Fatherland

by Robert Harris

  The lock had been fashioned to withstand exactly this sort of assault. It took five minutes of hacking and twisting, during which he snapped one short blade, before the fastener broke free. He pulled the bag open.

  That papery smell again – the odour of a long-sealed filing cabinet or desk drawer, a whiff of typewriter oil. And behind that, something else: something antiseptic, medicinal . . .

  Charlie was at his shoulder. He could feel her warm breath on his cheek. ‘Don’t tell me. It’s empty.’

  ‘No. It’s not empty. It’s full.’

  He pulled out his handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his hands. Then he turned the case upside down and shook the contents out on to the counterpane.

  FOUR

  AFFIDAVIT SWORN BY WILHELM STUCKART,

  STATE SECRETARY, INTERIOR MINISTRY:

  [4 pages; typewritten]

  On Sunday 21 December 1941, the Interior Ministry’s Adviser on Jewish Affairs, Dr Bernhard Losener, made an urgent request to see me in private. Dr Losener arrived at my home in a state of extreme agitation. He informed me that his subordinate, the Assistant Adviser on Racial Affairs, Dr Werner Feldscher, had heard ‘from a fully reliable source, a friend’ that the one thousand Jews recently evacuated from Berlin had been massacred in the Rumbuli Forest in Poland. He further informed me that his feelings of outrage were sufficient to prevent him from continuing his present employment in the Ministry, and he therefore requested to be transferred to other duties. I replied that I would seek clarification on this matter.

  The following day, at my request, I visited Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich in his office in Prinz-Albrecht Strasse. The Obergruppenführer confirmed that Dr Feldscher’s information was correct, and pressed me to discover its source, as such breaches of security could not be tolerated. He then dismissed his adjutant from the room and said that he wished to speak to me on a private basis.

  He informed me that in July he had been summoned to the Führer’s headquarters in East Prussia. The Führer had spoken to him frankly in the following terms: He had decided to resolve the Jewish Question once and for all. The hour had arrived. He could not rely upon his successors having the necessary will or the military power which he now commanded. He was not afraid of the consequences. People presently revered the French Revolution, but who now remembered the thousands of innocents who died? Revolutionary times were governed by their own laws. When Germany had won the war, nobody would ask afterwards how we did it. Should Germany lose the mortal struggle, at least those who had hoped to profit from the defeat of National Socialism would be wiped out. It was necessary to remove the biological bases of Judaism once and for all. Otherwise the problem would erupt to plague future generations. That was the lesson of history.

  Obergruppenführer Heydrich stated further that the necessary powers to enable him to implement this Führer Order had been granted to him by Reichsmarschall Goering on 31.7.41. These matters would be discussed at the forthcoming inter-departmental conference. In the meantime, he urged me to use whatever means I considered necessary to discover the identity of Dr Feldscher’s source. This was a matter of the highest security classification.

  I thereupon suggested that, in view of the grave issues involved, it would be appropriate, from a legal point of view, to have the Führer Order placed in writing. Obergruppenführer Heydrich stated that such a course was impossible, due to political considerations, but that if I had any reservations I should take them up with the Führer personally. Obergruppenführer Heydrich concluded our meeting by remarking in a jocular manner that we should have no cause for concern on legalistic grounds, considering that I was the Reich’s chief legal draftsman and he was the Reich’s chief policeman.

  I hereby swear that this is a true record of our conversation, based upon notes taken by myself that same evening.

  SIGNED, Wilhelm Stuckart (attorney)

  DATED 4 June 1942, Berlin

  WITNESSED, Josef Buhler (attorney)

  FIVE

  cross the city the day died. The sun dropped behind the dome of the Great Hall, gilding it like the cupola of a giant mosque. With a hum, the floodlights cut in along the Avenue of Victory and the East-West Axis. The afternoon crowds melted, dissolved, re-formed as night-time queues outside the cinemas and restaurants, while above the Tiergarten, lost in the gloom, an airship droned.

