The Heydrich Sanction

by Denis Kilcommons

  The next evening, three officers merry on drink, provided Bergfeld with what they called ‘a bit of sport’ in a guard hut. At one end was a plain wooden table, behind which were three chairs. A fourth chair was to the side. The senior officer was a major, Sturmbannfuhrer Blenck, and he sat in the middle chair. Bergfeld and a Captain, Haupsturmfuhrer Hafner, sat in the chairs that flanked him. Behind them, a stove provided heat.

  The fourth member of their party was the same rank as Bergfeld, a lieutenant called Schmidt, and he took the chair that was to one side, removed a document from his tunic and placed it on the corner of the table. They were arranged like a court martial with a prosecuting counsel. There was no counsel for the defence.

  A private placed glasses in front of them, showed a bottle to the major for approval, and poured red wine for the four of them. A sergeant opened the door and two dog handlers entered, their German shepherds on leashes. Bergfeld sipped the wine and stretched his shoulders against the heat behind him. Major Blenck told a joke that he only half heard but he laughed politely anyway.

  The sergeant answered a knock at the door and let in a shaven headed man in the regulation-striped uniform. He was terrified and trying not to look anywhere that might cause offence. The two dogs snarled and strained on their leashes and had to be quietened by their handlers. Bergfeld noticed the colour of the man’s badge on his uniform. It was pink.

  ‘Undress,’ the major said and the man obeyed.

  He was thin and undernourished and his hands shook as he removed the tunic and his undergarments and dropped them on the floor. He stood, head bowed, his hands hesitantly attempting to cover his genitals, his shoulder blades sharp and prominent. He was a wounded bird, plucked and vulnerable. Bergfeld found it difficult to judge his age. He was, perhaps, no more than 30. The private pulled his hands away and tied them behind his back.

  The sergeant kicked the clothes to the dogs and they snarled and ripped at them.

  Lieutenant Schmidt got to his feet and read from the documents.

  ‘You were convicted under paragraph 175 and 175a of the Reich Penal Code. The said sections state, and I quote: a male who commits a sex offence with another male, or allows himself to be used by another male for a sex offence, shall be punished with penal servitude up to 10 years. However, the Law Against Dangerous Habitual Criminals and the Measures For Protection And Recovery allows castration as an alternative.’ The man twitched at the mention of the word and glanced up. The lieutenant lowered the document. ‘You’re lucky. You are getting early release.’

  ‘Have you nothing to say?’ shouted the major. The man’s eyes darted from one to the other of the officers. ‘Say thank you.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ the man said, and the major laughed and waved a hand at the sergeant who placed a tin bucket over the victim’s head. The guards with the dogs whispered to the animals, urging them to a frenzy. Bergfeld tried to detach himself from what was happening when the hut was filled with the sounds of Wagner’s Ride Of The Valkyires. The sergeant had gone to a gramophone in the corner and placed the needle on a record. The music was a signal. The guards released the dogs and they leapt at the naked man, ripping into his flesh. His screams of pain echoed from the tin bucket that covered his head.

  Bergfeld was aware of the major chuckling. Lieutenant Schmidt was watching the action closely, a smile frozen on his face, the tip of his tongue touching his bottom lip. Bergfeld sipped wine and noticed its rich colour. The colour of blood. He reached for the bottle and topped up his glass. Bavarian red and very palatable.

  The bucket fell off the man’s head as he rolled on the floor and his shrieks stopped when one of the dogs took his throat. The other had already completed the castration. The guards put the leashes back on the animals and quietened them. Bergfeld noticed that his glass and the bottle were empty.

  ‘I do apologise,’ he said to the major.

  ‘Not at all.’ The major was full of bonhomie. The sergeant brought another bottle and the private dragged the body to one side, covered it with sacks and swilled the floor with buckets of water. The major poured wine and the sergeant took the arm of the gramophone from the record and the Valkyries stopped their ride. He rewound the handle of the gramophone.

