War Photographer's Notebook

After much deliberation, Wei Ran, who was undecided, finally returned to the entrance of the undecorated castle, easily pried open the heavy door, and walked into the empty room.

I have to admit that although this castle doesn't look big from the outside, it is definitely considered a big luxury if it is used to live in, especially when it is not renovated, the space that can be seen at a glance on the first floor is worth as much as The size of the three or four villas that Dalia lent her is probably no problem.

It's a pity that this exaggerated building has no decoration at all, so Wei Ran can see the sandstone strips used to build the walls at a glance, and can even see the solid materials used to build this house.

But the more this is the case, the more strange he is. It has been built without decoration, and even does not want people to find out. So what is the point of building such a castle?
With doubts, he walked up the large retro stairs to the second floor, walked around the corridor on the second floor, carefully observed each divided room, and then continued to search upstairs. go.

As for what he was looking for, he didn't know, but he was looking forward to it, hoping to find something different.

Strolling to the third floor, the transparent dome made of stained glass above the head makes the lighting on this floor slightly better than that on the first and second floors, and the surrounding rooms are also getting bigger and bigger.

"what is this?"

Wei Ran walked to a room facing the church and stopped. This room was also not decorated, but there was a table near the window. Put anything, but under the table, there is an old-fashioned safe with a cast eagle emblem.

However, this eagle emblem is not the eagle emblem that Mustache is used to, but the national emblem of the Second Empire.Or according to the habit of Professor Alexei, the eagle emblem of the Second Empire will definitely be called "Matryoshka BMW Eagle".

There is no other reason. There is a shield-shaped logo on the chest of this eagle. Inside the shield, there is an almost identical eagle. On the chest of this eagle, there is also a shield-shaped logo. In the logo, it is really divided into four parts like the BMW logo.

Back then, when Wei Ran was taking professional courses with the professor in the university, Wei Ran remembered the differences between the First Reich, the Second Reich, the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich by relying on the eagle emblem that was nicknamed by the professor.

Even now he remembers "the double-headed eagle in which the holy couple quarrels and sleeps on each side", "the second set of baby BMW eagle", "the unclothed Weimar African eagle" and "the lightning eagle who brought garlands to Poland" The insane but impressive gibberish.

Recalling the cute and funny foreign uncle in the university class, Wei Ran discovered after some observation that there was not only such a conspicuous "matryoshka BMW eagle" cast on the safe, but also at the four corners, there was also cast There are patterns of irises for decoration.

"Is it possible that he is really a nobleman?"

Wei Ran muttered to himself, checked the old-fashioned safe, which was not too big, and then easily pried open the door of the safe.

As the cabinet door was opened, when he saw the things inside, he swallowed subconsciously.On the bottom tray of the safe, there are stacks of gold coins!
just kidding
Wei Ran muttered to himself and picked up a few gold coins and looked at them. What he didn't expect was that Hindenburg's head was engraved on one side of these gold coins.

If you insist on the only difference, apart from a few of them being larger, it is just that some have the initials of Bernhardt written on their necks, and some have the initials of Karl Gotz written on them.

Without exception, these coins appear to have been minted around 1928, based on the minting information on the coins.

Putting the gold coins back in place, Wei Ran looked towards the middle floor.There is only a hardcover book on this floor, but this hardcover book is larger than the largest photo album that Sui Sui helped him get recently, and its thickness is about the same as a brick.

Taking out this hardcover book, there is no text or pattern on the dark red cover at all.

Opening the cover with the metal edge, the first page was pasted with a newspaper that looked very old.

Gently unfolding it, Wei Ran was surprised to find that it was a newspaper called "Cologne News", but it was published in 1926!
And on the front page of this newspaper, there is also a presidential decree circled in red handwriting: President Hindenburg decided to return all the properties of Wilhelm II and the deposed German nobles to them, and compensate them for " The losses suffered by the "November Revolution".

