Martin
My colleagues noticed I was hungover as soon as they saw me.
“What happened to you?”
“Late night. Punk concert.”
They shared a grin. My connections to the punk scene were a source of amusement for my peers.
But there was something else. My colleagues were sitting in my office, they’d obviously been waiting for me, and all had an expectant air about them. I stood in the doorway wondering what was going on.
“Your turn to get the bread rolls,” murmured Klaus with the half-grin he used when something particularly amused him.
I looked around the room, only now taking in the plates and knives that were piled on my desk, along with a tiny kohlrabi, a bowl of lamb’s lettuce and a couple of glass jars: five-fruits jam and what looked like some kind of spread.
“Sorry,” I murmured again as I moved around behind my desk, pushing the plates to one side to make room for my elbows.
“Can we carry on?” asked Laura, snappy at the delay. “We’ve already started with the agenda—we’ve finally had notice of who’s going to be on the Ministerial Committee.”
The Minister of the Interior had been replaced last autumn by a temporary committee, accountable to both the Volkskammer national parliament and the Central Round Table. The plan had been to try out the system before extending it to other Ministries. By announcing new committee members both parliament and the Central Round Table were indicating that they thought the experiment a success and worth continuing for the time being.
“The good news is that a couple of good people are going to be on the new committee: Mario Schreiber and Antje Willehardt.”
Before 1989 Antje had been involved in the same dissident group as Erika, and she nodded, pleased at having a friend involved. Mario had been active up in Prenzlauer Berg, often to be seen in the Umweltbibliothek, but mostly working as an artist, pushing against the tight boundaries the Party had set around free expression.
“Who’s the third person?” asked Klaus.
Laura shook her head, “Somebody from the CDU, never heard of him. Dietmar Rosen.”
“Dietmar Rosen?” Klaus nodded. “Yeah, calls himself Timo. An old-timer, he was in the CDU back when it was still a block-party supporting the Communists. Now he’s pro-unification.”
A compromise appointment then, chosen to appease the authoritarian and pro-West factions in parliament.
“Frau Professor Doktor Weiss is an anthropologist. She co-ordinates a research group focussing on far-right activities in the GDR.”
Nik from RS1 had come over for the meeting, and, along with Laura and me, was listening to what Erika had to say about her meeting with the prof.
“Professor Weiss has compiled statistics on the acceptance and social standing of skinheads and their ideology. But I think what’s interesting to us are the socio-psychological factors at play. Before 1989 some people were right wing because they didn’t fit in, they couldn’t find their niche in the socialist society, or they weren’t prepared to. However since the revolution started the numbers of young people with links to far-right movements has increased rapidly. Professor Weiss suggested that this has to do with the social upheaval we are experiencing: loss of direction and expectations; behaviour patterns that were previously rewarded—such as obedience and rote-learning—are no longer encouraged. Far-right organisations are offering the personal and social discipline that we used to have under the old system. It’s essentially the way the Communist Party worked before: intolerance, structural violence and repression. Many people like to have that clarity.”
“So you’re saying the kind of person who felt at home in the Party and the FDJ in the old days are now more likely to join a far-right group?” Nik offered as a summary.
Erika didn’t answer but flicked through her notes, “There’s more: before 1989 the dual perception encouraged by the Party—the way of seeing everything as either right or wrong, black or white; the categorical, top-down determination—that’s also the way the fascists want to see the world. They think they’re right, and everyone else is wrong. And if you’re wrong then you don’t have any right to an opinion.”
“The discipline thing interests me,” I said. “The local Antifa told me that there’s a clear hierarchy. Those at the bottom are exploited by a politically sophisticated inner circle. Did your prof say anything about that?”
“Yes—we saw that during the attacks on refugees at Hoyerswerda, as well as Freital, Thiendorf and all the other places. Same thing in West Germany, in Solingen and Mölln—different society, different culture, but similar set up. We should find out more about that inner circle—we can be fairly sure that quite a few of them have come over from the West.”
Nik went over to the table where the police reports were laid out. He poked around a bit, then came back with a summary of observation reports from the last couple of months. He laid the paperwork on the table before us, pointing first to one page, then another.
“Here, see this: it looks like several groupings met up on this particular weekend at Weitlingstrasse 122, and that coincided with visitors from the West. The same thing, on this date.” Nik took the report and riffled through the pages again, finding what he was looking for, then turning the file around so we could see it. “Here, on this weekend. It happens several times, always with more people coming and going than is normal, and always with several well known fascists from West Berlin and West Germany, once even from Austria.”
“So they’re having meetings. The different groups are getting together and talking to known figures from the West,” Laura said, thinking aloud.
“Or they’re doing some kind of training.” Nik added.
“What kind of training are they going to be doing?” I asked. “They don’t need to be told how to beat people up. So it would have to be something else …” In my head I sorted through the alternatives, and only one seemed remotely likely. “Something like political organising, say for the referenda in a couple of weeks, and after that the Volkskammer elections.”
That was one possibility, but there’d be others. We really needed hard information. We needed the kind of inside information the Kripo must be getting from their informant—the information they weren’t passing on to us.
