by Alex Gerlis
‘I then went to the depository. It was very busy – it seemed that just about every law firm in Frankfurt was using it – so the clerk who checked my papers was in a hurry and just glanced at the letter and the identity card. I think once he saw I had files with me he thought there was no problem, I’d obviously brought them from the office on Hochstrasse. He gave me a badge and told me where to go, which was down a corridor in an enormous basement. When I found the Schmidt Legal section I left the files in the ‘in’ area and then went to look for the archive section. I was quite enjoying myself to be honest, Viktor: that sense of danger, of trying to stay one step ahead of whoever may be following you, I’d forgotten quite how exciting that is. Over the past couple of days I’ve actually found myself regretting the fact that I retired from your game.’
‘You didn’t retire synok. Carry on.’
‘I found the section for 1968. The files were arranged under the names of the different lawyers and then by the month in which a case was started. Under the Alois Schmidt files for April were four relating to new matrimonial cases. The first one was a woman, called…’
‘I’m only interested in the male clients synok.’
‘Very well then: the first male client he saw in April 1968 on a matrimonial matter was… hang on, here we are, a Franz Sommer.’
‘From?’
‘Offenbach, which is, to all intents and purposes, part of Frankfurt.’
‘And do you have any details about his occupation – and age?’
‘I do have that, yes. An architect. Herr Sommer was an architect, a sixty-year-old architect.’
‘No, next one please synok.’
‘A Günter Schulte, apparently his wife was having an affair. You said you thought the client did not live in Frankfurt? Well Herr Schulte fits the bill: his address is in Mainz. He was thirty-eight and a television executive. I know ZDF is based in Mainz so maybe…’
‘Unlikely synok. What about the third client?’
‘Here we are. Christ, Viktor – this one lived even further away. This could be your man!’
Chapter 20
Georg Stern’s Story
When Viktor returned to see Georg Stern the following morning he was still shocked at what Peter had revealed about Richter’s identity.
He was clearly expected at the offices of Rostt Legal on Fasanenstrasse. Herr Stern asked for you to go straight through. Coffee, perhaps… sugar?
‘I read the testimony of Herr Krause,’ said Stern in a matter of fact manner as he tapped the document on his desk. It was as if he was referring to a routine property transaction. ‘I decided the best way to present my story would be verbally, by recording it.’ He pushed a cassette player on the desk towards Viktor. ‘It is very simple to use. Just press this button here to play and the one next to it – yes, that one – to pause. Come, follow me.’
Georg Stern opened a door in the panelled wall behind him and led Viktor into a narrow, windowless room with a long table and chairs taking up most of the space. Prints of hunting scenes were hung on the walls.
‘This room is where the partners meet, it’s very private – you won’t be disturbed. It would be best if you listen straight through and then come back into my office. You can ask me any questions then. I will say one thing though: there are sections of the story – for instance when I describe events at the house near Magdeburg – where I have been brief. That is because I don’t dispute what Otto said in his account, and see no point in repeating it. I’ll leave you alone now.
Viktor settled into a chair and waited for Georg Stern to leave before pressing ‘play’. Stern’s voice was quiet, as if he hadn’t wanted to be overheard, and Viktor turned up the volume.
I was born in Berlin on 15th March 1926. My parents were Arno and Eva Stern. We were Jewish but not at all religious: we were what you would call a secular family, so much so that I wasn’t even circumcised. My father was thirty-nine when I was born, my mother ten years younger.
Father was an optician with premises in König Strasse and was most successful until the Nuremberg Laws, one of which prohibited Jews from owning businesses. In 1935 my father was required to sell his practice for next to nothing to a man who ran a much less successful opticians nearby. The man who took over the business failed to do a proper stock take so my father brought home a good deal of spectacles, lenses and equipment, meaning he was able to scrape together some kind of living by supplying spectacles on a private basis. My mother was a dressmaker.
