Gentle Resistance

By Peter J. Nebergall

Gentle Resistance is a story of nonviolence in the face of tragedy. Two photographers, one English and one German, meet on the field of battle, early in WWII. They become fast friends, later, partners, and we ride with them through the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. Their children marry.

But life is not a fairy tale. As the story passes to the children, there is tragedy, loss, and the need to transcend sheer horror. It's a tall tale that feels like real life. Come travel with Roger Gilchrist and his family and his friends.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hawes & Jenkins Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9781637840634

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Gentle Resistance

Peter J. Nebergall

ISBN 978-1-63784-062-7 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63784-063-4 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Peter J. Nebergall

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Hawes & Jenkins Publishing

16427 N Scottsdale Road Suite 410

Scottsdale, AZ 85254

www.hawesjenkins.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

For my wife Yvonne, and my children Amon and Viola

Acknowledgements

Author's Note

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Interludee (Nick Kuhnen)

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter TWENTY-ONE

Chapter TWENTY-TWO

Chapter TWENTY-THREE

Chapter TWENTY-FOUR

Chapter TWENTY-FIVE

Chapter TWENTY-Six

Chapter TWENTY-Seven

About the Author

For my wife Yvonne, and my children Amon and Viola

Acknowledgements

I want to thank the folks in Magnum, the folks who've worked for The Times, for Signal magazine, also Indiana University, University of Missouri, The College of William and Mary, Eddie Ramage, Fritz Roth, Lester Wilson, David Douglas Duncan, Dr. Erich Salomon, Leni Riefenstahl (whose personal input was invaluable), Felix Pappalardi, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, Nathan Berkowitz, Eddie and Richard Tillis, Sam Shoshan, Ralph Rowlett, Ed Bryant, Mike Hoy, Kevin and Jennifer Waldron, Sandra Howe and Samantha Walkington, Professor Thomas W. Jacobsen, the Benson Foundation, my sister Tracie Tempfel, my daughter Viola, my Agent Henrietta Landesmann, and Col. David Hackworth. Above all, my wife Yvonne, for encouraging me to finish it. Thanks, all, for believing in me.

Author's Note

This is a work of historical fiction. Of narrative necessity, there are some real individuals, places, events, and organizations in it – but neither the Gilchrist nor the Erler families are real here (my mother is a Gilchrist!). I have tried to be entertaining, but also respectful. I have the deepest respect for Magnum, and their contributions to photography. This is a story of growth, loss, and healing. It is a story of life.

Introduction

(by Nicholas Kuhnen, PhD)

"De mortuis nil nisi bonum. Speak no ill of the dead."

I began my eulogy in the formal manner, thus addressing the assembled dignitaries, ritually assembled to review the life and accomplishments of the recently departed guest of honor. My old friend, Roger Gilchrist, was dead. More than 200 people had come to his funeral. The university's chaplain had taken care of the religious responsibilities (Roger was a somewhat lapsed Anglican), and now it was my turn to speak:

We are assembled today to remember Roger Gilchrist, and for him, the ancient Latin command rings ever true, for I doubt any honest man could be found who would have words of ill to speak. Roger Gilchrist was a unique man, a good man.

I looked out at the audience. There was Sheila, his widow, who'd asked me to deliver this oration. Beside her was my wife Katrina, and our daughter, Alexa, quiet and serious. Nearby sat former US President Thomas Weatherbie, whose attendance today was a tremendous honor for Roger and Sheila. Close as a shadow was the tall figure of Gerald Simpson, the senior British Intelligence officer who'd done so much with us to help defeat the Keepers Revolt eight years ago. There was grey in his hair, but he was still the best-dressed man in the hall.

The men I'd known only by their code names: Graham, Grainger, and George, were there as well, a little older, a little more battered, a little more settled.

Graham, whose real name I'd never learned, was still a cipher. Elegant as always, he sat quietly with his wife, archaeologist Katie Wilkinson, listening and watching. I remembered him from 2010, eight years ago, back when Max McVicar tried to turn himself into a fascist dictator. We'd had some adventures then…

George, the tough little Glaswegian who'd been the team's triggerman, had found love on the battlefield, as I had. He sat quietly with his wife, the BBC journalist Tillie McBride. His real name was Charles Stuart Hamilton, I'd found out a few years ago, but to me he was still George. He was no longer in government service, and, after some time as a private investigator, was now writing crime novels. I figured he had a lot of stories to tell…

Their daughter, Morag, was a hell-raiser, at five a budding Punk like her mother, or like Roger's widow Sheila. Morag was outside the hall, leading my son Jakob astray, tearing around the plaza screaming. Some children are too young to appreciate a funeral (and that is exactly how it should be—they'll have time…)

Grainger sat off to the side. His left eye was covered with a black leather patch, and he looked like a very distinguished pirate. Beside him sat the new wife he'd met at blind rehab (we'd feared he'd lose the other eye), the well-known fashion model Carole Hahn. Before she'd lost her sight to RP, she'd been a regular face on the cover of magazines like Vogue, Elle, Jill, and others. She was a strikingly beautiful woman, with long jet-black hair. I'd spoken to her briefly, and had to remind myself she couldn't see—she was completely functional, and looked like what she was, a fashion model at a funeral.

