The Vogels: On All Fronts (The Half-Bloods Trilogy Book 2)

by Jana Petken

  “I have noticed, sir …. if I might be so bold…?”

  “Speak freely, Manfred. What you say here will stay here. You know that.”

  “Thank you, sir. I was thinking some of the Gestapo systems are rather odd … farcical almost … I mean, we’re now asking suspects to sign their own Schutzhaftbefehl. To expect any man or woman to request his or her own imprisonment is…”

  “Ludicrous, yes, I agree. But as much as it is apparent the detainees do it solely out of fear of personal harm, it does serve a purpose, which is not to have to go to court and waste time in the judicial system.”

  Biermann scowled at a classified document on his desk. He wondered whether to tell Manfred about its contents – yes, the news would be out in the open soon, slipping through the cracks of secrecy as such skeletons in cupboards always did.

  “The last German troops at Halfaya Pass near the Egyptian-Libyan border on the coast at as-Salum have surrendered, meaning General Rommel has now lost thirty-two percent of his forces since Operation Crusader began.”

  As though reading Biermann’s mind, Manfred said, “God help the war effort if the Führer calls for Rommel’s head because of this defeat. I’m a great fan of the General’s. Experienced leaders like him don’t grow on trees.”

  “My thoughts exactly.” Biermann nodded. “We are going to have to monitor the fallout from this. We both know when the Führer dismisses one of his commanders there are often rebellious reverberations further down the chain of command, and when that happens we are called in to deal with disgruntled Wehrmacht officers. And that’s a difficult one, Manfred. Having a moan about superiors is not an offence, but openly criticising the Führer is now deemed a crime. It’s a very fine line, and we must continue to take care when and if we cross it.”

  Biermann picked up another classified document. This one, he wouldn’t share with Krüger. It was much too disturbing. Generaloberst Erich Hoepner had just been dismissed from the Wehrmacht for ordering his forces to pull back on the Eastern Front without the Führer’s approval. Hitler had also deprived Hoepner of his pension and the right to wear his uniform and medals. It seemed their stickler for details leader didn’t care that by doing so he was contravening the law and Wehrmacht regulations.

  Freddie put the classified document back into its file and then picked up another while still thinking about the General. It was distasteful to him, for he knew General Hoepner personally. He and Dieter had served with the man in the First World War, and the three of them had met regularly during the post-war years. He was a good, honourable man, a hell of a leader, and undeserving of such a disastrous end to his career.

  Although Freddie had never met Adolf Hitler nor been in meetings with his top generals, he’d been hearing rumours from reliable sources that the Führer was regularly overruling the Generals who were commanding the Russian Campaigns’ Northern, Central, and Southern Armies. It was said he was disregarding the opinions and advice from the men on the battlefields, believing he knew better than veterans of the Great War and long-serving military officers with vast experience. It had not been noted in the document, but it was also rumoured that before Hoepner was fired, he’d insisted he either be relieved of command or given the freedom to direct his forces as he wanted. Hitler had apparently chosen the former.

  Apart from the outrageous slur against Hoepner, the Führer’s unilateral act of malice set a dangerous precedent. In the military and police forces, commanders, officers and foot soldiers lived by a code: an unbreakable set of rules and regulations. Without them, there would be anarchy and chaos. What message was Hitler sending when his actions were outside the boundaries of all known protocols? How could any general lead with confidence when his strategies were being overruled by a man who knew little or nothing of tactical warfare? It didn’t bode well for future campaigns. It was like taking dough out of a baker’s hands and giving it to a coal miner to bake.

  Biermann looked at the clock on the wall and then at Krüger, whom he’d ignored for the last few minutes. “That will be all, Manfred. I’m having dinner at the Einstein, and I’ll be late if I don’t get a move on. Tell my driver to have the car ready. See you tomorrow.”

  The first thing Biermann noticed when he entered the Einstein Club was that it was extremely busy despite the freezing temperatures and harsh driving conditions outside. He went to the club most Thursdays to enjoy its relaxed and unguarded atmosphere and to glean information from patrons who had asterisks next to their names on his list of possible troublemakers. He had never arrested or reported anyone as a direct result of anything they’d said or done in the club; that would be counterproductive. Instead, he stored information to be used against the person, or not, at a future date.

