OTTO STOLTZ' FREE EVENING
...Stoltz had a fit of hacking again. He was doing everything he could just not to cough and tried to wait for pauses or, at least, for the moments when sounds of music were too loud (luckily Bruckner had lots of them). But then his dry, painful cough fell on complete silence when stringed basses were muffled and the hall's atmosphere was full of tense waiting. Those minutes Stoltz hated himself, he was ashamed. He could not ever have imagined that his cough would rise so high, while he did not want to miss the concert - Bruckner, admired by Stoltz, was not performed quite frequently.
Stoltz could not recall since when - a year or two years ago - he started noticing that he was tormented by fits of unconquerable hacking every time he had long enough periods of a hard work. Then it would stop by itself. That was the time he had the same period. The latest half of the year the Eastern Department of the General Staff worked almost round-the-clock. The middle detachment officers were snowed under with work concerning structural planning and tactic decisions taking they were to do. One of the parts of the industrial mobilization's plan did not come easily to Stoltz, the one that dealt with the aviation production and getting more and more powerful Luftwaffe. The structure, so to say, "was not nice to look at", and Stoltz felt there must be a better decision which could let them enter a level of a mass supply of new planes being on a final adjustment during shorter terms and with a lower means of transportation's tension. His dissatisfaction with himself did not bother him, still it was the cause of a certain annoyance and prevented him from feeling with a full heart spring approaching - the season he loved particularly.
It was already quite warm in Berlin. It seemed birds had gone slightly mad and did not stop singing all day long, and even more - some of them could be heard late in the evening or in the night. People and trams' noise made no problems for them. Life went its usual way and everything seemed to be as it always was. But then Stoltz did already know something that would be announced to all those people he met in Berlin streets only in a year and a half: Stoltz knew that the country with all its economic resources had already entered a new big war. The war starts not with the first volleys but with working out and beginning a realization of plans concerning a mobilization of industry, material supply of troops, their movement to the advance's line, mass and speeded preparation of additional military regulars. In a year and a half, after the state transport system's carrying capacity would allow to gather the shock troops near the border and to form several attack echelons out of them, after work of a multitude of design offices and plants would be crowned with mass deliveries of military production in quantities needed to fight successful offensive combats, after coordinated work of thousands of people would create one accurately working mechanism, then the last step would be left to do and only to establish the already formed state of things - to give a combat attack order to the troops. This latent phase of the war goes unrealized by inhabitants of the country which, in essence, is already fighting. Usually people do not listen to those few who have an analytical mind and who are able to make a guess out of separate signs. The whole picture of the events which happened then - a year and a half before their inevitable culmination - was within reach of the General Staff and Stoltz liked this specificity of the staff work, it fascinated him.
...As for today - Otto Stoltz, middle detachment officer of the Eastern Department of the Wehrmacht General Staff, allowed himself to have a little rest - two Bruckner's symphonies were to be played in a philharmonic that evening. Stoltz liked this composer, though he thought him to be a little bit too romantic sometimes. He even had a desire to correct the master in some places - where so dynamically evolving melody was interrupted suddenly on its flight, the rhythm was broken, and the lyrical part's smooth flow came out of blue. Stoltz had no musical education and sometimes he pitied about it. When he was six he told his mother that he agreed to be taught to play only the drum. There were not such classes, his mother did not insist on anything else. Having no professional notions he regarded music figuratively - in the shape of interconnected rhythmical and melodic structures... The structure of the just performed dynamic scherzo seemed familiar to Stoltz, and not because he had heard this music many times before, but due to another, not entirely clear yet reason. For some reason he recalled his work, the Staff's maps, graphs...***) Stoltz oversaw how a lady whose seat was in a few chairs in the same row where he had his seat, stood up and having left her companion she started making her way to the exit. When Stoltz stood up to let her go, she casted her eyes down, but scents were not under her power to the same degree, and her perfume trail stayed with Stoltz. Its scent brought out a chain of indiscernible reminiscences speeding each other up, and Stoltz did understand clearly why the scherzo's structure had been so familiar to him: from functional point of view it coincided completely with that part of the mobilization plan he had been racking his brain over all that time. The only difference was that the composer's play was much more exquisite. If Stoltz would manage to co-ordinate the supply and establish transporting services the same way Bruckner "organized" his music, then the time of entering the level of the mass deliveries of planes extremely needed that time would shorten approximately by a quarter. That impressed Stoltz so much so that he could not be in the hall any longer...
The rain seemingly had stooped quite recently. Water was still running on full swing on the asphalt which was shining fattily under the evening lighting. Stoltz decided to take a stroll. He was distraught and confused. It had better to him, of course,- he was thinking - to borrow all the best from Bruckner and to introduce changes to his plan-graph. But it would contradict one of Stoltz' most precious belief: he always thought that art influences life's different sides, society with "upper ways", so to say,- it aids to create those or other philosophic ideas, etc. Any "direct action" was regarded by him as a vulgarizer's simplification... It was quite summer-like warm that evening. Stoltz had reached by foot his house and made coffee there...
