by Ken Follett
Ethel paid the bill. Everything in Germany was cheap if you had foreign currency. They were about to get up and leave when a stranger came to the table and, uninvited, pulled up a chair. He was a heavy man with a small moustache in the middle of a round face.
He wore a Brownshirt uniform.
Robert said coldly: ‘What may I do for you, sir?’
‘My name is Criminal Commissar Thomas Macke.’ He grabbed a passing waiter by the arm and said: ‘Bring me a coffee.’
The waiter looked enquiringly at Robert, who nodded.
‘I work in the political department of the Prussian police,’ Macke went on. ‘I am in charge of the Berlin intelligence section.’
Lloyd translated for his mother in a low voice.
‘However,’ said Macke, ‘I wish to speak to the proprietor of the restaurant about a personal matter.’
Robert said: ‘Where did you work a month ago?’
The unexpected question startled Macke, and he replied immediately: ‘At the police station in Kreuzberg.’
‘And what was your job there?’
‘I was in charge of records. Why do you ask?’
Robert nodded as if he had expected something like this. ‘So you have gone from a job as a filing clerk to head of the Berlin intelligence section. Congratulations on your rapid promotion.’ He turned to Ethel. ‘When Hitler became Chancellor at the end of January, his henchman Hermann Göring took the role of Interior Minister of Prussia – in charge of the largest police force in the world. Since then, Göring has been firing policemen wholesale and replacing them with Nazis.’ He turned back to Macke and said sarcastically: ‘However, in the case of our surprise guest I’m sure the promotion was purely on merit.’
Macke flushed, but kept his temper. ‘As I said, I wish to speak to the proprietor about something personal.’
‘Please come and see me in the morning. Would ten o’clock suit you?’
Macke ignored this suggestion. ‘My brother is in the restaurant business,’ he ploughed on.
‘Ah! Perhaps I know him. Macke is the name? What kind of establishment does he run?’
‘A small place for working men in Friedrichshain.’
‘Ah. Then it isn’t likely that I have met him.’
Lloyd was not sure that it was wise for Robert to be so waspish. Macke was rude, and did not deserve kindness, but he could probably make serious trouble.
Macke went on: ‘My brother would like to buy this restaurant.’
‘Your brother wants to move up in the world, as you have.’
‘We are prepared to offer you twenty thousand marks, payable over two years.’
Jörg burst out laughing.
Robert said: ‘Permit me to explain something to you, Commissar. I am an Austrian count. Twenty years ago, I had a castle and a large country estate in Hungary where my mother and sister lived. In the war I lost my family, my castle, my lands, and even my country, which was . . . miniaturized.’ His tone of amused sarcasm had gone, and his voice became gruff with emotion. ‘I came to Berlin with nothing but the address of Walter von Ulrich, my distant cousin. Nevertheless, I managed to open this restaurant.’ He swallowed. ‘It is all I have.’ He paused, and drank some coffee. The others around the table were silent. He regained his poise, and something of his superior tone of voice. ‘Even if you offered a generous price – which you have not – I would still refuse, because I would be selling my whole life. I have no wish to be rude to you, even though you have behaved unpleasantly. But my restaurant is not for sale at any price.’ He stood up and held out his hand to shake. ‘Goodnight, Commissar Macke.’
Macke automatically shook hands, then looked as if he regretted it. He stood up, clearly angry. His fat face was a purplish colour. ‘We will talk again,’ he said, and he walked out.
‘What an oaf,’ said Jörg.
Walter said to Ethel: ‘You see what we have to put up with? Just because he wears that uniform, he can do anything he likes!’
What had bothered Lloyd was Macke’s confidence. He had seemed to feel sure that he could buy the restaurant at the price he named. He reacted to Robert’s refusal as if it was no more than a temporary setback. Were the Nazis already so powerful?
This was the kind of thing Oswald Mosley and his British Fascists wanted – a country in which the rule of law was replaced by bullying and beating. How could people be so damn stupid?
