by David Young
Müller held out her hand. ‘Major Karin Müller of the Kriminalpolizei. You were very helpful with a case we were working on a couple of years ago. Although I was a mere Oberleutnant then.’
‘Aha yes,’ cried the woman, giving Müller a firm handshake. ‘I trust you tracked down who you wanted. I remember your letter of authority.’ The woman winked. On the previous occasion, Müller had carried a letter of authority from Jäger, countersigned by the Stasi head, Erich Mielke. It was exactly the sort of thing Müller had hoped the woman would remember. She didn’t have a similar letter this time. In fact, if Jäger had known what she was doing, he was more likely to sign something ordering her arrest. ‘Anyway, come through into the office. What can we help you with?’
Müller explained what she wanted. The files corresponding to a week either side of Verbier’s phone calls to the Schneiders. There would be a mountain of entries to work through – it would probably take her all day – just on the off-chance that the Frenchman might have crossed here.
*
After an hour of fruitless searching, the lieutenant colonel took pity on her, and popped her head round the door.
‘Would you like a coffee? I can get one of the junior officers to make you one.’
‘That would be very kind of you, Comrade Oberstleutnant.’
When she returned with the drink a few minutes later, she sat down next to Müller. ‘Is there anything I can help you with? Last time you had your rather handsome deputy with you, I seem to remember. This time you seem to be struggling on your own.’
‘To be honest, I’m working on a bit of a hunch. It didn’t seem worth detailing someone else to it. I’m not fully sure why I am.’ Müller showed the woman the date ranges she was working within. ‘I’m looking for a French citizen crossing from the West within these dates.’
‘In a French car?’
‘I’m not sure. Possibly. Or he might have flown into the BRD and then hired a car. Or he might not have come by car at all.’
‘Well, I can save you a bit of trouble then. It’s not a hard and fast rule, but foreigners tend to cross at Grenzübergang Friedrichstrasse. If I were you, I would start there. I know the head of the unit there. I’ll put in a call to smooth things along. I can also get someone to leaf through the files here in any downtime, and I’ll contact you if we turn anything up. Where’s the best place to get you?’
‘At Keibelstrasse, Comrade Oberstleutnant.’
‘Good. Consider it done. And if you need to do any follow-ups here, make sure you send that deputy of yours. He’s much prettier to look at than any of my boys.’
*
Müller half-expected to be double-crossed, despite the genuine nature of the woman, and wouldn’t have been surprised if a Stasi agent had been waiting at Grenzübergang Friedrichstrasse. Instead, she was greeted warmly. The female lieutenant colonel’s introductory phone call seemed to have done the trick.
When she’d begun this search, just a few hours earlier, she thought it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
But here, in front of her, a junior officer was brandishing a list of French citizens who’d crossed into the Republic at this checkpoint – which Müller knew was the most famous one in the West, featured in many western spy movies, and known that side of the Anti-Fascist Protection Barrier as ‘Checkpoint Charlie’ – from the designation ‘C’ the Americans had given it. In the American phonetic alphabet, Charlie was the codeword for the initial ‘C’.
The list was a long one. She scanned down it. Most of them would be tourists.
Then – amongst the entries for April – his name suddenly leapt out at her. Philippe Verbier. April the 13th. That tied in with everything. Her eyes widened when she saw the description of his profession. Fire Prevention Consultant. This was him. This was her man.
She quickly scanned the other entries. There were no other mentions, except for his return crossing in April, about a week after he’d entered.
She quickly scanned the more recent entries and found his name again; an entry from ten days earlier. He had been driving a Citroën CX, which rang a vague bell as an executive car she’d seen in a West German television advert. This time, there was no entry for a return. There was a slight chance he could have exited the Republic at a different crossing, but it was unlikely under existing visa rules.
She felt sure Philippe Verbier was still here.
Stalking his next victim.
45
The entries gave her vital information such as his car registration number. In normal circumstances, it would have been an easy job to radio through to the uniform or traffic division, get the car stopped, and have Verbier arrested ready for her to question him.
