To add to the picture, it was apparent from the cut surface that the same professional methods had been employed to separate the head and the legs from the body. “Someone who knows human anatomy,” Doctor Weimann said. He turned to his secretary who was sitting close to the dissecting table at a table with a typewriter, ready to take down the minutes of the inquest. She was making five copies. “An amateur would have gone about it completely differently,” he explained to Behrens and Bacheran. “Such a person would have been very inhibited and would have hesitated and made several unsuccessful attempts with whatever instrument they were using. This would result in an irregular, jagged surface, with cuts of varying depth. But here we have few if any cuts. The perpetrator must have possessed some medical or anatomical knowledge.”
“Or else, he would have to be a butcher, involved in the slaughtering of animals.” Bacheran remembered Dr. Spengler’s remark when he had come in and also thought of the slaughtering on uncle Waldemar’s farm. “Still, right after the war, people in Berlin did their own slaughtering throughout the city, rabbits at least…”
“Young man, don’t you think there are maybe a few differences between a rabbit and a human being?” “Well, isn’t it said that many humans fuck like rabbits?”
“Please gentlemen, we’re in the presence of a lady.”
Bacheran returned to the matter at hand: “What did the perpetrator use to cut up the corpse?”
Dr. Weimann found his ignorance distasteful and growled in disapproval. “Isn’t it obvious? A knife of course.” Spengler added: “If he had used a saw or a cleaver there would be irregular edges on the rim and jagged cuts on the bones and the joints. And here…”
Dr. Weimann cut him off: he struck the palm of his hand flat against his head so hard it made a clapping sound. “Wait a minute … I’ve just remembered something. Four days ago, I think, in a morgue in the Eastern sector on Hannoverschenstrasse. Some kids had made a gruesome discovery inside a ruin near Stettiner Station, on Borsigstrasse: they’d found an arm, a thigh and two shin bones. The East Berlin Homicide Division transmitted the information. It was the same as this here: arms and legs neatly separated from the joints. Absolutely no scratches or marks. Skin tone and hair clearly belonging to a man. No wounds, no distinguishing features. Apart from a recent operation for a corn on the right foot, with a bandage on it.” Weimann bent down over the dissecting table. “Judging from the surface of the cuts here, there isn’t the slightest doubt that the arms and legs from the other side belong to this torso.”
“Then we should simply put them together.”
“In this case reunification would be just as hard as putting the two German states back together again,” Behrens said.
Bacheran agreed: no police officer from the West was allowed East and the same went for the police in the East who were forbidden to investigate in the West. They could only communicate in writing, through letters or cables, or per the telephone. It was the same for the two Justice Departments. Dr. Weimann was their only hope because there were no experienced pathologists left in East Berlin – they had all moved to the West – and so he and his assistants worked in both sectors of the city; he did dissections and was also worked as a forensic expert by the other side. So Behrens and Bacheran asked him to make contact.
Still, Weimann was hesitant. “I’ll call Menzel first.” Menzel was the West Berlin inspector charged with finding out who had thrown the torso in the cellar under the rubble at nr. 3 Schillerstrasse. Even though it was Saturday evening and everyone was looking forward to the weekend, Menzel responded eagerly.
“But are you absolutely sure, Doctor?”
Weimann took his time: “To be absolutely sure I’d need the pieces from the other side.”
Everyone in the room understood that Menzel, on the other end of the line, was shaking his head: “The other side won’t give us anything.”
“All right. I’ll go over, right now.”
“Not with our torso!” Menzel shot back.
Weimmann was so angry he slammed the receiver down.
“The only thing I can do now is call the Comrade State Prosecutor?! Of course he is a member of the SED, but maybe plain good sense will prevail.”
“Especially if you tell him that the perpetrator most probably comes from the West: it will once again demonstrate how capitalism is rotten at the core,” Bacheran suggested.
“But we don’t know if it’s a West Berliner who did this,” Behrens objected.
“So what? As long as it helps.”
In the end, Dr. Weimann managed to make the miracle happen thanks to his fame and his charisma. “Our people will be over in half an hour,” the message came back.
