Bearing Witness

by Michael A. Kahn

  He flinched. “Well, really,” he said, shaking his head defensively. “I merely said that it appeared to be a reasonable offer. I didn’t mean—”

  “How would you know?” I demanded, glaring down at him. “My expert calculates the damages at over one hundred million dollars. Did you take that into consideration? Have you even read the reports of my experts?”

  “Well, I—I—”

  “Stop,” Judge Wagner commanded. I turned toward her. She pointed at my chair sternly. “Sit down.”

  I sat down, still trembling with anger.

  “Your client has rejected the offer, correct?” Judge Wagner asked me.

  “She has.”

  “Fine.” She stood up, resnapping the top buttons of her judicial robe. “Let’s bring back the jury and get this case rolling again.”

  “But, Your Honor,” Roth said, practically whining, “what about the government?”

  Judge Wagner gave him a withering stare. “Forget the government, Stanley. They had their chance. Their dog’s not in this fight.” She turned to us and nodded decisively. “Let’s go, folks. We have a jury waiting.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  My name is Herman Warnholtz.”

  The sound system in the courtroom was excellent. His raspy voice boomed through the speakers.

  “You know Conrad Beckman, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “For how many years, sir?”

  “We grew up in the same neighborhood. Back in the 1920s.”

  I could feel the drama in the courtroom, heightened by all of the delay and anticipation. Here he was, at last—a powerful, disembodied voice, speaking to us from a hospital bed in a maximum-security prison, ending forty years of silence to tell his story just hours before his death.

  On the tape, I explained to him the nature of the bid-rigging conspiracy we’d alleged.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said.

  “You knew about it?”

  “Sure. I did the books.”

  “What do you mean, sir?”

  “I was in charge of the records.”

  “Of the bid-rigging, you mean?”

  “Oh, no. They kept track of that part. I kept track of the loans.”

  “What loans, sir?”

  I watched the jury. They were mesmerized by this gravelly voice speaking from the grave.

  “The loans from the Nazis. You know, Die Spinne. I knew about the bid-rigging scheme, sure. But that was Conrad’s baby.”

  The jurors glanced at Beckman, who was frowning and shaking his head.

  Warnholtz continued. “It was a helluva good idea, too. Best way to make sure each of ’em could pay back their loan and start funding their end of the bargain. That’s what Conrad told ’em.” Warnholtz paused to chuckle. “Let me tell you something, young lady. You can earn good money on a government job when you know you can add an extra layer of fat to your bid.”

  “Let me back up a moment, sir. You mentioned loans. Who got the loans?”

  “All six of them, counting Conrad’s company.”

  As the tape played, I propped the chart of the six companies up on the easel to help the jury follow his answer.

  “Who were the six?”

  “Well, you had Beckman Engineering, of course. Then you had Max’s outfit down in Memphis. Eagle, right? You had Otto with his company up in Chicago. Henry was in Indianapolis.”

  “Henry Eicken, you mean? Eicken Industrial Company?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Remember, we’re talking 1948 when the money came in from Die Spinne. Some of them guys didn’t set up corporations till the 1950s.”

  “You mentioned Beckman, Eagle, Eicken, and Koll, sir. Who were the other two in the conspiracy?”

  “Well, you had Muller in Springfield, Illinois. That was Ed Muller. And then you had Al Beek up in Gary. That’s six, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I watched the jury study the chart as Warnholtz explained the mechanics of the conspiracy in its early years—the group meetings three or four times a year, which he always attended along with Conrad Beckman.

  “Mr. Warnholtz, you said that this conspiracy began back in 1948 with the loans from something call Die Spinne.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’ve read some about Die Spinne, sir. My understanding is that it was a secret organization of former SS officers who ran the concentration camps.”

  “Yep. After the war they set up operations in South America.”

  “In San Carlos de Bariloche?”

  “One group went there. There were others.”

  Several of the jurors were staring at Conrad Beckman. He was leaning back in his chair now with his arms crossed over his chest. He had his head tilted back and was gazing up, as if he were counting ceiling tiles.

  “Tell me about the loans.”

  “Well, I never had the full picture. I don’t think any of us did. Die Spinne spread money all around the world. They sent us a shipment of gold. Dental gold.”

  I had the transparency ready. I turned on the first overhead projector. The large screen showed the bill of lading from the vessel La Guardia on June 7, 1948. With the pointer I showed the jury the words “Dental Gold,” which stood out clearly on the document.

  “Dental gold?”

  He chuckled. “These were concentration camp guards. They had access, if you know what I mean. Jewelry, money, gold fillings. When the war started going bad for Germany, they smuggled out whatever they could. We sold the gold they shipped us—got three hundred grand for it. Cash. I set up the account, doled out the loans—fifty grand to each—and kept track of the records.”

  “Why did they give you the gold?”

  “Wasn’t a gift. Seed money, you might say. Enough to get us rolling in our businesses. Fifty thousand was a lot of money back then, young lady. But we had to do more than just pay it back. Each of the six companies had to pay in a percent of its profits. That was Die Spinne’s end of the bargain, you see? They wanted the money there for funding.”

  “For funding what?”

