Nuremberg

by William F. Buckley, Jr.

  “Did you handle half-breeds in Joni?”

  “Half-Breeds First Degree? Oh yes, under our laws they are fully Jewish. To be exterminated.”

  “And half-breeds of the second degree?”

  “By our code they are reunited with the Aryan race, but with two qualifications. The first is that if the descendant is of a bastard marriage, he is to be treated as a Jew. A second qualifier — that would be Clause B, under Section Two — if the subjects outer appearance makes him look Jewish, then the final solution called for his elimination.”

  Amadeus paused. “I wish they would let us have a cigarette here in the cell...I was talking about other peoples’ perspectives, and the challenge of my brother to try to look through such a person’s eyes. I do not mind telling you — I suppose it does not matter, if you wish to report this to your superior — that I am greatly deterred by what would surely be interpreted as a capitulation by me to the assumptions and formalities of a tribunal which is so blind as not to understand that it is engaged quite simply in racial vengeance.”

  The loudspeaker blared out the dinner signal. Amadeus looked to the cell door, visibly annoyed. The trays would be brought in within minutes.

  Amadeus turned to Sebastian. “I said before that I thought you looked part Jewish. I was being provocative.”

  The guard outside called in. “Time, Lieutenant.”

  Amadeus said, “I will be seeing you again. You agree to see me again?”

  “Those are my orders, General.”

  Shake hands with him ? Sebastian wondered.

  Amadeus did not initiate a handshake.

  Sebastian was relieved. He nodded and walked out of the opened door. He didn’t know whether he’d have extended his hand, if that terrible man had extended his.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  January 1946

  Sebastian knew he’d have to give serious thought to the idea of moving to Musikerstrasse — he wouldn’t welcome doubling up at the hotel. The two officers hailed what advertised itself as a bus and was heading, Harry declared, in the right direction. What had stopped, at their signal, was a converted army truck. The entrepreneur had provided boarding steps and even a handrail to permit passengers to make their way to the benches on either side. Twenty passengers could sit, and a few extra stand, holding on to the painted pipe that ran overhead. The cost of the ride was five pfennigs. The driver-entrepreneur gave off exuberance, written or verbal, wherever, whenever possible, at intersections, stop signs, passenger stops. Hand-painted signs on both sides of the bus, red on yellow, were in German and in English.

  WELCOME TO THE NEW GERMANY!

  TELL YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT HERMANN’S LIMOUSINE BUS SERVICE! Empfehlen Sie Ihren Freunden Bus - und - Limousinendienst — Dienst von Hermann .

  The happy entrepreneur wore dark glasses, even though the light was now very dim. He reached out to shake hands with every passenger who boarded. He was perhaps sixteen years old.

  Two hours later, using the same conveyance, they were back at the Grand, seated at their usual table by the bar. Sebastian started in, confirming his awe. “I think Teresa is a really attractive lady.”

  “She likes you, too. I could tell.”

  Sebastian thought to get back to the Nuremberg agenda. “Let’s think a bit about the goddam trial. If we knew it was going to be over at the end of March or even April, I guess we could double up at the Grand without too much pain. Hell, six months ago I was sharing quarters with thirty candidates at officers’ school, a couple of months before that, with sixty privates doing basic training.”

  “Yep. We both know what we’ve been through. But I’ve liked private quarters since back when I started flying missions. And we’ve both got desk work to do at night, work that takes thinking. And anyway, Sebby, we both know the trial isn’t going to end in April — more like January 1947. No, that’s bad-news horseshit. But it is going to go...a long time.”

  The waiter asked if they wanted another beer. The answer was yes.

  “Have you made any calculations?” Sebastian pressed. “Today is January 11th, 1946, and we’ve only just finished the prosecution’s case against Nazi organizations , plus viewed the documentary. We’re ready to go only just now with the indictments of individual defendants — ”

  “How long do you figure for that?”

  “Say, one day each? We’ve been going at the rate of six days of trial work per week. That would take us to mid-February. Then the defense begins...Harry, would you mind blowing your smoke just a little away from my face?”

