Prussian Blue

by Philip Kerr

“Look, I hate to sound penny-pinching regarding the Leader’s comfort and relaxation but doesn’t any of this strike as you just a little bit insane?”

  “I can only say this,” she said. “That Hitler is no ordinary man.”

  “That much is obvious. There’s nothing very ordinary about a man who owns a rug that costs fifty thousand reichsmarks. But this is the only thing that’s obvious right now. This and the fact that Flex was clearly taking money from people listed in his ledger as employed by P&Z and Sager, who don’t actually seem to have been employed by P&Z and Sager. At least none who can show any normal employment record. And the trouble with this is that when someone has a job that doesn’t exist it’s only a racket if they’re being paid for that job. According to these files they’re not. I hate to say this but on the face of things, you’re right. There’s no obvious sign of criminality in these records. Clearly we’re missing something. But I don’t know what it is.”

  “Let’s take a break,” said Gerdy. “I’m tired. I don’t have the stamina for this that you do. I’m just a designer, not a cop. I think you need an accountant.”

  I followed her into the kitchen, where she filled a glass Silex with coffee and water and put it on the big gas stove. On the wall was a print of one of those awful fruit and vegetable portraits that make apples and grapes look like grotesque, erupting skin conditions. This one made me believe it was quite possible I had a marrow for a head and a tomato for a brain. But none of it looked any more ridiculous than having your jaw tied up with a necktie. I was a natural for a picture by one of those artists.

  “You’re hoping I’m wrong about all this,” I said. “I can understand that.”

  “Look, are you absolutely sure that Johann Brandner is innocent?”

  “You have my word on it. When Karl Flex was shot, Brandner was three hundred kilometers away, in a hospital in Nuremberg. He went there suffering from the effects of malnutrition after spending six months in Dachau. Courtesy of Martin Bormann for obstructing the sale of his business premises in Obersalzberg to OA.”

  “I remember him,” she said sadly. “When I first came here, I tried to support some of the local businesses by giving them work. He printed some films for me. Pictures my late husband, Paul, took that had never been processed. He certainly didn’t strike me back then as a man capable of murder.”

  “I don’t know that he’s capable of anything now that the RSD have knocked him around. They made him sign a confession.”

  “Who did that?”

  “Rattenhuber. Högl.”

  “Yes, they would.” Gerdy Troost frowned. “Look, there is one thing that might be relevant. I don’t know.”

  “What?”

  “Something Wilhelm Brückner once told me. Something he was a bit angry about—that Martin Bormann had arranged a while back. I’m afraid I’ve only just remembered it.”

  “Which was?”

  “Brückner’s the kind of man who believes in the army as an idea. Serving in the army and then the Freikorps was the best thing that ever happened to him until he met Hitler. You’ve got to remember that during the war he served in the Bavarian Army with great distinction.”

  “And?”

  “Well, about a year ago Brückner heard that any kind of work for the Obersalzberg Administration was to be classed as a reserved occupation. It was Bormann’s idea to make sure that all of the OA works proceeded as quickly as possible. It’s what he calls a Leader Priority. In other words, if you work for P&Z, or Sager, or Danneberg, or any of these other local construction companies, this work is classed as being as important as being a coal miner or a worker in a factory making airplanes, and you don’t have to serve in the army. At least for as long as you’re employed by the OA. Of course, Brückner thought that was outrageous and unpatriotic. That it was the duty of every good German to serve his country in the army, and not with a pick and shovel.”

  “Tell that to the German Labor Front.”

  “Not that he ever said any of this to Martin Bormann. Or Hitler, for that matter. I mean, he couldn’t. Wilhelm may be an SS general and the chief adjutant at the Berghof, but that’s still not enough cauliflower on his lapel to take on Bormann. Besides, ever since his car accident and the affair with Sophie Stork, things haven’t been going that well for poor Wilhelm. Bormann is just looking for an excuse to persuade Hitler to get rid of him. Crossing his lordship is simply not an option. Which reminds me, Gunther. If anything does come of your investigation, would you please make sure that you leave my name out of this? If Hitler finds out that I was behind the fall of his most trusted servant, I’ll be on the first train back to Munich.”

