by Heinz Rein
Dr Böttcher nods.
‘A few months ago Goebbels wrote the following sentences in Reich: “We recently saw modern German weapons at the sight of which our hearts stood still for a moment.” That sentence has, I admit quite openly, pursued me into my dreams.’
‘It isn’t easy, I would even say that it is very difficult, to put oneself in your spiritual state,’ Dr Böttcher says. ‘You have neither a firm spiritual basis, nor are you rooted in another vision of life, you reject National Socialism, the state-prescribed and compulsorily enforced philosophy, but have no other, because you have never encountered one. Do you believe in God?’
Lassehn shrugs. ‘I don’t know, Doctor,’ he replies, ‘I really don’t know. I’m not exactly religious, but I wasn’t brought up as an atheist either. In my parents’ house faith was to some extent a good, reliable middle-class prop that could be taken out of mothballs when necessary, it was part of the family reputation, it was faith without obligation and basically without content.’
‘So you don’t believe in God,’ Dr Böttcher establishes matter-of-factly. ‘Philosophical systems apart from the Rosenberg myth might be unfamiliar to you, yes, for heaven’s sake, what then is the point of your life? Simply the fulfilment of material desires and nothing else?’
‘No, Doctor,’ Lassehn replies, ‘I have seen the point of my life as lying in music.’
‘The phrasing of your answer already shows that that is no longer the case, or at least that you have begun to have considerable doubts about the matter.’ Dr Böttcher pushes his glasses a little way up his forehead with two fingers. ‘Music,’ he continues quietly, ‘music is one of the most precious gifts of the human spirit, but it alone cannot be the content, the goal of life. Music alone is too little, it must be rooted in something. There is no thing in itself, my young friend.’
‘For as long as I was able to practise it, music left me entirely fulfilled,’ Lassehn disagrees. ‘There was no room for anything else in me, and it is to music that I attribute the fact that I could not be infected by National Socialism. You can’t convince me …’
‘You are still very young, Mr Lassehn,’ Dr Böttcher replies mildly, and rests his hand lightly on Lassehn’s arm, ‘and I do not want to use my age as argument in any way, but I am sure you will believe me when I claim to have more experience and greater insight into things. You say that your complete absorption in music left you able to resist the National Socialist infection. But I believe that you, entirely obsessed by music, would also have been able to resist any other influence. Did you in the past consider art as a thing in itself?’
Lassehn nods.
‘However, Doctor, art is a task in its own right, it has no particular purpose.’
‘Oho,’ Dr Böttcher says emphatically, ‘are artists not embedded in their environment, are they not shaped by their influences, are they not subject to universal laws? Yes or no?’
‘Perhaps,’ Lassehn admits reluctantly, ‘but in their art they rise above the everyday.’
Dr Böttcher smiles indulgently. ‘You think you are elevated above everyday life, Mr Lassehn, but you are every bit as much a part of it as everyone else. Art does not stand outside or above the laws of life, the artist’s independence is a mere illusion, even art is not apolitical and must ossify without the load-bearing support of an ideal or a faith in the aesthetic. You will never be able to play Bach to perfection without the gift of feeling your way into his naïvely trusting thought, never will you be able to grasp Beethoven’s sonatas in all their depth if you do not understand the revolutionary hothead, you will always remain a mere technician if your own attitude of mind and soul does not breathe life into his scores.’
Lassehn has lowered his head. ‘Where is the way out, Doctor,’ he asks quietly. ‘You have shown me the spiritual limbo of my situation, and for years I have had the oppressive feeling that life was trickling through my fingers like sand. But you have not yet told me how I can get out of this situation. You and Mr Wiegand and Mr Klose have your political and philosophical foundation. Won’t you let me share in that?’
