Act Two

Scene One



– One –

January 1945 — three years of war for the Americans, over five years for beleaguered Europe. And the end was still nowhere in sight. In the Pacific, the U.S. Eighth Army had begun a hard, bitter campaign in the Philippines. In Europe, a long, drawn-out battle, the Battle of the Bulge, was still being fought. There were already thousands of casualties, American, British, German. Yet the battle and the lines seesawed back and forth, and the victor was still to be determined.

For the Allies, there were more signs that the once unbeatable German armies were cracking. Fuel shortages were beginning to cripple the mighty Panzer divisions. The Luftwaffe had in the beginning of the year undertaken what would prove to be its last major operation, sending hundreds of planes against France and the Low Countries. But it had been a costly, disastrous operation for the once invincible Luftwaffe. The Allies continually proved their supremacy in the air, sending thousands of bombers against German and Axis cities. And on the Eastern Front, the Russians had launched their greatest offensive, sending hundreds of thousands of soldiers against a much smaller German army.

Those were the grand battles of the war, the ones the historians write about. But there were smaller battles as well, battles involving no divisions, no armies, battles fought by a myriad of resistance groups in France, Germany and the other war-torn countries, battles that are only now coming to light. They were battles involving a few courageous men and women who defied the odds in the unlikeliest of places, places like a prisoner of war camp near the town of Hammelburg not far from the city of Dusseldorf in northwestern Germany. There, under the command of American Colonel Robert Hogan, the senior POW officer in Stalag Luft 13, a small group of men, with the benign cooperation of the rest of the camp and help from resistance members in Hammelburg, ran an effective rescue and sabotage operation under the noses of their German guards.

But at the moment, it was quiet in Hammelburg and the camp, and Robert Hogan could just sit and enjoy a cup of coffee. For a change, he wasn't planning his next operation. That in itself was unusual. In the three years he'd been at Stalag 13, peace and quiet were far from the norm for Hogan. From his first moment in the camp, his thoughts and energies were directed toward fighting the Nazis and toward getting the camp and the surrounding community involved. Starting the tunnels that crisscrossed the ground underneath the camp kept the men busy and occupied. That was good for morale and kept order. The hard part had been convincing them to agree to his rescue and sabotage operation. But he had done it. And done it right under the noses of not only the Luftwaffe personnel who ran the camp, but also the SS and Gestapo.

The people of Hammelburg also cooperated in their operation. Before the war, before Hitler, Hammelburg had been a small centuries-old town, quiet and sedate. Since the war, it had become important. During the years Hogan had been at the camp, the town had had a variety of war industries, from cannon factories to ball bearing plants to fuel depots. But thanks to Hogan's activities, those industries had all but disappeared as had most of the local upper crust. And now that the Allies weren't that far away, no new industries had started up. As for the camp's primary mission, helping escaped prisoners from other camps, even that activity had died down. The general feeling among the Allied prisoners was that there were only a few months to go in the war. There seemed to be little point in escaping from a fairly safe POW camp to a less than safe countryside where German soldiers and Allied bombs were an equal risk. They still had a few men coming through, but they were primarily downed bomber crews who were still evading capture.

But there were less pleasant changes in the camp as well. Since the Allied invasion at Normandy, more and more prisoners were coming into the camp. The current population was about eighteen hundred men, far more than the camp had been built to house. The new prisoners were a rougher, more confident breed than the men who'd been here for some time; that made it a bit harder for Hogan to keep them in line, but he was managing.

Well, Hogan was glad for the rest right now. It had been an eventful past few weeks for him. It had begun unexpectedly in November when he learned of the death of Colonel Wilhelm Klink's five-year-old nephew. That tragedy and Klink's evident grief had caused Hogan to reexamine his relationship with the camp kommandant. And it was a reexamination he didn't welcome.

The first violent death in the camp's history shortly thereafter had led to an even greater crisis for Hogan and the camp. An American sergeant named Martinelli, who had escaped from other camps and had been sent to Stalag 13 as a last resort, had taken Klink prisoner and actually beaten him in an effort to escape from the camp. That incident ended when the SS killed Martinelli. The death of the American had shocked the camp, especially Hogan. Unwilling to face his feelings toward Klink, Hogan had lashed out at the Kommandant, lashed out to the extent that he had wished Klink dead in front of the camp and then betrayed him to the Gestapo as a traitor. It was a betrayal that Klink had not expected, and one he could not forgive. Relations between Hogan and Klink deteriorated into the worst they'd ever been, and the tension in the camp increased even more. For Hogan, it resulted in nightmares centered around Klink, nightmares where the horror of what had happened and what could have happened were intertwined.

It had all come to a head when Hogan and Klink found themselves trapped by a cave-in in an old mine. A cave-in where Hogan was finally forced to acknowledge how badly he had treated Klink in the past. And forced to acknowledge how he really felt about the German Kommandant. He made Klink a promise in that cave, a promise that they would face whatever happened in the camp together. And it was a promise that Hogan intended to keep.

The newly acknowledged bond between Klink and Hogan had a welcome side effect. It enabled them to work together for the good of the camp. The increasing number of prisoners came at a time of extreme hardships for Germany. Reduced rations, cut budgets, inexperienced guards, all contributed to the problems of the overcrowded camp. But Hogan and Klink's new relationship helped everyone cope with the problems. Now they cooperated with each other to solve the camp's problems instead of competing for control as they had done before.

Hogan's relaxed reverie was broken by a knock on his door.

"Colonel?" It was Hammond, one of the men in the barracks. "The staff car's back."

"Klink and Gruber?"

"I'm not sure, sir," Hammond admitted. "I saw Gruber get out, but I didn't hang around."

"Okay, thanks."

Hogan got up and pulled on his jacket and cap. He left his room and the barracks, walking over to the office. This morning, Klink and his second-in-command, Captain Fritz Gruber, had been called to Gestapo headquarters for some kind of meeting regarding the increasing number of prisoners. And Hogan was curious to know what had happened.

Hogan walked into Klink's office and stopped, surprised to see Gruber behind Klink's desk. "Where's the Kommandant?"

"Major Hochstetter and Colonel Klink drove away this morning," Gruber said. "The major had a prisoner he wanted the Kommandant to see."

"Why?"

"That is none of your business, Colonel Hogan," Gruber said in an annoyed voice. "It concerns only the Kommandant and Major Hochstetter. The Kommandant will be back in a few days. Now, if you don't mind, I have work to do."

Hogan left the office, frustrated by Gruber's attitude and Klink's disappearance. And a bit uneasy as well.