  “How long do you calculate for the defense?”

  “Everything depends on the bench, what they permit, what they don’t permit. The last thing they want to do is encourage the idea that this is an assembly-line trial.”

  “Does your ongoing business with Amadeus have a bearing on all this?”

  “I think it probably does. Carver hasn’t laid it out in just so many words. But I figure: If Amadeus decided to change to a guilty plea, word of that might have an effect on the piss-on-all-of-you Goering phalanx. If that happened, and the defense just wilted, that could save us some time.”

  “Yep. But you can’t expect these people to go to the gallows without whatever braking action motions they can come up with.”

  “No. And of course after the defense we get the actual trial. I don’t see any way to get out before midsummer...Let’s listen a minute.” The piano player was doing imitations of Fats Waller. There was a smattering of applause. “Fats Waller deserves that,” Harry agreed.

  Sebastian hadn’t thought to ask the question before: “Harry, how are you on the discharge point system?”

  “You need sixty of those precious things to go to the top of the line, as of last week. I’m up to forty-one. Year and a half training, year and a half combat duty, plus four months here. I figure if I were doing regular duty, I’d qualify for a discharge maybe in June. How about you?”

  “I’m low on points. All I’ve had is basic training, officer candidate school, infantry training — till we started here. But they did tell me, when I was recruited in Camp Gordon, that when the trial was over, I’d qualify for discharge.” He brought the beer glass to his lips and, before drinking, laughed with affected hysteria. “I guess my option would be to spend the rest of my life interviewing General Amadeus.”

  “So you get out more or less contractually — but only when the trial is over.” Albright thought about it. “They’re giving you some priority they’re not giving me — and I had combat duty. I could qualify to get out before the trial is over, with my points adding up every month, but they might find some special-need reason to keep me in.”

  “Is your work something other people with less training could handle?”

  “Up to a point. My little kraut, Hans, knows it all, the whole sound scene, and he has some English by now. They’d need me for special problems. There’s a lot going on in that courtroom, but I get bored after a while.”

  “Harry, it sounds like you could take a few days off.”

  “Hey, remember when you went flitting off to London on leave, and us technicians had to stay here? But nowadays I wouldn’t want to be anywhere Teresa wasn’t.”

  “I’d like a few extra days myself. Down the line, at some point. I want to go to Munich. I’ve heard a lot about Munich — and Innsbruck — from my grandmother. I’d poke around a bit, hear the Munich Symphony, maybe see if I can find my great-uncle. Leddihn — that’s my grandparents’ family.”

  “Okay. But meanwhile, we’ve got to decide on Teresa’s apartment. That’s where I’m headed. I’m going to move my gear before the Friday deadline. It would be nice if you rented her other room. And with the savings on the housing allowance, we could fix up the place a bit.”

  Sebastian began to focus on the sunnier side of it all, off-hours at Musikerstrasse. “Yes. Get a few more books in there, some couches, headlamps, a record player...I think, Harry, we’d have to become pretty regular patrons of Herma
nn’s Limousine Bus Service.”

  “So? If the bus is there when we set out, we climb on board. Otherwise, we walk.”

  “And there are always jeeps running around.”

  Sebastian hesitated for a moment. Harry Albright looked at him eagerly, hoping for the nod. “Tell you what, Harry, let’s go with Musikerstrasse. Well pay Teresa the fifty bucks rent and commit the sixty bucks left over for a Musikerstrasse renovation fund. Make up a little bit for the bomb you dropped there. High time you thought of compensating for what you’ve done. What are you planning to do for Hamburg?”

  First Lieutenant Albright raised his beer glass in enthusiastic endorsement of the idea.

  “Be nice to break the glass against the fireplace,” Sebastian said, “in the old feudal tradition. But Colonel Andrus would put us in a prison cell.”

  “Shall we drink to Colonel Andrus?”

