Phillip Adler's 1st Interview

ARMAGH, IRELAND

 [While not a Catholic himself, Philip Adler has joined the throngs of
visitors to the pope’s wartime refuge. “My wife is Bavarian,” he
explains in the bar of our hotel. “She had to make the pilgrimage to
Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.” This is his first time away from Germany
since the end of the war. Our meeting is accidental. He does not object
to my recorder.]

 Hamburg was heavily infested. They were in the streets, in the
buildings, pouring out of the Neuer Elbtunnel. We’d tried to blockade it
 with civilian vehicles, but they were squirming through any open space
like bloated, bloody worms. Refugees were also all over. They’d come
from as far away as Saxony, thinking they could escape by sea. The ships
 were long gone, the port was a mess. We had over a thousand trapped at
the Reynolds Aluminiumwerk and at least triple that at the Eurokai
terminal. No food, no clean water, just waiting to be rescued with the
dead swarming outside, and I don’t know how many infected inside.

 The harbor was choked with corpses, but corpses that were still moving.
 We’d blasted them into the harbor with antiriot water cannons; it saved
 ammo and it helped to keep the streets clear. It was a good idea, until
 the pressure in the hydrants died. We’d lost our commanding officer two
 days earlier…freak accident. One of our men had shot a zombie that was
almost on top of him. The bullet had gone right through the creature’s
head, taking bits of diseased brain tissue out the other end and into
the colonel’s shoulder. Insane, eh? He turned over sector command to me
before dying. My first official duty was to put him down.

 I’d set up our command post in the Renaissance Hotel. It was a decent
location, good fields of fire with enough space to house our own unit
and several hundred refugees. My men, those not involved in holding the
barricades, were attempting to perform these conversions on similar
buildings. With the roads blocked and trains inoperative, I thought it
best to sequester as many civilians as possible. Help would be coming,
it was just a question of when it would arrive.

 I was about to organize a detail to scrounge for converted hand-to-hand
 weapons, we were running low on ammunition, when the order came to
retreat. This was not unusual. Our unit had been steadily withdrawing
since the first days of the Panic. What was unusual, though, was the
rally point. Division was using map-grid coordinates, the first time
since the trouble began. Up until then they had simply used civilian
designations on an open channel; this was so refugees could know where
to assemble. Now it was a coded transmission from a map we hadn’t used
since the end of the cold war. I had to check the coordinates three
times to confirm. They put us at Schafstedt, just north of the
Nord-Ostsee Kanal. Might as well be f\*\*king Denmark!

 We were also under strict orders not to move the civilians. Even worse,
 we were ordered not to inform them of our departure! This didn’t make
any sense. They wanted us to pull back to Schleswig-Holstein but leave
the refugees behind? They wanted us to just cut and run? There had to be
 some kind of mistake.

 I asked for confirmation. I got it. I asked again. Maybe they got the
map wrong, or had shifted codes without telling us. (It wouldn’t be
their first mistake.)

 I suddenly found myself speaking to General Lang, commander of the
entire Northern Front. His voice was shaking. I could hear it even over
the shooting. He told me the orders were not a mistake, that I was to
rally what was left of the Hamburg Garrison and proceed immediately
north. This isn’t happening, I told myself. Funny, eh? I could accept
everything else that was happening, the fact that dead bodies were
rising to consume the world, but this…following orders that would
indirectly cause a mass murder.

 Now, I am a good soldier, but I am also a West German. You understand
the difference? In the East, they were told that they were not
responsible for the atrocities of the Second World War, that as good
communists, they were just as much victims of Hitler as anyone else. You
 understand why the skinheads and proto-fascists were mainly in the
East? They did not feel the responsibility of the past, not like we did
in the West. We were taught since birth to bear the burden of our
grandfathers’ shame. We were taught that, even if we wore a uniform,
that our first sworn duty was to our conscience, no matter what the
consequences. That is how I was raised, that is how I responded. I told
Lang that I could not, in good conscience, obey this order, that I could
 not leave these people without protection. At this, he exploded. He
told me that I would carry out my instructions or I, and, more
importantly, my men, would be charged with treason and prosecuted with
“Russian efficiency.” And this is what we’ve come to, I thought. We’d
all heard of what was happening in Russia…the mutinies, the crackdowns,
the decimations. I looked around at all these boys, eighteen, nineteen
years old, all tired and scared and fighting for their lives. I couldn’t
 do that to them. I gave the order to withdraw.

