Cold Angel: Murder in Berlin 1949

by Horst Bosetzky

  Still… When she stepped off the train at the station in Neukölln, she felt she was in a foreign country. Even if the street she was going down was named Karl Marx Strasse. These were different Germans. More keyed up, dressed in more colorful clothes, more American in a sense. Of course, this was the American sector. Inside her head some words resonated immediately: Go home, Ami – Ami go home, split your atom for peace! Was she being followed? Silly of her. She was just an unimportant part of the People’s Police. But she was a woman who saw things clearly. She had been warned recently at school that the Western secret services would increase their efforts to approach citizens of the GDR. They wanted to know everything so that RIAS, Radio in American Sector, could have something to use in their propaganda broadcast, From the Zone, For the Zone. There were more things than she expected in the shop windows but what did that mean when the mass of the exploited had no money to buy any of them! True, the American economic machine was running at full speed because President Truman continued to crank up the arms industry; but that would make the coming economic crisis even worse. Soon, the day would come when people from the Western sector came over to the Democratic sector to do their shopping at HO. She didn’t understand why the West Germans were licking the Americans’ boots. A perfect example of Anglo-American colonial subjugation was the pharmaceutical industry: they had stolen 70000 German patents to manufacture expensive drugs which they then sold back on the German market. The Tägliche Rundschau had written extensively about it.

  She bumped into a man she hadn’t noticed in the dim light of the street lamps. “Oh, sorry…”

  “Sorry? I’ll never forgive you: how could you not recognize me!?” It was Bernhard who had come out to meet her halfway. “I’ll be your guide for the last few meters. Fuldastrasse is full of dangerously high cliffs.”

  They kissed but she didn’t enjoy it much. He was somehow foreign and she almost felt like a Frenchwoman stepping out with a German soldier when France was occupied by Hitler’s Wehrmacht. Repulsive. On the other hand, she had always dreamt of a man like him. The easy going American type. Casablanca. Humphrey Bogart. Bernhard could have been his double, and she was the Ingrid Bergmann type. She felt deeply troubled by those images, by the very fact of comparing herself to these people. God, why couldn’t she have fallen in love with a man from Köpenick! Bernhard’s mother and aunt welcomed her at arm’s length so to speak, as if she were trying to sell them a subscription to Neues Deutschland.

  “Please take your coat off, Miss. Leupahn. I thought we could meet at a restaurant on Kurfürstendam but my son insisted that I prepare a small repast here in our modest home.”

  No one had ever spoken to her in such mincing words. Oh well, she was a teacher after all. They couldn’t help themselves. The sister, Erna Nostiz, was even worse. God, dolled up like a Meissen figurine. She was supposed to have a sick gall bladder. You could see it in her face. The only one missing was Bernhard’s father, the minister. Helga was afraid her father would kick her out of the house when he found out what kind of a family she had landed in. If they ever got engaged, they would have to have two separate celebrations: one in Neukölln with only her, and one in Karolinenhof with only Bernhard.

  “Don’t frown at my mother and my aunt like that,” he said to her. “They’re not Nazis and never were. My mother always votes CDU and my aunt SPD.”

  “No politics at the dinner table. Please.” His mother was very insistent. “Let us talk about your beautiful Schmöckwitz.”

  “She lives in Karolinenhof, Mother.”

  “Why don’t you let Miss. Leupahn speak for herself?”

  “Thank you.” Helga didn’t know what to choose: minced meat or sausage salad, so she held her bun in her hand and hesitated. The bread was much whiter than in the Eastern sector but it was also hollow and too light. “Yes, Lübbenauer Weg in Karolinenhof. But my mother works at the tire factory in Schmöckwitz.”

  “My husband intended to buy a piece of land in Karolinenhof after the war,” Anne-Marie Bacheran said. “But then…” And she talked about the trips she had taken with her husband.

  Helga listened but her mind was far away: she was thinking about her next appointment, the ‘visit’ to Kantstrasse. What if the Stumm Police showed up and arrested her? Would Bernhard have enough influence to get her out? She could hear him saying: ‘Yes, but on condition that you move to the West with me.’

