Mister Wolf

by Chris Petit

  The meeting grew restless as Bletsch banged on. It was stifling by then and had there been windows they would have been open. Schlegel thought about Budapest, wondered about hidden purpose on the part of those that had sent him, and wished he could have his trip over again, in a better frame of mind.

  *

  The meeting at last adjourned and Schlegel intended to sneak off to check the names on his list against the central file. Instead he found himself summoned by Bletsch who had left a note on his desk saying: see me. Schoolboy stuff. Schlegel thought of ignoring it but Bletsch was in his glass cage, beckoning impatiently.

  The cage had previously been used by the typing pool supervisor. There was hardly room inside for two. Schlegel wasn’t invited to sit. He was aware of Dunkelwert watching them.

  ‘You don’t look so ill,’ Bletsch said.

  Schlegel said it had been a 48-hour thing; something he had eaten. Three days and he would have needed a doctor’s certificate. Bunking off sick, once an accepted form of truancy, was being cracked down on like everything else.

  Bletsch didn’t like Schlegel. Schlegel hadn’t worked his passage and had been dumped on them. He was seen to have a senior patron in his former boss, Arthur Nebe, head of CID, who had been responsible for his transfer, leaving Bletsch convinced that Schlegel had been put there to spy. Everyone had spies. The funny thing was Nebe had not asked Schlegel to spy when he had asked plenty of others. On the other hand, it was Nebe, along with his stepfather, who had sent him to Budapest and said not to tell his employer.

  ‘Why are you here?’ Bletsch insisted.

  Schlegel said, ‘I thought I could do more good here than in financial crime,’ thinking that was true. He had been useless there.

  ‘Why hasn’t your file been forwarded by the criminal police?’ Bletsch asked.

  ‘I didn’t know it hadn’t been, sir.’

  That was alarming. Schlegel hadn’t known and supposed someone had sidelined it in order to do some digging.

  Bletsch changed the subject to ask, ‘How long have you been working on that underground club scene?’

  Schlegel sighed to indicate the magnitude of the task. ‘It’s very tight-knit and secretive.’

  He knew his card was being marked. Time to close the whole thing down. The kinder alternative would be to warn the kids off.

  As Schlegel was about to go Bletsch asked, ‘How do you get on with Dunkelwert?’

  ‘I don’t,’ he replied, which was true but more to the point it was what Bletsch wanted to hear.

  ‘Any reason?’

  ‘Bossy woman.’ Again what Bletsch wanted to hear. ‘She meddles.’ Ditto.

  ‘Keep an eye on her.’

  In other words, go through her desk.

  *

  The rest of the morning was given over to a Party meeting, chaired by Dunkelwert. These consciousness-raising affairs were dedicated to motivation, improvement and doctrine, and everyone had to be seen to subscribe, Party member or not. The problem was every state department had its shadow organisation within the Party so no one quite knew how anything worked, other than as a series of rivalries and duplications.

  Dunkelwert disapproved of everything outside of Party dictates. She had reported an office clerk for defeatist talk after he complained about a disrupted bus service. Schlegel suspected she could make out a watertight case against an infant in a pram. He often thought she was there to expose him as one of those lukewarms with too many career compromises. He could see how she believed men had fucked it up and not wanting to be anyone’s mother left the Party as the only way forward.

  With the meeting over, Schlegel used a call box to telephone his stepfather. The housekeeper answered. His stepfather came on saying he couldn’t talk. He sounded agitated. ‘I am waiting for some rather important news.’

  Schlegel said he had a quick question about his actual father. ‘I was always told he had gone off to South America, where he died, but I came across something that suggests he might not have.’

  ‘I am sure I don’t know. Your mother never discussed him.’

  ‘Can’t you tell me anything about him? His name has come up.’

  ‘Very little and not now. I too heard he’d gone abroad. Call me later. Sorry to rush.’

  Schlegel hung up puzzled because his stepfather was not a man ever to be in a hurry about anything.

