Ostland, page 22
Yet my leave was almost ruined before I’d even left Minsk. Just days before I was due to set off on the long train journey to Berlin, Hofmann told me that he’d been given orders to carry out a major action against the ghetto Jews between the first and third of March. Five thousand men, women and children were to be rounded up in Minsk and then transported by train forty kilometres to Koidanov, where the soil was soft enough for pits to be dug. There they would all be exterminated.
‘I am determined to fill my entire quota,’ Hofmann said. ‘So it’s essential that every one of my men, and in particular the officers, makes a personal contribution to our effort. I regard you as a key member of the staff here, Heuser, and I must insist on your presence. To be frank, you’re the best man I’ve got. So when we get down to work, before dawn on the first of March, you must be here, assisting our efforts.’
I attempted politely to remind Hofmann that I wasn’t planning to arrive back until the third, and that he’d approved my travel plans, but he was having none of it: ‘If you do not report for duty at dawn on the first, I will consider you absent without leave.’ That effectively meant returning to Minsk by the evening of the previous day. To make matters worse, Biene had just written to tell me that she might not be able to leave Hamburg until the last week in February, at the earliest. If I was to take a train from Berlin and be back in Minsk by the 28th our time together would be drastically curtailed.
And what kind of mood would I be in when we met? After all the months of pretence and self-deception I was now to be confronted by the reality of mass slaughter. The prospect of my first action against the Jews made me feel sick with trepidation. I’d be facing no physical danger whatever, yet I couldn’t have been more troubled if I were having to confront an entire Soviet division single-handed. Soon I would be called upon to fire my gun at a defenceless human being. What in God’s name was I going to do?
34
Koblenz: 18 November 1961
Paula and Kraus were fugitive lovers in Ludwigsburg, never showing any signs of intimacy at work, rarely going out together in public unless they went into the centre of Stuttgart, twenty minutes down the road. But whenever Kraus came to Koblenz to drop in on the trial and get a feel for how things were going it gave them a chance to be a little less circumspect. They were colleagues, working on the same project more than two hundred and fifty miles from home. Of course they would have a coffee together in the morning, grab a quick lunch during the midday recess or dine at the same restaurant in the evening. Paula even felt able to take his hand and give it a discreet squeeze as they stood in line one morning at a self-service café near the courthouse, both of them needing a cup of coffee before the day’s proceedings began. Heuser was due to give evidence about events in the autumn of 1943 and Kraus wanted to hear what the man who considered himself such a good policeman had to say about the months in which he had committed some of his most terrible crimes.
For now, though, Kraus was more interested in the Spiegel Affair, which had expanded and deepened with every passing day. The magazine’s offices had been raided by the police, who had occupied them ever since. Augstein, the proprietor, had been arrested and jailed, along with his two main editors. Conrad Ahlers, the reporter responsible for the controversial story detailing the army’s failings, had been seized in his hotel while on holiday in Spain. Meanwhile, as riots and demonstrations against the arrests broke out across the country, Chancellor Adenauer had given a speech describing revelations of military weakness as ‘an abyss of treason’.
‘This is only the start of it,’ Kraus said, removing a sticky pastry from a display on the counter and putting it on his tray. ‘I was talking to some fellows at the prosecutors’ office yesterday and the word is Strauss is in serious trouble. Apparently, he called our military attaché in Madrid and ordered him to have Ahlers arrested. Of course, our old friend Generalissimo Franco was only too happy to oblige, but it was completely illegal and now Strauss is under huge pressure to admit the whole thing to parliament. Did you know Stammberger wasn’t even consulted before any of the arrests took place? The Minister of Defence throwing people in prison without even letting the Minister of Justice know what was going on? It’s outrageous! There’s word Stammberger’s planning to resign within the next forty-eight hours and he’s taking another four cabinet ministers with him.’
They were ordering their coffees now. As the girl behind the counter went to make them Paula said, ‘Well that’s a good sign, don’t you think?’
Kraus looked surprised. ‘A good sign?’ he repeated, collecting the coffees and reaching in his trouser pocket for some change. ‘How can it possibly be good? Apart from bringing the Old Man’s ultimate downfall one day closer, I suppose …’
They made their way between the crowded tables, through an atmosphere pungent with the smells of coffee and cigarette smoke to an empty space in the far corner of the café. Paula sat down, sorted out her coat and bag and had a sip of coffee before she replied: ‘It’s good because we know about it all and we can talk about it without being afraid that anyone will hear us and report us. It’s good because the moment Strauss admits what he did he’ll have to resign, and the police will have to give the Spiegel offices back to the staff. And it’s good because five ministers are defying the Chancellor and I’m almost certain that none of them will be shot.’
Kraus chuckled. ‘Well, when you put it like that …’
‘Don’t you see that this is the proof that what we do, you and I, really matters? We have to expose the crimes the Nazis committed so that it is unthinkable that they, or anyone like them, can ever return to power. Of course there will always be scandals. Of course arrogant politicians will throw their weight around. But so long as no one dies, and voters can kick them out of office when the next elections come round, then we are making progress.’
