by Jane Thynne
Clara had a sudden, devastating flash of intuition. It must have to do with the two business-suited men, swarthy, anonymous types whom she could not place. They didn’t look like film industry figures. They didn’t even look German. Was it possible that Olga did not want Clara to see who she was with? Although the incident had lasted only a matter of seconds, Clara had a sense of sinking dread. Perhaps it was true, what Emmy Goering said. That as well as being Hitler’s favorite actress and the greatest star of Third Reich cinema, Olga Chekhova, the sister of an NKVD operative, was herself a Soviet spy.
CHAPTER
13
The headquarters of the Ancestral Heritage Research and Teaching organization—the Ahnenerbe for short—were situated in a handsome building in one of the most upmarket areas of the city, 19 Pücklerstrasse, Dahlem, just a few doors from Martin Bormann’s townhouse. Its vine-covered walls and gleaming stained-glass windows projected a hallowed air of academic respectability, as though this center of German heritage combined a sacred chapel and a university in one. The strongest impression, however, was that everything about the building, from its ivory sandstone façade to the new-model cabriolet parked on the gravel drive, reeked of money. Whoever was funding Germany’s search for its own cultural identity wasn’t short of a few Reichmarks.
Crunching across a half-moon of pristine gravel, Clara stood for a second at the door, summoning her courage, before entering and looking around the expensive wood-paneled hall. The place seemed deserted. Ranks of display cases lined the walls, filled with stone carvings and wooden figures. There was a tortoiseshell—a vibrant swirl of orange and black—a papery snakeskin, and a glass-eyed fox. There were photographs of cave drawings and eerily lifelike plaster casts of human faces momentarily reminding her of visits to the Natural History Museum in London during the long school holidays of childhood. But that was where the resemblance ended. Approaching the first cabinet, she saw with a shudder that it contained a selection of human skulls alongside a series of instruments that resembled calipers. On inspection she discovered that they were steel measuring implements, designed to record the size of noses, cheekbones, and jaws. Alongside each skull was a note about the previous owner’s racial characteristics.
DALIC: high stature, robust and heavily built, rosy skin, blond hair, light eyes, brachycephalic cranium, big mouth, and thin lips
EAST BALTIC: medium to low stature, fair skin, strong build, brachycephalic, light hair and eyes
DINARIC: wedge-shaped profile, receding forehead, large nose, weak receding chin
NORDIC: dolichocephalic. Forehead and chin scarcely receding. The Nordic people are the spine of the human race
A clatter of boots behind her alerted Clara to a man trotting down the gleaming staircase. His face, with its full complement of blond hair, blue eyes, flawlessly symmetrical features, and long horse’s nose, might have been torn straight out of the textbook illustrating the final race in the display case, the Nordic. He also possessed an immaculate SS uniform and a penetrating, aquiline stare.
“Admiring our Untermenschen? We use them as teaching aids to instruct students in racial typing. We can tell so much from skull form, size of brain, and so on. Compare the features of Nordic dolichocephalism—lofty brow, narrow temples, large eyes, aquiline nose—with this Slav—see his round facial structure and small nose? Our founder, the SS Reichsführer, believes a man’s entire character can be told from anatomy alone.” He clicked his heels. “Herr Doktor Kraus.”
Clara gave him her hand and felt his eyes flicker speculatively over her face, reading the shape of her forehead and the spacing of her eyes as if mentally pigeonholing her pedigree. She repressed a shudder.
“And you, I take it, are Fräulein Vine. Was no one here to meet you? That useless girl.” His eyes roved across to an empty desk in the corner of the hall. “I told her to expect you. Are you aware of our work? I would give you a copy of our magazine if our young librarian had not deserted her post.”
As if on cue a tall, pink-cheeked girl dashed into the hall, almost invisible beneath a towering stack of magazines, which she proceeded to drop on the floor by the desk.
“I’m sorry, Herr Doktor! I was just getting these!”