  3

  The Wolf’s Lair, deep in the woods of East Prussia, was an enclave of tranquility, much transformed since being used to mastermind the 1941 invasion of Russia. Huge concrete bunkers. Deep camouflage. Grassed roofs. Brick-reinforced wooden buildings. Thousands of forced labourers continued to modernise the site. The Führer bunker awaited completion, leaving him to lodge in former guest quarters in the central security zone. Meetings were held a short stroll away in a reinforced wooden barracks whose partitions had been ripped out, leaving it light and airy with windows on three sides.

  Bormann’s appointments noted the arrival that afternoon of Il Duce, Benito Mussolini, a chastened figure since his arrest the year before and rescue by a team of crack SS commandos. Because of his visit the morning conference was being brought forward to 12.30. Göring would not attend, being keen to avoid Mussolini whom he detested. Himmler was on his private train nearby. Bormann reported the Führer being out of sorts, thanks to a raging toothache and a hefty dose of procaine. ‘He’s not at all himself,’ he told everyone.

  The bait had been laid with the relevant chief of staff summoned to report from Berlin for that morning’s meeting. Several times Bormann questioned the wisdom of his own judgement, not something he was usually given to do. He would not attend the conference. He would be working nearby, waiting. It was another hot morning with a forecast of rain in the afternoon.

  *

  At 12.42 local time, Bormann heard the explosion and ran from his office to be met with the sight of a shaken, reeling Führer, hair standing on end, white from fallen plaster, and trousers in shreds. The man’s eyes shone with zeal as he declared providence had spared him to complete his work.

  The conference room, with its windows blown out, looked like a butcher’s abattoir or an idiots’ carnival. The usually natty Hermann Fegelein was running around like a headless chicken. Groaning men lay on the floor, one spouting a geyser of blood, another clutching for a missing leg which had been blown across the room, and Bormann cursed to himself. The one thing he had not calculated for was the heroic nincompoop of a one-eyed, one-armed Colonel botching the fucking job.

  4

  Schlegel was waiting to check the names on his list with the central index when someone shouted, ‘The Führer is dead!’ The same voice shouted it again. Schlegel looked at the clerk he was dealing with and watched her mouth form a perfect O of surprise. He said, ‘Surely it can’t be true,’ hoping it might be. The shocked silence was replaced by a hubbub of confusion.

  His stepfather had been waiting for important news, he had told Schlegel. Could the Führer’s death have been that news? He dismissed the idea. His stepfather was far too cautious to get involved in anything like that.

  The building was in an uproar with people running around. Upstairs, it was being said terrorists disguised as labourers were responsible, or it was an air raid, or a bomb and the Army was taking over. Some of the secretaries were crying. Dunkelwert scrutinised Schlegel, trying to read his reaction. She said, ‘Bletsch hasn’t a clue, that’s for sure.’

  Schlegel watched everyone struggle to work out how to respond. He saw a terrible burden being lifted in one or two, followed by the equivalent of crashing gears as features were rearranged into expressions of appropriate shock and disbelief. He was sure his own initial reaction had contained that split-second giveaway. At the same time, he was indoctrinated by default to fear both authority and any change of it, enough to find the idea of rebellion faintly risible.

  None of the news was certain. The Führer was dead. The Führer wasn’t dead. Then he was dead again. No one knew where
the attack was supposed to have taken place. Some said the Führer’s military headquarters in East Prussia. Others that he was still in Berlin. Bletsch’s white-knuckled grip on his telephone told Schlegel they were perhaps in the middle of a takeover which could see them all shot.

  Switchboards were jammed. Schlegel rang his stepfather and got no answer. All lines to newspapers and broadcasters were busy. Foreign Office the same, the Ministry of Propaganda, and the Press Club. He tried Criminal Investigation, dialling the direct number for Homicide. It rang a long time. A gruff voice eventually said, ‘Stoffel’.

  Schlegel was almost more astonished by that than the news. Stoffel was supposed to have retired, and good riddance. ‘Schlegel,’ he said and enjoyed the evident surprise.