They put on their coats and hats and said goodnight to Robert and Jörg. As soon as they stepped outside, Lloyd smelled smoke – not tobacco, but something else. The four of them got into Walter’s car, a BMW Dixi 3/15, which Lloyd knew was a German-manufactured Austin Seven.
As they drove through the Tiergarten park, two fire engines overtook them, bells clanging. ‘I wonder where the fire is,’ said Walter.
A moment later, they saw the glow of flames through the trees. Maud said: ‘It seems to be near the Reichstag.’
Walter’s tone changed. ‘We’d better take a look,’ he said worriedly, and he made a sudden turn.
The smell of smoke grew stronger. Over the tops of the trees Lloyd could see flames shooting skywards. ‘It’s a big fire,’ he said.
They emerged from the park on to the Königs Platz, the broad plaza between the Reichstag building and the Kroll Opera House opposite. The Reichstag was ablaze. Red and yellow light danced behind the classical rows of windows. Flame and smoke jetted up through the central dome. ‘Oh, no!’ said Walter, and to Lloyd he sounded stricken with grief. ‘Oh, God in heaven, no.’
He stopped the car and they all got out.
‘This is a catastrophe,’ said Walter.
Ethel said: ‘Such a beautiful old building.’
‘I don’t care about the building,’ Walter said surprisingly. ‘It’s our democracy that’s on fire.’
A small crowd watched from a distance of about fifty yards. In front of the building, fire engines were lined up, their hoses already playing on the flames, water jetting in through broken windows. A handful of policemen stood around doing nothing. Walter spoke to one of them. ‘I am a Reichstag deputy,’ he said. ‘When did this start?’
‘An hour ago,’ the policeman said. ‘We’ve got one of them that did it – a man with nothing on but his trousers! He used his clothes to start the fire.’
‘You should put up a rope cordon,’ Walter said with authority. ‘Keep people at a safe distance.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said the policeman, and went off.
Lloyd slipped away from the others and moved nearer to the building. The firemen were bringing the blaze under control: there was less flame and more smoke. He walked past the fire engines and approached a window. It did not seem very dangerous, and anyway his curiosity overcame his sense of self-preservation – as usual.
When he peered through a window he saw that the destruction was severe: walls and ceilings had collapsed into piles of rubble. As well as firemen he saw civilians in coats – presumably Reichstag officials – moving around in the debris, assessing the damage. Lloyd went to the entrance and climbed the steps.
Two black Mercedes cars roared up just as the police were erecting their cordon. Lloyd looked on with interest. Out of the second car jumped a man in a light-coloured trench coat and a floppy black hat. He had a narrow moustache under his nose. Lloyd realized that he was looking at the new Chancellor, Adolf Hitler.
Behind Hitler followed a taller man in the black uniform of the Schutzstaffel, the SS, his personal bodyguard. Limping after them came the Jew-hating propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels. Lloyd recognized them from newspaper photographs. He was so fascinated to see them close up that he forgot to be horrified.
Hitler ran up the steps two at a time, heading directly towards Lloyd. On impulse, Lloyd pushed open the big door and held it wide for the Chancellor. With a nod to him, Hitler walked in, and his entourage followed.
Lloyd joined them. No one spoke to him. Hitler’s people seemed to assume he was one of the Reichstag staff, and vice ve
rsa.
There was a foul smell of wet ashes. Hitler and his party stepped over charred beams and hosepipes, treading in mucky puddles. In the entrance hall stood Hermann Göring, a camel-hair coat covering his huge belly, his hat turned up in front, Potsdam-fashion. This was the man who was packing the police force with Nazis, Lloyd thought, recalling the conversation in the restaurant.
As soon as Göring saw Hitler he shouted: ‘This is the beginning of the Communist uprising! Now they’ll strike out! There’s not a minute to waste!’
Lloyd felt weirdly as if he were in the audience at the theatre, and these powerful men were being played by actors.
