Apparently noticing her confusion, he amended, “I mean, how did you meet and become involved in her activities?”
Katja relaxed. He meant the espionage. “We were colleagues working on a film back in 1934 and became friends. I had no idea she was working for British Intelligence. After a mutual friend of ours, Rudi Lamm, was sent to Sachsenhausen, I became hostile to the Nazis but didn’t know what to do about it. Then one day I saw Frederica make a drop at a kiosk and confronted her, threatening to denounce her if she didn’t tell me what she was doing. I was lying, of course. I never would have. But I needed to know. When she told me it was for British intelligence, I asked to join her and we worked together after that. That is, until I was sent to Ravensbrück.”
The interrogator scribbled notes while she spoke, but when she said Ravensbrück, he looked up in surprise. “That’s a concentration camp?”
“Yes, for women. Near Berlin. But after a few months, Frederica convinced Leni Riefenstahl to use her influence with Hitler to get me released, so I came back to Berlin. I continued working at the Charité hospital and helping Frederica make her information drops, although the locations kept changing.”
“Can you tell me more about the organization you worked for?”
“Well, as I understood it, the Special Operations Executive was supposed to assist the resistance in the Nazi-occupied countries and not so much in Germany. But because of Frederica’s unique position in the propaganda ministry, our resistance was in the form of furnishing military and political information to Britain.”
“And how did you do that?”
“I’m sure that Frederica already told you, she transcribed the journal entries of Joseph Goebbels, the ones he dictated to his stenographer. In the beginning, she made the drops alone, but the risk for her was very great. Since it was easier for me to be anonymous, I began to do them for her.”
“What was the nature of Miss Brandt’s personal relationship with Joseph Goebbels?”
Alarm bells went off again. Was he trying to make a case for Frederica being Goebbels’ mistress? The possibility of losing Frederica to an Allied prison loomed up before her. She tried to calm herself and answer coolly, but heard how tight her voice had become. Could he see how the question terrified her?
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question. Do you mean did she work closely with him? Yes. She had spent years on winning his trust and finally succeeded to the point that he let her transcribe his personal letters and diaries. He thought she was a good Nazi even at the end, in the Führerbunker. That’s how good she was. Is.” Katja’s face grew warm, but she would not be brought to say more.
Bernstein held up a crumpled and slightly soiled piece of blue paper. “Then she might have come into possession of a final personal document of Dr. Goebbels.”
Katja’s fear began to subside. He wanted simply to verify the typed note Frederica had brought out of the bunker and carried in her skirt for a week. “More than simply ‘come into possession.’ Goebbels kept her in the bunker until the very end and, as I understand it, he dictated a final statement to her before committing suicide.”
“And what about Rudolf Lamm and Peter Arnhelm?” Bernstein asked, opening another folder.
Exhaling with relief, she hoped not audibly, Katja moved cheerfully onto the next subject. “They were Frederica’s friends from a long time ago, but I met them while working on a film. Rudi was a photographer, until he was arrested and sent to Sachsenhausen. Peter was my friend throughout the war. He worked as a costume designer until it was forbidden to employ Jews. Somehow he was able to hide at the zoo, taking care of the animals. I know he was active in sabotage for a few months too, setting fires in factories. He also helped several times on a drop at a hotel, acting as a male escort.”
“I see.” The major jotted a few notes on paper, then closed his folder. “Thank you very much for your information. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to show you some footage that was filmed by the British earlier this month. It’ll take only a few minutes. Then the sergeant will escort you back to your quarters.” He stood up, signaling the end of the interrogation, and led them to an adjoining room, where a projector and portable screen were set up.
Katja recalled a similar scenario eleven years earlier, when Leni Riefenstahl had called the entire camera crew to view a sampling of their ambitious documentary. But this opening scene was not a hymn of praise to the Führer. This scene was his damnation.
