Darkness into Light Box Set

by Michael Dean

Ello stood, and left her seat. Hoffmann left his place at the same time, Rolleiflex camera at the ready, so her departure was not especially noticeable. She made her way through the crowds, across Prinz-Carl-Palais, the short distance to Galeriestrasse.

  As the music stopped, Hitler laid a black metal tube into the hollowed granite block. It contained a handwritten scroll:

  This Temple of Art is the First Building of the New Reich. It owes its existence to the will and the wishes of the renewer of the German Reich, Chancellor Adolf Hitler.

  At a sign from Hess, the UFA film unit recording the event suspended filming. Hitler then took the urn containing Geli’s ashes and his drawings of her – the drawings that had cost Ascher Weintraub his life – and placed it into the hollow, next to the tube with the scroll. One of the masons took a white bucket and poured a plaster and powdered-granite mixture into the block, filling it to the top. The mixture would be hardened dry by the time Hitler finished his speech. After a pause of no more than a few seconds, the UFA film unit resumed filming.

  *

  Ello did not know how much danger Sepp was in, as a result of the bomb having been discovered. She had no idea where he was. He said he would leave for Austria, after he planted the bomb, but she did not know if he had. Part of her longed for him to still be in Munich. Did she think Sepp could possibly be with Glaser? However unlikely that was, logically, her heart raced and her body glowed as she half ran to Galeriestrasse, now swathed in billowing white and red from every building. She hardly cared any more that Hitler had survived, and their plans had come to nothing.

  Two Political Police in plain clothes in a car outside Glaser’s block of flats saw her go in. They recognised her, and radioed Forster. Forster told them to follow Glaser, if he left the flat, but on no account to enter it while Fräulein von Hessert was there.

  Glaser took Ello’s news with a wooden face. He said nothing at all. Kaspar was far more animated, vividly cursing Hitler and his luck – Germany’s misfortune. Ello hurried back across the road to her place at the opening ceremony. Hitler, standing over the white granite block, was just beginning his speech:

  ‘A race has fallen apart and is to be rebuilt. Today we do not want to dwell on the misfortune which befell us; the catastrophe which overcame us. We wish only to recognise that that which was broken must be built anew, so that decay can be transformed to something new and alive ...’

  With the collar of his mackintosh turned up, Glaser made his way down to the stone cellar of the block of flats. Like every resident, he had a key to the cellar door, which leads out to the alleyway. They were not watching the alleyway. They never did. He made his way out to the main Ludwigstrasse and headed south along Theatinerstrasse.

  It had started to drizzle again. It made the pavement slippery.

  Even though he was walking away from the ceremony, the streets were thronged with people. There were no cars or trams; traffic had been banned. He saw some floats from the pageant, coming toward him along the road. They were making their way to their starting position. It seemed fitting to Glaser that he was witnessing a Carnival procession – or part of one – going the wrong way, at the wrong time of year. The world had been perversely twisted; the world was out of joint.

  The first float contained a twenty-metre-high plaster model of the House of German Art, as it would one day be – all neoclassical columns and mock-Greek porticos. The float rolled forward at walking pace, surrounded by men dressed as Charlemagne, Henry the Lion, Friedrich Barbarossa, Arminius – the full panoply of Germanic heroism.

  The next float contained a huge golden eagle, symbolising a thousand-year Reich. It was surrounded by sitting and kneeling votive Valkyries, some with iron pieces around their breasts, some bare-breasted. Glaser found it impossible not to look – to desire them. A third float offered a giant papier-mâché Goethe, already a little the worse for wear in the rain.

  As he walked, striding as fast as he could, Glaser thought of James Ensor. The Belgian pre-Expressionist was a flute player, like Kaspar. There was a photograph of him on a rooftop, sitting next to the chimney pot, playing his flute in his best suit. Ensor grew up above his parents’ shop in Ostend, which sold Carnival masks. He saw Carnival not as a spectacle seen by the people, but as something they act out.

