by Chris Petit
*
Munich was in the process of being even more rearranged than Berlin. Being smaller, the air raids were more intense, leaving skeleton buildings and rubble every where.
Its southern remoteness was emphasised by Schlegel’s feeling of looking at everything the wrong way round since Gerda’s death. There was no obvious way into the past. Even attempting to access it seemed futile in the context of such a blasted present. Everything took longer. Munich was more provincial, less commercial and metropolitan, lazier, Catholic and God-fearing, nearly Austrian, with a bewitched quality that a hard-headed Berlin could never aspire to. Ill winds and deeper waters, despite the forceful air of cosy cheer; a greater clarity to the sky, with the mountains not far off. Not Berlin’s grey city.
It was a landscape traversed, more than Berlin, as they were reduced to bicycles, after the promised car from the local police department failed to materialise. Morgen announced they were from Berlin, using the temporary title granted him by Müller that went on forever. It included the phrase ‘special investigative powers’, which made the local police sit up but not enough to find them a car. The bicycles rather belittled the fanciness of Morgen’s title.
As for the Raubal case, it remained ring-fenced. They were given copies of four sheets. Morgen asked, ‘Is this it?’ They were informed it was the sum of available paperwork. They were told the two officers that had handled the case were no longer around and the police doctor was dead. Gestapo Müller had said he could offer no official help, but, even so, Morgen expected more in the way of liaison. The Munich cops made it clear they weren’t interested in Berlin butting in. Morgen suspected it was because their original investigation wouldn’t bear re-examination.
*
Schlegel soon hated Munich. Old Party haunts hung around like second-rate museum exhibits. From the perspective of his wobbly bicycle, everything struck him as old-fashioned, boring and traditional, down to the ponderous neo-classical works of the last dozen years.
No one was sightseeing by then. Barely a dozen years and a whole world replaced. The former Party headquarters in the Brown House had boarded windows, pitted brickwork and walls missing. Inside they found a skeleton staff of elderly and infirm deadbeats. Among the organisations listed as being in the building was the Chamber of Commerce. They were told it had moved. Where nobody could say as they were waiting for the directory to be updated.
In bars and cafés once patronised by the Party, the old waiters were gone and the few left made a show of not remembering. The Bratwurst Glöckl smelled of harsh cleaning fluid. Schlegel noted uncomfortable looking chairs, knick-knacks on high shelves and leaded, stained glass windows that gave the place the feel of a dry aquarium. The manager he had spoken to on the telephone was politer when physically confronted. He claimed he wasn’t really the manager, and was standing in for a cousin in hospital. He pointed out the Party’s old table and looked depressed at the thought of having missed out on such fine times. Zehnter’s name was barely remembered.
In the once risqué and artistic Schwabing quarter, the cabaret artists and homos and rowdy press boys had long been chased out, leaving the rest keeping their heads down. Mention of Anton Schlegel sometimes produced a vague frown of recognition before the obligatory shake of the head. No one remembered being in the room with him. But cities were big places. Why should anyone in Munich have heard of his father, Schlegel thought, any more than people in Berlin knew about him?
Hoffmann’s photography shop had a sign in the window saying it was closed for the afternoon. The reason to talk to its proprietor was that the Führer’s official photographer was apparently among the last to see the niece alive.
The Party Archive informed them that Rehse was out of town for the day.
Munich at first seemed simple enough in terms of navigation but Schlegel could not get the hang of the place and, as in a maze, he felt he was constantly losing his bearings. Yet the feeling persisted that he was standing on the edge of a world where everyone had known everyone else. At the same time, he suspected denial would set the tone, and they would be met with the equivalent to signs every where saying ‘no access’.
They ate despondently in the station café where cucumber and tomato was the only plate available from a menu boasting far more. The place, empty at first, was suddenly full of soldiers, most of them the latest conscription of boys.
They went over what little paperwork they had: a doctor’s report, two morticians’ statements and a speeding ticket.
