I deserved it, God witness, I did. I was there that day, in Mauthausen, and I did watch those executions. I knew what I did that time to cause Reichsführer’s fury, and by then he’d already learned the best ways to punish me, just like his protégé Heydrich did, when he was still alive. I got my former school teacher out of Dachau, after he sent me a letter through Höttl. I thought they wouldn’t notice the pardon order for one single Jew. They did. I was on Himmler’s carpet the next day after I had fixed my teacher’s papers and had sent him on his way to Switzerland.
“I have a task for you, Kaltenbrunner.” Himmler spoke in a calm voice, without looking at me as he pretended to be writing something. He rarely addressed issues directly; only hit in the back, spitefully and malevolently, punishing anyone for disobedience when they dared to go against his will. “I want you to inspect KZ Mauthausen. See how the quarries are developing, and how the conditions are. Kommandant Ziereis will prepare people for you, too.”
“What people?” I frowned, already sensing evil intent.
“Inmates. The condemned. I think it will be useful for you to watch what happens to ones who go against the regime.” He shot me a long pointed look before lowering his head back to his paperwork. “Dismissed.”
So I went. He still had that other order that he saved after signing the one for appointing me the Chief of the RSHA, he said. I chuckled, thinking that he had probably kept it together with Heydrich’s grandfather’s birth certificate in the same drawer. They organized a meticulous spectacle for me to see, with such typical German pedantry explaining what temperature was better for dissolving Zyklon B per square foot in a given facility, and what amount of crystals were sufficient for these five to die. I didn’t look away when they shaved two women’s heads, explaining that they didn’t want to waste the hair that would go for interweaving into the Wehrmacht soldiers’ belts, and then shot them in the neck. Neither did I flinch when the Kommandant demonstrated the noose on the rope in his hands and motioned the hangman to perform the hanging for me, pointing out with pride that he had personally found the perfect length of rope that killed the condemned inmate, so that it instantly broke his neck.
“After all, we aren’t barbarians.” Ziereis lowered his eyes apologetically, while holding a tiny porcelain cup of coffee in his villa. “We don’t want them to suffer for no good reason. These are only extraordinary measures due to the war… When it’s all over with, there won’t be any need for this.”
I watched him with sorrow and horror, wondering if he really justified such a thing to himself. I then caught my own reflection in the bathroom after splashing my face with water, my black eyes feverishly glistening in the bright light, and almost laughed at myself. I was a thousand times worse than him. All of us were nothing but monsters. Not barbarians, but monsters, plain and simple. Only dressed very handsomely.
I got deadly drunk upon my return. Again. I locked myself up in my office and drank, and drank, and drank until I couldn’t remember myself. Annalise let herself in with her key, that I had given her on the very first day, rushed to the dark corner where I sat with my head squeezed between my knees, with a bottle in one hand and a gun in the other – quite a familiar scenario by now. She took both things from my hands and pressed me to her chest, crying together with me, stroking my hair and kissing the top of my head, telling me about her dead brother and repeating one and the same thing in between the sobs, “What have they done to you? What have they done to all of you?”
“I’m one of them, don’t you understand?!” I cried out in despair, trying to break away from her tight embrace.
She only clenched her arms around me tighter and pressed my head to her chest, putting her chin on top of it. Wolves do that, when protecting their pups from another predator; they hide them in the curve of their body. I was supposed to be protecting her, but here she was, trying to protect me, from myself.
“Let go,” I said barely audibly, without any powers left to fight her. “I’m nothing to you.”
“No. I have let go once before, and lost my only sibling. I’m not going to lose you now.”
“Why?”
“Just because. Stop asking questions, please. You won’t remember anything tomorrow anyway.”
But I did. I always remembered everything, when she thought that I wouldn’t. I was smiling at her when she didn’t see, her words forever imprinted in my mind. She whispered those words when she thought that I was asleep in her arms and that I couldn’t hear her.
“I couldn’t save him, but I’ll save you at least. You’ll see, I will.” And then she planted another soft kiss on my hair and added barely audibly, “I love you just as much.”
Chapter 16
Berlin, September 1944
“I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.”
Annalise snickered, pulling my arms that I had wrapped around her waist, trying to make me get up.
“Ernst, stop it. Someone will come in now, and it will be very embarrassing having to explain why you’re kissing my stomach and talking to it.”
“Why embarrassing? I’ll introduce them to my son; even though he can’t shake their hand yet, and can’t talk just yet, but he can hear everything. Right, my little one?” I put another dozen of kisses right on top of her uniform jacket. “Papa loves you so much, so, so very much!”
“Ernst! Your pinkie is bigger than the baby right now.” Annalise laughed again, pulling me upwards. “And what if it’s a girl?”
“It’s a boy. I know it.”
“Well, in that case, I hope that he won’t be as obstinate as his father.”
“Most likely, he will. And you will love every minute of it.”
“I’m not sure for how long I’ll be able to tolerate the two of you.”
“You’ll have to tolerate us for the rest of your life.” I finally got up from my knees and kissed the beautiful future mother of my child.