  Glaser thought the Nazi twist of Carnival went even further. All the people must take part, there are no onlookers. People are subsumed, they are changed into carnivalesque figures, with no souls, like the vestals and vassals on the floats he had just seen. They were part of a stylishly garish costumed procession to war and death, in the name of fabricated history, inside-out justice, gibberish science and lies.

  In Ensor’s Entry of Christ into Brussels, a mad farouche crowd of death-heads and masks welcomes Ensor as the phoney Christ at the head of a Carnival parade. But Ensor was harmless. This crowd was welcoming Adolf Hitler.

  Glaser walked on.

  *

  Hitler continued his speech:

  ‘Want and misery came upon our race with a terrible force. The foundations of our society are crumbling, and the fists of those bringing still further destruction are pounding at the very gates of the temples of our faith. Turmoil and conflict at every turn.’

  As he passed the Cathedral, Glaser began to tire. His stump ached. He longingly pictured the quadrupled windows and clock tower of the Main Police Station. He hoped the Material Evidence Room, in the basement, would not be locked. He started to compose a tale to get somebody to unlock it, in case it was. The Mauser pistol used to kill Weintraub would still be there. It would have been unloaded, of course, but unspent cartridges are kept near the gun, in case they need to be fired for further forensic tests.

  Chapter Fifteen

  As the Main Police Station finally came into view, Glaser realised he had not thought of how he was going to get into the building itself. The door might be locked, on this great public holiday. He hoped a caretaker would have been left on duty.

  But the doors were wide open. The vestibule desk was empty. He was assailed by a boom of gramophone music and a roar of revelry from offices on his right. Some female screams of delight broke into the bass notes of the music. As he paused on the threshold, there came the sound of breaking glass. It was so heavy Glaser thought a bottle, rather than a glass, had been smashed. A Green Police officer with his uniform dishevelled staggered out of a room at the end of the corridor. He swayed past Glaser and out into the street, without a glance.

  Glaser thankfully remembered that the Main Police Station had a lift. Breathing heavily, he made his way to it, past a pool of evidently fresh vomit. The lift stank of vomit, too. The Material Evidence Room was three floors down, in the cellar. It was locked.

  ‘Man shall not live by bread alone. When we regard the rebuilding of our race as the task of our age and our lives, we see not only an ailing economy, but an endangered culture. We can only envision that the German race will rise anew if German culture and above all German art emerge once more.’

  Glaser stood there, nonplussed. The journey back up to the ground floor was a complete impossibility. He did not know why that should be, but he knew it with great certainty. There could be no plausible excuse for getting the Material Evidence Room opened in the middle of a festive celebration. He had come as far as he could. He would have slumped down on the floor, had such a manoeuvre been physically possible for him. He tried to weep, but no tears came. Then he heard sounds from inside the Material Evidence Room. It sounded like one couple, at least, having sexual intercourse.

  Glaser thundered on the heavy wooden door with both fists. ‘Open!’ he cried out. ‘Open in the name of the Political Police. Open or it will be the worse for you.’ There was a muttered stream of swear words from the other side of the door.

  ‘Schon gut! Schon gut!’

  Glaser hit the door again with his fists. Eventually, it opened and a man wearing only a pair of SA trousers stood there, struggling to button his fly. Glaser pushed past him, int
o the Material Evidence Room. The man’s love-partner was trying to hide behind one of room’s many gunmetal cabinets. He was struggling into the uniform of an SA lieutenant.

  ‘Get out!’ Glaser yelled. ‘Get out now, and return to duty, before I report you.’

  Whey-faced, the two men fled, completing their dressing as they ran. Glaser stared at the array of huge metal cabinets, placed in chevrons. Each deep drawer of each cabinet was labelled with the name and date of the case. After a few minutes search, Glaser found the drawer with material evidence from the Weintraub case. He pulled it, and it opened smoothly on oiled runners.

  In a linen bag, he found Ascher Weintraub’s black jacket, folded and encrusted with dried blood. Also in the bag was the gun used to kill him. As he had surmised, the cartridges, five of them, three spent, two unspent, were in an envelope by the gun.

