Germania: A Novel of Nazi Berlin

by Harald Gilbers

  Oppenheimer frowned at the unexpected instruction. To be sure, he asked, “You’re telling me to remove the star?”

  “This is an investigation that requires extreme discretion. That thing makes you stick out like a sore thumb.”

  “Well, I don’t know what to say. If someone asks me about it, can I refer them to you?”

  “Don’t you understand? This is an order!” With that, Vogler slammed the car door shut. The vehicle left, and Oppenheimer turned to Hoffmann, who was waiting a few meters away with the motorbike.

  “An order is an order. You’re my witness,” Oppenheimer said, shrugged, and removed the Star of David from his coat. Hoffmann’s expressionless face showed he didn’t care in the slightest.

  7

  SUNDAY, MAY 14, 1944

  Anyone living in the busy center of the capital of the Reich would find the leisurely pace of life in the Berlin suburb of Marienfelde very strange. On this Sunday morning, the small town seemed particularly sleepy. In the dawn twilight, a lone figure strolled through the center of town. An unusual sight for the first churchgoers, especially as this was an SS Hauptsturmführer. But none of the inhabitants would have guessed that it was a murder case that brought the visitor here.

  Vogler unbuttoned his coat. The sky was cloudless. The sun would soon warm the cold morning air. But this chill was nothing compared to the biting frost he had come to know at the eastern front. In his mind, Vogler went through the things Oppenheimer had said in Oberschöneweide, where the body had been found. He had observed the former inspector closely over the last few days in order to learn from him. Now Vogler tried to put the new insights into practice. First, he began to look for parallels between Oberschöneweide and Marienfelde. There was a memorial in both places, surrounded by several trees and a church.

  And both in Oberschöneweide and Marienfelde, they had found a murdered woman near the memorial.

  Vogler stood on the tapered green lawn where the road through the village forked. He mustered the surroundings carefully, then glanced at his watch. Half past seven. Several months before the Friedrichsen case, the body had been discovered here at almost the same time of day. More and more churchgoers approached the church. Oppenheimer had said that a camera could not capture everything. Vogler would have been happy to have any photos at all of Marienfelde. However, no one had informed the SS at the time, which probably explained why no one was really interested in solving this murder.

  IN MEMORY OF OUR BELOVED KILLED IN ACTION AND LOST IN WAR, it said at the top of the stone monstrosity that loomed above Vogler, the surface engraved on all sides with countless names arranged by date. A three-meter-high row of bushes shielded the monument, but right behind it lay a pond, and just a few hundred meters farther on stood the simple church, which from a distance appeared particularly medieval with its rough brickwork. The only other building that stuck out between the squat row of houses was to Vogler’s right, on the opposite side of the road. It was a three-story building and even had the extraordinary luxury of a stone balcony. Although the building seemed like a respectable residence dating from the turn of the century, a butcher’s shop was installed in the ground floor. Although Vogler was originally from the Hunsrück region, he felt that Marienfelde looked quite similar to his hometown. He felt the same sort of special small-town atmosphere that had always made him feel depressed.

  Vogler sighed in frustration when he realized that his thoughts had wandered off. He was forced to admit that although he was able to take in his surroundings, he didn’t have the slightest idea what conclusions he was supposed to draw from them. It had been nothing more than a gut instinct that had driven him here. Although there were only a few concrete clues, Vogler was pretty certain the cases were linked. But his decision was final; he didn’t want to disclose this information to Oppenheimer.

  Vogler found it best not to divulge everything to those who were thought to command respect. However, as a Jew, Oppenheimer had undoubtedly not enjoyed any respect for a long time. Which was precisely the reason that Vogler had selected him among the other inspectors. The fact that he had Oppenheimer’s life in his hands was also a guarantee that he would have him under control.

  Vogler lit a cigarette. Although he couldn’t really do much here, he found it hard to leave the place. Here of all places, he had finally found the quiet he had been missing over the last few years.

