‘He’s still alive, then?’ Ravenel asked.
‘Who knows? These files are not up to date. There’s only me, you see.’
He opened the file and began reading, mumbling to himself. Finally he looked up. ‘Nothing about Switzerland, I’m afraid. And nothing about who he worked for. It just shows that he served on the Russian front. Fought at Stalingrad. He was captured by the Russians and sent to a Siberian labour camp. In 1949 he was returned to Berlin.’
‘Where is he now? Does it say?’
Gautier consulted the file again. ‘He moved to Neuhaus in Bavaria in 1955. That’s the last entry I have.’
‘So he could be dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘Worth a try,’ Ravenel said. He got up. ‘Can I pay you for this?’
The old man looked offended. ‘You think I do it for money?’
‘I just thought …’
Gautier escorted Ravenel to the door. ‘You know what people would like to forget?’ he said. ‘Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany came about as the result of a free election.’
Ravenel nodded. ‘I know.’
‘Good luck,’ Gautier said. He shut the door quietly.
Chapter 42
Ravenel spent fifteen minutes at the American Express office in Paris perusing a map of Germany. He wanted to find the exact location of Neuhaus. It lay, he discovered, northeast of Nuremberg on the way to Bayreuth. Satisfied, he booked himself on an Air France flight to Nuremberg at 3.30.
While the girl prepared his ticket, Ravenel went over to the cashiers’ desk and drew $10,000 in cash against his credit card.
He was in Nuremberg by 5.15 p.m., by which time it was almost dusk. It was too late to drive to Neuhaus, he decided, so he checked into the Grand Hotel for the night.
In the morning he went into a men’s store and bought a leather jacket, a blue sweater, jeans and a pair of loafers, reasoning that such an outfit would attract less attention in the countryside than his suit. Then he rented a BMW and set off on the short drive to Neuhaus.
It was very cold but the sky was bright blue and there was little wind. He felt invigorated as the car sped past small villages and picture-postcard churches nestling amid meadows. Everything looked as though it were straight out of a German tourist book, almost too pretty to be real.
Neuhaus proved to be a village of half-timbered houses, cow sheds and pig pens set amid dramatic hills and forests. Although there were two promising-looking inns he drove past them. At the end of the street he found a small Gasthaus and parked outside.
The proprietress, a plump and amiable woman named Greta, was delighted to welcome him and showed him to a cheerful room on the second floor. It was warm and comfortable, with a large double bed.
Had he come to visit Burg Veldenstein, she enquired. ‘It’s a great tourist attraction. Built on the site of an old fortress.’
‘A castle?’ Ravenel said.
‘Yes,’ Greta nodded vigorously. ‘A castle.’ She disappeared down the corridor to get fresh towels for him.
‘Tell me,’ Ravenel said when she returned, ‘is there someone named Linge still living here?’
‘Old Heinz. Yes. The cottage at the very end of the road, the one with a white fence. You know him?’
‘A friend mentioned his name. Said he lived here.’
‘Not for much longer,’ Greta said shaking her head.
‘He’s dying?’ Ravenel was immediately alarmed.
‘They’re kicking him out. The Gemeinderat.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The people who run the town under the Bürgermeister. I don’t –’
‘You mean the council?’
She nodded. ‘The council.’
‘But why?’
‘He cannot pay his Grundsteuer.’ She sought the word in English. ‘His house tax.’
‘So he’s got to go?’
‘They don’t like him,’ Greta said. ‘A pity. Such a brave man. Captured by the Russians during the war. He had a terrible time. A journalist from the Nürnberger Nachrichten was here just last month to talk to him about his experiences. He stayed here. Klaus Keppler.’
That sounded promising, Ravenel thought. ‘Does Herr Linge still work?’
‘Not any more. He was a gardener. Now he’s too old.’ She rubbed her hands together. ‘You would like to eat supper here?’
‘If it’s possible.’
‘There are no other guests but I will cook for you,’ she said. ‘You like venison?’
