The Berlin Spies

by Alex Gerlis

  She was very calm, very factual. She was almost devoid of emotion, even when she talked about the murders of Horst and my father. Occasionally she would shrug her shoulders or look down, but her tone was steady and she never cried. When she had finished speaking, she said that was that. We had both told each other our stories and we would never repeat them to anyone ever again. That was an instruction. And then a remarkable thing happened. She stood up and no longer seemed so old, so hunched. She ruffled my hair and said I needed a haircut. My mother had been through Sachsenhausen, Auschwitz and Flossenbürg and had just been reunited with me, and she was worried about the length of my hair. But actually, that was how she survived – by putting the past out of her mind. It was as if, in that instant, she went back to normal. From that moment on, she never again discussed what had happened during the war. I went to university, qualified as a lawyer, married a woman whose family had been hidden by friends in Grunewald, had two children and... here I am. My mother died in 1969. She was seventy-two, and never moved out of the apartment in Mindener Strasse. In fact, she rarely left it.

  I certainly recognised Otto in 1968 in Frankfurt: I was as shocked as he was. I do not dispute anything in his version of the story. In fact, I was so convinced he was going to report me to the authorities that I returned immediately to Berlin, half expecting the police to be waiting there. I decided to wait a day or two before doing anything. Otto – Bernhard – was correct: I do remember ringing the firm he worked for the next day to ask if an Otto Schröder worked there. They insisted they had never heard of him. I then came to much the same conclusion as he appears to have done – namely that it would not be in his interests to inform on me. We were as guilty as each other. Having read his story, I feel desperately sorry for him. It would have been good for us to meet and talk. I could have helped him. I am truly sorry about how he died.

  ***

  ‘You are the first person I have shared my entire story with, since my mother,’ said Georg Stern when Viktor returned to the office. ‘I can only hope you appreciate how circumstances forced me to do many of the awful things I have described. It was the war, and terrible things happened in it. Did you fight in the war?’

  ‘Yes, if fighting is the correct word.’

  ‘And which side were you on?’

  ‘The same side as you, I suppose.’

  Stern laughed sarcastically. ‘The same side as me? Even now I’m not sure which side I was on. Look, I don’t want to be undignified and start pleading but since the war I have led – I hope – a decent and respectable life. Now, all that…’

  ‘I promised you yesterday, Herr Stern – if you co-operate with me nothing more will come of this. It is enough that you have confirmed Otto Schröder’s story, which in turn corroborates another account we have. I have no interest in punishing or exposing you. All I wanted was for you to tell me the truth, and now I will ask one more thing of you.’

  ‘Which is?’

  Viktor removed an envelope from his bag and emptied its contents onto Georg Stern’s desk: half a dozen photographs of the same man, some in close up, others taken from a distance. He watched Stern carefully as he spread the photos out and thought he spotted a flicker of recognition as one or two tiny beads of sweat gathered on Stern’s upper lip.

  ‘Do you know who this man is?’

  The lawyer picked up one of the close ups, and then another photograph.

  He nodded. ‘It’s Erich Schäfer.’

  ‘You’re sure, Herr Stern? It is thirty years since you’ve seen him.’

  ‘It’s Erich Schäfer, I’m telling you. What happens now?’

  ‘Nothing as far as you’re concerned, Herr Stern – I promised. It is enough that you have confirmed this is Schäfer. I do have one further question for you though: Wilhelm Richter, tell me about him.’

  ‘In what sense?’

  ‘Otto Schröder says he was the worst of the lot.’

  ‘He most certainly was.’

  ‘I myself interviewed an SS officer who witnessed Richter committing war crimes at the end of the war.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me in the least. He was the most evil person I’ve ever encountered. But why are you asking these questions about Richter?’

  ‘He’s still alive Herr Stern – and in West Germany.’

  For the first time, genuine fear crept across Georg Stern’s face.

  ‘Oh my God.’

  Chapter 21

  Cologne, West Germany and East Berlin

  August 1976

  ‘Here we are. Christ, Viktor – this one lived even further away. This could be your man!

  A Heinz Fleischhauer, forty two years old. According to the notes I made this was his third divorce, he’d been accused of being cruel to his wife. You’ll never guess where he lives.’

  ‘Go on synok.’

  ‘Cologne, Viktor. And this is interesting: against profession Herr Schmidt wrote ‘Government’ and then, in brackets alongside that, BfV! You know what the BfV is, don’t you Viktor?’

  ***

  As soon as Viktor had finished his conversation with Peter the previous evening, he’d hurried out of his hotel on Budapester Strasse. The revelation that Richter was a BfV officer called Heinz Fleischhauer had unnerved him: he needed to think, he needed to plan, and a warm hotel room was no place to do either of those things.

