This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any actual resemblance to persons or historical persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The Hogan's Heroes characters, settings, ect. are owned by other entities who have not endorsed this fic nor have they given permission for their use. Author makes no claims to these characters and is not making any profit off their use.

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© Copyright: ­2004. Lisa Philbrick

Düsseldorf Hotel

Düsseldorf, Germany

November 1944

Day 4

For the first time that day, Miller was introduced to his temporary quarters, a room on the sixth floor of the Düsseldorf Hotel.  Allowed to retain the kit the men at Stalag 13 had put together for him, he carried it and his crush cap in hand as he was escorted into the hotel by the two Gestapo guards. The few guests of the hotel that loitered in the lobby gawked at him as he passed by, recognizing more the uniform he wore, not so much who he was. Although some did know who he was.  The hotel staff watched too, more or less put out because the Gestapo had come in and just taken over. The hotel manager was perturbed because he had to give up six rooms to accommodate them. Six rooms the Gestapo wasn't paying for.

Major Miller wasn't aware that the kids were being held at the same hotel, on a different floor. And none of the kids knew that the Major was being held at the same hotel either. The arrangement had been the idea of Hochstetter's, not having wanted to assign more men than necessary for the guard duty and the securing of more than one building. So he assigned three men to the floor the kids were on and one guard to the floor Miller was on. Two additional men were posted in the hotel's lobby, and there were four more men that did alternating, routine patrols around the building. To leave the hotel, the kids, or Miller would have had to go out the windows, and with Miller six floors up, and the kids eight, that was quite a drop.

Of course, Hochstetter lamented the fact that there were perfectly good holding cells at Gestapo Headquarters that would have served the same purpose. But the Propaganda Ministry nixed the idea, explaining that if Miller and the kids are held in comfortable surroundings, Miller especially, then they may be more cooperative, especially if the Gestapo jail was used as punishment for resistance. Hochstetter pointed out that being nice to Americans didn't work and warned the Ministry officials to be watchful of Major Miller, especially after his demonstration of defiance at the LuftStalag the day before. The Ministry officials assured Hochstetter they were well aware.

As such, the Ministry officials gave Hochstetter a task he would enjoy. At the same time Miller was being escorted to his hotel room, Hochstetter was in the process of interrogating each of the band members individually, asking them what took place, what was discussed and what songs they practiced earlier that afternoon. The Gestapo Major took notes and after each questioning session he compared them to what the other boys said. The boys all pretty much said the same thing, that most of the talking took place between Major Miller and Hans, the HJ boy who could also speak English, but that Hans had translated back for all. The kids all knew Miller had been captured, and they all knew that they had been selected to be part of a broadcast to show their allegiance to the Reich and to use swing music to convince those who had refused, to also vow their allegiance to the Reich. The boys all seemed to accept this obligation, though Hochstetter could tell none of them agreed with it.

Hochstetter found that amusing. If only they really knew why they have been selected for the broadcast... Despite having to be the babysitters for the prize catch, Hochstetter was deviously amused at the idea of Major Miller being used as bait for a series of Gestapo raids against the Swing Youths. The little brats wouldn't have a clue.

And Major Miller had no idea either, but there was no ignoring the gnawing feeling that was tugging at him for other reasons. Alone in his hotel room, he was surrounded by the quiet and his thoughts. There was no way he could allow that band to play swing music on the day of the broadcast. Not for Nazi's, not for the purpose he had been told, that being as a way to promote all that was good about the Third Reich. There wasn't anything good about the Third Reich. What was good about living in fear? What was good about being thrown in jail for playing a certain type of music, or having a certain opinion? What was good about intimidation, persecution and terrorization?

Nothing. Just trying to comprehend all of it boggled the Major's mind. But one thing was clear....there was no way in hell he was going to let that band play swing music for that broadcast. He would not be part of the Nazi's attempt to use swing music to manipulate, coerce and lie to the Germans who would be listening and he wouldn't let those kids be part of it either. Come the day of the broadcast, if things got that far, he was going to find some way to tell the Propaganda Ministry to take a long walk off a short pier.

There was just one problem...if Colonel Hogan didn't have this plan for getting him back to England, Miller, truthfully, would have spent the rest of the war in the cooler at Stalag 13 instead of agreeing to the Propaganda Ministry's idea. But he had agreed, in order to help facilitate the Colonel's plan, and now these kids were involved...and they shouldn't have been to begin with. And it was this thought that intensified that gnawing feeling the Major was experiencing.

Now there were nine other lives added into the equation. Although maybe, just maybe, this all could be over with before the broadcast. Miller figured if he escaped soon, then the kids would just be sent back....

...to camps.

Prison camps…

And the three HJ kids would go back to their Hitler Youth groups and have more of the "glorious Fatherland and Heil Hitler" drivel pounded into their heads. And then they'd be sent off to the Army, like Hans said, 16 and 17 year old kids, with guns in hand, not knowing what the heck they were doing and dying on a battlefield somewhere for a cause they didn't believe in...

Stop it. Miller sighed and stepped over to the window, looking out on the town of Düsseldorf, shrouded in a deep blue dusk. He thought of those kids. Nine innocent lives...

Or were they all innocent?

Miller was usually optimistic about people, but had a healthy amount of doubt and cynicism. And the three boys in the Hitler Youth uniforms were weighing on that doubt at the moment. Miller knew better than to judge based on appearances but seeing those red and black swastika arm bands on the shirt sleeves of three jazz musicians was...weird to say the least. But the kids seemed to act like that reminder of the Third Reich wasn't even there. He recalled what they had told him, how they had been arrested and then given the option to join the HJ or go to concentration camps, and they had joined the HJ because otherwise they would have been separated from their families. And then there was Adler, who no longer had any reason to stay in the HJ.

For some reason, the HJ uniforms were messing up his faith. Miller was willing to believe the kids were honest but...he also wondered if there was the possibility they were lying to him. Maybe they had been picked by the Gestapo to be moles, making sure everything was being kept on the Nazified up and up and they only told him their various stories in order to gain his sympathy and trust.

He sighed and turned away from the window. He would have to be cautious. Even if it turned out that they hadn't been picked by the Gestapo to be moles, the Gestapo could pressure them to report any thing suspicious. And what could be more suspicious than to hear him talk about the possibility of escaping? Even more suspicious would be the suggestion of the kids making the escape with him....

Don't get your hopes up... Fate had tipped the scale when he was abducted from Broadcasting House and he knew, deep down, that there was very little he had control over now. Whatever was meant to be was going to be. Some how, though, that wasn't good enough. Those kids deserved more than to just be brought in, without choice, and then be left behind once Miller escaped and left to face God knew what. No... he had to do something for them. Just what exactly, he wasn't sure.

Meanwhile, two of the band members were doing something for him.  After Hochstetter left, Hauptmann Reigels went to each room to visit the boys and basically ask the same kind of questions Hochstetter asked. The boys had been paired off by twos, with Hans being the odd man out and having a room of his own. Ahren and Roderick shared a room and it was Roderick that made a request from Reigels about possibly having another trombone, explaining that his was several years old and was showing it's age and wear and tear. Roderick expressed his concern that the instrument would not be sufficient come the day of the broadcast. Reigels considered this a fair request and promised the youngster that a new instrument would be delivered in the morning. After Reigels left, Ahren looked at Roderick, puzzled.

"Your trombone is only two years old," he said.

"I know. I didn't ask for another one for myself. I asked it for Herr Miller." Roderick smiled. "When he stands in front of the band, it seems like something is missing."