by Mick Hare
Lily glanced up into Robert’s face. She had no way of knowing if the look confronting her was of pity, love, contempt or hatred. The bruising and distortion caused by Netzer did not help. She put her face in her hands and let her tears flow.
Robert in fact was experiencing all of those emotions in turn. He got up and walked about the room. His agent’s brain was weighing up his options based upon his current knowledge. If Lily was not lying she was one of the century’s great actresses. Lying or not, the present state of play meant that he needed to behave as if he believed her if he was to carry on with his mission. He was no longer working to a prepared plan. He was being opportunistic. Keep moving forward. Take each opportunity as it comes. If it goes wrong it does not matter. He has little else to live for once this mission is completed. But all his training told him that an agent with nothing to lose was inevitably a bad agent. Turning away from the window to face Lily he said, “You don’t love me; no more than I love you.”
“Why not?” Lily demanded, more sharply than she had intended.
“Because people like you and me can’t be loved. As far as love goes we are like radio receivers that have been switched off.”
Lily lowered her voice but replied with firm assertiveness, “That’s just an expression of self pity. If I say, ‘I love you,’ I love you!”
He moved around the table to her side and pulled her out of her chair into his arms. He held her tight, his hands around the back of her head.
“Okay, I believe you,” he whispered.
Lily sobbed onto his chest as she held onto his back like a forgiven child. When she had finished crying she looked up into his face and whispered, “I know you don’t, but one day you will!”
Fifty
Haupsturmfuhrer Schirach had got beyond the sense of relief that always overtook him when his Sturmbannfuhrer – one Alois Netzer – was away from the office. He had now reached the stage where he was beginning to wonder where he could be. The beloved Sturmbannfuhrer was a law unto himself and in many ways he was a loose cannon. But that is what the state had decreed the SS must be. Hitler’s merest opinion was a manifestation of the German will. The courts had stated as much. The SS and the Gestapo operated on behalf of that will. They stood outside the jurisdiction of the law and the courts. Sturmbannfuhrer Netzer always took his freedom to act for granted. However, although Schirach had his reservations about Netzer and his methods of operating he was nonetheless loyal to his superior officer. Netzer’s absence from duty had stretched to the point where Schirach began to worry. It was not so much his absence as his total disappearance. Schirach usually received communications from Netzer when he took off on one of his projects. But not this time. Schirach had tried his home – a decision he had been reluctant to take knowing how jealously his superior guarded his privacy. However, his wife Marlene said she had not seen him herself. She did not seem unduly concerned but Schirach guessed that she too might experience a sense of relief whenever Netzer went absent.
It was on the morning of Tuesday 13 March 1944 that Schirach was approached at his desk by a Gestapo officer who dealt with denunciations and informants. This particular individual had become disillusioned with his fellow Germans. Ninety percent of the denunciations he dealt with had their roots in family or neighbourly jealousies. However, the information he had just received from a local Block Warden had intrigued him. His curiosity was aroused because the information pertained to a certain Doctor Robert Hermann. This was interesting because the rumour around headquarters was that Sturmbannfuhrer Netzer had tortured the said Doctor to death just before he had gone missing. Although Netzer had deliberately kept Schirach in the dark about this, one of his many projects, Schirach was never completely ignorant of what his blind eye was supposed to ignore. He had seen Netzer in the company of the doctor’s wife and he knew that she was collaborating with Netzer in some way.
Having read the brief notes the desk man had taken, Schirach’s interest was sufficiently aroused to ask the Gestapo agent to send the Block Warden in to see him. As the warden approached his desk, Schirach decided to stand. It was not a show of respect. Like most Germans he despised these low level party activists. Although useful to him in his duties he considered most of them to be repulsive snoops. He stood to get a better look at this specimen as he approached and to let the Block Warden absorb Schirach’s superior physical presence. He stretched to his full six feet three inches and brushed his palm through his thick black hair.
Full of his own importance, the Warden began to address Schirach before he had fully arrived at his desk. Schirach turned aside and flicked at a speck of dust on the upper sleeve of his jacket. The snub silenced the Warden and he removed his hat and stood waiting to be acknowledged. Schirach turned back to face his visitor and noticed now the bald head above the round face. The man’s face, chin and neck had all blended into one. This pink oval reminded Schirach of those children at school he had always steered clear of because they could be relied upon to tell tales to the teachers and get others into trouble.
With a movement of his hand Schirach gestured for the man to sit.
“What is your name?” he asked.
In a manner that Schirach could not help but find amusing, his visitor leapt to his feet, raised his right arm in a perfectly executed Nazi salute and virtually screamed, “Block Warden, Herr Lahm, mein Haupsturmfuhrer Schirach!”
