English Translation

The eerie forest As diverse as hardly any other activity is that of the men of the 4-security service. Divided into very small commands, they lie in the larger and smaller cities just behind the front. They have stretched a net, which spreads protectively over the back of the front, and in its intrepid threads already many agents of the notorious NK WD. (GPU.) strangled the neck. It is a net that reaches in the farthest distance. If in the Bolshevik villages our soldiers see the house with the 'SD.', they know: The SD. is at work, here we can sleep calmly. I The personnel description, which some subcommand has reported here, fits exactly to the man who encircles the village road there. The patrol service stops him, and the man must show his passport. The one-armed spy hastily pulls out the papers. Yes, also the given name is correct. He may continue, but quite inconspicuously a man follows him in civil, crisscrossing through the confusion of streets. Even when he wants to submerge in the haggling and trading crowd of the bazaar (market), the man in civil has not lost sight of him. Sometimes he stands at crossroads, observing the tactical signs of passing columns, walking through puddles, narrow bridges; but the man of civil remains always at his heels without the other one knowing. When the spy finally enters a house, he suddenly feels a gun mouth in his back, has to lift his hands together with the present "homeowner" and reverse the pockets, and already a few minutes later the two begin to recover from the first horror in the prison cell of the SD. Voluntary or involuntary, by skillfully asking questions, the two give everything they know of themselves during interrogation. So thoroughly and systematically the SD. men work, so quickly they can access. No one sees anything of these attacks and at all of this silent, bitter fight against the NKVD., the successor of the GPU., whose agents sneak through the front to perform a sabotage act sometimes in the hinterland or to transfer orders to any gang group. Not observed by anyone, the two civilians walk along the village road. One looks at himself flickering, it is the "homeowner" who should have continued to promote the orders of the one-armed man. The other is an SD.-man in civil, a criminal commissioner from East Prussia, who masteres the Russian language perfectly and who has learned more here in the Soviet Union than he could ever have learned in life. The two march ten kilometers on the country road of the hill chain, and when they reach the last village, the SD.-man incognito takes an armed volunteer from the local local army as a companion. The three now march silently towards their destination. In the forest it becomes almost uncanny. The SD.-man holds his pistol tighter in his pocket, and the NK WD.-agent knows what will bloom if he dares to escape. Probably or badly he must lead the two to the secret gang camp. When the night darkens the forest even more, they are at the finish: two fires burn up there on the high. "Bring the man back to the village!" says the SD.-man to his companion. Then he goes along the nightly forest path — alone — to which probably more than twenty man-strong sniper camps are standing. Now he hears a female voice scream, and when he hear the cracking of burning dry branches, he lies down on the ground. Here he wants to spend the night and draw a sketch at dawn, which is then to serve as the basis for a larger action. The wind, which previously bent the treetops, has subsided, and now it rains for it in currents. The SD.-man crawls to the dense acacia tree at the front; he would offer him protection from the worst. Then suddenly a "Stoi - Parole!" shrills the night. 83