Officer Factory

“My dear fellow," said Weber calmly,” my sole purpose here is to survive the course, not to go around awarding people marks for character. As far as I'm concerned, anyone here can be as pure or sink as low as he likes—all I care about is becoming an officer. To hell with everything else!"

Rednitz smiled. He picked up a medicine ball and threw it across to Mösler. Their evasive action was already under way.

“Well," asked Mösler, “what’s new on the Rialto?"

“Something pretty big!" Weber assured him. Rednitz looked at him curiously, and he added: “Or so it seems to me. It looks as if the women have got out of hand!"

“That’s nothing new," said Mösler speaking as an expert,” but which particular women do you mean?"

“Those here in the barracks!“ said Weber. “It’s said they're rushing about naked all over the place."

“Only in the showers, surely," said Rednitz. “Where else?"

"You may well ask! “Said Weber.” In the basement of staff headquarters—in the communications center, I'm told. Rows of them. Three at least, if not five. No one's safe, they say. Further information later. Makes you think, though, doesn't it, fellows?"

“Man!" said Cadet Mösler with something like solemnity. “This seems to demand a maximum effort on our part. I suggest the formation of a raiding party for to-night!"

“Carry on without me, fellows!" Captain Ratshelm called out to his cadets.

“We’ll manage," Cadet Hochbauer assured him. “Thanks to you, sir, we can't lose." And several of the cadets nodded enthusiastically.

Captain Ratshelm had scored enough points. His companions had the right to score too, and he wasn't the man to spoil their fun. Besides, he was feeling rather tired. He was panting hard and had a slight stitch in his right side—life at the front, it seemed, had taken its toll on him. He withdrew to the rear—not far enough to disturb Cadets Mösler, Weber and Rednitz, but far enough away to be able to watch Cadet Hochbauer.

In Ratshelm's eyes Cadet Hochbauer was the very model of what an officer should be. He already possessed an outstanding personality, and his mind was alert and precise. He had plenty of energy and endurance, and was both keen, resourceful and respectful. In short, this fellow Hochbauer was endowed with all the qualities of a born leader of men. The inevitable callousness of youth would fine down in time, and his idealism, which was rather lacking in sophistication at the moment, would learn to make the unavoidable compromises.

Ratshelm paused to look across at the two other sections, G and I, where a familiar sight met his eyes. Lieutenant Webermann was circling his flock of cadets with the tireless energy of a sheepdog; Lieutenant Dietrich on the other hand had so positioned himself that he could take in all his cadets at a glance. They used different methods but achieved the same result, keeping their cadets on the move without setting any particular example themselves. This was why they were wearing thick track suits, whereas Ratshelm, stripped for action, was a true sportsman and a fitting companion for the cadets.

Thinking along these lines, Captain Ratshelm suddenly noticed that it was extremely cold in the gym. He was even shivering himself, so he decided to order a run round the hall.

He beckoned the section senior over to him and said: “Kramer—in five minutes we'll bring the games to an end and finish with a general run."

"Hear that?" said Cadet Mösler to his friends Rednitz and Weber. “They’re off on the Idiot's Handicap in five minutes. They can leave us out, though, eh?"

This went without saying. A run round the hall wasn't for old soldiers like them. This wretchedly taxing marathon trot was part of the Captain's basic routine, the principal item in his act, in fact. Captain Ratshelm stood in the center of the ring, while they all trotted round him for at least fifteen minutes on end.

To avoid this, Cadets Mösler, Weber and Rednitz went up to Kramer, the cadet who at present held the post of section senior, and Mösler said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world: " Kramer, we'll see to the equipment—all right?"

“What, again?" demanded Kramer irritably. “All three of you? You three always want the cushy jobs! I won't stand for it indefinitely, you know; people will start asking questions."

“If that's all they start asking questions about," said Rednitz amiably,” you can count yourself lucky."

