Aktion at the Opera House
Potsdam; March 3rd, 1933. 19:25
Of the nineteen men Sturmführer Christian Faber had selected for this
aktion, none had joined the SA before October 1930. Twelve of them had taken up the brown shirt in the wake of NSDAP's stunning electoral successes in 1930 and 1932, which had brought the Party up from the status of backbench agitators in the Reichstag to that of the strongest political entity in Germany. The remaining seven had actually sworn their oaths
after Adolf Hitler had been appointed Chancellor. The Sturmführer had had time to train the former decently; he still had a lot to do with the latter.
Faber's shock
sturm had been integrated in the "Auxiliary Police Force" created by Göring a couple of weeks earlier. Their missions still involved bullying, threatening and beating political opponents into submission, but now the SA had legal sanction to perform these actions. Göring himself covered up for them - and that cover even extended to acts of murder. Before Hitler's appointment Faber's men had formed a brutally efficient force; now that they could act with impunity, they had started degenerating into a motley of self-important thugs, firm in their belief Germany now belonged to the SA and that they, as members of the SA, could do now whatever they wanted. A belief shared by a large number of higher-ranking SA, starting with their leader Röhm.
Faber did not share that outlook. A former army sergeant and a member of NSDAP since 1921, he had participated actively in the resistance against French occupation in the Rühr. He had been ordered back to Munich in October the same year, and he became one of the "Alte Kämpfer" who lay bleeding on the pavement when the Green Police had opened fire on the column led by Ludendorff and Hitler in the ill-fated Beer-Hall Putsch. He had been ordered to move to Berlin in 1925, and there he had spent years fighting the powerful Communist organizations. He had risen through the ranks of the SA owing to his fidelity to Hitler when Strasser tried to take NSDAP away from him in the late twenties, and had earned himself a reputation as an efficient and fearless leader in many skirmishes. He had fought fiercely, and had served two sentences in jail.
Now that NSDAP had won, he too was relieved not to have to worry about the legal implications of his actions. But he did not revel in that freedom and found it futile to take advantage of it to indulge one's desires; he dreamt of an ordered and efficient Germany, devoted to the fulfilment of the ideals of National-Socialism, and he held faith that Hitler would eventually bring the SA back in line. Hitler was not a man who would accept disorder and chaos when they no longer served National-Socialist purposes.
But the SA still had their uses; the opposition was only defeated, not yet broken. And here Faber was ready to play his part.
Thus it was that, in the late hours of a chilly evening, section Faber prepared to break into a safe house of the Reichsbanner Schwartz-rot-gold, the several hundred-thousand-strong paramilitary organization who supported the Social-democrats. The existence of the safe house had been revealed a couple of days earlier by a member of the Reichsbanner who had been terrorized by the wave of repression unleashed on Prussia after the burning of the Reichstag. Its location was good enough to warrant taking it over: it was close to Berlin and yet isolated enough to detain political opponents there discretely; Faber was to break into the refuge, occupy it, and then wait for a local branch of the SS to take over the place and set up a makeshift prison.
**
The truck carrying Faber and his men stopped on a gravelly path some fifty metres away from their objective.
The "safe house" was actually made of two buildings standing on barren soil. The larger was a small Opera House whose owners had gone bankrupt late in 1918; it had a rather extensive cellar where wine and other supplies used to be stored for the buffets which invariably preceded and followed the performances. The smaller building was the former owners' house; it must have been cosy in the past, but in its present state it looked rather miserable. Both nominally belonged to a Rheinlander noble these days; according to Potsdamers, the man had never actually visited the estate.
Now Faber could see neither building showed signs of habitation - his information had been correct. There were no lights to be seen through any of the windows - here again, his suspicions nobody would be present when his SA came to pay a visit were correct.
What bothered him a lot more was the state of disrepair in which the place was. Several tiles had fallen from both roofs - some of them still lay near the walls. Many of the planks barring the ground-level windows were half rotten, and parts of the roof and of one of the walls of a lean-to were actually missing. Nobody had bothered to cut a dead tree down, and ivy was creeping on a couple of dozen others.
None of the other SA seemed to be bothered by any of the details; they were busy getting off the truck and did so with a lot of shouts, bad jokes and rude laughter.
So much for discretion Faber thought. The carelessness of his men was getting on his nerves. It looked too much like they had just walked into a trap.
Faber cleared his throat and he called out to his men with a powerful voice:
'Comrades, that's enough! There'll be time to get fun later. At attention!'
The trouble being these men are starting to believe this is
fun he added for himself.
The men took nearly a minute to calm down and to arrange into a semblance of formation - a process during which Faber waited without a sign or a word, his icy stare trained on the rowdier of the SA.
Faber's unit had once been among the best in Berlin, but some imbecile higher-up had decided to split Berlin's sections into two or more new sections filled up with recruits, rather than form entirely new
sturms with the thousands who had recently made the SA ranks swell. The idea, while not bad in principle, had been applied unimaginatively to all the
sturms, and this included crack ones like Faber's.
