My birthday falls on October 10, and that year Thomas had invited me to dinner. At the end of the afternoon, some officers came with a bottle of Cognac to congratulate me and we had a few drinks together. Thomas joined us in a very good mood, raised a toast to my health, then drew me aside, shaking my hand: “My friend, I’m bringing you some good news as a gift: you’re going to be promoted. It’s still a secret, but I saw the papers at Hartl’s. The Reichsfürer, after the Aktion, asked the Gruppenchef to submit a list of deserving men and officers to him. Your album made a very good impression and your name was added to the list. I know that Hartl tried to oppose it, he never forgave you for your words during the Aktion, but Blobel supported you. You’d do well anyway if you went and apologized to Hartl one of these days.”—“That’s out of the question. He’s the one who should apologize.” He laughed and shrugged his shoulders: “As you like, Hauptsturmführer. But your attitude isn’t making things any easier for you.” I darkened: “My attitude is the attitude of an SS officer and a National Socialist. Whoever can say as much is welcome to criticize me.” I changed the subject: “What about you?”—“What do you mean, me?”—“Aren’t you also getting promoted?” He smiled broadly: “I don’t know. You’ll see.”—“Watch out! I’m catching up with you.” He laughed and I laughed with him. “That would surprise me,” he said.

The city was slowly resuming normal life. After renaming the main streets—Kreshchatik had become Eichhornstrasse, in honor of the German general who entered Kiev in 1918; Shevchenko Boulevard became Rovnoverstrasse, Artyoma Street, Lembergstrasse, and my favorite, Tchekistova Street, a very common Gotenstrasse—the Ortskommandantur had authorized some private restaurants to open; the best one, apparently, was run by a Volksdeutscher from Odessa who had taken over the canteen for high-ranking Party officials where he used to work as a cook. Thomas had reserved a table there. All the customers were German officers, aside from two Ukrainian officials who were talking with some officers from the AOK: I recognized Bahazy, the “mayor” of Kiev put in place by Eberhard; the SD suspected him of massive corruption, but he supported Melnyk and von Reichenau had given his assent, so we had ended up withdrawing our objections. Thick velveteen curtains masked the windows, a candle illumined each alcove; we were given a corner table, a little set back, and brought some Ukrainian zakuski—pickles, marinated garlic, and smoked lard—along with some ice-cold honey-and-pepper vodka. We drank a few toasts while nibbling on the zakuski and chatting. “So,” Thomas joked, “did you let yourself be tempted by the Reichsfürer’s offer—do you plan on settling down as a gentleman farmer?”—“I don’t think so! Working the fields is not my line.” Thomas had already moved on to the Great Action: “It was really hard, really unpleasant,” he commented. “But it was necessary.” I didn’t want to pursue it: “What happened to Rasch, then?” I asked.—“Oh, him! I was sure you were going to ask me that.” He pulled a few folded sheets of paper out of the pocket of his tunic: “Look, read this. But keep it to yourself, all right?” It was a report on the Group’s letterhead, signed by Rasch, dated a few days before the Grosse Aktion. I quickly skimmed over it; toward the end, Rasch expressed his doubts that all the Jews could be eliminated, and emphasized that they were not the only danger: The Bolshevik apparatus is by no means identical with the Jewish population. Under such conditions we would miss the goal of political security if we replaced the main task of destroying the communist machine with the relatively easier one of eliminating the Jews. He also insisted on the negative impact, for the reconstruction of Ukrainian industry, of the destruction of the Jews, and outlined an argument for the large-scale implementation of a Jewish labor force. I handed the report back to Thomas, who carefully refolded it and put it back in his pocket. “I see,” I said, pinching my lips. “But you’ll agree that he isn’t entirely wrong.”—“Of course! But there’s no point in shooting your mouth off. That doesn’t help get anything done. Remember your report in ’39. Brigadeführer Thomas, now, had Parisian synagogues dynamited by French extremists. The Wehrmacht kicked him out of France, but the Reichsführer was delighted.” The vodka was finished and they cleared things away; then they brought us some French wine, a Bordeaux. “Where on earth did they find that?” I asked.—“A little surprise: I had it sent to me from France by a friend. Can you believe it, they arrived intact! There are two bottles.” I was very touched; in the present circumstances, it was really a fine gesture. I tasted the wine with delight. “I let it settle a while,” Thomas said. “It’s a change from Moldavian rotgut, isn’t it?” He raised his glass: “You’re not the only one celebrating your birthday, I think.”—“That’s true.” Thomas was one of my few colleagues who knew that I had a twin sister; ordinarily I didn’t talk about her, but he had noticed it at the time in my file, and I had explained everything to him. “How long has it been since you saw her?”—“Going on seven years.”—“Do you ever hear from her?”