The Constant Man

by Peter Steiner

  TO: SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler

  SUBJECT: SS Standartenführer Reinhard Pabst: Serial Killer.

  ‘What the devil …!’ Himmler said aloud. He sat up straight and started reading.

  The material in Himmler’s hands had not come from Hauptsturmführer Altdorfer. It had come directly from Willi.

  The Arrest

  Reinhard Pabst was dressing for work. He had ceremonial duties today, so he was wearing his uniform. There was a knock at his door. When he opened it, two SS men stepped inside, followed by an SS Hauptsturmführer he did not recognize. ‘Reinhard Pabst,’ the captain said, ‘you are under arrest.’

  Reinhard was put in handcuffs. All rank and decorations were torn from his uniform, and he was taken by car straight to Gestapo headquarters. He was led to an interrogation room where he sat alone and waited.

  Recently promoted, thinking himself at the top of his game, Reinhard was stunned by this turn of events. He could only believe that someone had made a terrible error and would have to pay grievously for this. Two Gestapo interrogators came into the room.

  Before either man could speak, Reinhard said, ‘I hope you know who I am, and that I report directly to Reichsführer Himmler. I warn you now, before it is too late, before this foolishness goes any further.’

  The two men did not look as if they had even heard him. They studied the sheaf of papers they had brought in with them. They pointed at text and nodded at one another.

  ‘I have to warn you again, gentlemen …’

  ‘Reichsführer Himmler ordered your arrest,’ said one of the interrogators, looking up finally.’

  ‘That is not possible,’ said Reinhard.

  One held up the order with Himmler’s signature for Reinhard to see.

  ‘That is a mistake,’ said Reinhard just as firmly. One could almost imagine that he did not even remember having murdered thirteen women, or, if he did remember, could not conceive of it as a punishable offense.

  The two interrogators looked at him with blank faces. One man said, ‘The time is ten twenty-five,’ and wrote it on the blank page in front of him. The two men began questioning Reinhard, which consisted of going through the murders one by one in detail, turning what they now knew to be true into a question. Each question began, ‘And did you on such and such a date …’ and ended with Reinhard saying, ‘I did not.’

  It was a measure of the depth of Reinhard Pabst’s insanity that in response to every question he was asked by his interrogators, he protested his innocence. When he saw that wasn’t working, he rambled on about the superiority of men, the uncleanness and deceitfulness of women. To become the superman we were all capable of, he had to quash the darkness within, to kill his feminine side. ‘I am following the Führer’s own foundations. The sacred soil on which we stand. We are all baptized in blood.’ He went on and on in that vein, straying further and further into hysteria and madness. After three exhausting hours of unproductive questioning, Reinhard was handcuffed and driven to Dachau where he would stay until a final judgment was rendered.

  Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler was not squeamish about violence. After all, an SS man was supposed to be violent. And even an SS man enjoying violence was not a problem as far as Himmler was concerned. That was to be expected, given their training, and it was even to be encouraged. Still, the Reichsführer was shocked, he had to admit, at the wanton brutality the killer of these thirteen women had exhibited. This was somehow killing on a different level, although he would have been hard pressed to explain the difference between what Reinhard had done and the killings that were done every day on his orders. Maybe it was that the perversion was so blatantly on display here. There was no rational ideology behind the killing, no societal objective, no larger good. It was just violence for the sake of violence. Himmler wondered what had driven Reinhard Pabst to do it, while never once wondering what drove him, Heinrich Himmler, to do what he did. He liked Pabst and had thought of him as the ideal SS man.

  Himmler saw that a criminal of Pabst’s sort probably had to be executed. But he considered briefly whether there might be a way to paper over the ‘inconvenience’ of his killings of these women. He decided there wasn’t. Whoever had sent this document to him was still out there and had almost certainly sent the same information to others.

  Hauptsturmführer Altdorfer had delayed for two days before deciding that he had no choice but to get the evidence into Himmler’s hands. After all, he had much to lose – Pabst was known to be Himmler’s favorite, and he was a senior member of the Gestapo. On the other hand, if Altdorfer didn’t report what he knew to be criminal activity and it was later discovered, he could be seen as an accessory to the crime.