“Are you threatening me?" asked Kramer indignantly. He was head sergeant and wanted to be shown a certain amount of respect. If people only asked him for this sort of thing politely, he was almost certain to agree pleasantly enough. But the behavior of these three cadets was beginning to look very much like blackmail. “You look out!" he muttered. “These hints of yours will land you in trouble. You can't prove anything—Lieutenant Barkow died a completely natural death."

“It depends on how you look at it," said Weber. “Death is always the most natural thing in the world, one way or another."

“We’ll have a talk about it some time," announced Mösler with a grin. “To-day we just want to spare you any unpleasantness—and we're the only people who can. For if we don't look after the sports equipment you can be sure you'll be down a medicine ball."

Kramer was quite smart enough to realize what was being hinted at here. The three of them had obviously managed to hide a medicine ball away in such a way that only they could find it again. If he wanted to save himself a lot of trouble and embarrassment he had no alternative but to give in to them. He muttered an obscenity under his breath before giving the order: “Mösler, Weber and Rednitz are to see to the equipment."

Which meant that for these three the games period had ended before it had begun. It would have taken an inexperienced recruit less than ten minutes to collect and return the sports equipment, but since these were old soldiers, a good half-hour would be required. And by that time the circus performance would be over.

“Friends!” said Cadet Weber. “We must now discuss our plan of campaign—we've lots of time for it. I must say I can't get the idea of those women out of my head. I take it as a personal affront to my virility that these wretched little girls should be running around so pathetically dissatisfied."

“Let me have your attention a moment, fellows!" said Captain Ratshelm after looking at his watch. “We’ve just got time to sharpen up our wits a little, in accordance with the principle Mens sana in corpore sano, you know. You all understand what that means?"

There was hardly anyone who didn't understand what that meant. It meant that before his last great closing number, before the last communal exertion of the day, Captain Ratshelm intended to indulge in a little theoretical work. Noncommissioned officers might be content to know how a thing was done, but officers needed to know why it was done. It was to this end therefore that Captain Ratshelm collected his cadets around him in a semicircle and asked searchingly: “Why actually do we play games?"

“I often ask myself that!" whispered a cadet at the back.

Captain Ratshelm ignored this, chiefly because it never occurred to him that anyone would have dared to whisper in his presence. He gazed straight into the keen, eager faces of the cadets. For one of the slogans of the training school, laid down by the course commanders, stated that there were no questions to which an officer did not have an answer.

Ratshelm looked at Hochbauer with a momentary tingle of pleasure at the cadet's fine, upstanding appearance. His fine blue eyes, betraying both confidence and humility, radiated his respect for his commanding officer. Siegfried must have had something of the same look when his glance rested on Kriemhilde. And Hochbauer thrust his powerful, manly chin slightly forward, a gesture equivalent to the raised hand of the eager schoolboy denoting that he was burning to be asked.

“Well, Hochbauer?" asked the Captain. A shiver ran down the cadet's spine as he sprang to attention in exemplary fashion, looked his superior officer straight in the eye, and spoke out: “Games steel the body, sir, but a healthy body contains a healthy mind as well. Games make one versatile, and versatility is one of the finest qualities in the German character."

It was as if the answer had been turned out by a machine —curt, crisp and precise. In short, beyond reproach. Ratshelm was very pleased. He nodded and said: “Good, Hochbauer."

Hochbauer seemed to swell with pride and happiness, though his face remained admirably self-controlled. He stayed as rigid as ever, with the merest flicker of a smile playing about his lips. But his eyes radiated warmth. He bared his teeth slightly, almost imperceptibly. They too were splendid and he would have made an admirable toothpaste advertisement: Healthy teeth denote a healthy mind—officers prefer Blendol.

But Ratshelm continued his theoretical instruction with the question: " Are games an officer's concern?"

“Only in so far as his subordinates have to play them," whispered the cadet at the back.

But a cadet in front gave the required answer: "An officer is concerned with everything that promotes military efficiency, instills discipline and maintains and indeed develops a high standard of general fitness. Games are an excellent way of improving military discipline. A good officer organizes games and takes part in them himself; he has to set an example in everything."

