The Pale House (A Gregor Reinhardt Novel)

by Luke McCallin

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  The War Crimes Bureau existed. It was a special section of the legal department of the armed forces high command formed to investigate reports of alleged Allied war crimes for the purposes of lodging diplomatic protests, war crimes trials, and for official government publications (also known as “white books”). The Bureau, including several of its senior staff, were the direct successors of a similar body formed in the Prussian war ministry during World War I. The Treaty of Versailles effectively cast all guilt and blame upon Imperial Germany for crimes committed during the first war, and the feeling was probably strong that the same was not to happen again. Although the Bureau’s mandate did not exclude investigating war crimes committed by Germans, the majority of their work was devoted to investigating allegations of war crimes committed against German soldiers and civilians, and the vast majority of what they investigated occurred on the Eastern Front.

  By all accounts, the judges who worked in the Bureau were exemplary professionals, largely uncorrupted by Nazism—that indeed the Bureau was something of an environment of opposition to national socialism, with several members executed for their roles in resistance activities—and they carried out their work meticulously and methodically. This does beg the question, however, as to how it was possible—or what mind-set was needed, or what bureaucratic environment had to exist—for these judges to carry out such careful investigations into alleged Allied war crimes in the midst of the staggering levels of official criminality being perpetrated under the Nazi regime? The irony can surely not be lost on us that as the War Crimes Bureau was not competent to investigate any accusations made against the SS, the greatest crime of them all—the Holocaust—passed them by.

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  Two books in particular were invaluable for describing the situation in wartime Sarajevo: Emily Greble’s extraordinarily detailed Sarajevo 1941–1945: Muslims, Christians and Jews in Hitler’s Europe and Robert Donia’s Sarajevo: A Biography. I am indebted to both authors and to many other sources and books. Alfred-Maurice de Zayas’s excellent The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, 1939–1945 was also of great use in outlining and describing the Wehrmacht’s judicial systems. Eric Tobey’s excellent Soldbuch Anatomy (dererstezug.com/SoldbuchAnatomy1.htm) was invaluable in researching the ways in which the soldbuchs were misused by Jansky and his cabal, as was the information on soldbuchweb.com. Any historical inaccuracies are either just those, or the author’s attribution of artistic privilege to alter facts, just a little . . .

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  Reinhardt’s journey has taken him on a path of renewal and rediscovery, culminating in an act of resistance that he sees as fitting for the times within which he lives. He knows, however, that to come to that acceptance he has had to make accommodation with himself and what he has always thought is right. In siding with the Partisans over the Ustaše, he is conscious of what he has done. Reinhardt’s war is not quite over, but more importantly, the peace that is coming will be as challenging as the fighting it ended. Reinhardt still has far to go until he, like so many others, can pretend to live in a time of peace.

  Although he may not serve under his country’s colors much longer, there is still much to live and fight for. Reinhardt will march again.