‘Well said, Paula … well said.’ Kraus tapped his hand against the table three times – a traditional sign of support for a speaker. As Paula drank some more coffee he polished off his pastry in a couple of bites, and emptied his own cup in one draught. Then he lit up a cigarette and let out the first lungful of smoke with a sigh. ‘OK … back to the days of jackboots and death’s heads. I’ve read most of the transcripts. Now tell me what’s really happening.’
Paula thought for a moment and said: ‘Well, the first thing to say that won’t be obvious from the transcripts is that Heuser is running the entire defence, for all of them, not just himself.’
‘That makes sense. He may not be a qualified lawyer, but he knows his way round a criminal case as well as anyone in the court.’
‘Exactly. I think the others look on him as their secret weapon: the man who can make it all go away. You see them in recesses, all gathered around him in the corridor behind the courtroom, like schoolchildren round a teacher. He’ll give one of them advice about what to say when he’s cross-examined, or tell another one what he did right or wrong the last time he was in the witness box. When there are technicalities the others don’t understand, he explains what’s going on.’
‘Sounds impressive. Is it working?’
‘Up to a point, yes. Stark has already changed his testimony. He told us he carried out two actions – killing a hundred Jews at Rakow and a family of gypsies in Minsk – on Heuser’s say-so. Now he’s suddenly not sure that he can actually remember getting any specific orders.’
‘So that’s the only witness removed – cunning little shit, isn’t he?’
‘Very … but it’s not always to his advantage. I get the feeling Kaul …’
‘That’s the office administrator who was always trying to get out of the actions, right?’
‘Exactly … Well, I think he’s harbouring a private grudge against Heuser. He knows Heuser despised him for not having the guts to take his place on the shooting lines like a man. Now he’s getting his own back. Nothing too blatantly hostile, but put it this way: if Heuser ever told Kaul to shoot someone, Kaul will certainly not have forgotten it.’
Kraus grinned. ‘Don’t you love it when gangsters start falling out? Still, I’ll tell you what I see from the transcripts … triage.’
Paula frowned. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’
‘It’s a basic element in battlefield medicine. The doctors at the field hospitals divide the patients into three: the ones whose wounds are so serious they’re going to die, no matter what; the ones whose wounds are so light they don’t need immediate treatment; and the ones whose wounds are survivable, but only if they’re dealt with immediately. The last group get all the attention.’
‘All right … so what’s the connection to Heuser?’
‘Simply that he and his lawyer, Geis, are doing precisely the same thing with the charges against him. Wherever the evidence is overwhelming, they don’t really try to mount a factual defence. Heuser says: “Yes, I did it. But I had no choice. I was obeying orders and I feared for my life if I dared to go against them.” Or he does his whole penitent sinner routine: “I was wrong, I know. I can’t tell you why I did it. I was like an automaton … No, wait! I was a schizophrenic, doing things that I knew to be terribly wrong … I hated it, actually. Yes! That’s true! Just ask all these witnesses who remember me saying how sickened I was … And anyway it wasn’t my fault because I was so damn drunk – no, really, completely sloshed, practically every minute of the day … Maybe that’s why I was sick all the time? … But seriously I didn’t even know what I was doing!”’
By the end of the recital, Paula had her hand over her mouth trying to stifle her laughter. ‘Stop! Stop!’ she begged. ‘Everyone’s looking at us. They must think we’re mad.’
‘I don’t know what you think is so funny,’ replied Kraus, with heavy mock indignation. ‘I’m taking it all practically verbatim from the court reports.’
‘I know … that’s what’s so funny. I mean, I shouldn’t laugh. It isn’t really very funny at all. But …’
‘No, it’s all right. Sometimes we have to laugh in the face of evil. But now I’ll be serious again. I want to finish my triage. OK?’
‘Yes, I’m fine now.’
‘Good. So, the first tactic is: when you know you’re beaten, just try to cut your losses. The second tactic, which has been depressingly successful, is to go the exact opposite way: force the court to drop any case which is demonstrably flawed and to do so as quickly as possible. Geis has already had two charges dropped because there’s a fifteen-year statute of limitations. That ran out for war crimes on 8 May 1960, fifteen years after the Nazis surrendered, but we didn’t even know about the two crimes in question until we went to Moscow in ’61, so they’re out, irrespective of all the evidence we found. Then when Stark changed his evidence, for example – Geis was on to that straight away, demanding that the charges be dismissed. Bang! Another two charges dropped. A few more were excluded on other procedural grounds. Suddenly that’s at least a quarter of all the charges vanished as if they’d never been there at all.’
‘And the third part of the triage?’ Paula asked.
‘Ah, those are the interesting ones – all those occasions where you know he did it, and I know he did it, but there are just enough holes for Heuser to wriggle through. Perhaps the date isn’t specific, or the documents are ambiguous, or two witnesses have given slightly contradictory evidence – which of course they do, because they’re describing events twenty years ago, when they were off their heads with alcohol, or fear, or both – but it’s just enough to create doubt. That’s where Heuser and Geis get to work. They’re hoping to find the tiniest little hole in the fabric and then they pull at it and tear at it a little more and loosen the thread until the whole damn thing falls to pieces. And that’s really why I decided to come to see the proceedings today.’
