“You think I’m stupid, huh? You think I don’t know anything? You think I don’t hear constant rumors about all your women in Vienna? You could at least have some decency to keep it quiet, but no, you have no shame to take your whores to restaurants, theatres, everywhere, and on top of it you act as if it’s the most natural thing to do.”
“I’m going to my parents’ house,” I informed her coldly, not in the mood for yet another fight.
“Are you coming back at least?” She folded her arms over her chest again.
“I don’t know. It depends on how father is feeling.” I put on my uniform jacket and picked up my belt from the chair in the hallway.
“So you’re staying over there for the night again.”
I stopped at the door and turned around.
“Lisl, I’m spending the night by my dying father, not some Viennese girl! Is that allowed?!”
Not waiting for her response, I slammed the door behind me and headed to my car. And she was wondering why I showed up once every few weeks. I couldn’t stand her constant nagging for more than ten minutes, how about that for a reason? And we’d only been married for four years. Wasn’t it a little too early to start hating each other?
Not in the best disposition, I was speeding through the evening streets, comforting myself with the thoughts of that great Italian cabernet, the whole case of which I brought to my parents from Vienna. Having Italians as our allies now certainly had its perks. I smiled, and then frowned again, recalling my mother’s face when she saw that I alone had gone through three bottles already. I probably needed to stop drinking in front of her at least.
My father was still awake, and surprisingly of very clear consciousness, as he greeted me as soon as I walked through the door of his bedroom.
“Ah, my oldest son.” He outstretched his arm towards me. I took his cool palm in my hands and sat on the side of his bed, my mind still refusing to wrap itself around his terminal state; his face, so unusually pale and gaunt, and his sudden bed-ridden weakness. It had all happened too fast for me to grasp it, how the piece of shrapnel that he carried for years after the Great War had found its way to his spine and caused a cancerous tumor grow within just a few months. The best doctors I could get my hands on were unanimously spreading their arms out with a helpless gesture, expressing the same opinion: the tumor couldn’t be operated on and the best they could do was to provide him with an endless supply of morphine to ease his pain. Just a couple of days ago we were told that he was going to pass away any day now.
“How are you feeling, Pa?”
“I’m good, son.”
“No, he’s not good,” my mother, who never left his side, chimed in reproachfully. “He refused to take his medicine this evening. Tell him that it’s important, Ernst. He wouldn’t listen to me.”
“Oh, be quiet now, Therese!” my father shushed her, his eyes shining especially brightly tonight, without the usual calming effect of the sedatives. “I need all my wits to talk to my son, and I can’t do it with that goddamn stuff you keep pricking me with!”
He turned back to me, studying my face as if he saw me for the first time, or as if he was trying to memorize it for the last. I forced a smile at him.
“You look good in your uniform,” he said after a pause, sliding his glance onto my new Brigadeführer’s markings. “Very handsome.”
“Gee, Pa,” I chuckled. “Never expected that from you.”
He waved his hand, dismissing my remark.
“Ah, what do you know? You don’t think I love you? I’ve always did, more than your brothers even. Don’t tell them that, but… I’ve always had the highest hopes in you. That’s why I was so terribly disappointed with the path you chose.”
“You were disappointed when our Party wasn’t in power and I was in political exile. Look at me now. I’m an SS Brigadeführer, I’m the official leader of the Austrian SS, I’m the Secretary of State and the head of the Austrian intelligence. I didn’t end up on the gallows or in jail like you were so afraid of, and I’m walking the streets freely and wearing my black uniform proudly. Are you still disappointed?” I smiled at him.
He shook his head sadly at me.
“It’s not the end yet, Ernst.”
“Oh, Pa, the Roman empire fell apart eventually too. It doesn’t mean that I’m going to live long enough to see the end of the German Reich.”
“It can happen faster than you think with that Führer of yours.”
“Pa, let’s not start again.”
“Maybe it’s my fault, on the other hand,” he proceeded, without any hostility in his voice. “I shouldn’t have started dragging you with me to all those meetings. You caught the wrong ideas from them, met the wrong people. We wanted decent treatment from the allies, we wanted the restoration of our dignity. But we never aimed at world domination, like Hitler does now.”
I decided to let that last comment of his pass without any objections. I didn’t want to fight with him over politics again. My father smiled at me with a corner of his mouth again.
“I should have let you be friends with that Katzman girl probably.”
“I can’t believe you still remember the Katzman girl.” I chuckled, surprised.
“I used to see her from time to time, when she would pass by her father’s office.”
“I’ve heard they’ve closed down recently. Werner told me that he saw a Star of David painted on their window,” my mother remarked from behind my back.
“Yes, that’s the new directive, from above,” I explained, without looking at her.
“They’re going after our Austrian Jews now?” my father asked sulkily.
“Don’t be such a hypocrite.” I squinted my eyes at him. “You’ve hated Jews your whole life.”