  It was strange talking to Stoffel again. The man had always made his contempt for him clear. Stoffel was all blackjack and knuckleduster, knock heads together to make them see sense. By contrast, he now sounded almost cordial, given the urgency of events. He seemed to know that Schlegel worked for the Gestapo.

  ‘You boys have been caught on the hop,’ he said.

  Schlegel asked him what he was doing back at work. Stoffel said he had been pulled out of retirement because of ‘fucking staff shortages’. Of the business in hand, he said, ‘I spoke to a man, who has spoken to a man who said a coup is underway but no one knows if it is the SS or the Army.’

  Schlegel said they were in the dark at his end. ‘But they’re saying the radio is broadcasting as normal.’

  Stoffel grunted. ‘That’s the first thing you knock out. Put your feet up, son. It sounds like they don’t know what they are doing.’

  Schlegel hung up and swapped notes with Dunkelwert. Reichsführer-SS Himmler was supposed to be flying back to Berlin. Dunkelwert looked strangely uncertain and Schlegel supposed her loyalties were being tested. She could not voice any opinion on the Reichsführer’s role – whether he was returning to instigate the coup or quash it – because it was not clear where the Party stood. It was quite possible that the SS would surround the building and cart them all off.

  ‘Here’s what I think,’ said Schlegel. Of all the leadership, Dr Goebbels was most likely to be in town and his ministry would probably be better informed than the Gestapo. He didn’t add that in the event of a revolution the Ministry of Propaganda was probably the safer place.

  They left Bletsch hanging on the telephone, looking like a man hastily revising his CV.

  Outside, soldiers were on the street. Trams were running around empty, suggesting a curfew. The government quarter was being cordoned off. But none of the action appeared threatening, as if nobody was sure what was going on.

  At a barricade they were told not to proceed. The sentry seemed almost apologetic, with none of the usual military snap. Schlegel asked to speak to the man in charge.

  A junior officer came forward and explained they were on an emergency exercise to defend the government quarter in case of attack.

  ‘Exercise?’ repeated Schlegel, incredulous. ‘They are saying the Führer is dead.’

  The officer looked uncertain enough for Schlegel to show his badge and point to the propaganda building. ‘We’ll be inside the cordon and if it’s not an exercise then you know where we are.’

  Dunkelwert asked, ‘Whose exercise?’

  ‘The Reserve Army’s.’ He added that they had been on standby on other occasions until they were stood down. So not the SS, thought Schlegel, but it seemed a very cackhanded way of conducting a coup, using troops that think they are on exercise.

  Apart from soldiers and their vehicles, the area was deserted. Everything appeared more like a rehearsal than a real revolution.

  They were allowed to pass. Schlegel and Dunkelwert’s shadows – his elongated, hers squat – almost made him laugh. Inside the cordon they had the district to themselves: two figures dwarfed by the impersonal state and its vast, uncompromising buildings, reducing whatever was being played out beneath to insignificance.

  The soldiers guarding the entrance of the Ministry of Propaganda seemed confused by the presence of a woman. Schlegel watched them reach the conclusion that if she was there at all she must be important. They were waved in.

  The interior was pretentious in scale, an advertisement for its corridors of power, wide enough to drive a truck down. Although troops stood around, arms at the ready, the general atmosphere was more like a market, with staff gathered to trade the latest gossip. Least sure of their role seemed the soldiers, looking nervous about what they might be taking part in. Nothing appeared to be ordered with any great conviction. If a revolt was taking place it was a very lackadaisical one. A woman told them the ministry was supposed to be up in arms and the man next to her said, ‘First I’ve heard,’ and the woman added, ‘We were sitting minding our own business until this lot stormed in.’ No one knew whether the story of the Führer’s death was true. Schlegel said they were there to find out.

  ‘Shoot the messenger,’ the woman said cheerfully.

  5

  The first that Minister of Propaganda Goebbels knew of the day’s events was a communiqué from the Führer press office announcing that the Führer was uninjured following a bomb attack.

  A further communication was sent for him to broadcast. This he sat on, as it sounded like the matter was in hand, which, in hindsight, was an error. By mid-afternoon it was being reported that the government area was being surrounded by troops. Goebbels telephoned the Führer headquarters to ask if the Army had gone mad.

