Germania: A Novel of Nazi Berlin

by Harald Gilbers

  The fact that a secretary like Inge Friedrichsen was entrusted with confidential information surprised Oppenheimer. This could be a possible motive for a crime.

  Mrs. Berg left the main building with them. It was a four-story edifice whose portal was flanked by two impressive dormers. There were also several side buildings. No one who spotted the lane between the trees that served as a driveway to the home would have thought that such a vast property with its massive stone buildings was hidden here. Without a doubt, Mrs. Berg and the doctor were in charge of a significant operation. Oppenheimer tried to estimate how many potential suspects there were here. It had to be several dozen.

  Despite its size, the terrain was shielded from all-too-curious glances by a row of trees. Oppenheimer could see something gleaming between the tree trunks. The Gudelacksee glimmered to his left; to his right lay a small pond, little more than a dark spot on the landscape.

  “That over there is the small lake where our staff occasionally like to go,” Mrs. Berg explained.

  “Very interesting. How many people work here?”

  “The doctor will be able to give you the precise numbers. It’s probably around one hundred thirty people. Nurses, midwives, our nursery school staff, kitchen staff, of course, gardeners, chauffeur—all that amounts to quite a few.”

  Oppenheimer was not happy to hear these details.

  “Is there anyone Ms. Friedrichsen had close contact with?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know.”

  “How did she get this job? Didn’t she need to have particular references to be entrusted with such confidential information?”

  “Initially, Miss Inge was herself a guest in one of our homes. I cannot tell you which one. This information is confidential, and only the doctor has access to the central files.”

  “She was a guest?”

  “Sorry, I should have explained. This is what we call the women who are admitted to our maternity ward. Each of them is only addressed by her first name, to protect her identity. We also don’t call any of our ladies Miss, as in the mothers’ interest, we don’t want to give out any information regarding their marital status.”

  “So Ms. Friedrichsen came here through the home where she delivered her son?”

  Mrs. Berg nodded. “Exactly. She had excellent references regarding her character and ideological suitability for the job. She had joined the party during her time on the maternity ward. Management had also confirmed that she had participated in all the courses with great interest.”

  “Which courses would that be?”

  “Each home conducts courses for its guests. We try to inform the mothers about everything that is important for raising a child and for the general health of the German people. We offer a wide-ranging program. Sometimes we broadcast speeches given by the führer; occasionally, there is a communal singing evening. However, our responsibility goes even further. Apart from the children and the home, there is, of course, political schooling. After all, we want to educate our mothers to be good National Socialists so that they leave our home in an ideologically stable state.”

  “What about Ms. Friedrichsen’s son? Is he still in Lebensborn?”

  “Horst? Yes, he’s here in our crèche. She visited him every second weekend. He’s over there with the others.” Mrs. Berg pointed to a field where several children were romping around. If one of them was Inge Friedrichsen’s son, then he was playing as happily as the others, clueless that someone had robbed him of his mother.

  A certain unease overcame Oppenheimer that he hadn’t anticipated when he’d assumed he was dealing with a simple breeding station. Daily life in the home was much more normal, and perhaps that was why it was far more shocking. The fact that Inge Friedrichsen worked at Lebensborn did not mean that she was a nymphomaniac. She had seen a chance to earn some money, be independent, and at the same time keep her child. But she had to adhere to the rules, and she did that without question. Whether she had joined the NSDAP out of conviction or consideration could no longer be deduced beyond doubt. Oppenheimer considered the likelihood that the Lebensborn courses had played a role fairly low. The way Mrs. Berg described these events, they were different from the indoctrination that the German people had been exposed to for years, be it at school, at the workplace, through newspaper reports, or on the radio.

  But after his conversation with Mrs. Berg, Oppenheimer had gotten an idea of how this was all connected. The party’s motivation for helping mothers bring illegitimate children into the world—as long as they conformed to their requirements of raciology and were of good blood—was not human kindness. A war was being conducted at this seemingly idyllic place. Skirmishes were carried out every day, not concerning the current situation at the front in Russia but for battles that lay in the distant future. The National Socialists were getting ready, not with new, ingenious machines of destruction but with human material. The average German mother had to deliver as many children as possible and would at best be rewarded with a Cross of Honor of the German Mother for uncompromisingly sending her sons into future wars as cannon fodder.

  The future pool of leaders, however, was to be born in Lebensborn. An elite according to Hitler’s taste that was meant to establish itself as senior leadership with their perceived pure genetic makeup. That, at least, was the theory. Inge Friedrichsen was a small cog in the big wheel of this plan. Her assistance was not critical, and yet she, like many others, had made a contribution so that the system could function smoothly.

  “I think the doctor ought to be available now,” Mrs. Berg said and headed toward the main building. As Oppenheimer followed her, he heard noises that he could not classify. He wondered whether he had misheard or whether in this place, which was dedicated to purifying the German race, someone was speaking a foreign language. Oppenheimer looked around and saw a young boy, maybe three or four years old, holding on to a leather ball. His blond hair was almost bleached white by the sun. He looked up at the nursery school teacher stubbornly.