“I never hated them,” he replied calmly. “I wanted them to move away and give the working positions back to our lot. But your NSDAP took our idea and twisted it to the point where they will start killing them openly soon. We were the nationalists, yes, and we didn’t want those Orthodox Jews here. We didn’t really mind the assimilated ones, given that they live by our traditions. But your Führer came up with the idea of racial purity and wants to get rid of all of them now. We never meant to harm them. We only wanted to feed our families first over those bearded beggars who flooded the country. Them we didn’t want. We thought that it’s only fair that we have our privileges first, since it’s our country, and they’re living off our income. Your Party made it all go so wrong… just because of one madman.”
“If it’s going to make you feel better, I have nothing to do with Jews or that directive against them,” I told him.
“You’re the leader of the Austrian SS, you said? It means they’ll make you soon. That’s what the German SS does. You’ll see.”
“You’re confusing it with the SD.”
“All the same. They’ll start killing people by your hands.”
“No, they won’t.”
“Yes, they will. And you won’t be able to refuse because they finish off anybody who goes against them. What? Are you saying I’m wrong?”
I remembered Dollfuss, and Bruno, standing on the steps of the church, where his men had killed the priest just because I told him my secret. I shook my head slowly.
“You see? You already can’t quit it all.”
“I don’t want to quit. I’m not doing anything that goes against my conscience. I helped my country to reunite with the Reich, and I’m proud of it. Now I’m busy with foreign affairs, and espionage only. I don’t see anything wrong with it.”
“I wish you would meet somebody who would screw your head right, son. That wife of yours, she’s no good for you, with all her love for the Party,” my father said, pausing for a while before smiling. “I’m dying, Ernst. I know that I will die tonight. They say a dying man’s last wish is the most powerful thing. I don’t believe in all that superstitious crap, but hell, why not try? I wish that you would fall in love with somebody, who hates your Party
with a passion, I wish you would fall in love with some communist girl, and not just communist, some Jewish Bolshevik communist girl even, and maybe then her ideas will outweigh your stubbornness and your obsessiveness with your Führer. Maybe she’ll bang them inside your head with a gun if needed, but she’ll set you on the right path before it’s too late.”
“Oh, Pa! Why don’t you just condemn me to an eternity in hell for that matter?” I burst out laughing, imagining a future with the Jewish communist girl he just presented before me with all its vividness and ridiculousness.
“No, I don’t want you to get off too easily,” he replied with a mischievous smirk. “You come to my grave and bring me flowers when it happens.”
“It’s a deal. I’ll bring you a whole bouquet of red roses, as red as my future communist Jew-wife’s cover on her head, as soon as I fall in love with her. Agreed?” I couldn’t stop laughing.
“Agreed.” I was glad to see that my old man was laughing too. “I’ll see you then.”
He passed away peacefully in his sleep later that night. I slept in the chair next to his bed, and when I woke up to check on him, like I did every night when I sat by his bed, I could still see a smile on his lifeless face. I kissed him on the cold forehead gently, and said, “I love you, Pa. Despite whatever you said about my future wife.”
Chapter 17
Nuremberg, April 1946
Whatever you say will be used against you in a court of law. Such words were familiar to any lawyer or police worker; but I wasn’t representing anyone’s case today. Today, once again, I was sitting in the defendant’s booth, before the International Military Tribunal, and giving an account of every single atrocity committed under the rule of the Nazi regime; the regime I once so fiercely fought for and the one that I dreaded, after I started to realize how it brought a plague upon my German people, my fellow Austrians, and that it was me who helped to make it happen.
I caught Dr. Gilbert, the army psychiatrist’s, intent look on me again. He always stared at me with some unexplainable obsessiveness, as if trying to read my mind. I once asked him sarcastically if he really thought that his staring would help him see my true thoughts; to that he only smirked and replied haughtily that he didn’t need to read my mind to see that I was lying about almost everything that I was asked in court. I smirked too, and told him that he wasn’t that good of a psychiatrist then. I was telling the truth, well, for the most part. Only the truth nobody wanted to hear.
“I should like to state to the Tribunal that I am fully aware of the serious character of the charges against me,” I said on the very first day, right after I took the stand and pronounced the oath to say the truth and nothing but truth. “I know the hatred of the world is directed against me, particularly since Himmler, Müller, and Pohl are no longer alive, and I must be here, alone, to give an account to the world and the Tribunal. I realize that I shall have to tell the truth in this courtroom, in order to enable the court and the world to fully recognize and understand what has been going on in Germany during this war and to judge it with fairness. Right at the beginning, I would like to state that I assume responsibility for every wrong that was committed within the scope of the Reich Main Security Office since I was appointed Chief of the RSHA, and as far as it happened under my actual control, which means that I knew about it or was required to know about it.”
Today they were asking me about the final months of war, and about the order that I supposedly gave to kill every single inhabitant of the Mauthausen concentration camp. I knew myself well enough to know that I would have never given such an order, and I had two witnesses’ statements confirming that I dictated orders for the safety of the inhabitants in their presence. My lawyer, Dr. Kauffmann, had read Dr. Höttl’s, affidavit, my subordinate from the RSHA, which clearly stated that I gave the order to hand over all the prisoners of Mauthausen to the approaching occupying troops, absolutely unharmed. Colonel Amen, however, fished out someone else’s affidavit from the stack of papers, which said the opposite.
