by Therese Down
“Thank you, Dr Schlieffen. You have been most helpful.” Walter saluted the doctor, turned on his heel and walked straight past Hedda and up the corridor in the direction of the way out. If he hurried, he may get back to Tiergartenstrasse 4 without missing too much of the afternoon meeting.
As it happened, the meeting had been ten minutes in session when Walter quietly opened the boardroom door and found his way to a vacant seat at the table. Eyes turned towards him for confirmation that all was well and he answered their concern with a smile and a nod. Attention then turned back to Karl Muller’s presentation. He had drawn on a flipchart a precise engineer’s layout of an extermination chamber – a model of the one currently in use at Brandenburg. He was explaining in a calm, emollient tone the challenges and specifications of constructing such a chamber.
“The building is an adapted barn. The inner chamber is constructed of brick, and as you can see, a pipe runs along each wall, ten centimetres from the ground. At twenty-centimetre intervals along the pipe are small holes –” and here he paused to point at representations of three of these holes – “which allow the gas to infiltrate the room. The gas canisters are attached to the pipe by a link external to the room. Once they are attached, a simple turn of a tap releases the gas into the pipe. And –” Muller continued – “Dr Schroeder is right. The whole system is constructed on the need for efficiency and accuracy. I am sorry, Director Wirth, but if this system is to work, then it must be run by people who understand its engineering. If it goes wrong, then the result is huge inefficiency and…” here Karl stopped. He took a handkerchief from his uniform breast pocket and wiped his brow. He closed his eyes.
“Are you all right, Officer Muller?” Heydrich’s tone was more impatient than concerned. This meeting was going on too long. The wine over a fine lunch had made him sleepy. He wanted to nap for an hour or so before he had to start preparing for his meeting with the Führer, who was, by all accounts, incandescent following Germany’s recent defeat by Britain. He would be in no mood to tolerate imprecision or unpreparedness.
“Apologies. I am feeling unwell.”
“Not the lunch, I hope?” quipped Goebbels. Muted laughter followed.
“No, no, Minister Goebbels. I have been unwell for a little while now. Forgive me. It will pass.”
Walter contemplated Muller’s pale complexion, noted again the tremor in his hands, the film of sweat on his brow. He could be ill, or he could be afraid.
“We also want the process to be as humane as possible, one presumes?” Eyebrows raised, Wirth hmphed and Heydrich made a slight, acquiescent gesture. “So engineering is important when operating the gas vans too. I have been present when they have broken down partway through a… process… it was children. They were not unconscious when the diesel engine ceased to function. Herr Wirth’s employees were unable to get it to work within one hour of its breakdown. The children screamed and many were vomiting. Some were convulsing. You see, at certain concentrations below lethal the symptoms of CO poisoning include seizures, cardiac arrest, acute breathlessness, severe abdominal pain. They fought each other in blind panic to get out of the van. For an hour. We could clearly see this through the observation window. Many were bleeding. The fits which were induced by the CO caused them to bite their tongues – sometimes they bit them clean off. They slipped around on faeces, blood and urine; they cried aloud for their mothers. Some passed out eventually. A few probably died of cardiac failure.”
The room fell completely silent. Heydrich’s secretary stopped writing, looked in concern and confusion towards Heydrich and Himmler. Heydrich met her eyes and shook his head. She put down her pen.
“Is this necessary, Officer Muller?” Himmler asked, his tone evidently disapproving.
For response, Muller seemed to rally. He coughed, drew himself up straight and looked directly at Himmler. When he began to speak again his tone had acquired a clarity absent from his previous speech.
“Yes, Reichsführer Himmler. I think so. The details are unpleasant, but do illustrate the necessity to get planning right. An hour to fix an engine and such unpleasantness are counterproductive and bad for staff morale.”
“I see. And who were these children – as a matter of scientific record?” asked Himmler.
