Into Darkness

by Anton Gill

  The office was well furnished. The General's desk and chair were mahogany. There were two leather armchairs, a boxwood filing cabinet, and an elm coffee table. Along one wall was a sideboard containing glasses and, Hoffmann guessed, looking at the General's florid face, a solid supply of drink. Above it, a rectangle of wallpaper was paler than the rest. The picture that had hung there leant against the sideboard, its back to the room. Hitler's portrait. No-one had thought of putting it back up yet.

  By the sideboard stood a thin man of sixty, the General's orderly, in a crisp waiter's jacket with golden epaulettes. He was staring into space, but he was alert. Hoffmann wondered what he thought of it all. Probably just wanted to keep his head down until it was over, like most people. Beyond the desk, a doorway led to the corridor.

  The office was connected to a larger room, a boardroom, by high double doors, now open. The windows of this adjacent room gave a restricted view of the river. Hoffmann leaned against the door-jamb and looked in. The General stood up and joined him, not standing too close. Hoffmann was a head taller. The General didn't like it.

  Near them in the boardroom, either side of the doors, were two small desks where two women clerks sat at typewriters, over which reading-lamps hunched, offering the only illumination. The women sat ready to type any possible interrogation. They were too scared to be bored. At one end of the large shining table in the centre sat a small group of men, guarded by an edgy trio of teenaged soldiers commanded by a corporal, all in black uniforms that didn't fit too well. Most of the prisoners wore the uniform of the General Staff. The red trouser-stripes looked grey in the dull light.

  One of them, a colonel, an aristocratic man in his mid-thirties, bearing old injuries that could only have been sustained in action, sat slightly apart. His right hand was gone, his left badly crippled, and he wore an eye-patch. He looked up sharply as he sensed Hoffmann watching him. Hoffmann looked away. He wanted no eye contact, for Hoffmann knew him: Colonel Claus Philipp Maria Graf Shenk von Stauffenberg. The war hero. The man upon whom the whole success of the enterprise had hung, he knew; the others had, he supposed, not dared act without him. They'd lost hours waiting for him to get back to Berlin after the bomb to kill Hitler had been set.

  In a corner, beyond the table and under the windows, a body lay, covered by an army blanket. Hoffmann wondered why it had not been removed. Blood had seeped through the blanket, leaving three oval stains, which had ceased to spread some time ago. Four flies buzzed around the body, one or other of them continually settling briefly on one or other of the stains.

  6

  Hoffmann looked at his watch: 23.00. 'What time did you place them under arrest?'

  'I've told you already, and I can't be more precise than I have been. As soon as someone managed to get a call through to the outside and the first SS reinforcements arrived, with a unit of Gestapo in tow of course. Damn it man, they had me under arrest themselves until then.'

  'So you say.' Hoffmann's tone remained polite.

  The General didn't like this cop, with his big nose and his heavy moustache. Knew him slightly. Nodding acquaintance. Cocktail parties. Looked like a night-club bouncer. How he had got as far as he had, was beyond Fromm, though the General wished now that he had cultivated the bugger more.

  'I was outnumbered. No-one had any idea what was going on. It was a farce. Buggers running around like headless chickens, even the SS, until they finally managed to gain the upper hand with that awful little Major. What could I have done?'

  'How well do you know these officers?' Hoffmann asked, lighting a cigarette.

  Fromm knew exactly what was behind the question; it was insolent: the man suspected him of collusion.

  'Hardly at all.' He angled his head in the direction of the body under the blanket. 'Knew General Beck in the old days, of course.'

  Hoffmann turned away, and walked back to the window. The activity in the courtyard had subsided. Groups of SS stood about, shuffling their feet, as before, but now only a handful of officials scuttled to and fro. Hoffmann wondered how much time he had. He was tense and tired. It wouldn't be long before someone would arrive with direct orders from the Führer and take command. Some SS bigwig like Skorzeny. He'd have to act before then.

  This General was scared. That was to Hoffmann's advantage.

  He slowed his breathing, drawing on his cigarette.

  Fromm followed him to the window, needing to know what to do. Hoffmann knew the signs from a thousand interrogations. But there could always be that last moment of stubbornness, or a panicky bid for freedom, that kept the sheep from the pen, the fish from the net, just when the fight seemed to be over.

  'I find it hard to believe that General Beck was involved,' said Hoffmann

  'He was their leader.'

  'How do you know?' asked Hoffmann. 'He retired years ago. Thought his main interest was gardening, these days.'

  The General spread his hands: 'I caught them red-handed. The coup was staged from here! They were only waiting for Stauffenberg to get back from planting the bomb.'

  'I've read the report.' Hoffmann looked over the General's shoulder at the battered figure of the young staff colonel, his face in profile. He might have been sitting for his portrait. 'Couldn't carry off the coup without him here, could they? I'm sorry, General, but I find that hard to believe.'

  'He ran the coup, yes. Beck was the planner. Beck's been involved for years.' The General babbled this like a confession. 'Stauffenberg was their front man. The one with charisma. The one the others followed, more than Beck. Beck's an old man. Was.'

  'You are well-informed.'

  'You haven't spent the whole day with them.' The General collected himself, needing to dissociate himself from the men in the other room. 'I may have been too lenient,' he conceded. 'I should perhaps not have permitted him to take his own life.'

  Hoffmann looked at him. 'But you were old comrades. As you say, you knew each other in the old days, before the Führer came to power.'

  'The same is true of many of us, Commissioner Hoffmann; but most of us are loyal.'

  Hoffmann said nothing. He looked through the open doors at the body, no more than a vague shape in the dim light. He remembered Beck too, but he could not think about that now.

  He lit a new cigarette from the stub of his old one, ran a finger round his collar to loosen it some more, and turned back to the General.

  'It's a pity he couldn't have shot himself without help,' he said. 'No-one could then connect you with a spontaneous suicide.'

  'I know,' muttered the General. 'But could I do? An old man. Someone we'd all looked up to for years. A former Chief of Staff, for God's sake. Surely the least I could do was let him take his own way out. Let him have some dignity.'

  And escape the Gestapo, thought Hoffmann. He closed his eyes for a moment, taking refuge in himself, gathering strength. 'Three bullets,' he said. 'From three different pistols.'

  'Beck used his own. A Parabellum. The muzzle slid off his temple. He was sweating.'

  'And the Mauser? Who fired that?'

  'One of my officers. A reliable man. He was nervous. General Beck, after all - '

  Hoffmann thought about the old soldier lying on the ground beneath the blanket, his head matted with blood and brain. At peace after ten years of swimming against the tide.

  He envied him. Where was this tiredness coming from? He had to shake it off. He looked at his watch again. The phone lines out of Berlin would be restored soon. How long had he been here? An hour? Longer. Before the call came which had summoned him here, he'd had a long, tense day himself, topped off with a frantic briefing before the drive to the Bendlerblock. At least his own police sources still worked.

  'Then?' he asked.

  General Fromm was unwilling to go over all the details again, but he said, 'My staff sergeant shot him in the neck. Used his service Walther. Severed the spinal cord. It was the only merciful thing to do.'

  'Was that the soldier I saw with Beck's overcoat?
'

  The General was defiant. 'Fine leather. It's a tradition. It's what General Beck would have wanted.'

  'What steps have you taken?'

  'We brought the others here,' the General said sullenly. 'I organised a court-martial.'

  'Indeed?'

  'This is a military matter!'

  'What was the verdict?'

  The General looked at him, but said nothing.

  'Must have reached it quickly.'

  7

  Hoffmann knew all about General Fromm. Head of the Reserve Army. A Berliner like himself. Professional soldier. Pragmatist. The plot had failed so he'd fall neatly back into Hitler's camp. If he could. Like most of them here. And now he was rattled. Good.

  Hoffmann wondered if the General believed the Third Reich had a future. The enemy was swarming into France from its bridgeheads. Italy had crumbled. 'You're still the officer responsible for this mess,' he said. 'You have a lot to explain.'