Karo
Today’s the day I get to take Frau Kembowski shopping.
Frau Kembowski is ace, she’s really old-school, but we all love her. She was in the resistance in Nazi times and ended up in a concentration camp. But because she wasn’t in the Communist Party they wouldn’t give her a Victims of Fascism Pension.
She lives next door to our squat and has never complained about the noise and the parties, but maybe that’s because she’s deaf as a nut.
It started out with us just taking her bottles and waste paper to the recycling shop and spending the deposit money on beer. But when we noticed that she can’t see very well either, and didn’t get out much, we got a rota sorted to take her shopping and to the park and stuff.
“Mind the step Frau Kembowski—it’s a bit uneven here!” I shouted at her.
“Oh deary me, haven’t they repaired it yet? Things seem to be going from bad to worse in this country of ours …” she wittered on.
“Yeah, but we don’t want the fucking Party back, do we?”
Frau Kembowski tut-tutted loudly but I knew she didn’t really mind me swearing. It’s a bit of a game we play.
We’d got the shopping sorted and now we were on the way to the post office. When we got to Frankfurter Tor there were a couple of Nazi-skins handing out leaflets and abusing anyone who didn’t take one. I knew exactly what would be on that leaflet: Foreigners go home! and Tear down the Wall! If I’d been on my own I would have gone and told them they could fucking go home themselves, or maybe gone to get some friends to help me make sure they did. The fuckers shouldn’t be hanging around here, this was our Kiez.
While we were watching, some normal looking people stopped to chat with
the skins. Frau Kembowski shook her head when she saw that and toddled off the other way, dragging me by the arm. “Come on deary, we’ll go this way shall we?”
So we carried on up the road and I decided I’d deal with the situation later.
When we got to the post office the queue snaked out the door but we just went past all the people, with Frau Kembowski warbling Veteran coming through! It’s fun queue-jumping with Frau Kembowski.
Once inside I steered Frau Kembowski to a counter where a bloke my age was being served. The other cashiers were dealing with old biddies and I could see they were digging in to spend the day counting their change and checking their savings books while everyone waited for them to get out the way. I barged in at the head of the queue so that we’d be next. The bloke being served had this really weird package. It looked like a hockey stick wound up in brown paper, and he was having real problems trying to pass it over the counter. It was really funny, he nearly swiped the grey withdrawal forms and the scales off the top while the old ladies looked on and tut-tutted.
When it was our turn Frau Kembowski asked for ten stamps for letters, and she had the exact money ready in her hand.
“Have you got the Kropotkin Allee commemoration stamps?” she quavered.
“Kropotkin’s sold out already,” replied the cashier, and proceeded to ignore us, waving forward the next person in the queue.
“We’ll have the old ones then,” I said to her in my rock-hard voice.
The cashier sighed (why does everyone in the GDR sigh all the fucking time? It’s like it’s catching) and poked around in a folder until she found a leaf of stamps with Beardy Marx on them. “Two Marks fifty,” she snapped.
Frau Kembowski gave her the money and a really nice smile on top, and that seemed to do the job or else the cashier must have felt guilty because she started rabbiting on to Frau Kembowski.
“You can tell who’s still a Party member, you know. They may not have the pin on their lapel any more, but they always ask for old Karl.” They shared a smile and I dragged Frau Kembowski back out into the sunshine.
“You know what, young Karo?” Frau Kembowski was breathing heavily, and no wonder, the way she was wrapped up in that thick coat and big hat. “I do believe things are getting better in our country.”
By now we were at the curb and had to wait to cross the road.
“Why’s that Frau Kembowski?”
“Well, I think that’s the first time anyone has ever said anything civil to me in a post office, and I’ve been around for a while too. Petty officials taking the drudgery of everyday life out on the customers, that’s how it’s always been. Just plain fucking wrong!” Frau Kembowski cackled.
Martin
The State Prosecutor, Ottokar Henschel, was waiting for me just inside the doors of the lower courthouse in Lichtenberg. It was another of those massive buildings built in the time of the last Kaiser—high ceilings and echoing corridors. I went up the steps and in through the doors, holding my hand out. Henschel took it in his insipid grasp for a moment before letting it fall. He marched off, expecting me to follow him. He didn’t look very happy.
“The President of the Court, Professor Doktor Kirchherr, wishes to speak with you—he’s not satisfied with the standard of evidence,” he said over his shoulder as he strode down the stone flagged corridor. “He has a suggestion, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was.”
I was confused: if I was to meet the judge in charge of the case then why had I been asked to come to the local court rather than the Supreme Court on Littenstrasse? Before I could ask Henschel he was rapping on a heavy oak door. He stood aside, letting me enter first.
The polished stone floor of the corridor gave way to darkened oak parquet in the room. High windows provided enough light to show off the tall ceilings and dark wood. Robing tables stood off to one side of the room, hooks in the panelling above them. But occupying the centre of the room was a large desk, and very much in charge of that desk sat the President of the Divisional Court.
