The Good Cop

by Peter Steiner

  After half an hour Sophie emerged from the office and she and Peter left the building.

  ‘How was it?’ said Peter.

  ‘He’s worse than I thought,’ she said, ‘all Fatherland and betrayal. Whatever I asked, the answer was the same crap we’ve heard over and over from them: for the sake of the German people, Versailles must be abrogated. The French must be driven from the Ruhr. Berlin’s state of emergency is a violation of Bavarian sovereignty. Blah, blah. They’ve got plans, he said, but I couldn’t get anything out of him. Whatever they’re up to will be revealed, he said, at a public meeting November eighth.’

  ‘Did he say anything about bringing back the monarchy, putting the Wittelsbachs back on the Bavarian throne?’

  ‘No, why would he? Where did you get that?’

  ‘They talked about it at the security desk.’

  ‘You asked them?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ Peter Danziger had been the Bavarian heavyweight champion not too many years before, which was not much in the boxing world at large but was a big deal in Munich. Everyone remembered the time in Berlin he had knocked Jack Dempsey out of the ring. Of course Dempsey climbed back in and knocked Peter out cold in the next round.

  So the men at the desk recognized Peter and, after a little fight talk – which country produced the best fighters, that sort of thing – they meandered off into politics.

  Remember how Bavaria had been ruled by the Wittelsbachs? they said. Seven hundred glorious years. Though they were too young to remember, they talked about it as though it were yesterday. And wouldn’t it be great to bring back the king? To hell with the Prussians and their Reich. How about the Kingdom of Bavaria? ‘It’s going to happen,’ said the guard sitting next to Peter.

  ‘Nah, that’ll never happen,’ said Peter.

  The guard leaned in closer. ‘Prince Rupprecht has been to see the commissioner,’ he whispered.

  ‘So what?’ said Peter.

  ‘At least three times in the last week,’ said the guard. ‘Oh, it’s going to happen all right.’ Rupprecht was the son of Ludwig III, the last King of Bavaria.

  A NEW BAVARIAN KINGDOM? was the headline over the front-page story, by Sophie Auerbach and Peter Danziger. It was Peter’s first byline. ‘Where in the hell did they get this?’ von Kahr wanted to know. He was furious. Egon Leitner swore he didn’t know. ‘Did she talk to that Hitler asshole?’ said Kahr. ‘That lunatic keeps hounding me about the Wittelsbachs.’

  ‘I doubt that he’d ever talk to the Post about anything, much less about the Wittelsbachs. Restoration’s the last thing he wants. And the prince thinks Hitler’s insane. Anyway, maybe it’s not such a bad thing, the article. I mean, you want a big turnout on the eighth, don’t you? Well, stories like this are just the thing to get people to show up.’

  Egon Leitner was right. The evening of the eighth, Sophie, Peter, and Maximilian made their way through crowds milling and jostling outside the Bürgerbräukeller despite the sleet and rain. If you wanted to hold a large public meeting in Munich, a beer hall was the place to do it. And the largest, like the Bürgerbräukeller, could seat thousands. That it could provide beer was an added benefit. The gigantic hall was packed.

  Kahr rose a little after eight and started speaking. He spoke yet again about the inflation and the general mismanagement of the economy by the Socialist government in Berlin, whose answer to everything seemed to be to declare a national emergency and to print more money. ‘Has that solved anything? Will it solve anything?’ There were hoots of derision from the crowd. ‘You’re right. The solution lies in our hands.’

  Suddenly there was a commotion in the back of the room. Kahr craned his neck. Von Lossow and von Seisser stood up beside him to see what was going on. Adolf Hitler, who had appeared out of nowhere, climbed onto a table and fired a pistol into the ceiling. Having everyone’s attention, he jumped down and, surrounded by storm troopers in brown shirts, pushed his way forward. He stuck his pistol in the face of a policeman who tried to stop him. He climbed onstage, pushed Kahr aside, and seized the microphone.

  The next day, the Munich Post had an editorial at the top of page one.

