Germania: A Novel of Nazi Berlin

by Harald Gilbers

  All things considered, Kitty Schmidt could not have found a more exclusive address for her house of ill repute, just a short walk away from the Kurfürstendamm. The hustle and bustle on the exclusive boulevard fitted admirably into the concept of an upmarket brothel set on attracting well-known visitors from the higher society. According to Güttler, there had been endless comings and goings of illustrious personalities, among them high-ranking militaries, diplomats, and party officials. Currently, however, the clientele was made up mainly of soldiers on leave from the front. Given just how familiar Güttler seemed to be with Salon Kitty, Oppenheimer wondered if he wasn’t perhaps a client himself.

  During his time with the crime squad, Oppenheimer had occasionally heard about this particular pleasure dome. Salon Kitty had an excellent reputation in the city, not only because of the ladies who plied their trade there but also because the owner, Kitty Schmidt, and her staff took discretion very seriously. Oppenheimer vaguely remembered having once heard an anecdote that a party had taken place in Kitty’s spacious flat on the day of Hitler’s seizure of power, which had been attended by both SA leaders and Jews. Of course, Güttler withheld this particular detail from his stories.

  Hoffmann stopped outside house number eleven, while Güttler explained, “It’s just here on the ground floor.” It took a bit longer to get out of the vehicle because of Güttler’s wooden leg.

  Oppenheimer looked up at the façade. He thought he could see the edge of a provisional roof. Clearly, the building had been hit by a bomb a while ago.

  When they were in the hallway outside the door to the flat, a maid in a white apron and bonnet opened the door.

  “We have an appointment with Mrs. Schmidt,” Oppenheimer’s companion explained.

  “Please come in,” the maid said.

  They entered a foyer with several doors leading off. The furnishings were exactly as Oppenheimer had imagined: plush, heavy curtains everywhere, a palm tree in the corner, thick carpets on the floor, stucco on the ceiling. The girl was just about to announce the visitors when one of the doors opened.

  “The men from the SD,” the maid said to the woman who swept into the room.

  “Many thanks, Elvira. I’ll take it from here,” she replied.

  Mrs. Schmidt played her part with courteous ease. Although Oppenheimer was in no doubt that her accommodating manner was rehearsed, it still had the desired effect. Kitty made her guests feel immediately welcome. “I’m so pleased you could arrange to come today. You have no idea how things are right now. One client after the other.” It was only now that Oppenheimer got to take a closer look at Kitty Schmidt. She was a handsome woman with a pleasant face, one of those women whose precise age is hard to determine. Oppenheimer presumed she was in her late thirties.

  A young woman entered the foyer. She was clearly tired, but when she saw the two men, she pulled herself together. “Good-bye, Kitty,” she said as she opened the door to the stairwell. Oppenheimer wasn’t sure, but it almost seemed as if she’d given Güttler a familiar wink as she passed by.

  “Good-bye, my child,” Kitty dismissed her employee before turning back to Oppenheimer. “As I said, lots of traffic. I don’t know why, but things have been really busy in the last few weeks. It’s probably best if we go to my boudoir. We won’t be disturbed there.”

  In the so-called boudoir, Oppenheimer spotted a large oil painting. It portrayed Mrs. Schmidt with her arms folded, in half profile.

  “Ah, you’re admiring the painting,” Mrs. Schmidt said when she noticed Oppenheimer’s interest. “Yes, unfortunately no Tintoretto, but that was way before my time.” She accompanied her comment with an indulgent smile.

  “You are Mr.…”

  Oppenheimer flinched when he realized that he hadn’t introduced himself. He shook her hand. “Inspector Oppenheimer. I presume Mr. Güttler has already informed you about the matter, Mrs. Schmidt?”

  Kitty hesitated briefly when she heard Oppenheimer’s name. “Oh, please, do call me Kitty. Everyone does.” Her smile disappeared when she remembered the murder. “Yes, Mr. Güttler already mentioned the matter of Friederike. It really is terrible. Can I offer you something to drink? Champagne, cognac, coffee?”