Not altogether sure that this spherical character would not denounce him to the front desk, Schirach was obliged to stand and return the salute.
Again Schirach gestured and they both took to their seats.
“Now Block Warden, Herr Lahm. Tell me about this incident you have reported to the desk officer.”
“But I have already…”
“Please,” interrupted Schirach, “For my sake. Tell it directly to me. I would rather hear a Block Warden’s account first hand than get it second hand from a desk officer.”
Herr Lahm went over the details. Schirach could see that the man enjoyed his duties. He swelled with importance as he took control of the conversation.
“And this neighbour of Herr and Frau Doctor, is she reliable?”
“Oh extremely reliable mein Haupsturmfuhrer. She has been a loyal party member since 1934.”
“Excuse me for doubting you, Block Warden Herr Lahm, but you see I do not think this neighbour can be as reliable as you claim. You see our information is that this doctor…” he picked up the file that had been brought to him… “let me see, ah yes, Dr Robert Hermann…” he put the file down and looked straight into the eyes of Herr Lahm… “is dead!”
Herr Lahm’s round oval face and neck flushed a bright red and he shuffled uncomfortably in his seat.
“But, with respect mein Haupsturmfuhrer, that cannot be. I was talking with him myself only yesterday. I must say his face was badly injured. He had obviously experienced some major misfortune, but I can assure you, he is not dead.”
“And how do you know the man you spoke to was this Dr Robert Hermann?”
Herr Lahm smiled a self-congratulatory smile, “Mein Haupsturmfuhrer, please. I am a Block Warden. Do you not think I know the residents in my area? Of course it was the doctor. I have known him since he moved there.”
Despite himself Schirach was interested.
“All right, Herr Block Warden. You will have to indulge me and tell it all to me just one more time. I have to be quite certain in my own mind what you are telling me.”
Herr Lam’s instinctive reluctance melted under Schirach’s fierce glare.
“You are an important source for me on this issue,” said Schirach in a mildly placatory manner. This appealed to Herr Lahm’s vanity and he plunged enthusiastically into his recount.
When Lahm had gone Schirach wrote a short list:
1. Doctor is killed and body disposed of.
2. Neighbour sees strange activity in doctor’s garden.
3. Block Warden speaks to ‘dead’ doctor.
4. ‘Dea
d’ doctor has severe facial injuries.
5. Strange activity was doctor burying dead dog.
6. Doctor does not have/has never had a dog.
7. Block Warden obnoxious but reliable.
He read through this list several times but he had known as he was writing it that there were enough contradictions here to warrant further investigation. He looked at his watch. 1:30pm. He began to weigh up many considerations. His first thought was to doubt the Warden despite his reliable record. It was just too unreasonable to think that the doctor had managed to get out of Netzer’s clutches. The reality of Netzer’s work was one of stunningly brutal efficiency. Secondly, if the doctor had escaped, why had the alarm not gone up? Thirdly, if a dog has been buried in a back garden, who gives two shits?
However, how can a dead doctor talk to a Block Warden? Moreover, if the doctor is not dead and no dog exists, who or what was buried in that garden? He knew he had to follow this up but he still hesitated. To interfere in one of his Sturmbannfuhrer’s projects without being invited was asking for serious trouble.
It was as he sat pondering this dilemma that a desk officer came through and handed an arrest document to him.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“A report has come in through Gestapo denunciations from Geretsried.”
“What the hell do they want? It’s over twenty-five kilometres away. They’ve got their own people down there haven’t they?”
“Well yes, but there are complications. I think they’re hoping you will take over the case, but if not they need your advice.”
“What complications?”
“The Gestapo group down there have received information that a local family is sheltering two Jewish children. These children should have been transported along with their parents, the allegation goes, but this family has saved them from the camps and is claiming they are cousins from Hamburg whose parents were killed in a bombing raid. The denouncer claims to know these children because her husband worked with their father when they were both junior clerks in a solicitor’s office until 1933. She and her husband ceased their acquaintance with the Jewish couple when they realised the folly of such a relationship, thanks to the spiritual guidance of the Fuhrer.”
Schirach was becoming impatient with this saga and interrupted the desk officer.
“If they broke off relations with these Jews as long ago as 1933 how can they possibly know their children? How old are the children?”
“Nine and ten, Hauptsturmfuhrer.”
“Well, for heaven’s sake, they weren’t even born then.”
“My Gestapo colleague in Geretsried suggests that the informant is manipulating the facts to protect herself and her husband. His best guess is that these two couples have in fact remained close friends, particularly the two men. He has no doubt that the woman knows the children very well.”