“My life may end very abruptly in the nearest future, when my husband comes back and finds out that in the two months he has been away you got his wife pregnant. And so may yours.”
“He won’t do anything.” I waved off her scornful concerns. “He’ll divorce you most likely, but that’s exactly what I was aiming for. And then when all of this is over with, we’ll get married. Himmler won’t sign my divorce papers yet, he’ll only yell at me that we have more important things to do than for him to spend time on such petty matters. I can’t wait for this damn war to be over with!”
Annalise was biting her lip like she always did whenever I spoke of the end of the war. We all knew perfectly well by now that the Reich wasn’t going to be the one to win it, but at this point we were all too sick and tired from the never-ending pointless bloodshed.
“Come now, what are you worried about?” I held her pretty face in my hands, still not believing that every day she fell asleep in my arms and woke up by my side.
I had gotten into the habit of waking up earlier than the alarm clock just to watch her sleep, my beautiful angel, and to wonder how I could deserve such heaven on earth – waking up next to her every day. She chuckled once, and said without looking at me that it was a Jewish expression, heaven on earth. They didn’t have any other heaven, so Earth was it. We rarely spoke of it; her religion that is. Once Annalise told me her story, about her great-grandparents running from Poland to escape the government initiated pogroms, paying almost all of their money to falsify German ancestry – the reason why her papers never caused any suspicion. Since on paper she was indeed a pure Aryan, we somehow omitted the whole question. I once tried to ask her something, but she only shrugged irritably and said rather coldly, “Let’s just keep thinking that I’m a regular German, shall we?”
I don’t know if she was shamed into denying her own origin by all the lifelong anti-Semitic propaganda, or that she thought I was still getting used to seeing her for what she really was; or maybe on the contrary, she still despised me for my official position and didn’t wan
t to allow me to look into her world, I couldn’t possibly know because she point blank refused to discuss it. Only little things slipped off her tongue from time to time, something not even religious, but making so much sense that I sometimes sat for minutes digesting the information and thinking how ignorant and blinded my own government was by its own supposed superiority.
“The Christian heaven doesn’t really make sense,” she said, smiling at me. “Think about this simple example: let’s say, your mother is in heaven now.”
“She most likely is.” I smiled back at her.
“Well… do you think you’ll get to heaven as well?”
“Not in a million years!” I laughed out loud.
Annalise chuckled as well and continued. “Well, according to the Catholic religion – I know because I went to both Protestant and Catholic Churches – heaven is the happiest place, where you will find your eternal bliss.”
“That’s right.” I nodded, confirming her words.
She looked at me for quite some time and then asked a question, one which had never crossed my mind, but which changed my whole world view. “So, do you think your mother will be happy there without you, her favorite son?”
I opened my mouth to reply and all of a sudden couldn’t form any words.
“She was happy each time she was here with you, that was her heaven,” Annalise continued, taking my hand in hers. “Just like I’m happy here with you now. This is heaven. This very moment. Nothing else matters, if you are happy here and now.”
“What about hell then?”
“There is no hell. Only hell on earth. Look around. What can be worse than this?” Her eyes became sad again. “People are the source of both heaven and hell. People create both. It’s up to every individual what path he chooses.”
“So you’re my shepherd then?”
“We don’t have shepherds either. You have to be your own shepherd. Only you can lead yourself toward making the right choices.”
I thought I was making some right choices, or at least to the extent that my official position allowed me to do so without getting into an open confrontation with Himmler. It was a stifling July night in 1944 when yet another twist of fate interfered with the last of our chances for salvation, and at least some chance to get out of this war more or less unscathed.
It was the night after von Stauffenberg and his allies from the Wehrmacht resistance blew Hitler’s headquarters up with a makeshift bomb, and just for a few hours when no one knew if the Führer was still alive or not, the country dived into a chaotic mess with quite a few open confrontations between the Wehrmacht resistance and those still loyal to the regime.
Otto and I were smoking our millionth cigarette, hiding in the shadows of an alley, not too far from the building which the resistance had made into its temporary headquarters as they tried to set a new regime, commanding their separate cells as far as in France.
“What if they succeed in taking over?” Otto blew out a cloud of smoke and shifted from one foot to the other, observing the brightly lit headquarters. A few hours ago I told all the troops under my command to stand by and not take any executive measures against the rebels. A few commanding officers had tried to object, but I gave them such a look that they had nothing better to do than click their heels and say, ‘Jawohl.’
“Then we pledge our allegiance to the new Führer. Let’s just pray that he really is dead.”
Otto was silent for a minute and then muttered, sighing, “It’s treason.”
“No. It’s the only right thing to do.” Hearing my friend sigh again, I jerked my shoulder irritably and squashed my cigarette under my heel. “You can go if you want. I’m not holding you here.”
He gave me a dirty look that was visible even in the dark, and muttered under his breath, “You’re such an obstinate, self-centered, insecure ass, I swear to God!”
“Where did that come from?” I couldn’t help but chuckle.
