Читаем Soldaten полностью

We have no way of knowing where the difference resided between the “cold-blooded” actions of the sniper Müller and Enziel’s long-range gunning down of women, but he apparently thought it was significant. Heuer was another British spy, which is why he tries to tease out information about war crimes with his questions.

Like Enziel and Private First Class Müller, Private First Class Sommer also built a reference person, his first lieutenant, into his narrative:

BENDER: From what point of view did he pick then, just at random?

SOMMER: Yes, just twenty men like that: “Just come here.” They were all taken to the market-place and someone appeared with three MG’s—rrrr—and there they lay. That’s how it was done. Then he said: “Excellent! The swine!” You can’t imagine how he loathed the Italians. There were a few pretty girls in the district where the “Bataillionsstab” was quartered. He didn’t touch any civilians there. He never hurt anyone where he lived, on principle.¹⁵³

Their shared laughter indicates that neither Sommer nor Bender saw anything fundamentally immoral about the deeds related in Sommer’s story. Bender’s reaction was hardly surprising. He was a member of the navy Special Commando 40, a unit whose whole identity was based on a cult of macho toughness.

One interesting detail in this anecdote is the fact that the commanding officer did not want any war crimes committed in the immediate area in which he was quartered. Apparently, he did not want to jeopardize the chance for sexual encounters with local women by behaving brutally toward civilians. Sommer continues his story with an episode that happened in France: