by Michael Dean
They all made their way, drunkenly, to the window. There was a ball of fire in the sky. They stood in a line, with their arms round each other.
‘It’s the RAF,’ said Hirschfeld. ‘They’ve hit the docks.’
*
The docks were blazing, but there were no planes in the sky. A lone plain face shone in the moonlight, as the shell of the Arminius turned white hot and sank. All of its guns and ammunition had been in place, so when the skilfully placed charge went up, the cruiser was completely destroyed.
The Bureau Inlichtingen agent responsible had been the best his instructors had ever seen, on the explosives course at Arisaig, in the west Highlands of Scotland. He was nothing less than an artist, with plastic explosive - blowing old locomotives to smithereens in a glory of creative destruction. And his SOE instructors were artists too, in their way. They had taken the blank canvas that was Hein Broersen, and painted a warrior on it.
Hein had parachuted in on a blind drop, so only de Tourton Bruyns knew he was back in Amsterdam. As he trudged home, through dark, deserted streets, Hein’s thoughts were of Manny.
Hein Broersen admired Manny – Manny’s brains, Manny’s wit, Manny’s charm, Manny’s sophistication. He remembered every second of that wonderful evening at the Tip Top. Manny taking on the Moffenmeid – that Nazi whore – and her escort, with not a thought for his own safety. No wonder he had a lovely girlfriend like Tinie. Hein had never had a girlfriend. Hein envied Manny, but did not begrudge him.
Back in his gloomy broom-cupboard of a room, he sat down alone, broke open a bottle of beer, and drank to the destruction of the cruiser Arminius.
‘It’s good to be back in Holland,’ Hein thought. ‘Drinking good Dutch beer, in your own armchair.’
Author Note
The 1941 strike by the people of Amsterdam - in protest against the Nazi raid on the Jewish Quarter, and the taking of Jewish hostages - is commemorated in the city every February. And long may it continue.
However, this is a work of fiction. Changes have been made to real events, to their setting, to the participants, and to the chronology: It wasn’t the death of an Orpo which kick-started the raid, it was a WA-man called Koot. Hirschfeld was in The Hague at the time, as he was throughout the events described – so was Major Giskes, of the Abwehr. Though as far as I know, the two never met. And Rost van Tonningen didn’t perpetuate the medieval blood libel about Jews drinking Christian blood – it was Rauter, in a report to Himmler, of 4 March, 1941.
Some of the more unlikely-looking aspects of the story have a basis in truth: There really was a list – it was called the Barnevelde List – which approximated to the Hirschfeld List, in the story. The details of life in a transit camp are taken from eye-witness accounts – though Westerbork didn’t start functioning as a transit camp until June 1942, nearly a year and a half after the attack on the Jewish Quarter.
*
After the war, a Commission of Enquiry found that Hans-Max Hirschfeld’s actions as Secretary General, during the occupation, had been guided solely by the welfare of his country, and that he had rendered considerable service. But also that he had damaged the spiritual resistance of the Dutch more than necessary. It recommended honourable retirement, by mutual consent. Hirschfeld successfully resumed his career in banking. He died in 1961.
Hanns-Albin Rauter survived an attempt by the Dutch resistance to kill him. He was sentenced to death by the Dutch Special Court in The Hague, in 1949, and executed. Rost van Tonningen committed suicide, at the second attempt, while in Allied custody, in June 1945.
Ben Bril survived Bergen-Belsen, and died in his bed, at the age of 91. He is likely to remain the youngest boxer ever to represent his country at an Olympic Games. His background as the son of a market trader is fictionalised.
Unfortunately, Erich Deppner, Commandant of Westerbork, also died in his bed, at an even greater age than Ben Bril.
Joel Cosman is a historical figure, but he did not play for Ajax. I have no idea what happened to him, and I’d be delighted if anybody could tell me.
Manny Roet, Tinie Emmerik and Robert Roet do exist, but only in my head. And in yours, if my story found favour with you – and that’s really what it’s all about.
