I returned to Pyatigorsk after eating and drinking heartily. Hohenegg, during the dinner, had been glum: I saw that he disapproved of my action and of the whole business. I was still strangely exalted; it was as if a great weight had been taken from my shoulders. I would kill Turek with pleasure; but I had to think about how to foil the trap that he and Pfeiffer wanted to set for me. An hour after I got back, someone knocked on my door. It was an orderly from the Kommando, who handed me a piece of paper. “Sorry to disturb you so late, Hauptsturmführer. It’s an urgent order from the Gruppenstab.” I tore it open: Bierkamp was summoning me at eight o’clock the next day, along with Turek. Someone had given the game away. I dismissed the orderly and collapsed on the sofa. I felt as if I were being pursued by a curse: whatever I tried to do, any pure action would be denied me! I thought I saw the old Jew, in his grave on the Mashuk, laughing at me. Drained, I burst into tears and fell asleep crying, fully dressed.

The next morning I presented myself at the appointed time at Voroshilovsk. Turek had come separately. We stood at attention in front of Bierkamp’s desk, side by side, without any other witness. Bierkamp came straight to the point: “Meine Herren. Word has reached me that you have spoken words unworthy of SS officers to each other in public, and that, to resolve your quarrel, you were planning on engaging in an action that is formally forbidden by regulations, an action that would moreover have deprived the Group of two valuable and difficult-to-replace officers; for you can be sure that the survivor would have been immediately brought before a court of the SS and the police, and would have been sentenced to capital punishment or to a concentration camp. I would like to remind you that you are here to serve your Führer and your Volk, and not to satisfy your personal passions: if you lay down your lives, you will do so for the Reich. Consequently I have called you both here so that you can apologize to each other and make peace. I will add that that’s an order.” Neither Turek nor I replied. Bierkamp looked at Turek: “Hauptsturmführer?” Turek remained silent. Bierkamp turned to me: “And you, Hauptsturmführer Aue?”—“With all due respect, Oberführer, the insulting words I said were in response to Hauptsturmführer Turek’s. So I believe that it is up to him to apologize first; otherwise I will be forced to defend my honor, whatever the consequences.” Bierkamp turned to Turek: “Hauptsturmführer, is it true that the first offensive words were uttered by you?” Turek was clenching his jaw so hard that his muscles were quivering: “Yes, Oberführer,” he finally said, “that is correct.”—“In that case, I order you to apologize to Hauptsturmführer Dr. Aue.” Turek pivoted a quarter turn, clicking his heels, and faced me, still at attention; I imitated him. “Hauptsturmführer Aue,” he said slowly, in a harsh voice, “please accept my apologies for the insulting statements I made about you. I was under the influence of drink, and let myself get carried away.”—“Hauptsturmführer Turek,” I replied, my heart pounding, “I accept your apology, and present you my own in the same spirit for my wounding reaction.”—“Very good,” Bierkamp said curtly. “Now shake hands.” I took Turek’s hand and found it clammy. Then we turned to face Bierkamp again. “Meine Herren, I don’t know what you said to each other and I don’t want to know. I am happy you are reconciled. If such an incident were to occur again, I will have you both sent to a disciplinary battalion of the Waffen-SS. Is that clear? Dismissed.”

Leaving his office, still very upset, I headed toward Dr. Leetsch’s office. Von Gilsa had informed me that a reconnaissance plane from the Wehrmacht had flown over the region of Shatoi and photographed a number of bombed villages; but our Fourth Air Corps was insisting on the fact that its aircraft had conducted no attack on Chechnya, and the destruction was now being attributed to the Soviet air force, which seemed to confirm the rumors of a rather extensive insurrection. “Kurreck has already parachuted a number of men into the mountains,” Leetsch told me. “But since then we haven’t had any contact with them. Either they’ve deserted, or they’ve been killed or captured.”—“The Wehrmacht thinks that an uprising behind the Soviet lines could facilitate the offensive on Ordzhonikidze.”—“Maybe. But in my opinion they’ve already crushed it, if it ever even took place. Stalin wouldn’t take such a risk.”—“No doubt. If Sturmbannführer Kurreck finds anything out, can you let me know?” As I was going out, I ran into Turek, leaning against a doorframe talking with Prill. They stopped and stared at me as I passed them. I politely saluted Prill, and went back to Pyatigorsk.

Hohenegg, whom I met again that night, didn’t look too disappointed. “It’s the reality principle, my dear friend,” he declared. “That will teach you to try to play the romantic hero. So let’s go have a drink.” But the business was worrying me. Who could have denounced us to Bierkamp? It was certainly one of Turek’s comrades, who was afraid of the scandal. Or maybe one of them, aware of the trap being prepared, wanted to prevent it? It was hardly conceivable that Turek himself had had second thoughts. I wondered what he was plotting with Prill: nothing good, certainly.

A new burst of activity made this affair fade into the background. Von Mackensen’s Third Panzer Corps, supported by the Luftwaffe, was launching its offensive on Ordzhonikidze; the Soviet defenses around Nalchik collapsed in two days, and at the end of October our forces took the city while the tanks continued their push to the east. I asked for a car and went first to Prokhladny, where I met Persterer, then on to Nalchik. It was raining but that didn’t hinder traffic too much; after Prokhaldny, columns of the Rollbahn were bringing up food supplies. Persterer was getting ready to transfer his Kommandostab to Nalchik and had already dispatched a Vorkommando there to prepare quarters. The city had fallen so quickly that they had been able to arrest a lot of Bolshevik officials and other suspects; there were also many Jews, both bureaucrats from Russia and a large native community. I reminded Persterer of the orders from the Wehrmacht concerning the attitude toward the local populations: they were planning on quickly forming an autonomous Kabardo-Balkar district, and it was imperative not to damage good relations in any way. In Nalchik, I found the Ortskommandantur, still being set up. The Luftwaffe had bombed the city, and many houses and gutted buildings were still smoking in the rain. I found Voss there, sorting through some books in an empty room; he seemed delighted at his finds. “Look at that,” he said, holding out an old book in French. I examined the title page: On the peoples of the Caucasus and the countries north of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea in the Xth Century, or, The Journey of Abu-el-Cassim, published in Paris in 1828 by a certain Constantin Mouradgea d’Ohsson. I handed it back to him with an approving look: “Did you find a lot of them?”—“Quite a few. A bomb hit the library, but there wasn’t too much damage. On the other hand, your colleagues wanted to seize a part of the collections for the SS. I asked them what interested them, but since they don’t have an expert, they didn’t really know. I offered them the shelf on Marxist political economy. They told me they had to consult with Berlin. By then I’ll be done.” I laughed: “My duty should be to throw a spanner in your works.”—“Maybe. But you won’t do that.” I told him about the quarrel with Turek, which he found highly comical: “You wanted to fight a duel because of me? Doktor Aue, you are incorrigible. That’s absurd.”—“I wasn’t going to fight because of you: I was the one who was insulted.”—“And you say that Dr. Hohenegg was ready to serve as your second?”—“Somewhat against his will.”—“That surprises me. I thought he was an intelligent man.” I found Voss’s attitude rather annoying; he must have noticed my vexed air, since he burst out laughing: “Don’t make that face! Remind yourself that coarse and ignorant men punish themselves.”