by David Young
‘It’s out of our hands, I’m afraid, Comrade Müller. Your grandmother failed to pick the children up from the summer club in Volkspark Friedrichshain, and so she has been arrested and charged with child abandonment.’
Surely Helga wouldn’t have forgotten? There must be something more to it than that. ‘That’s absurd. There must have been some sort of mistake.’
‘There is no mistake.’ The woman’s voice had an icy coldness, as though she would brook no argument. She sounded almost if she were reading from a script. ‘The situation will come up for review in a month’s time. If there has been no improvement in your domestic situation, the children will formally enter the Republic’s children’s home system where they will receive a proper socialist education. You can be sure that they will come out as fully formed socialists as adults.’
This was like some sort of horror film. It couldn’t be happening.
‘Can I see the children?’
‘Not at present, no.’
Müller bit her lip. She was trying to stay in control, but could feel her throat tightening, the tears starting to fall even as she attempted to choke them back. ‘Please. I’m asking you as a fellow woman.’
‘We can review the situation in a month’s time.’
Müller felt desperate. She had brought all this on herself. She’d been playing the heroine, posing as a prostitute, following cars all over the country while here – in Berlin – her life had been torn apart.
She knew there was no point trying to argue with the woman. ‘Do you know where my grandmother is?’
‘I’m not certain, but the information we have is that she’s being taken to Hoheneck Women’s Prison.’
Hoheneck. It had as bad a reputation for women as Hohenschönhausen and Bautzen did for men. It would also be impossible to visit there while she was carrying out her job – it was right in the south of the Republic, near Karl-Marx-Stadt. She ended the call. There was nothing more to say to the official. It wouldn’t have been that woman’s decision. A darker hand was at play here, she was sure. She had dared to stand up to the Stasi. This was their way of paying her back, by ripping her children – barely seventeen months old each – from the bosom of their home. If she wanted them back, the Stasi would want her to tell them everything she knew. To hand over the fingerprints. To hand over the photographs of Jäger and Tilsner’s meeting with Verbier. Was Jäger behind this?
She held her head in her hands, her elbows resting on her desk. Part of her wanted to give in, to give the Stasi what they wanted, even if that involved conspiring to continue in the cover-up of what some of their officers had done at Gardelegen at the end of the war. Surely she had to put Jannika and Johannes first? Somehow she had to win them back. She couldn’t have them ending up like Irma Behrendt. Or worse like her friend Beate. That was what the Republic’s children’s home system could do to you at its very worst.
But a little nagging voice was saying the complete opposite. That what she should do is stand up for herself. Fight fire with fire. The question was, did she have enough ammunition to win the fight?
52
Tierpark, East Berlin
Perhaps it was Jäger’s dark sense of humour – wanting to meet in the Hauptstadt’s zoo, the Tierpark, somewhere Jannika and Johannes already loved visiting, despite being too young to fully appreciate it. He was toying with her. Showing her what she would be missing if she didn’t cooperate.
She saw him standing with his back to her, by the polar bear enclosure – the designated meeting place. He turned as she approached, almost as though he knew she was there. Perhaps he had an earpiece hidden under his fashionably long hair, and a radio link to a nearby agent who been tailing her.
He looked to have aged since she last saw him up close. There was a hint of crow’s feet at the side of his eyes, which were surrounded by dark circles. He looked like a tortured soul. She immediately felt she had the upper hand.
‘Thank you for agreeing to meet, Comrade Oberst.’
‘It’s always a pleasure, Karin. Shall we go and sit on the bench?’
They moved over to the seat near the family cemetery of the Treskows, an enclave built into the zoo, and a less-popular spot for visitors. You were less likely to be overheard there.
‘You’ve heard about my family situation, no doubt?’
‘I have. It’s most unfortunate.’
‘The timing wasn’t good either. It came as I was doing a little historical research, and somehow I think it might help me.’
Müller could see from Jäger’s eyes that he was beginning to sense that this time, the balance of power might have shifted. Normally it was Müller asking for something from him. She wouldn’t be asking this time. She would be demanding.