  ‘Today we are consummating a symbolic deed. In painfully parting with what has been lost, we confidently begin to build the new, with our sights set on the future.’

  After a few minutes fumbling, he loaded the gun. He put it in his mac pocket, then took the lift back up to the ground floor. An SS-man had passed out, measuring his length in the corridor. The screams from the revellers were even louder, as was the dance-band music from the gramophone. He left the Main Police Station and walked back the way he had come.

  ‘A House of German Art shall rise up. Young Germany is constructing a special building to house its art.’

  He made his way back toward the Cathedral. It had stopped raining.

  ‘We are one race; we want to be one Reich. Just as we are fanatical in our commitment to the greatness of this Reich, to its peace, and to its honour as well; so, too, will we be adamant in not tolerating any arbitrary spirit of discord that may threaten the unity of our nation, or that an ignorant eccentricity weaken the political will.’

  The walk back was easier. He had found a rhythm and was able to ignore the pain.

  Reaching his goal began to seem inevitable to him. He had two cartridges in the gun, but whatever happened he would surely have time for only one shot. One shot. One shot and Germany’s agony would be over.

  When he reached the site of the laying of the foundation-stone, he could hardly believe his luck. There were no guards at all. He made his way through the crowd. He could see Hitler clearly.

  ‘If today I have the proud fortune to be able to lay this cornerstone, then I hope that in doing so, I am showing this city and this country the way to the future.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  Two SD in plain clothes had spotted Glaser as he passed the cathedral, on the way back. He had been tracked ever since. ‘Leave him to me,’ Forster had radioed to all officers. The Chief Inspector began to make his way through the crowd.

  ‘Since Berlin is the capital of the Reich; Hamburg and Bremen are the German shipping capitals; Leipzig and Cologne the capitals of German trade; and Essen and Chemnitz the capitals of German industry, so should Munich once more become the capital of German art.’

  The crowds were thick, but Glaser was patiently making his way through them. The two SD following him radioed Forster for new instructions, but Forster again told all officers to leave Glaser to him. The Chief Inspector furiously shouldered his way through the crowd, toward where Glaser had last been reported. ‘Police!’ he bellowed. ‘Stand aside there. Police!’

  Glaser drew the pistol from the pocket of his mac. He had Hitler in his sights, somebody in the crowd saw him and there was a scream.

  ‘May this city recall to mind its real mission of being a shrine to the sublime and the beautiful. It is in this spirit that we wish to lay this cornerstone for the First Building of the New Reich, dedicated to German Art.’

  The figure costumed as Hans Sachs passed Hitler a silver hammer, just as Hoffmann crept close to him, Rolleiflex at the ready. The picture Hoffmann took went round the world; one of his best-known studies of the Führer. But it was a fake. The delicate silver hammer broke when Hitler hit it against a corner of the granite. Hoffmann’s photograph, however, was skilfully doctored. It shows a whole hammer striking home. So that is what the German people saw. And that is what they were told.

  Just as the hammer broke, Forster’s fist smashed into the side of Glaser’s head. He dropped the pistol as he fell. He was surrounded on the ground by plain-clothes security men. One of them picked up the pistol. Forster’s boots were thudding into Glaser. The Chief Inspector had to be pulled off by his own men.

  Part IX - Autumn 1933

  Chapter One

  Rudolf Hess was most satisfied with Chief Inspector Forster: his police work had led to the recovery of the Führer’s drawings, with no scandal. He had uncovered and dealt with a plot to assassinate the Führer, and arrested the ringleader. Again, his work had been so competent and tactful that nothing of the plot was known to the outside world. This was important, at this delicate time of consolidation of the Third Reich’s power.

  Forster was summoned to Hess’s office. ‘I have a message for you from the Führer himself,’ Hess said. ‘He believes that the failure of this bomb plot against him is yet more evidence that he has been chosen by fate to complete his mission. He has instructed me to offer you any reward you wish.’