  By the time Himmler received the phone call from Munich that Hauptsturmführer Altdorfer had brought a packet of documents to SS headquarters concerning criminality in the upper ranks of the SS, Himmler had all but decided Pabst had to pay the price.

  ‘Is it Pabst?’ he asked.

  ‘It is,’ said the officer who had called.

  ‘How did this Altdorfer come by the information?’ Himmler asked.

  ‘He found it in the apartment of a former police detective.’

  ‘Have you questioned the detective?’

  ‘His name is Geismeier, Herr Reichsführer. He is himself a wanted man.’

  ‘Wanted? For what?’

  ‘A number of things, most recently escaping from Dachau after shooting Pabst with his own pistol.’

  ‘I thought that name sounded familiar. So we have no idea where he is?’

  ‘We’re working on it, Herr Reichsführer.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t really matter, does it?’ He hung up the phone.

  Himmler realized that Reinhard Pabst, by indulging his own perverted passions, had grievously betrayed the SS Reichsführer’s trust. That was unforgivable. He hoped the Pabst story could be handled without ever having to explain to the Führer, who, if he learned of it, would go through the roof. Himmler had called Munich back and ordered Pabst’s arrest.

  The Führer was busy overseeing the delicate and secret non-aggression negotiations between Ambassador von der Schulenburg and the Soviet Union’s Ambassador Molotov when Himmler had decided he better mention the Pabst affair, just to avoid having the Führer hear about it from somebody else.

  Hitler did not want to even hear another word. ‘Don’t bring me this piddling shit, Himmler. You take care of it.’

  At the Juhrhaus in Dachau, Reinhard was made to undress. He stepped out of what was left of his uniform. He was ordered to take off his underwear too. He had to squat and bend over to be inspected for contraband. He was given a thorough physical examination. The doctor was interested in the angry red scar that coiled around his right wrist.

  Word of Reinhard’s arrest had preceded his arrival. Every SS man at Dachau knew by now who Reinhard was. Reinhard got a striped jacket and striped pants. The shoes he got fit, although that was a lucky accident. By the time he was escorted to his barracks, most of the prisoners knew who he was as well.

  Marching to the evening roll call, they sang ‘Holy Fire.’ No one sang more loudly than Reinhard Pabst.

  Holy fire burns through the land,

  The people wake out of their sleep.

  Brothers, unite and join hands,

  We want honor instead of pain.

  Work will make our deeds noble,

  And we are all soldiers of work.

  He marched joyfully. He stopped at one point and looked around, as though he were having trouble understanding where he was and what had happened to him. Two SS men ran up to him. But instead of punching or beating him, they gently walked him back into formation. Despite the crimes he was accused of, for the SS officers and men of Dachau, Reinhard was someone to be reckoned with. He was one of their own, an SS colonel and a Gestapo man. He was also a killer of epic reputation.

  The Woodcutter

  The two-man crosscut saw is a brilliant tool. Each man cuts on the pu
ll and rests on the push and it slices through the largest trunks like a hot knife through butter, showering their feet and legs with sawdust. Sometimes Willi forgot everything but the rhythm of the work. The two men – often his partner was Eberhardt’s teenage son – paused their work to sharpen the saw teeth or just to look to the sky when the Stukas came flying overhead on their way to Poland.

  Poland was being bombed into ruin. Warsaw was destroyed, Krakow too. There was courageous resistance by Polish irregulars, but they wouldn’t last long. Danzig was occupied, and safe enough for the Führer to visit and make a speech, which he did. Russia invaded Poland from the east to get their share before Germany took it all.

  Interest within the Gestapo in catching Willi had flared up after Reinhard Pabst’s arrest, but it had died down again just as quickly. The sooner the Pabst affair was forgotten the better. Besides, the Gestapo had their hands full with Poland, and now everyone was getting ready for Russia. Russia was next, and Russia would be a different story. Likewise, Gruber’s pursuit of Willi had not worked out to Gruber’s advantage. He had wasted time on a wild goose chase. His squad’s case closure rate remained pathetic, and Captain Wendt was threatening to take the squad away from him and reduce him in rank.

  Willi had the sense that he could begin looking for Lola, as long as he was careful. Even without the Gestapo on his tail or Gruber to worry about, it wouldn’t be easy.

