Cold Angel: Murder in Berlin 1949

by Horst Bosetzky

  Bacheran smiled. “Or maybe it was me…”

  Leupahn looked at him suspiciously: “You work for our State Attorney, don’t you…?”

  “Ours, yes, if you mean I’m German, I’m not British or American or French or Russian…And I was born in Berlin, I’m a native.”

  Leupahn jumped up. “You’re from the other side?!”

  Bacheran looked at him. “So, do you want to go and get your axe and chop me into pieces?”

  13.

  The dish was too small and the blood spilled over and soaked the grass. A variety of knives lay around: a carving knife, a joint knife, a razor blade, a steak knife. Next to them there was a bone saw and a so-called ‘spalter’ a meat cleaver for separating joints from the flesh. On the corner posts of a sort of horizontal rod for beating carpets in the garden hung a magnificent pig with its legs obscenely spread open. The hind leg sinews were carefully stripped and the animal had been strung up very properly by the top. An employee, a thick shouldered man, was in the process of cutting open the stomach. He did it so precisely that he didn’t even graze the intestines. Then he took hold of the stomach with both hands and proceeded to cut out the bladder, the uterus and the rectum.

  Bacheran was fascinated by this archaic ritual. It was the same at his uncle’s in the Prignitz. And yet they were not in a farmyard, they were in the garden section close to the Berlin-Heiligensee S-Bahn station, the so-called ‘Kolonie Dreieck’ where many temporary houses had been set up for people made homeless by the bombing. One of these people was Peter Kartlow, a 42 year old single man, a mechanic currently unemployed. Menzel and Bacheran had traveled north of Berlin because his name appeared three times on the list of over a hundred pieces of information pertaining to the Seidelmann case. The staff at MI/3 had written: ‘A loafer, visited by men of doubtful occupation…A lot of shouting at his place… Blood observed in the snow recently… Knows how to use slaughtering knives… Involved in shady deals at Bahnhof Zoo.’ This would not have been enough to make the police suspect him but his record showed that he had been arrested many times for assault and battery.

  Menzel started off gently: “Please don’t interrupt your work, Mr. Kartlow. You know why we’re here?”

  “Because I’m slaughtering an animal without a permit…” Kartlow didn’t let it disturb him. He was preparing to rip out the bile from the liver and you had to be very careful that it didn’t burst and make everything yellow and bitter.

  “No, we are from Homicide.”

  “Oh. My wonderful neighbors have been at it again. They’ve been trying to get rid of me for some time.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because of me pigs.”

  Bacheran tried to figure him out. ‘Me pigs’: What did that little mistake mean? He could have made it on purpose, his German was pure, almost no Berlin dialect. This was a little unusual for an unemployed mechanic. Did it mean that he was of a different social class and living here under an assumed name? Could he be an ex high ranking Nazi? He didn’t look like Martin Bormann, but there were many others who had vanished and not all of them to South America. Then maybe the men who visited Kartlow were ex party members? Had Seidelmann been one of them? Did he know too much and did he try to blackmail Kartlow? Very interesting questions or rather hypotheses but how could he verify any of them…?

  Menzel, an old hand from Berlin Homicide changed his tone: “You’re right, we are looking for a pig, the pig who cut up Hannes Seidelmann.”

  Unperturbed, Kartlow went on pulling the innards from the animal’s breast cavity. “Seidelmann… the one from Saxony… The guy whose limbs lay in the ruins… I know about him from the papers. But what do I have to do with the man?”

  “It seems you often go to Zoo station and you conduct some not altogether kosher business there…”

  Kartlow took the heart and the lungs, the tongue and the liver and hung them on the lowest branch of an old pear tree. “What am I suppose to do with the tiny pension I’ve got?”

  Again Bacheran noticed the grammatical mistake, it was obviously calculated. He could imagine what Kartlow looked like four years before, wearing the cap and the uniform of an SS Obersturmbannführer.

  Menzel decided to go for the kill. “Where were you on the evening and during the night of 3 December?”

