A Murder in Auschwitz (Sampler)

by JC Stephenson

  Berlin, 15th June 1931

  FRIEDRICH Bauer had been careful in his choice of cases which he had passed to Meyer and Weber. Meyer had conducted his defences with great skill and Weber had fulfilled his position as assistant in a professional and accomplished manner. Bauer had slowly built up the complexity of the cases handed to the pair until he felt that Meyer was ready for his first murder case as principal defence lawyer.

  The case he passed them was the defence of Wolfgang Kolb, a young apprentice upholsterer, originally from Nuremberg but now working in Berlin for Josef Pfeiffer & Sons. He was accused of the murder of one of the sons of the family firm, Josef Pfeiffer Junior, on the site of the upholstery workshop.

  Bauer had provided Meyer and Weber every resource they required, including his personal guidance in the preparation of the case. He moved them into Deschler’s old office, which afforded Meyer the services of a secretary, freeing up time for both himself and Weber. Bauer had even accompanied Meyer to the Renaissance-era Spandau Prison to interview Kolb on two occasions.

  On the evening before the start of the trial, Bauer called in on Meyer in his office. Meyer smelled the man's pipe tobacco before he saw him.

  “I see you are working late tonight, Manfred,” said Bauer, allowing the smoke from his pipe to visibly punctuate his words.

  “Yes, Herr Bauer. Just finishing a few things off in preparation for tomorrow,” he replied, rubbing his eyes.

  Bauer looked around the office. “Has Otto gone home?”

  “Yes, Herr Bauer, I sent him home an hour ago to get a good night’s rest.”

  “Very wise advice, young Manfred. Advice you should take yourself.” Bauer sucked deeply on his pipe and filled the room with a long cloud of smoke. “I have never seen a case so well-prepared as this one. There is nothing further you can do. Go home, Manfred, go home to your lovely family. Have something to eat and get a good night’s sleep. That is an order.”

  Meyer nodded and closed the folder he had been studying.

  The next morning, Meyer woke with a start. Klara was already up with Anna and Greta, and the sound of their laughter lifted his heart.

  “Good morning, sleepy head,” giggled Klara.

  “Good morning, darling. What time is it?”

  “It’s okay; it has only just turned seven o’clock.” Klara had Anna in her arms and Greta was holding onto one of her legs. “I have made you some breakfast. Nice hot coffee and some bacon and a boiled egg. Some fresh bread as well.”

  Meyer smiled. “Ah, you are such a good wife.”

  Sun streamed in through the window of their apartment and Meyer could hear the birds singing in the nearby park. He had had a good sleep that night and looked forward to eating his breakfast, although he was not sure if the feeling he had in his stomach was hunger or nerves. He got out of bed and got dressed in between tickling Greta and kissing Klara and Anna.

  “It is such a beautiful day,” said Klara. “I am going to take the girls to the park this morning, after you leave.”

  “That is a good idea,” replied Meyer, while finishing off the last of the bacon and a mouthful of sweet coffee. Klara smiled.

  “Are you enjoying that?” she laughed, pointing at the space on the plate where the bacon had been. Meyer caught her laugh and sat back.

  “Can you imagine your mother’s face if she knew your good Jewish husband was stuffing bacon into his face?” he joked.

  “I am sure that the fact that you are a lawyer on the rise would blind her to your blatant pork-eating,” replied Klara. She lifted Anna from her knee, leaned over, and kissed Meyer on the lips. “You need to go, or you will be late for your first big case, lawyer husband.”

  “Whatever you say, beautiful wife,” replied Meyer. He kissed Anna and Greta, pulled on his jacket, and put his arms around Klara. “Wish me luck,” he said.

  “Not that you need luck,” she replied. “But good luck anyway.”

  He kissed her one more time and headed down the stairs into the street, where the newspaper-seller was declaring that morning’s news.

  “Good morning, Paul. More good news I see,” he said picking up a newspaper and dropping a few coins into the paper-seller’s hand.

