One Day in Oradour (18 page)

‘No, Bobby!’ Alfred hissed, rushing towards the little black and white dog. ‘Be quiet!’

In one movement, Alfred bent down and scooped Bobby up with his left arm as he continued to sprint through the grass.

Bullets whistled over their heads and Alfred ducked, sheltering Bobby as much as he could with his body and his right arm. Bobby gave out a little whimper.

‘It’s alright, boy,’ Alfred said breathlessly into his soft pink ear. ‘Nearly there.’

There was another stream of bullets but Alfred realised that this time the shots were way off their mark. The soldiers were too far away to get a good aim.

His bare feet were hurting badly now. Unprotected, they were bruised from the stones and hard, rugged ground, and covered in cuts and stings from the grasses and nettles they had run through. Tears were streaming down his face.

‘Please, God,’ he sobbed. ‘Please let us make it.’

Ten more metres and, to Alfred’s relief, they reached the tree line. He shot behind the trunk of a large oak, paused for a few seconds to catch his breath, then dared to peep back round. The meadow behind him was still clear, but he could see the two soldiers who had fired at them scrambling up onto a wall at the side of the road to get a better view. They seemed to be relaxed, as if they were sharing a joke, but clearly, Alfred and Bobby hadn’t been forgotten. One of the two soldiers started scanning the tree line with a small pair of binoculars. Quickly, Alfred drew back behind the tree and looked down into Bobby’s face.

‘We can’t stop yet,’ he said, blinking away tears of frustration. ‘We’ve got to cross the river. Come on.’

He gave the little dog a squeeze and kissed him on the head before placing him gently down on the ground. As he did so, a tear dropped onto the whiskery nose, and Bobby shook his head, comically.

‘Now!’ cried Alfred.

As soon as they started to move, the soldiers opened fire once again, glimpsing their movement among the shadows. Bullets strafed the tree trunks, and Alfred frantically looked up and down the river bank for a safe place to get down to the water.

‘Here!’ he shouted, half falling and half sliding down through the undergrowth, his arms and legs snagging on the brambles as he crashed to the bottom and into the cool water of the Glane.

He waded across the river, knee high at first where it rushed over shale, but reaching waist height where it meandered more sedately around the bend on the far side. Alfred could feel the cold numbing his toes and he nearly lost his footing more than once on the slippery stones, but he knew there was no going back.

He reached the other side, grappling among tree roots to pull himself up and out of the water. Dripping wet and exhausted, he flopped down on the bank and turned, ready to help Bobby.

The dog was still sitting on the other bank. Alfred’s heart sank. How could he have forgotten? Bobby hated water. He never went in the river. Not even when he was with Patric.

‘Oh come on, Bobby,’ Alfred pleaded, gesturing to his little friend to follow him. ‘You have to do it! Just this once. For me.’

But Bobby just sat there stubbornly, wagging his tail.

For a moment, Alfred contemplated getting back into the water. He would carry Bobby across if he had to. But then he saw the movement in the corner of his eye. The two soldiers. They must have come into the meadow to finish the job and they were now searching along the tree line.

Alfred looked back at Bobby. He had heard them too.

‘Go!’ whispered Alfred, pointing down the river, away from the approaching soldiers. ‘Go, Bobby!’

Bobby looked from Alfred, to the soldiers, and back again. Then, to Alfred’s relief, the little dog took off, running straight and fast, along the river bank and away from danger.

As quietly as he could, Alfred crept slowly up the slope, edging back inch by inch, until he disappeared into the shadows of the overhanging trees and was out of the soldiers’ sight for good.

On that fine summer’s day back in 1922, when his father had scolded him so harshly for jumping from the bridge into the river, Gustav had not screamed and shouted, even though he had wanted to. He had not let his father see him crying either, even though he desperately wanted him to know how much his words hurt, how much they wounded him. True, he had argued his case, but his pride had not allowed him to beg forgiveness. That he would never do. Instead, he would once again channel all his disappointment, all his anger, into finding another way to win his father’s love, his affection, his pride.