Police doctor Müller’s summary stated that death had occurred on the evening of Friday, 18 September 1931, and rigor mortis had set in several hours before the body’s discovery the following morning.
‘Not exactly forensic, is it?’ said Morgen.
The rest of the statement was even sketchier: the fatal shot had penetrated through the dress to pass directly above the heart and lodge in the left side of the back, above the hip, where it could be felt beneath the skin.
‘Is that all?’ said Schlegel.
Morgen said, ‘You would expect an autopsy, to confirm cause of death.’
They turned to the morticians’ statements, both of which parroted each other, declaring no bruising to the body and in particular no breakage to the nose.
‘Why say so if there wasn’t?’ asked Morgen.
‘Unless they were coerced into stating otherwise.’
Morgen read, ‘ “I noticed no injuries and in particular saw nothing suspicious about the nose.” Sounds like it was dictated. What does that say to you?’
‘That the Party was all over the case before anyone called the cops.’
‘The speeding ticket’s genuine, you can’t argue with that. Issued to the Führer’s Mercedes in Ebenhausen, soon after half past one on the afternoon of 19 September. Convenient, though, in proving that the man was away. It looks to me like more strings than in an orchestra were being pulled.’
‘She was a Roman Catholic, I presume,’ said Schlegel.
‘Most Austrians are.’
‘Do we know how she was buried?’
‘Normally, I suppose.’
‘Except suicides cannot be received for burial by the Catholic church.’
*
The hotel bathroom stood at the end of the landing. The toilet, displaying evidence of the last user’s deposit, wouldn’t flush. Schlegel pissed sideways into the bowl in an effort not to disturb its contents. He caught sight of himself in the mirror and thought how odd he appeared. Morgen had bought the hair dye and told him to use it, otherwise he was too conspicuous, should anyone come after him. He’d had to plaster gunk over his scalp and rinse it out. The water had come out of the tap brown and was as black as squid’s ink by the time he was done.
Morgen made no comment but seemed privately amused. Schlegel hadn’t liked his white hair but had grown used to it. Now he looked like everyone else, apart from the ferocious black of the dye.
They went to bed early, depressed at the prospect of sharing, and lay in the dark listening to each other not sleeping. Schlegel wondered what Morgen hoped to prove.
Morgen turned over restlessly and attempted to thump some shape into his tired pillow.
‘Of course, on a point of law, we’re wasting our time,’ he said, more to himself than to Schlegel. ‘It has been impossible to start legal proceedings against the Führer since 1933.’
Schlegel was surprised to find himself pessimistically cheered by that, and replied with an attempt at a brightness he did not feel: ‘Perhaps the reason for that lies with what really happened to the niece.’
Morgen grunted.
Schlegel drifted off with sad images of Gerda in his head and wondered why Anna Huber hadn’t showed up. When at last he slid into unconsciousness he had a feeling they hadn’t heard the last of her.
30
The Führer’s apartment in Prinzregentenplatz, a pregnantlooking building with bulging bays, stood across the river in a smart part of town, offset from the tight
core of its central locations. The front door had an electrical release. No one answered number 16. Morgen tried the tradesman’s bell and they were buzzed in, but when they rang the apartment door they heard someone coming. Schlegel wondered how long since the Führer was last there.
Schlegel’s first impression of Frau Winter, the custodian of the apartment, was a woman conditioned by service, duty and obedience – and, to outsiders, an expert in proprietorial silence.
She was younger than Schlegel was expecting and presented herself as neither attractive nor unattractive. She dressed formally and carried herself with the self-contained air of one elevated above regular domestic service to a position of responsibility and trust, in exchange for total discretion. Frau Winter did not greet, she admitted. Schlegel wondered what she thought of her boss.
Morgen said they were there for a security inspection, a precaution after recent events. However reluctant she looked about letting them in, Frau Winter had no choice but to defer to Morgen’s rank.
