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Chapters (50)
  1. Cover
  2. FIELD GRAY
  3. ALSO BY PHILIP KERR
  4. FIELD GRAY
  5. Copyright
  6. Epigraph
  7. Dedication
  8. FIELD GRAY
  9. Contents
  10. 1
  11. 2
  12. 3
  13. 4
  14. 5
  15. 6
  16. 7
  17. 8
  18. 9
  19. 10
  20. 11
  21. 12
  22. 13
  23. 14
  24. 15
  25. 16
  26. 17
  27. 18
  28. 19
  29. 20
  30. 21
  31. 22
  32. 23
  33. 24
  34. 25
  35. 26
  36. 27
  37. 28
  38. 29
  39. 30
  40. 31
  41. 32
  42. 33
  43. 34
  44. 35
  45. 36
  46. 37
  47. 38
  48. 39
  49. 40
  50. AUTHOR’S NOTE

“I never talked about this before,” I said. “It’s not easy. What does Goethe say? About sun and worlds I can tell you but little. All that I can see is the suffering of humanity. Still, it’s right that you should hear it. The trouble with you Amis is that you think it was you who won the war when everyone knows it was the Ivans. Without you and the British, they’d have taken longer to beat us. But they’d have beaten us all the same. Stalin’s maths, we used to call it. When there were just five of us left, there would be twenty Russians. And that was how Stalin was going to win. You’d better remember that if the Ivans ever invade West Berlin.”

“Sure, sure. Let’s talk about Königsberg. You were taken prisoner at Königsberg.”

“Don’t rush me. I have to tell this in my own way. When something has been asleep for this long, you don’t just shake it by the shoulder and shout in its ear.”

“Take your time. You’ve got plenty of time.”

24

GERMANY AND RUSSIA, 1945–1946

Königsberg is, was, important to me. My mother was born in Königsberg. When I was a child, we used to go on vacation to a seaside town near there called Cranz. Best vacation we ever had. My first wife and I went there on our honeymoon, in 1919. It was the capital of East Prussia—a land of dark forests, crystal lakes, sand dunes, white skies, and Teutonic knights who built a fine old medieval city with a castle and a cathedral and seven good bridges across the River Pregel. There was even a university founded in 1544, where the city’s most famous son, Immanuel Kant, would one day teach.

I arrived there in June 1944. As part of Army Group North. I was attached to the 132nd Infantry Division. My job was to gather intelligence on the advancing Red Army. What type of men were they? What condition were they in? How well armed were they? Supply lines—all the usual stuff. And from the German civilians who fled their homes ahead of the Russian advance, the intelligence I had was of well-equipped, ill-disciplined, drunken Neanderthals who were bent on rape, murder, and mutilation. Frankly, a lot of this seemed like hysterical nonsense. Indeed, there was a lot of Nazi propaganda to this effect that was designed to dissuade everyone from surrendering. And so I resolved to discover the true situation for myself.