Subconsciously looking at the gold coins on the lower layer of the safe, Wei Ran refolded this newspaper that could be regarded as an antique with a strange expression, and carefully turned a page backwards.

However, what he didn't expect was that the second page of the book turned out to be a piece of wax paper, and when he turned over the translucent wax paper, a folded blueprint appeared!

Carefully opening the blueprint, when he saw the castle drawn with lines on it, he noticed that it turned out to be the architectural blueprint of the castle!
Put away the blueprint for the time being and continue to flip back, and there is a blueprint sandwiched between every two wax papers.These blueprints are the details of each building part, which not only includes every floor of the main building under foot, but also includes the church that I have visited before.

Even, according to this blueprint, the castle should have two circles of walls built along both sides of the moat and corresponding towers.But I don't know if it's because of financial resources or because the city wall has lost its defensive function in this era. Now the castle under the foot has not built a city wall on both sides of the moat.

Of course, through these blueprints, he also noticed that before entering the castle, the concrete building he thought was a fortress was marked as a water injection port in this blueprint, and even if the city wall was really built, it would be destroyed by the outside It is surrounded by a slightly shorter city wall.

Not only that, but he also found that no matter the main building under his feet or the church he had been to before, they all had basements.

However, the entrance to the basement of the main building is located inside a tower connected to it.The basement entrances and exits of that church are respectively located on the central floor of the church and the bell tower connected to it.

Secretly remembering the positions of the entrances and exits of the basements of the two buildings, Wei Ran restored the blueprint and put it back to its original position, then looked at the top floor of the safe.

This layer is also covered with red velvet cloth, but there are only a necklace and a rank military ring inside.

The pendant of the necklace itself is a silver deer head that is not the size of a bottle cap. The eyes of this deer head are even inlaid with rubies.

But the engraving on the rank military ring worn above is a man named "Leitz Capet".

Taking a close-up of the ring and the necklace, Wei Ran also put them back in place, re-locked the safe and left the room.

After rummaging on this floor, he finally found the corridor leading to the Arrow Tower, and then pried open the wooden door of the Arrow Tower, and went down the spiral staircase inside to enter the basement of the building.

There are good news and bad news. The good news is that this staircase also has a secret door leading to a room on the first floor, but when he was looking outside, the door was fastened from the inside of the arrow tower. There is no way to open the other side.

Not only that, although the basement has an iron fence door that looks old, but it is not locked at all.

But the bad news is that the basement is empty except for a few prison-like rooms.

And analyzing the sunlight coming in from the small windows around which cats struggle to get in, although this is a basement, it is actually on the ground.Only because of the platform at the outside entrance, it became a basement.

Although he found nothing, Wei Ran was not disappointed, but after returning the same way, he slipped the door and picked the lock to enter the church again, got into the room behind the icon, and climbed up the bell tower along the stairs in this room.

The most conspicuous thing on the top of the bell tower is naturally the big copper bell. On the floor directly below the public, there is also a copper plate inlaid with a matryoshka, BMW, and eagle emblem of the Second Empire engraved on it.

In addition, there are a large number of wild pigeons living in this airy space.

After closing the iron door behind him, Wei Ran opened another iron door next to the stairs after some observation, and at the same time took out a flashlight from the metal book that he got from the recruiting battlefield.

When the dim light beam shot out, the first thing Wei Ran saw was a staircase that only one person could pass through.

Not only is the width of this staircase pitifully narrow, but its height is also extremely constricted. Only by bending his waist and knees can he ensure that he will not touch his head.

After passing through four 90-degree corners in a row, Wei Ran could see that this hidden staircase was hidden inside the square column-shaped bell tower. He even remembered that when he kept circling The central points of this bell tower are hollow.

Walking patiently to the bottom, this place is much more spacious, not only enough to fit a double bed, but also has a window the size of instant noodles.

