“Yes?”
“Hitler is speaking today in Hamburg, but then he’s arranging a secret visit to Vienna. He’ll have to go quietly, without his usual full escort of heavies, since the Austrians don’t want any incidents. He wants to go to the grave.”
I reached for the trapdoor.
“Where are you going?” Otto demanded.
“I don’t know,” I lied as I began climbing down from the attic. Over my shoulder, I added, “I need a bit of time to think all this over.”
But I already knew exactly where I was going. Which was why on early Saturday morning, September 26, I was on the train pulling into Vienna.
Chapter Eighteen
Intimidated by the majestic buildings and elegant boulevards of Vienna, I summoned the courage to stop an old man and ask him for directions to the Central Cemetery. He directed me to a square between the Kärtner Ring and the Schubertring, where I found the tram that he had instructed me to take. It headed straight away from the city center, skirting the Belvedere Palace and its imposing gardens, then propelled me along the Simmeringer Hauptstrasse past smaller buildings, factories and poorer-looking shops that proved this city also had its ordinary sections.
If my mind registered these impressions on one level, on another it was preoccupied with a different reckoning. If Otto’s information was correct, I’d soon see not only Geli’s grave but also Hitler. Unless he had somehow arrived faster than I believed possible, or had abandoned his plans to pay his last respects.
Last respects—the very notion that he would think in those terms made me tremble with anger. I had gone over everything I had heard again and again, and I had found little reason to trust his story. The lie about Geli living in a different flat was the least of it. In his letter of reply to the Münchener Post, he had denied not just that they had quarreled but also that she was engaged and wanted to marry in Vienna. Instead he insisted on the crazy story that she was “tortured by anxiety whether she really had the talent necessary for a public appearance” and wanted to see a voice specialist in Vienna. Of course, he said, he had raised no objections.
If those lies were so obvious, what about the lack of a precise time of death? The only doctor allowed to examine Geli had declared that she died during the night of September 18 but not at what time. Even if Hitler had left the apartment, as appeared to be the case, couldn’t he have returned and shot her? Why would she stop writing a perfectly normal letter in midsentence and then shoot herself? And what about her other injuries?
The high brick wall of the cemetery came into view, stretching as far as I could see. I was confused, not knowing whether I should get off right away or later, since there were obviously several gates. I asked an old woman clutching a bunch of already fading tulips where the main entrance was. I noticed her unkempt hair and the wild look in her eyes only when she responded, and I thought she might give me the wrong directions. But when I followed her instructions and got out at the next stop, I found myself in front of a gate flanked by two large pillars. Immediately inside was the two-story administration building she had mentioned.
Although it was a mild, overcast day, I shivered and drew my jacket closer around with one hand as I continued holding my small bag with the other. I hesitantly approached the main door to the administration building and stepped inside. A man behind a counter barely looked up from his paperwork. “Yes?” he inquired.
“I’m here to find out about the funeral of a cousin of mine,” I stammered. “Or where her grave is.”
“Well, which is it?” he asked impatiently. “Are you looking for a grave, or do you want to know about a funeral?”
“You see, the funeral was a couple of days ago.”
“Talk to Father Johann. He handles most of the funerals around here. You’ll probably find him in the chapel.”
I went back outside and made for the chapel a short distance away. As I approached, a thin, balding priest came out and started to walk past me. “Father Johann?” I asked, doffing my hat and falling in step beside him.
The priest didn’t break his stride. “What can I do for you, my son?”
“I’m here to find the grave of my cousin,” I said, clinging to the cover story that I had just concocted. “I missed the funeral because the news reached me late, but I want to pay my last respects.”
“What’s the name of your cousin?”
“Angela Raubal.”
Father Johann stopped and turned to look at me carefully. “You really are her cousin?”
I nodded.
“Well, you did miss the funeral. It was two days ago. But you can find her grave by taking path four to lot twenty-three.” He pointed to the right of the entrance where I had come in. “It’s the second section beyond the gate. The family has already put up a headstone, so it’s easy to find. Besides, I hear you won’t be the only visitor this morning.”