There was a tall, broad-shouldered man with gray hair, who had to be Matthias Erler. He was a retired senior police officer, still living in Munich. Beside him sat his granddaughter, my student Amie. I'd only heard of him from her… And beside them was the aged, gnomelike figure of his father, her great-grandfather, the legendary German photographer Werner Erler. I knew he was at least 103!

But back to the matter at hand. I continued: I am here to remember Professor Roger Gilchrist. He was my teacher. He was my friend. He was my Doktorvater (I saw the Erlers nod) and he was my mentor. I am what he prepared me to be…

I have said Roger was unique. It was so, in many ways. In his life, in his work, in the positions he took, and in his upbringing. Let us, who know what he was at the end of his life, look at his upbringing, at how he became what he was, the Roger we knew.

It is a love story, a story of many loves. It is a story of friends. And even though in times it is the story of wars, and of death, it is much more a story of courageous peace. Roger was a brave man. This we know. But while for many bravery means killing the man with the bayonet before he gets you, there is a greater bravery, found off the killing fields. Roger showed us. Remember `love for your fellow man?' Roger, Roger's life, defined what that meant…

But anyone who wished to understand the life and work of Roger Gilchrist must begin at the beginning—before the beginning, in fact. Let us do so now…

First, remember that Roger was the son of Eric Gilchrist…

Chapter One

The July sun was unbearably hot. There was no wind. The sand under his face and body felt like embers from the fires of Hell. He shut his eyes. The smell from the burning tanks down in the valley was the brimstone, and the ripping crump of the shells falling in the far distance could have been the cries of the damned. But there were still German snipers about, so Eric Gilchrist kept as low as possible, opened his eyes to the blazing sun, and squinted again through the unfamiliar Visoflex reflex finder attached to the front of his Reid camera.

It was 1941, and the war in North Africa had been going well—for the Germans. A man named Rommel had chased the British almost to the Nile. A month ago, in an action now called The Battle of the Cauldron, the German Afrika Korps had decimated a large British formation. Gurkha units and the Scots Cameron Highlanders had fought to the last bullet, but they too were taken.

Score that round for the Afrika Korps, but the fight was by no means over. Almost every day there were skirmishes, incursions, engagements. There might be Stukas, or the ugly but deadly-efficient Italian SM79 tri-motor bombers. Beauforts, or the Hudsons beginning to arrive from America, might pass low overhead on the way to hit back. A man might see tanks dueling in the distance like armored giants, or parties of men in troop carriers raising dust clouds as they passed. Sometimes things just blew up, without anyone seeing who did it. It was an interesting time, that, the ebb before the tide changed.

The British people needed some positive news. Furthermore, they needed to see it. After so many setbacks, at home and abroad, they needed something visual, something tangible. The Times had sent veteran photographer Eric Gilchrist to help fill the bill. He was no propagandist, but his editor and the authorities knew he'd search out images that would reassure, would show the folks at home that not only were their boys still fighting, but that they were going to win.

So there he was, lying prone on a sand dune. He'd been with the Gurkhas, those tough little Nepalese volunteers, for a week now, trying to show how these deadly little men were pulling far more than their weight in action. Maybe half an hour ago, a burst of firing from a nearby wadi had caused his escort to pile back into their Land-Rovers and depart, leaving only his vehicle, now some 50 yards away.

There was yet another insistent bird-chirp. Conrad was a fine driver, thought Eric, but waiting in the open while a million unseen snipers took careful aim was getting his wind up. His birdcall translated to Let's get out of here! Eric ignored him.

He peered again into the new reflex finder. His Reids were rangefinder cameras, but the German firm of Ernst Leitz (enemy equipment!) had developed the Visoflex to allow the use of longer lenses, in his case the new Cooke 300mm f6. As he actually looked through the lens now, he could inspect the target very closely. There was something there…

British and Axis forces had been tearing at each other there for months. Over a period of time, it was not unusual for a series of battles to be fought in the same place, for layers of wreckage to pile up like archaeological deposits. In this case it was a Marder, a gigantic German Panzerjager, tank-destroyer, that had been destroyed some weeks before. It looked so forlorn, so defeated, that he saw it as an icon for what British forces intended to achieve. He set his camera and focused carefully.

