Cold Angel: Murder in Berlin 1949

by Horst Bosetzky

  “Which is exactly why we need a new order of things,” Helga said. “A world where everything won’t turn into light opera, where people seriously try to rid the world of war, need and misery. Only Socialism can provide that. A scene like the one with the sofa wouldn’t have happened with us.”

  “I didn’t find it very enlightened myself but it did in the end contribute significantly to the truth.”

  Helga remained skeptical as she ate her peas. “I can see many unanswered questions… Why did Kusian have three glasses in her room? We can rule out that both Mrs. Stöhr and Muschan are lying in this case. So who was the third person? Was it the big dark lady? The landlady probably didn’t conjure her up herself. You know, I think there’s much more to this than meets the eye, something completely different.”

  “Yes, of course.” Bacheran put on a very serious air and spoke in the slightly Saxon accent of a member of the Central Committee of the SED. “The entire thing is a conspiracy between ex Nazis and monopoly capital. Seidelmann and Merten knew the whereabouts of Martin Bormann and of other leading members of German Fascism in hiding. They intended to pass on their knowledge to the peace loving forces of the GDR. But, before they could act, their intentions became known by people in places like Argentina and Paraguay and by the American secret services. And so they asked Elisabeth Kusian to eliminate them both. She was to be rewarded with a million dollars and the opportunity to settle in the United States, under the name Betty Cuthbert; there she would become the head of the Mayo clinic.”

  Helga did not find that funny. “It does sound funny but it’s not totally impossible. At least not for me.”

  After the lunch break the proceedings in the district courtroom became strictly factual since this time scientific experts were called to the bar.

  Professor Schnettka taught chemistry. He presented his findings: traces of blood in the rucksack and the suitcase, in between the floor boards of Mrs. Kusian’s room, on the bread knife that the landlady had lent her and on one of the defendant’s rubber gloves.

  “Could this not have been the defendant’s own blood?” The president asked.

  The defense immediately latched on to this. “At the time in question she had eczema on her left leg.”

  To Bacheran’s deep shame, but to Helga’s quiet rejoicing, it turned out that the Western police had forgotten to ascertain the defendant’s blood type. Therefore the proceedings were interrupted in order to allow that the defendant be taken to the Robert-Koch hospital nearby. An hour later it was established that she was blood type A.

  “In that case everything is clear,” Professor Schnettka concluded, “because the blood type we found on the aforementioned objects is type AB – Mr. Seidelmann’s blood type. As for Mrs. Merten’s blood type, we unfortunately cannot ascertain it because she was dissected in the Eastern sector and remains there.”

  Once again Bacheran shook his head in disgust. Christ! But at least there were no more doubts about Seidelmann. Or were there…?

  The following expert took the stand. “The dismembering of both corpses was performed by a medically trained person; it was done in a professional manner and with great dexterity,” Dr. Spengler declared. “In Seidelmann’s case a few hours after death, in Merten’s case a few days later. Decomposition was already very advanced in her case, which shows that the corpse had been kept in a heated room for some time.”

  The defense did not query any of this. “But, Dr. Spengler, can you tell us how such a small woman as the defendant could overpower a man as powerful as Seidelmann…”

  “She possesses remarkable strength. Mr. Muschan, who is a heavy set man, for example, stated that she once lifted him up in the air for fun and whirled him around.”

  Finally, Dr. Niederthal summarized the dozens and dozens of pages of his psychiatric report. In his opinion, Elisabeth Kusian was genetically burdened on both sides of her family: she had an easily excitable father and an unbalanced mother. As a child and later as a young woman, she always dreamt of escaping the narrow confines of her home and village in Thuringia and wanted to experience the wider world. That this was not going to happen through marriage to Walter Kusian, she found that out painfully. When her husband was away at war, she held parties in her home, orgies even. She never worried about what her neighbors would think. Her thirst for life was enormous. She pretended that her mother was a Hungarian countess and that she herself was a painter. Everything was for show. But it all stopped when her husband returned from the war.