“Don’t worry,” Clara said, directing a consoling smile at the girl, who was scrabbling around collecting the litter of papers. “I’ve seen the latest copy already.”
Clara had found the Ahnenerbe’s magazine on a newsstand the previous day and spent several dispiriting minutes flipping through it. From what she saw in it, there were forty separate research projects in subjects ranging from musicology, astrology, linguistics, and Sanskrit to runes, all devoted to proving the existence of the lost Aryan master race.
“Perhaps you’d like to see some of our exhibits,” said Kraus, directing a savage stare at the flustered young woman.
He stalked along a corridor flanked by more glass cases into a grand drawing room lined with shelves crowded with books, paintings, pottery, and tiny primitive figurines. African fertility sculptures and tribal masks rubbed up against turquoise Egyptian shabti figures. Thighbones rested casually alongside panpipes. Long, curved yellow teeth grinned beside flint spear tips. They had the dusty, jumbled, abandoned air of holiday souvenirs assembled by an especially undiscriminating tourist.
“The Herr Reichsführer is an avid collector,” commented Kraus.
He drew her over to a series of photographs of Orientals.
“The elites of Asia—the Brahmin priests, the Mongolian chiefs, and the Japanese samurai—are all descended from Aryan invaders. Take these chaps…” He indicated a row of Tibetan tribesmen in shawls, clustered like scouts around a campfire and gazing at their SS guests with a mixture of hostility and bewilderment. “Even the most casual observer can see at once that the higher Tibetan classes possess Nordic characteristics. Note the long heads, narrow faces, receding cheekbones. They are quite clearly descended from the same race as we Germans. It is an added pleasure that the swastika should also be an ancient Tibetan symbol.”
“Fascinating,” said Clara, neutrally.
“Isn’t it?” He removed his glasses and polished them with a handkerchief before replacing them. The tiny rimless spectacles almost vanished in the folds of his face.
“The same measurements of skulls allowed us to prove that the Antarctic was once inhabited by Germanic peoples. Physiognomy is destiny. We can tell any number of qualities—intelligence, honesty, propensity to criminality—simply from a person’s racial characteristics.”
“It must take a lot of training to recognize all that just by looking at a person.”
If he detected her sarcasm, he did not show it. “You’re quite right. It does. It’s a whole new specialism, the discipline of criminal biology. And I flatter myself that I am at the forefront of it. Of course, I was already something of an expert on race science. Are you familiar with that?”
“Very.”
Race science was one of the biggest growth sectors in Nazi Germany. Universities were hastily establishing new lecturing posts in the subject, and schools held twice-weekly lessons in it. At Erich’s school it had now entirely replaced biology. Clara had recently helped him with his homework and waded with horror through a pyramid diagram of racial hierarchy, which placed the Master Race at the top, Goths, Franks, Vandals, and Normans beneath, and “subhuman” Russians, Romani, Serbs, Poles, and Jews on the bottom row.
“We have aural displays, too,” persisted Kraus. “The Ahnenerbe has recorded folk dances in Finland. I would have the equipment set up for you but…”
“Honestly, it’s fine.”
“In that case, you should see our library.” He flung open a further door. “We keep a complete archive of ancestral German history.”
Clara stepped in with relief. Somehow, no amount of books could be as depressing as the contents of the previous room. The library was a soft gleam of dark, polished leather, with volumes of books stacked floor to ceiling, shimmering with gilt
tooling. None of them looked like they had been disturbed since they were placed there. The girl she had seen before, wearing an owlish pair of spectacles, was bending over a manuscript.
Kraus hovered as Clara surveyed the shelves.
“An early copy of the Bhagavad Gita. A Sanskrit epic. It tells how thousands of years ago a pure Aryan race invaded India. The SS Reichsführer finds its teachings inspirational. He carries a copy wherever he goes.”
Kraus was hovering uncomfortably close. To escape him, Clara moved towards a glass display case where a piece of text was framed.