  “Another Hitler, a Fourth Reich. That was the deal: they helped set us up in business and we had to finance Nazi operations in this country. And let me tell you, that money built up fast. When I switched the account from Gravois Bank to Mercantile, we had a million dollars in there.”

  As he talked, I put transparencies up on the other five screens—all from the records we’d found in the clocktower. There was the account statement from the Gravois Bank showing an opening account of $300,000. Then the signature card with Conrad Beckman’s signature. Then the six $50,000 disbursements back in September 1948, one to each of the coconspirators. Then the spreadsheet showing the repayments over time. I ended the first series of transparencies with the account-closing transaction showing $953.421.45 transferred to Mercantile Bank.

  I asked him about the bank records. He explained how he’d had his brother hide them in the clocktower shortly after his arrest.

  “Why?” I asked.

  There was a long pause. “Because Conrad had changed.”

  “In what way?”

  “Maybe it was the money, or the good life, but I could tell his heart just wasn’t in it anymore. Like he was trying to pretend all that stuff we done during the war hadn’t really happened. “You could hear the anger in his voice. “And maybe I was starting to worry that if I didn’t have some sort of leverage—something to hold him back, if you know what I mean—well, I might just end up in an early grave. So, when he sent that lawyer—guy named Metzger—to visit me in prison to ask about the records, I told him I had ’em stashed away safe. I told him if anything bad ever happens to me, I got a man with orders to turn ’em over to the cops. Those records were my life insurance policy, you see? Except I don’t need no life insurance anymore.”

>   He rambled on about life in prison until I interrupted with a new question.

  “Do you know what happened to all that money, Mr. Warnholtz?”

  “Well,” he said with a chuckle, “I know some of it went for that fancy defense lawyer from Nashville, ’cause I sure didn’t have that kind of money.”

  “Do you know whether any of it was used to fund Nazi operations in the United States?”

  “I assume it was, but I don’t know that for a fact, ma’am.”

  “You told me earlier that Die Spinne is German.”

  “It sure is.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “‘The Spider.’”

  Behind me I could hear the gasps. Over at the defendant’s table, Kimberly Howard looked stunned. Conrad Beckman had his head down, his fists clenched. Back on the aisle seat in the first row of the gallery, Stanley Roth was dazed. The public relations guru seated next to him had a shocked expression.

  There were six overhead projectors. I got the next set of transparencies ready as I heard myself on the tape pick up on one of Warnholtz’s earlier, almost offhand comments.

  “You mentioned that by the time you were arrested in 1955, Mr. Beckman was trying to pretend that all that stuff during the war hadn’t really happened.”

  “That’s what my gut was telling me.”

  “Exactly what stuff did you and he do during the war?”

  There was a long pause. The hissing of the tape was audible throughout the courtroom. I gazed around. It seemed that every person in the courtroom was leaning forward, waiting for Warnholtz to continue.

  “Well, it wasn’t just us in St. Louis, you know.”

  “Who else, sir?”

  “Those same ones.”

  “You mean the owners of those other five companies?”

  “Well, yeah, although we weren’t none of us companies back then. We met in the Bund.”

  “The German-American Bund?”

  “Right, right. When that fell apart, we formed ourselves the Death’s Head Formation. There were six chapters in the Midwest, and each of those men headed up one.”

  “You mean Max Kruppa, Otto Koll—”

  “Yeah, yeah. Same six.”

  “How many were in the St. Louis chapter?”

  “Oh, it varied up to eight or nine, but always the same three leaders.”

  “Who were the three?”

  “Well, me, of course, and Conrad. And then there was Rudy Schober. We went way back, the three of us.”

  “Were you the head of the St. Louis chapter?”

  “Me?” He laughed—a raspy chuckle. “Hell, no. Conrad Beckman was the chapter fuhrer.”

  There was silence on the tape—just the background hissing noise. As the courtroom waited for him to continue, I remembered that moment in the prison infirmary, my surprise at what he’d told me. Harold Roth’s informant had incorrectly identified Warnholtz as the leader. It was Beckman all along.

  When I began speaking again on the tape, my voice was more subdued, as if I sensed but still couldn’t believe where we were headed.

  “Tell me about the Death’s Head Formation, sir. What did you do?”

  “Well, we met, talked about the war, had some communications with SS commandants over in Germany. And then, well, the orders came down from Berlin.”

  “What orders, sir?”

  “That it was time to put Hitler’s principles to work in this country.”

  “How?”

  Another long pause. I asked another question: “Mr. Warnholtz, was the order from Germany to kill a Jew on Hitler’s birthday?”

  Another pause. “Yep.”

  More gasps from behind me. Someone cried, “Oh, no.”

  I turned on the first overhead projector, which displayed the article from the April 21, 1942, issue of the St Louis Post-Dispatch on the murder of Myron Bernstein. The headline dominated the top of the screen:

  MAN DIES IN PAWNSHOP FIRE

  OFFICIALS SUSPECT ARSON

  “That’s why you killed Myron Bernstein?”

  “Yes.”

  “On Hitler’s birthday?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Rage had started to creep into my voice. “You thought that killing one defenseless Jew in St. Louis was going to bring Nazism to America?”