  ‘Next,’ shouted the major and another victim was led in. He was tall, slim and with a head of dark stubble. He risked a glance around the room, saw the dogs and the blood on the floor and guessed his fate. His face twitched with fear and his gaze fixed on Bergfeld and Bergfeld gazed back and locked eyes with his former lover.

  ‘Undress,’ shouted the major, and slapped his hand on the table in emphasis.

  Dieter Redlich removed his clothes. His eyes, bigger than ever in his hollow face, going back time and again to Bergfeld who had become immobile in his chair, unable to move, not wanting to comprehend the consequences.

  Sweet Jesus. The death of the first prisoner had made him queasy. Setting dogs to rip a man to pieces was not work for soldiers. Now he felt shame and fear. He felt a curdling in his stomach that had nothing to do with the wine he had drunk. It was the memory of his love, their love, that had never died.

  All the emotions mingled and he hoped his composure could hold them in check despite the flush that had started in his neck and was rising to his cheeks. If his secret was discovered he, too, could be wearing the striped pyjamas and the pink badge. He was gripped by fear, not of death but of the grubby horror of its manner in a prison camp, inflicted not by wounds of war but by the whims of intoxicated officers and the fangs of dogs. He glanced at the animals, saw them snarling as the private fastened Dieter’s hands behind his back, saw them eager for more sport.

  Shame swept him as quickly as the fear. He was worried about what might happen to him while Dieter faced inevitability. He wondered what his one-time lover read in his eyes: panic, helplessness, fear, sorrow? Did he see the love? How could he remain silent?

  ‘He’s a cheeky bugger,’ said the major.

  ‘He has an impertinent stare,’ said the captain.

  Dieter dropped his gaze and the lieutenant got to his feet and read from the document. When he had finished, the major shouted, ‘Anything to say?’ and Dieter looked up again, straight at the major, and his lips trembled. For a moment Bergfeld thought he was going to speak, but he didn’t.

  ‘How about saying thank you?’ the major said, milking the joke.

  ‘Go fuck yourself,’ said Dieter, shifting his look to Bergfeld as the major, now angry, gave the signal to the sergeant. In the second before the bucket came down over his head, Dieter smiled and his face twitched. Twitched? He had winked. Dieter had winked at him in the same old way he used to when they were sharing an intimacy.

  Love remained silent and the sergeant clicked the switch that released the turntable and dropped the gramophone onto the Valkyries and the dogs strained and snarled as their keepers reached to release them and Bergfeld stood up so abruptly that his chair fell over backwards. He levelled his Luger and fired three shots through the bucket.

  ‘What the …?’ the major said.

  The captain, who was furthest away, got to his feet in confusion. The lieutenant stared at Bergfeld open mouthed. Bergfeld replaced the pistol in his holster. ‘My sport,’ he said, ‘is shooting. Gets the damn thing over with a lot quicker.’ He swayed a little, as if drunk. As if he was slowly becoming aware that he might have committed an indiscretion, he added, ‘My apologies, major.’

  ‘So you should bloody apologise,’ roared the major. ‘Ruined a perfectly good bucket, you bastard.’

  The major burst into laughter, joined by the captain and the lieutenant who slapped Bergfeld on the shoulder. Bergfeld smiled and nodded at the joke.

  After that, nothing seemed real in the war against Russia. He served with distinction winning an Iron Cross (First Class) and a Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves. He was wounded three times and was unshakeable in battle. He didn’t balk at executions of partisans or civilians and took part, without apparent c
ompunction, in the reprisal clearance of a village in Georgia under a Heydrich Sanction, in which 3,214 men, women and children were killed.

  Bergfeld was an Obersturmbannfuhrer – a lieutenant colonel – when he retired with honour from the SS in 1948. He spent six months living alone in a village on the edge of the Vienna Woods before deciding on a new direction. He enrolled at an academy in Vienna, practised the violin, regained his love of music and made new friends. Within a year he was teaching but his life lacked purpose.