Hitler was even more histrionic than Göring. ‘There will be no mercy now!’ he shrieked. He sounded as if he was addressing a stadium. ‘Anyone who stands in our way will be butchered.’ He trembled as he worked himself up into a fury. ‘Every Communist functionary will be shot where he is found. The Communist deputies to the Reichstag must be hanged this very night.’ He looked as if he would burst.
But there was something artificial about it all. Hitler’s hatred seemed real, but the outburst was also a performance, put on for the benefit of those around him, his own people and others. He was an actor, feeling a genuine emotion but amplifying it for the audience. And it was working, Lloyd saw: everyone within earshot was staring, mesmerized.
Göring said: ‘My Führer, this is my chief of political police, Rudolf Diels.’ He indicated a slim, dark-haired man at his side. ‘He has already arrested one of the perpetrators.’
Diels was not hysterical. Calmly he said: ‘Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch construction worker.’
‘And a Communist!’ Göring said triumphantly.
Diels said: ‘Expelled from the Dutch Communist Party for starting fires.’
‘I knew it!’ said Hitler.
Lloyd saw that Hitler was determined to blame the Communists, regardless of the facts.
Diels said deferentially: ‘From my first interrogation of the man, I have to say that it is clear that he is a lunatic, working alone.’
‘Nonsense!’ Hitler cried. ‘This was planned long in advance. But they miscalculated! They don’t understand that the people are on our side.’
Göring turned to Diels. ‘The police are on an emergency footing from this moment,’ he said. ‘We have lists of Communists – Reichstag deputies, local government elected representatives, Communist Party organizers and activists. Arrest them all – tonight! Firearms should be used ruthlessly. Interrogate them without mercy.’
‘Yes, Minister,’ said Diels.
Lloyd realized that Walter had been right to worry. This was the pretext the Nazis had been looking for. They were not going to listen to anyone who said that the fire had been started by a lone madman. They wanted a Communist plot so that they could announce a crackdown.
Göring looked down with distaste at the muck on his shoes. ‘My official residence is only a minute away, but it is fortunately unaffected by the fire, my Führer,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we should adjourn there?’
‘Yes. We have much to discuss.’
Lloyd held the door and they all went out. As they drove away, he stepped over the police cordon and rejoined his mother and the von Ulrichs.
Ethel said: ‘Lloyd! Where have you been? I was worried sick!’
‘I went inside,’ he said.
‘What? How?’
‘No one stopped me. It’s all chaos and confusion.’
His mother threw her hands in the air. ‘He has no sense of danger,’ she said.
‘I met Adolf Hitler.’
Walter said: ‘Did he say anything?’
‘He’s blaming the Communists for the fire. There’s going to be a purge.’
‘God help us,’ said Walter.
(iii)
Thomas Macke was still smarting from the sarcasm of Robert von Ulrich. ‘Your brother wants to move up in the world, as you have,’ von Ulrich had said.
Macke wished he had thought to reply: ‘And why should we not? We are as good as you, you arrogant popinjay.’ Now he yearned for revenge. But for a few days he was too busy to do anything about it.
The headquarters of the Prussian secret police were in a large, elegant building of classical architecture at No. 8 Prinz Albrecht Strasse in the government quarter. Macke felt proud every time he walked through the door.
It was a hectic time. Four thousand Communists had been arrested within twenty-four hours of the Reichstag fire, and more were being rounded up every hour. Germany was being cleansed of a plague, and to Macke the Berlin air already tasted purer.
But the police files were not up to date. People had moved house, elections had been lost and won, old men had died and young men had taken their places. Macke was in charge of a group updating the records, finding new names and addresses.
He was good at this. He liked registers, directories, street maps, news clippings, any kind of list. His talents had not been valued at the Kreuzberg police station, where criminal intelligence was simply beating up suspects until they named names. He was hoping to be better appreciated here.
Not that he had any problem with beating up suspects. In his office at the back of the building he could hear the screams of men and women being tortured in the basement, but it did not bother him. They were traitors, subversives and revolutionaries. They had ruined Germany with their strikes, and they would do worse if they got the chance. He had no sympathy for them. He only wished Robert von Ulrich was among them, groaning in agony and begging for mercy.