  He mentally ran through what he knew about the situation, and it all made sense. Reinhard Schäfer had an agent in the BfV, codename Goalkeeper, who was almost certainly Wilhelm Richter. But until this evening Viktor hadn’t known Richter’s current identity – he could have been any one of the thousands of people working for the German security service. Now everything pointed to it being ‘Heinz Fleischhauer’, the man Bernhard Krause had spotted in April 1968 and had been convinced was Richter. If Fleischhauer was forty-two years of age in 1968 he’d have been have nineteen in 1945, making him the right age to be Wilhelm Richter. And Cologne, where ‘Heinz’ lived, was the headquarters of the BfV

  And then there was the question of Reinhard Schäfer: what was this KGB officer doing running a Nazi war criminal as an agent? Could Reinhard Schäfer and Erich Schäfer really be the same person? Georg Stern had confirmed as much, but Viktor couldn’t make sense of it.

  Most importantly, 1968 was eight years ago now. He needed to know if Fleischhauer was still alive and, if he was, whether he was still working for the BfV. Viktor walked slowly along Lützowufer, by the Landwehr Canal, and by the time he reached Lützowplatz he was sure he hadn’t been followed. He found a telephone kiosk and from there rang Irma’s apartment in East Berlin. He’d taken as many precautions as possible in securing her phone, including a device that was meant to indicate if a call was being listened to, but he was still running a big risk. It was one he had to take.

  ‘It’s Joachim, about your electric problems…’

  ‘You’ve taken your time Joachim! It’s all fixed now.’

  They could talk.

  ‘Get a pen and paper… ready? OK: Heinz Fleischhauer. He could be Goalkeeper. Everything points to it. See if he’s still working for them in Cologne.’

  ‘When do you need to know this by?’

  ‘First thing tomorrow morning.’

  She knew better than to argue: they’d picked up on the intelligence grapevine a rumour that the Stasi for some reason became interested in calls once they exceeded two minutes and forty seconds, which was very Stasi in its precision. That was, if they were monitoring her phone, which he didn’t think they were.

  ‘I’ll go back now. I’ll find an excuse. Don’t ring again tonight.’

  ‘Of course not…’

  ‘Seven o’clock.’

  ***

  He rang her back as promised at seven the next morning, from a telephone kiosk inside Zoo Station, which was beginning to fill with commuters.

  ‘It worked out well. I told the duty officer I’d left my migraine medication in my desk and he was delighted to see me: he neede
d some help with something, which meant I could access the files without any suspicion.’

  ‘Go on, this needs to be quick…’

  ‘The list of BfV staff we have was last updated in February. There’s a note which says that we only have about 60% of the names, and only about half of those are complete names. However, there is an H. Fleischhauer listed. No

  first name, just an initial with “Herr” in front. He’s based in the Cologne HQ but the list doesn’t say what he does.’

  ‘Did anyone see you what you were up to?’

  ‘No. The duty officer was distracted. When are…’

  ‘I have to go. I’ll see you soon.’

  Viktor leaned back against the glass divide of the kiosk, holding the phone under his chin with two hands, his eyes closed tight in thought. He was interrupted by an impatient knocking at the door, someone wanting to use the phone. Viktor indicated he should wait and dialed again, after checking he had enough change to see him through the next conversation.

  ‘Ring me in half an hour at the hotel I told you I was staying at. I’ll be in room twenty-six.’

  He rang when he’d been told to. ‘You know what time it is in England, don’t you Viktor? We’re a bloody hour behind you. You rang me at ten past six. The dog’s never had such an early walk. It’s deserted round here and I’m in a bloody phone box outside a bloody pub. Christ knows what anyone will think if they see me. I’m getting too old for this.’

  ‘Listen, Edgar, Krause was right: it sounds like he did see Richter in 1968.’

  ‘Have you identified him?’

  ‘I believe so: everything points to him being a Heinz Fleischhauer who lives in Cologne and probably worked for the BfV in 1968. There is currently a Herr H. Fleischhauer with the BfV in Cologne.’

  ‘I’d better get over there: our people in Bonn are going to need to know there’s a KGB agent…’

  ‘Just wait Edgar. Wait until I tell you when to go. I still have some matters to sort out here first.’

  ***

  Viktor had first met Piotr Vasilyevich Kozlov in the mid-1950s. At that time Kozlov was a student at the Higher School of the KGB, after an unremarkable but unblemished dozen years in the army, and then a spell at one of the technical colleges in Moscow the KGB tended to recruit from. ‘Unblemished’ was how they described someone who didn’t cause trouble, obeyed orders and had a modicum of intelligence. Viktor had been giving a course at the Higher School on interrogation and Kozlov was a diligent enough student, but not one who seemed destined for stardom: more a time-server than a high-flyer.

  Viktor had come across Kozlov intermittently over the years, and each time was surprised at how well this somewhat unsophisticated man from Vladimirskaya Oblast was doing, which made Viktor realise he should perhaps be less dismissive of time-servers. Kozlov had worked his way through the usual departments in Moscow and then, rather surprisingly, was posted to Athens, followed by a series of increasingly important European stations.

  After a spell in Brussels Kozlov was posted to London, with diplomatic cover in the trade mission where, as far as Viktor could gather, Kozlov was ranked number three or four in the KGB station, which was quite impressive. Kozlov was one of the ninety Soviet diplomats expelled from London for espionage in September 1971. Being part of that group became something of an exaggerated badge of honour back in Moscow, where they behaved as if they’d been involved in the defence of Stalingrad.