The very same emotions now surged through Gustav Dietrich as he stood in front of Major General Scholz on that warm summer evening of 10th June 1944. He had arrived at Scholz’s headquarters victorious, his entire body tingling with the expectation of the commendations he was about to receive. He had
breezed into the hallway, and had even humoured that hair-brained receptionist, smiling at her while she telephoned through the news of his arrival to her boss and giggled at him when she showed him into the office. Yes, he was in a decidedly good mood.

Scholz had greeted him enthusiastically, showing Dietrich to his seat and encouraging him to get straight down to details. He trusted, he had said, that Dietrich’s jubilant demeanour meant that the Oradour mission had been a success. But there were things he was anxious to know. Had Klausner’s body been found? Were there any hidden weapons in the village? Had Dietrich needed to take the hostages?

Dietrich had held up his hand to stem the flow of questions, delighting in the drama of the moment. Then he had watched Scholz’s expression gradually turn from elation to horror as he had described the events of the past few hours and, as he watched his superior’s reactions, he had felt his own delight ebbing away.

‘You knew Major Klausner was dead when you arrived in Oradour. And you knew that it was not Oradour where his body was found. Is that right, Dietrich?’ asked Scholz, determined to get the facts clear.

‘Yes, Major General. Thanks to my informants.’

‘And yet you continued with the mission to search for him at Oradour?’

‘Yes, Major General. I thought it likely that we would still find evidence linking Klausner’s capture to Oradour. There could still have been weapons there.’

‘And did you find anything?’

‘No, Major General. But Oradour was so close to where it all happened. The villagers couldn’t have been completely innocent.’

‘Yes, they could!’

‘Major General, Major Klausner was burned alive!’ Dietrich stressed, unable to understand Scholz’s clear disapproval. ‘I knew that you would want to send out a message to the Resistance in response to that. We had the chance to make Oradour an example, to teach the rebels a lesson.’

‘You had the chance, yes. But you did not have the authority!’

‘My orders were to carry out a thorough search and we did that. Thoroughly. We left nothing behind. There was nowhere else to hide anything or anyone.’

‘You burned that village to the ground, and everyone in it!’

Dietrich was becoming impatient. ‘Major General, you gave me control of 3rd Company. I was the one there, in the field. I had to take the lead.’

‘But, I repeat, your orders were only to search Oradour and, if you found nothing, to take hostages.’

‘True. And I followed my orders. I negotiated with the Mayor of Oradour, but he refused to provide hostages. Negotiations failed.’

‘I didn’t order you to negotiate, Dietrich!’ shouted Scholz, getting to his feet, his face red with anger. ‘And I didn’t give you permission to massacre hundreds of civilians! But I guess you will try to justify that, too!’

‘I don’t need to!’ snapped Dietrich, saliva firing from his lips as he spoke, his fists clenched on the arms of the chair. ‘History will prove I was justified when the Resistance falls apart. When the SS continues to move through France unhindered. When the whole of France accepts German occupation!’

For a moment the two men glared at one another, saying nothing, neither able to fully understand the other. Then Scholz slowly shook his head. He picked up his pen and, calmly now, took a piece of headed notepaper from his drawer. As he began writing, he spoke very clearly, without looking up from his page.

‘Dietrich, this may end up costing you dearly. I’m going to ask the Division Court to instigate a court martial investigation against you at once. I cannot allow Das Reich to be charged with something like this.’

Furious, Dietrich opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it, keeping the lid on the rage boiling inside him. There was no point in arguing with a man
like Scholz. He had no idea what it meant to make real decisions, on the ground, when it really mattered. Surely the court martial investigation would see the logic in his decisions, and understand that his actions would bring victory to Germany, not shame.

‘You are to file a detailed report,’ Scholz continued, still not raising his gaze from the written order he was compiling. He didn’t want to look Dietrich directly in the eye. He feared the evil he might see there, that it might infect him in some way. ‘I want it on my desk within forty-eight hours. Now get out of my office.’

