There was a good deal of talk in those days about secret weapons and final victory. We, the Dusters, discussed neither one, but we had the secret weapon.

Oskar’s first move after taking over the leadership of the thirty to forty members of the gang was to have Störtebeker introduce me to the leader of the Neufahrwasser outfit. Moorkähne, a sixteen-year-old with a limp, was the son of an official at the Neufahrwasser pilot office; his physical defect—his right leg was almost an inch shorter than his left—had prevented him from being drafted or taken on as an Air Force Auxiliary. Though a bit ostentatious about his limp, Moorkähne was shy and soft-spoken. There was always an artful smile on his lips, and he was regarded as the best student in the graduating class at the Conradinum. He had every prospect, if the Russian Army should raise no objection, of passing his final examination brilliantly; he was planning to study philosophy.

Like Störtebeker, whose unstinting respect I had won, Moorkähne recognized me as Jesus, first in command of the Dusters. Oskar insisted at once on being shown the storehouse and treasury, for both groups kept their loot in the same place, the spacious cellar of a quiet, fashionable villa on Jeschkenthaler-Wog in Langfuhr. This house, covered with ivy and creepers and separated from the street by a gently sloping meadow, was the abode of Putty’s parents, whose name was Von Puttkamer. Mr. von Puttkamer, a nobleman of Pomeranian, Polish, and Prussian descent and a wearer of the Knight’s Cross, was off commanding a division in fair France; Mrs. Elisabeth von Puttkamer had been spending the last few months in the Bavarian highlands for reasons of health. Wolfgang von Puttkamer, whom the Dusters called Putty, had been left in charge of the house; as for the elderly, half-deaf maid who ministered to the young gentleman’s needs, she never went below the ground floor, and we never saw her, for we entered the cellar through the laundry room.

In the storeroom were piled canned goods, tobacco, and several bolts of parachute silk. From one of the shelves hung two dozen Army watches, which Putty had orders from Störtebeker to keep running and properly set. Another of his duties was to keep the two tommy guns, the rifle, and the pistols clean. I was shown a bazooka, some machine-gun ammunition, and twenty-five hand grenades. All this and an impressive supply of gasoline in jerrycans was intended for the assault on the Rationing Office. Oskar-Jesus’ first order was: “Bury the arms and gasoline in the garden. Hand over all bolts and firing pins to Jesus. Our weapons are of a different kind.”

When the boys produced a cigar box full of stolen decorations and insignia, I smiled and said they could keep them. But I should have taken away the paratroopers’ knives. Later on they made use of the blades which fitted so neatly into their handles, as though just begging to be used.

Then they brought me the treasury. Oskar ordered a counting and checked it over. The Dusters’ liquid assets amounted to two thousand four hundred and twenty Reichsmarks. This was at the beginning of September, 1944. When, in mid-January, 1945, Koniev and Zhukov broke through on the Vistula, Putty confessed and we were obliged to hand over our treasury to the authorities. Thirty-six thousand Reichsmarks were counted into piles and bundles on the bench of the District Court.

In keeping with my nature, Oskar remained in the background during operations. In the daytime I would go out alone or with Störtebeker, to find worth-while targets for the Dusters’ night expeditions. I let Störtebeker or Moorkähne do the actual organizing. After nightfall I never stirred from Mother Truczinski’s apartment. That brings us to the secret weapon. I would stand at my bedroom window and send out my voice, farther than ever before, to demolish windows at the other end of town. I un-glassed several Party headquarters, a printshop that turned out ration cards, and once, acceding reluctantly to the request of my comrades-in-arms, shattered the kitchen windows of an apartment belonging to a high school principal who had incurred their displeasure.

That was in November. While V-1 and V-2 rockets were winging their way to England, my voice winged its way over Langfuhr and along the file of trees on Hindenburg-Allee, hopped over the Central Station and the Old City, and sought out the museum in Fleischergasse; my men had orders to look for Niobe, the wooden figurehead.

They did not find her. In the adjoining room Mother Truczinski sat motionless but for the wagging of her head. In a way we had something in common; for while Oskar engaged in long-distance song, she was occupied with long-distance thoughts. She searched God’s heaven for her son Herbert and the front lines of Center Sector for her son Fritz. She also had to look far away for her eldest daughter Guste, who early in 1944 had married and gone off to distant Düsseldorf, for it was there that Headwaiter Köster had his home; though he personally was spending most of his time in Courland. A scant two weeks’ furlough was all the time Guste had to keep him for herself and get to know him.

Those were peaceful evenings. Oskar sat at Mother Truczinski’s feet, improvised a bit on his drum, took a baked apple from the recess in the tile stove, and with this wrinkled fruit meant for old women and little children vanished into the dark bedroom. He would raise the blackout paper and open the window just a crack, letting in a little of the frosty night. Then he would take aim and dispatch his long-distance song. He did not sing at the stars, the Milky Way was not on his route. His song was directed at Winterfeld-Platz, not at the Radio Building but at the boxlike structure across the way, which housed the district headquarters of the Hitler Youth.

In clear weather my work took hardly a minute. Meanwhile my baked apple had cooled a little by the open window. Munching, I returned to Mother Truczinski and my drum, and soon went to bed with every assurance that while Oskar slept the Dusters, in Jesus’ name, were looting Party treasuries, stealing food cards, rubber stamps, printed forms, or a membership list of the Hitler Youth Patrol.

Indulgently I allowed Störtebeker and Moorkähne to engage in all sorts of monkey business with forged documents. The gang’s main enemy was the Patrol Service. It was all right with me if they chose to kidnap their adversaries, dust them, and—as Firestealer, who had charge of this activity, called it—polish their balls.

Since I remained aloof from these expeditions, which were a mere prologue that can give you no idea of my real plans, I cannot say for sure whether it was the Dusters who in September, 1944, tied up two high officers of the Patrol Service, including the dreaded Helmut Neitberg, and drowned them in the Mottlau, above the Cows’ Bridge.

However, I, Oskar-Jesus, who gave the Dusters their orders, feel the need to deny certain stories that gained currency later on: that the Dusters had connections with the Edelweiss Pirates of Cologne or that Polish partisans from Tuchlerheide had exerted an influence on us or even directed our movement. All this is pure legend.

At our trial we were also accused of having ties with the July 20th conspirators, because Putty’s father, August von Puttkamer, had been close to Field Marshal Rommel and had committed suicide. Since the beginning of the war, Putty had seen his father no more than five or six times, and then scarcely long enough to get used to his changing insignia of rank. It was not until our trial that he first heard about this officer’s foolishness, which, to tell the truth, was a matter of utter indifference to us. When he did hear about it, he cried so shamefully, so shamelessly that Firestealer, who was sitting beside him, had to dust him right in front of the judges.