  REICH MINISTRY FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS SECRET STATE DOCUMENT

  DISPATCH FROM GERMAN AMBASSADOR IN LONDON,

  HERBERT VON DIRKSEN

  Account of conversations with Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, United States Ambassador to Great Britain

  [Extracts; two pages, printed]

  Received Berlin, 13 June 1938

  Although he did not know Germany, [Ambassador Kennedy] had learned from the most varied sources that the present Government had done great things for Germany and that the Germans were satisfied and enjoyed good living conditions.

  The Ambassador then touched upon the Jewish question and stated that it was naturally of great importance to German–American relations. In this connection it was not so much the fact that we wanted to get rid of the Jews that was harmful to us, but rather the loud clamour with which we accompanied this purpose. He himself understood our Jewish policy completely; he was from Boston and there, in one golf club, and in other clubs, no Jews had been admitted for the past fifty years.

  Received Berlin, 18 October 1938

  Today, too, as during former conversations, Kennedy mentioned that very strong anti-Semitic tendencies existed in the United States and that a large portion of the population had an understanding of the German attitude toward the Jews . . . From his whole personality I believe he would get on very well with the Führer.

  ‘WE can’t do this alone.’

  ‘We must.’

  ‘Please. Let me take them to the Embassy. They could smuggle them out through the diplomatic bag.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘You can’t be certain he betrayed us . . .’

  ‘Who else could it be? And look at this. Do you really think American diplomats would want to touch it?’

  ‘But if we’re caught with it. . . It’s a death warrant.’

  ‘I have a plan.’

  ‘A good one?’

  ‘It had better be.’

  CENTRAL CONSTRUCTION OFFICE, AUSCHWITZ, TO GERMAN EQUIPMENT

  WORKS, AUSCHWITZ, 31 MARCH 1943

  Your letter of 24 March 1943

  [Excerpt]

  In reply to your letter, the three airtight towers are to be built in accordance with the order of 18 January 1943, for Bw 30B and 3c, in the same dimensions and in the same manner as the towers already delivered.

  We take this occasion to refer to another order of 6 March 1943, for the delivery of a gas door 100/192 for corpse cellar I of crematory III, Bw 30a, which is to be built in the manner and according to the same measure as the cellar door of the opposite crematory II, with peep-hole of double 8 millimetre glass encased in rubber. This order is to be viewed as especially urgent . . .

  NOT far from the hotel, north of Unter den Linden, was an all-night pharmacy. It was owned, as all businesses were, by Germans, but it was run by Rumanians – the only people poor enough and willing enough to work such hours. It was stocked like a bazaar with cooking pans, paraffin heaters, stockings, baby food, greeting cards, stationery, toys, film . . . Among Berlin’s swollen population of guest workers it did a brisk trade.

  They entered separately. At one counter, Charlie spoke to the elderly woman assistant who promptly disappeared into a back room and returned with an assortment of bottles. At another, March bought a school exercise book, two sheets of thick brown paper, two sheets of gift wrap paper and a roll of clear tape.

  They left and walked two blocks to the Friedrich Strasse station where they caught the south-bound U-bahn train. The carriage was packed with the usual Saturday night crowd – lovers holding hands, families off to the illuminations, young men on a drinking spree �
� and nobody, as far as March could tell, paid them the slightest attention. Nevertheless, he waited until the doors were about to slide shut before he dragged her out on to the platform of the Tempelhof station. A ten-minute journey on a number thirty-five tram brought them to the airport.

  Throughout all this they sat in silence.

  KRAKAU

  18.7.43

  [Handwritten]

  My dear Kritzinger,

  Here is the list.

  Auschwitz 50.02N 19.11E

  Kulmhof 53.20N 18.25E

  Blezec 50.12N 23.28E

  Treblinka 52.48N 22.20E

  Majdanek 51.18N 22.31E

  Sobibor 51.33N 23.31E

  Heil Hitler!

  [Signed]

  Buhler [?]

  TEMPELHOF was older than the Flughafen Hermann Goering – shabbier, more primitive. The departures terminal had been built before the war and was decorated with pictures of the pioneering days of passenger flight – old Lufthansa Junkers with corrugated fuselages, dashing pilots with goggles and scarves, intrepid women travellers with stout ankles and cloche hats. Innocent days! March took up a position by the entrance to the terminal and pretended to study the photographs as Charlie approached the car rentals desk.