‘It isn’t as easy as it was with the Nazis,’ Dr Böttcher says with a smile, ‘that you join the Party and get the philosophy free of charge with all its proscriptions, rules of behaviour, regulations of implementation et cetera delivered free to your door. Our philosophy, Mr Lassehn, needs to be worked upon, it cannot be learned, but I would be happy to engage with you, but above all I will entrust you to the protection of our friend Wiegand, who has more time than I do. I am a doctor and have a big cash practice, but Wiegand too lives underground.’ Lassehn jerks around. ‘You live underground?’ he asks hastily. ‘I’m going to have to do that too …’
Wiegand holds both hands up against the storm of questions that threatens to break over him. ‘Slowly, slowly, Mr Lassehn,’ he says solicitously. ‘You doubtless want me to give you advice on how to do this. Well, the answer is in fact quite simple. There is no diagram to follow, you have to act as the situation requires, be fundamentally suspicious, always keep your eyes open and mind your tongue. When did you run away from the … ah, you don’t want to hear that. Since when have you been on the road?’
Lassehn thinks for a moment. ‘Since the …’ – he throws his head back – ‘since the twenty-second of January.’
‘That’s almost three months,’ Wiegand says, ‘so you can’t say you’re completely inexperienced.’
‘Certainly,’ Lassehn agrees, ‘but during all that time I’ve been travelling, I roamed the country roads and above all the forests, I joined the columns of foreign workers and mingled among trails of refugees, but I don’t know how things are in Berlin, because I haven’t been here since September forty-three.’
‘We recommend extreme caution, Mr Lassehn,’ Wiegand says seriously, ‘checks have been stepped up over the last few days. Haven’t you read the latest proclamation, calling the population to be alert?’
Lassehn shakes his head.
‘I’ll leave you the 12-Uhr-Blatt, you can read about it,’ Wiegand continues. ‘We’ve been talking about you, you can stay alternately with Klose and with me.’
‘With you?’ Lassehn asks, perplexed. ‘But don’t you live outside the law yourself?’
Wiegand smiles through pursed lips, ‘Yes, but there are very different ways of living underground. You probably imagine that you’re either constantly crouching in some dark cellar or creeping through the streets with your head lowered. No, my dear chap, you can’t keep on doing that indefinitely, but quite apart from that it depends on why you are living underground. A wanted criminal is also living undergound in a sense, because he doesn’t want to go to jail, a Jew hidden from the Gestapo is also living underground to escape transportation to the east and thus certain death, a soldier who has, like you, abandoned his unit because irresistible longing calls him home or because he can no longer bear the bloody madness of war is also living underground because he can’t reverse the step he has taken without facing the rope.’
Wiegand pauses and looks quizzically at Dr Böttcher.
‘So in which way are you living outside the law?’ Lassehn asks.
Wiegand hesitates before answering.
‘In a legal way,’ Dr Böttcher laughs.
‘You can tell the boy everything,’ Klose says, ‘he’s genuine, I can tell, he’ll keep his mouth shut, he’s not going to rat on anyone.’
‘Legally outside the law?’ Lassehn says, amazed. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘I could extend the paradox,’ Dr Böttcher says. ‘He lives outside the law in an illegally legal way, but of course you can’t get your head around that. Wiegand is properly registered with the police, his papers are all in order, he even has an army documentation book that has passed through various checks, he even works for a major company, the Karlshorst locomotive depot. Everything in his life is in excellent order.’
‘So where’s the illegality?’ Lassehn asks.
‘Ah, you little lamb
,’ Klose laughs broadly. ‘Friedrich Wiegand is only known as Friedrich Wiegand to us, for the world out there, for the police, for the military authorities and the other authorities his name is … what’s your name, Fritz?’
Wiegand has not quite overcome the suspicion that is still alert within him, he smiles and nods slightly.
‘Franz Adamek,’ he says.
‘I get it now,’ Lassehn says, and smiles along with the other men. ‘You live in legal illegality. But why do you live illegally, why do you live underground?’
‘You will learn that too, Mr Lassehn,’ Wiegand says with some reluctance. ‘I used to be a trade union secretary, and played an outstanding part in a number of strikes, I believe I may say. When our beloved Party comrade, Prime Minister and master forester Hermann Göring set fire to the Reichstag on the twenty-eighth of Feburary 1933, I was arrested for the first time. And that happened again on different occasions: all political functionaries were taken into custody, as they so sweetly put it, that means they were put in a concentration camp. Then, when the greatest Führer of all time began riding eastward on the twenty-first of June, a similar action was due, but this time they didn’t arrest me, because I had got wind of it and went underground, I became an illegal. Is that enough for you?’
