A Man Without Breath (Bernie Gunther Mystery 9)

by Philip Kerr

  Von Kluge had turned a quiet shade of grey and his cigarette remained unsmoked in its ashtray. His hands were thrust deep into his pockets and he looked like a schoolboy whose favourite toy had been confiscated.

  ‘The question, of course,’ said Canaris, ‘is what has Krivyenko been doing while he’s been here in Smolensk working for you, old fellow? What has he been up to while he’s been your Putzer?’

  ‘We went hunting a lot,’ said Von Kluge, dully. ‘That’s all. Hunting.’

  ‘I’m sure you did. By Rudi’s account, Krivyenko organized a successful wild boar hunt for you. Yes, that must have been a lot of fun. No harm in that. But Rudi has some opinions about what else he’s been up to, don’t you Rudi?’

  ‘Yes sir,’ said Von Gersdorff. ‘It’s clear from his NKVD file that Krivyenko was never a trained spy. His expertise was as a policeman and executioner – as the admiral has already said. Since the Germans arrived in Smolensk, he’s been lying low, gaining our confidence. Your confidence, field marshal. Waiting for the right opportunity to start sending information about our plans to the Ivans. I hold myself partly responsible for that; after all, I introduced the two of you.’

  ‘Yes, yes you did,’ said Von Kluge, as if he hoped that might make things look better back in Berlin.

  ‘Things have been quiet during the winter of course, so there’s been little for Krivyenko to do except interfere with the smooth running of Captain Gunther’s investigations into the Katyn Wood massacre. It’s probable that it was Krivyenko who helped to spirit away or possibly even murder another NKVD officer called Rudakov, who was also involved in the Katyn massacre; and that he murdered a local doctor called Batov who might have provided us with invaluable documentary evidence of what actually happened to all those poor Polish officers.’

  ‘Evidence like that would have been quite irrefutable,’ added Canaris. ‘As things stand, the Kremlin is already arguing that this whole Katyn investigation has been a put-up job, a piece of cynical black propaganda by the Abwehr to drive a wedge deep into the enemy coalition. It’s obvious to anyone that these Poles were murdered by the Russians, although that won’t stop the Russians from saying different. Of course, once we get Major Krivyenko into the witness box in Berlin, they’ll find that lie much harder to maintain. Certainly they’ll still argue that we coerced him, or some such nonsense. Lies are what Bolsheviks are good at. But in spite of all that, Krivyenko provides a unique opportunity to present the world with one inarguable truth in this war. I’m sure you appreciate that fact as much as I, field marshal.’

  Von Kluge grunted quietly.

  ‘Now that our new offensive in Kursk is only weeks away, Krivyenko’s become more active,’ said Von Gersdorff. ‘It’s almost certain that he murdered the two signallers from the 537th because they discovered he’d been eavesdropping on your own private conversations with the leader, probably about the new offensive, and using the radio at the castle to send messages to his contact in Soviet military intelligence – the GRU. And that he also murdered a third signaller – Corporal Quidde – when the man discovered irrefutable evidence that Krivyenko had murdered his two comrades.’

  None of this was true of course; Von Gersdorff would certainly have told Canaris about the tape recording of Hitler’s conversation with Von Kluge and the bribe, but Canaris was much too clever to tell Von Kluge that he knew this was the real reason why the signallers had been murdered. Embarrassing a field marshal was clearly not on the Abwehr’s agenda. It was certainly not on mine, and I judged it better to follow the admiral’s canny lead and keep my mouth shut about what I knew.

  ‘At least that’s what I’m going to write in my report, Günther,’ commented Canaris.

  ‘I see,’ said Von Kluge quietly.

  ‘Don’t be too hard on yourself old fellow,’ said Canaris. ‘There are spies everywhere. It’s all too easy for officers to be caught out like this, during a war. Even a field marshal. Why, just last year it was revealed that a man on my own staff – a Major Thummel – was spying for the Czechs.’