In grainy film, a camera held by a shaky hand scans a wide terrain scattered with emaciated corpses. In among them, living skeletons wander, or squat on the ground slack-jawed and stupefied.
“Bergen-Belsen, camp two,” Bernstein replied to her unasked question.
Katja watched, hypnotized by horror as female SS guards, plump and sullen are led at rifle point to join their male colleagues. Some of the men are still in uniform, others stripped to filthy undershirts. Trucks arrive, piled high with naked corpses, presumably the ones filmed earlier, and the guards unload them. The camera alternates between their expressionless faces and their awkward gait as they carry or drag the partially decomposed bodies a short distance to the edge of an enormous pit. They drop the bodies, which slide down the side of the pit, already holding what appear to be thousands of cadavers. The camera, mercifully, does not show their faces.
Katja’s practiced eye recognizes the panorama shot that follows, not of a stadium of robust young patriots standing at attention, but of an enormous mass grave. The camera pans along all four sides. The female guards stand on one side, the males on the other. All look away from the camera. Nearby, a line of old men in business suits and coats frown in consternation.
“The Burgermeister and other civic leaders,” Bernstein explains.
At the far end, two men stand alone. It seems to be a ceremony. The camera comes around behind them, looks over the shoulder of one onto a book from which he reads.
Then a scene almost worse than the sight of the bodies themselves. A bulldozer shoves the walls of excavated material back into the pit over the dead, which twist and tumble helplessly as they are caught in the fall of sand. Again and again, the wide scoop pushes and the bodies tumble, until they are finally covered and the film ends.
Katja sat for a moment, nauseous. When she spoke, her voice was dry. “Why do you show this to us?” she rasped. “We told you, we opposed the Nazis.”
Major Bernstein signaled the projectionist, who reversed the reels. Over the whirring sound of the rewinding film, he answered. “I don’t doubt it. But that makes no difference. You also said you worked on a party documentary. I don’t know when you had your conversion, but I want to make sure that no German can say, ‘It didn’t happen,’ or ‘It couldn’t have been so bad.’ I suspect, in time, we will uncover atrocities on all sides, but this one belongs to Germany.” He stood up and motioned toward the door. “You can go now. We’ll let you know as soon as we hear from our British colleagues.”
*
The redheaded MP was already leading Katja and Frederica back to their quarters when two others escorted Rudi Lamm into the interrogation room. He sat down, gripping his upper left arm, which still rested in a sling. He glanced up nervously at the American major, then down at the folder the major was just opening. He licked his dry lips.
“Your full name is Rudolf Lamm, from Neukölln, Berlin?” Major Bernstein said in German.
“Yes, sir. It is.”
“What was your profession?”
“I was a photographer, sir, until I was arrested.”
“When was that?
“In 1939. I was sent to Sachsenhausen.”
“How long were you there?”
“Until December 1941.”
“And then you were released?”
“Uh, not released. Just transferred to a penal regiment.”
“What was the name of the regiment?”
Rudi blanched. This was the mortal blow to his freedom. “SS Sonderregiment Dirlewanger.”
Major Bernstein nodded and glanced down again at his folder. “That was from December 1941 until August 1944?”
“Yes, sir. May I ask how you know all this?”
“Generally I am the one who asks the questions, but I don’t mind telling you that our Soviet allies have been quite thorough in obtaining records from the headquarters that have come under their control. They have unearthed numerous atrocities and war crimes, and it is in their interest as well as ours to identify the perpetrators. So, my next question is, what happened in August 1944?”
Rudi stared up at the ceiling, formulating his response. “I deserted from my unit in Hungary. I was on my own for a while, but the Soviets were everywhere, so I joined a Wehrmacht battalion near Danzig. It was easy to say I lost my paybook, and they issued me an interim ID. They were glad to have another man. Then in April of this year, I was wounded and evacuated back to Berlin. That’s how I met up again with Katja and Frederica.”
Major Bernstein had not taken his eyes from the report on his desk. “And were you with the SS Sonderregiment in May 1942?”