  “Pilka,” the boy said and held on to the ball.

  “No, say ball,” the teacher admonished him. “It’s called a ball. You have a ball. I don’t want you saying pilka again!”

  The boy’s face darkened. He shook his head fiercely. A girl in a dress, with plaits sticking out from the side of her head, watched the showdown before a nurse led her away. The teacher sighed audibly, looked at her recalcitrant charge, and placed her hands on her hips. “Do you not want to understand me? Either you say ball by this evening, or there will be no dinner.”

  Oppenheimer turned to Mrs. Berg. “What language was that?”

  “A child from the East. Occasionally, we get some to see if they can be Germanized.”

  “Where do the children come from?”

  “Mostly from Warthegau. There are homes in Brockau and Kalisch that we work with. Naturally, it is part of our remit to return children of good racial background to the Aryan ancestral home.”

  Oppenheimer didn’t dare ask where these children’s parents were. Had the children been taken from them? When he looked around again, he saw the purple-faced boy standing in the middle of the field. He didn’t seem to know what he was doing here and what was being asked of him. Everything he had relied on in the past had lost its validity from one day to the next. When their gazes crossed, Oppenheimer briefly felt as if he were gazing into his own face.

  * * *

  “I need to lodge a complaint,” the lady in the simple dress said. She had insisted on wearing an expensive, glittery necklace, although the management of the home asked their guests to keep an unpretentious appearance.

  “One moment,” Mrs. Berg said and led her visitors to the doctor’s office. But the lady was not letting it drop and continued with her complaints.

  “The meals are intolerable. No one can tolerate that much cabbage. I don’t want my little one to get flatulent.”

  Mrs. Berg paused for a moment. “He’s just been born. How is that supposed to happen?”
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  “It will be passed on through my breast milk, of course.”

  Mrs. Berg frowned ominously. She asked Oppenheimer and Vogler to enter, but they still heard some of the conversation through the closed door.

  “I also demand to have a better room. Don’t you know that I’m the wife of SS Officer Krug?”

  “Mrs. Lore, I have told you several times, there is no preferential treatment here.”

  “Hauptsturmführer Vogler and Inspector Oppenheimer, I presume?” a voice came from behind the desk. When Oppenheimer turned to look at the man, he had already raised his arm in the Nazi salute. “Heil Hitler! Please take a seat.”

  The doctor did not bother to introduce himself. As every other person in the home only spoke of him as Doctor, Oppenheimer considered whether this might actually be his last name. During their conversation, he simply confirmed what Mrs. Berg had said. He was unable to say in which Lebensborn home Inge Friedrichsen had given birth to her son. Although Oppenheimer had already been given the name by Ms. Behringer, the doctor wanted to double-check.

  “You have to understand that these matters are highly confidential,” the doctor explained. “I can only give you data like this following confirmation from headquarters in Munich.”

  “You don’t seem to understand. This information is important to our investigation,” Oppenheimer insisted.

  “As I said, I cannot give you a different answer.”

  “We will sort this,” Vogler intervened. He turned to Oppenheimer and added, “The Lebensborn project is subordinated to the Central SS Office for Race and Settlement. I will contact someone there directly.”

  “That will probably be the quickest way,” the doctor agreed.

  Oppenheimer, sitting next to them, could see how they fed each other lines. Both Vogler and the doctor belonged to the same organization and understood its structure, whereas its manifold interconnections and the omnipresent wrangling for competency were inscrutable to Oppenheimer. This was why in this situation he felt less like an investigating inspector and more like a passive observer in a foreign world. The men stared at each other in silence. Vogler seemed to be waiting for Oppenheimer to ask another question, but the only thing that came to mind was whether he would be able to accomplish anything here at all.

  Finally, the doctor broke the silence. “I presume Mrs. Berg has already shown you around the premises, Mr. Oppenheimer?”

  “Yes, we’ve had the tour.”

  “And what do you think of our home?”

  Oppenheimer answered truthfully, “It’s very different from what I’d expected.”

  “Lebensborn has an important function. Most people forget this. It is a fact that since the beginning of the war, the willingness to procreate has diminished. In addition, fewer and fewer elite children are being born. We will reach a deficit in the near future that must be compensated for, and we have to include this in our planning. It is in the interest of the German nation to have a new generation of outstanding human beings. After all, someone will have to head up state and society when the führer is no longer among us. Many people simply don’t want to understand this. Even many SS officers refuse to carry out their procreation duties toward the German Reich.”

  “I have to admit that I was expecting something completely different here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Lebensborn homes are commonly seen as a sort of brothel.”

  The doctor smiled patronizingly. “Ah, the matter of the procreation helpers. Unfortunately, this is always misunderstood. But perhaps it’s quite a good thing that I have the opportunity to clear a few things up here. To put it quite bluntly, Lebensborn does not want to undermine the institution of marriage. Nothing could be further from the truth. But a marriage can only be seen as a foundation of the state if it produces many children. It is true that we are considering offering help to mothers who are willing to bear children and who cannot find a partner to realize their desire to get pregnant. We can assist by providing them with special procreation helpers. But this most certainly has nothing to do with prostitution. However, this plan has not yet been realized. Yes, there were trials, and I don’t wish to deny that so far, they were not very successful, which is why the project has been deferred for the moment.”