  Forster replied that his only wish was to serve the Führer. That could be achieved more directly, he suggested, if he left police work for service in the SS.

  Hess appointed him to lead the newly formed SS-brigade attached to the Political Police, at the SS rank of Brigadeführer, to which Heydrich had also just been promoted. As a further accolade, the brigade was to be named for him – Standarte Karl-Heinz Forster. Forster requested Elsperger as his second-in-command, in recognition of his outstanding work for the Reich.

  Next day, the new Brigadeführer collected his uniform. He looked at himself in the mirror in his empty flat – Christa had taken the children away to her mother’s. The uniform, crisp and fresh from the Hugo Boss factory over at Metzingen, was the deepest black. There was a swastika armband over the left sleeve, yellow braid on both shoulders, an oak leaf cluster on the lapel. On the index finger of his right hand, Forster wore a Death’s Head Ring, a gift from Heydrich, identical to the one Heydrich’s own chief, Himmler, had given him.

  A car collected him and took him to the SS Headquarters in Karlstrasse, where he swore an Oath of Honour to serve Adolf Hitler unto death. He then undertook his first task in a life of direct service of the Führer: He interviewed Gerhard Glaser.

  Chapter Two

  Glaser had been hustled away from the minor disturbance he had created at the laying of the First Stone of the New Reich. He was taken to Stadelheim, like a common criminal. There, his wounds were bathed and he was patched up. To his surprise, he was searched at the prison hospital by a trusty – none other than Sepp Kunde’s twin, August.

  ‘Do they think I’ll tell you where Sepp is? I really don’t know, you know.’

  August gave a leery grin. His physical resemblance to Sepp was astonishing, but his manner was completely different. A sly, shifty quality pervaded everything he did.

  ‘I’ve been told to make sure you don’t commit suicide,’ August said. ‘That’s what they’re worried about.’

  ‘I shan’t do that.’

  ‘Good. Take everything out of your pockets, please. If you’ve got anything you don’t want them to see, you can give it to me. I’ll get rid of it.’

  Glaser stared at him. August was evidently sincere.

  ‘There isn’t anything,’ Glaser said. ‘I’ve got nothing to hide.’

  When Glaser had handed everything over, August summoned a guard. Glaser’s possessions were itemised; he signed for their removal. To his relief, no attempt was made to take his artificial leg.

  He was taken to the cell he was to share with August. It was brightly lit. He lowered himself onto his steel bed with a straw mattress over it, and lay with his hands behind his head. August chattered for a while, blithering on about the prison food, a
nd what you were allowed to have sent in. His mindless small-talk, again, was so different from his twin, who spoke only when he had something to say. Before long Glaser fell asleep, while August was still talking – his exhaustion overcoming both the chatter and the light in his eyes.

  *

  There was a jangling of keys and the door banged open. A man in a badly cut grey suit entered the cell. He had a Hitler moustache and hair shaved high up the back of his head, like Himmler: ‘Messner!’ – he introduced himself. ‘Glaser! Come! Interrogation!’

  Messner handcuffed Glaser behind his back and pushed him outside. He tried to take his prisoner under the arm, as they walked along a corridor. Glaser fell twice. Messner was finally persuaded to let him walk unhandcuffed, at his own speed.

  Forster had commandeered the Prison Director’s office. He was alone in it, in his new SS uniform. He dismissed Messner to the outer office. Glaser wondered if Forster would gloat or become violent. He did neither.

  ‘Sit down, Glaser. Where is Kunde?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘Three weeks ago.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At Ludwigsburg railway station. He gave me a suitcase full of dynamite to bring back to Munich.’

  ‘Where did he get the dynamite?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘How did he arrange the meeting?’

  ‘He left a note at my mother’s house.’

  ‘Where is the note now?’

  ‘I destroyed it.’

  ‘I will have that checked.’

  ‘I’m sure you will.’

  ‘Where was Kunde staying?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Where did he go after he left you?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘How many people were involved in the plot to assassinate the Führer?’

  ‘Two. Myself and Sepp.’