Outside, the air was dry, sharp, biting. I breathed in deeply and felt the cold burning the inside of my lungs. Everything looked frozen, silent. Von Gilsa got into his car with the Oberst from the AOK, offering me the front seat. We exchanged a few more words and then little by little everyone fell silent. I thought about the conference: Bierkamp’s anger was understandable. Köstring had played a dirty trick on us. Everyone in that room knew perfectly well that there was no chance the Wehrmacht would ever reach Daghestan. Some even suspected—but perhaps not Korsemann or Bierkamp—that Army Group A would, on the contrary, soon have to evacuate the Caucasus. Even if Hoth managed to link up with Paulus, it would only be to allow the Sixth Army to fall back to the Chir, or even the lower Don. One just had to look at a map to understand that the position of Army Group A was becoming untenable. Köstring must have had some certainty about that. Thus, it was out of the question to set the mountain people against us over an issue as unimportant as that of the Bergjuden: as it was, when they understood that the Red Army was returning, there would be troubles—even if only to prove, a little late of course, their loyalty and their patriotism—and we had, at all costs, to prevent things from going further. A retreat through a completely hostile environment, in terrain favorable to guerilla warfare, could become catastrophic. So some goodwill had to be shown to the friendly populations. I didn’t think Bierkamp could understand that; his police mentality, exacerbated by his obsession with numbers and reports, made him shortsighted. Recently, one of the Einsatzkommandos had liquidated a sanatorium for tubercular children, in a remote zone in the Krasnodar region. Most of the children were natives; the National Councils had vigorously protested, there had been skirmishes that had cost the lives of several soldiers. Bairamukov, the Karachai leader, had threatened von Kleist with a general insurrection if it happened again; and von Kleist had sent a furious letter to Bierkamp, who, according to what I had heard, had received it with a strange indifference: he didn’t see what the problem was. Korsemann, more sensitive to the influence of the military, had had to intervene and force him to send new instructions to the Kommandos. So Köstring hadn’t had a choice. When he arrived at the conference, Bierkamp thought the game wasn’t over yet; but Köstring, along with Bräutigam, no doubt, had already loaded the dice, and the exchange of opinions was only theater, a representation for the benefit of the uninitiated. Even if Weseloh had been present, or if I had stuck to a completely one-sided argumentation, it wouldn’t have changed a thing. The Daghestan trick was brilliant, irrefutable: it flowed naturally from what had been said, and Bierkamp could make no reasonable objection to it; as to saying the truth, that there would be no occupation of Daghestan, that was quite simply unthinkable; Köstring would have had an easy time, then, having Bierkamp dismissed for defeatism. It wasn’t for nothing that the soldiers also called Köstring “the old fox”: it had been, I said to myself with bitter pleasure, a masterstroke. I knew it was going to create enemies for me: Bierkamp would try to offload the blame for his defeat on someone, and I was the most likely person. I had carried out my work with energy and rigor, though; but as during my mission in Paris, I hadn’t understood the rules of the game, I had looked for the truth when what was wanted was not the truth but political advantage. Prill and Turek would now have an easy time of it to slander me. At least Voss would not have disapproved of my presentation. Alas, Voss was dead, and I was alone again.

Night was falling. A thick frost covered everything: the twisted branches of the trees, the wires and poles of the fences, the dense grass, the earth in the almost bare fields. It was like a world of horrible white shapes, harrowing, ghostlike, a crystalline universe from which life seemed banished. I looked at the mountains: the vast blue wall barred the horizon, guardian of another world, a hidden one. The sun, over toward Abkhazia probably, was setting behind the ridges, but its light still touched the summits, casting on the snow sumptuous and soft pink, yellow, orange, fuchsia glints, which ran delicately from one peak to the other. It was a cruel beauty, enough to take your breath away, almost human but at the same time very remote from any human concerns. Little by little, behind, the sea was swallowing up the sun, and the colors were extinguished one by one, leaving the snow blue, then a gray-white that gleamed calmly in the night. The frost-encrusted trees appeared in the beams of our headlights like creatures in full movement. It was almost as if I had gone over to the other side, to that country that children know well, from which no one returns.

I hadn’t been wrong about Bierkamp: the axe fell even faster than I thought it would. Four days after the conference, he summoned me to Voroshilovsk. Two days before, they had proclaimed the Autonomous Kabardo-Balkar District during the celebration of Kurban Bairam, in Nalchik, but I hadn’t attended the ceremony; Bräutigam, apparently, had made a long speech, and the mountain people had showered the officers with gifts, kinzhali, carpets, Korans copied by hand. As for the Stalingrad front, according to rumors, Hoth’s Panzers were struggling to advance, and had run aground in the Myshkova, sixty kilometers from the Kessel; in the meantime the Soviets, farther north up the Don, were launching a new offensive against the Italian sector of the front, routing them; and the Russian tanks were said to be within striking distance of the aerodromes from which the Luftwaffe was trying to supply the Kessel! The officers from the Abwehr still refused to give out any exact information, and it was hard to form a precise idea of the critical nature of the situation, even by tallying together the various rumors. I reported to the Gruppenstab what I managed to understand or corroborate, but I had the impression that they weren’t taking my reports very seriously: recently I had received from Korsemann’s staff a list of the SSPF and other SS officials appointed to the different districts of the Caucasus, including Groznyi, Azerbaidjan, and Georgia, and a study on the plant called kok-sagyz, which is found around Maikop, and which the Reichsführer wanted to start cultivating on a large scale to produce a substitute for rubber. I wondered if Bierkamp was thinking just as unrealistically; in any case, his summons worried me. On the way there I tried to muster all the arguments in my defense, to prepare a strategy, but since I didn’t know what he was going to say to me, I kept going in circles.

The interview was short. Bierkamp didn’t invite me to sit down and I remained standing at attention while he held out a piece of paper to me. I looked at it without really understanding: “What is it?” I asked.—“Your transfer. The officer in charge of all police structures in Stalingrad asked for an SD officer urgently. His previous one was killed two weeks ago. I informed Berlin that the Gruppenstab could bear a reduction in personnel, and they approved your transfer. Congratulations, Hauptsturmführer. It’s an opportunity for you.” I remained rigid: “Can I ask you why you suggested me, Oberführer?” Bierkamp still looked displeased but he smiled slightly: “In my staff, I want officers who understand what is expected of them without having to explain the details to them; otherwise, one might as well do the work oneself. I hope the SD work in Stalingrad will be a useful apprenticeship for you. Also, allow me to point out to you that your personal conduct has been questionable enough to give rise to unpleasant rumors within the Group. Some have even gone so far as to mention an intervention from the SS-Gericht. I refuse on principle to believe such rumors, especially about an officer as politically aware as you are, but I will not allow a scandal to tarnish the reputation of my Group. In the future, I advise you to be careful that your behavior doesn’t expose you to such gossip. Dismissed.” We exchanged a German salute and I withdrew. In the hallway, I walked by Prill’s office; the door was open, and I saw that he was looking at me with a slight smile. I stopped on the threshold and stared at him, while a radiant smile, a child’s smile, grew on my face. Little by little his smile vanished and he contemplated me with a puzzled, troubled look. I didn’t say anything, just kept smiling. I was still holding my transfer. Finally I went out.