“Is that right—who else is coming?”
“Apparently her famous relative, too, but I have to respect the privacy of everyone involved, you understand.”
“Of course,” I said, then hesitated. “May I ask you one more thing?” I felt my throat constrict but managed to get the words out. “Did Geli really commit suicide, as they say?”
Father Johann drew himself up and cast me a cold, dismissive look. “I don’t know what church you grew up in, but in our church we don’t give funerals to people who commit suicide.” His eyes swept across the graves stretching out in all directions. “This is holy ground—it’s not for people who don’t understand the sanctity of life.” Without another word, he marched off.
I stood frozen in place for several minutes. I knew next to nothing about Catholicism, but something in what he said revived an old memory of a beer-hall discussion in Munich. Some of the Berliners had been teasing the Bavarians about having a religion that didn’t even allow them to kill themselves. Uwe had made a stupid joke about how you could do a good deed by killing a Catholic who wanted to put himself out of his misery, since otherwise he’d go to hell. I hadn’t given it any thought then. Father Johann had said that priests didn’t give Catholic funerals to suicides. Which meant Geli hadn’t committed suicide. Which could mean only one thing.
What I remember next is standing in front of the fresh grave, feeling hot and slightly ill, with a foul taste in my mouth. My eyes watered, and I blinked several times to clear them enough to read the words:
HERE SLEEPS OUR BELOVED CHILD
GELI
SHE WAS OUR RAY OF SUNSHINE
BORN 4 JUNE 1908—DIED 18 SEPTEMBER 1931
THE RAUBAL FAMILY
Sleeps, I thought bitterly, repeating the incongruous word to myself several times. This was really Geli, maybe not my Geli, maybe not anybody’s Geli, but the Geli who had pressed herself against me under the tree as we hid from the others, the Geli who didn’t hold anything back when she decided to love me, at least for a time, who claimed to love me in her own way even when she was planning to be with another.
I dropped to one knee—not to pray, since I didn’t know how, but to brace myself. I felt sickened by another thought. What if Hitler had asked me to teach her to shoot so that, as he told the authorities, he could convincingly explain that she had used his weapon before? What if he had used me to prepare his alibi?
I suppose part of me recognized that this didn’t make much sense, that it was too far-fetched. But I had taught her to shoot, hadn’t I? To shoot the gun that would bring her to this grave. I found myself suddenly on both knees, asking Geli for forgiveness—for teaching her to shoot, for not finding a way to help her escape Hitler and Munich as I had promised to do if she asked, for abandoning her, for not saving her. I suppose I recognized even then that she was the one who had left me, insisting that we couldn’t really be together, but it didn’t help. Not at that moment, not at her grave.
Shakily, I stood up. At almost the same moment, I saw the figures approaching on the path I had just come on—Hitler walking first, then two burl
y men whom I didn’t recognize. But that was hardly surprising, since I had been out of Hitler’s circle for some time now.
I ran in the other direction, dodging among other fresh graves as I moved away and then circled farther back into the cemetery where I could observe his movements from behind. Hitler must have said something to the two bodyguards, because they abruptly stopped as their boss continued forward. I had maneuvered myself back to the other side of path four, crouching behind a large headstone in an older part of the cemetery. From there it would be only one large step to get back on the path that Hitler would have to take when he returned to the main gate.
For some reason, my hands were completely steady as I reached into my bag and felt for the Browning. It was there, all right; its cold metal felt reassuring to my touch. I grasped it in my right hand and thrust it under my jacket, leaving the open bag near the headstone that provided my protection. I looked again in the direction of Geli’s grave. The two bodyguards were pacing nervously between me and Hitler, who stood with his back to all of us, almost immobile, in some world of his own. Once or twice I saw his head sway jerkily back and forth, and once his shoulders twitched, but nothing more.
