The March Fallen

by volker Kutscher

  War-blind, please give generously, the cardboard sign said. Fetching his wallet he rummaged for change, took out a ten pfennig piece and held it over the hat. Then, instead of dropping the coin, he clenched his fist and made as if to punch the man’s face, only to brake millimetres in front of the dark glasses.

  The beggar flinched, no more than a slight jerk, then sat still as before, as if oblivious to the world around him. But Rath had seen enough. He tossed the coin, caught it and enclosed it in his fist. Sitting on the steps he did his best not to hold his nose. ‘Nice spot you’ve got here.’

  ‘Are you taking the piss?’ the beggar asked.

  ‘Bet there are a lot of people who come by? A good spot for begging, is what I meant.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘You here every day?’

  ‘Unless I’m needed in the office.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Joke. Do I look I have an office?’

  ‘You look like the kind of man who doesn’t miss a trick.’

  ‘You are taking the piss!’

  ‘Were you here towards the end of February?’

  ‘I don’t see how that’s any business of yours.’

  Rath took out his identification and watched the beggar turn pale under layers of dirt. ‘Can you read it, or are your glasses too dark?’

  ‘Making fun of a poor veteran who lost his sight in the service of the Fatherland?’

  ‘Who knows what you lost in the service of the Fatherland. Maybe life dealt you a lousy hand. Hell, maybe you’re even short-sighted, but you are certainly not blind!’ Rath raised his voice.

  The beggar placed a finger to his lips in horror. ‘Shh. Not so loud! It’s bad for business.’

  ‘I’ve no intention of ruining your business, and maybe I won’t even take you down to Alex, but you’d better start being honest.’ He pointed towards the steel pillar. ‘A man lay dead there for days. Homeless, a beggar like you. No one gave a damn.’

  ‘I knew something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t go official, could I . . . being blind and all.’

  ‘You saw him then.’

  ‘Keep your voice down. Saw him? People might hear! At first I thought the two of them were friends. He’d just given him a thick coat.’

  ‘He gave him his coat?’

  ‘Not the one he was wearing. No, it was fine wool, but he had another under his arm, an old army coat.’

  ‘Which is why you thought they were friends?’

  ‘I don’t know about friends, but they knew each other, even a blind man could . . .’ The beggar fell silent and eyed his white stick in embarrassment. ‘I mean, it was obvious.’

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘The tramp put on the coat, all thank you, thank you. And then . . . I’m not sure. I was only looking over every so often, you know how it is, I had . . . patrons to thank . . .’ he swallowed. ‘Anyway, next time I looked over, bowler-hat man was crouched by his friend on the ground. Patted him on the shoulder and off he went.’

  ‘Towards the station? Past you?’

  ‘No, towards Bülowstrasse.’

  ‘Did you see his face?’

  ‘He had his collar up and his hat was pulled down over his eyes. It looked like he had a few scars. I took them for old war comrades.’

  ‘Did you notice anything else about the man?’

  ‘There was one thing. He had a strange gait, always dragging one leg.’

  ‘What about the dead man?’

  ‘He was just crouched there. Looked like he had wrapped himself up to take a nap. I didn’t realise anything was amiss until he was still sitting like that the next day. But what could I do? A blind man?’

  ‘Even blind men can notify the police.’

  ‘Being blind is how I make my living, Inspector! I thought, let someone who can see him do it. Eventually, someone did.’

  90

  Friday night. Nibelungen had booked the grand lounge in Hotel Adlon. It was sold out, and Rath only got in by using his police badge. ‘Your colleagues are already inside. At the back, beside the podium.’

  Reinhold Gräf sat with Steinke and a few other plainclothes officers from A and H Divisions, probably hoping Benjamin Engel, the murdering Jew as Levetzow called him, would be careless enough to show. The whole thing had the appearance of a large-scale operation between Homicide and Warrants, mounted on the commissioner’s orders, but Rath knew nothing about it, having steered clear of Alex since handing in the Rothstein report on Monday. This was a purely social call.