“Colonel, I don’t even know the name of the person who gave you this affidavit,” I interrupted him, not hiding any irritation. He had done it many times before: presented the court with clearly fabricated affidavits, given by witnesses who couldn’t be present at the cross interrogation because all of them were conveniently dead. “How could this – a Mauthausen camp internee you said he was? How could he possibly even know about such an order, and especially about the person who gave it?”
“He wrote down the words of the camp Kommandant, defendant,” Amen replied sternly, clearly not happy with my interruption. “You do remember the camp Kommandant, Ziereis?”
“Yes, I do know him.” Did. Until you shot him in the stomach three times and allowed the mob to hang his body on the camp gates.
“He gave this affidavit when he was dying. He said that he received an order from you to kill every single person in the camp.”
Yes, I’m sure those were his last words, Colonel, I almost said out loud, hardly restraining myself from displaying a smirk. He was dying, and during the last minutes he didn’t have any other thoughts? – Perhaps to delegate something to his wife or children, or to ask for a priest? No, he only had the burning desire to tell on his former bosses.
“This affidavit can easily be refuted by the other two that were presented here before by my lawyer,” I said instead, trying to keep my emotions under control. “And if this former internee really did take this affidavit, I would want to ask the court for a cross examination of him. I can easily refute his every word.”
“You can file your request later through your attorney, defendant.” Colonel Amen quickly looked away and skipped to a different question. I sighed. For some reason I already knew that my request wouldn’t go anywhere far, since the camp internee would be missing or dead as well.
Dr. Gilbert approached me again after the trial had adjourned for the day, as I was waiting for Dr. Kauffmann to sort out the papers for the following day.
“You could at least show some decency to all the victims of your gruesome crimes and admit at least this guilt.” He loved sending all kinds of remarks my way to make my day even worse than it already was.
“I can’t admit guilt for something I’m not guilty of,” I replied calmly, without looking at him.
“I know you’re lying.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Your body language.”
“Really?” Faking interest without too much enthusiasm, I tiredly lifted my head from my hands on which it was resting, while I was leaning on the board of the deck which separated me from Dr. Kauffman’s chair.
“Yes. While you’re sitting in the chair you’re constantly holding your hands around your stomach.” He went on to explain with an air of a university professor giving a lecture to first year students. “It points to two things: that you’re either hiding the truth or trying to protect yourself.”
“What if it’s the second thing?” I couldn’t hide an amused smile. Even a young MP Officer standing next to me smiled too.
“It’s not. We both know that out of all the defendants here that you’re the cruelest and obviously the most callous criminal. Aren’t you ashamed to lie so insolently to the face of the Tribunal, when an affidavit was read out about how you went laughing into the gas chamber to inspect it, and how you were joking around while you were supervising the executions later? If I were you, I’d at least show some respect to the victims and their families and confess to it all, but you clearly don’t have a heart to even care. You’re only thinking about saving your own neck.”
“Well, if you know me so well, Dr. Gilbert, I don’t see the point in arguing with you.”
He turned his lifeless face away from me.
_______________
Vienna, April 1938
Reinhard Heydrich’s lifeless face, stripped of any emotion, was the last thing I wanted to see in my new office. He seemed to share my sentiments, having probably been
brought here by Reichsführer Himmler, who flew out to Vienna from Berlin to personally instruct his new staff, and Arthur Seyss-Inquart as our new chief.
I stood at attention before Reichsführer, trying to ignore Heydrich and his feet on my desk, by which he comfortably positioned himself in my chair, once again rubbing my face into the superiority of his position and rank. I pretended to be listening to Himmler and his instructions, when in reality I was going through possible anti-Semitic insults I was going to sweetly throw in Heydrich’s way later on.
“Is everything clear to you on that matter, Brigadeführer?” Himmler distracted me from my musings.
“Jawohl, Reichsführer.” I clicked my heels even though I didn’t have the slightest clue of what he just said. He was leaving me a file with instructions thicker that my first law textbook, and with Seyss-Inquart in charge my position basically demanded sitting behind my desk – which I was going to order to clean with lye after Heydrich had left – and sign the orders that Seyss-Inquart would send to my department.
The real position, where my inclinations were and which I was anxiously looking forward to, was the foreign affairs and intelligence, and right after the Anschluss I took advantage of Himmler’s good humor and asked for it. He agreed without giving it too much thought, much to Heydrich’s displeasure; he was imagining himself the chief of intelligence of the whole Reich, and having some Austrian, who he couldn’t stomach in the first place, as his rival, was a really big thorn in his flesh.
“You will be reporting to me about everything concerning foreign intelligence,” Heydrich chimed in from behind my table after I asked Reichsführer about my new responsibilities in that sphere.
I shot him a glance, but didn’t do much besides nodding. “Jawohl, Gruppenführer.”
“Maybe you should take the Gestapo under control as well,” Himmler said much to mine and Heydrich’s surprise. “After all, it belongs to the same organization as the foreign intelligence, the RSHA, and since Austria is now a part of the Reich we will be unifying all the departments according to our usual pattern, and it only makes sense for you to be in charge of it too.”
The Austrian: A War Criminal's Story Page 27