  Suddenly, she was smiling, making apologetic gestures with her hands – playing to perfection the lady in distress. She had missed the flight, her family was waiting . . . The rental agent was charmed, and consulted a typed sheet. For a moment, the issue hung in the balance – and then, yes, as it happened, Fräulein, he did have something. Something for someone with eyes as pretty as yours, of course . . . Your driving licence, please . . .

  She handed it over. It had been issued the previous year in the name of Voss, Magda, aged twenty-four, of Mariendorf, Berlin. It was the licence of the girl murdered on her wedding day five days ago – the licence Max Jaeger had left in his desk, along with all the other papers from the Spandau shootings.

  March looked away, forcing himself to study an old aerial photograph of the Tempelhof airfield. BERLIN was painted in huge white letters along the runway. When he glanced back, the agent was entering details of the licence on the rental form, laughing at some witticism of his own.

  As a strategy it was not without risk. In the morning, a copy of the rental agreement would be forwarded automatically to the Polizei, and even the Orpo would wonder why a murdered woman was hiring a car. But tomorrow was Sunday, Monday was the Führertag, and by Tuesday – the earliest the Orpo were likely to pull their fingers out of their backsides – March reckoned he and Charlie would either be safe or arrested, or dead.

  Ten minutes later, with a final exchange of smiles, she was given the keys to a four-door black Opel, with ten thousand kilometres on the clock. Five minutes after that, March joined her in the parking lot. He navigated while she drove. It was the first time he had seen her behind the wheel: another side of her. In the busy traffic she displayed an exaggerated caution which he felt did not come naturally.

  SKETCH OF INSTALLATION BY MARTIN LUTHER

  [Dated 15 July 1943; handwritten; 1 page]

  THE lobby of the Prince Friedrich Karl was deserted: the guests were out for the night. As they passed through it towards the stairs the receptionist kept her head down. They were just another of Herr Brecker’s little scams – best not to know too much.

  Their room had not been searched. The cotton threads hung where March had wedged them, between door and frame. Inside, when he pulled Luther’s case out from beneath the bed, the single strand of hair was still laced through the lock.

  CHARLIE stepped out of her dress and wrapped a towel around her shoulders.

  In the bathroom at the end of the passage, a naked bulb lit a grimy sink. A bath stood on tiptoe, on iron claws.

  MARCH walked back to the bedroom, shut himself in, and once more propped the chair up against the door. He piled the contents of the case on the dressing table – the map, the various envelopes, the minutes and memoranda, the reports, including the one with the rows of statistics, typed on the machine with the extra-large letters. Some of the paper crackled with age. He remembered how he and Charlie had sat during the sunlit afternoon, with the rumble of traffic outside; how they had passed the evidence backwards and forwards to one another – at first with excitement, then stunned, disbelieving, silent, until at last they came to the pouch with the photographs.

  Now he needed to be more systematic. He pulled up a chair, cleared a space, and opened the exercise book. He tore out thirty pages. At the top of each sheet he wrote the year and the month, beginning with July 1941 and ending in January 1944. He took off his jacket and draped it over the back of the chair. Then he began to work his way through the heap of papers, making notes in his clear script.

  A RAILWAY timetable – badly printed on yellowing wartime paper:

  Date Train no From Departs To Arrives

  26.1 Da 105 Theresienstadt Auschwitz

  27.1 Lp 106 Auschwitz Theresienstadt

  29.1 Da 13 Berlin 17.20 Auschwitz 10.48

  Da 107 Theresienstadt Auschwitz

  30.1 Lp 108 Auschwitz Theresienstadt

  31.1 Lp 14 Auschwitz Zamocz

  1.2 Da 109 Theresienstadt Auschwitz

  2.2 Da 15 Berlin 17.20 Auschwitz 10.48

  Lp 110 Auschwitz Myslowitz

  3.2 Po 65 Zamocz 11.00 Auschwitz

  4.2 Lp 16 Auschwitz Litzmannstadt

  . . . and so on, until, in the second week of February, a new destination appeared. Now almost all the times had been worked out to the minute:

  11.2 Pj 131 Bialystok 9.00 Treblinka 12.10

  Lp 132 Treblinka 21.18 Bialystok 1.30

  12.2 Pj 133 Bialystok 9.00 Treblinka 12.10

  Lp 134 Treblinka 21.18 Grodno

  13.2 Pi 135 Bialystok 9.00 Treblinka 12.10

  Lp 136 Treblinka 21.18 Bialystok 1.30

  14.2 Pi 163 Grodno 5.40 Treblinka 12.10

  Lp 164 Treblinka Scharfenwiese

  . . . and so on again, until the end of the month.