  Kitty pressed a bell push. The maid appeared a few seconds later. “Do we have any Number 1 left?” Kitty asked.

  “I’m afraid we’re all out of champagne. We haven’t received the new delivery from the wholesaler’s yet. We’ll have to order elsewhere.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.” Kitty looked at Oppenheimer. “I’m afraid my guests are very thirsty. Unfortunately, it is sometimes not that easy to get your hands on champagne.”

  “Oh, please, don’t trouble yourself,” Oppenheimer said. “I’m on duty anyway. But you mentioned coffee?”

  “Of course. Real coffee. Two cups, please, Elvira.”

  The maid curtsied and disappeared.

  “You just mentioned a Friederike?” Oppenheimer said. He consulted his notebook. “According to my information, she’s called Edith Zöllner.”

  “Of course. I forgot. Our girls all have aliases.” She opened an album and passed it to Oppenheimer. “Here, our photo of her.”

  It was not by chance that Oppenheimer was forced to think of Christina Gerdeler when he saw the photograph. Like her, Ms. Zöllner was stretching languidly, naked, in front of the camera. The remaining photographs in the album showed other women in similar poses.

  “I suppose I can remove this picture now.” Kitty sighed dejectedly and fetched a bottle of gin from behind her desk. “Would you like one too, Inspector? Oh, I forgot, you’re on duty.” She poured herself a glass of the liqueur and took a sip.

  “Your girls don’t live here, do they?” Oppenheimer asked.

  “No, that’s not possible. I have thirty-five women working for me. That would be too much for this flat. I have their telephone numbers. My guests get presented with the albums, and they can choose which lady they want to spend time with. Then I call them at home or send someone for them, and we wait here until they appear.”

  “When did you last see Ms. Zöllner?”

  “On Saturday evening. We were very busy. She went home around three thirty in the morning. She wanted to discuss something with my housekeeper before she left, but the woman had already gone to bed. And then on Sunday, I couldn’t reach Friederike—I mean Ms. Zöllner—anymore.”

  “Who else works here?”

  “Just two servant girls and the housekeeper.”

  “So you only employ women?”

  “That’s right.”

  Nobody who worked in the salon fit the description of the perpetrator. The amount of useful information that Oppenheimer got from Kitty was limited. She had no idea who the killer might be, and she couldn’t remember the names of Ms. Zöllner’s regulars.

  Next, Oppenheimer questioned the housekeeper, who wore a simple dark dress, her hair in a bun, whose reserved demeanor didn’t fit in with the setting at all.

  “Rosalie, this is Inspector Oppenheimer,” Kitty introduced her guest. Rosalie looked at him in surprise for a brief moment, then she mustered him as if she were looking for something.

  “Hello,” she said and then looked at Kitty again, who nodded almost imperceptibly and led Rosalie to a chair. Oppenheimer had a bad feeling. The women’s behavior was unmistakable. They had seen through him. They had put one and one together—his name, the holes in his coat where the yellow star had been. They both knew he was a Jew. But neither said anything.

  Rosalie had no idea why Ms. Zöllner had wanted to speak to her. The two women hadn’t even seen each other the day she disappeared. Disappointed, Oppenheimer took his leave. He was already in the stairwell with Güttler when he heard Kitty’s voice speaking quietly behind him.

  “Inspector Oppenheimer?” Kitty briefly pulled him aside so that Güttler couldn’t see them.

  “Times must be very tough for you right now,” she whispered. Then she pressed a few banknotes into his hand and said in a no
rmal voice, “Come and see us again soon. New faces are always welcome here. Good-bye.”

  Then she closed the door in front of Oppenheimer’s nose. He froze in surprise for a moment before hurriedly putting away the money.

  Güttler was already out on the street when Oppenheimer stepped out of the building. He could not have witnessed any of the transaction. And yet Oppenheimer felt the need to explain why he had taken so long.

  “She seems very keen on attracting new clientele.” He did his best to smile sheepishly.