  “That isn’t going to be much of a problem. Right now my investigation seems to be turning up absolutely nothing. I feel like the dumbest Fritz in the regiment. When I was in the army that was always the chaplain. In the trenches only the chaplain was dumb enough to believe in the existence of God. Today, well, I suppose it would be anyone who believes there isn’t going to be a war. I sometimes wonder what’s going to happen to all those naïve young men who put on an army uniform with such alacrity. I fear they’re in for a very rude shock. I did my bit, but you know, things were different then. Back in 1914, I think Germany was probably no worse than the Tommies or the Franzis. Now, if there is going to be another war there won’t be any doubt who started it. Not this time.”

  “Maybe you’re not as dumb as you look,” she said, tugging playfully at the tie underneath my chin.

  “That’s always possible. But I’m feeling a lot dumber than I expected to feel. I was quite sure that I’d have some answers by now. It’s beginning to look as though poor Johann Brandner is doomed to become a lead paperweight after all.”

  “Bernie, you can’t allow that to happen.”

  “I’m trying my best but I can’t see how even Bormann can take a cut from people for a job they’re not actually paid for.”

  “Maybe the pay for the job isn’t the point.”

  “That’s what I always tell myself when the Ministry of the Interior sends me my wages every month, but people won’t pay out for what they haven’t had. Even to Nazis.”

  “Maybe they will. If there’s something else they’re getting instead of money.”

  “Like what? A cup of tea with Hitler once a year?”

  “Listen, Gunther, this might sound crazy—”

  “Here, in Berchtesgaden? Nothing sounds crazy in a place where they spend thirty million on a lousy tea house. Nietzsche and Mad King Ludwig would feel right at home in this town.”

  “You don’t suppose it’s possible that Karl Flex decided to take advantage of this reserved occupation status for OA employees, do you? On Bormann’s instructions, perhaps? To offer young men and their parents a way of avoiding military service in return for money. Could the B next to all these names stand for befreit? Exempt?”

  I thought about this for a moment and smoked another cigarette while she made the coffee. Surely it would have been courting disaster to operate such a scheme. Because it wasn’t just Wilhelm Brückner who regarded being in the army as something almost holy, it was Adolf Hitler, too. He was always running off at the mouth about how the German army had shaped his life and destiny.

  “It could,” I said. “But Bormann would be running a hell of a risk, wouldn’t he? If Hitler found out about it.”

  Gerdy shook her head. “Hitler isn’t the Lord of Obersalzberg, that’s Martin Bormann. Bormann’s like Cardinal Richelieu, Bernie. And Hitler is like King Louis XIII. The Leader isn’t a man who’s at all interested in details. He’s quite happy to leave everything like that to Bormann. Administration bores him. And Bormann takes advantage of that. The man has a genius for administration. Hitler appreciates that. In which case Bormann might easily feel sufficiently omnipotent on Hitler’s mountain that he could get away with a scheme like this, especially when it’s operated at arm�
��s length.”

  “And even if Hitler did ever complain about it, then he could blame everything on Flex and the other men running these schemes at one remove.” The more I thought about Gerdy’s idea, the more I realized it wasn’t just possible, it was probable. “Yes, that might work. In fact, that might work very well.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yes, this is what I call a proper racket,” I said. “Let’s face it. Only the most fanatical Nazi actually wants to go and fight in Poland. Not with the possibility of the Soviet Union and the French coming in on the Polish side. That would put us right back to 1914. A war on two fronts. Stay out of the army, stay alive—you don’t have to be Leibniz to understand that kind of equation.”

  I sipped the coffee and nodded. Now that she’d mentioned it, the racket seemed blindingly obvious. Who wouldn’t want to pay money to keep their eldest son or a beloved nephew out of the army?