Until then there were still many things to do in the Robert-Koch Hospital morgue. First they measured the torso. “92 centimeters,” Spengler read out his notes and explained to the two laymen that this indicated a person of average height. “The man must have been approximately forty. I’ll be more precise when we examine the skin and the joints under the microscope or under X-rays. One more thing: the dismemberment must have taken place shortly after death so as to let the blood drain from the body. In that case there are no death stains, or only very pale ones, as is the case here.”
“When could he have been killed?” Judge Behrens asked.
“Let’s see…” Weimann didn’t take long to answer: “Considering the low outside temperature… about six days.”
Bacheran made a quick calculation: ten minus seven that would be December 3rd. But Doctor Spengler and his secretary looked skeptical and reminded them that Weimann himself had warned they should be very careful when death occurred more than two days ago.
Weimann responded with a smirk. “I’m basing myself on the assumption that this torso we found in the West belongs to the arms and legs found in the East, the ones we examined four days ago on the other side in Hannoverschenstrasse – and in that case we established with certainty that death had occurred more than 36 hours before.”
Now that the time of death had been established, they could turn their attention to where lethal force had been applied. They examined the torso square centimeter by square centimeter through a magnifying glass. “No trace of a blow, no bullet wound, no knife wound. No injection marks.” Dr. Weimann had been dictating in a slightly bored monotone but all of a sudden, he became very excited. “Now, what have we got here…? Just below the surface of the cut a strip of dried skin is visible. A narrow strip of brownish color in visible against the pale skin.”
“That looks very much like a strangulation mark,” Spengler added.
Bacheran swallowed hard, he felt he couldn’t breathe; it was as if someone were pressing against his windpipe. “So he was strangled?”
“No, he was throttled. With a thin cord or something of the kind: there are absolutely no pressure marks or scratches on the skin. But of course, since we don’t have the neck…”
They started working on the dissection and several times Bacheran was close to fainting. Although… it really wasn’t that different from the slaughtering at uncle Waldemar’s. Dr. Spengler took a dissecting knife from the instrument dish and held it just the way the slaughterer would and sliced open the skin and layer of muscles on the torso in one long cut. Then he took hold of the joint scissors and using all the power in his arms, he cut open the rib cage. The image of his father cutting the Christmas goose entered his mind. It helped, but his disgust was so strong that he had to pull out his handkerchief when the lungs were bared. The tissue surface was of a brownish-reddish color. He couldn’t hold down the nausea any longer and he threw up green slime.
Unmoved, Dr. Weimann gave him a disapproving glance and went on dictating to Miss. Lehman as she typed: “Numerous island-shaped dark patches on the surface. Bleeding typical of strangulation.”
Carefully, layer by layer, he uncovered the larynx. “Visible bruises and blood loss on the skin and muscle tissue. Evident traces of force applied against the neck. The la
rynx itself is unharmed but there are injuries to the thyroid. Subcutaneous bleeding at the pressure points.”
“What does that mean?” Bacheran asked.
“It means that the injuries were inflicted when the person was still alive. This type of blood loss can only happen when the blood is still circulating through the body and so only when the victim is still alive.”
The door opened and everyone turned around. Bacheran’s first thought was: the dead man’s come in, wanting to be put whole again. Like a still from a horror movie, or from a nightmare. But it was only Norbert Menzel, the Head of West Berlin’s Homicide division, MI/3. Dr. Weimann summarized the findings in his usual laconic way: “The victim was throttled, a classic case.”
Bacheran knew Menzel a little and ventured a joke: “What are you going to do with ‘your’ torso to keep it from being kidnapped by the East? Are you going to take it home with you and store it in the fridge?”
“I was thinking we should put it at your place, on the balcony.”
“Children!” Hildegard Lehmann did not like people joking in the presence of the dead. “One should show some respect for the victim of a deadly crime.”
They fell silent and looked on as Dr. Spengler cleared the larynx away from the neck muscles so it could be brought to the lab. “Please put this in formaldehyde and have microscopic fragments prepared.”