  After the meal they played rummy and everyone visibly relaxed. Maybe she could get along with his relatives after all.

  “Hand rummy!” Erna Nostiz cried.

  Helga hadn’t been paying attention; she still had a few cards to play and she had to pay six pfennig. When she took out her East Mark, Bernhard’s aunt protested. “Only real money, please. Otherwise it’s got to be according to the exchange rate, 6 to 1.”

  “Don’t take it to heart,” Bernhard said. “Unlucky at cards but lucky in love, that’s life.”

  “You are with the Vopos?” Anne Marie Bacheran looked at her a little suspiciously.

  “With Homicide.”

  “But not for much longer…” Bernhard wanted to make light of it all. “Because soon there will be no crime and no criminals in the GDR.”

  “But they might come to us from the West.”

  Anne-Marie could barely restrain herself. “Surely you don’t mean that seriously, Miss. Leupahn?!”

  Bernhard intervened. “No mother. She’s thinking of this one case where it really looks like someone from the Western sector dismembered two corpses and hid them in the Eastern sector. But let’s forget about that right now. Who’s dealing?”

  “The one who asks, always.”

  “Your father used to say: ‘God dislikes gamblers because they lust after other people’s money.’”

  So they managed to get through the evening without any major incident. Helga felt better. Still she kept looking at the big grandfather clock. The pendulum swung back and forth and soon it was 10 PM. If Bernhard walked her to the subway she would have to take the train in the wrong direction first so she needed to get ready to leave soon.

  “Well… I have to get going soon… It’s a long way to Karolinenhof and I absolutely must catch the last 86.” She felt very bad lying to Bernhard. As if she were cheating on him. But there was no way she could let him know about tonight’s mission. So close your eyes and jump, she thought.

  When the two ladies said goodbye they weren’t entirely warmhearted but not as stiff as when they greeted her. “I hope you’ll come again sometime, Miss. Leupahn.” Maybe it would work after all.

  Outside on the landing the light went out and Bernhard took her in his arms. So passionately that it took her breath away. He was aroused. His hands were under her coat, her sweater, her skirt. Before she could stop him he rubbed himself against her and moaned. She didn’t like it but she let him. Maybe she owed it to him since she had lied. “Helga, I love you.” She bit his earlobe in answer. He shuddered and she realized he had ejaculated. In his pants. His mother would have a fit when she saw that. The light came on. They pulled apart. Another tenant was coming home. They went down the stairs, one behind the other, keeping a safe distance.

  Only once they reached the street did he put his arm around her waist again. “We haven’t even had the opportunity to talk about the Kusian case.”

  She tried to look composed as she informed him briefly of the fact that they were presently holding the nurse in Neu Königstrasse.

  He was taken aback. “But she’s a West Berliner…?”

  “If she did in fact murder Seidelmann, well… he was from the GDR. And if she dismembered Doris Merten, the fact is that her victim was found in the Democratic sector. So…”

  “All right.” Bacheran started walking in the direction of the U-Bahn station and pulled her with him. “I’m not a diplomat. Did she already confess?”

  “No. She keeps coming up with new lies and we have to see how it develops.” She didn’t mention Kurt Muschan either. An offici
al secret was one thing, love another. They were going to beat the Stumm Police by hook or by crook. The more mistakes the West made, the better the Volks Police would come out. Steffen was right about that, and about other things too.

  “Do you want to walk back to Neukölln station or will you take the U-Bahn, or the 47?”

  “I’ll take the U-Bahn. That way I don’t have to freeze while I wait. She was lying again: she wanted to take the U-Bahn so she could take the C line to the center of town and change there for the A line and get to Zoo station as fast as possible. “You mustn’t come down to the platform with me. I hate long goodbyes.”

  “And I love you.”