  He moved back to his hometown of Berlin, looked up old comrades and attended reunions, put himself back in circulation and obtained a position with the Propaganda Department of the Ministry of Culture. In 1952, he was recruited by the Sicherheitsdienst, the SD intelligence wing of the Nazi Party; his brief to monitor academia, the arts and youth. He was very good at his job and his reports had caused the removal from office of several prominent people who, in his stated opinion, could have posed a threat to the good order of the Reich. Three had been executed.

  The SD worked closely with the SS and the Gestapo and his ultimate boss was Reinhard Heydrich, the Beast of Warsaw, the man who turned Poland and Czechoslovakia into slave states, and the architect of the Final Solution. Heydrich also had a love of music. His father had been a composer and the founder of a conservatory and Heydrich was a talented violinist who was particularly fond of Mozart’s chamber music.

  This provided an initial bond between them and Bergfeld visited the Heydrich home on several occasions to play music with his superior. This was never a friendship, for Heydrich was incapable of friendship, but having established Bergfeld as an acceptable companion, he used him as an excuse whenever he wanted to leave his wife Lina and the family home for his often violent encounters with prostitutes. This was an easily indulged pastime during his extended absences during the war and pacification of the Slavs, but became more difficult when he was in Berlin. Bergfeld went with him to brothels and acted as security, companion and pimp. Once a girl had been with Heydrich, she never wanted to repeat the experience and Bergfeld became proficient at intimidation and coercion.

  Lennon had wondered if Bergfeld’s offer of rock and roll success was entrapment and yes, it was a kind of entrapment. Everybody in the Third Reich worked to a secret agenda and he was no different to any other policeman, civil servant or honest citizen.

  Dawn was beginning to streak the sky and his bottle and glass were empty. He got out of the chair and went to the bathroom to empty his bladder. Then he climbed into bed and tried to sleep.

  Chapter 5

  August 24. Ollerton

  The Rev James Beatty waited in Ogilvy’s crowded shop while a mother paid Tony Ogilvy for two ice-lollies for her small daughters. On the other side of the store, Susan Ogilvy was filling the shopping basket with the order for Miss Agnes and Miss Doris, the elderly sisters from Rose Cottage. They always collected their order on a Saturday morning and the fact that the village was busy because of the annual fete had not deterred them. They waited, silent and content, in similar floral cotton dresses, happy to be part of the throng.

  ‘Yes, Vicar?’

  ‘Sticky tape, please Mr Ogilvy.’

  The shopkeeper dipped behind the counter, rummaged and when he reappeared, offered a choice of three widths.

  ‘Is this the sort?’

  ‘I suppose so. I’ve been sent by Mrs Humphrey. Her final checklist of essentials appears to be short of sticky tape. I’ll have the wide one.’

  Ogilvy grinned and put the reel of tape in a brown paper bag.

  ‘One of Mrs Humphrey’s militia, are you? She’ll have you run off your feet by teatime. That’ll be one and sixpence, please.’

  ‘I’ll also be well soaked by teatime.’ He gave him two shillings and waited for his change. ‘I’m in the stocks this afternoon. Wet sponges at 10 paces.’

  ‘Not just militia, then. You’re one of her frontline troops.’

  ‘It appears so.’

  Ogilvy gave him sixpence change.

  ‘Well, take care, Vicar. And enjoy the day. At least we’ve got the weather for it.’

  ‘We have indeed, Mr Ogilvy. A glorious day.’

  He edged his way out of the shop as three boys pushed past him to the counter.

  The sun was high and hot and the church clock began to strike noon. Some families were already having picnics on the village green and four small boys were playing cricket with a tennis ball. Two police constables had been on duty since nine o’clock to direct traffic to the designated parking area behind the school.

  Ollerton Village Fete always attracted a good crowd, as long as the weather was fine, because it was the last local event of the summer. It had first been held to celebrate the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 when Charles II returned from exile. He had returned in May but it had taken until August for the news to travel this far north and for the villagers to organise a celebration.