‘You see, I know that you were Harald.’
‘Don’t use that name,’ he spat.
‘I know what you were. And I know where you were that night. You know the night I mean, don’t you?’
‘I wouldn’t threaten me like that, Karin. There are those at Normannenstrasse who want a much more serious outcome for you than what has just happened.’
Müller gave a thin smile. ‘I know I can’t fight the Ministry for State Security. We’re all on the same side after all, aren’t we? But I can fight corrupt officers within the Ministry. And I can bring pressure to bear on you, just like you have brought pressure to bear on me.’ She reached down, and pulled some papers from her briefcase. ‘As part of my historical research, during my recent leave, I happened to visit Gardelegen. Guess who I saw having a friendly chat at the memorial?’
She showed him the photograph; Tilsner with Verbier in an armlock and Jäger jabbing his finger into the Frenchman’s chest.
Jäger tossed the photograph aside. ‘This means nothing. As a full colonel of the Ministry for State Security I can interview who I want, when I want, and how I want.’
‘I’m sure that’s the case in the Republic. But what would happen if newspapers in the West got hold of this? What would happen if they found out that Nazis – and that’s what you are, Harald, make no mistake – currently hold down senior positions in the Ministry for State Security? Do you think you’d still be a full colonel then? They wouldn’t be able to get rid of you fast enough. All that education about the Fascists doing this, the Fascists doing that, the overwhelming need for an Anti-Fascist protection barrier. And then there is a Nazi – more than one no doubt – sitting right in their midst.’
‘You know you are treading on dangerous ground, Karin, making threats like this. I said at the beginning of this conversation, there are those who would like you dealt with more permanently.’
‘Like you did to my ex-husband?’
‘That wasn’t my doing. I tried to protect him.’
‘So you say, Harald. But you see, your whole life is a lie. So why should I believe anything you say? Anyway, I wouldn’t make what you say are threats without taking out some sort of insurance policy. I’ve made sure that should I die unexpectedly – even if it’s framed in terms of an accident – which I know is your favourite modus operandi – if I die unexpectedly, then I’ve taken steps to make sure the material will be released to the Western press at that point too. Automatically. It’s all written down. It’s all photocopied. And I’ve talked to Verbier.’
Müller was winging it now. She hadn’t made any such deposition. There were no arrangements for if she died. But it would do no harm for Jäger to think there were. But she had talked to Verbier – briefly. If only to offer her services as a prostitute. Ha! It was almost laughable. But there was a deadly serious motive behind her threats. ‘I’m sure you have plenty of surveillance cameras at the Interhotel International in Magdeburg. It’s well known for being one of the Ministry’s favourite operating grounds – all Interhotels are. Go through the photos you have from the camera trained on the outside of Verbier’s room. You’ll see a woman in a black curly wig with dark glasses talking to him. It’s me.’
‘I know. I’ve a
lready seen the photos.’
Jäger’s revelation held little surprise for her. She’d half-expected as much.
‘And I have to let you know that I can arrest Verbier, at any time, just like that.’ She clicked her fingers. ‘I have his fingerprints. I have matches with the murders in Leinefelde, in Karl-Marx-Stadt, in Eisenach.’ She was stretching the truth now, but she didn’t care. ‘He’s proved he’s worked out where all the high-ups are who dirtied their hands with their evil work at the Isenschnibbe estate. If I arrest him, he will no doubt sing like a canary. The story for the Western press will get better and better.’
Jäger sighed, bent his head, and covered his face with his hands. ‘You don’t understand what it was like at the end of the war. I envy your generation. We carry the guilt every day. There were terrible things done, I admit. But we were just boys who were following orders. We were as sickened as everyone else. We only shot over people’s heads or deliberately missed.’
‘Who did?’
‘Me and Günther. My best friend from childhood. He worked on the Isenschnibbe estate. He was forced to take part too, and you know who he is. I thought he was your friend too. I thought you were close. He told me Frau Rost recognised him and you saw it.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Müller, but slowly she was starting to.