  A rusty paper clip had mottled the edge of the timetable. Attached to it was a telegraphic letter from the General Management, Directorate East, of the German Reich Railways, dated Berlin, 13 January 1943. First, a list of recipients:

  Reich Railway Directorates

  Berlin, Breslau, Dresden, Erfurt, Frankfurt, Halle (S),

  Karlsruhe, Königsberg (Pr), Linz, Mainz, Oppeln, East in

  Frankfurt (O), Posen, Vienna

  General Directorate of East Railway in Krakau

  Reichsprotektor, Group Railways in Prague

  General Traffic Directorate Warsaw

  Reich Traffic Directorate Minsk

  Then, the main text:

  Subject: Special trains for resettlers during the period from 20 January to 28 February 1943.

  We enclose a compilation of the special trains (Vd, Rm, Po, Pj and Da) agreed upon in Berlin on 15 January 1943 for the period from 20 January 1943 to 28 February 1943 and a circulatory plan for cars to be used in these trains.

  Train formation is noted for each recirculation and attention is to be paid to these instructions. After each full trip cars are to be well cleaned, if necessary fumigated, and upon completion of the programme prepared for further use. Number and kinds of cars are to be determined upon dispatch of the last train and are to be reported to me by telephone with confirmation on service cards.

  [Signed] Dr Jacobi

  33 Bfp 5 Bfsv Minsk 9 Feb. 1943

  March flicked back to the timetable and read it through again. Theresienstadt/Auschwitz/ Theresienstadt, Bialystok/ Treblinka, Treblinka/Bialystok: the syllables drummed in his tired brain like the rhythm of wheels on a railway track.

  He ran his finger down the columns of figures, trying to decipher the message behind them. So: a train would be loaded in the Polish town of Bialystok at breakfast time. By lunchtime, it would be at this hell, Treblinka. (Not all the journeys were so brief – he shuddered at the thought of the seventeen hours fro
m Berlin to Auschwitz.) In the afternoon, the cars would be unloaded at Treblinka and fumigated. At nine o’clock that evening they would return to Bialystok, arriving in the early hours, ready to be loaded up again at breakfast.

  On 12 February, the pattern breaks. Instead of going back to Bialystok, the empty train is sent to Grodno. Two days in the sidings there, and then – in the dark, long before dawn – the train is once more heading back, fully laden, to Treblinka. It arrives at lunchtime. Is unloaded. And that night begins rattling back westwards again, this time to Scharfenweise.

  What else could an investigator of the Berlin Kriminalpolizei deduce from this document?

  Well, he could deduce numbers. Say: sixty persons per car, an average of sixty cars per train. Deduction: three thousand six hundred persons per transport.

  By February, the transports were running at the rate of one per day. Deduction: twenty-five thousand persons per week; one hundred thousand persons per month; one and a quarter million persons per year. And this was the average achieved in the depths of the Central European winter, when the points froze and drifts of snow blocked the tracks and the partisans materialised from the woods like ghosts to plant their bombs.

  Deduction: the numbers would be even greater in the spring and summer.

  HE stood at the bathroom door. Charlie, in a black slip, had her back to him and was bending over the wash basin. With her hair wet she looked smaller; almost fragile. The muscles in her pale shoulders flexed as she massaged her scalp. She rinsed her hair a final time and stretched a hand out blindly behind her. He gave her a towel.

  Along the edge of the bath she had set out various objects – a pair of green rubber gloves, a brush, a dish, a spoon, two bottles. March picked up the bottles and studied their labels. One contained a mixture of magnesium carbonate and sodium acetate, the other a twenty-volume solution of hydrogen peroxide. Next to the mirror above the basin she had propped open the girl’s passport. Magda Voss regarded March with wide and untroubled eyes.

  ‘Are you sure this is going to work?’