 How did they take it?

 There were no complaints, at least, not to me. They fought a little
amongst themselves. I pretended not to notice. They did their duty.

 What about the civilians?

 [Pause.] We got everything we deserved. “Where are you going?” they
shouted from buildings. “Come back, you cowards!” I tried to answer.
“No, we’re coming back for you,” I said. “We’re coming back tomorrow
with more men. Just stay where you are, we’ll be back tomorrow.” They
didn’t believe me. “Fucking liar!” I heard one woman shout. “You’re
letting my baby die!”

 Most of them didn’t try to follow, too worried about the zombies in the
 streets. A few brave souls grabbed on to our armored personnel
carriers. They tried to force their way down the hatches. We knocked
them off. We had to button up as the ones trapped in buildings started
throwing things, lamps, furniture, down on us. One of my men was hit
with a bucket filled with human waste. I heard a bullet clang off the
hatch of my Marder.

 On our way out of the city we passed the last of our new Rapid Reaction
 Stabilization Units. They had been badly mauled earlier in the week. I
didn’t know it at the time, but they were one of those units classified
as expendable. They were detailed to cover our retreat, to prevent too
many zombies, or refugees, from following us. They were ordered to hold
to the end.

 Their commander was standing through the cupola of his Leopard. I knew
him. We’d served together as part of the NATO’s IFOR in Bosnia. Maybe it
 is melodramatic to say he saved my life, but he did take a Serbian’s
bullet that I’m sure was meant for me. The last time I saw him was in a
hospital in Sarajevo, joking about getting out of this madhouse those
people called a country. Now here we were, passing on the shattered
autobahn in the heart of our homeland. We locked eyes, traded salutes. I
 ducked back into the APC, and pretended to study my map so the driver
wouldn’t see my tears. “When we get back,” I told myself, “I’m going to
kill that son of a bitch.”

 General Lang.

 I had it all planned. I would not look angry, not give him any reason
to worry. I’d submit my report and apologize for my behavior. Maybe he’d
 want to give me some kind of pep talk, try to explain or justify our
retreat. Good, I thought, I’d listen patiently, put him at ease. Then,
when he rose to shake my hand, I’d draw my weapon and blow his Eastern
brains against the map of what used to be our country. Maybe his whole
staff would be there, all the other little stooges who were “just
following orders.” I’d get them all before they took me! It would be
perfect. I wasn’t going to just goose-step my way into hell like some
good little Hitler Jugend. I’d show him, and everyone else, what it
meant to be a real Deutsche Soldat.

 But that’s not what happened.

 No. I did manage to make it into General Lang’s office. We were the
last unit across the canal. He’d waited for that. As soon as the report
came in, he’d sat down at his desk, signed a few final orders, addressed
 and sealed a letter to his family, then put a bullet through his brain.

 Bastard. I hate him even more now than I did on the road from Hamburg.

 Why is that?

 Because I now understand why we did what we did, the details of the Prochnow Plan. 1

 Wouldn’t this revelation engender sympathy for him?

 Are you kidding? That’s exactly why I hate him! He knew that this was
just the first step of a long war and we were going to need men like him
 to help win it. Fucking coward. Remember what I said about being
beholden to your conscience? You can’t blame anyone else, not the plan’s
 architect, not your commanding officer, no one but yourself. You have
to make your own choices and live every agonizing day with the
consequences of those choices. He knew this. That’s why he deserted us
like we deserted those civilians. He saw the road ahead, a steep,
treacherous mountain road. We’d all have to hike that road, each of us
dragging the boulder of what we’d done behind us. He couldn’t do it. He
couldn’t shoulder the weight.