We lived on the second floor of a small apartment block in the northern part of Charlottenburg, on Mindener Strasse, just south of Osnabrücker Strasse. After Kristallnacht in November 1938 things really got bad, especially after we had to wear those dreadful yellow stars.
You may well wonder why my parents did not leave Germany while it was still possible. In the early 1930s there were one hundred and sixty thousand Jews in Berlin. By the time Jewish emigration was banned in 1941, ninety thousand had emigrated. My mother had relatives in London and had even lived there for a few years before she married my father. She spoke excellent English and, from a young age, she spoke English with me. From the moment my father lost his business my mother wanted to leave Germany. It was still possible then. But my father would not go. Despite what had happened, he thought things could not get any worse. He felt more German than Jewish and said: why should he leave his country because of a few thugs who would not be around for very long? After all, he would argue, he had fought in the German Army in the Great War and even the Nazis, he would say, are not going to arrest an army veteran. My parents had terrible arguments. By 1941 when even my father accepted we should leave, it was too late, we felt doomed.
The event that changed the course of my life began on the afternoon of Tuesday 23rd September, 1941. There was a knock at the door and we were terrified: we assumed it was the Gestapo coming to arrest us. My mother went to the door and then called my father and me into the lounge and there she was with Herr Weber and his son Horst. The Webers were non-Jewish family friends: Heike Weber had been a colleague of my mother’s when she was a dressmaker. They had become very friendly, especially as her son and I were the same age. My mother used to describe Frau Weber as a truly good person, always helping other people without making a fuss about it. Herr Weber – Manfred – was a civil servant and somewhat shy, like my father. Horst and I had less in common. He was rather studious and wore glasses and was also asthmatic, whereas I was more interested in sport. So our families were friends right up until the war started, when it became too dangerous for the Webers to be openly friendly with a Jewish family, and my mother felt we shouldn’t put them in danger by socialising with them.
Herr Weber explained that because of his work at the Transport ministry he had discovered that the arrest of Jews in our area was going to take place the coming Thursday – and he and his wife had come up with a plan. They had recently moved to a new house in Treskow Strasse, in Wedding, and in the basement had discovered a small hidden cellar which would be a perfect hiding place for me.
I remember my parents and Herr Weber then went into the kitchen alone to discuss it. When they came back I could see they had been crying and my mother was holding my father’s hand, which was most unusual. They said they could see it was a good idea and my father explained how I could travel safely to the Weber’s house. Horst was the same age as me and a similar height. We also both had light brown hair. With one or two “adjustments”, as he put it, I could pass for Horst. The plan was this: I would take Horst’s coat, which obviously did not have a yellow star on it, and his papers and travel with Herr Weber back to Treskow Strasse. Horst would stay that night in the apartment with my parents. I would be hidden in the cellar and the next day, after work, Herr Weber would come back to the apartment, with Horst’s papers and coat, to bring him home. He would also be able to bring back a small case for me.
My mother packed a few things for me, not much, enough to go into a school bag. While she did th
at, my father went into his study and prepared a pair of spectacles, just like Horst’s but with clear lenses as my eyesight was perfect. Our departure was hurried: my mother hugged me and I could tell that she was very close to tears.
Frau Weber was most welcoming and explained they’d just moved to this area. Horst should have started a new school a week previously, but because of his asthma had yet to attend. I clearly recall her saying that having me around the house would help his confidence. Then they took me to the cellar. The basement was reached down a steep flight of stairs and had been converted into Frau Weber’s workshop. On the floor against the far wall was a large trunk. Herr Weber pulled it aside to reveal a trapdoor with a ladder, leading down into the cellar. They had put a strip of carpet on the floor with a mattress, some boxes and a chair. There was a small table near the trapdoor, which had a bowl and a jug of water on it, with a towel hanging on a hook on the wall. On the wall was a small light, with a cord to turn it on and off. Herr Weber explained that the lamp was wired to the mains, so there was no problem about keeping it on. I would be allowed into the house once or twice a day to use the bathroom, but they felt that for the time being, at least, it would be best to stay in the cellar. And with that, they left me. I slept very little. I thought about my parents and became somewhat tearful: the fact that I might never see them again was beginning to dawn on me. I do remember feeling terribly grateful to the Webers and wondering how I would ever repay them.