‘Very much.’
‘You shall have it. Straight from the forests. Eight o’clock is good?’
‘Fine,’ Ravenel said. ‘What was the name of that journalist?’
‘Keppler,’ she said. ‘Klaus Keppler.’
Ravenel unpacked and changed into the clothes he had bought in Nuremberg. Then he took a brisk walk through the village. Linge’s cottage was easy to find. It lay back from the road at the far end of the main street with a battered picket fence around it. The cottage looked dilapidated, with the air of a place not deserted but shut tight against the world. The garden was wild and untended. Leaves were everywhere.
Some gardener, Ravenel thought to himself.
Just beyond the gate lay a sleek-coated Doberman, eyes wary. Ravenel walked past the cottage for half a mile, turned and walked back on the other side of the road.
When he got back to the Gasthaus he debated whether to telephone the Nürnberger Nachrichten and ask for Herr Keppler, or go there in person. Reasoning that it was only forty-five minutes away and he enjoyed driving the BMW, he got into the car and headed back towards Nuremberg.
An hour later he was in the lobby of the newspaper asking for Klaus Keppler.
‘Tell him I’m a reporter with the New York Times,’ Ravenel said. ‘I’d like to pick his brains for five minutes.’
A moment later Klaus Keppler came bounding down the stairs. He was a young man brimming with enthusiasm. He ushered Ravenel straight into a visiting room.
‘You must know Mark Schindler?’ he said. ‘I work for him occasionally.’
‘Of course,’ Ravenel said. ‘Splendid chap. I’ll say hello for you.’
‘Good paper, the New York Times,’ Keppler said.
‘We try,’ Ravenel said modestly.
‘How can I help you?’
‘Last month you talked to an old man in Neuhaus – Heinz Linge.’
‘I did.’
‘I’m anxious to talk with him too.’
‘Good luck. He’s a difficult old bastard. He has a dog there that scared the hell out of me.’
‘May I ask what you went to see him about?’
‘We were planning a story about former prisoners of war. People who’d been held in Russian camps during and after the war. We wanted their feelings about Russians now that we’re all pals again … recollections … you know the sort of thing.’
‘Of course.’
‘Wouldn’t co-operate. Didn’t want to know. Wouldn’t even let us take his picture, the sour old swine. We abandoned the story –’ he broke off. ‘Is that your line too?’
‘More or less. Apparently the Russians gave him a bad time.’
‘So I’m told. Now his own village is giving him problems. He wrote us a letter not long ago. Seems he’s being chucked out of his house for not paying his rates.’
‘You think he’ll talk to me?’
‘He might. An American paper. You never can tell.’
Ravenel thanked him.
‘Watch out for that damn dog,’ Keppler said.
Ravenel was back in Neuhaus by 3 p.m. He parked the car behind the Gasthaus and walked through the village to Linge’s cottage.
The dog was still there in exactly the same position. He eyed it warily. He did not like Dobermans. He did not like the way they sized you up, sensing whether or not you were afraid. It wouldn’t have to do much sizing up to know he was scared stiff.
He opened the front gate.
The dog half
rose from its crouched position.
‘Guter Hund.’ Ravenel prayed the dog would make allowances for his accent. ‘Sitz!’
Warily he walked up the path to the front door. There was an iron knocker but no bell. He rapped once and waited. Rapped again.
The man who opened the door at the second knock stood there, peering at Ravenel through thick-lensed spectacles. He was a tall, gaunt man, a shade over six feet, very thin. His hair, what little there was, was pure white and brushed straight back. His skin was waxen. Only his eyes showed signs of life.
‘Was möchten Sie?’
‘Ich bin ein amerikanischer Schriftsteller,’ Ravenel said. ‘Ich hoffe Sie können mir helfen.’
Part of the speech he had rehearsed so carefully was true, he reasoned. He wasn’t an American writer but he did hope Linge could help him.
Linge stared at him for a moment longer. ‘Go away,’ he said in English.