  Everywhere he looked, cops surveyed the diverse audience, the majority being prosperous types in evening dress alongside a number of veterans in uniform. One man had a prosthetic arm. Two or three had crutches by their chairs. None was as disfigured or damaged as the many war-disabled begging on Berlin’s streets.

  Then, of course, came the inevitable brown with black-white-and-red brassards, everywhere now, as if the Nazis were rabbits and mating season was in full swing. In reality they were ordinary people who had jumped on the bandwagon before it was too late. Like Marlow said: citizens who wanted to get ahead; but workers too, who had been beaten down by life and joined SA ranks to ensure that others shared their suffering.

  A familiar face jostled for position among the journalists in the first row. He had no wish for Berthold Weinert to see him, nor Gräf for that matter, or indeed any of his colleagues. Unusually for a book of this kind a number of women were also present, no doubt due to Roddeck’s previous existence as a dance host. He settled for a place at the back behind a fat lady, and hid his face in the information sheet which had been presented to him at the door.

  A string quartet opened proceedings with a rendition of Ich hatt’ einen Kameraden, a traditional lament, performed on this occasion without vocals. Roddeck understood how to make his book launch feel special, none of your brass music or nationalist chanting here. Instead, a touch of culture. When the music ended, Dr Hildebrandt, Roddeck’s bustling publisher, took up position behind the lectern. His tone was solemn, as if a fallen soldier were being laid to rest.

  Roddeck remained backstage while an extract was read by an actor. Naturally, they had chosen the scene in which Captain Engel murdered two French children and a German recruit.

  Only when the reading was at an end, and with the applause still resounding, did Baron Achim von Roddeck take to the stage, dressed, like so many others here, in his old service uniform. He bowed, and the applause reached a crescendo. When the final members of the audience had ceased clapping, he stepped behind the lectern and commenced his speech, flanked by police officers.

  ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, Brothers-at-Arms! Let me outline the reasons that led a man like me, who has always favoured the sword over the pen, to conclude, after many years, that publishing my war memoirs was in the best interests of the public at large.’

  What followed could have been straight out of a Nazi campaign speech. Rath had never heard anyone offer himself up so crudely to the ruling powers. According to Roddeck, Jews in the German army had brought nothing but misery to the Fatherland. Operation Alberich had been a tactical masterstroke, discredited by the treacherous actions of individuals such as Captain Benjamin Engel. With war methods that went against any notion of honour, the Jews had dragged the reputation of the glorious, unvanquished Germany army through the mire.

  Roddeck didn’t stop at Operation Alberich either. ‘Who was instrumental in the adoption of poison-gas warfare?’ he asked. ‘Perhaps some of you here tonight are unaware, but that, too, was a Jew. Like Benjamin Engel, Fritz Haber, who still occupies his position at the helm of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, achieved the rank of captain during the war. A disgrace to German science, a disgrace to the German army.’

  Roddeck paused to gaze among the rows of seats.

  ‘From my own experience, all I will say is this. Were it not for the presence of Jews, no German soldier would have been enticed into perpetrating such atrocities, for which we are still being ma
de to pay.’

  The audience was not used to German soldiers being accused of atrocities, and certainly hadn’t expected it here.

  ‘What they forget abroad,’ Roddeck declaimed with a conciliatory wave of the hand, ‘is that these acts were carried out by Jews and not Germans. It is precisely these distortions, Ladies and Gentlemen, that my work intends to set right.’

  The volley of applause took Rath aback. Some rose to their feet, and more followed until the whole room stood in acclaim of Lieutenant von Roddeck. He made his way towards the exit. Leaving the room, he turned to look at the audience as it went berserk. Roddeck had his eyes closed, and Rath wondered if people here genuinely believed what he said, or were simply glad to point the finger elsewhere.

  The Jews are our misfortune. The sentence was a solution to all their problems. In the present, in the future and even, as Rath realised today for the first time, in the past.

  91

  Having removed his uniform, Baron Achim von Roddeck stood with outstretched arms before the mirror as a male attendant detached his cufflinks.