  She hoped he wouldn’t be too much of a gentleman and get on the train with her. But he did! He was so much in love he wanted to spend every minute he could with her. “What I’d really like is to take you to a hotel and…”

  “Oh … yes…” Why not, that way the die would be cast: Steffen would be furious tomorrow, he would accuse her of deserting and make sure she was kicked out of the Vopo. So what! Bernhard would certainly give her shelter in the West.

  “Just a thought.” So it was just a joke. Of course. Why was it that men never realized when it was time to make their move…?

  And so she was very quiet as they sat together on the train. It was embarrassing too because anybody with a good nose could smell the odor of sperm on him. But it was only two stops. He walked her up to the S-Bahn. They walked hand in hand and she felt as if she were his fiancée even though not a word had been spoken on the subject. She was still very old fashioned and bourgeois in the way she looked at things: if you slept with a man, you were automatically engaged. The train came, the air in the brakes made a hissing sound and the train came to a stop. He pulled the door open. One last kiss. He pushed his tongue in her mouth and moved back and forth. So obscene it made her stomach tingle and twitch. “Bernhard, Bernie…”

  “Doors closing. Step back!”

  He pulled away. The doors slammed shut right in front of her. As the train jerked forward she was thrown onto a bench. She wanted to wink goodbye but the windows were fogged up. The train was already on the main track. She settled back in her seat and noticed the dampness between the thighs. He wasn’t the only with something to hide, she was in the same condition now. All she could do was laugh at herself. When Steffen looked at her she would blush… Steffen! God, where was she now? For a moment she lost her bearings. They were slowly pulling out of a station. She wiped the condensation off the window pane. Köllnische Heide. All right. The best thing to do was to go on to Baumschulenweg and then get on the Stadtbahn. With luck she would be only a few minutes late.

  But it was already 11:15 PM when she reached the house on Kanstrasse.

  “Five minutes early is soldier’s timeliness,” Steffen said in a tone of mild reproach.

  “My instinct tells me that widow Stöhr has just fallen asleep.”

  “Well then, lets’ go. We’re a married couple returning home late in the evening.” Inspector Steffen opened the front door but did not turn on the light. It wasn’t easy to go up the stairs to the fourth floor in the dark but since they had been there once before they knew of the possible dangers. “Psst… Just like Winnetou and old Slatterhand.”

  “Yes. Ah…” Helga was surprised that Steffen should quote Karl May whose silly unrealistic novels were all but forbidden in the GDR.

  They safely reached the top of the stairs and the inspector opened the door of the apartment, making almost no noise at all. They stood still in the entrance hall for a few seconds, holding their breaths. There wasn’t a single light on in the apartment. Someone was snoring. Probably Mrs. Stöhr’s mother. Elisabeth Kusian’s room was locked. But he had the keys and unlocked the door. They listened. “Nothing…” He pressed down the latch, pushed the door open and let Helga in. “Pull the curtains shut,” he whispered to her.

  She went to the window and did as he said. She felt like a burglar. Whichever way you looked at it they were doing something illegal. What if the American military police just happened to…? No, this was the British sector. But there could be agents of the English secret service, MI5. The ceiling lamp came on. Her heart missed a beat. But it was Steffen who had turned it on of course.

  “If Doris Merten was killed in this room there have to be traces for chrissake.” He started dragging the sofa away from the wall to look behind it. “Nothing here…”

  Helga opened the drawers of the writing table determined to find a severed hand or a foot. Although… they had everything that belonged to Doris Merten. Still… But her efforts were in vain.

  Steffen was ready to admit defeat a second time but as he felt behind the tile stove one last time, he pulled something out that, at first, looked like a dust cloth. “Hey, what have we here…?”

  “A neck tie!” Helga shouted forgetting all their precautions. “A man’s neck tie. Blue with yellow and red stripes.”

  Steffen shushed her but he was just as excited. “This can only belong to one man…”

  “Hermann Seidelmann.”

  “Right. And this confirms my theory: Seidelmann and Merten were both dismembered by the same person. Come, we’ll leave now and tomorrow morning early we’ll see to it that the evidence guys come here, East sector or West sector guys, it doesn’t matter. If Elisabeth Kusian cut up both of her victims’ bodies in this room, there must have been a lot of blood… and it will have run between the floorboards. You can’t wipe off every trace.”