I have no idea how long he stood there. Time meant nothing to me then. All that mattered was my resolve, and I felt its presence every moment as I calmly surveyed my surroundings and plotted my escape route. I’d avoid the main gate, I decided, since that was where they would expect me to go. Instead I’d retreat as far back as I could into the cemetery, skirt the chapel from the far side and then make for the corner of the cemetery where the wall could be first seen from the tram, where there was no gate. The wall, I figured, was about three meters high. I’d find a way to get over it.
A slight but noticeable tensing of the two heavies drew my attention back to them and to Hitler. He had turned from the grave and was walking haltingly toward them, stumbling at one point. One of the bodyguards rushed up to help him, but Hitler brusquely shook him off and muttered a command. The bodyguard’s right arm shot out in a familiar salute, and he returned to his companion. The two conferred, and one pointed toward the gate and ran off in that direction, passing close enough for me to hear his labored breathing as I crouched behind the headstone.
I looked back at Hitler and the remaining man, who was now several steps in front, nervously scanning the path. An older couple was up ahead, and he picked up his pace to make sure there would be no problems. Like his colleague, he passed almost close enough for me to reach out and touch him.
“Step back,” he ordered the couple.
“Who are you to give me orders?” the man protested.
I was vaguely aware that they were still arguing and that the old man’s wife had entered the fray as well when I saw the top of Hitler’s head over the headstone. I jumped out in front of him. “Heil Hitler!” I whispered, just loud enough for him alone to hear.
His eyes looked uncomprehending, glazed. But as he halted, he saw the gun, and I saw the momentary fear and anger. “You?”
I raised the gun and fired. One shot to the chest, but that must have hit lower, because he clutched his stomach. As he doubled over, I fired again, and the top of his head exploded in blood. He dropped into a heap as if a mysterious giant hand had suddenly clutched him and jerked him down from below.
I ran, faster I’m sure than at any time in my life. I heard the shouts and shots going off behind me, but I followed my plan of plunging deeper into the cemetery, dodging behind the bushes and graves and circling behind the chapel. As I emerged on the other side, I thought I had lost my pursuers and bolted straight down the path running parallel with the brick wall. Suddenly I heard shots again and felt a sharp stinging sensation in my right arm. I simultaneously realized I no longer had my gun and that my arm was covered with blood. But that didn’t prevent me from accelerating my final sprint. I saw the wall meeting at right angles before me, at the corner of the cemetery, with a large headstone conveniently situated almost right up against it. “Get him!” I heard someone shout. I vaulted off the headstone and managed to grasp the top of the wall, almost slipping back as the pain shot through my right arm, but then I reached the top and came crashing down the other side onto the street.
I tried to get up and felt an excruciating pain in my ankle as I tumbled onto the sidewalk. I tried again, but by then two policemen were standing over me with guns drawn. “Just stay on the ground,” one of them warned me. “Don’t move.”
I couldn’t anyway.
Postscript
I was lucky, I suppose, that the Austrian police got to me first. If Hitler’s men had beaten them to it, I never would have survived. Instead the Austrians arrested his bodyguards, since they had given permission for them to cross the border with Hitler only if they’d come unarmed. They were furious to have been deceived.
I was lucky, too, that the Austrians arranged good security at my trial. When one of Goebbels’s thugs stood up and fired a shot in my direction, the police quickly wrestled him to the ground. That incident probably reinforced the judge’s lack of sympathy for Hitler. Mind you, he didn’t approve of me, either; the Austrians were angry that, as they saw it, German political warfare had spilled across their border. Their immediate assumption was that I was motivated by politics, by Otto’s peculiar left-wing nationalism. I remember the headlines: SPLINTER GROUP ASSASSIN KILLS HITLER and SOCIALIST REVENGE. I wasn’t about to disabuse them, since I had no desire to begin explaining Geli, Hitler and Geli, Geli and me.