  Extramarital affairs at the club blossomed in full view as men got drunk and tittle-tattled. Arguments occurred, but people generally let off steam, contradicting their disciplined facades. Should the Gestapo, or SS for that matter, be stupid enough to detain a person in the Einstein for airing their views or making a fool of themselves, the clientele would completely dry up. So too would the gossip and all the useful rumours about the state of the war and the men who were leading the country.

  Claus and Dietrich, Biermann’s dinner companions, were already seated at a table. He waved as he crossed the room to join them. Both men were aides, glorified secretaries to Martin Bormann, the head of the Nazi Party Chancellery. They had shared interesting tit-bits about their boss with Freddie in the past, in return for slap-up meals and champagne, which the Gestapo paid for. It was a win-win situation for Biermann.

  Bormann had gained immense power after succeeding Rudolph Hess, who had flown to Britain, never to be seen again. Answerable only to Hitler, Borman was also responsible for all NSDAP appointments. The foreign organization branch of the National Socialist German Workers Party, NSDAP accepted members outside the country only if they were actual citizens of the German Reich with a German passport. Being Hitler’s private secretary made Bormann a powerful ally for those he could manipulate, and a dangerous adversary for overly ambitious men who threatened his position, which he used to control the flow of information and access to the Führer.

  After a few drinks, Claus and Dietrich often referred to their boss as the Brown Eminence but they emphasised that they’d never dare call him that to his face or let anyone other than themselves say the name. Freddie acknowledged that while Claus and Dietrich’s inadvertent slips of information involving Bormann were never top secret or illegal, they did give him insights into the powerful man’s psyche, thoughts and moods, and thus, the Führer’s frame of mind as well.

  Freddie ordered a large Scotch from a passing busty waitress who was known to take advantage of drunken men with deep pockets. He couldn’t blame the girl for trying to make a little extra money on the side by having sex with gullible patrons. Times were hard for Berliners.

  For a while, the men talked about their families. Biermann was excited about Valentina’s recent announcement that she was pregnant; however, when he gave the men that news it was somewhat eclipsed by the update on his son-in-law’s recent brush with death.

  “… and apart from Valentina being overjoyed about the baby, she got the news that Paul, her husband, had been found safe and well.”

  “That’s wonderful news, Freddie. I know how worried you were about him the last time we spoke,” Claus said.

  “Did they capture the people responsible?” Dietrich asked.

  “Yes. Paul gave the Gestapo what he could on his abductors, but he’d been kept blindfolded and wasn’t exactly sure where he’d been held. My colleagues searched from Dieppe to Saint Quentin and captured or executed dozens of rebels.”

  “Good. Well done to your son-in-law,” Claus said. “What now for him?”

  “He’s coming home. He has a week’s leave, but he doesn’t know if he’ll go back to Paris or if he’ll be posted elsewhere after that.”

  “I hope for his sake it’s not the Eastern Front.
Those poor devils are freezing over there,” Dietrich grumbled.

  “I’m disappointed in the way the High Command is handling that problem,” said Claus, jabbing the ice in his whisky with a cocktail stick. “They’re supposed to excel in predicting and combatting the harsh Russian winter. It’s just a matter of using simple statistical analysis, yet they were totally unprepared.”

  “The problem is the hubristic attitude of the German commissariat,” Freddie responded. “They didn’t send anything like enough woollen hats, gloves, long johns or greatcoats to Russia.” He was reminded of Wilmot Vogel’s latest letter. Part of him didn’t want to read about the terrible winter conditions in Leningrad. It was common knowledge that there was a desperate need for millions of such clothing items, over and above what could be looted from the Russians and the Poles. On the radio, Joseph Goebbels had even broadcast an appeal for warm clothing to send to the troops, saying: Those at home will not deserve a single peaceful hour if even one soldier is exposed to the rigours of winter without adequate clothing.