Ratshelm decided that that would do. The excellent answers were fully up to the standard of the earlier performance. He had every reason to be content with this section of his and could only hope and pray that the successor of the late Lieutenant Barkow would prove worthy of them. Such first-rate human material deserved the greatest possible care.

Captain Ratshelm now gave orders for the run round the gym to begin, planning that it should last about twenty minutes. To guarantee a good steady pace he put Hochbauer in front, and, to prevent any weakening in the center, made Kramer, the section senior, bring up the rear. Off they trotted in this formation.

Letting his glance wander up from the cadets' legs to their faces, Ratshelm was surprised to find the correct expression of enthusiasm missing. In vain he searched for that fine eager glow of manly zest which should have distinguished the officers of the future, particularly those whose privilege it was to grow to their full stature under his tutelage.

But perhaps the sudden death of Lieutenant Barkow had depressed the cadets. It might have been, too, that the regrettably incomplete funeral ceremony of the early afternoon had made an unfavorable impression on them. Then there was the unpleasantness of the investigation being conducted by Judge-Advocate Wirrmann into the Barkow affair —an unavoidable procedure, perhaps, but one well calculated to bewilder them.

Thinking along these lines, Ratshelm found the situation deeply moving. Young men who had been selected to be officers, he told himself, needed to be shown the importance of esprit de corps in the circle to which they aspired. So, acting on a spontaneous impulse, he once again gathered H Section about him.

The cadets showed an extraordinary willingness to respond to their commanding officer's summons, which provided a welcome break in the exhausting marathon. Most of them were curious too: for they had soon discovered that Captain Ratshelm was utterly unpredictable. The man also had a way of talking as if reading out of some military textbook, which certainly had its funny side.

“Right. Now, just give me your attention, all of you," said Ratshelm impressively, the very picture of an officer determined to give his men a thorough grounding in their subject. “To-day we've buried our section officer, Lieutenant Barkow. He was a good man. Now we all have to die in the end, and a good soldier must be prepared to do so at any moment—officer or not, of course. So far so good. But we soldiers don't only have to fight and die; we also have a paper war to fight. And this has its points, even though I won't discuss them in further detail just at the moment. Anyhow, it's a necessary part of things that when a man dies there should sometimes be an investigation. But an investigation of this sort is a pure matter of form. Do you follow me? There's nothing more to it than that. Certain things just don't happen among officers. Understood? And just to make myself completely plain to the blockheads, Lieutenant Barkow died a natural death, a soldier's death, one might say. It was an accident, and that's all there is to it. Anyone who thinks otherwise hasn't yet understood the meaning of being an officer, and he'll find he has me to reckon with! About turn! Double march!"

INTERMEDIATE REPORT NO. 1:

The Curriculum Vitae of Lieutenant Karl Krafft, or

The problems of respectability

My name is Karl Krafft. I was born on 8th November 1916, at Pohlitz, in Stettin, Pomerania, son of a post office inspector called Joseph Krafft and his wife Margaret, whose maiden name was Panzer. I spent my childhood in the town of my birth.

The sky is dark, as it almost always is, and it rains a lot. I have grey eyes and the mirror I see them in has lost its sheen. The houses in the street are a muddy grey, the same color as my father's face. When I kiss my mother my hands wander across her forehead; and her hair is stiff and dry, grey as old silver, almost as grey as lead.

When it rains, dull grey, milky grey water runs through the streets. We run bare-foot and the water comes up to our ankles. Our hands scoop sand and earth from the garden and mud from the street and we knead it together and compress it into a dough-like mass, build dams with it. And the water rises, forms a pool, spreads and overflows the pavement, threatening to invade the cellars. People curse us, and we laugh; then we trample down the dams and run off until we can no longer see or hear the people cursing us.

Once again water is flowing. And this time it's the river at the edge of the town, called the Oder. The waters rush past sucking and churning up the earth and the sand, driving them before it, as we stare into the swirling current. We fold up huge banknotes on our knees. These banknotes have lots of zeros on them and we fold them into paper boats. They float and bob giddily about on top of the water, turn drunkenly round and round, bump into each other—but the important thing is they float. This paper money makes wonderful boats.