  'I believe we are still permitted to behave like officers,' General Fromm replied angrily.

  But Hoffmann knew the General was unsure of his ground, because of his own senior SS rank. The Criminal Police had long since been swept up into Heinrich Himmler's enormous security organisation, which was why, when he was in uniform, Hoffmann wore that of an SS-Brigadeführer. No-one, not even generals, would stand up to the SS after what had just happened.

  'Our Führer has just survived an attempt on his life,' Hoffmann said. 'The most serious to date.' He cleared his throat. 'The Fatherland stands at the crossroads of destiny. Our Führer would be distressed to learn that any of his officers felt they could not behave as such, at any time, let alone now.'

  The General, outmanoeuvred, said nothing. Hoffmann knew Fromm was thinking: was the policeman going to report him for allowing Beck to shoot himself? Had he then compounded the error by appearing to criticise Hitler? But he was still a general, damn it, and loyal, thank God, and he'd made the arrests, so he should be in the clear. If only he could be sure.

  As Hoffmann watched him, the General lit a cigarette and went back to his desk.

  Hoffmann was content to let the matter drop. He didn't want to make an enemy of this man, who could be useful to him before the big guns arrived. He had to mask his impatience though, play the fish slowly, gamble with the time.

  Hitler had survived Stauffenberg's bomb against all the odds. When order was restored, Germany could expect a whirlwind.

  'There still remains the question,' said the General, recovering himself, 'of what we do with them.'

  'What do you suggest?'

  The General bit his lip. 'The SS have everything under control.'

  'But you are still the senior officer.'

  'I'm aware of that,' replied the General.

  'We must move forwards,' Hoffmann motioned towards the men in the other room. 'Or would you prefer to wait until the Gestapo bigwigs get here and hand them over?'

  The General had an idea. 'You said I was wrong to allow Beck to shoot himself.'

  Hoffmann looked at him.

  'But at the same time you say the Führer would not wish officers to behave other than as officers in a moment of crisis?'

  Hoffmann inclined his head.

  'So please tell me,' said the General. 'What would the Führer want me to do with my prisoners?'

  Hoffmann considered, 'You've had your court-martial. Too late to change that.'

  'Exactly.'

  'And this is a military matter.'

  'Yes!'

  Hoffmann looked at his watch again. 'The Gestapo are going to cast their net wide,' he said. 'Many, many more than these men will be caught in it.' He looked over again at the staff officers seated at the end of the table. They could smell the cigarettes and were looking across hungrily; even Stauffenberg was finding it hard not to unbend. Hoffmann drew an unopened packet from his jacket pocket and walked over to them. He placed the cigarettes, and a box of matches, on the table. 'Please,' he said. Turning back, he suggested: 'Give them some brandy, too.'

  The General hesitated before nodding at his orderly, who opened the sideboard and from it produced a full bottle and glasses, which he placed on a tray with two ashtrays - fastidious fellow, this orderly - and carried them to the prisoners.

  One of them stood up, drew himself to attention, and saluted in the old manner, hand to forehead; there was enough light to see genuine gratitude under the irony. Another officer slumped further into his chair.

  'Cigarettes and cognac,' murmured the General, feeling himself cornered. 'You realise what they will expect from this?'

  Hoffmann looked at him. 'The decision is yours,' he said. 'You may be right about officers being permitted to make a dignified exit. And what else is left for them?'

  The General drew himself up. 'Where is the senior Gestapo officer?'

  'You don't need to consult him.'

  'Forgive me, Commissioner; but of course we must. We'll need to use SS-men for the firing squad in any case. There aren't any real soldiers here, only pen-pushers.'

  'I'll have him sent for.'

  'Do you know him?' asked Fromm, a tiny suspicion glimmering in his mind.

  'I trained him.' Hoffmann noticed the General's reaction. 'It's a pure coincidence that he's here; but I do know who he is. Do you imagine I would have come here without being briefed?'

  He opened the door which connected the office to the corridor and admitted a younger policeman, maybe thirty years old. Bespectacled and shabby, he looked more like a schoolmaster than a cop. The General could see at a glance that he was too intelligent to be trusted.