  Freddie thought it ridiculous to blame the civilian population for the lack of warm garments. Two years of clothes rationing meant there was little to give the soldiers at the front, but he suspected Goebbels already knew that and was following Hitler’s habit of blaming everyone but the Third Reich when things went wrong.

  Claus said, “I have a son serving with the Northern Army at Leningrad.”

  Freddie was surprised he didn’t already know that. “You didn’t tell me that, Claus.”

  “Ach, I don’t like to talk about him. I’m worried sick, Freddie. It makes me angry when I think about the military’s lacklustre behaviour towards those poor souls living in trenches … and I know what I’m talking about. I was with Herr Bormann at Berchtesgaden in October. The Führer held a dinner. I wasn’t at the table, of course, but I was in the room and heard the conversation about the Russian weather. Herr Hitler said one couldn’t put any trust in meteorological forecasts. I suppose he thinks he’s as much an expert in meteorology as in everything else.”

  “Claus, you shouldn’t be talking about private conversations between the Führer and Herr Bormann,” the other Bormann aide warned.

  “I’m only saying what I think, Dietrich. Adolf Hitler is a world-class know-it-all.” Claus threw more wine down his throat. “He said weather prediction is not a science that can be learnt mechanically. What we need, according to him, are men gifted with a sixth sense, who live in nature and with nature; whether they know anything about isotherms and isobars doesn’t matter apparently.”

  “A damn stupid thing to say if you ask me,” Freddie chuckled. “What else did he have to say about it?”

  “He said that as a rule, these men with a sixth sense were not particularly suited to the wearing of uniforms. One of them would have a humped back, another would be bandy-legged, a third paralytic. Then he added that simily … sorry … similarly, one shouldn’t expect them to live like bureaucrats.”

  Claus sounded like a madman blubbering nonsense, but he was, he assured Freddie, relating the conversation between the Führer and Bormann word for word.

  “You’ll have to excuse me, Claus, I might have had too much wine, but I don’t really understand why you’re talking about bandy-legged men and the like,” Freddie said, trying to keep the amusing story going.

  “Human barometers, Freddie – that’s what Hitler dubbed these elusive people – said such men should have telephones installed in their homes free of charge, so they could predict the weather for the Reich. You see, these woodland folk – the Führer’s words, not mine – would be people who understood the flights of midges and swallows, who could read the signs, who felt the wind, and understood the movements of the sky. Hitler told Herr Bormann that elements are more reliable than mathematics, but I don’t think Herr Bormann was impressed.” He shrugged. “Ach, I suppose there are things beyond our understanding that only the Führer’s genius perceives. That’s why he’s the leader of the Fatherland, and I’m a nobody.”

  Freddie had asked no more, but upon separating Hitler’s ludicrous musings from the harsh reality of the situation, he couldn’t help but feel worried about the Russian campaigns. For the Germans to be defeated in the field of battle was one thing, but for them to have been improperly provided for by their own leadership and the General Staff was quite another. It was appalling and should have been avoided with level-headed forward planning.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Biermann slept on his office couch until 07:00 the next morning. He was groggy, and his head was pounding with the after effects of too many glasses of red wine at the Einstein Club.

  He got up, stretched, and then went to the window. It was still snowing, but the ground was covered in dirty grey slush. Vehicles were moving, albeit slowly, and people were arriving for work as usual. He had a quick wash in the bathroom but left his overnight stubble alone. Then, he changed out of his civilian clothes and put on his Gestapo uniform.

  An hour later, Biermann’s driver dropped him off at Spandau Prison on Berlin’s Wilhelmstraße. Most of the political dissidents and traitors who had plotted against the Nazi Party had already been transferred from Spandau to the concentration camps at Dachau and the marshland prison camp at Esterwegen. A few remained, however, including one who was of great personal interest to Biermann.

  The prisoner was handcuffed and slouched over a table in the interview room. His cheeks were swollen to twice their normal size, and his right eyelid resembling a piece of raw flesh was forcing the eye shut. Sores had become infected on his lips after they’d been repeatedly punched, and a ring of fingerprint bruises was wrapped around his neck. But for all the physical evidence of suffering, the most telling was the way his filthy clothes hung on his emaciated body.