  The fete was due to begin in an hour with a procession from the Farmer’s Arms that circled the village green and entered the cricket field along the lane by the side of the Black Bull. There was a queen, who would be crowned by the retiring monarch of the fete, children’s races, booths and attractions – such as throwing wet sponges at vicars – to entice people to spend money, all of which went to good causes, and a pig roast to feed the hungry, the beast being supplied by Archie Roberts for the third year running. The day would end with a record-hop at the village hall.

  As the Vicar crossed the green, he waved to Colonel Humphrey who was walking briskly down the road from his home to the Black Bull, Paddy the Labrador at his heels.

  ‘Morning, James,’ said the Colonel. ‘Got you chasing your tail, has she?’

  ‘Essential supplies,’ said the Vicar, holding up the paper bag.

  The Colonel’s wife was chairwoman of the Fete Committee and ran it like a military operation of which her husband refused to be a part. The committee had their own tent on the cricket field to which all problems were taken for conciliation and adjudication, invariably by Mrs Humphrey. As the clock struck for the last time, the door of the pub was opened by George Wilson. The Vicar glanced towards the church and saw the tall and unmistakable figure of Willie Ashford striding along the path through the churchyard.

  ‘Don’t let her grind you down,’ the Colonel said, entering the pub with the dog at his heels.

  Easier said than done, thought the Vicar, walking briskly down the lane to Mrs Humphrey’s field headquarters.

  The Colonel was already on his stool at the end of the bar, Paddy reclining behind him out of harm’s way, when Willie Ashford walked in.

  ‘Morning, Jimmy,’ said Willie.

  ‘Technically, it’s afternoon,’ said the Colonel.

  ‘Pedantic sod.’

  George Wilson put a pint before him on the bar.

  ‘Morning, Willie,’ he said.

  ‘Hah. A civilised greeting. Morning George.’

  George put money in the till and placed the change in front of the Colonel before moving down the bar to serve someone else. The pub would soon be busy because of the fete. Willie lifted his pint, toasted the Colonel and took a gulp.

  He enjoyed drinking at this time of the day. It seemed wonderfully decadent and something that his ancestors had probably taken for granted. The walk through the country, the smell of the pub, the company of friends and the prospect of a pleasant day had put him in a contented frame of mind. Even Sheila had been behaving herself over the last few weeks, although that was unkind. How could you describe depression as bad behaviour? She couldn’t help it.

  ‘Well, they’ve got the weather for it, thank God,’ said the Colonel.

  Willie pulled up another stool and sat down.

  ‘I take it Marjorie wouldn’t have been happy if it had rained.’

  ‘She would have been bloody unbearable.’

  ‘Well, she has worked hard for it. So have a lot of people.’

  More customers entered the pub, strangers
from other villages and nearby towns.

  ‘I think we should order early today, Willie. Just to make sure.’

  ‘Indeed, old chap. The walk has given me an appetite. I wonder if Maureen has done a steak and kidney?’

  Landlady Maureen Wilson was famed for her home cooking and they ordered steak and kidney pie with cauliflower, chipped potatoes and gravy. Willie noticed the Colonel was distracted.

  ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘Everything’s fine, I suppose.’ He frowned. ‘I found some magazines in Simon’s room. I wasn’t prying. I was returning laundry. Clean shirts. He’d left a holdall by the side of the bed and I picked it up to move it and found them inside.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about that,’ said Willie. ‘It sounds perfectly normal to me. Did it myself. Still would, if I had the nerve to buy the bloody things.’

  ‘Not that sort of magazine.’ He glanced past Willie to make sure they could not be overheard and lowered his voice. ‘Subversive magazines. I’ve never seen anything like it. You know the rumours, back in the forties, about what happened in Germany and Russia? Well, these magazines have photographs. They show gas chambers that killed people. Stacks of naked bodies and ovens to burn them. Men, women and children, old people, reduced to skeletons. The magazine says some of the pictures were taken in Coventry and on Guernsey. Good God, Willie, do you think it happened here?’

  Willie took his pipe from the pocket of his jacket.

  ‘We all know it happened in Russia.’