  Bernhard knew all this and only listened with half an ear. He felt a shock of recognition though when he heard the words ‘hunger for life’. That was something he could understand and it was a motivation it was hard to condemn since the Nazis had betrayed it so horribly through the war they had instigated. The big question then was: would she also have killed twice if there had been no Third Reich, if instead Germany had evolved into a perfectly normal republic like the United States for example? No. But maybe she would have? Even under the Weimar Republic, had it continued to exist, she would have been nothing but a ‘little’ nurse, she would not have had much money and she certainly wouldn’t have a married a millionaire.

  The presiding judge’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Doctor Niederthal, do you consider the defendant capable of committing the double murder?”

  The psychiatrist answered. “She attended several lectures on criminal medicine intended for members of the police: there were extensive discussions of the process of throttling.”

  “And what about diminished capacity?”

  “That does not come into play in the two murders. In spite of her occasional abuse of drugs, we consider her to be fully responsible for her actions.” This ‘we’ referred to Waldemar Weimann and himself. “In the confrontation between her desires and reality, life in the real world, the defendant is the loser. The fact that she wore her nurse’s uniform during both murders and that she keenly observed her victims as they died is typical of a diminished sense of self. Although she has to be considered as abnormal, the deviant tendencies she exhibits remain within normality and, in our opinion, do not justify the application of Paragraph 51, section 1 or 2.”

  “Thank you.” Dr. Korsch gathered his papers. “Under the circumstances, tomorrow’s session is adjourned. Per request of the defense. The court will reconvene on Friday.”

  39.

  That morning, Friday January 19, as Bacheran, on his way to Moabit in the S-Bahn was looking at the newspapers, he first avoided the reports of the trial. He went to the Culture and the Local Politics section: something had happened the day before that overshadowed the Kusian trial. The Vienna Film Stage on Kurfürstendamm had hosted the premiere of Willi Forst’s The Sinner and the film had unleashed a huge scandal. Representatives of the Church decried the attack on German morality. Why? Because the star of the film, Hildegard Knef, appeared naked in one of the scenes and because some other scenes dealt with suicide and assisted suicide. Nothing like the future. As for politics, Ernst Reuter (“People of the world, look at this city…”) was reelected as mayor, a week after the contest between him and Walter Schreiber of the CDU had ended in a draw (62:62).The new Senate was made up of politicians from the SPD, the CDU and the FDP. Everyone in the city on the front line against communism was united in the fight against the Soviet planetary threat.

  The day before, a Thursday, the trial had been canceled of course, but he had cut out the articles on the Kusian case and put them in his briefcase. Now, he pulled them out as a way of reconnecting with the atmosphere before he went to the court room and leafed through them. A headline in the Telegraf read Mysterious dark lady in big bold letters. Underneath it said: Bad news for the defendant Elisabeth Kusian – Defense Attorney under the sofa. And in big letters, the subhead announced: The experts speak out. The Tagesspiegel endeavored to be factual: More incriminating evidence against Elisabeth Kusian. The Abend of January 17, 1951 had used the largest print it could find at the type setter’s, almost
two centimeters high: Wanted: Taxi driver. Who drove a man carrying a heavy bag on the night of the murder? Walter Kusian denies responsibility. And a little below that in a striking font: Walter, you must tell the truth! The January 18 issue kept the tension high: Who can believe Elisabeth Kusian anymore? The East Berlin papers had not missed the opportunity to add to the chorus of praise for the Markgraf police officer. The Morgen of January 18: Valuable clues from the People’s Police; The Berliner Zeitung of the same day: Volks police exemplary work: The only reliable data.

  He could also rely on his sweetheart from the East. Helga arrived exactly as he was stepping off the train to catch the connection. The wind swept across the platform and it was so cold and wet that they didn’t have to fear any disapproving glances as they hugged tightly while waiting for the next train. Once aboard they didn’t mention Kusian, they talked about the smaller items in the news. For instance the fact that on February 10 East Berlin was having its second scrap metal collection day, under the auspices of the Berlin branch of the National Front.