But these weren’t normal circumstances. If she did that, she risked alerting the Stasi. By not doing it, though, she knew she was giving him free rein to stalk his next victim, assuming that was what he was planning.
Instead, she would have to go after him herself. It would put her in danger of losing her life should anything go wrong and he discovered her and confronted her. That was something she’d vowed not to do in this new job, now that she had children. But it was a vow she’d failed to keep during the last big case, on the border with Poland. And it was a vow she knew she was going to break again.
*
She rang the switchboard at Keibelstrasse and asked to speak to her contact there to find out if she’d had any success with the telephone number. She had. The number corresponded to Hotel International in Magdeburg. The extension numbers were for rooms there.
Müller watched her hands tremble as she made her next call to the hotel itself. If Verbier liked to follow the same routines, then perhaps he was back in Magdeburg, the nearest big city to Gardelegen, staying at the same venue, in plain sight. It was well known that the luxury Interhotels were used by the Stasi for spying on western businessmen and politicians.
When she got through to the hotel switchboard, she almost didn’t want to ask the question for fear of failure. But she did. ‘Hello. I’m inquiring after a guest that I believe is staying at the hotel at the moment. A French guest by the name of Philippe Verbier.’
‘Could you hold on a moment, madam? I’ll just check the register.’
Müller waited, tapping her fingers on the receiver nervously.
The operator came back on the line. ‘Yes, Herr Verbier is staying with us at the moment. Would you like me to put you through to his room?’
Müller found herself gulping down breaths, almost unable to speak. ‘Y . . . yes. Yes, please.’ She racked her brain trying to be clear in her mind what she would say to him. Speaking in the middle of a murder inquiry that she wasn’t even supposed to be carrying out, to the man she suspected of being the murderer himself. It was breaking new ground. It was frightening.
The operator was back. ‘There’s no answer at the moment, I’m afraid. Would you like to leave a message?’
‘No. That’s all right. I’ll try again later. Thank you.’
Müller put the phone down. She had one more call to make. To Helga. She knew the Stasi were probably listening in – let them. They wouldn’t learn anything useful from this.
‘Helga, I’m sorry,’ she said when her grandmother came on the line. ‘This is taking longer than I thought. I might even have to stay overnight. Is that OK?’
‘Of course it is, darling. You do what you have to do. Ring when you can. The children always like to hear your voice.’
‘I will do. I’m sorry, Helga.’
*
She didn’t have a clear plan. Did it make any sense to confront Verbier? Not really. She would be no further forward unless he confessed, and she would have revealed her hand in continuing the investigation, putting herself at risk of arrest. It was better to find out more first.
To follow Verbier.
To watch him.
To piece this all together.
46
Continuation of transcribed and translat
ed interview with Hitler Youth member Günther Palitzsch, conducted by Captain Arthur T. Wagner of the Ninth Army War Crimes Branch on 25 April 1945, at 1400 hours
Wagner: I want you to cast your mind back, Günther, to what you claim were the words of the lady of the manor, Frau Bloch von Blochwitz, at the party at the Isenschnibbe estate on the evening of April 12th. Can you recall them exactly for me again?
Palitzsch: As I said, she was responding to a question from the Kreisleiter of Gardelegen, Gerhard Thiele, the head of the Nazi Party in the district. He asked: ‘Here I am with a thousand criminals on my hands. The Yanks are down the road and will be here within a couple of days. I can’t very well have all these criminals shot in the open country. What can I do?’
(PAUSE AS CAPTAIN WAGNER CONSULTS HIS NOTES)
Wagner: When I asked you about this earlier, I have a note of that question, but your recollection of it doesn’t include the words: ‘I can’t very well have all these criminals shot in the open country.’ Is that something you’ve just remembered?
Palitzsch: I must have missed that bit out, I’m sorry. A lot has happened. But he definitely said that.
Wagner: So the notion of killing all the prisoners came initially from Kreisleiter Thiele? This may be important in respect of future proceedings.