“Well then,” snapped Schirach, “Why is she coming forward now?”
“Well, if I may say so Hauptsturmfuhrer…”
But Schirach raised his hand to silence his colleague. He knew what was coming. The woman had succumbed to the anxiety that must have haunted her every breath. To know about an illicit harbouring of Jews and not to speak out was equivalent to conspiring against the state. She had cracked.
“But you are not explaining why the Geretsried officers cannot deal with it. You said there was a complication…”
“Yes, indeed, Hauptsturmfuhrer. The family allegedly sheltering the Jewish children is the family of a Wermacht officer. Oberleutnant Bleibtreu. Oberleutnant Bleibtreu is currently on active service in Greece with his Panzer division.”
“Okay, leave it with me,” Schirach concluded, taking the file from the desk officer. ‘It’s not such a bad assignment,’ he was thinking. ‘It postpones for a few hours the need to decide what to do about the Netzer situation.’
Fifty-one
As his driver and partner in this investigation, Untersturmfuhrer Sepp Dortmuller, took them south along Princeregentenstrasse, across the River Isar, Schirach decided to put the Netzer situation to his partner.
“Netzer is a law unto himself, Tomas,” replied Dortmuller when Schirach had completed his recount. “He could be anywhere. He has a mistress in Dachau and another in Penzberg. He often allows himself some recuperation time on completion of a difficult case. One, shall we say, where he develops his skills to the ultimate level.”
Schirach’s mouth twisted in an ironic grin. He was not surprised that Netzer’s private affairs were so well known amongst the lower ranks. He was mildly surprised that Dortmuller was so open about his knowledge. Maybe it was the state of the war. There was a growing feeling that the tide was turning against them. The glorious victories of ’39 and ’40, the stunning brutality of the blitzkrieg, were long behind them now. Victories were coming at greater and greater cost and were thinner on the ground. Such thoughts were, of course treason, but everyone secretly shared them. Maybe the realisation that the Thousand Year Reich might be about to crumble after barely eleven years had opened minds to a more sceptical view.
“You know he won’t thank you for interfering, whatever you do,” concluded Dortmuller.
Schirach was not unhappy. It was the advice he had been hoping to receive. Now he could push it out of his mind and concentrate on the business in hand.
The river Isar was high and fast flowing on its way to the mighty Danube. The melting snows were sourcing it with its annual surge. Schirach wound down his window and smelt the freshness of the water on the air for a few minutes. It was a relief to get out of the city and to ride along beside the free-flowing water.
“Are you too hot Hauptsturmfuhrer?” asked Dortmuller in a mock formal manner.
“No, Sepp,” Schirach replied apologetically. “I just felt the need for a taste of fresh air. It’s been a long time.”
They drove the rest of the way in silence. Dortmuller chain smoked all the way. It was a habit Schrach had never acquired but he was content to inhale the wisps of blue smoke that came his way. Arriving in Geretsried just before 1400hrs they headed straight for Gestapo headquarters. The local unit had commandeered the Catholic parish priest’s presbytery because it was the best house in the locality. Crunching to a halt at the top of the drive, Schirach and Dortmuller alighted from their vehicle and took in their surroundings. Even just this little way south of the city the view of the mountains was spectacularly improved. They seemed unmoved by the war. They seemed a source of optimism to Schirach. Perhaps all of this human activity was not so important after all.
After a short briefing from the head of the unit, Schirach and Dortmuller headed east out of the village towards the family farmhouse of Oberleutnant Bleibtreu. They were both aware of the level of distaste current at Geretsried HQ towards them. Evidently this Oberleutnant Bleibtreu was a highly respected member of the village community and a hero of the Wehrmacht to boot. He had been awarded the Iron Cross during the invasion of France. No one was keen to support the two big city SS men in their task. The Gestapo unit head had made it obvious that all of the opprobrium was directed against the denouncers. Schirach did not rate their chances of remaining outside the camp system very highly. The wife’s loss of nerve would inevitably bring about the very thing she had hoped to prevent.
The farmhouse was in fact an expansive country house and the approach, through an avenue of birch trees, signified a certain grandeur. As they drew to a halt outside the front door two dark haired children ran across the lawn to meet them. They were half attracted to the newly arrived car but half still engrossed in their game of tag. They continued their game around the car and in and out of Schirach and Dortmuller until the house door opened and an attractive woman in her late thirties stepped out. She was dressed in a yellow woollen cardigan and a green, flared skirt. She wore high heels, though her legs were bare. She was obviously not dressed for cleaning or cooking and the visitors were given the impression of a woman comfortable enough to have domestic help.