by Alex Gerlis
Porter nodded slowly as if he was only now remembering. He looked confused, and not for the first time that morning Edgar was beginning to wonder whether Porter was in the early stages of something.
‘Well, perhaps, yes… but only the occasional report, very low-level.’
‘Of course. And you asked me to look at one that came from the Bonn Embassy in 1969… about Nazis.’
Porter’s eyes lit up at the mention of Nazis. ‘I vaguely remember, but there were so many bloody reports. Didn’t you agree there was nothing in it?’
‘Indeed. I was just wondering… Christopher,’ Edgar still felt awkward addressing his former boss by his first name, ‘whether you still had the report – you asked me to return it to you.’
‘Why would you want to see it now?’
Edgar moved along the settee so he was closer to Porter’s armchair. He drew a deep breath, and decided to confide in his old colleague. He dropped his voice and leaned further towards Porter.
‘Strictly between you and me, Christopher, I was in Berlin last week…’
‘East or West?’
‘Both,’ said Edgar. Porter’s eyebrows shot up, and he no longer looked confused. Now he was interested, which was why Edgar had taken the risk of confiding in him.
‘I received a message to meet up with an old contact from back in 1945.’ He said nothing more, allowing the words to sink in. It took a moment or two for Porter to realise.
‘Friend or foe?’
‘Both.’
Porter nodded. ‘Viktor Krasotkin, eh? What did he want – to defect?’
Edgar shook his head. ‘No, but it’s a long story. He told me something which I think corroborates what was in that report and if it’s true, well… I need to check it out. Is there any chance you’d still have it?’
‘It’s possible, I don’t know… My memory’s so shot these days. Marjorie! Marjorie, do we still have those boxes dear, the ones…?’
‘The ones you were supposed to get rid of all those years ago? Yes, you know full well we do. They’re still in the outhouse.’
‘Well Edgar needs to have a look through them, I think…’
‘Edgar can only have a look at them on the strict condition that he takes the whole bloody lot away with him. You’ve been promising to sort them for years!’
***
In all, there were nine large, dusty boxes which Edgar packed into his car and drove to Dorset. It was late when he arrived home, so he unloaded the boxes and locked them in his study overnight. The following morning he went through them. They contained little more than a mundane testimony to a long career: letters from personnel, old newspaper cuttings, inconsequential correspondence, civil service staff magazines, even the menus from a few Christmas parties. There were just a dozen reports, dating from 1968 and 1969, all wrapped in plastic carrier bags and sealed with yellowing tape. They were Level 4 or Level 5 briefings, reports from various Stations abroad rather than anything that could be considered secret. He soon found the report he was looking for: fifty or so pages, carefully typed, the paper thick and yellowing – almost like parchment – and the pages held together by two pieces of frayed string which appeared through two holes crudely made on the edge of the paper.
A man of habit, Edgar slipped the latch on his study door and drew the curtains against the morning sun. He settled into his leather club chair by the fire and turned on his reading lamp. The first page was blank. The writing began on the second page.
The Testimony of Bernhard Krause.
Chapter 11
The Testimony of Bernhard Krause
Frankfurt
May 1969
My name is Bernhard Krause. I am forty-two years of age and have resided in Frankfurt since 1945. I have led a most eventful life but have always avoided writing or even talking about it. When you read my story perhaps you will understand why, it is that kind of story.
A year or so ago I began to feel unwell. I avoided seeking medical treatment for a while but my condition deteriorated, and now I am being treated at the University Hospital here in Frankfurt. Soon I will be admitted as an in-patient and I doubt I will live beyond the end of the year. Accordingly, I have finally written my story.
I am not especially distressed at the prospect of dying; although of course I hope it is neither too painful nor distressing. At one point I assumed I wouldn’t live to the age of twenty, so the extra years are something of a bonus, although they certainly haven’t felt like that.
Bernhard Krause is not my real name, even though it is the only one I have had since 1945. The name I was born with, and used until February 1945, was Otto Schröder. I was born in Berlin where my father was a lecturer at Humboldt University. In 1930, we moved to Rostock, because my father was appointed as a professor at the university there. My two sisters, Birgit and Heike, were born in Rostock and we had a happy childhood. My father was aware that as a professor of English he could come under suspicion, so in 1937 he joined the Nazi Party. He soon became a committed Nazi, and went from being a calm, reasonable and cultured man who had translated Chaucer into German into what I would describe as a fanatic. He seemed to believe all the Nazi Party propaganda.
At dinner every night, my parents tried to outdo each other, as if they were competing to see who could say more terrible things about the Jews and Communists. We had to listen to the speeches on the radio, my parents went to rallies and my sisters and I joined all the different Nazi organisations for children. I was an obedient child and it didn’t occur to me to argue with my parents or take a contrary view to theirs. However, there was very little I could have done, even if I had wanted to. After all, I could hardly have denounced my parents to the authorities for being Nazis.
In 1939 I joined the Hitler Youth, and in early 1944 I was drafted into a Hitler Youth Division of the SS based at a camp in Schwerin. In April 1944 I was transferred to a Waffen SS division which was based much further south, near Freiburg, prior to being sent to the front.