  Güttler didn’t comment. Instead, he nodded over toward a lorry, from which a delivery boy was unloading champagne. “There are the supplies for Kitty. Pity, we were too early today.”

  * * *

  Ms. Zöllner’s flat was easy to find. She lived just a few hundred meters away from Salon Kitty. The owner of the house seemed to have no idea of Ms. Zöllner’s occupation and described her as a pleasant tenant who didn’t make any noise, paid her rent on time, and didn’t entertain any men. She’d last seen the young lady on Saturday afternoon as she left the house. This suggested that Ms. Zöllner had probably been kidnapped by the perpetrator on her way home on Saturday night. For inexplicable reasons, the murderer had not struck on Friday night as usual; this time, the body wasn’t discovered until Monday morning.

  Rarely had Oppenheimer had such scant evidence. Even the description of the perpetrator was so vague that they couldn’t put it to good use. When he again went through the report Vogler’s men had put together based on Ms. Becker’s interview, he stopped short. He compared their notes to his own and realized that Ms. Becker’s statements differed. In the first interview, she had said that the man she’d seen was dark-haired. But to him, she’d described him as being blond. Oppenheimer could clearly recall her saying that the hair color was like Jean Harlow’s. Witnesses were often uncertain, but it was more than unusual for them to give such completely opposing details. Oppenheimer grabbed his jacket and called, “Where is Hoffmann?”

  * * *

  MEN aged between 16–70 should be at the front, not in the BUNKER, the graffiti on the house wall urged. Our walls are breaking, but our hearts aren’t—the führer commands, we follow, a placard clarified the situation.

  These were the usual paroles that could be found all over the city and also adorned the house that Ms. Becker had given as her place of residence. But as Oppenheimer stood outside the building, he found himself at a loss. It was highly unlikely that Ms. Becker was going to ask him into her flat—her house no longer existed. The external walls remained as if to add insult to injury. The house would have looked untouched if the façade had not been covered in soot and if through the window frames one had not been able to see the gray sky instead of curtains.

  Still bewildered by this discovery, Oppenheimer shifted from one foot to the other. He went through the chronology of events in his mind. The bombing had taken place the night from Sunday to Monday. When he’d interviewed Ms. Becker, she’d just returned from a nearby bunker. Could it be that she hadn’t known about the destruction of her flat?

  There was a butcher’s directly opposite. When Oppenheimer walked in, the place was empty, which wasn’t unusual in these times of rationing. The butcher was sitting behind his display on a stool, having a nap.

  “Excuse me?” Oppenheimer said loudly to wake the man in the white apron.

  But the man just mumbled, “Come back tomorrow. Nothing here today.”

  “Maybe you can help me. I’m looking for Ms. Becker. She lives opposite, in number thirty-four.”

  The butcher pushed his cap back and sat up. “Number thirty-four? You’re out of luck. Didn’t you know? Berlin is a city of used-to-be houses. There used to be one here. There used to be one there.” He chuckled contentedly.

  “Was Ms. Becker bombed out Sunday night?”

  “On Sunday? No, that happened about two weeks ago.”

  Oppenheimer thought he must have misheard. But when he asked again, the butcher confirmed that Ms. Becker had been bombed out before the invasion began. He had no idea where she was living now, but she occasionally passed by to buy some meat.

  Oppenheimer trudged back out, crossed the street, and examined the pieces of paper stuck on the front door. There was no new address for Ms. Becker among them. So the only remaining option was to question the neighbors.

  Like everywhere in the city, the neighbors tended to gather at the public water pumps. As many pipes had been destroyed and the water supply was interrupted frequently, the street fountains had become the new focal point of daily life. Oppenheimer had to search for a while, as the access to the water supply was hidden behind the gutted remains of a car. A woman was filling her two water buckets. Another was sitting on the pavement, soaping her washing, chattering to her neighbor. Although the two women turned out to be very willing to help, they couldn’t tell Oppenheimer where Ms. Becker had moved to.