Wirth interrupted again. “‘Unworthies’, mentally and physically handicapped from a variety of institutions in the Berlin area. They were certified disposable by Director Gunther – and in the first place, of course, by doctors – lots of doctors!” Levity was returned and the secretaries again bowed their heads, picked up their pens. “Mistakes happen. We learn from them. Even scientists make mistakes,” added Wirth petulantly, but his clowning was growing tedious, his increasingly open assumptions of support insolent.
“Your report also, Officer Muller – to my secretary by tomorrow morning,” concluded Heydrich. “I am particularly interested in what does work, you understand? There is little point in the relaying of failures to the Führer – particularly at this moment, as I am certain you will appreciate. This meeting, I think, is over. Thank you, gentlemen, for your invaluable work. Heil Hitler!”
The salute was returned, the delegates began to leave. Himmler made a point of shaking Walter’s hand and telling him he looked forward to working with him. Walter flashed Himmler his most charming smile. Well worth the irritating crawl back from the hospital through rubble and lines of Jews stumbling pathetically towards the central station and deportation. Then, just as Walter turned to retrieve his briefing papers and leave the room, he was stopped in his tracks by Muller.
“Director Gunther, I do hope your daughter is all right?”
Walter’s eyes iced over. “She is out of danger, thank you.”
“I was so sorry to hear of her injuries. Please convey my sympathies to your wife.”
“Of course.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Dinner at the Schroeders’ sumptuous residence in the Tiergarten district was promptly at seven, as always. Neither was there the remotest evidence in this household of war rationing. Early October 1940 and venison was in season. Lavish sauces, full-bodied red wines and fresh vegetables of many autumnal varieties adorned the table on this particular occasion. Hedda arrived late, as she often did. Although much had been done to clear rubble and make buildings safe following the August air raids, blackout was mandatory from five o’clock each evening. There were financial penalties imposed on anyone failing to observe it; twenty marks for Aryans, up to 220 marks or a week’s imprisonment for Jews careless enough to leave a light in a window after dusk. As the wife of a high-ranking SS officer and agent of the Reich, Hedda often took liberties. Everyone was aware that Hitler’s relentless reprisal bombing of London meant that soon Berlin would be bombed again. Hedda hated to leave Agnette alone in the hospital. She sat with her daughter after curfew and blackout for as long as she could, reading to her by lamplight, singing quietly or simply dozing beside her bed before she began the drive home. After a while, soldiers on guard duty recognized her and simply waved her on.
The matron on the acute and trauma ward was a harridan, and patients and nurses alike feared her steely eye and unforgiving tongue. Hedda watched this paragon of Aryan efficiency with an instinctive dislike. For her part, the matron steered clear of Hedda. She was only too well aware of the identity and seniority of Hedda’s husband, and the unswerving stare with which Hedda followed her movements about the ward was unnerving, even for such a Valkyrie.
“Any news, darling?” Hedda’s mother greeted her daughter in the usual way, expecting the customary dismissive shake of the head. Tonight was no exception. Mathilde was elegant in a verdigris woollen Chanel suit and cream silk blouse. She expertly spooned cauliflower florets from a hand-painted Bavarian porcelain platter onto Ernst’s matching plate. “Sit down, Hedda, and eat. You look exhausted. As usual.”
Hedda unbuttoned her coat and threw it casually onto a chaise longue, from which Cook discreetly lifted it and took it to be hung up in
the hallway. Hedda still did not speak, ignoring her mother’s jibe about her appearance. She was well aware of her lack of grooming. Her erstwhile perfectly coiffured hair was dull and had been allowed to grow long, so that it fell in natural waves upon her shoulder. Wiry, stray curls hugged her pale cheeks, and by this time in the evening, what little make-up she had desultorily applied in the morning had worn off. Her eyes were lacklustre and defined by bags. She had lost that vibrant beauty that was hers in full health. Those days seemed like another time to her now, her relative dishevelment more appropriate to the leaden weight of her heart.