“All the money's any use for is to wipe your arse on!" says a man, who's my uncle. “No," says my father,” that isn't true!" “Everything printed or written, all paper in short," says my uncle,” is only fit to wipe your arse on." “You shouldn't say that!" cries my father indignantly, “at least not in front of the children."

Father doesn't talk much. Mother hardly talks at all. It's always very quiet with us in the little house. only when there's discussion of what my father calls " higher things " does he get at all excited—talk about the Fatherland for example, or the postal service. " When many men love and honor a thing," says my father, ”then you can be certain that it's worthy of love and honor—you mark my words, my son." And then my father is suddenly standing to attention in the middle of our little garden, for the head of the post office, Herr Giebelmeier, is passing by. “Very fine, Krafft," Herr Giebelmeier shouts at my father. “Really very fine—your flowers are like so many soldiers standing there. They make a brave show. Carry on, Krafft!"

“We’re going to paint this little house of ours," says my father after thinking for a long time. “We want to make a brave show of it!" And so my father buys whitewash and lime and two paint-brushes—the smaller one for me. And we begin painting it blue—bright blue, the color of the sky. And then once again the head of the post office, Herr Giebelmeier, comes past and says “What on earth are you doing there, Krafft? What's all this about?" “I’m smartening the place up a bit, sir," says my father, standing to attention. “But you can't do that," says Giebelmeier firmly,” that sort of thing's much too ostentatious; it's too garish, man. If only you'd chosen post-office yellow, I might have come round to it—but sky blue! It positively screams at you! Anyway, all I can say is: it's certainly not right for any official of mine."

“Very good, sir," says my father, and when Giebelmeier has gone my father says to me: “He was an officer of the reserve, you see." “I don't see," I say. “What’s the connection between an officer of the reserve and house painting?" “Later," says my father, “you’ll understand that too." And our house stayed grey.

In 1922 I began going to the primary school in my home town. My marks were always indifferent, but I steadily made my way up through the eight forms.

My books are tattered and well-thumbed. They are covered in smudges because my hands are sweaty and not always clean. They're full of penciled scribbles: underlinings, marks, words written in, drawings, little men sometimes, and once even a woman, as I had seen her drawn on the lavatory wall in the railway station, with thighs apart and mountainous breasts. Every time I see this picture I feel ashamed because it's such a bad drawing.

One of our teachers called Grabowski catches sight of this picture. We always call him “Stick” because he seems inseparable from the cane he carries.” Look at that—the little swine!" says Stick delightedly, waving his cane about in front of my face. “A dirty little swine, eh?" “I copied that," I tell him. “You can see it on the lavatory wall in the station." “Listen to him," says Stick. “So you've been looking at filthy drawings in the lavatory, eh?" “Well, yes," I say,” you can't really help it." “Now, my lad," says Stick, “I’m going to show you what you can help and what you can't. Bend over. Bottom in the air. Trousers tight. Right." And then he beats me with the cane, until he's panting for breath. “Right," he says,” that'll teach you, you little stinker!" And I think to myself : Yes, that'll teach me—I'll never let him catch me with a drawing like that again.

“Always be obedient," says my father. “Obedient to the Almighty and to the authorities. Then you'll have a clear conscience and your future will be assured." But the new authorities deprived him of his living because he's been obedient to the old authorities.

“You must learn to love," says my mother. “To love nature and animals and men too. Then you'll always be happy and cheerful." But when my father falls on hard times she cries a lot. Her way of loving sometimes makes me sad. From then on she is never happy or cheerful again, even when my father is given the chance of obeying the new authorities —though this makes him very proud.

