The Girl from Berlin: Gruppenführer's Mistress

by Ellie Midwood

  “Yes, as a matter of fact you can. I missed him by five minutes and this order needs to be signed immediately. Do you have the keys for his office?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Great! Go stamp it for me quickly and I’ll send it to the Kommandant of Mauthausen right away.”

  Gruppenführer Müller was holding a piece of paper in his outstretched hand and I took it from him.

  “Well, go ahead and stamp it.”

  “Do you want me to…?”

  “Yes, I need his signature on it. Do you know where he keeps his facsimile?”

  “Yes.”

  I rose from my chair, took the keys to Dr. Kaltenbrunner’s office from my pocket and opened the door. Gruppenführer Müller settled himself comfortably in Georg’s chair behind my back. I walked up to Dr. Kaltenbrunner’s table and unlocked the top drawer with another key he gave me. And then I glanced at the paper I was holding. It was an order for the ‘special treatment’ of the Soviet Commissars, prisoners of war, which Reichsführer wanted dead because they could spread ‘communist propaganda’ amongst the inmates of the camp they were confined in. Eighty seven people. And Müller needed a signature under it, a signature that would seal those eighty seven people’s fate. And I was the one who had to put that signature under that order, condemning the Soviet Commissars to the gas chamber.

  I dropped the order on the table and pulled both hands to my chest. There was no way I was doing it. No way. You’re going to incriminate yourself, Annalise. You have to do it. No, I can’t. It’s not your signature and not your facsimile. It’s Dr. Kaltenbrunner’s responsibility. The order will bear his name, not yours. You’re not doing anything wrong. It doesn’t matter whose name is on the order. I’m the one who’s putting it there. Without the signature those people won’t die. Yes, they will, in any case they will, and you know it. You’re just following your superior’s order, you aren’t killing anyone. Yes I am! Their blood will be on my hands, just like on everybody else who gives such orders. I’m an accomplice to the murder. No, you’re not. You’re a counterintelligence spy and you have to pretend to be a faithful Nazi. So go ahead and play the part. Stamp it. I can’t.

  “What’s taking so long?” Müller’s voice disrupted my inner dialogue I was having with myself. Too bad I still didn’t know which voice to listen to.

  “Just a second, Herr Gruppenführer. I can’t find Dr. Kaltenbrunner’s facsimile, his adjutant must have put it someplace else again.”

  Of course I lied. Dr. Kaltenbrunner’s facsimile was right where it always was, in the top drawer in a little black box. I had already taken it out and was holding it in my hand.

  Do it. I can’t. You did much worse things before, Annalise. If we’re talking about being an accomplice to the murder, you helped to put already two people to grave. Heydrich deserved it. What about Josef then? Did he deserve it too? No, he was just a victim of the circumstances. And I still feel terribly guilty about his death, every single day. Fate of these eighty seven people has been decided already. If you don’t stamp it, you’ll just get yourself in trouble. You’re playing a devoted Nazi, remember? Stamp it.

  “Have you found it yet?”

  Both voices got quiet. Now I needed to make a decision on my own. I closed my eyes and swallowed hard.

  “Yes, I have, Herr Gruppenführer.”

  The loud bang of the facsimile on the wooden table was like a gunshot. I felt as if I just put a bullet in every single one of those Commissars’ head. I was no better than them now: Müller, Reichsführer Himmler and the Führer himself. And I suddenly realized how Dr. Kaltenbrunner must have felt signing all those orders every single morning. It was a disgusting feeling. I started to understand why he was smoking so much.

  I put away the facsimile, picked up the stamped paper from the table, locked the office door behind, and handed the order to the smiling Chief of the Gestapo.

  “Thank you very much, Frau Friedmann. It was very nice of you.”

  “You’re welcome, Herr Gruppenführer.”