Ernst folded down the right-hand corner of Das Reich and regarded his daughter over his reading glasses. She was aware of his scrutiny, but Hedda made no attempt to meet his eye, regarding instead her plate as Cook slid thick slices of rare venison onto it and spooned an aromatic wine sauce over the meat. She longed for her father to get up from his seat and come to her, bid her stand, then enfold her in his arms and kiss her head. She longed for him to tell her all would be fine and that he loved her. Ernst hmphed inscrutably, returned to his paper briefly, then folded it in two, placed it to his far right and, removing his glasses, placed them carefully on top of the paper. Same routine each evening. Mathilde put his now laden dinner plate in the space before her husband and eating commenced without further speech.
As Cook was clearing away the plates, Mathilde addressed Hedda once more. “Have you seen Walter today, Hedda?”
“No. I have not seen Walter for three days. And that was for ten minutes when he found the time to come and see Agnette.”
“Goodness!” exclaimed Mathilde. “He must be very busy.”
Hedda looked at her mother and tried to determine from her features if there was the slightest irony in her remark, for none was discernible from her tone. Mathilde met Hedda’s searching and rather hostile glare with a raised eyebrow and a birdlike turn of the head.
“Too busy to bother to find out how I am? Too busy to visit his own daughter properly, or come and see his son?” Hedda was surprised at how angry she had suddenly become in spite of her earlier resolve to avoid such a display. But she was angry at everything: at her disgusting husband, whom she now loathed, at her careless parents, at the defilement of her beautiful child, and always at herself for never having taken the trouble to know and cherish Agnette when she had the chance. The idea that she had lost her daughter without having found her was intolerable to Hedda.
Ernst coughed warningly and Mathilde sighed and brushed imaginary detritus from the tablecloth. “Well, you know, Hedda, Walter is…”
“Walter is an idiot!” Hedda exploded. Cook decided to leave the room with just the dishes she was carrying. “Walter is a wife-beating, unfaithful pig!”
“Hedda!” Mathilde’s voice was sharp, though there was a note in her tone that suggested shocked curiosity. “Control yourself.”
“Why? Why should I? What is it you are worried about, Mutti? Good manners? My little girl is in a coma. Her head is all… battered and bruised and ripped, with stitches everywhere, and she may never wake up. She’s as good as dead, for all I know!” Hedda had risen to her feet and was almost hysterical.
Ernst reached for his glasses and watched his daughter’s extraordinary outburst as though witnessing a disappointing turn in an experiment.
“And when was the last time you –” at this, Hedda looked to her father, glared at him, then quickly focused again on her mother – “bothered to visit your granddaughter? When was the last time either of you really took an interest in how I am?”
“Hedda, that is not fair.” Mathilde’s tone was a little less indignant. “I ask you every day how you are, and…”
“You ask Cook how she is every day! If I were to tell you, do you really want to know? Do you?” Hedda placed both hands on the table and leaned in the direction of her mother. “Shall I tell you how I really am and what I’m going through?” Her challenge was met with silence. “I thought not. Because you don’t care. You’ve never cared.”
Ernst spoke at last. “It is perfectly obvious how you are feeling, Hedda. You are mentally and physically exhausted – that much is plain. You are recovering from shock. You are very upset. That much is evident from only casual observation.”
Hedda sat down, regarding her father with that same level scrutiny with which she contemplated all those whom she considered a threat.
“There is little to be gained by asking you to go over it all at the end of the day. At the end of the day, people need… peace.”
“Hedda…” Mathilde’s voice was soothing now. Tears had begun to flow unrestrained down her daughter’s face. “It is clear you are suffering, my darling. And we hate to see it. But Hedda, what can we do? You are a grown woman now – married. We… well, obviously you and Anselm are welcome to stay here for as long as you like. We do not see Agnette very often, that is true…” She looked to her husband for support. He looked at the table and shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “But honestly, darling, she does not… Well, Agnette doesn’t know we are there. If she was… awake, Hedda, then it would be different.”
Hedda realized anew the futility of an emotional appeal to these people who above all else feared their emotions. She received the reminder that they were offering her and her son practical assistance, and understood that this was as far as her parents were able to go.