  “It wasn’t just him. There were six.”

  Now it was my turn to pause.

  “What do you mean?”

  You could hear the dread in my voice.

  “One in each city. We had it all coordinated.”

  During the pause on the tape, I moved down the line of overhead projectors, flicking them on one after the other. The headlines flashed, one by one, each from the April 21, 1942, issue of a different newspaper—from the Chicago Tribune, the Indianapolis Star, the Commercial Appeal, the Gary Post, the Springfield Register.

  JEWISH MAN DIES IN SUSPICIOUS BLAZE

  MYSTERIOUS EXPLOSION KILLS

  OWNER OF COHEN’s DELICATESSEN

  MAN DIES IN SOUTH SIDE INFERNO

  POLICE SUSPECT NAZI TIE

  Each article was a variation on the same fact pattern: a sadistic arson murder of a Jewish man.

  There was a pause on the tape, and then my bewildered question, “You mean six Jewish men were killed that night?”

  “Yep.”

  I gasped on the tape. And then, in a quieter voice, “Oh, my God.”

  I turned from the projectors to look at the jurors. Each one of them seemed to be experiencing the dismay I’d felt that night.

  Warnholtz’s voice continued, almost offhand. “I suppose it was sort of a test, like one of them initiations. To prove we were really committed, if you get my drift.”

  “Why are you telling me this, Mr. Warnholtz?” I asked, “after all these years?”

  “Well, my time’s about up. Cancer has me bad. Doctors don’t give me more than three months. Guess this is one death sentence they don’t hand out pardons for. Might as well answer your questions. Don’t think I would have before, but no one’s bothered to ask since that crazy Lindhoff.”

  “That was the detective who arrested you for the arson murder?”

  “The man was obsessed. More like possessed. Kept coming to see me, telling me he was going to nail me for the other one, telling me he’d watch me fry in the chair for that one.”

  “What one was that, sir?”

  “The jeweler. Rosen-, uh, Rosenberg or something.”

  “Harry Rosenthal?”

  “Yeah, that’s the name. Died in, what, 1943?”

  “November 10, 1943. Kristallnacht.”

  “That’s right. Kristallnacht. Anyway, that crazy Lindhoff was still on that case twenty years later, even after he quit the force. Almost cracked it, too. Changed his tune then. Wanted me to testify.” He laughed—a wheezy snigger. “Imagine that? Well, he was getting too close for comfort. I put out the word. Two weeks later, guess who gets himself thrown off the Chain-of-Rocks Bridge at three in the morning.” Another snigger. “I hear they ruled it a suicide.”

  There was pause on the tape. I walked over and turned off all of the projectors except for the one with the Post-Dispatch article on Myron Bernstein’s arson murder. I removed that transparency and put up the one on Harry Rosenthal from the November 11, 1943, issue. The jury was watching me. Now they looked up to squint at the headline:

  JEWELER MURDERED ON SOUTH SIDE

  POLICE SUSPECT NAZI SYMPATHIZERS

  In a crime that had veteran police officers shaking their heads in shock, the unclothed corpse of a south side jeweler was dumped from a moving car outside the third district police headquarters at midnight last night. The corpse was riddled with bullet holes and painted with swastikas, the symbol of the German Nazis.

  I sat down next to Ru
th Alpert and clasped her hand as we faced the jury, waiting for the tape to continue. I glanced at her. Her eyes were red, her lips quivering. I squeezed her hand.

  “Tell me about that one, Mr. Warnholtz. Tell me about Harry Rosenthal’s death.”

  “This time it was our idea,” Warnholtz said. “Things were going bad in Germany. We realized that it was up to us over here. So we picked Kristallnacht. Seemed a perfect night to kill a Jew.”

  “Was it just the St. Louis chapter?”

  “Oh, no. It was all six. But it was our idea this time. Well, I got to give credit where credit’s due. It was Conrad’s idea.”

  Another pause.

  In the silence, Ruth let go of my hand and stood up. I looked at her curiously, but when I saw her face, I understood. There were tears on her cheeks, but her expression was firm. This was her moment. Hers alone. This was the reason she’d turned down a forty-million-dollar settlement.

  “Did you kill Harry Rosenthal?”

  “No, ma’am. I admit I was there. Rudy, too. But we didn’t pull that trigger. No, ma’am.”

  I turned my head and looked slowly around the courtroom. All eyes in the gallery and all eyes in the jury box were focused on Ruth. She was the sole person standing in the hushed courtroom—a lone figure bearing witness for her dear uncle Harry.

  “Describe it,” I said on the tape.

  “It weren’t pretty, I’ll warn you right now. We grabbed that Jew right out of his store. Hauled him off to a deserted boatyard near the river. Conrad had a can of red paint. I remember that part clear as day. Had me and Rudy strip the man naked. Tied him to a pole, we did. Conrad started painting swastikas on his body. Done it real slow and careful. Never said a word, and all the while that poor son of a bitch is crying and begging us to leave him alone.”

  Ruth turned toward Conrad Beckman. By then his were the only eyes not following her. He was staring down at the table, his brows furrowed, his jaws clenched.