  Müller nodded at me and left the anteroom. I sat behind my table, put my elbows on top of it and rested my head in my hands. That’s exactly how Dr. Kaltenbrunner saw me when he came back from the Reich Chancellery. He was joking about something with Georg as he walked in, and I quickly tried to regain my composure. I hoped that he wouldn’t notice that I cried before.

  “Good afternoon, Herr Gruppenführer. Would you like some coffee?” I tried not to look at him, reorganizing some papers on my table.

  “No, I’ve had lunch with Reichsführer, thank you.”

  I nodded and kept my nose in my paperwork, but I could feel that he was watching me. Already in the doors of his office, Dr. Kaltenbrunner turned to me.

  “Frau Friedmann, come in for a minute.”

  Less than anything I wanted to ‘come in for a minute,’ but I still had to inform him about Müller’s request, so I had no choice but to follow my boss inside. He closed the door behind me and stood still next to it, next to me. I was still looking at the floor.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.” I shifted my gaze to the carpet, away from him.

  “Look at me.”

  I lifted my eyes to meet his, but then looked away again.

  “What is it with you? Are you upset over something?”

  “Nothing, just a little tired, that’s all.”

  “You’re not feeling well? Do you want to go home?”

  “No, I’m fine, Herr Gruppenführer. I’m sorry.”

  He was talking in such a half-concerned, half-comforting way that I felt tears building up in my throat again. I hated when my father used to talk like that to me when I’d already stopped crying over something, and that sympathetic tone would only trigger me again. I took a deep breath and dug my nails into the palm of the hand, putting myself together. I lifted my eyes to him again and this time even managed a smile.

  “I just need coffee, that’s all. I’m making it for you all day, and never for myself. I think it’s time I start drinking it too.”

  Dr. Kaltenbrunner slowly smiled back at me, but his eyes remained serious; I knew he wasn’t buying my lies.

  “You can take coffee breaks whenever you need to, Frau Friedmann.”

  “Thank you, Herr Gruppenführer.” I smiled again and added, “Oh, by the way, Gruppenführer Müller stopped by, he needed you to sign one of his orders about the Soviet POWs. He asked me to stamp it for him, and I used your facsimile. I hope it’s alright with you? Herr Müller told me I was authorized to do that.”

  “Yes, you can stamp whatever he brings in my absence. Just read it first.”

  “Will do, Herr Gruppenführer.”

  I was waiting for him to dismiss me, but he kept looking at me.

  “What about those POWs? What was the order for?”

  Why did he have to ask me that?

  “Order for the execution of eighty seven Soviet commissars.”

  Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner nodded.

  “Did you put a signature under it?”

  I wasn’t smiling anymore. The feeling I had was as if I fell on a glass, but instead of taking that glass out of my wound, he started slowly turning it inside.

  “Yes, I did. He told me to.”

  “That’s why you’re so upset? Because you feel guilty about it?”

  I remained silent.

  “You don’t have to blame yourself for it, Frau Friedmann. You just happen to be a part of this big bureaucratic machine, and your position in this machine requires you to do such things from time to time. That’s how I look at it. But it requires me to do even worse things, even though I don’t want to have anything to do with them. You see, when I was taking over the office, I made a deal with Reichsführer Himmler. I told him that all I want to be concerned with is the intelligence. I like it, and I enjoy doing it. All the secret police matters with the Gestapo and concentration camps, I don’t want to even know what’s going on there. I’ve been tel
ling all of them from the very beginning that the extermination of the Jews and prisoners of war is hurting the image of Germany abroad. Himmler doesn’t care about that, but he still promised me that he and Müller would keep the Gestapo under their direct control and will only send me some paperwork for signing, in order not to create confusion in subordination. But technically, it’s still me who signs those people’s death sentences, you understand now?”

  “Like I did today?” I finished his thought.

  Dr. Kaltenbrunner looked at something in the distance and then quickly walked to his table, looking for something in the bottom drawer.