  He dropped the cigar onto the wooden floor and ground it out under his shoe before picking up one of the dogs and laying it on his lap.

  ‘Look at it this way,’ said Canaris. ‘You have helped apprehend an important witness to what happened here in Katyn. Someone who was directly involved in the murders of those poor Polish officers. It’s not as good as having pictures and ledgers, but it is the next best thing. And I’m absolutely certain you’re going to come out of this very well.’

  Von Kluge was nodding, thoughtfully.

  All this time Krivyenko had remained more or less silent, calmly smoking a cigarette and watching the automatic in Von Gersdorff’s hand like a cat awaiting an opportunity to sprint for a gap in a slowly closing door. He might have had one arm in a sling but he was still dangerous. From time to time, however, he smiled or shook his head and muttered something in Russian, and it was clear that at some future stage – perhaps in Berlin – he intended to dispute the admiral’s version of events. The field marshal saw that, too. He wasn’t called Clever Hans for nothing.

  Finally, when Canaris appeared to have finished speaking, the Russian stood up, slowly and, turning his back on his former master, bowed in the little admiral’s direction.

  ‘May I say something?’ he asked politely. ‘Admiral.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Canaris.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Krivyenko and stubbed out his cigarette.

  He looked not in the least bit afraid. There was, I thought, a surprising amount of defiance in his demeanour, although he must have known that there was likely to be a rough time ahead for him in Berlin.

  ‘Then I should like to say that I did indeed kill all the people you mentioned, Herr Admiral – Dr Berruguete, Dr Batov and his daughter. The Rudakov brothers are floating down the Dnieper. I don’t deny any of it for one minute. However you might like to know that the real reason I killed the two signallers was not exactly as you have described. There was another—’

  The sound of the gunshot made us all jump – everyone except Krivyenko: the bullet hit him squarely in the back of the head and he collapsed face-down onto the floor like an overburdened coat-stand. For a brief moment I thought Von Gersdorff must have shot him until I saw the Walther in the field marshal’s outstretched hand.

  ‘You didn’t actually think for a minute I was going to permit that bastard to embarrass me in front of everyone in Berlin, did you Wilhelm?’ he said coldly.

  ‘No, I suppose not,’ said Canaris.

  Von Kluge made the automatic safe, laid it down on the table in front of him and walked steadily out of the room. There was just enough time for Canaris to pick up Von Kluge’s gun and lay it carefully on the floor beside Krivyenko’s body before everyone who’d been asked to leave earlier came rushing back in.

  I had to hand it to the admiral: he had remarkable presence of mind. It really did look as if Krivyenko might have placed the gun to the back of his own head and pulled the trigger. Not that I suppose it would have mattered – no one was likely to accuse the field marshal of murder, not in Smolensk.

  ‘This Russian fellow has shot himself,’ Canaris announced for the benefit of everyone now present. ‘With the field marshal’s own pistol.’ He added, quietly: ‘Like a scene from a play by Chekhov. What do you think, Rudi?’

  ‘Yes sir. That’s exactly what I was thinking. Ivanov, I should say.’

  I walked over to Krivyenko’s motionless body and pushed it with the toecap of my boot. The man was without breath and there was so much blood on the floor that I hardly needed to bend down and look for a pulse, although it would have been easy enough to have taken hold of his wrist. It was curious the way he had fallen on his face, with one of his hands slightly behind his back, almost as if it had been tied there. Death had been caused by a single shot in the head. The bullet had struck the man just above the nape of his neck, piercing the occipital bone, close to the lower part of the skull; the point of
exit was in the lower part of the forehead. The shot had been fired from a German-made pistol with a capacity of less than eight millimetres. The shot in the victim’s head looked as if it had been the work of an experienced man. I thought it much more than likely that the body would end up in a shallow grave – unmarked and unmourned.