There it was again. A flash, a ray of sunlight, like a man signalling with a mirror, from under the wrecked panzer. Then it was gone. Then it happened again, just for a moment.

Eric Gilchrist was no soldier, but he had been issued an Enfield 38/200 Mark 1* revolver. Leaving his bag on the dune, with pistol in hand, one Reid on his chest and the second, telephoto equipped, over one shoulder, he sprinted for the tank, and came up behind it. He ducked down, and saw a slender man in gray uniform, a German, in the shade of the treads. The man, who he could see was reloading a Contax camera, must have heard him, for he called: Dieter?

Eric did not hesitate: Hande Hoch! Deine Gewehr, Bitte! Schnell!

The German, jolted, looked at him with something like sad amusement. He set down his Contax. "No need, Englander. I never carry a weapon. Kriegesgefangener now, no?"

Come on, snapped Eric, feeling a bit foolish for his dramatic capture of another photographer, and bring it! He gestured toward his prisoner's Contax.

They emerged together into the sunlight. The German, whose uniform, like his, bore no insignia, asked: Who are you? Photographer…?

"Eric Gilchrist. With The Times."

He stuck out his hand, and said: "Werner Erler. Signal magazine."

I'm afraid you are my prisoner, said Eric. Come. He lifted a silver police whistle to his lips and blew a shrill blast.

Half a minute later, a green Land-Rover came bucketing down the dune, stopping only to pick up the camera bag Eric had laid aside before his charge. Conrad, Eric's driver, looked relieved to see his passenger safe, shocked to see him with pistol in hand, and astonished at the sight of the German.

Come ON, sir!, Conrad pleaded.

Eric turned to the German. I'm afraid the war won't wait…

With the same sad smile, Werner Erler climbed into the Land-Rover. He removed a fat packet from his belt and offered it to his captor. Unprocessed films, he said. A prize of war.

Eric Gilchrist took the packet, set it in front of him, and, in response to his driver's questioning look, said: Base camp. We've a prisoner to deliver.

He turned toward his prisoner, and inspected him more closely. Werner Erler was slight, wiry, maybe five foot seven, his unkempt, sand-colored hair was thinning, and there were deep rings of fatigue under his dark blue eyes. He might have been 30 years old. Eric would have guessed his weight at eleven stone (about 156 lbs) if that. In contrast, he, Eric Gilchrist, was almost a six-footer, broad shouldered, hazel-eyed like his reiver ancestors, and eighteen stone (about 252 lbs) when the rations were edible. He was 26 years old. He decided his pistol was ridiculous, and put it away.

Over the noise of their travel, he spoke to his captive: You are going to a prison camp, I'm afraid.

I know.

Leave me the cameras.

Erler shuddered. Eric saw, and said: "If I leave them with you, the sentries will confiscate them and trade them off for tobacco. I'll take them to London. When this mess is over, come see me at the Times. I'll give them back."

Erler brightened a bit, that same sad smile again. Thank you, Englander. Eric spoke again: You are not a soldier.

Nor are you.

Can I carry any messages?

"Claire. My wife. She works for Riefenstahl. We live in Munchen…"

They drove on for several minutes, now on a rutted desert road. Eric thought of Leni Riefenstahl, the shatteringly beautiful German dancer-turned-filmmaker. He had seen her Triumph of the Will, her Day of Freedom, her Olympia, and some of her still-camera work. As a beginner with the Times, he had covered the 1936 Olympics, and had watched her at work on her documentary. Though she was a good bit older, he'd even envied the American decathlete she was seeing at the time. Riefenstahl was special. Eric wondered if her assistants were anything like their employer…

As they approached the gated compound, Werner Erler handed Eric Gilchrist his cameras, and then emptied his voluminous pockets of unexposed film (Agfa, 18 DIN, he whispered) lenses, and even a letter to his wife. Eric took them without a word, then put the lot in his camera bag. Erler looked in.

Reid, he said. A Leica copy.

Made in England, answered Eric. Lenses by Cooke…

Copies, Erler replied. My Contaxes are the best of Zeiss. No copies… And fast in the hand. The single window…

And they were at the gate. Used to the unusual, the sentry did not miss a beat at the presence of a German in the vehicle. He waved them on, and Eric told Conrad to take him to HQ, to Colonel Curran's office.

Come, he said to his captive.

They stood at the colonel's desk. Very quickly Eric sketched out the circumstances of his capture, and what he knew of his captive. He said nothing of the cameras, but did volunteer that he was in possession of a bag of exposed, undeveloped film.

Very well, You are to develop and print this film immediately, and deliver the prints to me. I will meet with the intelligence officers. Guard!

A corporal entered. Take the prisoner to the officer's holding pen. With luck he will be in England long before we are!

Good bye, Englander. I will call on you when it is over. And Werner Erler was led away.