My overwhelming memory of the next day – the Wednesday – was the utter silence in my cellar, so much so that I could hear every sound my body made. It was quite unnerving. If I had not kept the wall lamp on for much of the time I think I would have begun to go mad. But as the day went on, I did see the silence in a different way. I realised that unless someone informed on me, it would be impossible to detect me. Don’t forget, at home we’d spent every waking moment waiting for the Gestapo to come.
Herr Weber had said he’d be back with Horst at around six, but seven o’clock passed and nothing – then seven thirty, and by eight o’clock I was beginning to get concerned. And then I heard the noise. It sounded as if an animal was dying a most painful and horrendous death. It did not last long, perhaps two or three seconds, and then it stopped, suddenly, as if it had been stifled. For the next hour, nothing: silence. As you can probably imagine, by now I was very worried. Just after nine the trapdoor unbolted and Herr Weber was there pointing a torch at me. I noticed that his hand was shaking so violently that the beam bounced wildly around the cellar. He told me to hurry upstairs. I followed him out of the basement and up into the house and into a side parlour, where Frau Weber was sitting upright on a sofa. The curtains were drawn and her eyes were red and she had been crying. She looked most distressed, as did Herr Weber. He stood behind his wife and was very pale, as if he was ill. For a minute or so neither of them said a word and then she said, ‘tell him, Manfred.’
‘Georg,’ he said. ‘I went to your parents’ apartment in Mindener Strasse after work at five o’clock as arranged. As I reached the top of the stairs I noticed your door was sealed with tape and there was a sign on it. I went closer and saw that it was from the police, saying that no-one was to enter without authorisation. I stood outside the door for a moment, confused and unsure whether to knock. At that moment, the door of the apartment opposite opened and an elderly lady appeared in the doorway – your neighbour Frau Braun. I have to warn you Georg, Frau Braun told me something truly terrible. Early this morning the Gestapo came. They took away your father, your mother and Horst, except your neighbour assumed he was you. She said she heard all the commotion and looked out of her window and into the street and saw the three of them being led towards a truck. She would have seen them from above and from behind, so she would not have known that Horst was not you. She also said she had heard that all the other Jews in the neighbourhood had been taken away that morning. I don’t understand it: my information was the arrests would be tomorrow. You do know what this means, don’t you Georg? It means that the authorities have arrested your parents and will be sending them out with the other Jews to the East. And they are also sending our dear Horst. They assume he is you.’
Frau Weber spoke next. ‘I cannot imagine that Horst will say anything – to do so would implicate Herr Weber and me and we would be arrested.’ She said it would arouse suspicion if the school and neighbours realised Horst had disappeared so there was no alternative now but for me to assume Horst’s identity in all aspects of his life. It was fortunate they had only been in the house for a few weeks and so the neighbours hardly knew Horst: because of his asthma he had stayed indoors most of the time, and he hadn’t been to the school yet. She said they rarely had visitors and all their family was in Stuttgart. In the event of anyone visiting, I would stay in the cellar.
So I became Horst Weber. It was surprisingly easy. I wore his clothes, slept in his bed, read his books and ate his food. I lived his life. On the rare occasions when the Webers had visitors who had known Horst, they would say he was out and I would hide in the cellar. But it was as if I were a stranger living in the house. Nothing could replace their son and they were grief-stricken, my constant presence in their lives a reminder of what they had lost. They had, in effect, sacrificed their son to save me.