  Vogler considered in what way Oppenheimer resembled his father, the grumpy old Latin teacher who had terrorized the entire family and had always considered himself terribly important. Many years ago, Vogler Sr. had kicked up a great fuss when his junior had joined the Hitler Youth. In his obstinacy, he had insisted that his son immediately withdraw. Instead, Vogler Jr. had turned the tables and denounced his father to the local SA roughnecks. They had arrived just a few days later to arrest the old man.

  And it had worked.

  When they released him the next morning, he had changed forever. The SA had forced him to drink castor oil, and he had crapped all over himself. Vogler’s begetter, who had so admired his own mind, was forced to admit that he, too, had a body. Later, Vogler had realized that this had possibly been the biggest humiliation one could inflict upon one’s father. After that, the patriarch was a shadow of his former self who no longer dared to discipline his son. The sonorous bass that had so often droned through the house had been silenced for good. Vogler had broken his father and for the first time felt the intoxicating sensation of having power over others.

  And National Socialism had continued to offer him the opportunity to do so. Vogler internalized the ideals of the movement, later joining the SS. Although he occasionally rubbed his superiors the wrong way, it hadn’t damaged his career. No one could dispute that Vogler was the born warrior, which was perhaps down to the fact that for most of his life, the party organization bred him to be so. Although he did not really make a name for himself as a daredevil at the front, he had always achieved the desired results, because he never shrank from radical brutality when chasing his goals. Vogler had destroyed lives, injured bodies. But he felt that his reckless practices were justified, given his good motives. He had distinguished himself through his cold-bloodedness several times; one promotion followed the next. However, Vogler had not envisioned he would perform so well that his superiors would decide to send him to Berlin to be deployed in the regimental headquarters.

  But the current situation was too confusing for Vogler to feel honored by it. Away from the front, he was on unfamiliar terrain. When he arrived in the capital of the Reich, he had initially been pleased with the new challenges. But the first disappointment came shortly afterward. Just after his arrival, he’d been assigned this idiotic murder case instead of more important tasks. And so as to humiliate him even more, he was forced to work on the case with this unpleasant creature Graeter. During combat, Vogler had felt alive, but here on the home front, he felt increasingly useless. To make matters worse, he and Graeter had now wasted three months without delivering a result. The more time passed, the bigger the pressure exerted on them. Calling in Oppenheimer had been an act of desperation, the final straw he had clutched.

  Gloomily, Vogler looked over toward the butcher’s shop one last time. The stone faces that had been affixed as decoration above the windows on the first floor stared directly at the place where the body had been found. Vogler wondered what they might have seen during the night in question.

  Almost all the villagers were now assembled in front of the church. The morning service would soon begin. Vogler became aware of the curious faces. Occasionally, one of the passersby raised an arm in the Nazi salute, but faced with this German normality, Vogler felt separated from them. He had already seen too much in his lifetime to delight in this village idyll. He had spent the last few years almost exclusively abroad. But the image he’d had of home while he was away did not correspond with reality. His fellow Germans were not nearly as heroic as he had imagined. In his eyes, they were obtuse figures that
only cared for their small vanities, led petty lives. Had he actually fought for them? For these old men with hollow cheeks, for the women whose skirts were too long at the sides because their hips had narrowed so much?

  When Vogler asked himself what distinguished the proud German race from the haggard figures he had seen in Poland and Russia, he was overcome by a strong feeling of anxiety. He had been presented with too strong a dose of reality in the last few months. He knew he wouldn’t last much longer here.

  * * *

  This Sunday, Oppenheimer had chosen the route along Potsdamer Straße for his weekly visit to Hilde. He had grown cautious since his first meeting with Vogler. Now each time he met up with his good friend, he took a different route, allowing the occasional detour. It was an old trick to ensure that he wasn’t being followed. The last time he’d been forced to deploy this tactical deceptive maneuver, it had been because of the terrible weather. But now that it had stopped raining and the cold no longer crept up his trouser legs, he enjoyed the walk. The air was pleasant. He couldn’t imagine a stronger contrast to the stuffy intimacy of the Jewish House. He strolled happily past flowering red poppies adorning the fields with bright red dots and examined the lilac bushes, which had suddenly sprouted great white dabs as if by magic. So far, Oppenheimer had been relatively sure of not being followed. But this was about to change on this lovely spring day.