  30.

  Bacheran went to the Western Police headquarters early to hear what Inspector Muschan had to say about his questioning at the Eastern Police precinct. Once there he did his best to listen impartially and didn’t let on that he knew Muschan and even knew of his affair.

  The date was January 7, 1950 and since it was a Saturday everyone was hoping to be done by noon.

  “As for myself, I never doubted that Mrs Kusian was the angel that her patients said she was.”

  “Yea…yea…, our well known policeman’s instinct,” Menzel grumbled.

  “And of course Mr. Muschan came here on his own initiative to inform us as to what happened to Mrs. Kusian and tell us that she had been arrested in the Eastern sector,” Bacheran added.

  “So, what now?” a member of the Chief of Police’s team asked.

  Menzel didn’t need to think about it. “We get in touch with our colleagues in the East and then we go and examine the room on Kantstrasse together. Let’s say at 11 AM. The scene of the crime boys can bring their tool box.” He smiled and switched to politics: “The other side has Elisabeth Kusian and we have the crime scene, or at least we almost certainly do. We should be able to come together.”

  Phone calls were exchanged, permission to go ahead was sought from higher up – and they all managed in the end to meet at the appointed time in Elisabeth Kusian’s lodgings. The Eastern side had sent Inspector Steffen and Helga Leupahn, the Western police department was represented by Inspector Menzel and the technicians from Homicide. With them came Bacheran, feeling more like a supporter than a participant. He somehow enjoyed the scene. It was better than the theater. “E. Kusian – Cold Angel” was playing. Part tragedy, part comedy. What was grotesque about it was that he had to pretend that he couldn’t stand Miss. Leupahn; as to the two old hounds of Berlin Kripo, they behaved as if the other one wasn’t in the room. That wasn’t surprising, of course, since Steffen was a red front fighter and a veteran of the Spanish war whereas Menzel, a CDU man, had been a Lieutenant in Hitler’s Wehrmacht and had voted for the NSDAP with nationalistic fervor, although he had not been a party member.

  Without a word, they set to work. The result was plain to see: they found a wooden suitcase that had evidently been used to transport parts of the bodies, a kitchen knife that had probably been used to cut up both victims’ corpses: it showed traces of blood under the magnifying glass, and finally, a rubber glove with a few pubic hairs. Menzel went through the closets and picked out two m
en’s shirts and a pair of white socks that were far too big for a woman. The Homicide technicians were able to detect some blood on the woolen blankets, on a backpack, on the sleeper sofa and in the gaps between the floor boards.

  But possibly the most important find was made by Helga. “Here, behind the closet: a clothes line!” As she pulled out the line, a piece of it, about a meter and a half in length, fell to the floor.

  “That’s what she used to throttle her victims.”

  “All we need now is Elisabeth Kusian’s confession of guilt,” Bacheran said.

  “We’ll do our best,” Steffen growled as he started to gather the clothes that seemed to belong to the crime victim, Hermann Seidelmann, to take them away.

  “Just a minute, Inspector!” Menzel grabbed them back. “These belong to us.”

  “Then why don’t you come to Volks Police Headquarters and stick them under the nose of the suspect yourself,” Steffen snapped back.

  It was more an injunction than a question and Menzel immediately got on his high horse. “I don’t have to take any orders from you. Also, allow me to remind you that we are in the Western sector here.”

  “Of course.” Steffen smirked. “Crimes such as these are almost unthinkable in the Democratic sector.”

  “There are many other unthinkable things happening in your sector,” Menzel shot back. “Soviet concentration camps on German soil for instance and the deportation of thousands of innocent people to Siberia. Stalin is a serial killer too, and whoever worships Stalin is…”

  “Let’s go,” Steffen said and he pulled Helga by the arm.

  Bacheran rolled his eyes and looked up to the ceiling in despair. Menzel was right of course but, still, he could have used more diplomacy or stuck to technocratic language; anything would have been better than this.