  “If you keep thinking about it that way, my dear Frau Friedmann, you’ll give yourself a nervous breakdown, and later a severe depression. It’s not our fault that the Reich works this way. It’s them on top who are pulling the strings; we’re merely mute dolls moving under their music. But you know what always helps me feel better?” Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner put a bottle of champagne on his table and two glasses next to it. “Alcohol.”

  I watched him as he opened the champagne and poured both glasses full.

  “Come here, Frau Friedmann. Take this glass, and let’s toast to you.”

  “To me?”

  “Yes. Welcome to the club of people who don’t decide anything in this world.”

  The bitterness in his eyes reflected mine when I toasted my glass with him. We both drank it all the way, to the bottom. And then another one. And another, until we emptied the bottle and switched to brandy and soda, which he also kept in his bar. We kept drinking all day, until both of us forgot why we started drinking in the first place. When at the end of the working day Georg knocked on the door and said that my husband was waiting for me outside, I could hardly get back on my feet from the chair I was sitting in. Heinrich didn’t say anything while I was following him unsteadily all the way to the garage, but in the car he turned to me and finally asked, “Is there any reason why you’re leaving your Chief’s office almost incoherent?”

  “Yes, there is, Heinrich.” I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes. “Remember how you told me that you executed a hundred of Jews in your early Waffen-SS days? Well, I executed eighty seven Soviet Commissars today.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  And then I told him everything.

  “I always thought that I’m this good Jewish girl working for the sake of my people, Heinrich. But I’m no better than the last butcher of the Gestapo. I’m one of them now. I’m a murderer.”

  “No, you’re not, Annalise. It’s not your fault.”

  “Yes, it is, Heinrich. You know what my father always used to say? Standing next to a person who’s committing the crime and not doing anything about it is the same thing as committing that crime with your own hands. And it’s not just that I didn’t do anything about it, I handed the gun to the killer. I’m a murderer.”

  “You’re just drunk and upset. You’re not thinking clearly.”

  He could say whatever he wanted to. Dr. Kaltenbrunner could say what he wanted to. But I still knew it inside myself that I would never be the same person again. I had innocent peoples’ blood on my hands. I was a murderer.

  _______________

  “Annalise, we could really use that paperwork.” Ingrid sat across the table from me and tried to catch my eyes. I was still looking at my tea cup. “Especially if you’re saying that Kaltenbrunner doesn’t even read it. He’s never going to know where the leak is coming from.”

  The Americans wanted me to start copying the top secret orders I had access to, and my husband had the misfortune to brag to them about it.

  “He’ll know.”

  “How would he know?”

  “He will. He always knows everything. He has a sixth sense when it comes to…” Me. When it comes to me. “When it comes to espionage. He always points out just the right people to Müller even in the most complicated cases. He’s a very smart man.”

  Ingrid’s gaze was almost accusing this time.

  “You could try at least. You know that we’re always very careful when it comes to handling the information. You’re not risking anything, if you look at it closely.”

  “If you look at it closely, I’m risking everything. You’re the ones who get pulled out right away if something goes down; I’ll end up on the gallows, together with my husband. But you don’t care about it, do you?”

  “Of course we care about it.”

  “No, you don’t. You only care because you’re afraid to lose a good source of information, that’s all. You don’t care who that source is. People can be so easily replaced in this game, can’t they, Ingrid?”

  “Why are you talking to me like that, Annalise?”

  “I know that you don’t like me, Ingrid. But making me risk my life for you, I’m sorry, that’s a little too much.”

  “You aren’t risking your life for me, darling. You’re risking it for the sake of your country. The future, better country. Free of that Nazi plague. I think it’s a very noble goal to risk your life for.”

  I didn’t say anything. She was right of course.

  “I can get you something that’s being distributed through several offices. This way it’s not too incriminating.”

  “That’ll do.” Ingrid finally smiled. “And try to get back with your old boss Schellenberg, we could really use some information from his part too.”

  They all wanted something from me. I had no other choice but to comply.