Bibliography
I read or consulted the following books while writing the novel:
Bosch, H Der Zweite Weltkrieg zwischen Rhein und Maas, Geldern, 1970
Cunningham C, Beaulieu: The finishing school for secret agents Pen and Sword military, 1998
Dolph, Harry A, The Evader: An American Airman’s Eight Months With The Dutch Underground Eakin Press, 1991
Fennema, M & Rhijnsburger, J Hans-Max Hirschfeld Man van het grote geld, Amsterdam 2007.
Foot, M.R.D SOE in the Low Countries. St Ermin’s Press, 2001
Fowler, W France, Holland and Belgium 1940-1941, Ian Allan, 2002
Friedhoff, H Requiem for the Resistance: The Civilian Struggle Against Nazism in Holland and Germany Bloomsbury, 1988
H J Giskes London Calling North Pole Bantam War Book Series 1953
Harris, W Brave Little Dutch Girl : Memories of a Small Child in Holland during the
German Occupation 1940-45. Penzance : United Writers, 2004.
Helm, S A Life in Secrets: The story of Vera Atkins and the lost agents of SOE, Abacus, 2005
Hillesum, Etty Etty: A diary 1941-3 trans Pomerans, Cape, 1983
Hirschfeld, H-M Herinneringen uit de Jaren 1933-39 Elsevier, 1959
Hirschfeld, H-M Herinneringen uit de bezettingstijd Elsevier, 1960
Hirschfeld, G Nazi Rule and Dutch Collaboration: The Netherlands Under German Occupation, 1940-1945, Oxford, New York, Hamburg Berg Publishers, 1988
Jong, L de Holland Fights the Nazis The Right Book Club – no date
Jong, L de Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de tweede wereldoorlog vol III Mei 1940, vol IV mei 1940-Maart 1941 vol V Maart ’41- Juli ‘42 the Hague 1969-1982
Jong, L de De Bezetting I-V : Een weergave in boekform van de uitzendingen der Nederlands Televisie- Stichting over Nederland in de Tweede Wereldoorlog Amsterdam, 1960-65.
Knoop, H De Joodsche Raad: het drama van Abraham Asscher en David Cohen: Elsevier Amsterdam/Brussel 1983 ISBN 90-10-04656-7
Kuper, S Ajax, the Dutch, the War: Football in Europe during the second world war Orion, 2003
Lee, Carol Ann The Hidden Life of Otto Frank Penguin, 2002
Littlejohn, D The Patriotic Traitors: A History of Collaboration in German-Occupied Europe 1940-1945 London, 1972
Macrae, S Winston Churchill’s Toyshop Roundwood Press, 1971
Marks, L Between Silk and Cyanide: The story of SOE’s code war, Harper Collins, 1998
Mason, H L The Purge of Dutch Quislings: Emergency Justice in the Netherlands The Hague 1952
Mason H. L Mass Demonstrations Against Foreign Regimes: A Study of Five Crises New Orleans, The Hague, 1966
Michman, J Planning for the Final Solution Against the Background of Developments in Holland in 1941: Yad Vashem Studies vol XVII
Michman, J The Controversial Stand of the Joodse Rad in the Netherlands: Lodewijk E Visser’s Struggle: Yad Vashem Studies
Presser, J Ashes in the Wind: The Destruction of Dutch Jewry (1968) Souvenir Press
Presser, J Breaking Point Frederick Muller Ltd: London 1958
Rose, L The Tulips are Red A S Barnes & Company, 1978
Schellenberg, W The Labyrinth: Memoirs of Walther Schellenberg Da Capo Press, 2000
Warmbrunn, W The Dutch under German Occupation 1940-45 Stanford/London 1963
Van der Zwan, A H.-M Hirschfeld: In de ban van de macht, Amsterdam 2004
If you enjoyed The Enemy Within by Michael Dean, you might be interested in Death Order by Jan Needle, also published by Endeavour Press.
Extract from Death Order by Jan Needle
One
August 17, 1987
The Americans were in charge the day he died. That, at least, was something. It gave the British, on whose
territory the prison lay, somebody to blame.
'What a cock-up,' said the young man in grey slacks and a light cashmere sweater, as he sipped his beer. 'Only the Yanks could do it, couldn't they? They couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery.'
His companion, who was also dressed in civvies, nodded. He was examining the Praktica on the bar table in front of him. They were soldiers, anybody with a practised eye could tell. Their hair was short and neat, their shirt collars crisp.