THE PEOPLES OF GERMANY HAVE NEVER CONTAMINATED THEMSELVES BY INTERMARRIAGE WITH FOREIGNERS BUT REMAIN OF PURE BLOOD, DISTINCT AND UNLIKE ANY OTHER NATION.
“Magnificent, isn’t it?” said Kraus. “It’s Germania. Written by Cornelius Tacitus in A.D. 98. One of the greatest historians and prose stylists who ever wrote in Latin. You know it, of course?”
“I don’t think so.” Clara was racking her brain for any fragment of knowledge that might linger from Miss Herbert’s classical civilization lessons, conducted in a stuffy classroom in Kensington a lifetime ago.
“Really? All German schoolchildren are taught him from the age of six. Tacitus was the first historian to study the early Germanic clans. And what he discovered is very pleasing for us. As far back as when they wore the skin of wild beasts, Germans had a natural nobility, inured to corruption or servility. They scorned luxury and prized military courage above all things.”
He sighed, reverently. “The Germania is a precious work for us. In many ways it’s a blueprint for the National Socialist revolution.”
“So which one is it?” asked Clara, her eyes roving round the library shelves.
Kraus gave a short, bitter laugh at this question. “Oh, but we don’t have it.”
“Would it not be good to have?”
“My dear Fräulein, I don’t think you understand. There is only one copy of Germania in existence. The Codex Aesinas. And that’s in Italy. Herr Mussolini was aware just how much we National Socialists revered that book, and three years ago he promised Herr Hitler that he would make a gift of it.” His expression stiffened. “Unfortunately, the Duce went back on his word.”
“That must have been quite frustrating for the Führer.”
“You have no idea.” Kraus allowed himself a pinched smile. “However, we have the typed texts. And most of us have learned the important passages by heart. Rather like medieval monks learned the Bible.”
The story of Mussolini’s treachery seemed to put a damper on the tour. Kraus paused and checked his watch.
“I trust I’ve answered all your questions, Fräulein Vine. Although it is of course an honor for our work to be immortalized in film, today does happen to be especially busy. I have the SS Reichsführer arriving shortly. I’m not sure…Would you like to meet him?”
Clara managed to prevent herself from recoiling in horror.
“No. I mean…No, thank you. I must leave, too.”
She looked across to where the librarian was sitting. The girl had clearly been listening to their conversation. Even though she was pretending to leaf through a pile of papers on her desk, the tips of her ears had gone pink and there was a high flush on the apples of her cheeks. As Kraus clicked his heels and left the room, she said softly, “Excuse me, Fräulein Vine?”
Clara turned.
“Your magazines?”
“It’s okay, thank you, I don’t think I’ll be needing them. I’ve seen enough for one day.”
Clara left the building and set off down the gravel path, but as she did she heard footsteps pattering rapidly behind her and turned to see the librarian heaving breathlessly into view.
“I’m sorry, Fräulein. I mean. I wonder…” She hesitated, then cast her eyes down again. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t interfere.”
“What did you want?”
“It’s just. I know who you are.”
Clara was used to being recognized, and direct approaches from strangers usually involved autograph requests. Automatically she pasted a friendly smile on her face and reached for the pen in her bag as the girl before her continued.
“You’re the actress, aren’t you?”
“That’s right.”
Though she was flushed with agitation, the girl had a sweet smile and soft, heavy-lidded eyes.
“No. You see, I’m a member of the Faith and Beauty community. Where the girl was killed.”
“Lottie Franke?”
“She was my best friend.”
She uttered this sentence with an air of incomprehension, as though even now she was struggling to understand the desolation of death.
“I’m Hedwig. Hedwig Holz.”
Instantly she came into focus. The girl from the photograph in the Franke family apartment. Large and clumsy in her regulation uniform, an awkward foil to Lottie’s eye-catching beauty.
“I’m so sorry,” Clara said.
Hedwig hesitated, twisting her hands on the edge of her unbecoming tweed skirt. “The thing is…Maybe it doesn’t matter, but…”
Clara recognized the first rule of her training. When a door is ajar, push it open.