  ‘Where do you want to start?’ asked Bergemann. Willi, Bergemann, and Eberhardt von Hohenstein sat in front of Willi’s hut eating black bread and ham and drinking cold, foamy beer. It was the last day of September. The sun was brilliant and hot as a few stray birch leaves – birch leaves were always the first – drifted to the ground.

  ‘I’ll start in Munich,’ said Willi. To his surprise, Bergemann did not object.

  ‘I can drive you,’ said Eberhardt.

  It was late evening. Eberhardt drove fast. He pulled up at Tullemannstraße and parked. They watched the building for a while. Heinz Schleiffer stepped outside. He looked up at the sky and stretched his arms in a yawn. He had put on weight.

  Willi got out of the car and walked up the steps as Heinz turned to go inside. ‘Good evening, Herr Schleiffer,’ he said.

  Heinz turned and stepped back in surprise. ‘Herr Juncker!’

  ‘Let’s go inside,’ said Willi. Heinz tried to see Willi’s hands, but they were in his jacket pockets. He backed into the building.

  Willi emerged after half an hour. ‘What did you learn?’ Eberhardt said as they sped off. Willi shook his head and laughed. ‘What a piece of work is man.’

  Schleiffer had been incoherent, ricocheting between terror, remorse, giddiness, and rage. He had rambled on about Frau Schimmel. Willi had thanked him for looking after her. ‘Why thank me?’ said Heinz. ‘I did what any human being would have done.’ By which he seemed to mean he had been very brave and noble.

  Willi thanked him too for placing the package in his desk drawer, and praised him for helping stop a murderer. Heinz seemed unable to accept Willi’s thanks or praise without lapsing into meandering, sometimes abject, sometimes angry apology. One minute it was, ‘Please, don’t hurt me,’ the next it was, ‘How dare you undermine the Führer’s great work.’

  Schleiffer knew nothing of Lola’s whereabouts, although he said Bertha Schimmel had been in touch with her until her death. He had found Bertha’s letters and burned them after she died. ‘I didn’t want them to fall into the wrong hands.’ He gave Willi a meaningful look. Heinz was still inclined to ascribe heroic motives to his own decent behavior.

  Lola had moved several times since Frau Schimmel had died. Fedor Blaskowitz had learned the Gestapo was snooping around Murnau. He didn’t know whether they were there for Lola, but he and Lola had agreed it was no longer safe for her to remain in the green house by the Riegsee.

  A car arrived one morning and drove Lola west to Bad Aibling where Fedor knew a young farm couple – the husband was a former pupil – willing to help out in exchange for a little money and some help with the farm chores. For several weeks Lola got up early each morning, fed the animals, gathered eggs and helped out in other ways. There was a dog too, and a large family of cats.

  One morning the couple and Lola were having breakfast together, as they did each morning, when Hitler came on the radio and declared war on Poland. The young couple looked at one another and then went silent. Lola overheard them whispering later that morning about the danger of harboring a fugitive. The war changed everything, made everything more dangerous.

  ‘What can we do?’ said the husband.

  ‘We have to …’ Lola didn’t hear the rest of the conversation, but at lunch that day neither one of them spoke to her or met her eyes. And that afternoon the wife kept looking out the window as though she might be expecting someone. Probably it was nothing, but Lola couldn’t take the chance. She packed her small suitcase.

  Early the next morning she left the house without telling anyone and walked to the train station. She took the first train to Salzburg where she changed to a train to Vienna. She had a cousin there who had offered a place to stay if Lola ever needed it.

  She would be safe there. But at the same time, the chain of connections that would allow Willi to find her was now broken. How could he look for her? He wouldn’t even think to look for her in Vienna. And where should she look for him? She knew he was out of Dachau, but she had no idea where he might have gone.

  Eberhardt drove Willi to Lola’s parents’ house. The two men watched for a while before Willi went to the door. Lola’s father didn’t recognize Willi at first, but once he did, he pulled him inside and embraced him.

  ‘We don’t know where she is, Willi, but a card came last week. She’s safe, I think.’

  ‘Can I see the card?’ said Willi.

  ‘Having a wonderful time,’ was all she had written. She hadn’t signed it. The stamp was Austrian, the postmark was Vienna, the picture was vineyards.