  “Clever girl.” I grinned at her. “You know, I really think you’ve put your finger on it, Professor. There are hundreds of names on Karl Flex’s list. And not just here in Berchtesgaden, but also in every town between here and Munich. This racket is being operated right across Bavaria.”

  “Almost fifteen hundred,” said Gerdy. “I counted them.”

  “Given the strong possibility of a war in Europe this year, a racket like this one would be worth a lot of money. According to the ledger, each of them is paying the equivalent of almost a hundred reichsmarks a year, so that’s a hundred and fifty thousand reichsmarks. And all of it going into the accounts of Martin Bormann and his collectors.”

  “But what’s the point of it if you can just charge a new Savonnerie carpet to the government?”

  “Because at any moment the whole gravy train might just come off the rails. Even the Lord of Obersalzberg has to prepare for a rainy day. To have some cash salted away for his possible exile. And on the basis of these numbers, there’s plenty of cash to be made from this particular cow.”

  “If it’s true, then you should certainly take this to Albert Bormann,” said Gerdy.

  “If it’s true? It has to be true.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “There’s no other possible explanation. You don’t think it is true?”

  “It certainly looks that way, yes, but—look, you’ve got a persuasive argument. But proof needs more than that. It needs real evidence. Hard evidence.”

  “You’re right. It’s been so long since we bothered with that kind of thing in the police that I’d almost forgotten how it works. To prove this to Albert Bormann’s satisfaction I need to lean on someone who will go on the record. A witness. One of the names on Flex’s B list.” I ran my forefinger down the names in the ledger. “This fellow, for example. Hubert Waechter, from Maximilianstrasse, here in Berchtesgaden. There’s a local Nazi lawyer with the same surname at this address. I imagine it means that the father has paid to keep his son out of the army. Very sensible of him. And rather loathsome. I had dealings with him on another matter. But I’d still like to find out what these other lists mean. The P list and the Ag list. What are those rackets about?

  “One of these names appears on all three lists in this ledger. The B list, the P list, and the Ag list. What’s more, it’s a name I’ve come across before. On a bogus suicide note. Something in my bones makes me fancy him for the murder of Karl Flex. I don’t think the B list gives me a clear motive for murder. But maybe the P list and the Ag list will provide me with one. Who knows? It’s just possible that I might hit two rabbits with one bullet. That I can nail Flex’s murderer and Martin Bormann at the same time.”

  I finished my coffee and rubbed my hands.

  “So let’s go and see if we can persuade this particular Fritz to spill his guts.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “I told you. I’ll lean on him. Bormann’s not the only man who can throw his weight around the trench.”

  “In which case you really don’t need me, Gunther. I’m not so heavy around this time of night. Not in these shoes.”

  I took her little hand and explored it for a moment before I fetched it to my lips. Gerdy blushed a little but didn’t snatch her hand away. She just let me kiss it, fondly, as if she knew how much I appreciated her help and knew what it was costing her to help me like this. Maybe she wasn’t the kind of woman I thought she was. Women never are what you think they are. It’s one of the things that makes them interesting. Either way, I liked her. Admired her, even. I wasn’t about to do anything about that, though. With so many Nazis on the scene, courting her would have been courting disaster. Like wooing a nun in the Sistine Chapel. Besides, Gerdy Troost was in love with someone else, that much was clear. I was just mad enough to think I stood a quarter of a chance of bringing down Martin Bormann, but not mad enough to think I could compete with Adolf Hitler in the affections of a woman who still clearly believed he was a demigod.

  She smiled. “I’ll drive you back to the Villa Bechstein, where you can pick up your friend Korsch and your car. But when you’re ready to speak to Albert, come and fetch me. Any time. I’ll only be reading, probably.”

  For a moment I pictured her reading Hitler’s book again, and winced.

  “I don’t sleep much when I’m here in Obersalzberg,” she added. “No one does. Only Barbarossa.”

  “Maybe I should speak to him, too.”

  “You can try.”

  “Take him for a drive in your car. That should wake him up a bit. In fact, I’d be surprised if he ever slept again.”