  “I’m eager to find out if your father has had his two gold teeth pulled out and handed them in for the good cause,” Bacheran commented.

  “All you can do is criticize!”

  “Come now. Am I criticizing the fact that your people intend to rename the Pleasure Garden and call it Marx-Engels Square? As long as I can still have some pleasure in your garden in Karolinenhof, as far as I’m concerned they can take the pleasure out of the square… Or should I protest against it?”

  “You should protest against Eisenhower’s visit to your side or against the fact that your courts are sentencing more and more Peace activists to long sentences.”

  “Not everyone is for Pax Sovietica under the Stalin motto: “You don’t want to be my brother, I’ll have to smash your skull in.”

  “Please, we’re still in the Democratic sector.”

  “Would you like to arrest me?”

  “No, but…”

  “All right, I’ll wait until we reach Lehrter Station.” The first station in the Western sector.

  There wasn’t much happening in West Berlin daily life. Soon they would have ‘Green Week’ at the exhibit center under the radio tower. Mask in Blue had closed down after the 70000th visitor. The committee to end dumping practiced by the East recommended stricter controls to prevent illegal buying in the East. The articles were separated by ads. For herb liqueur for instance: Berlin Mampe, known throughout the world for quality and the Elephant. Every bottle came with a little white elephant tied around the neck. Many Berliners loved to collect those elephants, as did his aunt. Further down the page stood: Libby’s milk…so creamy! And: It’s margarine of course – But it’s got to be Sanella: it tastes so fresh! 500 grams for 1.22 Dmark.

  The fourth day of the trial could have been entitled ‘Producing witnesses’. Bacheran was writing those words on his note pad when Helga looked at him and he smiled: “Speaking of producing witnesses, I too would like to produce something with you one day… inside you.”

  “And then what will happen to the child? It will be like in Brecht’s Caucasian Circle: East and West fight for it and want to tear it apart.”

  The first witness called to the stand by Dr. Korsch was Marie Schütz, the porter at 154a Kantstrasse. Bacheran was very curious to hear her: after the statement she made to the West Berlin Homicide division, Menzel and his team did not consider her to be very reliable. Still, she was convinced that she had seen Seidelmann on December 4th when his death on December 3rd was absolutely certain. They knew that she had suffered a concussion in an accident in 1946 and that ever since then, she referred to herself as ‘picked wrong’.

  “What a strange expression.” Helga thought. “What can she mean? That she considers herself a rotten apple that has to be cast out after it’s been picked and is unfit for consumption?”

  “Sounds logical. But I would have thought she means she can’t pick out the truth anymore, she’s constantly making mistakes.”

  As Mrs. Schütz stood in front of the court room table and everyone saw her in profile, a murmur ran through the room: no one had ever seen such a pointy upturned nose. “The perfect shape for sticking it everywhere,” Bacheran said.

  When she was asked to say what she had observed, she turned to look at Walter Kusian, who had been freed from detention and was once again a witness. She straightened her hat on her head and she started speaking: Bacheran couldn’t decide whether her voice was shrill or just nagging.

  “On the 26th of December a man went up the stairs. He was carrying a very long cardboard box. When I went to turn off the light around 9PM I heard slow steps on the stairs, as if someone was carrying a heavy load. It was Mrs. Kusian and the man that I had already seen at noon. He was again carrying the rucksack and the long cardboard box and he was feeling his way down painfully, carrying this load. I noticed him because of his Roman-Greek nose. He was wearing a brown leather jacket, a grayish green mottled cap with a visor, black pants and new black shoes. The man was two centimeters taller than the woman.”

  “Was it that well lit that you could see all this?” The presiding judge asked.

  “Yes, there’s a fifteen watt lamp.”

  “My husband doesn’t have a brown jacket!” The defendant interrupted.

  “Mr. Kusian, could you please come here…” Dr. Korsch signaled to Walter Kusian to come and it was plain to see that the man feared he might all of a sudden be accused again.