‘What, because you want to see what Heuser’s doing firsthand?’
‘Partly that … but also because I have a terrible suspicion that he’s going to succeed.’
35
Berlin and Minsk: February – June 1942
It took almost three days to reach Berlin from Minsk. Partisans had blown the line about fifty kilometres southwest of Baranovichi and a mechanical problem in Warsaw held us up another few hours. It was plain to see that our new empire was not as secure as our propagandists were suggesting, but I gave little thought to such strategic considerations. I was too busy asking myself how on earth I could possibly avoid the mass executions that awaited me on my return to the KdS. But no matter how I considered the problem, my conclusion was always the same: I couldn’t.
As everyone in those days used to say, there was a war on. A man in uniform didn’t pick and choose his duties. If a soldier was told to attack a machine-gun nest, he didn’t tell his commanding officer that on the whole he’d rather not run into a hail of bullets. He attacked, like it or not.
I, of course, had no fear of being shot or blown up. My enemy, if that was what I could call them, would be not be armed combatants, but helpless, naked civilians, quite unable to fight back. And that, of course, was the problem. As I contemplated my duty, I could hear von Toll insisting that this killing of the innocent and defenceless, whatever their race, was madness and an unforgivable crime against humanity. I told myself what had I told him, that it was our duty and we had to obey it without question. Yet I could not rid myself of von Toll’s protestations.
Most of my first few days in Berlin were spent with my family and those friends who were still in town, even an old girlfriend or two, but I found it almost impossible to make normal, polite conversation with the people around me. I could hardly bear to listen to their petty domestic problems, or their opinions on the progress of the war. All they knew of the Russian Front was what they’d seen on the newsreels, with martial music blaring and pictures of burning Russian tanks and our boys grinning at the camera. They had no idea of the frozen corpses by the side of the road; the haunted faces of the Jews, crammed into their ghetto like matches in a box; the constant killings and the drunken nights.
Wanting to remind myself of better times, I paid a visit to the homicide department. Most of my old colleagues were now scattered across Europe, filling SS posts just as I was, but Lüdtke was still there and Papa Schmidt too. Schmidt told me that General von dem Bach-Zelewski, the Higher SS and Police Leader who had overseen all the actions undertaken by Einsatzgruppe B throughout Ostland, had gone on an extended sick leave. ‘They’ve sent him off to Hohenlychen,’ said Schmidt, referring to the SS sanatorium north of Berlin. ‘He’s being given regular doses of pretty-blonde-nurse.’
‘What’s the matter with him?’ I asked.
‘Officially, a stomach complaint,’ Schmidt replied. Then he brought his head close to mine and lowered his voice: ‘But I’ve been told that he’s actually been suffering from “hallucinations connected with the shooting of Jews”, whatever that might mean.’
‘God only knows,’ I said, though of course I knew very well. Bach-Zelewski couldn’t get the killings out of his head, and he was one of the hard men, a member of the Party since 1930 and of the SS since ’31. If he couldn’t take it, who could?
In the end I sought advice from Commissar Lüdtke. I called him up to ask if he could spare me some time for a private conversation. ‘Of course,’ he replied. ‘Let’s meet at that place where we ate the balcony pig stew. You remember the one?’
‘How could I forget?’
Lüdtke gave a gentle chuckle. ‘Indeed, that was a meal to remember. They have a private room there. I’ll make sure that we are not disturbed.’
And so I made my way once again to Frau Meissner’s restaurant. She insisted on telling us about her son Franz’s latest exploits. He was, she said, fighting somewhere on the Eastern Front. ‘Of course, he can’t tell me where. But he tells me it’s all going very well. I sent him some nice thick woolly socks to keep him warm. He was ever so grateful to get them.’
I assured her that she had done her boy a great favour. ‘I am on leave from Russia myself, and nothing makes a soldier there happier than the arrival of nice warm clothes.’
Her face lit up. ‘You’ve been in Russia too. Oh, perhaps you’ve met my Franzi.’
‘Well, Russia is a very big place,’ I said, in as kind a voice as I could muster. ‘But if I come across your son I’ll be sure to remember you to him.’
‘Oh thank you, sir. It would mean so much to me to think that Franzi has a friend out there, looking out for him.’
Frau Meissner led us through to a little room with a single table at the back of her establishment. We ordered beers and a bowl of soup each. ‘We don’t have much on the menu these days, I’m afraid,’ she told us. ‘But we make the best of what we’ve got.’
Lüdtke lit a cigarette and looked at me thoughtfully. ‘So, what’s the problem?’
I thought for a moment. There was no way to explain my situation without describing the action that awaited me in Minsk, and that could be considered a breach of security. Still, Lüdtke was a senior officer in the Criminal Police, with contacts at the highest levels of the Reich Security Main Office. Surely he was cleared for even the most sensitive information.