Only when Dietrich had slammed the door behind him did Scholz look up. He had had no hand in the horrors which this man had brought upon the innocent village of Oradour, no prior knowledge, but he knew that he could have prevented it. He hadn’t liked Dietrich from the moment he had marched into his office. He had sensed his hot-headedness, his arrogance, his impulsiveness. The warning signs had been screaming at him. But Scholz had been losing his grip on the hostage situation and so he had ignored his doubts, clinging on to the hope that Dietrich was so hungry for recognition, so eager to please, that he would, in the end, succeed.

How did both of them get it so, so wrong?

The fury that Dietrich felt when he left Major General Scholz’s office in Limoges soon turned to despair. He had been convinced that Oradour would be his moment of triumph, the pinnacle of his SS career. How could it be that he was now facing interrogation from the military court and being treated like a war criminal? Why should he have to justify himself and his actions? He was a decorated commander. Why couldn’t they trust his judgement? Why couldn’t they understand what he had done for them?

Before he joined the SS, Dietrich had never been completely content. It had seemed that nothing ever worked out as he planned or dreamed. He had lost his mother, the only person who had ever shown him any true affection; he had struggled so badly at school; and his relationship with his father had lurched from one disappointment to the next. No, life had not dealt him an easy hand – until he put on that SS uniform and became a soldier. Then he had found a place where he belonged, where his achievements were recognised and rewarded. In the army he felt needed and encouraged and, most important of all, he was never belittled.

But now his beloved institution was failing him. It was trying to shut him out, trying to distance itself from the events at Oradour. Dietrich couldn’t imagine how he would endure the shame of the court martial. Win or lose, how could he ever hold his head up high again?

What would his father think?

Within forty-eight hours, Dietrich had filed his report with Scholz and then left with his battalion for Normandy. Nothing could be done until he had a court date, so he kept control of his troops, for now at least.

Sullen and withdrawn, he marched his men hard, eager to put as many miles between himself and Limoges as he could, as quickly as possible. But the distance did
not help to lessen the weight of the dark cloud hanging over him and Dietrich arrived in Normandy depressed and morose.

His men saw the change in their commander and understood its cause well enough. Their leader’s reputation was on the brink of destruction and, knowing that a wounded lion was a dangerous beast, they left him well alone. They followed his orders by day and kept their gossip quiet at night. They had a job to do, after all, and they had been with Dietrich long enough to know that he was usually on the winning side.

No one predicted that Dietrich would crumble. No one perceived that he had any weaknesses at all or believed that he would ever do anything but fight his corner. His men, his comrades, his superiors, even Scholz, assumed he would go into the court martial all guns blazing. That was his style.

So no one foresaw what happened late in the day on 29th June 1944 when, at the end of a long day’s fighting in which his battalion had been holding off the British southern flank near Caen, Dietrich wandered out beyond enemy lines. Leaving a command post shelter like that, without wearing a helmet and during such heavy bombardment, was pure suicide, everyone said afterwards. What was the Major thinking? He would never normally be so reckless.

Major Gustav Dietrich was hit in the head by artillery shell splinters as he walked out, all alone, into the crossfire, his revolver dangling limply at his side, completely unprepared for combat. He fell, face down in the grass, blood streaming down his face.

As he lay there flickering in and out of consciousness, Dietrich’s confused mind took him back and forth from the present to the past, the pictures it created so real he felt he could touch them. He recalled when he had had lain injured on another patch of French soil, his lungs pierced by bullets, dangerously close to death. Then he was pulled back to the present and he found himself calling, once again, to that eerie figure in the fog, the faceless grey figure who in neither his finest nor his darkest hours would ever come close to him.

Dietrich’s eyes closed now, and he was surprised to discover that he was upright again, standing looking down on his own wounded body. He was curious to know if he was alive or dead, so he flipped the body over, shoving it with his foot. But as the body rolled to stare up at the sky, it wasn’t his own face that he saw, it was the angelic face of a boy. That small, gutsy red-headed boy whom he had shot in that cornfield in Oradour.