  Kartlow took a basin filled with water and poured it down the hollowed out chest cavity of the pig. “You mean, do I have an alibi?”

  “Correct.”

  Kartlow looked him in the face. “I take it that was the day when this Seidelmann was killed…” he waited for Bacheran and Menzel to acquiesce. “Well, l have to think back…” It took him some time. “Yes, right, that’s the night when I was with American friends at the Casablanca-bar in Augsburgerstrasse. With…wait now…” he named three people. According to him all three were members of the American military mission.

  “We’ll check that,” Bacheran said.

  “Do.” Kartlow turned away and picked up his knife to cut open the animal’s back. Bacheran knew from his uncle that you had to be very skillfull to manage that: if you cut too deep, the chops could be damaged. Peter Kartlow was very skilled.

  They went to the subway, waited outside on the freezing platform for the train from Velten, got on and rode to Friedrichstrasse. Bacheran did not share his suspicions with Menzel since the State Attorney’s office would have to go after Kartlow’s possible brown shirt past on its own. Menzel did not look beyond the immediate task of questioning the owner and the barkeeper at the Casablanca, and he entertained the young Assistant Attorney with anecdotes from the good old days of Berlin Homicide.

  “In 1920 we had Friedrich Schumann: eleven murders and thirteen attempted murders. A year later there was Karl Grossman: he killed and mutilated 23 women in his house in Friedrichshain.”

  “Is that a bad sign or something,” Bacheran interrupted him “Schumann, Grossman and now Seildelmann.”

  “Well only if you disregard a slight question of logic: the first two were perpetrators and Seidelmann is a victim.”

  “Do we know that he wasn’t a perpetrator before?”

  “We don’t,” Menzel had to admit. “Wait and see if there’s another murder with the same signature.”

  “That’s what I’m relying on.” Bacheran realized he almost welcomed that possibility and he found that very scary. That the human heart could harbor such evil and delight in gruesome death!

  “Yes, we had some real characters in our ranks…” There was no stopping Menzel now. “In those days, Homicide was the beating heart of Berlin’s Section Four Police Department. Ernst Gennat was the big homicide expert. Enormously popular. Extraordinary persistence, unique capacity for recollection, superb psychological insight. He was just as big as I am. We used to call him ‘Cream puff’ because he was constantly eating butter cream cakes.”

  Menzel went on enthusiastically about the big cases at Berlin Homicide and they hopped on a streetcar at Friedrichstrasse. Twelve minutes later they were at Zoo station and it was only a short walk to Augsburgerstrasse. But once in the Casablanca-bar, they were faced with the usual Berlin reply: ‘Me? No. I don’t know anything.’

  The only thing Menzel could do now was ask Bacheran to contact the Allies through the State Attorney’s office and inquire whether Robert McGehee and William Mobridge, the two people mentioned by Kartlow, really existed. That could take a very long time and as they parted Bacheran said in English: “Further research is needed.”

  “I don’t care how we get the information,” the inspector replied. “As long as we find out if that alibi holds.”

  Bacheran took the U-Bahn to Fehrbelliner Platz and the State Attorney’s Office building at the Supreme Court, where he had a small desk in one of the many offices. It wouldn’t be easy to get anything on the two Americans since they enjoyed wide ranging immunity in the city under the administration of the Four Powers. All one could do was wait.

  At exactly 5:30, Bacheran closed his desk and l
eft the office. In ten days it would be Christmas Eve and it was time he started work on solving a big question: what present to give to his mother and his aunt – and Helga Leupahn too. He didn’t know enough about her to have an idea what she might really like. Perfume, chocolate, a book, something to wear? But which perfume, what kind of chocolate, which book, what item of clothing? Sexy underwear would not do. It was just the gesture that counted of course, but still…

  He was in a bad mood when he got off the train at NeuKölln city hall; he crossed to the north side of the tracks on Karl-Marx-strasse and turned into Fuldastrasse. Fulda, on the river Fulda, was a district in Hesse. He had never been there. It was said to be a very religious, deeply catholic place. But how to reconcile that with what the town was famous for: its remarkable cathouse. Everybody knew the words: “In the cathouse in Fulda, the wooden leg belongs to Hulda.” This brought him back to the Seidelmann case: what probably happened was the Saxon from East Prussia, living it up in Berlin, had visited a prostitute to lower his hormone level. After that, the usual story: the woman had tried to rob him, Seidelmann had noticed it and wanted to protect his money. And then he was throttled. Either by the lady herself or by her pimp or by both. That would be established by homicide.