Rudi swallowed hard. “Yes, sir.”
The major held up the paper he had been staring at. “This is a preliminary list of names of SS war-crimes suspects we have been asked to watch out for and apprehend.”
“And my name is on that list?” Rudi was ashen.
“Yes. Mr. Lamm, it is. On May 12, 1942, you are accused of participating in the mass murder of the inhabitants of Kliczów in Byelorussia, and of individually burning to death Irenka Kachurin.”
Rudi pressed his hand over his eyes, as if to remove the image that was seared in his memory. “That’s not true, sir. I did not fire my rifle during the mass execution, and the woman—I didn’t know her name—was set on fire by another member of the regiment. I shot her to put her out of her agony.”
“Unfortunately, there is a picture, and you and Mrs. Kachurin are the only ones in it.” The major slid the photograph across the table toward him. Rudi holding his pistol to the head of the woman whose head and shoulders were in flames.
“I swear to you, I fired only one shot that day, and it was to end that woman’s suffering. Why would I shoot her if I wanted her to burn to death?”
“Perhaps so. But in the following two-and-a-half years, you never fired your rifle? You never set fire to anything?”
Rudi let his head fall back against his chair. He was broken. “I shot dozens, maybe hundreds, I don’t know any more. At first it was just to keep them from burning, but then I followed orders, the same as everyone else. If I hadn’t, I’d have been killed. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
“I think that’s an argument we’re going to hear a lot in the coming months,” Major Bernstein said coldly. “Even if you feel you’re being made a scapegoat for the crimes of the others, you can’t lay claim to being innocent.”
“I was, in the beginning.”
The major was not sympathetic. “Everyone is.”
Rudi laid his face in his good hand. “Will I have a trial?”
“At some point. In the meantime, you will be interned. Do you have anything more to add in your defense?”
Rudi’s voice had grown soft again. “No, sir. Just the request to speak to my friends.”
“In a little while. First I’d like you to watch something. After that I’ll allow you fifteen minutes to say your good-byes before transferring you to the war-crimes barracks.”
Rudi nodded, resigned, then followed the major into an adjoining room where Peter was already sitting. He sat down, comforted by Peter’s presence, and waited. Then the light went out and a grainy film began to flicker on a portable screen.
*
At ten o’clock the next morning, Katja and Frederica were summoned again to the major’s office. The MP admitted them but, to their surprise, only Rudi and Peter were present.
They greeted each other reassuringly and Katja glanced around, puzzled. “Are they going to interrogate us all together now, do you think?”
Rudi was somber. “We’re not here for interrogation. It’s for us to say good-bye. I’ve been arrested for war crimes.”
Katja sat down, stunned. “Good grief, why? You haven’t done anything like that. You were in a concentration camp, for God’s sake.”
“It’s because of the SS regiment I was in. They committed atrocities in Poland and Byelorussia, set fire to villages, killed women and children, that sort of thing.”
“But you can’t be guilty of that. I know you,” Frederica said.
Rudi shook his head. “Guilt’s not black and white. Did you see their film about Bergen-Belsen? That was done in our name and nobody in Germany is guiltless now. I started being guilty when I ignored the railing against the Jews and the gypsies, and worked on Riefenstahl’s propaganda film. I finally saw the danger when they came for people like me, but by then it was too late. I’d been so concerned with my own survival and success, I’d helped them build their Reich. Joining the regiment to get out of Sachsenhausen was just the next step.”
Katja persisted. “But you didn’t kill civilians.”
Rudi’s chest seemed to deflate and he slumped in his chair, disconsolate. “The Nazis changed me, Katja. Peter had made me a loving man, but Sachsenhausen made me a whore. And Russia made me a murderer.”
“Prison. My God,” Frederica whispered. “And I delivered you to them, like a Judas.”
Rudi shook his head. “No, they had my name on a list. They would have caught me eventually. It actually looks better that we came willingly and I didn’t lie.”
