Rolf (The War That Came Early)

Rolf was a German casualty of war in World War II. Toward the end of the winter of 1940, he and a number of his comrades were listening to the radio in an abandoned house in an occupied village in northeastern France. Their relaxation had been interrupted by a politically-charged argument among Arno Baatz, Willi Dernen, and Anton. After the argument ended and Baatz and Anton left the house, the soldiers, unsettled by the reminder that they lived under an increasingly totalitarian government, tried to recapture their earlier mood of relaxation by listening to the music of Barnabas von Geczy. Rolf inadvertently defeated these attempts by commenting that, while he enjoyed von Geczy, he would have preferred a jazz piece--jazz being a style of music under Nazi suppression.

After von Geczy's selection, the radio played a piece by Richard Wagner. Rolf left the room rather than listen to the opera composer. He was soon killed by a French sniper while crossing a broad, straight street before Dernen, a former sniper, could warn him to be careful.