Palitzsch: Yes. Whether he was acting on someone else’s say-so, someone else’s orders, I have no idea.
Wagner: And can you recall Frau Bloch von Blochwitz’s exact response?
Palitzsch: Yes, because it shocked me at the time. I nearly dropped the drinks tray. Other workers who overheard it were shocked too. I talked about it afterwards with Frau Rost.
Wagner: Who is Frau Rost?
Palitzsch: She was one of the servants at Isenschnibbe. A kind woman. She looked after me.
Wagner: Are you sure you are not repeating what Frau Rost said, as opposed to what you heard yourself?
Palitzsch: We both heard it. In reply to Kreisleiter Thiele, Frau Bloch von Blochwitz said: ‘There is an old barn up there that belongs to me. Why don’t you put them inside and set it on fire?’
Wagner: Thank you for clarifying that Günther. Now I want to return to the events of the following day, when you and your Hitler Youth troop reached the barn. Can you continue your account in your own words please?
Palitzsch: Yes. By the time we got there, the zebras were already being herded into the barn. An enemy plane was circling overhead, so I think the guards started to panic. One of them fired at the prisoners to try to hurry them up. At least one of the prisoners was injured then.
Wagner: Did you fire at the prisoners?
Palitzsch: Me? God no! I was sickened by what was happening. I’d already decided that, unless I couldn’t avoid it, I wasn’t going to use my gun at all. I was only there because I’d been told to be, by both my Hitler Youth troop leader and Frau Bloch von Blochwitz. If I hadn’t gone with them, I was frightened she’d sack me. We were just standing to one side, watching.
Wagner: What happened next?
Palitzsch: Once all the prisoners were inside, the barn doors were closed by the SS and wedged shut with rocks and stones. A few minutes after that there was a commotion by the south-west door, and I saw flames. Soldiers seemed to be firing flares in there, I assume to set the barn alight. Then I saw grenades being thrown in, and Panzerfausts – anti-tank weapons – being fired. It was chaos. Scary. Then on the opposite side of the building we saw some prisoners break down the doors. They were machine-gunned down.
Wagner: Were you ordered to open fire?
Palitzsch: Yes, we had machine pistols. Wachtmeister Georg Brandt gave the order.
Wagner: And you obeyed it?
Palitzsch: We made as if to obey it, otherwise we might have been shot ourselves. But me and my friend had already decided we were going to shoot to miss, deliberately. No one would be able to tell. I didn’t kill anyone.
Wagner: Who was your friend?
Palitzsch: Harald Scholz.
Wagner: Did Harald stick to your plan not to shoot to kill or injure? To deliberately miss?
Palitzsch: I don’t know.
(SHORT PAUSE WHILE CAPTAIN WAGNER MAKES NOTES)
Wagner: What happened next?
Palitzsch: I don’t like to remember, really. It was horrible. Sickening.
Wagner: We’re all sickened by what happened, Günther. One way you can start to make amends is by giving a truthful account. It will help us bring the perpetrators to justice. So please continue. If you need to pause for a drink of water or anything, just let us know.
Palitzsch: You could hear the cries of pain, the shouting, swearing, panic in all sorts of languages. It sounded like some of the prisoners were singing their national anthems as they were burned alive. It was awful.
(GÜNTHER PALITZSCH BECOMES TEARFUL AND ASKS TO TAKE A BREAK)
47
August 1977
East Berlin to Magdeburg
As she joined the motorway network outside the Hauptstadt, the radio suddenly sparked to life. It was Schmidt. Müller asked for him to wait until she’d found the nearest exit, then parked up the Lada and lifted the handset again.
‘Sorry not to have been in touch about this earlier, Comrade Major, but I was off ill for a couple of days.’
‘Nothing serious, I hope, Jonas?’