  Rath had waited in a dark corner of the hotel bar until Gräf, Steinke and the other CID men had left, before making his way to Roddeck’s suite, where the lieutenant had retired following his performance. He wondered if the man’s hotel arrangements were paid for by the public. Like the police manpower deployed by the commissioner to keep the supposedly endangered author safe, he suspected they were. It wasn’t that the public coffers were any more full than prior to the national uprising, rather that the people responsible were no longer obliged to justify every expense.

  His police badge had ensured access to the third floor. Seeing Rath led in, Roddeck turned in astonishment. ‘Inspector, you’re the last person I expected to see!’

  ‘Just goes to show.’

  ‘What brings you here? Can I sign a book for you?’

  ‘That won’t be necessary.’

  ‘You can’t be here in an official capacity. Unless I am mistaken you are no longer in charge of the investigation.’

  ‘I’ve never distinguished much between private and professional.’

  ‘I don’t have a lot of time, Inspector. I’m about to leave for a reception given by the new Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda.’

  ‘Goebbels is aware of you already?’

  ‘The Herr Minister is one of my most loyal readers. He has privately expressed concern that my novel wasn’t serialised in Der Angriff or at the very least the Völkischer Beobachter.’

  ‘A shame he couldn’t be here for the show.’

  ‘The Herr Minister sent his apologies, but . . .’ Roddeck pointed towards a gift-wrapped package on his desk. ‘ . . . tonight I will present him with a personal copy, complete with dedication.’

  ‘I’m sure the Herr Minister can hardly contain his delight.’

  Roddeck looked at him as if he had stomach cramp. ‘What are you doing here, Inspector? Don’t waste my time.’

  ‘Aren’t you surprised that Wosniak hasn’t been in touch?’

  Achim von Roddeck, whom the attendant was now helping into his dinner jacket, raised his eyebrows. ‘Spare me the tasteless jokes! I helped to identify his body in the morgue. Did you forget?’

  ‘I don’t forget things easily. It’s one of my strengths.’

  ‘It can be a weakness too.’

  ‘What would you say if I could prove that the dead man from Nollendorfplatz wasn’t Heinrich Wosniak but a man named Gerhard Krumbiegel? The other survivor of the fire that made such a mess of your orderly.’

  ‘That would mean my faithful Heinrich is still alive!’

  ‘And that you lied to me in the morgue.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Roddeck succeeded in looking horrified. ‘If what you are saying is true, then it’s possible I was mistaken, but I did not lie. If that corpse wasn’t Heinrich Wosniak then I’m sorry for falsely identifying him, but it wasn’t easy, you know . . . with all the scars.’

  ‘You seemed pretty certain at the time.’

  ‘As did you, Inspector. You’ll recall that the name Wosniak was already in all the papers. It was what led me to you in the first place.’

  ‘How do you propose to maintain your story about Todesengel?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand.’

  ‘The body at Nollendorfplatz no longer fits the pattern. Why would Benjamin Engel kill someone who had nothing to do with his old unit?’

  ‘What do I know, Inspector? Perhaps he got them mixed up, just like you and I did. Perhaps this Krum . . .?’

  ‘Krumbiegel.’

  ‘Perhaps this Krumbiegel was wearing Wosniak’s army coat. You found his service record too, as I recall. A man with burn scars in Wosniak’s coat. Easy enough to get mixed up, when you consider how many years had gone by.’

  The man had an answer for everything. Rath grew angrier. ‘Are you claiming Krumbiegel stole Wosniak’s coat along with his service record?’

  ‘I’m speculating. Still, if that’s what you think . . .’

  ‘I’ll tell you what I think, shall I? Heinrich Wosniak pays his old beggar friend Krumbiegel a visit at Nollendorfplatz and donates his old soldier’s coat, in which he has already planted the service record. No sooner does Krumbiegel pull the thing on, but he feels Wosniak’s trench dagger being driven into his brain.’

  ‘I don’t understand what you’re getting at.’

  ‘That Wosniak killed Krumbiegel because he wanted to stage his own death.’

  ‘My faithful Heinrich! Why would he do that?’

  ‘I’ll know soon enough. I certainly don’t believe that Benjamin Engel killed all these men.’

  ‘You sound very sure.’