“No, I won’t have it.” Peter’s jaw went tight. “They’re making you a scapegoat, sacrificing you because they can’t catch any of the others.”
“We are the others, though,” Frederica said solemnly. “We’ve all killed someone. Two of us with our own hands.” She avoided looking at Katja. “Don’t you think a few people died in those factory fires you set? Some worker or overseer who wasn’t allowed to go to a shelter? And I’m the worst of all. I sent the Allies strategic information and helped kill more than all the rest of you together.” She shook her head. “None of us are lambs.”
Katja leaned toward Rudi and touched his shoulder. “Did they say you’d have a trial?”
“Yes, the Major promised me at least that. They can’t execute every soldier who followed orders on the Eastern Front, so I suppose they’ll just give me prison time.”
Peter slid closer to him. “Then I’ll wait. I’ve already waited for five years. I’ll wait another five. Or ten. Don’t let this break you and make you stop loving me.”
Rudi threw his free arm around Peter’s neck. “I’ll never stop loving you,” he said, his voice breaking. “I never stopped for a minute in the camp or on the Eastern Front. You’re all that kept me going.”
“What about you, Peter?” Katja asked. “Where will you stay?”
“Don’t worry about me. The major said I automatically have refugee status. I can stay in a camp for a while. Then I’ll take things day by day, as I did during the war.”
Frederica leaned toward him, laying her arm across his back. I promise I’ll send money and packages from London, as soon as possible. To Rudi, too, if I’m allowed. But you’ll have to contact us when you’re settled and tell us where you are. You’ll be able to reach me, I’m sure, through the SOE office, and if you register with the Red Cross, we can find you too. We’re family, Peter. We won’t leave you.”
“Time’s up.” The MP opened the door and stood waiting. They had just enough time to exchange embraces before a second soldier appeared and the two of them led Rudi and Peter away.
Katja and Frederica sat stunned for a moment, until Major Bernstein entered and reclaimed his desk.
*
Frederica confronted him. “Major, with all due respect, you can’t just charge Rudi Lamm with war crimes like some big Nazi. He was a victim of war crimes himself and was forced to join the penal regiment. Surely you can appreciate t
hat.”
“Oh, I do. But you must also appreciate the magnitude of the crimes. This is not just a single murder, although the charge of immolation is a grave one. We are uncovering widespread civilian massacres and genocides far beyond the bloodshed of the battlefield. Someone must be accountable for these atrocities.”
“Both sides have committed atrocities, Major.” Katja’s face heated with unfocused anger. “Immolation is a grave charge, you say? Do I need to remind you that Hamburg and Dresden were firebombed, that whole cities were set ablaze and their civilian populations burned alive? Who will be accountable for them?”
“There is no point in trading accusations, Miss Sommer. The scale of horrors in this war keeps rising and leaves us all shaken at what men are capable of. All men. The company chaplain keeps praying for a time when the lion will lie down with the lamb. But he doesn’t want to accept the terrible fact that the lion is the lamb.”
Someone knocked at the door. “What is it?” he called out.
An MP took one step into the room, his hand still on the door. “Sir, the SOE people have arrived. They said to give you the code name Handel.”
Frederica stood up. “Handel is here?”
“I believe so, Ma’am.”
Chapter Forty
“Should we go out to meet them?” Frederica asked, starting toward the door.
Bernstein raised a hand. “That’s not necessary. They’re probably talking to the duty officer and will be along in just a moment.”
Katja also was too impatient to remain seated and went to the window. Outside, an MP stood with the inevitable clipboard next to a dusty car. He was alone, but the ensign that jutted up from the car fender identified it as British.
Katja returned to her seat and Major Bernstein resumed his ruminations on war. “I’m confident that in the years to come, the discussions of this war will continue, that is, unless the greed and stupidities of new wars overshadow them. Time will show whether this one has taught us anything.”
Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright Page 29