“As if you didn’t know by now that even if it was you who had planted the bomb under the Führer’s table, I would still be standing next to you, no matter what. That’s where it came from. You’re really turning into Heydrich with all your suspiciousness. Only seeing the bad in people. Like I said, a typical ass.”
I couldn’t suppress a grin and put my hand on his shoulder. “I love you, Otto.”
“Oh, fuck off.”
He shrugged my hand off. I put it back on and squeezed it harder.
“I said, I love you.”
“I love you too, but you’re still an ass.”
We both froze with our hands on our holsters at the sound of approaching steps. The uniformed man seemed startled to see us as well, and froze in his tracks, his face still invisible under his uniform cap.
“Obergruppenführer Kaltenbrunner?” The stranger addressed me in a mild voice.
I silently ‘congratulated’ myself for naively hoping that the shadows and the night would make me and Otto unrecognizable, and then remembered what our faces looked like.
“Who’s asking?” I barked back, without acknowledging his greeting.
“It’s Albert Speer.” He stepped closer to us, and I finally made out Hitler’s favorite architect’s features. He seemed to be on guard, but who wasn’t that night, not knowing if they were talking to a friend or a foe? “Are you… waiting for the higher orders?”
Otto sniffled and pretended to be suddenly very interested in his lighter. I searched Speer’s face for any possible clues of his alliance and answered warily, “No. We’re just smoking here.”
Speer nodded, looked at the resistance headquarters behind his back and scratched his neck nervously. “Can I… smoke here with you?”
Otto and I exchanged quick glances.
“Certainly.” I answered for the both of us and offered him my cigarette case. Speer nodded gratefully and took one. I helped him with the lighter and, after a moment of awkward silence, asked, “So what’s the news?”
“They say he’s alive.” Speer sighed heavily, much to my surprise. I expected more sympathy from his most cherished and so highly praised protégé. It seemed like even the young architect had at last recognized the madness of his master and turned his back on him. Or at least was trying to, like we were.
“What’s Himmler doing?” I asked.
“Himmler is trying to organize troops to stifle the opposition.” Speer turned his face to me and suddenly asked in a straightforward manner, “And what is the RSHA doing?”
I held his gaze and, after a moment of heavy silence, replied with a grin, “The RSHA is smoking and enjoying the fresh night air.”
“Does the RSHA want to…” Speer motioned his head towards the resistance headquarters. “Go in there and… help them out maybe?”
“Does the Labor Front?” I arched my brow, addressing him in the same manner.
“The Labor Front still has a family at home,” Speer replied, taking a long drag on his cigarette.
“Yes, so does the RSHA.”
“So, what does the RSHA suggest?”
“The RSHA suggests to stay here and see how everything goes.”
Albert Speer, who I certainly never considered to be my friend or even a close acquaintance, suddenly gave me his hand. I shook it firmly, and all three of us peered into the distance, at the headquarters where people, braver than us, were fighting for what they believed in and what they considered to be above their life. We stood in the shadows and smoked; there was only so much that we could do.
_______________
Nuremberg prison, October 1, 1946
“There’s only so much that I can do for you.” Henry, my loyal guard, smiled apologetically, handcuffing me to his wrist to take me for my evening walk; along the prison hallway this time, not the backyard. This morning they called us back to the courtroom again, one by one, to give us our sentences. I had already known mine as I stepped through the doors with only a few representatives of the Tribunal facing me. No press, no buzzing typists, only oppr
essive silence.
“Defendant Ernst Kaltenbrunner, on the Counts of the indictment on which you have been convicted, the Tribunal sentences you to death by hanging.”
I nodded and left the courtroom, once and for all. Should I have asked to speak to someone in charge and beg them not to hang me in exchange for the information that Otto had given me? I didn’t even contemplate that. They would have only laughed in my face, call me a liar once again, and a pathetic liar on top of it; only one man could believe me, my good American friend, agent Foster, however, it was impossible to speak to him for he was probably doing his duty in his central office in New York and didn’t need to come back to Nuremberg anymore. Even if he couldn’t come to see me before the execution, I had already decided to leave him a note with all the information concerning Hitler, Bormann and Müller.
I saw Speer through the window in his cell door as we were passing by his cell. He jumped up from his bed and rushed to greet me through the window.
“What’s your sentence?” He asked me right away.
I gave him a one shoulder shrug for asking the obvious. “Death by hanging, of course.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, lowering his eyes.
“What’s yours?” I asked him, grateful that Henry wasn’t jerking my wrist and allowed us this little chit-chat. The others’ guards weren’t always so understanding.
“Twenty years,” Speer replied, still not looking at me, as if guilty of the fact that he was staying alive while I was going to get hanged in the next few days.
“Congratulations,” I replied with all sincerity. Of all of us he was probably the most innocent one, and I was indeed very glad that the Tribunal admitted the same.
“Thank you.” He nodded, biting on his lip. “And good luck to you.”
I nodded as well and resumed my walk, so as not to get Henry in any trouble before his superiors.
The Austrian: Book Two Page 23