  “She couldn’t pick me out of a line-up of seven men at the police station,” he protested.

  But Mrs. Schütz was not moved by these protestations, she looked him up and down and then she said, loud and clear: “Yes, that’s him.”

  The president shook his head: Walter Kusian did not have a ‘Greco-Roman’ nose, meaning a nose that comes down in a straight line from the forehead. Instead he had a bulbous nose. Then he asked the defendant to get up and stand next to her husband. It was clear that he was not 2 centimeters taller than his wife but a little shorter than she was.

  “God, this trial has gone off the rails,” Bacheran said. “On top of reaching a verdict this court has set itself the task of being both the prosecution and the police. Korsch should have stuck to Kusian’s confession exclusively and should not have let himself be diverted. Now her retraction and the accusations she made against her husband have become part of the trial proceedings, and every day, the tangle of facts becomes more and more intricate and intractable.”

  “But that’s a real success for Kusian,” Helga commented. “The way she managed to create havoc in the conduct of the trial is masterful. The charges against her are very strong of course, a lot of things point to her guilt but, from a purely objective standpoint, the question of who killed has not been really solved as long as her husband does not have a perfect alibi.”

  “Wait and see.” Bacheran pointed to the judges’ desk: there were stacks of anonymous letters asking for the death penalty against Elisabeth Kusian and dockets bearing the names of new witnesses who wished to make important statements incriminating either Kurt Muschan or Walter Kusian.

  “The Kusian trial is giving all the cranks their day in court,” Bacheran joked.

  The presiding judge first called the widow Stöhr to the stand again. What more could he hope to learn from her? He seemed increasingly desperate.

  “Mrs. Stöhr, can you tell us more about Mr. Kusian’s visits to his wife in the days after the murder?”

  “He came often, he always brought coal and asked for his wife. But in vain. He’s still in love with her despite the separation and all the rest. Once, I found a letter he had written her, torn up and thrown in Mrs. Kusian’s waste paper basket and it said: ‘I always took care of you after all.’”

  Bernhard and Helga didn’t know what to make of these words: Was Walter Kusian the real killer, or at least an accomplice, or was Elisabeth Kusian using his love for her the better to incriminate him and save her neck?

  The
whole thing kept getting more mysterious. The highpoint of the day came when a certain Olga Maus came to the stand. She was a longtime friend of Dorothea Merten. She had been called to the court house by phone during the proceedings.

  After the preliminary swearing in came another bombshell. “I was sitting under the dryer at the hairdresser’s. It could have early or mid December. My friend Doris showed up suddenly. She told me a certain Walter had invited her that night to come to the apartment of a nurse from Moabit hospital, a relative of his who had three children. The man said he could facilitate the contracts for the sale of typewriters, and that he had very good contacts with the administration. In the conversation I also heard the name Kurt. I had forgotten the family name but then I noticed it in a newspaper and it came back to me: Kurt Muschan.”

  “And Walter … Walter what?”

  “Kusian – I wanted to remember the name and I thought of Grobian. ‘I hope that man is no Grobian’ *, I said to Doris.”

  Bacheran forgot to take notes. Was the woman fantasizing? She was a stenographer by profession, so likely to be punctilious to the extreme. If she was right, if Merten had really told her all this, what did it mean? It meant that Kusian and Merten had been in much closer contact than had been thought until then. And, was Kurt Muschan perhaps the official with whom Walter Kusian had such good contacts?

  Things got even more dramatic when Günther Beigang, the owner of the typewriter dealership was sworn in and stated that about two weeks before her death Mrs. Merten had seemed unusually nervous. “When I inquired about it she answered: ‘I cannot tell you, it’s awful.’”

  Bacheran thought for a while before he could make sense of all this. “That was after Seidelmann’s murder – and so this raises the possibility that Merten had to be neutralized because she knew of the murder and had become dangerous. The two women meet, Elisabeth Kusian finds she can trust her and tells her what she has done. Merten does not go to the Police immediately for whatever reason. Probably out of pity. And so she must die.”