  ______________

  It was a good morning for the Americans: a lot of letters came through concerning the situation in the Warsaw ghetto. I had just finished sorting them out, learning by heart all the numbers and names on the orders, when Dr. Kaltenbrunner walked into the anteroom.

  “Good morning, Herr Gruppenführer.”

  “Good morning, Frau Friedmann. A lot of mail today?”

  “Yes, the Warsaw ghetto uprising issue.”

  Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner walked to the table where I was sitting and looked over my shoulder to the letters I was sorting out for him.

  “Have Georg stamp them and send them out when he’s done, will you?”

  “Of course, Herr Gruppenführer.”

  “I also need you to type a letter for me, it’s urgent. Müller just gave me a radio message in the hallway.”

  Müller was never good news. But I still pulled a typing machine closer to me, put a piece of paper in it and turned my head to my boss, waiting for his instructions.

  Dr. Kaltenbrunner had a habit of walking around the room while dictating his orders, but this time he stood right by me. The order was for the immediate execution of any armed rebels who possessed an immediate threat to the Waffen-SS. The uprising started even before Dr. Kaltenbrunner took over the position of the Chief of the RSHA, and the Warsaw issue was his so-called field test, which was supposed to show the Führer if he had made the right choice appointing his fellow Austrian to such an important position. Therefore, Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner was trying to resolve the issue the sooner the better.

  The problem was that the rebels, who knew that their only fate would be the deportation to the labor camps and slow and agonizing death from starvation, hard work and diseases, decided to die fighting. I knew that if I happened to be amongst them, I would have probably done the same thing. And if my great-grandparents hadn’t immigrated to Germany in the middle of the nineteenth century, I would have been amongst them. Deep inside I was very proud that they had courage to fight their oppressors for so long, and deep inside I kept saying prayers every morning for them to hold for another day.

  “…by being shot on the spot.” Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner finished another sentence. He stood behind my back, and then put both hands by the sides of the typing machine, leaning over my shoulder and looking at the already typed text. I could feel the warmth of his body right against my back. “New paragraph.”

  I readjusted the typing machine and waited for him to speak.

&nbs
p; “It is necessary to suppress any attempts of the rebels to escape the territory of the Ghetto. It is strongly advised to all the SS guards to reinforce the surveillance of the wall separating Jewish and Aryan sides, in order for the rebels not to get any more ammunition from their supporters on the outside. New paragraph. All the food supplies should also be put on hold.”

  I turned my head to him and immediately regretted it, because his face was now only inches away from mine. He looked at me with his dark eyes, and all of a sudden I was very aware that Georg was absent fetching some radiograms from Amt IV, and that it was only the two of us in the anteroom. I quickly turned back to the paper, blushing for some reason.

  “They will die starving then,” I almost whispered because Dr. Kaltenbrunner kept looking at me very closely.

  “You feel bad for everybody, don’t you?” he said softly. “You should step away from your religion a little, just like I did. It doesn’t help with our work, you know. The guilt that they insert in you during every mass, it’s not good.”

  He slightly touched my black Catholic cross and then the beads on my wrist, one by one, very slowly.

  “Don’t you feel bad for those people, Herr Gruppenführer? There aren’t only rebels inside the Ghetto, there are mostly women and children. Why do they have to suffer?”

  “If I could separate women and children and put them in a different place, I would have sent them food,” he replied with a pensive look on his face, still playing with my cross. “But they all live together. Right now it’s not me who’s at fault that they’ll starve, it’s their men, who aren’t too bright, obviously.”

  “What would you have done if you were Jewish, living in the Ghetto with your wife and children and knowing that the Germans are coming to kill all of you? Wouldn’t you take a gun in your hands to protect them?”

  “But I’m not Jewish.”

  “What if you were?”

  “Probably you’re right,” Dr. Kaltenbrunner answered after a pause. “If I were, I would have. But I’m a German, and it’s my duty to protect my German soldiers from their bullets.”