I remember going home to tell my parents about my move and I think they feared they would never see me again – things were going so badly in the war. The night before I left I overheard them arguing. My mother was weeping and saying she was going to lose her son and it was my father’s fault, and he was telling her not to be so stupid and it was not his fault, it was the Nazis’. I will never forget what she said next: ‘well, what do you think we are?’ There was a long silence and eventually my father said in a quiet voice, almost as if he was pleading with her, ‘but what could I do?’
The next day very few words were spoken by any of us. Everyone was very brave. We all acted as if I was just going to be away for a few pleasant weeks, and we made no fuss as we said goodbye at the station. From the moment I left my family at the ticket barrier, I never once looked back: not as I walked down the long platform, not as I got on the train and not from the door or window of the train.
I would never see my family again.
***
I did well at Freiburg. I passed all my exams and by the May I was waiting to be sent on active service, but in the middle of that month I was ordered to meet three men from Berlin who had come to our camp. One of those men was a Brigadeführer. It was odd that an SS general should be meeting with mere recruits. They questioned me for a long time: why I was a Nazi, what I understood by loyalty – that kind of thing. One of the men remained silent throughout the interview. That evening myself and one other recruit were taken to our own hut in the officer’s section of the barracks and told not to talk to anyone else at the camp. The next morning we had a very thorough medical examination, and quite a gruelling fitness test, and then we met the men from Berlin again.
The Brigadeführer had gone. This was to be my first encounter with The Englishman. I remember our first conversation very well. I am now referring to extensive notes I made in 1947, just three years after it took place. My memory was obviously better then, but even now I can recall what happened very clearly.
I would go as far to say that my English at that stage of my life was excellent. My father, of course, was an academic who taught English and when I was young he used to speak it in the house and made me read books in English. He recognised I shared his aptitude for the language, and he did all he could to encourage me.
I was confused when The Englishman spoke because it was evident to me he was English. By now I was very apprehensive. The man himself was rather odd. He was around forty and very pale, with a bald head on which the few remaining strands of hair were plastered down with some kind of grease. He had watery, pale blue eyes and a large moustache that appeared to grow horizontally across his cheeks, tapering to a very fine point. His head was at a strange angle, as if pulled down by the weight of the moustache. He spoke in a very precise way, licking his lips as he did so.
The Englishman asked me about my family, and to describe my experiences in the Hitler Youth and how I had come to join the SS. Once the interview had finished I was sent back to the officers’ section of the barracks and told to wait. Later that evening, at around nine o’clock, I was escorted to the office of Obersturmbannführer Frank, the camp commandant. The men from Berlin were in there with him. Obersturmbannführer Frank explained that I and another recruit, Horst Weber, had been selected for a special mission. But we would remain at the camp for a while and would be supervised on a daily basis by Obersturmführer Koch who, we were told, also spoke very good English. We were to talk with him in English as much as possible. With that, we were dismissed.
Horst and I were already good friends. We had Berlin in common, and we both supported Hertha Berlin. His parents had been killed in an air raid in Berlin the previous year. That night, we had our first conversation in English, which felt as if we were doing something illegal. I explained that I spoke such good English because of my father. Horst said he was good at the subject at school before the war.
We remained at the camp for nearly four months, much longer than we expected. Every month, the Englishman came to visit. On his first regular visit, he told us his name was Captain Canterbury. He would arrive in the afternoon and stay until the following day. During that time, we spoke nothing but English. He was concerned about our accents: he wanted to ensure that we spoke with good English accents.
You must understand how close Horst and I became over this period. Although we knew better than to speculate about our mission, we realised it was something very important and quite probably dangerous. I really admired Horst. He was taller than me, he was quicker to pick things up, very charismatic and very striking in his looks. He had piercing dark eyes and his fair hair was quite wavy, even what you would call curly. He was the kind of person people would notice when he came into a room, whereas I tended to blend into the background, which has probably come to serve me well.
One Monday morning in September, Obersturmführer Koch woke us early and we packed our bags into a beautiful Daimler driven by Obersturmbannführer Frank’s own driver.
We headed north, but the journey was difficult. Many of the roads were closed because of bombing and we arrived in Leipzig late in the afternoon. We stayed at the SS barracks there overnight and then set off the next morning in the direction of Magdeburg, sticking mainly to small country lanes. In the early afternoon we turned off a small single country road onto a narrow lane, which opened into a large courtyard covered in camouflage netting. A couple of other SS staff cars were already parked there.
***
Those first few hours in the country house near Magdeburg were the worst of my life. It was the first time I experienced true brutality and violence first hand, and I realised my life had changed forever. I realised I would never see my family again. We were escorted into a gloomy dining room just off the main entrance hall. The room was dominated by a long table, and one end was laden with food. There were breads, cold meats, cheese, potatoes and fruit, along with jugs of water and a large tureen of soup. Two other SS junkers were sat at the other end of the table, already eating.
