Chapter 61 - The Collector

Alex Steiner is assigned to an army hospital near Vienna, where his tailoring skills are used to mend uniforms for soldiers on the Eastern Front. Hans Hubermann is sent to Stuttgart and then Essen, placed in the LSE—the Luftwaffe’s air raid special unit, grimly nicknamed the dead body collectors.

On his first day, Hans meets Sergeant Boris Schipper, who warns that danger surrounds them, and Reinhold Zucker, a sneering young man. Death foreshadows Zucker’s coming death, ominously tied to Hans’s seat in the truck, setting a tense undertone for the unit’s work.

During briefings and cleanup runs, each man claims a regular seat in the truck—Zucker in the left-row middle, Hans at the back, dodging flying cigarette butts. Hans’s first letter home is perfunctory, masking the strain. Soon, an intense raid engulfs the city. Teams form: Schipper hoses flames while others hose him; Hans hoses all to keep them alive as a nearby building collapses, burying them in choking dust.

They slog through hours of fire suppression and makeshift shoring of damaged structures, a task Hans proves adept at, propping up teetering walls and rafters. The worst toll is human: survivors stagger through the smoke calling loved ones’ names, leaving handprints on Hans’s jacket. An old man, bloodied and oddly calm, asks Hans to “prop” him up; only once Hans carries him to safety does he realize the full extent of the man’s injuries.

Later, Hans trips over the corpse of a boy—about twelve—face down in ash, hands clasping his ears. Soon after, a frail woman searches for her son, Rudolf, the same age. Schipper cannot tell her the truth and deflects her away. The scene drives Hans to thoughts of Rudy, Liesel, Rosa, and Max, pleading silently for their safety.

Exhausted, caked in dust, and sick from smoke and grief, Hans attempts a fuller letter but can barely write beyond the salutation, intending to speak the rest if he survives to return home.