  So Viktor was not too surprised when, a year after being expelled from London, Piotr Vasilyevich Kozlov turned up in East Berlin as the KGB Head of Station. But by now Kozlov was in his fifties. His diligence was not as keenly applied as it once had been. Within just a few months, he began to behave as if he had reached the pinnacle of his career. He discovered distractions he’d hitherto avoided, including a taste for a certain type of German woman: young and very well-built, with a specialist interest in discipline. He began to drink heavily, and became increasingly lazy.

  Moscow’s reaction was to give him a high-flying deputy, which was how Viktor’s protégé Yevgeny Yefimovich Mironov had arrived in East Berlin. Mironov was an altogether different proposition to Kozlov. He hailed from Leningrad, with the assurance and sophistication bordering on arrogance often associated with natives of that city. It didn’t take him long at all to discover what a mess East Berlin station had become and he managed to persuade Kozlov – whose biggest fear was being removed from East Berlin and all its pleasures – to allow Viktor to come out and help.

  Now Yevgeny Yefimovich Mironov had been promoted to Vienna, but even Kozlov knew better than to dispose of Viktor’s services. The older man was too experienced and too wise, and he helped compensate for Kozlov’s laziness. This did not mean Kozlov liked Viktor, if anything it caused a resentment which explained the current tension in Kozlov’s office on the fifth floor of the Soviet Embassy in Unter den Linden. It was late in the afternoon on the last day of August, and the heatwave that had gripped Europe showed no signs of abating.

  ‘Where have you been anyway, Viktor Leonidovich? I’ve hardly seen you for weeks.’ Kozlov was one of those people who spoke far louder than necessary. Not shouting or sounding angry, but just at an unnecessarily high volume: as if he were addressing someone at the back of a large and noisy room.

  ‘I told you, Piotr Vasilyevich, Mironov needed me in Vienna. You agreed.’

  ‘I agreed to one visit. You seem to have moved there! And what’s this I hear about you in popping up in Budapest?’

  Viktor shrugged. He’d made the mistake of underestimating Kozlov’s network of contacts and informers. ‘A woman. You of all people, Piotr Vasilyevich, you’ll understand.’

  ‘But you have that woman here in Berlin! You should do what I do and keep her in Moscow. Now, maybe it would be better if you’re honest with me… is there something going? You’ve not been anywhere else I should know about, have you?’

  Viktor stared at Kozlov, unsure of how much more the other man knew.

  ‘Because if you have… well, you know your role here is supposed to be advisory, and the last thing you’re meant to be doing is running agents and suchlike. If I have to send you back to Moscow you’ll never leave that city again, not even for your dacha.’

  Viktor studied Kozlov’s face and his expressions, his general demeanor. He knew something. Certainly not everything, but probably enough to require Viktor to be a bit more honest with him than he’d intended to be.

  ‘Just say, Piotr Vasilyevich, hypothetically… if as a result of my work here – work you have sanctioned, I should add – I came across intelligence which, if true, could expose an operation working against the interests of the Soviet Union. And say – and this is hypothetical, remember – I used contacts going back many years to investigate this intelligence and as a result was able to confirm a plot from the depths of the Second World War. And say this hypothetical plot involved desperate measures taken by the Nazis as they faced defeat and compromises – even now – the integrity of this embassy and the Soviet Union...’

  Kozlov said nothing, but raised his eyebrows, a mixture of astonishment and incredulity. Viktor had the impression Kozlov had struggled to follow him but was intrigued nonetheless. The thin red lines on his face seemed brighter and now he looked uncomfortable, pulling his earlobe.

  ‘But as you say Viktor Leonidovich, hypothetical.’

  ‘So what I need to know Piotr Vasilyevich, with this hypothetical case, is if I were to bring it to your attention, would you be grateful?’

  ‘I’m not sure what you’re on about to be honest Krasotkin, but remember – this is fucking Berlin! Both sides of the city are full of former Nazis. Anyone over the age of fifty – give or take a year or two – would have been involved with them in one way or another, despite what they may tell you. I’d be more surprised if you came and told me you’d found someone who hadn’t been a Nazi.’

  ‘But if…’

  ‘But if nothing Viktor Leonidovich. Look, everyone know
s what a hero you were in the war, but you also spent the following ten years interrogating Nazis. I’m not surprised you imagine they’re about to take over the world.’

  Viktor made to get up. ‘Very well Piotr Vasilyevich, but it’s a shame. If anything came of this hypothetical case and it transpired you’d been aware of it but ignored my warnings – it would reflect very badly on you. But there we are… you’re the boss, you obviously know better than me.’

  Kozlov anxiously gestured for Viktor to sit down. ‘Wait, wait, wait… maybe we don’t play games Viktor Leonidovich. Maybe we drop this hypothetical nonsense and you tell me what you want.’ He was still speaking far too loudly, but now making an effort to sound less hostile. He looked worried.