  Oppenheimer turned into Kolonnenstraße when he noticed something behind him. Initially, he couldn’t say exactly what it was, but when he stopped and pretended to tie his shoelaces, he perceived a figure out of the corner of his eye who also stopped, only to look demonstratively at his watch. At first glance, it was simply an inconspicuous man wearing a light summer hat. Finally, Oppenheimer took off his jacket and slowly wiped the sweat from his brow. Day-trippers were streaming all around him to get to the train station, entire families pushed past him, a small group of giggling League of German Girls in their obligatory dark blue skirts, with white blouses and black neckerchiefs, doubtlessly on their way home from a weekend of ideological indoctrination and still delighted to have escaped from their parents on this sunny day. But the man with the summer hat remained motionless. He was the only figure not participating in these busy goings-on.

  Maybe Oppenheimer was mistaken. In any case, he decided to put it to the test. Instead of crossing the Kolonnen Bridge, he left the pavement and headed for the undergrowth. It was just a couple of meters to the subway tracks. Oppenheimer clambered down the bank between the unruly bushes and cursed his worn-out shoes. After checking that there was no train coming, he ran across the tracks and aimed straight for the opposite embankment. He noticed how out of practice he was. He started panting after just a few strides, and when he pulled himself up the opposite bank on a bush and looked back, he realized that his pursuer was no better off.

  The man with the summer hat stumbled across the gravel on the tracks, swearing under his breath. So Oppenheimer hadn’t been mistaken. But instead of savoring the triumph of having unmasked his pursuer so quickly, he gathered his strength and fought his way up the embankment, sweating all the while.

  The round cement block that Oppenheimer was headed for rose up ahead of him. When he’d first spotted the structure, he had assumed it was a high bunker or a water reservoir. But Hilde had later explained to him that this ugly block had been set into the landscape by Albert Speer himself. As the gigantic triumphal arch was supposed to be built nearby, the static engineers had voiced concern as to whether the soil in Berlin could actually carry the weight of the monumental structures that were buzzing around in the führer’s head. So they had cast this block in several cubic feet of cement, to test how far it would sink in.

  Oppenheimer crossed General-Pape-Straße as quickly as he could and headed straight for the cement block. The surrounding wooden fence provided ideal coverage. He ran along it until he came to a spot where he could peer through the fence to observe the opposite side.

  It didn’t take long for the man in the summer hat to appear. He looked around. Panting, he removed his hat and wiped his sweaty brow. He was probably in his midthirties and slim, although his shirt was suspiciously tight around the stomach area. He was without a doubt ideally suited for the role of an inconspicuous observer. He looked up and down the street.

  Oppenheimer drew back in alarm. Something seemed to have drawn the man’s attention to the cement block. Oppenheimer tried to hold his breath and listened carefully. Hesitant steps drew nearer. Had the pursuer spotted him? Did he want to drive him out of his hiding place? Sweat appeared on Oppenheimer’s brow. Slowly, he walked backward, paying attention not to make any noise. He looked around frantically, searching for a way out.

  A sudden creak. Oppenheimer flinched.

  Two of the slats were loose, just hanging by a single nail. Without hesitating, he pushed the boards aside and squeezed his way through the opening. The circumference of the base of the cement block had been kept small to raise the point load. The resulting niche beneath the block was just high enough to stand under and to look out from the shadows at the surroundings, almost without being noticed.

  Oppenheimer dived into the niche, breathing a sigh of relief, but soon realized he wasn’t safe. He had no idea whether there was another way in. If his pursuer thought of checking this particular niche, Oppenheimer was trapped.