  After dismissing the Gestapo guard, Biermann sat at the table opposite the prisoner. The man had been an impossible nut to crack, and this, the fifth interrogation, was going to be the last chance to get answers to a long list of questions. Biermann planned to lie through his teeth today and use every dirty trick he knew. Failure wasn’t an option, not when Dieter’s artworks were at stake. He was counting on those to boost his measly retirement pension further down the line.

  Biermann didn’t bother to hide his frustration as he glared across the table. He was determined to break Dieter Vogel’s driver, Kurt Sommer, the man he had arrested the night Laura Vogel left Germany. He lit a cigarette and offered one to Kurt.

  ******

  Kurt eyed Biermann with suspicion but accepted the cigarette, which he jammed between his scabbed lips. Something was different about the Kriminaldirektor today, he thought, letting Biermann light the cigarette with a match. Apart from arriving earlier than usual at 07:30, he was in Gestapo uniform and had an air of victory about him, something that had been missing during previous interrogations.

  “Thank you, Herr Kriminaldirektor. What can I do for you today?” Kurt mumbled.

  “At about ten o’clock last night, something came to me. I know it was ten because my wife was just clearing the table and mentioning that she didn’t like to eat that late in the evening. I asked her what time it was, and she told me – sorry, I’m digressing. Anyway, it came to me that I’ve never asked you if you knew Captain Leitner – August Leitner?”

  Kurt shook his head, his expression deadpan.

  “Come now, Kurt, you must recall the visits he made to Herr Vogel’s houses in Berlin and Dresden … such a lovely villa, that one in Dresden. Shame it’s abandoned now … so, Kurt, Captain Leitner? He worked with Paul Vogel in the hospital at Brandenburg?”

  “No. I’ve never heard of him. A lot of people visited Herr Vogel over the years, and to be honest, one man’s Nazi uniform is the same as the next to me.”

  Biermann’s lips twitched, then spread into a broad smile. “We’ll come back to Leitner another time, shall we?”

  Kurt shrugged.

  Biermann shuffled some papers. “I’ll miss our chats
together, even though they’ve been largely one-sided,” he smiled again. “What about you, Kurt? Will you miss me? Berlin? Your freedom? I hear the Sachsenhausen camp is a rough place full of Soviet prisoners and traitors. I know one of the camp commanders. His name is Gustav Sorge. Have you heard of him?”

  Kurt shook his head, his gaze steady. Was this another Gestapo trick or was he finally going to be moved from Spandau? If it were the latter, he might as well kill himself now. He’d hidden his cyanide pill inside a fake tooth at the back of his mouth on the day Laura Vogel left. He’d suspected that Freddie Biermann was closing in, a sixth sense, professional instinct.

  “…he’s quite the talk of the place, this Gustav,” Biermann was still talking about the concentration camp. “People call him Der eiserne Gustav – Iron Gustav, an apt name. He doesn’t like Soviets or dissidents. He won’t like you, Kurt.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  Biermann spread his arms as though the answer were evident. “I wanted to let you know that I have everything I need now to send you to the death … maybe that’s too harsh a threat … your long incarceration.” He sat back in his chair, looking as satisfied as a man who had just enjoyed a T-bone steak and a fine bottle of wine. “I can stop the transfer or get you sent to another camp that will be more hospitable. Would you like that, Kurt?”

  Kurt sniggered. “And in return you’ll want me to give you a false confession, craft the story you want to hear, make you look good in front of your superiors when you run to them waving my testimony in their faces? Blah, blah, blah. Herr Direktor, you can write a love story to your bosses and cover the pages with kisses, but as I’ve said many times before, I won’t be signing my name on any piece of paper.” Kurt took another drag of his cigarette and then leant in. “For the fifth time, I have nothing more to add. Dieter Vogel died, just the way I told you, just as the SS recorded in their report, and I have committed no crimes against the Fatherland.” Sitting back in his chair, he added, “We both know I’ve been wrongly detained, and you don’t have a shred of evidence that will stick. Why don’t you stop this pathetic game of yours and let me go home?”