'Aye,' he agreed. 'Tony got a box of paper hankies from the cell. Souvenir. Daft prat, who does he think'll be impressed by that?'
'The pictures should be good, though, if they come out. Have you got the hang of that thing yet?'
'I dunno. It's only Eastern crap. I was in a bloody hurry, too. Yanks or no Yanks, if I'd been caught it would've been the chop.'
The first soldier finished his beer. He looked at his watch, impatient.
'What d'you reckon, though? Can we flog it, if it comes out? Let's try and find a place, get it developed. We'd better shift, mate. I'm due in barracks, half an hour.'
The bar was filling, for the early evening rush. Outside, in Wilhelmstrasse, they saw another Land Rover go past, towards the prison. It was full of military police. It was not the first they'd seen, by any means. They eyed each other, nervously.
'Bleeding Redcaps everywhere,' said the soldier with the camera. 'Why don't we forget it? Have another beer? The place is swarming.'
'You're chicken.'
'OK. What is it, anyway? A picture of a garden hut. If it comes out. Do you know how to flog things to a paper? Without being found out? Let's have another beer.'
The man in cashmere capitulated.
'We could take some pictures of the crowds outside, after,' he said. 'There's twats in Nazi tee-shirts there already, Tony said. They're mental, Krauts, there's no doubt in my mind, no doubt at all. They think he was a God, or something. Loony old bastard with dog's breath. Get us a schnapps as well, tight-arse.'
His friend fished some notes from his back pocket.
'Yanks are mad as well, though. They'll probably let them in, for souvenirs. They'll probably sell off bits of brick and barbed wire.'
Both men became aware that people were listening to them, although they spoke in English. In West Berlin, of course, speaking English would hardly keep a conversation private. They decided to forget the drinks, move on. In any case, it was getting late. There was going to be a lot of shit flying about in the next few days, they guessed. They did not want too much of it to stick to them. As they walked along towards the prison gate-house they saw the crowds – not large yet, but growing – and they saw the queue of vehicles. 'Chaos,' said the soldier with the camera . 'Look at all those Redcaps. And the polizei. Look, there's a TV van. We've had it with the pictures, mate. We're miles too late. Hey, look – that prat's got a swastika!'
Indeed, there was a small knot of youths in jeans and black leather, strutting up and down and shouting 'Heil'. There were several women weeping, older women, and a man in his forties was screaming something at the marchers, grabbing at their flag. In other parts of Germany, slogans had already been daubed on walls and monuments, and former SS men, white-haired and benign of feature, had sought to air their views on local TV stations and to the press. The crumbling red-brick pile, they thought, should be a monument. With its meat-hooks from which the Gestapo chose to hang their victims still intact, its sloping concrete floors to drain the blood away. The Russians, for different reasons, would have agreed.
But inside Spandau Prison, on this summer evening, there had been little in the way of agreement for many hours. The senior officers from the controlling powers had shouted themselves hoarse, then allowed fresher throats and minds to carry on the infighting and the bitterness. Telephone messages, both scrambled and inclear, had buzzed to and from their capitals, where high officials had made decisions, then rescinded them, then begged for time to push the buck yet higher.
'We cannot call it suicide,' bellowed a KGB colonel, his face flushed dangerously with rage. 'If it is suicide, we have failed! Since 1946 we have guarded this animal to prevent that thing, and now at ninety-three he kills himself! No!'
The French representative, a tall lugubrious man, was calmer.
As if it were a help, he muttered: 'Ten francs a minute, it has cost. Eight million a year. What is that in dollars? A ransom for a king.' The senior American present said: 'At least the Germans paid the bill.' He was exhausted, his voice low and scratchy. 'In any case,' he added, 'maybe it wasn't suicide. He ordered—'
A thin-faced man three feet from him shot a glance that made him bite the sentence off. The prisoner had ordered things that morning: toilet rolls, notepaper, other items. But the thin-faced man was CIA. He had warned him to be circumspect.
The British representative, who had shortly before been as angry as the Russian, found himself, strangely, on his side.