  He longed very much to sit with his back to the stove and warm himself, but he did not wish to be with his mother and aunt. The same ritual every morning, every evening!

  “Here, please take some butter.” At home he felt as self conscious as when he was standing in front of his superior…as self conscious as he felt the previous Sunday out at the Leupahns’ house in Karolinenhof. Everything was so formal, he had to weigh each word he said. Up until early 1944 his parents had lived in the upper class neighborhood of Bayerischen Platz; then they were bombed out and they were lucky that Aunt Erna had given them shelter in Neukölln. Ever since then his mother had tried her utmost to keep up their former refined way of life. Good manners were of the utmost importance. One should never give in. Wait until there was enough money for a house in Rudow or Buckow. During the blockade there had been very many electricity black outs, so they sat together by candle light or around a kerosene lamp and it had been all right: it had a kind of charm and it created an atmosphere of homely comfort. Nowadays, when 120 watt bulbs lit up the place, they all felt constrained. Oh, to get away from here! To be with Helga! Even if they had to live in a dog house.

  Annemarie Bacheran had a working telephone which was a rarity these days but she thought it was owed to her as a woman of a certain standing. More to the point, it gave her the means to advance her plan to become, or so she hoped, the headmistress of a school. She had already become a member of the SPD. When the phone rang, she grabbed the receiver with a smile, hoping for good news, but the call was for her son. “Bernhard, for you… homicide.”

  Bacheran sighed with displeasure and took his time. Menzel again. And after hours too… He finally took the receiver. “Yes, good evening. What’s going on, Norbert?”

  “You still haven’t been able to find out whether I’m male or female. That doesn’t bode well.”

  “Miss. Leupahn…”

  “That’s more like it.”

  He stumbled over the words: “I didn’t, I didn’t…ah think that …that you…”

  “And I thought you couldn’t keep me out of your thoughts.” She seemed very different on the phone, much more relaxed.

  “I do but…”

  “If you have a lady visitor, I won’t bother you.”

  He was beginning to regain his composure: “The two ladies here are quite enough for me, and they live here, they’re not visiting: they’re my lovely mother and my aunt. But if you are feeling really nostalgic, you too can come after all…”

  “I can come after all…That doesn’t sound very romantic.”

  He was astonished, suddenly she was flirting.

  “…I mean come here to pick me up. Then we can sit in an airplane and fly off to paradise…uh…to Paris, I mean.”

  “I’d love to but, as a citizen of the GDR, they won’t allow me into France.”

  “Must you destroy every one of my dreams?”

  “Not every one…”

  He listened intently. “Which dream will you grant me then?”

  “The dream of finding all the pieces belonging to Hermann Seidelmann. That dream has just come true today. Our policemen found the head, the right thigh and the right arm of a man in the rubble at 109 Chausseestrasse.”

  “Now that’s a real puzzle: how to put the –body- pieces together. What are they going to do now? Keep the parts in the East or will they be delivered gratis to Dr. Weimann in Moabit?”

  “Steffen told me we would be sending everything over to you.”

  “Will you be bringing the package to the Western sector in person?”

  “No.”

  Bacheran sighed. “I wish I had heard you say ‘no, unfortunately’.”

  “I have to…my father’s coming. Have a good evening.”

  “Without you…?”

  “Think of Seidelmann.”

  Bacheran did but only the next day in the afternoon as he stood next to Dr. Weimann at dissecting table 6. The doctor demonstrated how everything fit together: they had the Saxon showman’s complete corpse.