‘I’ve come a long way to talk to you,’ Ravenel said.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Ravenel.’
‘Why do you come to me? What are you writing about?’
‘The fall of Stalingrad,’ Ravenel said. ‘From the point of view of those who fought on both sides.’
Linge looked at him blankly. ‘That’s all been done,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing more to say.’
‘It’s been written by historians,’ Ravenel said, ‘but never from the point of view of the ordinary soldier.’
There was no expression in the old man’s eyes. ‘I cannot help you.’
He closed the door in Ravenel’s face.
After supper that night – the venison was followed by apple dumpling with two steins of Kulmbacher beer to wash it down – Ravenel invited Greta to sit with him.
‘I went to see Herr Linge,’ he said. ‘He refused to talk to me.’
‘I thought you knew a friend of his?’
‘It made no difference.’
‘He’s a bitter old man,’ she said. ‘Something happened in the war, I think. He was a wreck when he returned.’
‘He’s been here ever since?’
‘In that little cottage. He moved there with his wife and son. In the fifties, I remember.’
‘Can’t the son help him with money?’
‘He was killed. An accident in America. That was years ago. The wife died soon afterwards.’
‘And Linge has no money at all?’
‘That’s what he claims.’
By the time Ravenel went up to his bedroom that night he knew he had found the way to get Linge to talk.
He slept badly. The meal lay heavily in his stomach and he was not accustomed to such a soft bed. At 8 a.m. when Greta knocked and came in with a tray of breakfast, he was bleary-eyed. He felt better after the coffee. She had put a small flower on the tray, a touch he found oddly endearing.
By ten o’clock he was at Linge’s cottage again. There was no sign of the Doberman, nor was there an immediate response to his knocking. He wondered if the old man was out or whether he was just refusing to open the door. Just as he was about to give up it cracked open.
‘Go away,’ Linge said. ‘I will call the police.’
Ravenel held up his hands in a gesture of supplication. ‘Hear me out, please. Then I will leave if you wish.’
The door opened a little wider and the old man stood looking at him uncertainly. Behind him was the Doberman. Ravenel took a deep breath and took out the bundle of $100 notes. ‘I am authorized by my publisher to pay you $10,000 for any information you can give me.’
He fanned out the notes for Linge to see. The old man stared at the money as if mesmerized.
‘Ten thousand dollars?’
Ravenel nodded.
The old man looked at him for a moment longer and then stood to one side, gesturing Ravenel to enter. He said something to the dog, which stalked away into the garden. The door opened straight on to a cosy raftered room filled with books and chintzy furnishings. There was a small fire burning in the hearth with two chairs in front of it.
‘I was about to have coffee,’ Linge said. ‘You will join me?’
‘Thanks.’
While Linge busied himself in the adjoining kitchen Ravenel looked around the room. On the mantel were some pictures, presumably family ones. From fading sepia prints a serious-looking man and woman stared into the camera with a smiling boy between them. To one side was a photograph of two young men in uniform. One of them Ravenel recognized as Linge.
When Linge returned with the coffee he took one of the chairs by the fire and gestured for Ravenel to sit in the other. ‘This money, when would it be paid?’
‘After we have talked.’
‘Today?’
Ravenel nodded.
The old man looked suddenly apologetic. ‘I’m sorry. I have forgotten your name.’
‘Ravenel.’
‘Herr Ravenel. This money could be a gift from God. I cannot pay my Grundsteuer, my house tax, and they are threatening to take away my home.’
‘You have no money of your own?’
‘For thirty years I was a gardener. Gardeners do not make much.’
Ravenel nodded. ‘Can we talk about Stalingrad?’ He took out the small tape recorder he had bought at Geneva airport and switched it on.
‘It’s a long time ago.’
‘Whatever you remember.’
