Still, it would commit him to more years in the Army, perhaps forever, even though just now it was the kind of Army that every gold brick dreamt about. There might not be anything afterwards, and soon his role would shrink, and become less and less political, indeed therefore dangerous, for he was a political animal. He would be voicing opinions in ever higher councils and, while flexible on most matters, would be obdurate in giving credit to the Soviets for the major role they had played in breaking the back of the Third Reich. (He counted every other American soldier as a saved casualty by virtue of the Soviet Army.)
This was soon to become an uncomfortable reminder for the Western Allies. More and more of the occupying force would not have felt poignantly the effects of the War in the East. The ever- increasing influence of the Germans would be felt against the Russians, even though the Germans would know the true history. The Germans then were still good mythographers; they could tell historical lies with a straight face or placidly permit others to do so. They were not yet so sincerely democratic as they would later become (most of them is meant, of course, not all).
Bitter talk against the Soviets was beginning. The savagery and rapine by the victorious Soviet troops in conquered territories was widely publicized, though mostly by eye-witnesses and word of mouth. The Captain's personal informant had been Larry Walker, who had driven straight through the lines into Prague and there encountered the Russian troops, and who had returned shocked with tales of rape, looting, and murder. The Captain told him to make allowances -- what allowances, how many? Well, Walker, whatever allowances you might grant yourself if you had your country torn apart by these arrogant murderous aggressors, had been forced to live like a pig, eat like a convict, submit to merciless discipline and fight fearfully for years and seen half your comrades killed, had your home blown apart and your family scattered into misery or captivity. With all this and the promise of extermination, it is a wonder that the Soviets were not even more harsh.
The word out of Berlin was not so good. The Western and Eastern Allies were infrequently talking to each other, hardly even at the top level. They were drawing lines, on the ground and in their minds. The Russians were too suspicious. Still, while berating the Russians, the men around him were not yet dealing in the unspeakable, the need to make numbers of A-Bombs in order to keep the Communists at bay.
He brooded about the fate of the good people, the democrats of Europe, and the death and destruction everywhere. He saw few signs of the great roundup of the confirmed Nazis who had survived, the SS, the murderers, the slave-drivers. Under certain circumstances -- if the Allied Command were fierce down to the junior officer level, for instance -- he would have taken up the hue and cry; he believed still in summary execution of the worst enemy types (he figured that there were a quarter of a million of them), and a scolding and exhortation for the general population; he wanted, too, to go after all of the non-German Nazis and collaborators around Europe: Russian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Finnish, Polish, Ukrainian, Byelorussians, Bessarabians, Cossacks, Tatars, Arabs, Hindustani, Baluchistani, Spanish, Argentinans, French, Irish, Norwegian, Swedish, Dutch, Flemings and Walloons, Swiss, Hungarians, Serbs, Montenegrins, Greeks, Croats, Slovaks, Bohemians, and, of course, Italians and Austrians.
Most of the experienced officers and men would go home as soon as possible. Men who had never felt an enemy presence nor the deprivations of campaign life were to be in charge of reconstructing Germany and assisting the victims of other countries. Would not they be too lenient, because the enemy had not hurt them? Some would. Would they be too harsh out of guilt? Some would. Would the conquered enemy respond better to rule by men who had not destroyed them? Yes. If the conquering troops were forced to stay as rulers, would they not be falsely persuaded that they knew "how to handle the Germans"? Many of them would be so deluded.
Actually only a tiny proportion of the conquering soldiery knew anything useful about Germany or civil affairs; for that matter only a small proportion of them had ever seen a German soldier under hostile circumstances, mostly a half-million surviving riflemen, not the artillery, not even the airmen, who had had occasion to kill enemy troops, and also had been ordered to kill enemy civilians en masse (whereas the ground forces had been forbidden to commit crimes against the same civilians).
The old officers and soldiers had dealt with themselves; no more than one-twentieth of the time during the most violent campaign was spent even by a front-line combat officer dealing with the enemy; the rest goes to his own troop and his auxiliary services and higher command. Hardly anyone sees the enemy face to face and a third of those who do don't live to tell the tale. So what could they know about rebuilding and controlling the German nation?
Considering everything, it was better to get rid of the old soldiers and let in the new bunch to do the job. The new ones were much more reasonable and constructive. No one planned it that way: as I said, the Captain and practically every other old soldier (he was 25 years old) would have been welcome to stay on for the occupation and given preference over the newcomers.
He would have liked, then and there -- so he imagined as he walked the twilight gardens in July whipping at limp stalks with his riding crop -- to take part in a general round of proclamations, punishment, restitution, recovery, and utopian social reconstruction, binding upon all of Europe, not Germany alone.
Enough of this! It was time to turn his back on Europe. The orders arrived, directing him to go where he so had wanted to go for years, home to Chicago. When Jill learned about it, she could not help but write to him, even though he was supposed to be leaving the next day -- a final spasm of her incredible epistolary musculature:
August 22, 1945
Darling -
I don't know if there's any sense in writing you - I got your letter this morning that you were leaving the 23rd & I don't know what to do, I am so dizzy. With difficulty I gave Kathy lunch but am unable to eat myself - much less sleep, read or do anything but (at first) cry with joy & call Mom & talk, rather babble, endlessly.
I don't know whether to write any more. I might better devote the time to cleaning the house & fixing my clothes.
Darling I don't know what else to say except that I'm the happiest woman alive.
OOOXXX
Jill