“Excuse me,” Hedda said at last, her tone signalling defeat. “I am very tired.” And she rose from the table.
“You’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep, darling,” enjoined Mathilde as her daughter left the dining room. When she had gone, Mathilde addressed her husband. “Ernst, do you think he hits her?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me in the least.”
The expanding Sachsenhausen concentration camp, near Oranienburg, in conjunction with an older, more established partner camp, was roughly thirty-five kilometres north of Berlin and fast becoming the centralized training ground for both the SS and the Gestapo. Both camps were conceived and their construction overseen by Reichsführer Himmler in 1936, and by November 1940 there were more than 10,000 inmates, overwhelmingly male, in Sachsenhausen. Walter’s T4 directorate role was expanded to include the administration of Sachsenhausen. Himmler had taken a personal interest in Walter’s work and thought him a very likely candidate for promotion to a commandant role in one of the large new Austrian camps under construction at that time.
High-ranking SS officers who were training for promotion, or had been drafted in to train others, were luxuriously accommodated in splendid houses with large gardens in a purpose-built complex in Oranienburg. Brandenburg on Havel prison hospital was located very near to both camps, and as Walter was spending increasing amounts of his time with Wirth, overseeing the running and proceedings at the hospital, it made perfect sense when Walter received the personally signed letter from Himmler, offering him a large four-bedroomed house on the Oranienburg “estate”. In any case, Himmler added, he was aware that Walter had lost his house in the August 1940 bombing and, given that RAF air strikes against Berlin city were becoming increasingly frequent, it seemed only right that a highly valued Aktion T4 director should be rehoused at the Reich’s expense.
Hedda received the news of her relocation with indifference. She longed to leave her parents’ house, where even breathing evenly at the dinner table was difficult, but she was not eager to be reunited with her husband. Especially as it seemed he was to work in Sachsenhausen prison as well as Tiergartenstrasse, so he would be at home at least half the evenings of the week.
What made the prospect of relocation more palatable, however, was that Walter had made arrangements for Agnette to be moved to a Brandenburg hospital, just eight kilometres from Oranienburg. She would be able to spend more time with Agnette and she would be able to go home more frequently between visits and see more of Anselm. They would ask Marguerite the maid to live in, and they would have a cook. Marguerite would take care of Anselm when Hedda was a
t the hospital.
And so, on Christmas Eve 1940, Hedda sat in a sumptuously decorated living room before a roaring fire with Anselm on her knee. She contemplated the reflections of the flames in the shiny Christmas tree baubles, while Walter, relaxed in a woollen sweater and slacks, read a paper. All seemed peaceful. The latest light bombing of Berlin, three days previously, had caused some fatalities, and there would be yet more cleaning up and rebuilding to do. But here in tranquil, architecturally stunning Brandenburg, with its woodland lakes, majestic rivers and achingly beautiful landscapes, there was no hint of destruction. The blackout still applied, but curfew was not strictly heeded. Somehow, in this hinterland of snow, ice and water, it was as if the very beauty of the place were a defence against sacrilege.
Roughly 150 kilometres south-east of Oranienburg, Karl Muller was sipping brandy with his parents, Dr and Frau Muller. His sister, who was five years his junior, and her husband, a non-commissioned officer in the German army, home on a few days’ leave, were also present. Karl’s nephew was amusing the assembled company by trying on his uncle’s SS cap and marching around the living room. Karl smiled, though his eyes flashed darkly over the rim of his brandy glass and his hands shook.
Only two days before, he had installed a gas pipe in a small, bitterly cold room in an institution masquerading as a hospital, and watched as several terrified and naked children were gently coaxed into it by a fraulein with blonde hair. She told them they were going to have a nice hot shower. And then Karl had nodded at Christian Wirth, Director of Operations at Brandenburg on Havel “hospital”. Wirth had grinned as he turned on the tap that permitted carbon monoxide gas to travel from its container and into the pipe that Karl had finished installing just a day earlier.