The apartment had been given a full makeover, with uncontroversial but no doubt extremely expensive interior design calculated to show evidence of a thoughtful, contemplative man of taste and judgement, surrounded by massive, dark furniture, so solid that most of it looked immovable. The first impression was of a space under-lived in for all the money chucked at it.
The grandest rooms overlooked the square, with huge doors out of all proportion to human scale. Schlegel decided it wasn’t that the taste was bad, just wonky, with no personality beyond flat statements about acquisition and power. On a low table in a formal reception room stood a bronze bust of a young woman, clearly Raubal. Schlegel asked and Winter said it had been commissioned after the girl’s death, making it plain that her job was to protect her master’s privacy and not to act as a tour guide.
Morgen asked how many people had been there at the time of the niece’s death.
Winter asked what did that have to do with present security.
Morgen snapped, ‘Your job is to answer my questions, not question them.’
‘None,’ she replied coldly. ‘We were dismissed as she meant to go out that evening, to the cinema with a friend.’
‘Was she upset about anything?’ asked Schlegel.
‘Well, her pet canary had just died,’ Winter eventually offered, with barely veiled insolence.
Morgen said, ‘We have been asked to summarise the case of Fräulein Raubal, to refute certain false documentation recently come to light.’
Schlegel thought that sounded convincing enough; he had no idea if it were true. Morgen, as usual, continued to play his hand very close to his chest.
‘When was this business of the canary?’ Morgen went on.
‘After the Führer left, I saw her wandering around the apartment, crooning to the dead bird, which lay on cotton wool in a little box.’
Schlegel asked what staff had been present that day.
‘Myself, as house manager. Frau Reichert, the live-in housekeeper; she had been the landlady at the Führer’s former lodgings.’ Winter made that sound rather infra dig. ‘The daily housemaid and the cook. There was was Frau Drachs too.’
Drachs turned out to be Reichert’s mother and profoundly deaf. She had no duties but the Führer had taken pity on her and let her live there.
Schlegel thought: And the lot of them conveniently out when it happened.
They were shown the library with the Führer’s extensive collection of books. Morgen spotted several self-help manuals on how to improve your public speaking and pointed them out to Schlegel, who kept a straight face. He wondered if the Führer’s relationship with Anton Schlegel had extended to being in this room, and under what circumstances.
The Führer’s sleeping quarters were surprisingly modest. At first Frau Winter claimed the bedroom was out of bounds, being private. Morgen whipped out Müller’s lengthy description of his responsibilities and held it up for inspection. ‘Be quick, then,’ she said and stopped Schlegel, establishing her authority by saying, ‘Only one of you.’
She made it plain without saying so that in the absence of her master this dead space was hers to command. Schlegel supposed, given that it had been empty for so long, she had nothing to do other than treat their intrusion with resentment.
He contented himself with inspecting the bathroom, which had an air of impersonal luxury, like something in the Adlon Hotel. He found it impossible to imagine the man naked in his bath; and had the niece ever sat in it, having her back soaped by her uncle?
They were shown the kitchen and staff quarters: separate enough to ensure the apartment’s privacy.
‘And Fräulein Raubal’s room?’ Morgen asked.
Frau Winter took them there with the greatest reluctance. It was at the front, next to the main reception.
‘The room is a shrine,’ she said. ‘To which no one is admitted but the Führer and myself, to change the flowers.’
Morgen insisted. ‘We have authorisation.’
Frau Winter said she hadn’t got around to replacing the flowers yet.
‘Chrysanthemums. Her favourite.’
The door was locked. The key was produced unwillingly and Morgen asked, ‘Did Fräulein Raubal lock the door before shooting herself?’
‘Yes,’ said Winter.
‘When did anyone grow alarmed?’
‘I came in on the Saturday morning and saw her breakfast and newspaper were still on the tray outside the door.’
‘What time was this?’ asked Morgen.