  “Can it be confirmed now that he was indeed throttled and not strangled?” Bacheran asked again: he wanted to be quite certain.

  “Yes.” The doctor proceeded to explain: “When a killer strangles someone with his bare hands, it is most often visible to the naked eye – because of characteristic finger marks and scratches. In that case you can be pretty sure it was an unpremeditated attack.”

  Bacheran nodded. “Yes, I understand now. When someone wants to kill someone else they’ll use a weapon or go at it with a cudgel, they won’t use their bare hands.”

  “Exactly. That’s why throttling implies something different than does strangulation: the perpetrator uses a tool to kill and that means a greater degree of awareness. Now if a scarf that the victim was wearing around his or her neck is used, or a stocking or something similar that was close at hand at the moment of the killing, that points to an extreme emotional state as the cause of murder. But if a rope or even a piece of wire is used, the probability of foul premeditated murder increases.”

  “And that seems likely in Seildelmann’s case…Because of all the money he was carrying on him.” Bacheran was once again reminded of the story of Hulda’s wooden leg. “But what if he has spent all his money with the ladies of the night and doesn’t dare go back home, is feeling desperate… Could he throttle himself?”

  “We can’t rule that out completely. There are cases where someone’s pulled that off but it’s so rare that we can definitely rule it out in the present case.” Weimann grinned. “And how, Mr. State Attorney, would he have managed, after choking to death, to cut up his own corpse and throw it into the ruins?”

  Bacheran had to admit to a slight mistake there. “Oh, yes… All I can do now is commit hara-kiri or slip a silk noose around my neck… I’ll take the latter.” He took off his red and blue tie, pulled it around his neck like a rope and tugged on it. “If I crush my windpipe like this…that doesn’t feel good at all, dying like this…”

  “You’re mistaken though, sir, because Mr. Seidelmann didn’t suffocate, he died because of a partial blockage of the blood vessels in the neck: that resulted in the loss of irrigation of the brain and, a few seconds later, loss of consciousness. The continued pressure on the neck then ensured rapid brain death.”

  “Oh…” That scared Bacheran somewhat and he slipped the tie off and stuffed it into his pants pocket rather than tying it back underneath his shirt collar. He noticed a brown extension cord… “Earlier, Doctor, you mentioned the possibility of a cord. it strikes me that Seidelmann’s brother works at the Telecommunications Center, they have many cables…”

  “That’s something for Homicide to elucidate. We do have one indication of the perpetrator’s characte
r: the masterly disposal of the body indicates that a doctor could have done this or a surgeon’s assistant, or an assistant in anatomy. Or a butcher, just as well, as Dr. Spengler said a short while ago.”

  “Yesterday we talked to a man who does a lot of slaughtering but we couldn’t pin him down.”

  Dr Weimann went over to the wash basin. “Many things seem to indicate that there will be more than one attempt and maybe the second time the murderer won’t be as successful as this time with Seidelmann.”

  “Ah, well then, there’s hope,” Bacheran said. “Anaxithonos says something like: “Cynicism dies last.”

  14.

  Bacheran stood by the Schlesisches Tor station waiting for Helga Leupahn. Would she show up? Which side would win? Her father was making her life very hard because she was threatening to become close to the class enemy. “You will never again see this guy!” On the other hand it was in Inspector Steffen’s best interest that Bacheran and she would become close because that would allow him to let her investigate inside the Western sector without his superiors – or those in the Stumm police – going amok. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, Comrade Police Superintendent; Miss. Leupahn is in the West on purely private business. It may not be entirely statesmanlike, but, in the business of information gathering you can only be successful if you are free to operate on the enemy’s territory… You understand what I mean… Whatever happens on the other side, we must keep informed at all times.” Bacheran was sure that was how they operated in the East. So the two opposing forces should result in a stalemate: the influence of her father on one side versus Steffen’s influence on the other. But maybe there was something else, something called love. At least for him. If she came today that meant she was in love too. Or was he mistaken? Did she see him only as the means to further her career?