Winner Take All (eBook, ePUB)

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WINNER TAKE ALL: A NOVEL AFTER THE SHOOTING STOPS C.W. Schuler The year is 1945! The war ends in Europe! The American Armed Forces, flush from their victory over the powerful German Werhmacht, now becomes an army of occupation deep in the German Heartland. After disengaging from their combat mission in Czechoslovakia, an American infantry battalion is deployed back across the border into Germany as part of the occupying force. This is the story of one battalion's transition from the ethical certainties of combat to confronting the daunting complexities of security and civil administration of a foreign population traumatized by six years of war ruthlessly waged by a corrupt and brutal Nazi regime. For the battalion, this final mission was one that some of the young citizen-soldiers were neither properly trained nor temperamentally equipped to implement. For both men and officers, temptations abound: the seductive allure of power and its consequent abuse; the opportunities for economic plunder through a thriving black market; the easy access to sexual adventure with a population of compliant young women starved by six years of war and deprivation who could often be seduced with as little as a package of cigarettes or a carton of American rations. The story unfolds through the eyes of an idealistic young officer in the Intelligence Section of the battalion headquarters staff and his struggle to make sense of the moral ambiguities with which he is daily confronted; in addition he is haunted by feelings of personal guilt over an earlier incident at a combat river crossing of the Mosel River. He is also responsible for security at a camp for Displaced Persons, or DP's, as they were known in the military. These were foreign laborers, mostly of Polish origin, conscripted to replace soldiers who had been working in the German armaments industry. Although a small Military Government detachment quartered in a nearby town was technically responsible for organizing some semblance of local administrative authority, the tactical combat troops retained control of all policies concerning internal security in the area. Despite his best intentions, many of the lieutenant's actions were sabotaged by the hard realities inherent in any military occupation of a foreign culture, both by German civilians struggling to survive, as well as the conflicting agendas of his fellow officers. Frustrated and disillusioned, he is finally led to accept the inevitable truth: that all human actions, no matter how well intended, are subject to the law of unintended consequences which is as implacable and indifferent to human desires as the law of gravity.

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The novel begins in Czechoslovakia on the day the shooting stopped in the European Theater of Operations, May 8, 1945, and ends on August 8, two days after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. The narrative follows a U.S Army infantry battalion as it disengages from its combat mission and moves back across the border into Germany. Along the newly established Czech border the battalion occupies an administrative district approximating the area of an American county where they are responsible for internal security within their zone of operation. In addition the battalion is required to monitor the flood of refugees crossing the border as they attempt to escape the Czech police and the Soviet army advancing from the East. The former German forced labor camps in the area, whose occupants are now officially designated "Displaced Persons", await repatriation to their countries of origin as required by the Potsdam Accord. These also fall within the battalion's jurisdiction. During this hiatus from combat the rifle companies are ordered to resume tactical training exercises in anticipation of possible early deployment to the South Pacific Theater of Operations as part of the massive build up to an invasion of the Japanese Home Islands. The story unfolds from the point of view of Lieutenant Henry Snyder, a staff officer, S-2 Intelligence Section, on the Battalion Headquarters Staff. In the early weeks of the occupation there is in place an official policy of non-fraternization, consequently Lieutenant Snyder, with the assistance of a small detachment of Security Guards, is made responsible for all contacts between the Battalion and the German Civil Administration. He is also expected to oversee the operation and security of a large Displaced Persons camp populated mostly by conscripted laborers of Polish origin. Although the small Military Government detachment quartered in a nearby town is technically responsible for organizing some semblance of local administrative authority, the tactical combat troops retain control of all actions and policies concerned with internal security in the area. The action that follows explores the many operational difficulties and moral ambiguities that surface during the transition from killing to administration, from the relatively black and white ethical certainties of combat where the mission was clearly defined and the enemy easily identified, to one of peaceful and, hopefully, non-coercive negotiation. However, this latter role was one that the soldiers' military training and long exposure to the unambiguous brutalities of the battlefield has left them ill prepared to address. The drama takes place on a relatively small stage; the actors are mostly bit players from the lower echelons of the Chain of Command. There are no obvious heroes or villains in the traditional sense, only ordinary citizen soldiers pulled out of mostly ordinary civilian lives with all the weaknesses and vulnerabilities that "flesh is heir to" and thrown into situations for which nothing in their previous lives had prepared them. Consequently, the larcenies are largely petty and the homicides are acts of unreflective reflex. Each of the characters must come to terms in his own way with the many opportunities for economic plunder via a thriving black market and the temptations for sexual adventure with a compliant population of young women starved by six years of war and deprivation, many of whom can be seduced with as little as a package of cigarettes or a carton of American rations. Although each character adjusts to the realities of this unfamiliar environment in his own way, some are better able to adapt than others, hence the title: WINNER TAKE ALL. If there is any general theme to be derived from this story it may possibly be as simple as this: no matter how strongly we may wish otherwise, we are all subject to an iron Law of Unintended Consequences which is as implacable and indifferent to human desires as the Law of Gravity itself. But on that score the reader will have to come to his or her own conclusions.