  A DANGEROUS FARCE

  Yesterday evening at the Bürgerbräukeller, Adolf Hitler, the delusional Austrian corporal and failed artist who fancies himself the savior of Germany, tried to stage a coup. He seized the microphone from Gustav von Kahr and proclaimed ‘the national revolution’. He said the governments in Berlin and Bavaria had been removed, and a provisional national government had been formed. He said the army and the police were marching under the Swastika flag.

  Everything Adolf Hitler said was an outright lie. The governments in Munich and Berlin were and are intact and no provisional government has been formed. Hitler announced, furthermore, that General Ludendorff, the tottering and now tarnished war hero, would take over the new German army and together they would march on Berlin and take over the reins of power. Hitler’s revolution is founded on lies and violence, and, except in his own deranged mind and in the minds of his deluded rabble, it does not exist at all.

  The evening’s events and the events that followed might be described as a raucous farce, did they not come at such a dangerous moment in our nation’s history and do such momentous injury to our democracy. Do not think that because Hitler is insane and his ideas are crackpot they cannot come into being. If we the German people sit back and do nothing, if we tolerate this disgusting criminal and his violent and unconstitutional behavior, then we will be as guilty as Adolf Hitler himself when his crimes are reckoned.

  There followed a number of other stories about the evening’s events along with a series of drawings by Maximilian, including one of a wild-eyed Hitler pointing his pistol at a policeman.

  KONRAD MILCH

  Konrad Milch was the ninth and last child of Hermann Milch, a farmer in a Bavarian village not far from Salzburg, and his third wife, Nina. Gertrude, Hermann’s first wife, had married him when they were both thirty. Why she did was anybody’s guess. He was a cold and brutal man, incapable of giving or receiving tenderness. When he was overcome by lust, he tore Gertrude’s clothes off and poked and jabbed at her until he ejaculated. She died when she was forty, many said from being married to Hermann. They had no children.

  Angele, Hermann’s second wife, died in childbirth the year after they married, along with their only child. Next Hermann married Nina, a nineteen-year-old girl of limited intelligence, when he was fifty, and only then because he had made her pregnant.

  Hermann had learned nothing from his first two marriages, unless it was new variations of cruelty. Nina got pregnant nearly every time Hermann assaulted her. But she saw these pregnancies as advantageous. Once she was pregnant, Hermann left her alone. She gave birth to nine healthy children in rapid order. She was a loving but incapable mother. She couldn’t take care of herself, let alone nine children. And Hermann was as indifferent to his own children as he was to the hog he killed every New Year’s Day. Nina and the children lived in violence and squalor.

  Irena, the eldest of the Milch children, was the one bright light in this dark household. She was intelligent and sweet and dedicated to her siblings and, most amazingly, to her parents. Her father abused her no less than he abused everyone else, but Irena believed that kindness could heal whatever misery caused his brutality. In return for his hateful treatment, she was unfailingly kind.

  Irena was thirteen when Konrad was born. By then she had been a surrogate mother to her siblings nearly as long as she could remember. She was kind and fiercely protective of them, even to the point of defying her father, which only incited further rage and cruelty.

  By the time Konrad was fifteen, he and Irena were the last of Hermann’s children still living under his roof. As the other children had left home, Irena had devoted herself more and more to protecting Konrad. And as her devotion to Konrad increased, Hermann’s hatred of the boy grew. Hermann mocked and belittled Konrad constantly. Irena had gotten used to Herm
ann’s bad treatment, but Konrad never did.

  Konrad’s one refuge was singing. He had a beautiful tenor voice and could lose himself in a song. But when Konrad sang Hermann flew into a rage and attacked him. Hermann had never known beauty or happiness, so to see or hear it in others, especially his own son, was like witnessing a disloyal act, treachery of the worst kind. Konrad did the only thing he could in order to survive: he stopped singing. After that, there was nothing he loved in the world, except Irena.

  The morning had dawned beautifully. Hermann was heating his coffee on the kitchen fire. Konrad was in the barn feeding the pigs. Without thinking, he started singing. You could barely hear it in the house, like the faint warbling of a distant bird. But Hermann tore out of the house and into the barn. ‘I told you I don’t want to hear that shit!’ he said. He picked up a broken ax handle and swung it at Konrad. Konrad grabbed the handle and tore it from Hermann’s hand. When had the little bastard gotten so big and strong? Hermann wondered, just as the ax handle caught him across the head and knocked him in among the pigs. They squealed and ran every which way, including across Hermann lying dazed in the mud.