  ‘Curious, but it seems as if you’re not to have your witness to the Katyn massacre after all, Bernie,’ said Von Gersdorff.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No, I’m not. But perhaps, in a very small way, the dead have had some justice.’

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  The International Medical Commission delivered its report on the Katyn Wood Massacre in Berlin in early May 1943. The work of the members of the commission was honorary; no one was paid or given any other form of compensation. The commission concluded that the Polish officers found in Katyn had indeed been murdered by Soviet forces.

  The Soviet Union continued to deny responsibility for the Katyn murders until 1991, when the Russian Federation confirmed Soviet responsibility for the massacre of more than 14,500 men. However the Communist Party of the Russian Federation continues to deny Soviet guilt in the face of what is by now overwhelming evidence.

  Following its defeat at the battle of Kursk in July 1943, the German army fell back on Smolensk; the second battle for Smolensk lasted two months (August–October 1943) and Germany was defeated there, too.

  The liquidation of the Vitebsk ghetto took place as described in the novel.

  The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau continued to exist until 1945. Anyone who wishes to know more about its work should consult the excellent book of the same name by Alfred M. de Zayas published by the University of Nebraska Press in 1979.

  Hans von Dohnanyi was sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1944; on Hitler’s orders he was executed on or after 6 April 1945, at the same time and place as Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Sack.

  Colonel Rudolf Freiherr von Gersdorff supplied Claus von Stauffenberg with the explosives to use in an unsuccessful attempt on Hitler’s life in July 1944. He survived the war and dedicated his exemplary life to charity. A riding accident in 1967 left him paraplegic for the last twelve years of his life. He died in Munich in 1980 at the age of seventy-four.

  Like several other senior members of the Wehrmacht, including Hindenburg himself, Field Marshal Günther von Kluge’s loyalty to Hitler was secured by large bribes. Nevertheless he continued to flirt with conspiracy. He committed suicide in Metz in August 1944 believing that the SS intended arresting him following the failure of the 20 July Stauffenberg plot.

  Professor Gerhard Buhtz was – according to the official version – run over and killed by a train while making his escape from Minsk in June 1944. Others have suggested he was murdered by the SS around the same time for desertion.

  General Henning von Tresckow was a key conspirator in the Stauffenberg plot. He committed suicide near Bialystok on 21 July 1944.

  Fabian von Schlabrendorff was arrested on 20 July 1944 following the failure of the plot to kill Hitler and was brought before the infamous People’s Court of Roland Freisler. He was tortured but refused to talk and was sent to a concentration camp; he survived the war and died in 1980.

  Admiral Wilhelm Canaris was an active conspirator against Hitler and was involved in as many as ten to fifteen plots to kill him. He was arrested after the July plot and executed on 9 April 1945 at Flossenburg concentration camp just a few weeks before the end of the war in Europe.

  Philip von Boeselager was one of the few 20 July conspirators to survive the war. His role went undetected and he died in 2008.

  The chief executioner at Katyn, one Major Vasili Mikhailovich Blokhin, died insane and alcoholic in 1955.

  The fates of Judge Goldsche, Lieutenant Voss and Gregor Sloventzik are unknown to the author.

  There really was a demonstration in Rosenstrasse organized by the wives of the last Jews in Berlin in March 1943. There is a Litfass column there today that commemorates the event, and a piece of sculpture named Block der Frauen in a park not far from the site of the protest.

  Medical experiments on communists really were carried out by fascist doctors in Spain following the republican defeat in 1939 at a clinic in Ciempozuelos, which was headed by another criminal called Dr Antonio Vallejo Nágera. Those who are interested should read Paul Preston’s excellent book The Spanish Holocaust for more information.

  The Jewish Hospital in Berlin was liberated by the Russians in 1945 and 800 Jews were found alive. I am indebted to Daniel Silver’s book Refuge in Hell: How Berlin’s Jewish Hospital Outlasted the Nazis, for my information on this.