  Disgruntled, he had the driver take him back to Zehlendorf. While Hoffmann indulged in his speed rush, Oppenheimer, crammed into the sidecar, thought hard. Their witness had given two differing statements regarding the perpetrator and then had gone on to give a false address. “Has everyone gone bonkers?” Oppenheimer swore loudly.

  * * *

  That same afternoon, he called for Güttler to come and see him. “I have a job for you,” Oppenheimer explained. “Find Ms. Elfriede Becker for me. It’s urgent. Here is her old address. She was bombed out about two weeks ago. I have no idea where she lives now. But it must be somewhere in Steglitz. She still shops at her old butcher’s.”

  Güttler took the piece of paper with the address. “I understand. I suggest I first go to missing persons and then to the registration office. It’s pretty chaotic there nowadays, but maybe I’ll get lucky. As it’s urgent, I would also suggest that we position a colleague outside the butcher’s. If Ms. Becker should shop there again, the butcher can point her out to us.”

  Oppenheimer was happy. Vogler hadn’t promised too much; Güttler was a quick thinker. “That sounds good; let’s do it. If you manage to get hold of the new address, please inform me immediately.”

  Güttler hesitated. “Just one more question. I am currently assigned to another investigation.”

  “Talk to Vogler. I’ll take responsibility. And tell him that I specifically asked for your support. I give you free rein, Güttler. I don’t care how you go about it, just find the woman.”

  “Right away,” Güttler said and put his hat back on. His eyes shone with the zeal of a hunter.

  * * *

  Despite quite some hustle and bustle, the next day passed uneventfully. As Kitty couldn’t or wouldn’t name her clients, Oppenheimer put together a list of all suspects. When he asked her if one of her clients was among them, she couldn’t identify anyone but promised to ask her girls later.

  Meanwhile, Vogler had the editor’s mailbox of Der Angriff observed. The killer had posted the last letter himself, but since the latest murder, no new letter had arrived at the newspaper.

  Güttler also hadn’t had any luck. Ms. Becker remained untraceable. She was not registered anywhere and had not reappeared at the butcher’s either. Güttler’s next step was to check the registration offices in the nearby vicinity. His determination to find the woman seemed to have been spurred on even further by the setback.

  Vogler was in high spirits on Friday, which surprised Oppenheimer a little, as there were still no new leads. He concluded that it must have something to do with the military situation on the western front. Frustrated, he sat among mountains of papers, drank coffee until his stomach rebelled, and finally headed off home.

  When Oppenheimer returned to the Jewish House, Lisa was still at work. He found an old piece of bread and ate it, together with some of the late Dr. Klein’s sausage. It required quite some effort to eat the donated food, as Oppenheimer kept thinking of the old doctor. He was hoping fervently that the Allied forces would soon reach the city and put an end to the nightmare. But the eastern
front line was still far away, in Karelia, things were progressing slowly in Italy, and the invasion at the western front seemed not to have advanced much in the last days either. The fact that there was so little news from Normandy suggested that both sides were probably still gathering their troops, not yet prepared to strike. The weather in Normandy also remained bad, and the enemy air force only saw limited action. In this situation, the hopes of the National Socialists lay with General Field Marshal Rommel, who had taken over the defense of the Atlantic Wall. Oppenheimer considered Rommel to be undoubtedly capable, but unfortunately, he was on the wrong side. The Americans and British had so far been unable to capture a single harbor in order to organize their reinforcements from there. As long as that didn’t take place, everything was left hanging.

  When Lisa came home, Oppenheimer found out the reason for Vogler’s euphoria.

  “The bastards shot flying bombs at England,” she said before she’d even taken off her coat. “Can you imagine? Simply fired them across the channel. The whole time, my colleagues were talking about the V-1. Apparently, the whole of London has been destroyed.”

  Oppenheimer’s mouthful got stuck in his throat. “What are you saying? I thought that was just propaganda.”

  “Apparently not. People are already placing bets that the war will be over in a week. Maybe you should organize gas masks for us.”