The Bavarian often cursed the idiot who had given the order to take half of his men away from him; he had taken months to train a motley band of undisciplined youths into a crack troop, and now he almost had to do it all again. The Sturmführer had hoped the lack of opposition would make the coming
aktion an excellent drill for the newcomers; by now he was fairly sure they were about to get actual experience on the field.
Finally the men stood silent and at attention, and Faber gave his orders.
'This whole place looks like it's empty, but it's no reason to act like fools. If it had been me who set up this place as a safe house, I'd have made sure to leave a couple of very nasty surprises to any uninvited guests.'
'You real think there gonna be danger?'
The rough voice belonged to a thuggish man who stood nearly two metres for a hundred and thirty kilos of muscle. His name was Zigmund Koller; he was an ex-butcher who had actually succeeded at intimidating his clients into purchasing their meat at someone else's. One of the new members of the
sturm, he was strong like a bull - and nearly as stupid.
Not stupid enough to miss the meaning of Faber's glare, though.
'... Sturmführer' he said moodily.
'Much better. As I was saying, you'll have to watch your steps once you are inside. There may be traps, or there may simply be stairs and floors in too bad a state to support your weight. Keep an eye out for men, but pay attention to your surroundings.
'Ernst and Kristof' and Faber motioned the two men forward, 'will stay here with me; we'll watch the front doors and reinforce those of you who'd run into unexpected trouble.
'Hans, Helmut, Karl and Heinz will be squad leaders. Hans will take four men with him and prepare to storm into the smaller house through the back door, on the right end of the building. Secure what you can, but withdraw at the first sign of serious opposition and interdict the door. The other teams will help you mop things up after they're finished with the opera house.
'Heinz will take three men and prepare to break through the main building's front door. Hans and Karl will also take three and will enter through ground-level windows, respectively on the far side of the left and right walls. You'll sweep the ground and second floors clean before you regroup and clean up the cellar.
'Squad leaders have four minutes to choose their men and move them into position; I'll shoot to signal the beginning of the operation.
'Anybody got questions, Comrades?'
'What if we find someone?' Heinz asked. He was a lean, wiry-muscled man much more dangerous in a fistfight than appeared at first glance.
'If you find someone' Faber replied, 'you beat him up and make him squeal like the dirty little piglet he is'. Some of the men chuckled. 'Nobody's supposed to live here; this means anybody you find is guilty of
something. We'll just save the courts several hours of nitpicking.
'Another question?'
None of the men replied.
'Very well; comrades, you have your orders. Let's get rid of this stinking job; the sooner the SS can take over here, the better.'
**
Now the Sturmführer was a bit more satisfied by what he was seeing. He'd had to tailor his speech to the men's new expectations, but it had gotten things running and it was all Faber really cared about. The veterans quickly decided on who'd accompany them and made a short work of objections from three of the late-comers who wanted to stay together.
The
sturm moved into position, and at the end of the four minutes Faber drew his revolver and fired at the sky. His shot was echoed by four slams as his teams assaulted the doors and boarded windows.
Faber took some enjoyment watching Koller wreck the front door. The big man has yet to learn to work efficiently in a team, but his sheer might was already a great asset.
The bashing sounds from the other points of entry were soon followed by the sounds of splintering wood and shattering glass, and then the shouts of the SA attempting to intimidate anybody who'd had the sorry idea to hide in grounds claimed by NSDAP.
The first sign something had gone wrong was the shout of pain which had followed another slam somewhere in the abandoned house. Ernst and Kristof fidgeted.
'We don't move until they ask for help' Faber told them quietly. 'Our only concern is making sure the job gets done.
A couple of minutes later two of the men emerged from behind the house; one of them was supporting the other, who looked like something was sticking out of his arm.
"Something" turned out to be pretty unexpected, even for Faber: from the right shoulder of the wounded man emerged the barbed, wooden shaft of a crossbow bolt.
Faber hissed. 'Clever. Taking that thing out will require a doctor.'
The wounded man groaned. 'Sorry, Sturmführer. Didn't mean to make a fool of myself.'
'Next time you'll kick the door instead of shoving it, that's all.' Faber smiled. 'It doesn't bleed that hard.'
'Doesn't, but I can't feel my arm'.
Faber frowned. 'Michael' he asked the unhurt man, 'take him back to Sebastian, then go to the main house, ask Heinz to lend you a man and warn everyone to pay extra attention to traps.' And then, with a smile for the wounded one: 'Get your rest. I'll have someone fetch a doctor as soon as we've cleared this damn place.'
Fewer sounds could be heard coming from both buildings now, and the Sturmführer took a few moments to watch the last rays of sunlight creeping through the trees of the small demesne.
Faber smiled. He knew Hans would have pulled out and would be waiting by the back door of the house with his remaining men. He wasn't a man to take unnecessary risks, and the two rookies he still had with him must have gotten cold feet after seeing their comrade get hurt.
Sorry kids he thought, still smiling.
Sometimes the bad guys do fight back.
A scream coming from the Opera house wiped the smile off his face. It was quickly followed by several gunshots, and then a high-pitched, bloodcurdling "HILFE!" in a voice Faber recognized as Heinz's, followed by a sinister crack and finally the thud of a body falling on the floor.