Lassehn shakes his head. ‘Not quite, Mr Wiegand,’ he says. ‘I have another question that doesn’t strike me as unimportant. Why did you not go on living underground? Did you not put yourself in great danger when you went on living under a false name and probably at a different address?’
‘You are completely right,’ Wiegand replies, ‘the danger of being recognized is ever present, and I also know that I’m on the Gestapo wanted list. But that does not deter me from carrying on with my illegal activity.’
Lassehn thinks for a moment. ‘Illegal activity,’ he says then, ‘with the emphasis on activity, I see.’
‘You’ve got it,’ says Wiegand, and the smile on his lips is mirrored in his eyes for the first time. ‘I said that you can live illegally for various reasons. I do it for political reasons, because even if I wasn’t about to be put in a concentration camp, I could hardly have moved, as I was under constant surveillance, it wouldn’t have been possible for me to meet my political friends, I couldn’t have continued to …’ He pauses and bites his lips. ‘In short, every step I took was keenly observed.’
‘And you continue to live undisturbed under your false name?’ asks Lassehn.
‘Insofar as one can live undisturbed these days,’ Wiegand replies. ‘I move lodgings from time to time, so that no one gets a glimpse of the way I live, no one has a chance to become familiar with my habits, and so that I don’t become known in any particular area, which would only restrict my freedom of movement. The worst mistake of those who live illegally is that of lulling themselves into a sense of security, thinking that you’re unobserved, or that you’re not attracting attention. Experience has taught me that everyone observes everyone, that everybody suspects his neighbour, whether it’s because he fears he’s being spied upon or because he himself is a spy, quite apart from those creatures who, without actually being spies, like to make themselves tools of the Party, to demonstrate their loyalty and reliability. Today everyone wears a mask that he only takes off when he is alone, even in the smallest circle of the family people weigh their words very carefully if children are around. A great deal of misfortune has been created by children innocently repeating the thoughtless words of their parents. I know one case in which a whole group was arrested because an allusion by one of our comrades was passed on by his six-year-old son.’
‘I suggest we bring this training course in the theory and practice of the illegal life to an end,’ Dr Böttcher says, and looks at his watch. ‘It’s nearly midnight.’
‘Then it’s time for me to go,’ Wiegand says and gets to his feet. ‘I have to be up at six tomorrow.’
Dr Böttcher rises from his chair as well. ‘And I have a full day’s work ahead of me tomorrow. Will you let us out by the front door, Klose?’
Klose nods. ‘That would be better, then you’ll be on the street in a moment, and won’t need to pass through the courtyard.’
Lassehn is still sitting irresolutely in his chair.
‘What about you?’ Wiegand asks.
‘The boy will stay here tonight,’ Klose replies. ‘And do you have anything particular planned for tomorrow?’ he asks, turning towards Lassehn.
‘I wanted to go to Charlottenburg tomorrow,’ Lassehn replies hesitantly.
‘That’s right,’ Klose says. ‘You wanted to sound out your young wife. Well, you’re right, maybe that’ll be a nicer place for you to stay, with a bit of love and everything.’
Wiegand shakes hands with Lassehn. ‘Goodbye, Mr Lassehn,’ he says simply, ‘will we meet again here at Klose’s house?’
Lassehn shakes his hand firmly, he likes the question, it sounds like proof of trust. ‘Yes, of course,’ he replies eagerly.
Dr Böttcher holds his hand out to him as well. ‘Goodbye, young man, stick with Klose and he’ll see you right.’
Klose closes the door of the restaurant, he turns the key very slowly and, without a sound, carefully opens the door and looks out into the quiet, dark, nocturnal street. ‘The air is pure,’ he says, turning round. ‘Goodbye.’
Dr Böttcher and Wiegand dart outside on tiptoe. In a few seconds they have disappeared into the darkness.