  “Yes, Herr Meyer, there are calls for the dissolution of the Reichstag and there are food riots in Berlin. The country has no money, no food, and soon, no government.” replied the paper-seller.

  “Yes, Paul, where will it all end, eh?” replied Meyer. “Where will it all end?”

  Meyer took his seat within the courtroom, with Weber sitting next to him. They were early and made use of the relatively relaxed atmosphere of the courtroom to organise their papers and discuss a few final points. Courtrooms held a particular serenity in the time before a trial began. If possible, Meyer always tried to get there early and enjoy the silence and calmness as he waited for the theatre which was a courtroom in session to begin.

  Some members of the public had arrived and were chatting in hushed voices while court staff came and went, preparing the room for the day’s proceedings. Weber was passing Meyer a note, which was to be pinned to the biography page for Wolfgang Kolb, when he happened to glance towards the door at the rear of the court.

  “Manfred,” he said attempting to get Meyer’s attention. When there was no response, he tried a little louder.

  “What is it, Otto? Look, we need to bring this out in the first day...” Meyer’s voice trailed off, and he looked up from the papers at Weber. He could see by the look on Weber’s face that something was wrong. “Otto, what is the matter?”

  Weber replied in a subdued voice. “The prosecutor is here.”

  Meyer followed Weber’s gaze to the rear of the courtroom. The prosecutor had arrived with his assistants and was making his way slowly down the aisle between the chairs. Meyer’s stomach turned over. It was Deschler.

  Meyer nodded to him as he limped past the defence’s desk to sit at the prosecutor's table on the other side of the courtroom. Deschler took his seat and hung his stick from the table, before returning Meyer’s silent greeting. If he had been surprised to see Meyer, he had certainly not given it away.

  Meyer heard Weber sigh. Meyer placed his hand on Weber’s shoulder and smiled. “Otto, we must not allow the fact that Herr Deschler is the prosecutor to force us to deviate from our plan. We have a good case; the prosecution have a lot of circumstantial evidence but nothing concrete. All we need to do is find a crack and open it wide enough for the jury to see our point of view and not the prosecution’s.”

  Weber nodded and smiled in return, but it was forced, and his fear of Deschler as the prosecutor was evident in his eyes.

  Once the preliminaries had been concluded, Wolfgang Kolb was brought into the court. He was a handsome young man, with his shock of blonde hair and his piercing blue eyes, one of which was partially closed from a black eye which he had received in prison.

  Meyer did not like him very much. There was an arrogance and brutishness about him which Meyer feared may prejudice the jury against him. However, Kolb was obviously intelligent and had spoken at great length to Meyer and Bauer about the case during their trips to Spandau. Meyer had also taken him books which he requested and, since Kolb had no immediate family, chocolate and cigarettes, which Kolb was always extremely grateful for, his arrogance dropping as he thanked Meyer.

  Once Kolb had taken his seat, Meyer and Weber watched as Deschler initiated the prosecution’s case against him. As was usual practice, Deschler made a brief opening statement to the jury before calling his first witness.

  It was a consummate lesson in perfection. From his questioning of his witnesses, Deschler took the jury through how the prosecution saw events having unfolded on that evening. Deschler painted a picture of how Wolfgang Kolb and Josef Pfeiffer had been working late in the upholstery workshop. As it was a Saturday evening, they had left the workshop for an hour and a half to visit a local beer hall, where they h
ad been seen arguing. On their return to the workshop, the argument had continued between the two men due to Wolfgang Kolb’s jealousy over Josef Pfeiffer’s position within the company, as the only son. During this argument, Kolb had got hold of a sharp tool and stabbed Pfeiffer in the heart, killing him instantly.

  Kolb had been found by Josef Pfeiffer’s own father over the body of his son, stained in blood. No-one else was on the premises, and no-one had seen anyone else arrive at any point during that night.