Over the next few hours, we were joined by other junkers and like Horst and I they were all young, nervous and silent. There were a few nods between us, but no smiles, and certainly no conversation. At five thirty we were joined by another junker. He was the same age as the rest of us, but he didn’t seem to be nervous at all. He marched into the room with a confident swagger and at first I thought he was one of the officers coming to check on us. He was not tall, but well-built, and with thick dark hair and noticeably jet-black eyes. He stood to attention at the end of the table, by the food, and after looking at us clicked his heels and gave the Hitler salute, without the ‘Sieg Heil’. Soon after that we were summoned into a room on the other side of the hall, and formed into two rows. I was in the front row, next to Horst.
SS Brigadeführer Reinher, who Horst and I had met at the camp in Freiberg, entered the room. He said our mission meant we would certainly never see our families again. He understood this was not a matter to be taken lightly, so he was going to give us a chance now to pull out, and there would be no hard feelings. He would give us a moment or two to think about it.
I was utterly confused. In the SS you did as you were told. It was not a voluntary organisation, where you opted in and out of activities as you wished. I feared this was a trap. No-one around me moved or said a word. An oppressive silence prevailed over the room, the soft crackling of the fire behind us the only sound. Then there was a voice from the row behind me. He said that his name was Axel Werner and he explained while he had no wish to pull out, his father had been killed in the East and his mother in an air raid in Hamburg, and he was all his little sister had left in the world. It was a moving story, if not an unfamiliar one, but I wanted to turn round and shout at him to be quiet, not to be such a fool.
But to my surprise, the Brigadeführer sounded quite sympathetic. He quite understood, he told Werner. No hard feelings, he could leave now.
Werner left the room, followed by the Obersturmführer who must have been his escort. Moments later we could see them through the front window as they emerged into the courtyard. Then there was a shot, and the boy crumpled to the ground. He appeared to have been hit on the back of his thigh. It was horrendous, but what followed was worse. We were summoned to the window. As he lay on the ground, the Obersturmführer stood above him. He rolled him over with his boot and looked ready to finish him off but, as he was about to do so, the Brigadeführer turned to the group of us and asked if there was a volunteer. I remember thinking that in the circumstances I wouldn’t be able to hold a pistol, let alone fire it. But one of our group quickly volunteered. It was the last boy who had come into the dining room, the one who had given the salute. His name was Wilhelm Richter, he told the Brigadeführer. He took the pistol and left the room with a spring in his step.
I heard the sound of Richter’s footsteps in the courtyard and then heard Werner cry, ‘no, please, no.’ There was a delay and then Richter called out ‘traitor,’ and then another long pause, during which time Werner was still moaning and I think I heard the Obersturmführer mutter something to Richter. Only then did he fire the shot and there was an explosion of sound: not just the echo of the bullet around the courtyard, but also birds and dogs and other animals that had been disturbed by the terrible noise. The temperature in the room appeared to drop by a few degrees.
Richter returned to the room along with a small man wearing thick spectacles whom the Brigadeführer introduced as Herr Erich Schäfer. Herr Schäfer was a civilian and wore a suit that seemed to be too big for him, although from what I could tell it was a very good quality material, like the kind my father would wear on special occasions.
The briefing was carried out by Brigadeführer Reinher and Herr Schäfer. I will try to summarise it as well as I can. I have also checked out some of the historical facts alluded to in the briefing to ensure its accuracy.
The previous week, they said, a small detachment of American troops had crossed the Belgian border into Germany. This meant the final phase of the war was underway. They explained that until then, the policy of the High Command had been to contain the Allied advances by retreating to more defensible lines. The plan being to hold those lines then regroup and, once we had re-armed and brought in new weapons, we would be able to counter attack and the tide of war would once again turn our way.
But the presence of Allied troops on German soil changed that. We had to accept that military defeat was no longer just a possibility, but a probability. And so measures were being taken to plan for the consequences of defeat. This was being done in the utmost secrecy, naturally. It was imperative, we were told, that the ideals of the Third Reich were not lost as a result of a military defeat. With careful planning, the defeat would only be temporary.
Herr Schäfer said that this was not as fanciful an idea as it might sound. German Intelligence believed that if the Allies won the war they would soon fall out with each other, due to significant tensions between the British and the Americans on the one hand and the Soviet Union on the other. They would argue over how Europe should be divided – there was a fundamental difference in their ideologies which could never be reconciled. Germany predicted that chaos would ensue in post-war Europe.
Brigadeführer Reinher said that during this time he expected the ‘western Allies,’ as he called them, to realise the truth of what many in Germany had been saying all along: their real enemy was the Soviet Union. Out of the chaos and tension, a Fourth Reich would emerge.
‘Fifteen years is a long time. It is almost as long as you have been alive. In fifteen years, you will all be thirty-three. That is still young. But I am forty-eight, so that far into the future, I will be sixty-three – and I’m one of the youngest SS generals. Our Führer will be seventy. And that is assuming this process only takes fifteen years. What if it takes twenty years, or longer? The Fourth Reich cannot be led by old men. It will require a new generation of leaders: and that is where you come in.’