Not long after the laboratory assistant had left, they heard heavy footsteps in the corridor. There was a knock on the door. Bacheran went to open. Three men stood at the entrance. One was carrying a black box. He was apparently the undertaker. The other two looked like the Volks Polizei. In civilian clothes of course. One of them introduced himself: “Steffen. We are delivering what you asked for, Doctor.” The undertaker put the box down on one of the tables.
Dr. Weimann thanked them. They all stood in a half circle around the black box. The tension mounted as Spengler started opening it. Bacheran was reminded of a lottery drawing. The pathologist pushed the flap open, seemed to fish blindly inside and pulled out an arm. “Here’s for you, dear colleague, straight from the refrigerator.”
Weimann took the arm, glanced at it and walked around to nr. 6 dissecting table to hold it up against the torso from Schillerstrasse. “Skin color? Absolutely no difference.” He held the arm to the shoulder. “It fits.” And in effect the two cut surfaces fit perfectly smoothly. It was the same with the legs. Bacheran could see the political implications of the whole thing: part of a corpse had been found in the West and other parts in the East and together they constituted a single case.
“Do you have an idea of who the man was?” Dr. Weimann asked the two policemen from the Eastern sector.
“Not the foggiest idea, Doctor.”
It was obvious to Bacheran that they were lying. Not of their own free will, but because Pohl, the People’s Police Commissioner or some other higher up in the Party had instructed them to do so.
11.
Bacheran went where his steps would take him. He walked straight across Moabit, between the Ringbahn and the Spree, then off Poststadium and Beusselstrasse. He would eventually come to an S-Bahn station, somehow. After two hours in the morgue he really needed some fresh air and exercise. He wanted to clear his head. He should, of course, have gone back to the office: on Saturdays everyone worked till noon. But no one at the State Attorney’s offices would notice if he didn’t show up. Everyone was looking forward to their ‘Weekend and Sunshine…’ but he was not. In the afternoon there would be coffee with his mother and Aunt Erna. In the evening he would go to the movies with his mother and Aunt Erna. Sunday morning there would be an excursion to Treptow with mother and Aunt Erna, a walk in the park, on the banks of the Spree, then lunch with mother and Aunt Erna at home in Fuldastrasse and finally a game of cards until the evening. The usual. What could he do? His friends had already entered the holy state of matrimony and were busy with their wives and children. When he did get invited he felt like an intruder. They all had themselves a ‘little wife’ as his mother and her sister Erna kept saying, he was the only one who didn’t. There was no obvious reason for that state of affairs. Whatever he tried it never worked. “You can’t make a bull give milk,” as uncle Waldemar said. Waldemar, the man who always did his slaughtering himself. His thoughts returned to dissecting table nr. 6. It was crazy. In the East they knew who the dead man was and they kept it to themselves so that they could be the ones to catch the killer and add a feather to their cap. ‘Look: What idiots they are in the West!’ or, even better, they would announce that they suspected the West Berlin police and the Western Allies of protecting the killer because in reality he was a secret agent who had come to the city to do sabotage work in the GDR. They might even say he was a big shot with unnatural tastes. Who knows what they were capable of: to them everything was possible in the ‘cesspool of capitalism’.
Bacheran was taken aback: He knew the building entrance, 6 Wilsnacker Strasse. Of course, it was the Tiergarten Police precinct. He decided to walk in to warm up and because he hoped they might offer him a cup of coffee. His hope was fulfilled since the staff were all sitting together celebrating the third day of Advent. They knew each other somewhat so Bacheran didn’t need much introduction. One of the homicide policemen offered him some mincemeat cake.
“No thank you. I’ve lost all taste for raw meat for the rest of the year.” He told them of his experience in the morgue. They all thought it outrageous that the authorities in the East would stall in such a way and they swore they would take their revenge the next time such a cross border case happened and they held the trump cards. “But maybe the perpetrator comes from the East,” someone said. “In that case we have the upper hand. Who gets the last laugh?”