The old man laughed without humour. ‘You want to know what I remember? Anger, that’s what I remember. Anger at what had been done to me. Not the battle itself. I was a German officer anxious to do my bit. When the posting came through it never occurred to me why I’d been sent there. I had no chance to ask anyone. I had just one week to board the troop train.’
‘You knew you were being sent to Stalingrad?’
‘The Russian front, they said. That was bad enough, believe me. But it was Stalingrad. I was seconded to Friedrich Paulus’ Sixth Army. It was hell on earth. Men were dying of frostbite, dysentery and typhus. We were no longer an army; just a collection of huddled groups trying to survive.’ Linge shook his head as if still incredulous at the memory. ‘General Paulus begged Hitler to let us evacuate. No, the Führer said, Stalingrad must be held. In the end, 300,000 of us were trapped there. Of those, 180,000 were taken captive; the rest died. Most of us perished of exhaustion on the long, icy roads of Siberia. Only 6,000 survived of the original 300,000.’
The old man stirred his coffee. ‘You Americans like to think you won the war. Let me tell you something. The Russians won the war. Germany lost forty-one divisions in Russia – more than one million casualties – between July and October of 1943 alone. Four months. Even after the Normandy invasion our casualties on the Russian front were four times greater than in the West. Did you know that?’
‘No,’ Ravenel said.
‘Not many Americans do,’ Linge said.
‘Where were you before you were sent to the Russian front?’
‘Berlin.’
‘You didn’t fight in France? Or in any of the other occupied countries?’
‘No.’
‘Why was that?’
‘My duties were in Berlin.’
‘What exactly were you doing?’
Linge looked at him suspiciously. ‘I thought you were writing about Stalingrad?’
‘I am. But I need some background.’
‘I was aide to Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering. He was brought up here. Did you know that? At the Burg Veldenstein. It was given to him by his mother’s lover, Baron von Epenstein. It’s a historic site.’
Ravenel leaned forward. ‘If you were the Reichsmarschall’s aide why were you sent to the Russian front in 1942? Could he not have prevented it?’
Linge looked at him. ‘Of course he could have prevented it.’ He got up from his chair and went over to a tiny bureau in the corner and searched through a drawer. A moment later he came back with a faded photograph. ‘You want to see what that fat bastard gave me when I was posted?’
It was a picture of Hermann Goering in full uniform holding aloft his field marshal’s baton. Written at the bottom was: Die besten Wünsche und viel Glück.
Linge took back the picture. ‘Best wishes and good luck,’ he said contemptuously, ‘and he was letting me go to my death.’
‘But why?’
The old man looked up sharply. ‘What has this to do with your book?’
‘Herr Linge, I missed the war. I was a boy at the time. And your story is so interesting …’
‘I have told you nothing.’
‘You’ve told me a lot. Except why you were sent to fight at Stalingrad.’
‘Goering wanted rid of me.’
‘Why?’
‘I knew about his secret bank account in Switzerland.’
Ravenel let his breath out slowly. Dame Fortune was not just smiling at him this day; she was positively grinning.
Linge leaned forward. ‘You have a certain image of Hermann Goering – am I right? You see him as a jovial, fat man, a sort of court jester to Hitler?’
‘I suppose so.’
Linge’s face seemed to contort a little. ‘He was the most corrupt of them all. While others fought and died Goering looted the museums and art houses of Europe for treasures to hang in his country home. He lived there like a feudal king, he and his wife, Emmy, even when Germany was losing the war.’
‘How did you know about the Swiss bank account?’
Linge looked at him fiercely. ‘I was one of two people who. set it up for him.’
‘And for that you were sent to Russia?’
‘For that.’
Stay cool, Ravenel told himself. Otherwise he’ll guess the real reason you came here. Sit on your hands; look into the fire; anything. But don’t seem so interested.
‘You actually went to Switzerland to set it up? Incredible.’
‘I knew the banker, you see. He was Swiss. He met the Reichsmarschall at a cocktail party at the Adlon Hotel hosted by some German bank. They hit it off and he was invited to Goering’s home.
The Account Page 23