by George Howe

A Book Review

This story is an amazing exploration into the definition of treason. If the leaders of your country have betrayed you, your countrymen and your country, is it treason if you fight against those leaders? If they have betrayed humanity, what then?

Howe opens his story with:

"Some of the acts you forget on purpose, and some you never forget. For all the erasures of time, one question stays with me, unanswered but unforgotten: why does the Spy risk his life? For what compulsion, and after what torment in himself? The gun point never forced a man to loyalty, and still less to Treason, whose rewards at best are slim and distant. If the Spy wins, he is ignored; if he loses, he is hanged."

"Among the German troops a few . . . looked beyond frontiers, and even beyond life itself, to the last brotherhood of man. They betrayed their country, and some died doing it, because they were above country. Some were traitors for self-love, and more for adventure, and a few for the love of others. On the "hazardous mission" in the . . . citation, there was one of each. Riches and risk and faith: these are the decoys of treason."

Does the definition of treason lie in your reason for doing so?

Howe continues:

"Off paper they called them "Joes". On paper (when they had to write) they called them "agents." The British called theirs "bodies." Those who did not know them would call them spies. Of the four titles "Joe" is surely the kindliest."

The Americans are in desparate need of "German Joes" or those "who could pass as German", to bring them vital information about the movements of the Wehrmacht (German Army) at the front in these last days of the war.

Karl Mauer is a 20-year-old German soldier fighting for the Fatherland in France. The Americans, and the dangerous work of French spies, have mostly liberated France at this point, when Mauer surrenders to them at Sarrebourg in Lorraine in 1944. The Battle of the Bulge had just begun.

Through various events Mauer has made himself known as willing to spy for the Americans. He and his family (parents and brother), who live in Berlin, are revolted by Hitler and what they now see the Nazis doing to Germany, and to life itself. The Americans accept his offer and train him. They also lock his real identity in a safe and give him another name, Karl Steinberg, along with a forged Soldbuch (German ID) that every German soldier carries. No one will ever know that Karl Mauer and Karl Steinberg are the same.

They also give him a code name - "Happy" - because he is always smiling and upbeat. He is then dropped behind enemy lines in Germany to carry out his mission.

He is droped in a field southeast of his destination, and must then travel 400 kilometers in five days to Mannheim and cross the Rhine (the front) to return to the Americans in Sarrebourg, France. His goal is to discover the whereabouts of the Twenty-fifth Infantry Division and the Ninth Flak, as well as certain artillery.

He gets a ride with another soldier to the 25th Infantry Division HQ at Aalen on route to the Rhine. At check in they see that he is Luftwaffe medical corp and ask him to tend to the sickly ranking officer, Colonel Forster, whose own orderly is away overnight. He has no choice but to agree.

Happy goes to the Colonel's room and they arrange matters between them. The Colonel talks to Happy a little and tells him that a local farmer is to be executed the next day for sabotaging the mines that are wired together on all the bridges between here and the Rhine. He says, "I dislike to order this shooting. They are messy affairs; Even the firing squad is apt to get sick, but there must be an example." He goes on to say, "If the Wehrmacht cannot maintain discipline in the heart of our own country, where can it do so? And if the execution is to be at all, it should be where the soldiers and civilians alike can witness it."

During the course of the night Happy must use his medical skill to save the Colonel's life. As a result, the Colonel let's down his guard a little and converses with Happy almost as a father to a son. The Colonel asks Happy if there is anything he may do for him, to which Happy asks for the farmer to be spared, and to be sent to prison instead. The Colonel refuses and asks Happy to reiterate his oath as a German soldier - they both repeat together:

"I swear before God this holy oath, to offer unquestioning obedience to Adolf Hitler, leader of the German State and People, and to lay down my life as a brave soldier to fulfill this oath."

Shortly after this event, Colonel Forster receives a copy of the "Fahndungsblatt", the blacklist (a booklet the Gestapo issues every Tuesday, listing deserters and suspected spies) from the company melder (messenger) and lays it on his work table as he steps into the hall to have a private word with him. Happy takes this chance to glance at the "S" page and sees him name. He now knows for certain he is betrayed.

On the second to last day of his mission, he runs into a "spot check" just as he is about to cross the Rhine - his last major obstacle to relaying his report. The Gestapo (which is short for Geheime Staatspolizei, or Secret State Police) is checking all soldiers going across the Rhine Bridge in Mannheim. As Happy is waiting his turn, knowing he will be caught, "his gaze swept around his trap. The Rhine and it's bridge were German, but the gunners and mines were Hitler's. The twin cities were German, but the red flag over the Schloss, and the ruin of Ludwigschafen, were Hitler's. The soldiers across from him and the refugees at his left were German, but the uniforms of one and the misery of the other were Hitler's. He was German, but the lie on his paper was Hitler's."

It is Happy's love for Germany, and the German people, that drives him. While on his mission he stays at an inn and meets a girl to whom he hopes to return after the war. "Faith" is Happy's justification for his "treason."

Does Happy succeed? Does he get the information the Americans need to defeat the German Army? Did he in fact, commit treason, in light of what the world now knows about Hitler and the Nazis? Happy didn't do it for the fun of adventure, or for money. Happy did it because of his belief in humanity, for the love of others, for faith.

The night of Happy's "spot-check" the Germans blew up the Rhine bridge, which meant they had no organized resistance left on their side.

"The Krauts blew that bridge in one minute, but I bet it takes them five years to rebuild."

"Well, with a demolition that took one minute they held us up one month. At that rate they might have won the war."

"Yeah, might have. But we're here just the same."