The faces of the teachers all seem the same to me because their mouths all go up and down in the same sort of way. The words all sound very smooth and polished and all get written down at one time or another. Their hands, too, all seem the same; their fingers are mostly curled round a piece of chalk, a fountain-pen, a ruler or a cane. Only one of them is different. His name is Schenkenfeind. He knows a lot of poetry by heart and I learn everything he recites. And some more besides. I don't find this particularly difficult and Schenkenfeind is liberal with his praise. I even learn a poem about the Battle of Leuthen which has fifty-two verses. And Schenkenfeind says “A fine poem!" And I believe him because he seems so sure about it. He actually wrote the poem himself.

There's a schoolmistress called Scharf who comes and sits beside me on the bench. She is soft and warm and her limbs seem made of rubber and I am overwhelmed by a desire to seize hold of these limbs to find out whether they're really made of rubber or not. But I don't—because she's close to me and I can smell her. I move away from her, feeling sick. “It’s stuffy in here," I say, “there’s a nasty smell." She gets up abruptly and never looks at me again. This suits me fine because I don't like her at all.

Some days later I catch sight of her one evening in the park, while I'm trying to trap glowworms. But this woman Scharf is lying on a bench in the dark with the teacher called Schenkenfeind, the man who writes such vast long moving poems. But the things he's saying now sound very different. He is saying the sort of things that Meerkatz the man who drives the beer dray says to his mare. Anyway I no longer want to learn from him anymore.

“Man must learn if he is to hold his place in life," says this fellow Schenkenfeind. “I don't want to learn," I tell him. “No," says the teacher, " you'd rather go sniffing round the place, creeping about the park and spying on the lovers there —I saw you! You have nasty dirty thoughts, but I'll soon drive them out of you. As a punishment you'll write out ten times the beautiful poem 'on Eternal Constancy.' And what's more you'll go and apologize to your teacher Fräulein Scharf at once." But I don't go and apologize.

When I left my primary school in 1930 I went first to a commercial school in Stettin. After that I worked in the estate office of the big Varsen estate at Pöhlitz, where I was mainly concerned with the pay-roll and the issuing of supplies.

The old woman who lives in one of the attics above us passes me on the stairs, goes on down, and then suddenly stops. She stops, and collapses as if her legs had snapped like matchsticks. She lies there without moving, like a bundle of rags. Slowly I go up to her, stand in front of her, bend over her and kneel down and look at her. Her eyes are yellow and staring; her thin mouth, with its dry, cracked lips embedded in a web of wrinkles, is twisted open and a thread of saliva runs down on to the dirty floor. She is no longer breathing. I put my hand over her shriveled breast at the place where the heart should be, but it is no longer beating.

Giebelmeier, the head of the post office, gives Father a dressing down in front of everyone in the middle of the post office, because of some express letter which hasn't arrived quickly enough. Quite by chance I happen to be standing there behind a pillar. And Giebelmeier roars and gesticulates and goes purple in the face. But Father never says a word; he simply stands there, small, hunched and trembling. Rigidly at attention. He looks up rather shiftily at Giebelmeier, who stands stiffly and proudly in front of him, roaring his head off. Because of some express letter or other. And Father remains silent, abject.

That evening Father sits there silent as ever, and asks for a beer, which he drinks in silence. He asks for another beer. And then another. “Karl," my father then says to me, “a real man must have pride, a sense of honor. Honor is the all-important thing. One must always defend one's honor." “Oh, yes," I say,” but sometimes one has to remain silent and accept abuse for the sake of a quiet life." “Never," says my father indignantly. “Never, do you hear? Take me, for example, my son. To-day in the post office I had a row with the head, this fellow Giebelmeier. He started shouting at me! But he came out of it badly. I told him off. Gave him a regular trouncing!" “Well done, Father," I say, and leave the room, because I feel ashamed for him.

I hold my friend Heinz's hand, which is cold as ice. I raise his head and turn it round slightly and see the rent in the skull and the watery blood and brains running out, all yellow and grey. Gently, I lay my friend's head back again and my hands are sticky with blood. And then I look at the weapon on the ground, a .98 rifle, the end of the bullet filed off. He hadn't wanted to live. What has to happen to make a man not want to live like that, I wonder. And I can't get rid of the thought.