  That moment Konrad decided to leave. Irena begged him not to go. ‘You’ll be all right here, Irena,’ he said. ‘But if I stay, next time I’ll kill him. I’ve got to go.’

  He got to Munich in the first spring after the war and soon fell in with a gang of black-marketeers, stealing and running errands for them at first, and then eventually working as hired muscle. He was still only sixteen, but he was big and strong and quick to fight.

  Konrad didn’t care about politics. It was all crap, as far as he was concerned. But he understood feeling powerless. It filled him with rage. The National Socialist Workers, or whatever they called themselves, wanted to give power back to the embittered and the angry, and that spoke to Konrad.

  The Party wanted enforcers – they called them the Sturmabteilung, the SA, the storm troopers; Konrad liked the sound of that – to keep order at their meetings, to break Communist, Socialist, Jew, you-name-it, skulls. They broke up opposition meetings and rallies, or beat up members of rival organizations, or whatever was called for. Konrad quickly acquired a reputation for toughness and a hair trigger. Anything could set him off, and he was fearless. He waded in, fists swinging. He had become his father’s son.

  Konrad’s first big job was rolling that grenade into the newspaper office and blowing those shitheads to smithereens. The guy with him that day – Otto; he didn’t know his last name – was older and had been to university. Studied theology or something. He had lost a hand in the war. But he was too cautious. Scared really. Konrad didn’t like him.

  Konrad was at the Bürgerbräukeller that night. He was part of the group that had gotten Hitler to the front of the room when he took over the meeting. Konrad had knocked a cop right on his fat ass. The next morning, still at the beer hall and frustrated by their efforts to enlist Kahr and the other Bavarian officials in their enterprise, Hitler and General Ludendorff put together an army of two thousand storm troopers and other supporters and set out for the city once more. This time they were armed with rifles and bayonets and intended to take over the War Ministry. Once they controlled the War Ministry, they would control the army. And with the army they could march to Berlin and bring down the entire national government. It was a coup d’état.

  As they marched toward the city, they were stopped by police at the Ludwigsbrücke, the bridge over the Isar River. But when they threatened to kill members of the city council they had taken hostage the night before, the police stood aside and let them pass. Konrad sneered at the cops and shouted obscenities as the column marched past. And when his comrades started singing ‘The Rotten Bones are Trembling’, his heart soared. This, he thought, is where I belong.

  Wir werden weiter marschieren

  Wenn alles in Scherben fällt,

  Denn heute gehört uns Deutschland

  Und morgen die ganze Welt.

  (We will march on, when everything falls to bits. Because today Germany belongs to us, and tomorrow the whole world.)

  As soon as word reached the Post that Ludendorff, Hitler, and their army of storm troopers were on the move, Sophie and Peter set out for the War Ministry. At that moment the column of men was passing through the Isar Gate and entering the old city. They were almost certainly headed toward Ludwigstraße. The army was on high alert and posted around the War Ministry, along Ludwigstraße, at the Odeonsplatz, and with a large contingent at the Feldherrnhalle – the war memorial – where Ludwigstraße divided into narrow passages on either side of the building. Machine guns had been set up. The infantry waited with fixed bayonets.

  Maximilian headed toward the marchers. He heard them coming before he saw them. Their marching feet and their shouts and singing echoed through the narrow streets of the old city. They were bedraggled, some in uniforms, most not. But they were armed and followed by trucks full of armed men. They carried Swastika flags and banners. Hitler, in his shabby trenchcoat and fedora, General Ludendorff, in his dress uniform, and Hermann Göring were in the lead.

  Maximilian made quick sketches, turning the pages of his notebook as soon as he had drawn a few key lines. He would finish the drawings later. He caught Hitler – skinny and haunted – and Göring, the famous fighter ace. Ludendorff looked like he didn’t quite know where he was. He had meant to make history, but it had all gotten away from him.