...Three weeks after that, special instructions, which had been sent to the main German aircraft-plants without regard for any schedules, dictated new, earlier terms of gaining a full power production.
***) Stoltz oversaw how a lady whose seat was in a few chairs in the same row where he had his seat, stood up and having left her companion she started making her way to the exit. When Stoltz stood up to let her go, she smiled looking right into his eyes. Stoltz was embarrassed. Her perfume trail stayed with him as a continuation of that unexpected sincere and exiting smile. It seemed to him that the adagio which had already been played for some minutes and which had reached Stoltz at last, was extremely sensual. The music embraced him completely. He did not recall at all the thoughts concerning his job which were entirely improper... When after the concert Stoltz went out to the street, the world was mysterious and beautiful. The rain seemingly had stooped quite recently. The asphalt was still shining fattily under the evening lighting. Stoltz decided to take a stroll. He was distraught and confused. He had never felt anything of the kind before. It was quite summer-like warm that evening. Stoltz had reached by foot his house and made coffee there...
...The usual instructions, which had been sent to the main German aircraft-plants according to the stated schedules later, dictated the same terms of gaining a full power production.
EPILOGUE
Due to the fact that a certain quantity of archive materials were lost and because of the discrepancy of several saved materials, it was impossible for us to restore exactly enough the true way of events concerning Otto Stoltz' period of life in Berlin, 1936-45. Still, there are some facts we can be sure of.
Sometimes evidences given by seemingly outsiders proved our conjectures in the most surprising way. From Ulrike von Stein's letter to her friend, Berlin, March 1949: "...now, when Heinrich has gone, it is unbearably difficult for me to remember how I tortured him quite often, how I was unfair towards him, how I behaved myself as a cantankerous hysterical girl. Last week I listened to Bruckner at Titania Palast. Alone. I suppose you are surprised knowing that I do not like him much. It all is simply enough - that music reminds me the days when Heinrich was with me. He liked him. I do not know why but then it bothered me greatly. It is one of those trifles of which (now I see it is so obvious) the wall of alienation and misunderstanding between us was built by me. While he, poor, did really love me and put up with all my pranks. Then, maybe in 1938, and also in spring but later, in the end of April, it seems to me, some two symphonies by Bruckner were announced to be played only one day in the philharmonic. Heinrich longed to go there, but not alone - with me. While I, as a stubborn idiot, had been refusing for a long time for no discernable reason. At last, I deigned to accept his proposal. Heinrich was glad as a child. Actually, he was a big child - strong, kind and trustful. Now I know what his job was, how it was hard and responsible. Like a consummate egoist I was never interested in his business, while he needed my support. It is impossible to change it now. I often think now that maybe, at least now, whenever his soul is, he would be able to feel how I repent of it and that I would like to correct it all. It seems to me that if I had loved him then, not only now, when it is already too late, then I could have saved him...
In the same row with me and Heinrich, closer to the aisle, there was a young man whom I had noticed at once. There was something truthful, masculine: reliable and confident in him. He looked a little bit pale, and was constantly coughing. Poor, he did try not to hack, but seldom his coughing exploded during the very performance. It troubled him a lot. I was not almost listening to the music, I was scrutinizing the public, but most of all I was watching him. Of course, in the way that he could not notice it. I called him Oskar or Otto to myself, both names would fit him perfectly. Then something unbelievable happened. You know, I have never told it to anyone yet and I had never thought such a thing could ever happen to me. All in all, I do not know how but the music affected me. Yes, now I think that it was the music. In a certain moment, suddenly I felt inexplicable horror which turned then into an absolute loneliness, then it became worse and I started feeling sick. As you can see, rude physiological reactions. I decided not to explain anything to Heinrich, I only said to him that I had to go to the fresh air and asked him not to accompany me. The only way to the exit was through Oskar-Otto's seat, and it embarrassed me completely, while you know it is not familiar to me at all. Well, I stood up and started making my way through the seats. I tried to be quite natural, smiled nicely (I hoped it was so) to everybody who stood up to let me go. Here he is. He stands up and... and I do not remember how I was going through his seat, do not remember what I was doing, do not remember if I was smiling to him like to others or not. As if it was a kind of a blackout. Only near the exit did I gather my wits. It was already in the ladies' room when I thought that it was because I was worked-up: Heinrich used to be always too tired, used to leave home early in the morning, to come back late at night and the only thing he wanted in bed then was to sleep... But still, I think the music was the reason for that. Yes, the music. The music by Bruckner I hated terribly then. Now, after Heinrich's death, it became one of the threads linking me with him. But even now I cannot say I have liked it...
My dear Agatha, I do want to see you, to talk about everything. I cannot even believe that this horrible time is already over. It is impossible to bring Heinrich back. Yesterday, at last, that huge clear-out - all that was left after two neighbour houses - was finished. They seemingly start building something soon. Yours, Ulrike."
The authors would like to express their the most sincere gratitude to everybody who have helped them greatly in their research.
Switzerland - Germany, February-April 1999
German-Russian translation: authors
Russian-English translation: Andrey Bursau, Minsk