IV
15 April, 9.00 a.m.
On Kurfürstenstrasse there is a house that is clearly different from the other houses nearby. It is not a four-storey block of flats, but an imposing building, it does not have an ordinary front door, but a portal with mirrored doors framed by a pair of Ionic columns, it houses not flats but great halls. The building was once the seat and meeting point for many different masonic lodges. People came here to spend a few hours of unforced, relaxed conviviality. The slightly dusty, slightly ridiculous but, as might be imagined, extremely secretive rites of the fraternal lodges were celebrated here with dignified seriousness, and charity work was also practised on the quiet. But once these official ceremonies had been wound up, and the usual gregariousness began, with coffee parties followed by dancing or cabaret evenings with dilettante contributions by the members, or solid rounds of cards with quarter-pfennigs at stake, then anyone who had arrived here innocently and with no preconceptions would never have found himself thinking that the people here in front of him were members of the dangerous and nation-destroying masonic lodges. Instead he would have had the impression that a nice middle-class choral society or skittles club was enjoying a sociable evening together. He would have seen dignified old and elderly ladies sitting at tables, and heard modest gossip being talked, seen beautiful young women and pretty girls gliding across the parquet with nicely turned-out men and well-behaved boys, and last of all, in the side rooms, he would have seen the older generation of men sitting playing poker or skat, and here too, as elsewhere, delicate threads were being spun, matches made and deals struck. The people coming and going were absolutely harmless, their only spleen directed at the fact that they called themselves not a club or an association but a lodge or a fraternity.
When the incredible happened, and someone from the Viennese underworld was appointed Chancellor of the German Reich by the senile Field Marshal of the First World War, some things changed in this house on Kurfürstenstrasse. No more did delicate ladies’ pumps or dignified patent-leather shoes slip across the parquet, they were replaced by the tread of solid knee-boots and crude military footwear, now sharp, clipped, peremptory, nasal voices rang out through the rooms, and where once consultations were held on the support of members in need, referred to as brothers and sisters, now a giant spider began to weave its ever-growing, deadly net. The portly chairmen of the association, known as incumbents of the chair, had disappeared, and now tall, slender men with hard, angular faces and cold eyes sat in the rooms, they wore grey uniforms, stars or bars and the two SS runes were aff
ixed to their black collars and on the forearm of their jacket sleeve a black diamond.
The Reich Security Main Office of the SS had occupied the building on Kurfürstenstrasse. The intelligence service – Sicherheitsdienst, or SD: that was the harmless term for the powerful apparatus that had unlimited funds, was accountable to no one, was liable to no law and ignored every court, and whose sole task consisted in securing the power of the National Socialist Party with all means at its disposal, and ruthlessly destroying all opponents. From here the Sicherheitsdienst extended its feelers, vertically, horizontally, in every direction, into every dimension.
There was no area of life in Germany, and particularly in Berlin, that was not kept under surveillance from here. It was from here that the army of spies was dispatched and swept into every channel of public and private life, here that the flood of all reports, notifications and denunciations were collected. Nothing was too insignificant for the accountants and paymasters of death not to be registered here, noted in files or processed into files. From here the concentration camps were constantly fed with new human material, the law-breakers of the People’s Court were constantly given fresh victims. In this building the dignity of man was an unknown concept, and the freedom of the individual was replaced by compulsion into the community. People were divided into those who were for and those who were against the National Socialist state; all of those who were not for it or who were merely suspected of not being so were seen without further ado as opponents and treated accordingly. All the procedures that would not have shamed the cruellest judge of the Inquisition were dreamed up here, with the deployment of the services of all available technical experts. It was here that technical monstrosities were conceived to make possible the destruction, both profitable and unbridled, of millions of creatures judged to be of inferior race, and hence unworthy of life.
Kurfürstenstrasse, formerly one of the many streets in the old West Berlin that had nothing special about it, became a household name. There are many streets in Berlin which have, sometimes wrongly, become household names. So, for example, Ritterstrasse became synonymous with import and export, Ackerstrasse for the lumpenproletariat, Tauentzienstrasse for the sophisticated demimonde, Münzstrasse for the underworld, Lindenstrasse for social democracy and General Pape Strasse for round-ups and physical examinations. National Socialism alone retained the right to make street names synonymous with deadly terror, Prinz Albrecht Strasse, Burgstrasse, Kurfürstenstrasse, Grosse Hamburger Strasse – summonses from here spread fear and horror, because being accused generally meant being sentenced to detention in a concentration camp. Testimony was equivalent to an accusation of complicity.