  Rath had to tread carefully. He had come here to catch Roddeck off guard, not give away what he knew. ‘It’s just a theory. You have yours and I have mine. As far as I’m concerned Benjamin Engel is not behind these murders.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s why the commissioner took you off the case. I’d think about that if I were you.’

  Back on the street, Rath aimed a kick at one of the rubbish bins that was supposed to keep Unter den Linden, Berlin’s oldest boulevard, free from dirt. The bin was ripped from its moorings and its contents spilled on the pavement. He hadn’t been this angry in a long time.

  He had miscalculated. Achim von Roddeck was slippier than an eel, and to cap it all, seemed to know that Rath was onto him. It looked like Gereon Rath and his temper had made a hash of things again. At least on this occasion Gennat was none the wiser.

  92

  Sometimes Charly felt glad when Fritze was out with Kirie and she had time to catch her breath. Was he really so slow on the uptake or did he just not care? When she thought of everything she’d done to find him a school . . . If the boy didn’t get his head down soon he’d get a rude awakening after Easter, and the new session. He had gaps just about everywhere, and could barely write his own name. Capable of some basic arithmetic, his brain went on strike whenever fractions were involved. He seemed to have no idea how important these things were, and didn’t want to make the effort.

  Do you want to spend the rest of your days on the streets? I’m busting a gut to give you a decent life and you can’t even be bothered trying! More than once she had been close to telling a few home truths, but he had her wrapped around his little finger. It was impossible to stay angry.

  One night she’d asked Gereon to go through basic fractions with him, but he was even more impatient than her. What would they do when they had children of their own?

  Fritze’s interests lay elsewhere. Recently, after returning from his morning walk with Kirie, she had noticed sherbet powder on his lips. ‘Have you been buying sherbet? I don’t recall giving you any money.’

  ‘That’s ’cause you didn’t, Auntie.’

  ‘You haven’t been scrounging again?’ The constant Auntie Charly made her blood boil. ‘Why do you do it? If you need money tell me!’

  ‘Sorry,
Aunt Charly, it just happened. There was this man outside the station, begging to be parted from his cash.’

  ‘You don’t have to anymore.’

  ‘I didn’t mean any harm, and he was only too glad to help.’ With that he disappeared into the kitchen and produced another two sachets of sherbet powder. The boy needed a firm hand.

  She pondered the coming week with horror. On Monday she was due back in the Castle. Fritze would have all day to himself, but that was hardly her most pressing concern.

  Thinking of her office, of Women’s CID, of Friederike Wieking and Karin van Almsick, she felt positively sick. More so when she thought of the files gathering dust on her desk. Files on children and youths, some scarcely older than Fritze, none of whom fitted with the new regime’s plans and certainly not with those of her commanding officer. Finally Friederike Wieking had license to hunt down the youth gangs she had always despised.

  For years it had been Charly’s dream to work as a police officer and now, on the verge of becoming a CID inspector, with only the exam still to pass, she suddenly doubted whether this was the job for her. Not, at any rate, with Wieking as her superior. As for her caseload, she hadn’t taken up the job to hunt Communists.

  Every day the Vossische Zeitung carried news items headed Shot Attempting to Flee, and no matter where the reports came from, the details were always the same: wanted Communist arrested, attempts to flee en route to the station, fails to heed the cries of police officers, summary execution.

  The audacity with which the written press continued to spread such lies was breathtaking. At least the Vossische, which the Ritter family had read for generations, published these endless, identical reports in such a way that the lie was obvious.

  She had tried to contact Professor Heymann to seek his advice, but her old law professor had been granted sabbatical leave at his own request and couldn’t be reached. The university office couldn’t, or didn’t want to, say more. She knew from the paper that high-ranking figures, such as directors or professors, were being granted sabbatical leave almost as frequently as Communists were being shot. The common factor being that they were Jewish. Anti-Semitism was more than just electioneering. Last week, prior to the boycott, the SA had picked up all Jewish judges and lawyers from the court building on Grunerstrasse while, at the university, Jewish professors were said to have been assaulted by students. She hoped Professor Heymann had managed to get out in time.