'Heinz!'
Faber cursed himself. That was Michael - the man had not met Heinz, and obviously it was too dangerous for him to stay inside on his own. And it was hardly less dangerous to let the others keep exploring the opera house - they'd have been frightened by what they had heard, and risked making fatal mistakes of their own.
Faber took a deep inspiration and shouted at the top of his voice:
'ALL OF YOU GET OUT! TO ME! GET OUT! OUT!'
Hans and his two men quickly reached Faber, after a short sprint.
**
Michael never did.
**
Nor did anyone else.
**
Now the five men Faber had left weren't just frightened: they were terrorized.
'We get the hell away from here, Sturmführer' Hans said.
'I'm out too.' Ernst.
'I don't wanna die.' Kristof.
And Hans' two men were about to start racing for Sebastian's truck.
But Faber couldn't just run away without trying to discover what had happened to his men.
Someone had to tell the higher-ups his
sturm had somehow been all but wiped out in a few minutes... but someone had to make sure they were.
And Faber knew none of the men would be persuaded to go back inside.
'Hans'.
'Yes, Sturmführer?'
'I'm going to try and see what happened to the men.' Faber was trying very hard to keep his voice and expression detached. 'You will take the others back to Sebastian.'
Hans almost strangled himself. 'You are going inside? Are you crazy?'
'I can't go back to the Sturmbannführer and just tell him I ran away without knowing what had happened to my men.'
'All you'll learn is what it's like to get yourself killed.'
Faber managed a weak smile. 'Thanks for your concern, Hans. Now listen: you will tell Sebastian to wait for exactly ten minutes. If none of you see me get out of the god-damned place, or if anybody or anything else gets out, you get away as fast as you can. Alright?'
Hans swallowed. 'Jawohl, herr Sturmführer.'
'I'm counting on you. Now give me your torchlight.'
Faber left his men and made it to the door Koller had smashed - had it really been less than ten minutes earlier? He drew his revolver, and held the torchlight in his other hand, scanning the wide hall which opened in front of him.
It was almost completely dark inside. The sun had already set, and what little light it still gave did not reach the interior, as the only open windows ware above Faber, and they were facing East.
Unlike the exterior, the hall was clean, and the carpeting on the stairs directly opposite the entrance looked pristine.
The stairs weren't. Blood was dripping from their left sides.
Faber shifted his lamp to the left and, next to the foot of the stairs, he spotted Koller's hulking silhouette, sprawled on the chequered floor and feebly stirring.
Faber was about to call him out when he caught a faint movement on the man's left. He dropped to the ground without thinking, and heard the shriek of a projectile tearing through the air where his head had been moments before. The torchlight clattered to the floor; its light caught slippers made of some black fabric, resting in a slowly expanding pool of blood.
'
Guten abend.'
Faber jumped; he caught himself and hit the floor with his elbows, aiming the revolver in the direction the voice had come from.
It had been an exquisitely soft and polite voice which reminded Faber of some nobles who fancied themselves "civilized".
Faber did not have time to dwell on the voice. He heard the sound of the Sebastian's engine starting and roaring, followed by the sound of the truck's wheels tearing themselves away from the gravelly path. Faber was already getting up, but the man's voice stopped him before he could start running:
'They will not wait for you.'
'You're bloody damn right.' There had been confidence in Faber's voice, but nowhere near as much as he would have hoped.
Inside, the man laughed softly. 'Your life has already ended, my dear man. The only choices left to you are whether you die by your hand or mine, and whether you die in here or out-'
BANG!
Faber only had the man's feet and his voice to help him aim his shots. He shot another couple of shots in quick succession, sending a triangle of bullets in the man's general direction.
Faber ducked and leant on the wall to the right side of the entrance. He risked a quick glance through the door into the hall.
The man's feet had not budged.
Bad. There's little chance he-
'It seems there is only
one choice left to you.'
Worse.
'Those were very well aimed shots, by the way' the man said almost conversationally. 'A pity you have to die. You must have been a brilliant soldier.'
Heck, Faber had been. Only the men he'd killed in the trenches of the West Front stayed dead when you shot them.
Faber gasped. For the first time, he realized there was a possibility the voice belonged to something which was-
'Cool logic in the face of fire; I approve.'
'Not enough to want to let me live' Faber shot back, determined not to let himself intimidated.
'I regret having to kill you, my dear man' and indeed, oddly enough, the man sounded sincere. 'You seem to have made up your mind about where you would die; it would be foolish of me to expect you to come in now.'
'I'm glad you noticed.' Faber even managed a sombre grin.
'I will give you three minutes, in case you change your mind. After that time, if you have not come in, then I will come out. And you will die.'
Faber was a soldier. He'd known situations where a couple of seconds could mean your life or your death, depending on your choice.
And for whatever reason, the 'man' inside might not come out for three minutes. Faber wouldn't be getting more of a head start.
He didn't even know if the 'man' would let him, but it didn't matter. It was his only chance.
**
Faber ran, as he would have had the Legions of Hell been after him.
**