And I’ve probably been lucky to be in prison these seven years, long enough for Goebbels and his cronies to fail in their efforts to keep the Nazi Party alive in the aftermath of Hitler’s death. Now that Germany is ruled by a military government, the party has been banned. It’s probably safe to go home, where I’ll find a job that will make me as inconspicuous as possible to avoid reminding anyone of who I am and what I did. A tram or bus driver, perhaps, since I never learned a trade like fixing automobiles, which I had once envisaged as my future.
But what’s home? Sabine isn’t waiting anymore. She’d been patient long enough, and after all, I had abandoned her altogether to avenge another woman—a woman I had claimed was no longer a part of my life nor meant anything to me. When I had heard the news about Geli, I could think only of her, abandoning Sabine in my thoughts as well as my deeds.
I’ve spent these seven years in prison thinking about that other woman, about Geli. And I keep coming back to the same conclusion: Hitler killed her.
Maybe not directly, as I thought at first, as I thought when I pulled the trigger. I only later heard about the speeding ticket his driver received in Ebenhausen on the night of her death, which appeared to corroborate the story that Hitler did hear the news in Nuremberg and then raced back to Munich. But so what? If he didn’t kill her directly, he drove her to it.
How? I’m still not sure. “I can’t stand it anymore,” she told me without ever explaining exactly what “it” was. There was her version of my dream, but she told me I shouldn’t take it literally. Then again, maybe there was more to the dream rather than less. Didn’t her mood swings, her contradictory statements, her impulse to open up to me and then to push me away prove that she was still withholding so much? Was that what she was trying to tell me?
Whatever he made her do, she was his prisoner. Yes, she had liked her uncle’s fame; she had liked the attention focused on her when she was with him; she had liked the nights at the theater, concerts, restaurants and outings. Maybe, in her own way, she both loved and hated her uncle. And yes, people had gossiped about her, calling her flighty, a flirt or worse. But who could blame her for enjoying the reflected glory of a local celebrity, for wanting to enjoy her life? She wanted to live it fully, and yes, she ultimately realized that she had to escape him to do so. She wanted her freedom. That’s why, however it happened, she died. He was responsible, he was to blame.
So he deserved to die. He trapped her, and ultimately he killed her. Whatever anybody thought
of her, she finally decided she wanted to lead a normal life. I know: not with me. I realized that even when she was still alive. But that doesn’t mean I was able to shake her hold on me, and when I learned of her death, I couldn’t let it go. She had been so alive, so much more than anyone I had ever met. And now I’m about to be free, but I feel my life is over, too. It died on the day the bullet pierced her heart.
EPILOGUE
In real life . . .
OTTO STRASSER fled the country as Hitler came to power in 1933, first to Austria and later to Canada. In his writings, including his autobiography, he continued to predict that the Germans themselves would overthrow Hitler. He returned to Germany in 1955, tried unsuccessfully to reenter politics and died in 1974.
GREGOR STRASSER remained in the Nazi Party when Otto broke with Hitler, but in 1932 he, too, quarreled with Hitler. Seen as a potential rival who was considered more moderate than his boss, Strasser fell out of favor and was gradually removed from most top decision-making sessions. On December 8, 1932, he announced his resignation from all party posts. In early 1934, with Hitler already in power, Strasser was given a special party award for his early role in the founding of the Nazi movement. But on June 30, 1934, he was among the scores of victims murdered in “the Night of the Long Knives,” which would prove a foretaste of Hitler’s reign of terror.
EMIL MAURICE, Hitler’s former driver, served in the SS after Hitler came to power and later was the president of Munich’s Craftsmen’s Guild. He died in 1972.
ANGELA RAUBAL, or Geli, wasn’t able to find peace in death any more than in life. Hitler brooded for a long time over her death and, after cleaning the blood stains, kept her room just the way she left it, allowing only a servant to clean and bring in fresh flowers once a week. He also commissioned a bronze bust of Geli, a copy of which he kept in the Chancellery after he took power. But he didn’t make provisions to maintain her grave at Vienna’s Central Cemetery in perpetuity. In 1965 the grave and headstone were removed, and Geli’s remains were consigned to an unmarked section of the cemetery. Today there is nothing to indicate where they lie.
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