  Still he delayed the broadcast, which earned him a reprimand from Party Secretary Bormann who telephoned to ask what was going on. Goebbels said he was composing a fitting commentary to accompany it.

  He could hear Bormann whispering with someone at the other the end of the line. Really, the situation was impossible! How this coarse and conniving little bureaucrat had elevated himself in the Führer’s esteem was beyond comprehension. Or rather, how had the Führer fallen for such an arse-licking toad? The whispering went on then Bormann came back sounding like an angry speak-your-weight machine, saying, ‘I didn’t ask you for a commentary. I just want the news broadcast.’

  Shortly after that, a highly decorated young Major was shown into Goebbels’ office, where he was in conference, to announce he was occupying the Ministry of Propaganda on the grounds that Dr Goebbels, its minister, was in the process of trying to overthrow the Führer.

  The situation was so preposterous that Goebbels started to enjoy himself and played to his audience who were all agog at the Major. They were then interrupted by two clowns from the Gestapo, a skinny beanpole with prematurely white hair and a dumpy little number with an ugly mug and what Goebbels suspected was a spectacular body, and who probably fucked like a stoat.

  ‘Can the Gestapo tell us what is going on?’ Goebbels asked with heavy irony.

  Schlegel, still surprised by their easy passage through the building, saw Goebbels was playing to a full house. His lackeys, with a reputation for snappy dressing, looked dishevelled by events, compared to their immaculate master with not a strand of brilliantined hair out of place; a man who, perhaps because he was so short, appreciated scale. The office they were in was enormous and temple-like, which Schlegel supposed was the point, making the minister’s utterances ones of religious command.

  The other well-dressed man in the room was the highly decorated Major who was debating the course of the day with Goebbels, who was all sarcastic charm. The Major believed he was operating in a counter-revolutionary role. Goebbels scoffed. ‘You have been tricked! We are all loyal here! The treason is yours!’

  Goebbels really was tiny, thought Schlegel; no wonder he spent a fortune on tailors or he would be wearing children’s sizes. Even in a crisis, Goebbels’ eye for stage managing hadn’t deserted him, with the doctor at its centre, surrounded by adoring acolytes, as he went about the business of converting the apostate Major.

  Goebbels went for crude charm. ‘I am shitting myself. Is there a revolution go
ing on? First I’ve heard. Why don’t we telephone and ask?’

  There was only one way of countermanding the literal-minded Major’s orders. Straight to the top.

  The telephone rang. Goebbels picked up, paused and stiffened. The room was on tenterhooks. Goebbels relished the mounting tension as he refused to enlighten his audience, restricting himself to monosyllables, the only response to such a tumultuous event. Let them sweat. The Führer sounded away with the fairies. Goebbels supposed he had been given an anti-shock shot. For some reason the Führer was bellowing far louder than necessary; perforated eardrums, Goebbels learned later.

  Eventually he held out the receiver. ‘For you, Major. A word in your shell-like.’

  Goebbels could hear the Führer asking if the Major recognised his voice. The Major clicked his heels and said he did. Goebbels leaned in, listening to the highly decorated young officer being given the full treatment while resembling a man being impaled as he realised that just by being there he was technically still acting for the conspirators.

  ‘Only my commands are to be obeyed,’ said the Führer. ‘You are to restore order in Berlin for me.’

  Suddenly the Major was the pin-up boy of the moment, chiselled, handsome, fanatical, just the man for the job.

  The Führer fell silent. The Major wasn’t sure if he was supposed to end the call. No, no, gestured Goebbels. Under no circumstances hang up on the Führer. Bormann was prompting in the background, shouting to the Führer, ‘Tell him to use whatever force necessary and shoot anyone who disobeys.’

  Schlegel wondered about the recriminations to follow. He was willing to bet the Gestapo hadn’t had a clue. In the space of a short call the young and highly decorated Major was rocketed into the stratosphere. He came off the telephone and informed them that he had been empowered to quash the coup d’etat.