  He took a few careful steps backward until his back was up against the round cement block. Heavy breathing became audible, then got louder. It was the man in the summer hat. He slowly crept along the fence, trying in vain to quiet his breath. Finally, he stopped and stared through the fence. He cleared his throat in frustration and thrust his chin up in the air. He seemed to be contemplating whether it was possible to get onto the top of the cement block.

  After taking a few more steps around the block, Oppenheimer’s pursuer finally gave up. Hesitantly, he turned back to the path and returned to the main road.

  The man walked away, and Oppenheimer relaxed. He knew that he had outsmarted his pursuer.

  * * *

  “Have you heard the latest about Mr. Conti?”

  Oppenheimer had barely had time to put down his hat when Hilde waylaid him with this question.

  “Conti?” Oppenheimer unsuccessfully routed through his memory. “I’m afraid the name doesn’t mean anything to me.”

  “Yes, Conti, Leonardo Conti, the bastard. He is our minister of health. He has now demanded—you won’t believe this—Top Birth Output from mothers so that their husbands can go to the front feeling reassured. Anyone would be happy to get killed knowing that offspring was guaranteed, right?”

  “It’s probably a question of priorities,” Oppenheimer replied lamely.

  As usual, Hilde then gave him a rundown of the latest news she had picked up from the BBC in the shelter of her home, being an incorrigible secret-broadcast listener. The Allies had begun their offensive in Italy. It didn’t look much better for the National Socialist gang elsewhere either. Eighty percent of the Leuna works had been destroyed during an air raid. A petrol warehouse had also gone up in flames.

  “They tried to get commodities from the eastern front,” Hilde concluded her report. “Now that’s not working, they are left with just the final reserves.”

  Oppenheimer was only half listening, as he was busy going through his record collection. He selected the first Mozart symphony he came across. It was the right moment for a piece that just pattered along so that one could simply relax and listen. In heretic moments, he often thought that the music from the eighteenth century was primarily composed for just this purpose. It was only toward the end of that century that young hotheads like Beethoven had appeared, demanding greater attention from their audience.

  In contrast to many music lovers, Oppenheimer had never had a particular preference for Mozart. He quite liked the operas but found it hard to differentiate one symphony from another. He owned the recordings of the Prague and Jupiter symphonies only to complete his collection.
However, he was still reluctant to listen to the famous Serenade No. 13 in G Major, K. 525, which was more commonly known as Eine kleine Nachtmusik, as he found it terribly banal. Despite Mozart’s popularity, Oppenheimer had wondered for a while now why no Nazi bigwig had thought of declaring his music degenerate. After all, as a Freemason, the composer had belonged to a population group that Hitler hated just as much as Jews and communists. With this in mind, Oppenheimer placed the needle on the ridge of the black disk.

  “I’m guessing you had a close shave on Monday?” Hilde asked.

  Initially, Oppenheimer didn’t know what she meant, but then he remembered the daylight attack. There had been so many bomb attacks recently that he could barely tell them apart anymore.

  “Luckily, Lisa was at work when it happened. They’ve got a good bunker there. Our building is still standing, although it doesn’t really deserve to.” Then he changed the subject. “You haven’t asked me how the investigations are going.”

  “Are you trying to tell me that you’ve already had a result?”

  “Well, at any rate, I am under surveillance.”

  Hilde looked at him in amazement. “How long have you known?”

  “I found out a few minutes ago.”

  Oppenheimer told Hilde about his adventures and then recounted the latest developments in the murder case. When he described the colony where his new office was, Hilde choked on her schnapps. Gasping for breath, her face bright red, she uttered a few garbled words that Oppenheimer failed to understand.

  “All right?” he asked when she finally got her breath back.

  “Do you have any idea where you were?”

  “We were somewhere in Zehlendorf.”

  “Damn right. Bloody hell! Well, it’s not quite the lion’s den, but not far off.”

  Oppenheimer looked at her uncomprehendingly.