School was my salvation. No-one there knew me already, so I was just another new student. I was very good at sport, so I fitted in well. I had to join the Hitler Youth, which I did in April 1942, not long after my sixteenth birthday. It would have been madness not to – especially in our circumstances. I was more than competent in all their activities. I even look quite Aryan and I wasn’t circumcised, so I easily passed all their requirements.
I always endeavoured to be positive and even optimistic. I had a sense that everything was going to work out fine. I hoped my parents would survive, Horst too. That may sound deluded now, but I think it was my way of coping with such an awful trauma.
My life took another dramatic turn in August 1943. I was seventeen, and still at school. My Hitler Youth group was attached to a civil defence unit. We helped with night patrols, rescuing people from bombed buildings, that kind of thing. On the night of August 14th I’d been on patrol and returned home at approximately two in the morning. There was quite a lot of activity as I came down Treskow Strasse and as I turned the bend, I saw that our house had been destroyed, along with one or two others around it. On the pavement were the corpses of the Webers. It was a terrible shock of course and people assumed I was grief-stricken. A neighbour, Frau Schulte, took me in. I realised that the only people in Berlin who knew I wasn’t really Horst Weber were dead, so in truth I was safer than I’d been before they were killed.
I stayed at school until December 1943, when I joined the SS. I transferred to Freiburg in March 1944. Otto Schröder would have come to the barracks in Freiburg in the April. I knew him as Otto, so that is the name I will use for him, rather than Bernhard Krause. I ought to add here that my English was also excellent thanks to my mother.
I have read his account very carefully and while there are some small details in it I don’t remember, by and large it is very accurate, and I don’t see any point in repeating what he says. It goes without saying that I am deeply ashamed of many of the events he describes, not least the murders at the police station in Dortmund. As Otto says, there is no doubt that we took part in a war crime.
When the officers explained the purpose of our mission – for us to be captured and then wait years for instructions, and all this talk about a Fourth Reich – well it was such a ridiculous and dangerous notion that from the outset I determined to escape as soon as the opportunity arose. That opportunity came in Essen. I knew I was being followed by a Gestapo officer, so I decided to go into the area around Krupp Strasse where it was quite built up. I thought I had a better chance of losing the Gestapo in the network of tight streets and apartment blocks there. But just after I entered Planck Strasse an air raid began, and I decided to run. There was an expl
osion and the impact threw me to the ground. When I got up there was no sign of the man who’d been following me.
Nearby was a crater in the pavement, caused by a bomb which had impacted where the building joined the pavement, and exposed a basement. I jumped into it and then scurried like a rat through a warren of rooms and basements, dropping lower, into the sewer system, when I spotted the chance to do so. Eventually I met up with a group of people who had been hiding under the city for months: a mixed group of about a dozen deserters, and resisters.
And so I began my life in the cellars and sewers of Essen. As far as they were concerned I was Horst Weber, from Berlin. My parents had been killed in an air raid. I’d been conscripted into the Wehrmacht and then deserted. I avoided politics. I wanted to come across as a young man who did not want to fight in the war, rather than as an anti-Nazi. Mostly we just hid in the cellars trying to avoid the war, venturing out occasionally to find food.
When the American Army arrived in the city on 10th April I had no problems, because they soon realised that the people who had been hiding underground were at the very least non-Nazis. I eventually met an officer from the US 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment, which had captured Essen, and when he discovered I spoke good English I ended up working for him for three months. I never told the Americans the truth, it would have been too complicated.
My plan was to get back to Berlin and somehow make Horst Weber disappear and Georg Stern reappear, apparently from hiding. The 507th moved to France in June, which is when I decided to go back to Berlin. Berlin had not been captured until early May, by the Russians, and for a while it would have been far too dangerous for me to return to the city. However, in July the city was divided up – with the western half of the city in sectors controlled by the Americans, the British and the French, and the eastern half under the control of the Russians. Once the British and Americans had full control of their sectors, I could return. My American officer arranged my papers and I travelled to Berlin on 1st August.