‘No. I think it was just a sickness bug I caught off my wife. I felt awful. I couldn’t keep anything down – you know that’s not like me.’ If Tilsner had been telling the truth about his ‘illness’ then perhaps Schmidt had caught the bug from him, thought Müller. ‘Anyway, I’m fighting fit again now and have looked into those matters regarding the Second World War in the Gardelegen area.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, you were correct that something terrible happened. I’m surprised neither of us knew about it. It’s a horrific story. In summary, more than a thousand labour camp prisoners – most of them from satellite camps aligned to the Mittelbau-Dora V1 and V2 underground factory near Nordhausen – were herded into a barn and burnt to death.’
Müller tried to swallow but found she couldn’t. Was this what Jäger had been caught up in? It just sounded too awful.
‘What makes it worse,’ continued Schmidt, ‘is it happened just days before the Nazis surrendered to the advancing American army in Gardelegen.’
She found herself wincing at the details Schmidt had given. ‘Why on earth do that when the war was almost over?’
‘It doesn’t make any sense to me, Comrade Major. The prisoners, as far as I understand it, were being moved by train from the camps in the southern Harz to other camps further to the east and north to escape the advance. Near Gardelegen, the rail track was bombed. The prisoners were stuck for a couple of days. Then they were marched to a cavalry school town. Several of the weakest were shot when they couldn’t keep up. There was a smaller massacre of around one hundred such prisoners in the woods near the village of Estedt, north of Gardelegen.’
The woods near Estedt. Lothar Schreiber’s meeting place given to her in those coordinates in the anonymous message sent to Keibelstrasse.
‘Why?’ asked Müller, aghast. She knew the Nazis were capable of terrible evil – but this seemed senseless too.
‘The logic – if you can call it that – of killing the remaining prisoners in the barn was that the Nazi leader in the town had frightened everyone into thinking that if they were set free by the Americans, they would attack any and every German person they could find in revenge.’
‘Were there any survivors, Jonas?’
‘Only a handful I’m afraid, Comrade Major.’
‘What nationalities were they?’
‘Various. Russians, Poles, Hungarians, Czechs . . . and a few French, former resistance fighters.’
French survivors.
Was one of them Philippe Verbier?
Was he back, finally, to take his revenge?
Müller said her thank yous to Schmidt, and gave him a new task: to
see what he could discover about the involvement of the Hitler Youth in the massacre, particularly any mention of Harald Scholz. The more of a hold she had over Jäger, the more it would be to her advantage, and the better chance she would have of cracking this case.
She got out of the Lada, and walked around to the boot. She was in a lay-by of a main road just off the motorway, but traffic was light, and there were no houses or apartment blocks nearby. With a little luck she wouldn’t be observed. She opened the boot, and rummaged through the various piles of children’s paraphernalia, such as plastic buckets and spades. Underneath, hidden by a piece of old carpet, was what she was looking for. Her set of false number plates – acquired by Schmidt for moments like these, when she didn’t even want her own employers – the People’s Police – to know what she was up to.
Müller waited patiently for a break in the traffic, then clipped the new rear plate over the real one. Then she moved to the front of the car and did the same. If any of her uniform colleagues – or even the Stasi – felt the inclination to check the registration, they would be disappointed and confused.
It was a plate from another Lada of a similar model and colour which had been crushed after an accident.
Officially it didn’t exist.
Müller had pulled another item from Schmidt’s box of tricks in the boot – a curly-haired black wig. She fitted it in place using the rear-view mirror as she sat in the driver’s seat, tucking her own blonde hair under it. Then, from the glove compartment, she brought out the oversized sunglasses she’d bought on the Bulgarian beach trip.
She admired herself. The transformation from just two items was impressive. With the fake number plates and the disguise, she hoped she wouldn’t easily be recognised.
*
The Hotel International in Magdeburg sat proudly on one of the city’s main streets. It was a grey giant that glistened with modernity and was in the same chain of Interhotels as the Panorama in the home town of her adoptive family, Oberhof. But while the Panorama was all angular shapes and sharp apexes, the International was rectangular and squat; a concrete cuboid.