It was eight o’clock in the evening on Thursday 2 March before he got a chance to check on Robert.
He sent his team home, and took a sheaf of updated lists upstairs to his boss, Criminal Inspector Kringelein. Then he returned to the files.
He was in no hurry to go home. He lived alone. His wife, an undisciplined woman, had gone off with a waiter from his brother’s restaurant, saying she wanted to be free. There were no children.
He began to comb the files.
He had already established that Robert von Ulrich had joined the Nazi Party in 1923 and had left two years later. That in itself did not mean much. Macke needed more.
The filing system was not as logical as he would have liked. All in all, he was disappointed in the Prussian police. The rumour was that Göring was equally unimpressed, and planned to detach the political and intelligence departments from the regular force and form them into a new, more efficient secret police force. Macke thought that was a good idea.
Meanwhile, he failed to find Robert von Ulrich in any of the regular files. Perhaps that was not merely a sign of inefficiency. The man might be blameless. As an Austrian count, he was unlikely to be a Communist or a Jew. It seemed the worst that could be said of him was that his cousin Walter was a Social Democrat. That was not a crime – not yet.
Macke now realized that he should have done this research before approaching the man. But he had gone ahead without full information. He might have known that was a mistake. In consequence, he had been forced to submit to condescension and sarcasm. He had felt humiliated. But he would get his own back.
He began to go through miscellaneous papers in a dusty cupboard at the back of the room.
The name of von Ulrich did not appear here either, but there was one document missing.
According to the list pinned to the inside of the cupboard door, there should have been a file of 117 pages entitled ‘Vice Establishments’. It sounded like a survey of Berlin’s nightclubs. Macke could guess why it was not here. It must have been in use recently: all the more decadent night spots had been closed down when Hitler became chancellor.
Macke went back upstairs. Kringelein was briefing uniformed police who were to raid the updated addresses Macke had provided of Communists and their allies.
Macke did not hesitate to interrupt his boss. Kringelein was not a Nazi, and would therefore be afraid to reprimand a Storm trooper. Macke said: ‘I’m looking for the Vice Establishments file.
’
Kringelein looked annoyed but made no protest. ‘On the side table,’ he said. ‘Help yourself.’
Macke took the file and returned to his own room.
The survey was five years old. It detailed the clubs then in existence and stated what activities went on in them: gambling, indecent displays, prostitution, sale of drugs, homosexuality and other depravities. The file named owners and investors, club members and employees. Macke patiently read each entry: perhaps Robert von Ulrich was a drug addict or a user of whores.
Berlin was famous for its homosexual clubs. Macke ploughed through the dreary entry on the Pink Slipper, where men danced with men and the floor show featured transvestite singers. Sometimes, he thought, his work was disgusting.
He ran his finger down the list of members, and found Robert von Ulrich.
He gave a sigh of satisfaction.
Looking farther down, he saw the name of Jörg Schleicher.
‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘Let’s see how sarcastic you are now.’
(iv)
The next time Lloyd saw Walter and Maud he found them angrier – and more scared.
It was the following Saturday, 4 March, the day before the election. Lloyd and Ethel were planning to attend a Social Democratic Party rally organized by Walter, and they went to the von Ulrichs’ home in Mitte for lunch beforehand.
It was a nineteenth-century house with spacious rooms and large windows, though much of the furniture was worn. The lunch was plain, pork chops with potatoes and cabbage, but there was good wine with it. Walter and Maud talked as if they were poor, and no doubt they were living more simply than their parents had but, all the same, they were not going hungry.
However they were frightened.
But had persuaded Germany’s aging President, Paul von Hindenburg, to approve the Reichstag Fire Decree, which gave the Nazis authority for what they were already doing, beating and torturing their political opponents. ‘Twenty thousand people have been arrested since Monday night!’ Walter said, his voice shaking. ‘Not just Communists, but people the Nazis call “Communist sympathizers”.’