What they laughed at most were the station chief’s jokes because he told them well. “Not a drop of alcohol here on our table. Not a drop as long as you pour carefully.” That’s the way they poured drink in this precinct. And they did so as they sat under a billboard that someone had taken down from the Reichsbahn. It said: ‘Always Sober at Work!’ Bacheran didn’t really enjoy alcohol but he had to drink up whether he wanted to or not. Otherwise he would have a bad reputation in the Berlin city administration. There was no real community without a little communal drinking from time to time. It certainly seemed collegiality was no problem in this precinct. There was a picture on the wall where they had all gathered around the warm cast iron stove. The chief right next to the lowly patrolman. Right after the war, winters were cold and people had to stick together. Everybody had the same problems. Some people had things and others needed them and so bartering was big. Life had done away with the old hierarchical ways. On the other hand people in power, almost all of them men, were still revered like gods and the military values of discipline, cleanliness and punctuality were valued highly. The new Germany, it seemed to Bacheran, was very much like the old, even after de-nazification. A suit was still a suit even when you dyed it a different color – brown, red or black.
Someone had brought a bottle of Italian wine and Bacheran could have bet that soon they would all be singing ‘The fishermen of Capri’. And of course they did. When in Capri the red sun sinks into the sea and the moon’s pale face flickers upon the sky, then the fishermen ride out to sea in their boats and spread their nets in wide circles. The stars are their only guide, showing them the route in pictures they know to read in the sky. And from boat to boat the old song is heard; hear it now as it echoes from afar: Bella, bella, bella Mari, be true to me, I’ll be back tomorrow morning early! Bella, Bella, Bella Mari, don’t you ever forget me!
Bacheran joined in bravely: “Bella, bella, bella Mari, don’t you ever forget me!”
Just then they heard a knock, the chief called out: “Come in!” and two people appeared at the door: they looked so stern and so official that no one thought of singing anymore. Almost everyone in the room felt embarrassed to be sitting together drinking. The chief felt compelled to utter something in the nature of a
n excuse: “Bitter weeks, happy parties… Come in dear colleagues, the class enemy still has the best creamed filled dominos. If you’re allowed to.”
“We’re not here on official duty.”
“Even worse. But please take your coats off.” He knew the two East Berlin officers from before the division of the city and introduced them to the others: “Inspector Steffen from Homicide East, police intern Leupahn…”
As Bacheran was shaking Miss Leupahn’s hand he looked into her eyes: they were a lovely blue, the color of forget-me-nots, but he didn’t find her very friendly. Too austere, too eastern. Steffen, on the contrary, he liked immediately. An angular face, a little like Nick Knatterton from Quick. They sat down now together with the eastern colleagues. “So you came over to eat Domino chocolate candy,” the Tiergarten station chief said. “Enjoy. And what are we going to discuss in secret here among friends?”
“Hermann Seidelmann.”
“Who’s that?”
Steffen and Leupahn were surprised. “You mean you don’t know…?”
“No, how should we?”
Bacheran had an idea what this was all about and so he came out of hiding. He also wanted to show the homicide squad that a State Attorney was their superior and was consequently always entitled to know more. “Hermann Seidelmann would be the owner of a torso and some limbs that we were privileged to see today on the dissecting table at Robert-Koch Hospital. With the exception of his head and one of his arms. Is that so – or am I right?”
Steffen smiled. “I don’t know. This is highly secret official business. I’m not saying anything. Only what you need to know about the reason for our visit. Miss Leupahn here is going to explain.”
“Well…hum. I’ll start with…” Miss Leupahn seemed very self conscious and nervous, but no one in the room could have guessed that the reason was Bernhard Bacheran. “A certain Hannes Seidelmann from 19 Wiclefstrasse in Berlin-Tiergarten … well, this person came to us three days ago and horrified …” They all laughed which naturally made her even more nervous. “What? I didn’t mean that of course, I meant ‘identified’: he recognized his brother because of a corn on his foot. It had been operated on recently. On the left foot. Hermann has been missing since December 3rd.”
Cold Angel: Murder in Berlin 1949 Page 8