—“From time to time. Not very often, actually.”—“She still lives in Pomerania?”—“Yes. They go regularly to Switzerland. Her husband spends a lot of time in sanatoriums.”—“Does she have any children?”—“I don’t think so. That would surprise me. I don’t know if her husband is even capable of it. Why?” He raised his glass again: “To her health, then?”—“To her health.” We drank in silence; they brought us our meals and we ate, conversing pleasantly. After the meal Thomas had the second bottle opened and drew two cigars out of his jacket: “Now or with the Cognac?” I blushed with pleasure, but at the same time I felt vaguely embarrassed: “You’re a real magician. We’ll smoke them with the Cognac, but let’s finish the wine first.” The discussion turned to the military situation. Thomas was very optimistic: “Here, in the Ukraine, it’s going well. Von Kleist is nearly at Melitopol and Kharkov is going to fall in a week or two. As for Odessa, it’s a matter of days. But above all, the offensive on Moscow is smashing everything. Since Hoth and Hoepner linked up in Vyazma, we’ve taken another half a million prisoners! The Abwehr is talking about thirty-nine divisions annihilated. The Russians will never be able to bear those kinds of losses. And also, Guderian is already almost in Mtsensk and will soon meet up with the others. It was a real stroke of genius of the Führer’s, to send Guderian here to finish Kiev, then send him back toward Moscow. The Reds didn’t understand it at all. In Moscow they must be panicking. In one month we’ll be there and after that, the war is over.”—“Yes, but what if we don’t take Moscow?” “We are going to take Moscow.” I insisted: “Yes, but what if we don’t take it? What will happen? How will the Wehrmacht spend the winter? Have you spoken with the supply officers? They have nothing planned for the winter—nothing at all. Our soldiers are still in summer uniforms. Even if they begin delivering warm clothing right now, they can never equip the troops properly. It’s criminal! Even if we take Moscow, we’ll lose tens of thousands of men, just from cold and sickness.”—“You’re a pessimist. I’m sure the Führer has everything planned.” “No. the winter is not planned. I’ve discussed it, at the AOK, they don’t have anything, they keep sending messages to Berlin, they’re in despair.” Thomas shrugged: “We’ll find a way. In Moscow we’ll find whatever we need.”—“You can be sure the Russians will destroy everything before they retreat. And what if we don’t take Moscow?”—“Why do you think we won’t take Moscow? The Reds are incapable of resisting our Panzers. They put everything they had into Vyazma and we crushed them.”—“Yes, because the good weather is holding out. But sooner or later the rains are going to come. In Uman, it’s already snowing!” I was becoming heated, I felt the blood rising to my face. “You saw this summer what happens when it rains for a day or two? Now it’ll last two or three weeks. Then the armies will have to stop too. And afterward, it will be the cold.” Thomas stared at me sardonically; my cheeks were burning, I must have been red. “My oh my, you’ve become a real military expert,” he commented.—“Not at all. But when you spend your days with soldiers, you learn things. And also I read. For instance, I read a book on Charles the Twelfth.” I was gesticulating now. “You know Romny? Close to where Guderian made his junction with von Kleist? Well, that’s where Charles the Twelfth had his headquarters, in December 1708, a little before Poltava. Peter and he were maneuvering with expensive troops, which they had to spare; they danced around each other for months. And then in Poltava Peter had a go at the Swedes and all of a sudden they retreated. But that’s still feudal warfare, a war of feudal lords who care about honor and who especially fight as equals, so their war remains basically a courtly war, a kind of ceremonial game or a parade, almost theater, in any case not too deadly. Whereas later on, when the king’s subjects, peasant or bourgeois, become citizens—when the State is democratized—then all of a sudden war becomes total and terrible, it becomes serious. That’s why Napoleon crushed all of Europe: not because his armies were bigger or because he was a better strategist than his enemies, but because the old monarchies were still waging old-fashioned war, in a limited way. Whereas he had already moved beyond limited war. Napoleon’s France was open to talents, as they said, the citizens participated in the administration, the State regulated, but it was the people who were sovereign; so that France naturally waged a total war, with all its forces put into play. And it’s only when its enemies understood this and began to do the same thing, when Rostopchin burned Moscow and Alexander raised up the Cossacks and the peasants to harass the Great Army during its retreat, that the luck turned. In the war between Peter the Great and Charles the Twelfth, the stakes were small: if you lose, you stop playing. But when it’s the entire nation that’s waging war, it has to wager everything and up the ante over and over again, until total bankruptcy. And that’s the problem. If we don’t take Moscow, we won’t be able to stop and negotiate a reasonable peace. So we’ll have to continue. But do you want to know what I really think? For