* * * * *

It took Eric several days to develop and print the contents of Erler's bag. Apparently it had been some time since the man had processed anything. The images were incredible, but some so contrary to the usual run of the German Propaganda Ministry, so destructive to the Nazi self-image, that he wondered why Erler had taken them. Most were not even from North Africa. There was a shot that showed a huge bully in a German uniform taking a truncheon to a Frenchman half his size, and another that showed a line of old men, women and children (Eric could tell they were Jews) being led aboard boxcars. He could only guess why. He wondered if Erler knew.

Following his orders, Eric delivered a complete set of prints to Colonel Curran. He made a second set, and filed it, with the negatives, in the false bottom of the leather case he'd bought in Chania, Crete, just before the war. These needed to go home.

The Times didn't keep a photographer in one place very long. Soon Eric was ordered back to London, to cover the Blitz. Not long after, he was at sea, documenting the bitter killing cold of the North Atlantic convoys. He visited America, and called upon his old acquaintance Robert Capa. In a city that must have seemed gaudy as a cinema marquee, after England's years of blackout, the two of them made the rounds of New York's exclusive, high-priced drinking establishments. They took young ladies back to Capa's apartment.

I think they were bored to tears. Capa never got over the loss of his Gerda, and Eric was too genuine to be long distracted by skirt-chasing, as he called it. Eric told Capa, one day when both were sober, of his capture of a German photographer.

Capa was riveted. Who? What was his name?

"Werner Erler. Not a big man. From Munich. Used Contaxes, like you do. Said he worked for Signal…"

Capa smiled. I know him. And you took him prisoner? With a pistol?

It all felt very stupid. But I couldn't leave him there…

Eric, you were with the Gurkhas! I think you did him a favor.

"Yes, they will lock him up, but he will be there when its over, at the Times, asking for his cameras back."

You have them? You will return them?

Yes to both.

Many would not.

He said neither of us were soldiers… I am not a thief.

Glancing at his watch, Capa said: The bars are open. Let us continue this discussion refreshed.

* * * * *

Capa sat at the table, across from Eric. He had his third beer in hand. He said: Eric Gilchrist, you are a good man. I hope you survive, and even more, if you are ever caught, under a tank (or face down and sleeping off the Scotch more likely), your captor is a man like yourself.

And you too.

No, I don't think America is coming in to this one at all soon. I don't like to shoot with bullets.

Chapter Two

Capa was wrong. America had been drawn in. Pearl Harbor. A Hungarian, Capa was now an enemy alien in New York, and, ordered to turn in his cameras and report to the police station, he had instead jumped ship for London. He arrived happy and destitute, and headed straight for the Times, where who did he call on but his friend Eric Gilchrist?

Eric helped the hard-drinking Hungarian obtain the necessary passes, and provided him a bed while matters were sorted out. There was no problem with assignments, as Capa knew more American editors than Eric knew British. They soon had the matter sorted, and Capa moved on, leaving a plentiful supply of empty bottles and filled ashtrays. It took Eric a day to get his flat back into some order.

For some time, he had been ordered to cover the home front. He shot bomb damage, downed German bombers, pictures of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, even one of a Bristol brewmaster ruefully looking at the neat round hole a bomb had made in his roof, before lodging, unexploded, in a beer vat. Bristol beer is good for you…

But Eric was bored. He wanted more than safe images taken after the fact or far out of range of the dying. Englishmen were risking their lives to rid the world of the insanity of fascism, and every Life magazine he saw, especially those with Photos by Robert Capa, showing the glorious successes of the Americans, raised his gorge. He needed to be with his people, showing what they were doing. He began to bother editors, to beg for a ticket to the front.

Thwarted of the chance to visit Russia (the Soviets seemed to fear western journalists almost as much as they did the Germans) he finally received the orders he sought in October 1942, back to North Africa, where the new British commander, General Bernard Montgomery, had turned the tables on Rommel and was busy beating the tar out of the Afrika Korps at a place called El Alamein.

By the time Eric arrived the fighting was over. He recorded triumphal parades, harbors choked with sunken vessels, the rubble of war. There were many, very many, burned out German tanks, though none sheltered photographers for the Germans' Signal magazine. He thought often of the cost, both in wreckage and in lost lives. He thought of Werner Erler. He had passed Erler's letter to his wife to the Red Cross, and he hoped it reached its destination.

He heard of the Americans' invasion of the Vichy French bases in North Africa. The local French forces had indeed fought for their Nazi masters, and had been hammered into rubble at Oran. The Americans were ashore, their transports disgorging an endless supply of jeeps, archaic-looking Grant tanks, and fresh-faced boys in new uniforms. Meeting a few of the first, he was impressed by their naive optimism, their parade ground spit and polish, and their youth. He wondered what would happen when