  'This is Dr. Kessler,' said Hoffmann. The General nodded distantly. The young man's dark eyes looked at him appraisingly, and he didn't like it. Kessler himself didn't like what he saw.

  'Where is Major Schiffer?' asked Hoffmann.

  'In the radio room, sir. I'll get him.' Kessler was gone in a moment.

  'Are we going to drink your health, or what?' came a voice from among the officers at the boardroom table. The orderly, having deposited his tray, had been hovering, awaiting orders. The men had helped themselves to cigarettes, and the smoke curled towards the ceiling. Some were smoking in a leisurely manner, others urgently. Hoffmann looked at them. He knew they were afraid of using up the comfort too soon. The fast smokers looked jealously at the cigarettes remaining in the pack. Hoffmann wished he had another, and put what was left of his own on the table.

  He looked at the General, who jerked his head at his batman. He in turn uncorked the bottle and, in a gesture of solidarity, filled the glasses to the rim. There wasn't much left in the bottle at the end of the round.

  Kessler returned, accompanied by a man a couple of years his senior, dressed in a dark grey suit, immaculate, white shirt and dark blue tie. He was like a matinee idol, complete with a little brown moustache. He nodded soberly at the General. Kessler stayed by the door. The three others moved to the window and talked in low voices. The officers at the table smoked and drank, watching. The orderly stood near his tray. The women clerks and the soldiers fidgeted. Tension filled the room like gas.

  It took barely a minute. Schiffer left the room, and in the silence those remaining listened to his footsteps recede. The General returned to his desk, but did not sit down. He took a cigarette from the box on his desk but left it unlit. Hoffmann remained by the window, looking out. He watched Schiffer emerge into the courtyard with an SS officer. A unit of six soldiers formed up near the pile of sand, while three other men ran across to the parked cars, started three up, and drove them round to where the soldiers were, positioning them so that their headlamps illuminated the sandbank, like theatre lights on a stage.

  Hoffmann crossed to the boardroom. Some of the officers were already on their feet. They finished their drinks and put out their cigarettes after taking long, last pulls on them. Their guards looked at one another. Their corporal nudged them to attention.

  Hoffmann glanced at Fromm, but the General didn't look up. He stood by
his desk, staring at something there. A scratch? A speck of dust?

  Hoffmann spoke to the SS corporal: 'Take the prisoners to the courtyard.'

  He looked nobody in the eye as the officers walked past him. But one of them whispered, so softly that he might have dreamt it, 'Thank you.'

  8

  One hour after the executions, Hoffmann sat at his desk at Police Headquarters in the Werderscher Markt. His head felt light, but the weariness which had dogged him most of the evening and night had left him. On the desk, among the stacked papers, stood a half-empty bottle of Fürst Bismarck in an ice-bucket, and an overflowing ashtray. Christ, what high stakes they had played for. What would he do now? He opened the drawer and looked at the pistol in it. Should he use it?

  Not that. Not yet. But for the moment, nothing seemed real. Time to take stock, keep calm.

  Once the firing squad had done its job, the sergeant-in-charge had picked his way between the bodies delivering the coup de grâce to each with an automatic. There was no need for this ritual, everyone could see that. It was done for the SS photographer. The dead men didn't look dignified. The bodies were shoved into a van and driven away for burial in a nearby churchyard. By the time the main body of SS reinforcements, led by a gaggle of panicky top brass, arrived to establish a military presence on behalf of the Führer, it was all over. The SS strutted, threw their weight around, but there was little for them to do. Hoffmann stayed long enough to make his report and to watch the General driven away under escort.

  Opposite Hoffmann in his office, watching him think, sat a man in a tailored English suit, a discreet enamel Party badge in the buttonhole of its jacket. He was thin, neither tall nor short; balding, and stooped, as a person who spends a lot of time bent over books often becomes. He looked fresher than Hoffmann, though he, too, had been on his feet for most of the last eighteen hours. He'd probably taken time to shave and change, however quickly, before coming here. That would have been typical of Hans Brandau.