“Of course it matters. Whatever you have to say, if you were a friend of Lottie’s, I’d love to talk. You must be devastated by what happened. Would you like some lunch?”
Hedwig’s eyes lit up and then dipped again, like a dog denied a treat.
“I can’t. I need to be at my desk when SS Reichsführer Himmler arrives.”
“Why don’t we take a short walk? Just round the block. We’re bound to see the official car when it passes. And if Herr Doktor Kraus is angry, I’ll tell him I asked you to walk with me.”
“Would you?”
“Of course.”
“Just five minutes then.”
With a reluctant look behind her, Hedwig Holz slipped through the gate. “I shouldn’t complain. Herr Doktor Kraus has been extremely kind to me. It was he who offered me this job actually, right after his lecture on mate selection.”
“Mate selection? What on earth is that?”
Distractedly the girl said, “Oh, we have to select genetically suitable mates according to the Nordic-Greek ideal.”
Select mates? What kind of young woman referred to her boyfriends like this? Come to that, what kind of girl talked of love and marriage in terms of genetic suitability? Almost as soon as she had asked herself, Clara knew the answer. Girls in Nazi Germany.
“We have these social evenings. We Faith and Beauty girls have been specially selected by Herr Himmler as suitable mates for his future warriors, so there are dances and dinners with SS officers. I hate them, to be honest, but one of our group is already engaged to a man she met. They’re getting married in a few weeks. The trouble is”—Hedwig’s face clouded and she shot a quick glance at Clara as if calculating whether she could trust her—“I already have one. A boyfriend, I mean. That’s why I’m in the Faith and Beauty Society.”
Clara frowned. “But if…?”
“My mother hopes I’ll meet a handsome SS officer and forget Jochen altogether.”
“And might you?”
“Not a chance.” She smiled softly. “Especially if they see me dancing. Fräulein von Essen—she’s our instructor—says I dance like a pantomime cow. There’s a ball next month and I’m terrified.”
Clara laughed. “They have something like that where I grew up. In England. They were called debutante balls.”
Angela had done the season. It began in May with presentation to the king at court, followed by a series of dances packed with aristocratic young men, the weak-chinned, the graceless, and the brutish, who steered the girls around the dance floor while their chaperones, a formidable jury of matrons perched on gilt chairs, scrutinized from the sidelines. Every deb had her own dance—Angela’s had been held at their aunt’s home in Piccadilly—but high-society husband hunting had horrified Clara. She didn’t want to learn any old-fashioned etiquette. She
remembered Angela’s lofty incomprehension.
But how will you ever know how to behave?
The Faith and Beauty girls were Hitler’s debutantes—groomed to take their places in the ranks of Nazi aristocracy. Only, as well as learning what fork to use at dinner and how to arrange roses, Hitler’s debs were drilled in every last detail of National Socialist ideology.
“You’d understand then,” Hedwig told her. “We’re supposed to learn all the social graces because we guard the spiritual health of the nation.”
“That’s asking a lot.”
“That’s what Lottie used to say.” Her face fell. “Lottie admired you so, Fräulein Vine. She said you were the only one who showed real interest in her ideas. You said she had a bright future.”
“She did.”
“She worked as a photographer’s model sometimes. At a studio in Schlüterstrasse. They paid her.”
“Lottie had real talent. It’s a tragedy you’ve lost her.”
“She told me you were half English. We went to London once.”
“I heard. Did you like it?”
For a moment, Hedwig’s face glowed as if all the lamps in Claridge’s Hotel had lit it from within.
“I loved it! We both did. It was the last time I saw Lottie really happy.”
They came to a bench and sat down, and Hedwig began to unburden all the anxiety and pain of the last few weeks in a torrent of words that Clara only occasionally interrupted.
“Lottie wasn’t what people thought she was. I mean, she had another side that people here didn’t see. A different side.”