  “No. But let’s drink to the United States Secretary of the Army. And his pledge to return four hundred thousand GIs from the Pacific in four months. Eventually he’ll get around to — Yes! Let’s drink to us.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Winter 1946

  Present at the hastily called meeting in Justice Jacksons chambers were three men. The two preeminent colonels — John Harlan Amen, in charge of prosecutorial arrangements, Burton Andrus, in charge of the Palace — and the security chief, Major Allard Fitzgerald.

  Justice Jackson could be easygoing and affable — his personal secretary very nearly took his affability to the altar — but he could be direct when on single-minded duty. Today’s problem had nothing to do with the prosecution of war criminals. Somebody, some criminal on the loose, or, in any event, someone criminally minded, had shot a pistol into the front seat of the Soviet prosecutor’s limousine, on which two men sat. The gun discharged, the assailant had run off unhampered, his features seen, perhaps, but unremarked. The bullet didn’t hurt the prosecutor, but killed the driver alongside.

  “You will not be surprised, gentlemen, that Pravda this morning alleges that the assassination was done by an American.”

  “Do we know that it wasn’t ?” Fitzgerald asked.

  Jackson turned on him sharply. “Whatever there is to know, it’s your business to know it, Fitzgerald. You’ve spoken, of course, with the Nuremberg police. What have they got?”

  “They’ve got nothing, Justice. Zero.”

  “Has anybody come up with a motive for shooting Rudenko’s driver?”

  “No. We figure he wasn’t the intended victim.”

  “Who was?”

  “Colonel Likhatchev.”

  “Why him? He’s the chief examining magistrate, right, Colonel Amen?”

  “Yes.”

  Jackson thought about it. “Well, if we’re looking for a motive, Likhatchev would qualify. He’s hardly popular with the prisoners he’s torn to pieces here — ”

  “Or with those he examined at Lubyanka before he got here — if there are any left alive.”

  “Yes. The defendants do have friends, and one or more of them may be fanatical and are perhaps roaming around Nuremberg with loaded pistols. But why, Fitz? What we have is a dead driver on our hands.”

  “Rudenko — he’s your Soviet counterpart, Mr. Justice — ”

  “I know that. I confer with him ten times every week.”

  “ — Rudenko rides around a lot in a fancy limousine. His favorite limo — this particular one — was liberated from Hitler’s private car pool. He almost always carried Likhatchev with him, riding in the front seat next to the driver. Only this time Likhatchev had stepped out of the car when the bullet homed in — hitting the driver.”

  Jackson sighed. “So I can report to the State Department that no one has any reason to suppose involvement by an American in the assassination. Correct?”

  Fitzgerald said, “Yes sir.” Jackson looked across the table; no one demurred.

  “Okay, so much for the killing of the driver. Now here’s what I don’t know. Rudenko — I like Rudenko. You like him, Colonel Amen?”

  “He’s a good prosecutor.”

  “Well, just two weeks ago he called me. This was before you came aboard, Fitzgerald. I dealt with your predecessor...”

  “Major Lowenstein.”

  “Yes. Rudenko called and asked me to get him permission to fly a Russian body out of here — out of the American zone — to Russia. We’re talking about the late assistant prosecutor Zorya.

  “Rudenko said that his assistant had a fatal accident. That was assistant prosecutor Major-General Nikolai Dmitriyevich Zorya. I took down the interpreter’s phrase. Zorya ‘perished owing to the incautious usage of a firearm.’ We got him the permission to fly out to Moscow, of course. After which I clammed up. I mean I really did clam up. What I did was write just one note to Ike, because he knew Zorya. I told him I thought it very unusual that a major-general should kill himself while cleaning a gun. I said it was especially peculiar that he should clean it while loaded, with the muzzle against his forehead.