The judge looked up as we came in, but didn’t stand to greet me, just nodded sourly, as if everything that was bothering him in his life were my fault. In a sense he might be right: at least some of his problems were down to me. I was the one who had worked out the role ex-Stasi officers were playing in last year’s Silesian Crisis, and I’d arrested the two main figures in the plot. Now Kirchherr was in charge of hearing the case against Benno Hartman and Evelyn Hagenow.
I wasn’t sure how to address the judge. President? Your Honour? I settled for a mumbled comrade. He took my hand and pressed it, not too hard, but hard enough to show he intended to imprint his status upon me.
“You are Captain Grobe?” he enquired while looking pointedly at Henschel. The prosecutor took the hint, muttered something polite and left the room.
“Captain Grobe, I have a problem and, given the quality of the case that has been made so far in my courtroom, I have little confidence that you will be able to help me. But on the other hand, we must pursue every possible avenue.” He rearranged his papers while he spoke, then raised his eyes to meet mine.
He had clear blue eyes which contrasted with the salt and pepper eyebrows bristling above. Those eyes dug into me, as if demanding a confession. I looked away, and, spotting what I was after, took a chair and placed it in front of the desk. I sat down, prissily crossing and re-crossing my legs. When I was finally comfortable, and felt that the judge had waited long enough, I answered him.
“How do you think I can I help, comrade?” I deliberately emphasised the comrade this time, watching for his reaction.
A frown played at the corner of the judge’s mouth. “Captain, times have changed. I was a judge in the days of Democratic Centralism, when the Party viewed the judiciary as one of their many executive organs. That is no longer the case: we are no longer the executive of any governing body in this Republic. Nevertheless, I am asked to preside over a hearing in which the case brought before me—clearly of social importance—has certain …” The judge cleared his throat. “Shall we say certain deficits? Allow me, Captain, to be indiscreet. The evidence against Hartmann and Hagenow is—and I’m putting this politely—mostly circumstantial, and flimsy at that. Am I merely to follow popular opinion and instruct the jury to find them guilty?
“Yet these modern times demand something different, do they not? In turn, I fail to see any opportunity for making this a case of restitution. I cannot see how the principles of restorative justice can be applied. What exactly can the accused restore, and to whom?”
Kirchherr paused for a moment, fixing me with his stare again. Before continuing he picked up a stainless steel propelling pencil and examined the point for a moment.
“Captain, if you will allow me a further foray into the intangible—the West Germans have always taken great delight in stating that we do not have, nor ever have had, a Rechtsstaat here in the GDR. They say we do not follow the rule of law, that we are not a constitutional state. They ignore the fact that our laws have always been entirely in accordance with our real, existing constitution. And now we take great pains to comply with the laws that have been both democratically informed and formed. But none of this helps me in the peculiar case I have been appointed to oversee.”
In a nervous gesture that belied his calm exterior the judge was pressing the button at the top of his pencil to release the lead, then pushing it back in with the palm of his hand. I wondered whether his flowery speech was also a symptom of his agitation, or whether he always talked like this.
“As I have already remarked, the prosecution is failing to present a convincing case. These are no ordinary accusations the court is hearing—they are entirely political. It is a distinctive case, and how, I ask myself, am I to deal with it? I hesitate to use the word fair, yet I wonder how we might treat this case otherwise, how may we find a different way to proceed?”
I could appreciate his problem. We hadn’t managed to find any substantial documentary evidence in this
case. When it came to prosecuting Mittag, Tisch, Honecker, Mielke and all the other leaders of the Party we had had hard evidence of criminal complicity—in manslaughter, torture and embezzlement. There was no question of trying them as political cases—all had been heavily involved in not only immoral but also criminal activity.
But now, even though both Benno Hartmann and Evelyn Hagenow had almost definitely been involved in at least one murder, we had nothing but circumstantial evidence. All the hard evidence we had gathered pointed only to a minor player who had conveniently turned up dead.
But it wasn’t my problem, I felt like I’d done my part. Now it was down to this pompous member of the old system to work out how to deal with the trial.
“I am considering other options,” the judge droned on. Having put the pencil down he was rubbing his nose between thumb and forefinger. “Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that the case were to be dismissed, subject to the application of certain conditions, and if such conditions were of an, er, satisfactory nature …” He looked at me from under his eyebrows, expecting a response to some question he felt beneath his dignity to actually ask.
I tried to work out exactly what the judge might be suggesting, but he’d already picked up the threads of his disquisition.
“In the case of Hartmann there is little difficulty. He has already requested, in writing, to be released to the West and promises never to return to the GDR. I am satisfied that his promises are sincere.
“Hagenow on the other hand is a different proposition. She has made clear to me that she regards this as her country, and that she believes she not only acted, but intends to continue acting in what she sees as its interests.” He paused for a moment, a silent sigh, eyes turned upwards at the ceiling. “I was wondering whether your department might have any suggestions?”
His question absorbed me for the moment. How could my department have any suggestions? The judge saw my confusion, and helped out.
Thoughts Are Free Page 4