  “What sort of problems were there?”

  “Well, so far, the genetic makeup and disposition of most of the men who came forward as procreation helpers was below average. We here at Lebensborn are aware of our enormous responsibility, and for the time being, we have stopped actively looking for candidates. Our association does not consider it a priority to arrange partnerships. But I believe that after the ultimate victory, every woman will see it as her duty of honor to give the führer and the Fatherland a child. And at that point in time, we will again intensify our efforts in regard to the procreation helpers.”

  The doctor had gotten into his stride. While speaking of something that was his expertise, the doctor managed to do something rather unachievable: he strutted while being seated.

  “Do you know, the Reich Leader SS advocates a fascinating theory. He has found proof that procreation helpers existed in Teuton and Dorian times. So it is an old tradition, which we are reintroducing and reinterpreting in the sense of genetic responsibility. If a woman of marrying age could not find a husband, then for a long time, it was tradition that her father would choose a man from among the villagers for her. The chosen man had to mate with her on the ancestral grave at night and remained anonymous during the sexual act. Imagine, in some areas this custom still exists.” After these words, the doctor’s gaze wandered into the distance.

  Speechless, Oppenheimer looked at the man in the white coat. The conversation had unexpectedly taken a strange turn. Oppenheimer shifted around on his chair. He decided it was best to steer the conversation back to the investigation.

  “Do you happen to know whom Ms. Friedrichsen was closer with?”

  “I don’t know. I assume she probably associated with the nurses. However, some of them have since been reassigned by the NSW.”

  Once again, one of these insufferable abbreviations. The Nazi organization was full of them. “NSW?” Oppenheimer asked.

  “The National Socialist Welfare Service. They decide where personnel gets assigned.”

  “Would it be possible to receive a copy of all staff members who were employed here at the same time as Ms. Friedrichsen?”

  The doctor looked at Oppenheimer and Vogler in surprise. “I don’t understand the question. I gave you the list when you were here the day before yesterday, Hauptsturmführer!”

  * * *

  Oppenheimer was seriously upset. He sat in the car, sulking, his arms folded across his chest, trying to calm down. By the time they were several kilometers away from Klosterheide, he felt he had managed to rein in his anger. He now felt he was being figuratively taken for a ride by Vogler too.

  “We can play games, of course,” Oppenheimer began. “But I think the case is too serious for that. After all, we are trying to solve a murder. I don’t know why you brought me in on the case in the first place. I can only work properly if I have all the information. We can carry on as before, but we’ll waste a lot of energy and time. There is also no point in me following up leads that have already been explored. I have to have an overview of the current status of the investigation; otherwise, I can’t help you. I’m sorry.”

  When they approached the nation’s capital, it was already getting dark. But Oppenheimer immediately saw that black smoke was hanging in the air. There had probably been further air raids. After having spent the whole day in the rural idyll, far from the smell of death and depravity that pervaded almost every corner of Berlin, the sight was a shock that catapulted Oppenheimer back into the reality of the capital. It was a reality in which he still lived in the Jewish House, was still ostracized, in which his life was worth nothing. This thought made him realize what danger he had put himself into when he reproached Vogler, even setting
him an ultimatum. The SS Hauptsturmführer held Oppenheimer’s life in his hands, could have him killed on a whim at any moment. Impossible to say when this might be the case. It was probably enough for Vogler to feel offended or bored. Nobody would hold him accountable. The illusion of leading an investigation had made Oppenheimer careless. But it was too late to take back what had been said.

  10

  SATURDAY, MAY 20, 1944–SUNDAY, MAY 21, 1944

  “Oppenheimer, I fear that I underestimated your abilities,” Vogler said by way of greeting. Hoffmann had driven Oppenheimer to Zehlendorf the next day at the usual time. He had even been a little faster than usual, as there was not much traffic on a Saturday morning. When Oppenheimer entered the living room, there were two piles of paper on the table. He had a sense of foreboding.

  “It was stupid of me not to bring you in the loop earlier,” Vogler continued. “But I had to make sure you met the high standards I hold this investigation to. I have seen that you were on the right track thanks to your intuition, even though you didn’t have all the facts. You were right when, upon seeing the injuries, you presumed that the perpetrator knew exactly what he was doing. That he was practiced in what he did. It was not his first time. He’s killed at least two other women in the same way.”

  Oppenheimer had to sit down. He didn’t feel the soft padding that he sank into, didn’t even realize that he was still wearing his hat and coat. The only thing that entered his mind was the bitter realization that he had not been wrong.

  “And?” he uttered tonelessly.

  “Julie Dufour and Christina Gerdeler.” Vogler paused briefly to allow the names to sink in. “Those were his other two victims. You’ll find the complete investigation reports with photographs, witness statements, and everything else on the table. You have complete insight.”