'You are right,' he told him. 'Gentlemen, we must take account of what the colonel says. It is bad enough that he should have died so suddenly, although I fear it's typical of the bloody-mindedness he's always shown. But we can't let him be seen to have got one over on us. Martyrdom is possibly inevitable among certain sections of the German population, but they must not be allowed to couple it with preternatural cunning. It was not suicide. Not yet awhile.'
'Cunning indeed,' said the Frenchman, drily. 'To hang oneself with an electric flex and yet not be a suicide.'
'We'd better burn it,' said the grey-haired Englishman, ignoring the sarcasm. 'We'd better burn the hut, as well. We can't afford the souvenir-hunters to get their hands on anything.' He looked at the senior American, meaningfully. 'The flying boots and goggles disappeared some months ago. Unfortunate.'
'And British soldiers were in the grounds this afternoon,' came the tart reply. 'Taking happy-snaps.'
The Briton paled. The younger officer next to him reddened. 'True I'm afraid, sir. There was a gap before the military police got here from HQ, it took them half an hour. There'll be a search, though. Locker by locker, bed by bed if need be. We'll find anything that's been taken. Including photographs.'
'Another thing,' said the Russian, still intensely irritated. 'The pathologist. I insist we have a joint autopsy. Physicians of all four nations.'
'Why? What do you expect to find? Poison? You begin to sound like the prisoner himself. He complained for forty-six years that people were trying to poison him, and lived to ninety-three. The procedure is agreed. We're on British territory, for the purpose of post mortem. Stop splitting hairs.'
The anger was surfacing once more. They had been through this several times, first in the hospital library, later in the prison, where the Soviets did not feel so threatened by the Western listening techniques. There had been too many of them, a shifting population of officers and officials, scuttling in and out of drably painted rooms. The underlying mood had slowly changed. Through excitement, to vague disquiet, to fury and frustration, to exhaustion. The British contingent, noticeably, had been bombarded with governmental signals. When the Special Investigation Branch had become involved, their role had become quickly decisive. Some things were unarguable. Procedure.
The Russian said: 'Your pathologist is not even here. Where is he? How long must we wait?'
'He has been located in Strasbourg. He will be flying shortly. Our top man.'
A gleam entered the Frenchman's eyes. The boredom lifted momentarily.
'A specialist.' He paused. 'In strange judgements, might one say?'
The senior British officer looked at him as if he had crawled from underneath a stone.
'You have the edge of me,' he lied. 'I don't know what you're talking about.'
But everybody else did. The younger Briton's colour heightened further. Dr Cameron, Professor of Forensic Medicine at London University and the Army's chief pathologist, had been involved in some bizarre cases, and had not always escaped with praise. A small smile lit the hangdog French face.
And the rest, thought the red-faced major. Michael Calvey, Maxwell Confait, he had looked them up. One had to wonder sometimes, at the decisions of the Great and Good. But the American flapped his hand, impatiently.
'What the hell? This time there's no mystery, is there? The old sonovabitch hanged himself, whichever way we cut it. It's not our job to get the details out, we just need consensus for a day or two. So far we've done not badly. The initial statement's issued. It can be worked over later - let the top brass make the top decisions, that's what they're paid to do. If a few thousand crazy Germans want to worship him, so be it. Who cares who signs the death certificate so long it's signed? Let's get out of here!'
'In a week, ten days, it will be rubble,' said the grey-haired English officer. 'We're going to build a Naafi supermarket, the plans are writ in concrete. Some sort of shrine that will be! No,' he said, raising a hand to the Russian colonel. 'No arguments. We can argue afterwards. Statements can change if need be. In a case like this, there will be confusion. There always is. First we'll act, then we'll sort it out. It is our ultimate responsibility, gentlemen, and that is the British way.'
'Confusion?' asked the laconic Frenchman.
'Decision,' snapped the English officer.
The Russian colonel muttered, in heavily accented French: 'Oui. L'Albion perfide. '
'I'm pooped,' said the American.
The chaos had started at about 3.30 that afternoon, and it was chaos unconfined. There were more than a hundred soldiers involved in the running of the crumbling structure that was Spandau Prison – British, French, American and Russian plus a staff of nationals from the 'interested nations'. There were Italians, Egyptians, two Poles, two Indians, a Ghanaian, a Greek, Tunisians – and all to minister to the needs of one solitary, frail, half-blind old man.