‘When you went to interview Frau Schneider the first time, and she wasn’t in.’
The estate. The old woman who recognised him from the estate.
‘Yes, Karin. The penny’s dropped. Some years after it all, Werner Tilsner was given a new identity too. The condition was that we work as spies, enforcers, for the Stasi. Werner Tilsner was Günther Palitzsch. He had been fifteen and in the Nazi Youth like me. Participating in it was compulsory. And Günther – Werner – was also at the barn.’
53
14 April 1945
Gardelegen, Nazi Germany
I wait for the shot, frozen. Instead, he beckons me forward urgently. I don’t know if it’s a trap, but I am almost past caring.
While the rest of the guards are distracted by the prisoner who’s just been killed with a shot to the neck, I run.
Straight towards the boy.
Expecting at any moment to be downed in a hail of gunfire.
I am nearly on him, and still he doesn’t shoot. Then he fires off his gun, but deliberately over my head. I can see him virtually aiming for the sky.
‘Go into the woods. Hide,’ he says. He uses simple, easy German. I can understand him. ‘There’s another barn further on. Hide there.’
‘We can’t do this,’ says his colleague. ‘We’ll be shot. Look out. Here comes Pfeiffer.’
I glance round. It’s another Hitler Youth member bearing down on me, his gun raised.
‘You, halt there!’
My legs go weak, knowing this is it. But I stumble on. Then I trip on the uneven ground.
‘No, Willi, don’t,’ cries the first boy. He’s leapt in between me and the one named Pfeiffer.
‘Get out of the way, Günther. You’re a coward. You should have shot him. Now I must do it.’
‘No,’ says the one called Günther, the one protecting me. ‘The Americans are coming. Let him go. He’s like a walking skeleton anyway.’
‘I’m warning you, Günther. Otherwise I will kill you.’
Then the other boy – the one who’d been facing the barn next to Günther – puts his body in the way too.
‘Will you shoot us both, Willi?’
‘There’s another coming out,’ says the one called Günther. ‘Scheisse. He is half-dead.’
I start to get to my feet to run as the one called Willi is distracted. But I turn to see this other prisoner.
What I see leaves my legs weak.
No, no. It can’t be!
A half-naked figure, barely recognisable as a man, is dragging himself towards us. An awful, putrescent wound on his upper arm, burns on his chest and face, skin taut against his bones as there is no flesh left on him.
He is like a ghost.
It’s Marcellin, back from the dead and screaming in agony.
‘Shoot me. Shoot me, please, shoot me.’
‘Marcellin, no!’ I scream.
But the one called Willi has already raised his gun, and fires it into my brother’s chest. Again, and again, and again.
Günther and his friend try to hold me back. But I must reach my brother. I must cradle him in my arms.
But when I do, his eyes have rolled to the back of his head.
He has gone.
I look up at Willi with pure hatred in eyes and heart.
He laughs. ‘You’re next.’
He raises his gun again for me.
To deliver the bullet which will finally take me from this hell.
54
Continuation of transcribed and translated interview with Hitler Youth member Günther Palitzsch, conducted by Captain Arthur T. Wagner of the Ninth Army War Crimes Branch on 26 April 1945, at 1000 hours
Wagner: You were telling us about the prisoner who appeared at the barn door, Günther.
Palitzsch: Yes. I think he thought I was going to shoot him, but I wasn’t going to shoot anyone. I got the impression that he was desperate and didn’t care any more. He was just running straight at me.
Wagner: But you didn’t shoot? What about those next to you?
Palitzsch: Most people, I think, were watching what went on with the Russian, the one who was shot in the back of the neck by the SS officer and pushed into the trench. It was awful.
Wagner: What was the name of the SS officer who murdered the Russian?
Palitzsch: I don’t know. I didn’t recognise him.
Wagner: Are you sure about that, Günther? If you try to protect people now, after all that happened, with all the evidence we have, and then it turns out you are lying . . . well, that could increase the chances of you being prosecuted for war crimes.
Palitzsch: I understand that. But I swear to you I don’t know who he was.
