“Schirmer.”
“Rank?”
“Sergeant. Who are you?”
“You’ll find out. She says you were a paratrooper and an instructor. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you win your Iron Cross?”
The Sergeant was sufficiently awake now to appreciate the necessity of lying. “In Belgium,” he said.
“Do you want to live?”
“Who doesn’t?”
“Fascists don’t. They are death-lovers, so we kill them. True democrats want to live. They prove their desire by fighting with their class comrades against the Fascists and the capitalist-imperialist aggressors.”