  ‘Our niece is there.’

  ‘You should destroy the card,’ said Willi.

  The niece was in Vienna, and Lola was living in a hut in the vineyards above Grinzing. You could get there by streetcar from Vienna. It was as though she had been expecting him. When he knocked and she opened the door, she was wearing the green dress.

  The Holy Fire

  Willi read in the Nazi paper about Standartenführer Reinhard Pabst’s ‘martyrdom.’ A German hero, he had been brutally assassinated by a conspiracy of enemies of the German people. Pabst was given a state funeral, with a mounted guard and goose-stepping legions of SS men. And, in a fiery oration, the Führer himself warned Germany’s enemies to take note. The resolve Reinhard Pabst had shown in his devoted and relentless pursuit of Germany’s enemies would be repeated in the Reich’s pursuit of its enemies. The Führer promised that the despicable assassins of this great German hero would soon know the full fury of German justice.

  Hauptsturmführer Altdorfer, at home in the loving collective bosom of his women, read the same account. His youngest daughter had just brought his morning chocolate and a sweet roll. Altdorfer was not surprised to learn that Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry had turned the murderer Reinhard Pabst into a symbol of German victimhood, a fallen hero of the Fatherland. The Führer and Goebbels always understood how to make full use of whatever cards they were dealt.

  It did briefly give Altdorfer pause that such cynical use could be made of such a stone-cold killer’s deserved demise. But mainly Altdorfer felt grateful that Reinhard was dead and that German women no longer needed to fear for their lives when they left home. He was grateful also, and more than a little proud, that he had managed to bring that particular crime spree to an end while staying clear of the whole affair. He thought he could take some small credit for how it had turned out, although he had to admit that the real hero in the matter was Geismeier. Somehow Willi Geismeier, an imprisoned and then a hunted man, had caught a vicious killer. You had to admire that. He found himself hop
ing Geismeier would get away scot-free, though he doubted that would happen.

  Neither Gruber nor Bergemann knew anything of what had actually happened to the serial killer until Altdorfer showed up one morning to give them the details. Gruber was amazed, Bergemann less so, although he put on a good act. But then Altdorfer astonished both men when he said, ‘The credit actually belongs to Geismeier.’

  ‘What?’ said Gruber. ‘That’s ridiculous! What are you talking about … Herr Hauptsturmführer?’ Gruber’s incredulity had caused him to momentarily forget his place.

  Altdorfer didn’t seem to notice or care. He explained that Geismeier had not only assembled a compelling and irrefutable case, but had then managed to get the evidence before Himmler. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he got it to Goering, Goebbels, and all the rest as well. Anyway, justice was done.’

  Justice? Well, not exactly, thought Bergemann.

  Heinz Schleiffer was surprised to find Hauptsturmführer Altdorfer looming at his door one morning as well. ‘You have done the Führer a great service, Herr Schleiffer, by helping rid Munich of a dangerous serial killer. You can be proud of that. And if you should see Geismeier again’ – Altdorfer winked – ‘thank him for me as well.’

  Heinz didn’t know what to say. He didn’t expect he would ever see Geismeier or Juncker or whoever he was again. At least he hoped he wouldn’t. He stammered a bit, and took the captain’s huge hand when it was offered.

  ‘Justice was done,’ said Altdorfer again.

  Reinhard had received special treatment when he first arrived in Dachau. But that had lasted about twenty-four hours. It took that length of time for the camp administration and the guards to make the mental adjustments they needed to make. By the next afternoon, when he was part of a road building crew and stood looking at the sky, having disappeared into his own thoughts, an SS man came up behind him and hit him hard in the side, knocking him to the ground. Reinhard tried to stand and the SS man knocked him down again. When he cried out that he was SS Standartenführer Pabst and demanded to see the officer in charge, the SS man hit him with his club, this time in the face. Reinhard’s nose was crushed and bleeding, his cheekbone was broken, and he spit out several teeth. The SS man told him to get up and start working, but Reinhard lay there bewildered and confused. When he finally struggled to his feet, the SS man hit him again and this time Reinhard remained lying on the ground. He stayed there the entire afternoon. Sometimes he would speak or whimper, but he didn’t move and no one tried to move him.