Wagner: Let’s return to the prisoner running towards you.
Palitzsch: I whispered to Harald – Harald Scholz who was next to me – I said to him to shoot over his head, not at him. He was so thin, I expected him to die of starvation anyway. I did shoot, but I made sure the shot went well over his head.
Wagner: Are you sure it isn’t that you simply missed? That you were trying to kill him, but you weren’t a very good shot?
Palitzsch: Ask the prisoner, ask Harald. They know the truth. I showed him the woods where he could run to and hide. Told him about the second barn. Why would I do that if I intended to kill him? But then Pfeiffer saw what was happening.
Wagner: Pfeiffer?
Palitzsch: Willi Pfeiffer. He was the head of our troop – the Kameradschaftsführer. The prisoner was running towards the woods, but it was more a slow, painful shuffle, dragging his legs, stumbling. And then he fell, and Pfeiffer raised his pistol and was about to shoot him. I leapt up and made sure my body was between Pfeiffer and the prisoner. If he wanted to shoot him, he would have to shoot me first. Then Harald joins me, so we’re a sort of human shield. Then another prisoner starts running towards us from the barn. He’s in an awful state. Naked from the waist up, burns over his body and face, and a terrible gaping wound on his arm. He looks half-dead. He was half-dead. At first I think he’s trying to escape, but then he falls at Pfeiffer’s feet and in this croaky voice pleads with him to shoot him. The first zebra appears to recognise him, cries out his name.
Wagner: Which was?
Palitzsch: Something French. Marcellin, I think. But I’m not sure. The first zebra rushes back towards this Marcellin, but before he reaches him Pfeiffer fires into this Marcellin’s body, again and again and again. The first zebra falls to the floor, cradles this Marcellin in his arms, and then Pfeiffer raises his gun again and is about to shoot him too.
Wagner: What stopped him?
Palitzsch: People all around us were shouting that the A
mericans were here, that we had to get out and retreat quickly. Get away from that terrible place. We just ran off then, as quickly as we could. Before Pfeiffer had a chance to kill the other one too. I looked round once. The barn was still smouldering. I could still see the silhouette of that first zebra crouched over the one called Marcellin, cradling him in his arms. They were silhouetted on the brow of the hill. I felt deeply ashamed then, that the lies of the Führer, the man we had all once believed in, had led us into committing such a terrible act.
Wagner: But you say that you personally did not kill or injure anyone?
Palitzsch: I know. But I was still a guard of that convoy, that last march. I was on guard outside that killing place. I witnessed things, atrocities, that I . . . I never believed man was capable of committing against his fellow man.
Wagner: That all sounds very noble, Günther. But are you sure you’re not just making a fine speech to try to save your own skin?
Palitzsch: (GÜNTHER PALITZSCH BECOMES TEARFUL AGAIN BUT THEN COMPOSES HIMSELF AFTER TWO OR THREE MINUTES)
Sorry. I’m ready to carry on.
Wagner: We’ve pretty much finished, Günther, unless you had anything more you wanted to say.
Palitzsch: Well . . . only that I wanted to know what happened to him. That prisoner. The one I tried to save.
Wagner: He survived, Günther, although it was touch and go at one point. He’s been in hospital recovering from severe malnutrition, dehydration, and smoke inhalation. I have no idea whether he’ll ever be able to live a normal life again. If he does recover fully, think about the mental scars he will have, never mind the physical ones. He was one of three brothers used as slave labourers by the Nazis. His younger brother died in Mittelbau Dora camp, where they were forced in sub-human conditions to help build V1 and V2 rockets. The two older brothers survived a gruelling train transport from near Nordhausen to just outside Gardelegen. They were then forced to endure what was little more than a death march around villages surrounding the town. You and your townspeople then herded them like animals into that barn. The majority of prisoners died. More than a thousand. Marcellin Verbier was shot dead as you describe, though by all accounts it is unlikely he would have survived in any case. We hope that the sole surviving brother will soon be well enough to tell us his account. For your sake, you had better hope it tallies with your own.