  FIFTY-THREE

  April 1939

  I was always a keen reader and learned at my mother’s knee. My favorite book was Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz. I had a copy at home in Berlin in a locked drawer because it was a forbidden book, of course. The Nazis had burned a great many of Döblin’s books in 1933 but every so often I’d get out my own signed copy of his most famous work and read bits aloud, to remind myself of the good old Weimar Republic. But the fact is, I’ll read anything. Anything at all. I’ve read everything from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe to Karl May. Several years ago I even read Adolf Hitler’s book My Struggle. I found it predictably combative but here and there I also thought it was perceptive, although only about the war. A critic I’m not, but in my humble opinion there’s no book that’s so bad that you can’t get something from it, even that one. For example, Hitler said that words build bridges into unexplored regions. As it happens, a detective does much the same thing, only sometimes he can end up wishing he’d left those regions alone. Hitler also said that great liars are great magicians. A good detective is also a kind of magician, one who is sometimes capable of making those suspects he has assembled theatrically in the library utter a collective gasp as he works his revelatory magic. But that wasn’t about to happen here, more’s the pity. Another thing Hitler said was that it’s not truth that matters, but victory. Now, I know there are plenty of cops who feel the same way but usually the truth is the best victory I can think of. I could go on in this vein but it boils down to just this: as Friedrich Korsch drove us to Johann Diesbach’s address in Kuchl, I was thinking a lot about Gerdy Troost reading that damn book in her rooms at the Berghof, and I couldn’t help but reflect that since arriving in Berchtesgaden I’d had quite a struggle myself. Most murder investigations are a struggle but this one had been especially so because it’s rare, even in Germany, that someone tries to kill you during the course of your inquiry. I hadn’t yet worked out what I was going to do about Dr. Brandt but I wasn’t about to let him get away with the murder of Hermann Kaspel. Not if I could help it. There had to be something I could do. Now, that really was going to be a struggle. And I said as much to Korsch as the car labored up the mountain road. He listened carefully and said, “You want my opinion, boss?”

  “Probably not. But we’re friends, so you might as well give it to me.”

  “Yo
u should take your own advice a bit more often.”

  “Remind me.”

  “How can you possibly nail Hitler’s doctor for a murder? What the hell does it matter if they execute Brandner for Flex’s murder? Who cares if Martin Bormann is a crook? The Nazis are just like every king we ever had in Holy Germany. From Charles V to Kaiser Wilhelm II. They all think that their best arguments come from the barrel of a gun. So. While we can still walk away from here, before one of those guns shoots you, or even worse, shoots me, we should quit now.”

  “I can’t do that, Friedrich.”

  “I know. But look, I had to say it. Your trouble is that you’re the worst kind of detective there is. A German detective. No, it’s worse than that; you’re a Prussian detective. You don’t just believe in your own competence and efficiency, you make a damn fetish out of it. You think your devotion to the job is a virtue, but it’s not. With you it’s a vice. You can’t help yourself. It’s something that runs through your character like the black stripe on the old Prussian flag. That’s your problem, boss. If you investigate a case you have to do it scrupulously and to the very best of your ability. Realism and common sense are powerless against your pigheaded devotion to doing the job as efficiently as it’s possible to do it. And this takes away all your better judgment about the wisdom of what you’re doing. You just don’t know when it’s in your own interest to stop. That’s why Heydrich uses you. Because you always stay the course. You’re like Schmeling; you keep getting up even though the fight is lost. To that extent you’re the most Prussian man I’ve ever met. I admire you, Bernie. I also can’t help but think that there’s a real danger you’re always destined to be your own life’s saboteur.”

  “I’m glad I asked. It’s kind of refreshing to have the truth, even if it does feel like a slap in the face.”

  “It’s fortunate for you I’m driving, boss. Otherwise that’s what you’d get right now. Commissar or not.”

  “I had no idea you had such a keen understanding of me. Or indeed were such a keen philosopher.”