  Maximilian had never seen Konrad Milch before. He had no idea who he was. And it had been two years now since, with Walther Hinzig’s help, he had drawn his portrait. But, because he had drawn him over and over back then, Konrad’s face, with its narrow eyes, heavy brow, turned-up nose, the mouth without lips, the cleft chin, was burned into his memory. He found himself drawing it again, as he passed not ten meters in front of him. It took him a moment to realize why the face was familiar. And as Maximilian looked and drew, looked again and drew, Konrad stared back.

  Konrad didn’t know Maximilian, of course. He obviously had no idea of their connection. But he knew this guy was drawing his picture and he didn’t like it. Just as Maximilian looked up from drawing, Konrad’s fist slammed into his chest, knocking him against a lamppost. The next punch knocked him to the ground.

  ‘Come on, Konrad.’ Two of Konrad’s SA comrades pulled him back into the march as Maximilian struggled to his feet. Konrad rejoined the march, looking back at Maximilian all the while, aiming his balled fist at him. ‘I’ll get you, asshole,’ he said, mouthing the words.

  The main contingent of storm troopers that had besieged the War Ministry early that morning was still blocked and completely surrounded by the army. Men on both sides had fought side by side not many years before. They were brothers in arms. They had no appetite for fighting each other. Before long, though, everyone heard the thunder of marching feet as the column led by Hitler and General Ludendorff turned up the narrow Residenzstraße.

  A light wet snow was falling again. A detachment of police waited with carbines and pistols at the ready. As Hitler and his motley army approached the Feldherrnhalle the police raised their weapons. The marchers at the front of the column stopped twenty meters from the police line, while the rear of the column pressed forward filling the street.

  ‘Surrender!’ shouted Hitler to the police. ‘Surrender to the German people!’

  ‘General Ludendorff is here!’ shouted someone else. ‘Surrender!’ Then the square went quiet.

  A police captain mounted the stairs of the Feldherrnhalle and, standing between the great stone lions and speaking through a megaphone, said, ‘You are in violation of city ordinances and laws of the German Reich. You are hereby ordered to disperse or face arrest.’

  ‘It is you who are in violation of the law,’ shouted someone. Was it Hitler? Sophie couldn’t tell from her vantage point behind the column of marchers. There were angry shouts from the storm troopers behind Hitler.

  ‘We shit on the Republic!’

  ‘Join us or
get out of the way!’

  ‘We are the Reich.’ Then someone fired a shot, and in an instant there was gunfire from every direction. For a minute the air was full of bullets, whizzing about like angry hornets, ricocheting this way and that. Sophie squeezed further into the doorway where she stood. Then everything went quiet.

  Men were on the ground across the square. Hitler was down but he wasn’t hit; Göring was shot in the hip. Hitler scuttled along the pavement like a crab, ran into a side street, jumped into a waiting car, and was driven away. Others who could jumped up and ran. Ludendorff had remained standing. And now he resumed marching and passed unmolested through the line of police. He was placed under arrest. Fourteen storm troopers and four police were dead or dying, and many others lay wounded and groaning on the square.

  THE ARTIST

  When Willi Geismeier came into the station the next morning, the desk sergeant said, ‘There’s someone waiting to see you.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Maximilian Wolf.’

  ‘What’s it about?’ said Willi.

  ‘He wouldn’t say.’

  Willi backed up a few steps to the window to the waiting room and, after a moment, recognized Maximilian. It had been how long – two years? – since they had seen each other. He went out to him.

  Maximilian rose and held out his hand. ‘Herr Geismeier, I’m Maximilian Wolf.’

  ‘Yes, I remember you, Herr Wolf,’ said Willi. ‘I see your drawings in the Post. How are you?’ He gestured in the direction of Maximilian’s face. ‘What happened to you?’

  Maximilian had a large purple bruise under his right eye, and the eye was severely bloodshot.

  ‘Well,’ said Maximilian, ‘actually, it has to do with why I’m here. I haven’t heard from you about the bombing since it happened. I’m guessing that means there are no new developments and you’re no closer to knowing who did it.’