  Deschler pushed home the point of the argument in the beer hall, explaining how it would have got out of control once they had returned to the workshop, and, with Wolfgang Kolb’s well-known short fuse, in an unfortunate fit of temper he had picked up the closest weapon to hand and brought Josef Pfeiffer’s life to an untimely end. Most tragically of all, his own father had found the victim.

  Meyer struggled to find pertinent questions with which to disprove or throw Deschler’s arguments off-track, and he chose not to question Josef Pfeiffer senior at all.

  All of Deschler’s witnesses were either police or family members, giving credence to the prosecution’s case. Meyer sat in dismay, as he could see the jury follow the story that Deschler wove, bringing them to the position which Deschler called the ‘fork in the road’. It was as far as a good prosecution could take a jury; pointing down the correct road. Once the prosecution left them there, the defence had to turn them around and point them down the other path. This was a defence lawyer's most difficult task.

  It was human nature to believe the first version of a story that was heard. This was the prosecutions greatest weapon; if the prosecutor could tell an impressive story which appeared to be airtight, then the defence rarely managed to convince a jury otherwise. And this was what Deschler had just done.

  Once the prosecution had rested, the court adjourned for the day and Meyer and Weber retired to Bauer & Bauer’s offices.

  “Herr Deschler has certainly taken his new role as a prosecutor in his stride,” said Weber, attempting to break the silence.

  “I wouldn’t have expected anything different,” sighed Meyer. “So we now have a jury convinced of Wolfgang Kolb’s guilt. To be honest with you, I am almost convinced of Wolfgang Kolb’s guilt.

  “In spite of all the witness statements and questions today, as I see it, Herr Deschler laid out a very simple case.

  “Kolb and Pfeiffer argue. Kolb loses his temper and stabs Pfeiffer. He has no time to escape or hide the body since Josef Pfeiffer Senior arrives to check on their work. Pfeiffer Senior finds Kolb over his son’s body, covered in blood. Kolb makes a run for it and is picked up later by the police. Simple.”

  Meyer rubbed his forehead and as soon as he had done so, realised it was exactly what Herr Deschler did when he was thinking. He wondered what other characteristics he had picked up from Deschler. As far as the case was concerned, he was at a disadvantage; since he had assisted Deschler, he now ran his own defence in the same manner, and Deschler would read him like a book. Once Meyer had finished questioning a witness, Deschler would swoop in and destroy any progress he made.

  It was Deschler’s simple story that was causing Meyer problems. There was nothing to get a hold of. Nothing to twist around and use to his own advantage. Deschler’s defences were never simple, they were complex and pulled in witness statements, police reports and testimony which he could use to build his case. Before either the prosecution or the jury knew it, everyone was making their way down the correct fork in the road. But Meyer knew Deschler’s case today had been too simple. And then it struck him.

  Meyer looked up at Weber. “It was too simple.”

  Weber looked blankly at him. “What was too simple?”

  “Herr Deschler’s prosecution case. His story. His tale. It was too simple. Herr Deschler’s style is to take every element, no matter how little, how insignificant, and use it when required. Truth, to Herr Deschler, is only the truth when all of the elements come together, when the strings of a case play together in harmony. This makes Herr Deschler’s cases complex, not impossible to follow and you need to be led along the correct path, but they are complex.”

  Weber still did not understand.

  “His case today was too simple. Kolb and Pfeifer argue. Kolb kills Pfeiffer. Kolb found covered in blood, standing over the body. Kolb runs away. End of story. It is too simple for Herr Deschler. Too simple,” explained Meyer.

  “So what does that mean then?” asked Weber.

  “It means that Deschler has spotted something. Something that doesn’t make sense. Something that would blow his case out of the water. So he has ignored this 'something' and made the case simple. Nothing for me to get my hands on. Simple and easy for the jury to understand and convict on but nothing for the defence to dispute. What is there to dispute? Everything he has said is true. Only the continuation of the argument in the workshop is conjecture.”

  “So what is it that Herr Deschler knows that we don’t?” mused Weber.

  “What indeed?” replied Meyer.