‘About half past nine. I decided she must have had a late night.’ Frau Winter said it in such a way that implied such nights were not infrequent. ‘It was the Oktoberfest.’
‘Did you knock?’
She sighed as if to say she couldn’t see the point of their questioning. ‘About an hour later I did to ask if she was all right. That was when I found the door locked.’
‘Did she usually lock it?’
‘I am not here at night.’ Frau Winter said.
They were still standing outside the room. Schlegel thought: If it turned out that the niece hadn’t killed herself then it was like one of those old locked-room mysteries.
Frau Winter opened the door and they stepped over the threshold into the gloom of what resembled a theatrical set. The shuttered room made the presence of any flowers pointless. Those in the vase hadn’t been changed in a long time. Schlegel suspected the room’s neglected state reflected Frau Winter’s depression at being abandoned by her master.
Frau Winter looked as though she wanted to stop Morgen as he turned on the main light. The room stood in stark contrast to the renovation of the rest of the apartment with nothing changed in the past thirteen years, frozen as in a fairy story. Schlegel noted the single bed, a desk under the window, a settee, and a gramophone. The furniture was painted with stencilled motifs. The walls were pastel green. An illusion of continuity was maintained by the made-up bed with its embroidered sheets. In contrast to the cavernous space next door the room was poky and ill-proportioned, with the ceiling too high for its width. Schlegel wondered how often the Führer thought of this morbid space as he put the world to rights.
‘I need your version of what happened for the record,’ said Morgen.
Frau Winter looked at him with great hauteur, as though he was questioning her loyalty.
Morgen went on. ‘We can take it here or you will need to accompany us to a police station.’
Slowly she began to speak. Her automatic recital of how the girl died came out pat, as if it had been kept in mothballs all those years.
The bare facts were that the Führer and his niece had lunched together on that last Friday. Spaghetti, Frau Winter remembered; after which the Führer was fetched by his photographer Hoffmann to drive to Nuremberg. Soon after their departure the girl locked the door of her room and at some point later must have shot herself with the Führer’s pistol. As Fräulein Raubal had the only key to the room, Frau Winter, upon growing alarmed the foll
owing morning, telephoned her husband to discuss whether to break down the door. In the end, not wanting to incur a bill for damages, a locksmith was summoned. The long and short of it was that it was midday before the police were contacted. By the time the Führer arrived back that afternoon they were done and gone.
‘It doesn’t sound as though the police were particularly thorough,’ said Morgen.
Frau Winter said, ‘If they acted in haste it was out of consideration. They were very efficient and sympathetic. Such a tragic death and they could see how upset we all were.’
*
Hoffmann’s version blamed the weather. The autumn Föhn had been blowing, an ill wind causing everyone to be out of sorts.
‘Enough to shoot yourself?’ enquired Morgen mildly.
‘It can be the very devil. The Führer remarked on it at the time, saying he had the most uneasy feeling of premonition.’
They had found Hoffmann in his shop. He was short, fat, with a vastly protruding belly and a head with an otter’s sleekness. The first thing he asked was whether they had been sent by Bormann, to which Morgen replied, ‘Why ever should we be?’ and Hoffmann responded, ‘I tell you, that man wants me dead.’
When he learned they were there to ask about the Führer’s niece he assumed the air of a forgetful man.
‘Whatever for? Yes, of course. Come through.’
He made a show of ushering them in and drew the blind on the door after him, taking them through the shop and down a corridor to a comfortable room with a tiled stove. Schlegel realised Hoffmann was drunk as he walked past him.
‘Real coffee, gentlemen? Which I happen to have.’ Hoffmann rubbed his hands in a show of bonhomie and said it was all such a long time ago that he doubted what he could remember.
He called, ‘Fräulein Braun!’
A thin very well-dressed woman in her early thirties came through, in a haze of perfume, and regarded them haughtily.
‘Would you mind serving these gentlemen coffee?’
Fräulein Braun looked at Hoffmann as if to say it was beyond her brief, whatever that was.