us, this war is a gamble. A gigantic gamble, which involves the entire nation, the whole Volk, but a gamble all the same. And a gamble is something you either win or lose. The Russians don’t have that luxury. For them it’s not a gamble, it’s a catastrophe that’s come crashing down on their country, a plague. And you can lose a gamble, but you can’t lose when you’re faced with a plague, you have to surmount it, you don’t have any choice.” I had delivered this whole speech rapidly, rapidly, almost without catching my breath. Thomas was silent; he drank his wine. “And another thing,” I added heatedly. “I’m saying this to you, just to you. The murder of the Jews doesn’t serve any real purpose. Rasch is absolutely right. It has no economic or political usefulness, it has no finality of a practical order. On the contrary, it’s a break with the world of economics and politics. It’s a waste, pure loss. That’s all it is. So it can have only one meaning: an irrevocable sacrifice, which binds us once and for all, prevents us from ever turning back. You understand? With that, we leave the world of the gamble, there’s no way back. It’s the Endsieg or death. You and me, all of us, we’re bound together now, bound to the outcome of this war by acts committed in common. And if we’re mistaken in our calculations, if we’ve underestimated the number of factories the Reds have built or moved behind the Urals, then we’re fucked.” Thomas was finishing his wine. “Max,” he said finally, “you think too much. It’s bad for you. Cognac?” I began to cough and signed yes with my head. The cough continued, in fits, it was as if something heavy were stuck in my diaphragm, something that didn’t want to come out, and I belched rather violently. I quickly got up, excusing myself, and ran to the back of the restaurant. I found a door and opened it; it led to an inner courtyard. I was seized with a terrible retching: finally I vomited a little. That helped somewhat but left me exhausted, I felt empty, I had to lean for a few minutes against a cart lying there, shafts in the air. Then I went back in. I went to find the waitress and asked her for some water: she brought me a bucket, I drank a little and rinsed my face. Then I returned to the table and sat down. “I’m sorry.”—“Are you all right? Are you sick?”—“No, it’s nothing, I just didn’t feel well.” It wasn’t the first time. But I don’t know exactly when it began. In Zhitomir, maybe. I had only vomited once or twice, but often, after meals, I was seized with these unpleasant and exhausting retchings, always preceded by a dry cough. “You should see a doctor,” Thomas said. They had served the Cognacs and I drank a little. I felt better. Thomas offered me a cigar again; I took it, but didn’t light it right away. Thomas looked worried. “Max…these kinds of ideas: keep them to yourself. They could get you into trouble.”—“Yes, I know. I’m just talking about them to you, because you’re my friend.” I abruptly changed the subject: “So, have you picked one out yet?” He laughed: “No time. But it shouldn’t be too difficult. The waitress isn’t bad, did you notice?” I hadn’t even looked at the waitress. But I said yes. “And you?” he asked.—“Me? Did you see the work we have? I’m lucky if I can sleep, I don’t have any rest time to waste.”—“What about in Germany? Before you came here? We haven’t seen each other much, since Poland. And you’re a discreet guy. You don’t have a nice little Fräulein hidden away somewhere, who writes you long tearful letters, ‘Max, Max, my darling, come back soon, oh how horrible war is’?” I laughed with him and lit my cigar. Thomas was already smoking his. I had certainly drunk a lot and I suddenly wanted to speak: “No. No Fräulein. But a long time before I met you, I had a fiancée. My childhood sweetheart.” I saw he was curious: “Oh yes? Tell me.”—“There isn’t much to tell. We loved each other since we were little. But her parents were against it. Her father, or rather her stepfather, was a fat French bourgeois, a man of principles. They separated us by force, put us in boarding schools, far away from each other. She wrote me desperate letters in secret, I did too. And then they sent me to study in Paris.”—“And you never saw her again?”—“A few times, during vacations, when we were around seventeen. And then I saw her again one last time, years later, just before coming to Germany. I told her our union would be indestructible.”—“Why didn’t you marry her?”—“It was impossible.”—“What about now? You have a good position.”—“Now it’s too late: she’s married. You see, you can’t trust women. It always ends up like that. It’s disgusting.” I was sad, bitter, I shouldn’t have been speaking about these things. “You’re right,” Thomas said. “That why I never fall in love. Anyway, I prefer married women, it’s safer that way. What was her name, your sweetheart?” I made a cutting gesture with my hand: “It’s not important.” We smoked in silence, drinking our Cognacs. Thomas waited for me to finish my cigar before he got up. “Come on, don’t be nostalgic. It’s your birthday after all.” We were the last ones there, the waitress was drowsing in the back of the room. Outside, our driver was snoring in the Opel. The night sky glimmered; the waning moon, clear and calm, cast its white glow over the silent, ruined city.