  “Now I’m bringing this up, and calling your attention to it, because what’s going on is — Soviet politics. You saw yesterday, Comrade Stalin declaring that war didn’t resolve the struggle between socialism and capitalism? We know that. We also knew that when Stalin got into bed with Hitler in 1939 — ”

  He stopped. Bob Jackson wouldn’t deny his colleagues this historical gossip. “Speaking of the Soviet scene, here’s something from the Nazi scene. Bill Shirer sent me a draft chapter of the book he’s working on, a history of the Third Reich. Shirer’s dug up a mountain of Hitler’s papers. Some really spooky stuff. Shirer reports that after Stalin signed the Nazi-Soviet pact — August 1939 — Ribbentrop flew back from Moscow with the signed treaty and brought with him a photograph of Stalin signing it. Ribbentrop, of course, signed it on behalf of Germany. Ribbentrop wanted an okay to send the photo on to the press. But Hitler looked at it real hard — because, he said to Ribbentrop, he wanted to make sure he didn’t spot any Jewishness in Stalin’s face! If Stalin was part Jewish, Hitler didn’t want his photograph reproduced!”

  Jackson leaned back in laughter. “And then, Shirer told me, the photograph of Stalin signing the pact showed a lit cigarette in his mouth. Hitler instructed Ribbentrop to have the cigarette air-brushed out before sending it on to the papers.”

  “That story makes me want to smoke,” Fitzgerald said. “Any objection?”

  Jackson waved him to go ahead. And then got back to business.

  “Whatever Pravda is up to — saying it was an American who fired the shot — we just stay out of it . We are not going to get into the whole Communist business here. We faced the basic question before the London Conference, which was that sure, the Soviets are guilty of just about everything we are gathered here to condemn legally. But these aren’t points that are going to be raised, if we can prevent that from happening. Certainly not by us. The judges in the tribunal — our people — are fully indoctrinated on that point and they’ll gavel down defense attorneys who bring up Soviet atrocities. No tu quoque , dear , they’ll tell learned counsel.”

  Amen said, “Obviously the Soviets aren’t going to bring up Soviet atrocities, and I assume the Brits are wired in — they’d have to be. But are you so sure the French will clam up on the subject? General de Gaulle isn’t in power right now, but he knows how to raise his voice, all the way from Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises to Nuremberg, Bavaria.”

  “Put it this way, John. We’re not expecting any French fire on that subject. As far as we’re concerned, I know none of you is about to give a speech picking a fight with Stalin — or with Pravda , same thing. But when we get things like the Zorya quote unquote suicide, and the shooting into the Soviet limo, we say only two things: a) Too bad about the shooting accident, and b) No American had anything to do with the killing of the driver. Any comment?”

  Fitzgerald spoke. “Sir, in my press briefing, what do I say if a reporter asks me to comment on the Pravda charge that it was
a U.S. serviceman who shot the driver?”

  “Say you know nothing about anything that might have given grounds for any such suspicion, et cetera, et cetera. God, this place is really crawling with press people. But that’s our fault. Right, gentlemen?”

  He got up.

  When that happened, they all knew the meeting was ended.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  February 1946

  A wintry month had gone by and the prosecution rolled on with its indictments. Amadeus had three times summoned Sebastian. He bantered mostly about his early years of service to the National Socialist Party and spoke of the pride he had felt seeing Adolf Hitler riding up the Champs-Elysées in his car.

  “Has he decided on the changing of his plea?” Harry asked.

  “No. The next time around, I’m going to press him a little harder on that. A strange man. He can speak like a normal, even attentive, human being. If he came by in hospital garb and I was in a sickbed, I’d take him, after a minute or two, as a caring young doctor.”

  Harry didn’t comment.

  They had thrown themselves with gusto into the enterprise of reconstructing 301 Musikerstrasse. Teresa undertook to do all the repainting. She liked to sing Lieder when she worked, her voice a slight bel canto. Sebastian, applying the sandpaper, recalled his experiences as a teenager on summer nights with fellow staff at the Grand Canyon. They would avail themselves, after the professional maintenance workers were done for the day, of the woodworking shop and undertake to repair assorted broken objects they acquired, occasionally creating wooden oddments (he made Henrietta a handsome crucifix). He remembered the worn canoe he had refinished.