Looking out the window, you can just see the trunk of a pine tree planted in a flowerpot inside the castle, and a squirrel looking for something to eat on the pine tree.

In addition to the only window, there is also a door in this small room, and a one-meter-square piece of copper inlaid on the stone wall facing the door.

It was also through the German chiseled on this piece of copper that Wei Ran finally knew the origin of the castle.

According to the introduction on this piece of copper skin, this castle turned out to be built by a small nobleman named Karl Capet when the German Empire was at its strongest, and named it Elk Castle.

It's a pity that after the outbreak of World War I, the adult males in this underdeveloped small noble family were basically lost on the battlefield.

Especially after the November Revolution broke out in Germany, the castle was confiscated and became an artillery ammunition depot stationed nearby at that time. Later, an ammunition explosion caused by an accident even turned the place into ruins.

The turning point was precisely the antique newspaper that Wei Ran had seen in the safe upstairs of the main building.

In 1926, President Hindenburg issued an order to return all the properties of Wilhelm II and the deposed German nobles to them and compensate them for the losses they suffered due to the "November Revolution".

It is precisely because of this that the last heir of the Capet family at that time was the "Leitz Capet" carved on the ring in the previous safe. He not only regained the ruined elk castle, but also In addition, a large amount of compensation was obtained.

It's just that the compensation was not enough to repair the castle that had become ruins, and Letz Kape simply used only a small half of the compensation to rebuild the church.

Continue to look down, according to the records above, in the autumn of 1944, the bombs dropped by the Americans once again destroyed the rebuilt church.

This time, it was not until 1975 that a person named Sophie Capet completed the reconstruction again.

But compared to what was engraved on this piece of copper, what was written here was Dominique Love!
Sophie Capet is a woman's name, right?
Wei Ran frowned involuntarily. Compared with this strange name, he was more concerned about the fact that the name of Mr. Dominique at the signing place was not "Capet", but "Love". Surname not mentioned.

After some hesitation, he turned around, pried open the iron lock on the only iron fence door here, and then pushed open the wooden door inside.

However, when he waited for a moment, holding a kerosene lighter in one hand and a flashlight in the other to shine the light into it, he raised his eyebrows involuntarily.

The area of ​​this basement is almost as large as the church above, but there are more than ten sarcophagi inside!
These sarcophagi are carved with complex and exquisite patterns. In front of each sarcophagus, there is also a marble stele on which the names of the people lying in the sarcophagus, as well as the time of birth and death are clearly engraved.

This includes not only the "Karl Capet" seen on the copper skin before, but also the last heir named Letz Capet!

However, according to the introduction on this stele, this man named "Leitz Capet" was born in 1905, but he died in January 1945!In other words, he was 1 years old when he died!And the photo inlaid on this stone tablet is a man with a Prussian hazelnut head and a German uniform, with a serious and stern face,

Looking back, the name written on the stele in front of the last sarcophagus in the basement was "Sophie Capet".

The stele only says that she was born in 1926, and the inlaid photo is also a girl who looks to be seventeen or eighteen years old at most, wearing a dress.

However, the time of death was not written on the stele, not only that, but even the lid of the sarcophagus was not closed yet.Inside the sarcophagus, there were no bones at all, just a small PPK pistol covered in dust.

He bent down and took out the pistol and wiped it on his clothes. To his surprise, the handle of the pistol turned out to be a pair of pink wooden patches. Carved with irises and deer heads.

Looking up at the top of the basement, he could still see a long gap. He knew that as long as he lifted the marble floor in the center of the church, he would be able to see this long gap from the other side. Even, He could guess that both the sarcophagus and the people lying in the sarcophagus were probably transported into the basement through that gap.

So what about this pistol?Is it also a tomb of clothes sent down from above according to the funeral ceremony?
After hesitating for a while, Wei Ran checked the pistol, and after making sure that there were no bullets in it, he put it in his pocket, turned around and cleaned up the traces of the past, and returned to the same way and left here.