Darkness into Light Box Set

by Michael Dean

  Glaser put his pipe down on Weintraub’s desk and put his head in his hands for a moment. Then: ‘I wonder who chose the subjects that year. 1908? Yes? I wonder who did the judging. On such moments ...’

  ‘Yes. I tell you who chose the subjects. I tell you who did the judging. The devil, that’s who.’

  ‘Do you know, Ascher, the way things are going in Germany, I think you may be right.’

  Chapter Seven

  To Glaser’s fury it was two days before the Minister of Justice, Franz Gürtner, agreed to see him to discuss a post-mortem on the body of Geli Raubal. Twice during those two days Lotte had asked him not to take his anger out on the children. This had been modified, during what amounted to a row, to a request not to let his anger show in front of the children.

  Now, finally, Glaser was making his way to the rickety lift which Prielmayerstrasse thankfully possessed, in plenty of time for a two o’clock appointment at Gürtner’s top-floor office.

  The relationship between the two men, as Glaser acknowledged to himself, was dreadful. Glaser could not contemplate the man without the deepest indignation and disgust. Gürtner had excluded Glaser’s friend and fellow Social Democrat, Philipp Loewenfeld, from Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch trial because he was Jewish. The grounds had been that his presence might have provoked a breach of the peace.

  The courts under Franz Gürtner became places where Jewish lawyers were liable to face orchestrated low mutterings of ‘Jew-Jew-Jew’ as soon as they stood, continuing for as long as they spoke. Whenever a Nazi came before one of the Jewish judges, the judge would face a named attack in the Nazi press as part of the ‘Jewish takeover’ of German justice which was making it impossible for ‘core Germans’ to get a fair trial. Any man of the law so named by the Nazis found advancement in Gürtner’s justice system closed to him.

  As the lift jerked its painful way upward, Glaser reviewed his attempt to finish Gürtner once and for all. In 1924, just after the scandalous Hitler Putsch trial, which had sent Glaser into a blinding rage, he had given every scrap of information he could about Gürtner to the only person of influence who would listen, the young SPD member of the Bavarian Parliament, Wilhelm Hoegner.

  He and Hoegner had several meetings and became close. Hoegner had come to the Glaser apartment a couple of times. Glaser offered to testify against the Minister of Justice, accusing him of bias and exerting improper influence to prevent Hitler’s deportation back to Austria.

  As a state official, testifying against his superior would have ended his career as Public Prosecutor. Glaser said he didn’t care, he would do it. Hoegner advised him to stay in the background. But he used the evidence Glaser assembled to make a brave and fiery speech to the Bavarian Parliament.

  Glaser, against Hoegner’s advice, listened from the public gallery and stood and applauded at the end. But the SPD were in a minority. Gürtner and the Far Right rode out the storm. Glaser was yet again left ruing Hitler’s luck – Germany’s misfortune.

  He shook his head, literally shaking off the memory. He must get the Minister of Justice to agree to a post-mortem on Geli’s body. To do that he had to establish at least some grounds for a formal indictment of Adolf Hitler for murder.

  *

  The two men of the law faced each other across the desk in the Minister’s office. Out of the window, Public Prosecutor Glaser could just see the spire of the Lutheran Church in Arcisstrasse.

  Dr Gürtner was seven years older than the Public Prosecutor, but the difference appeared far greater. His sleek grey hair was thinning; the moustache over his narrow upper lip was completely grey. His blue eyes stared dully through rimless spectacles. His head, thought Glaser, was as narrow and rigid as his principles. Even Hider had referred to him as ‘very correct’. A compliment, of sorts.

  The antipathy between the two men was thickening by the second before either of them had even spoken. It was visceral. Gürtner’s rigidity, in Glaser’s view, hid deep insecurities. Franz Gürtner was a self-made man; his father had been a train driver. Glaser’s father, Alois Glaser, was one of Stuttgart’s leading jurists – little short of a legend in South Germany. In a people conscious of heredity and background, this mattered.

  Also, despite his success in life, Gürtner was always intimidated by lawyers of greater sophistication; those with wider interests, greater depths of culture. Glaser fitted the bill nicely, with his passion for art, his expert knowledge of wine, a social ease which seemed practised to the Minister of Justice, though ironically Glaser thought of himself as clumsy and overly blunt, even maladroit, in company – a view shared by Lotte.

  Nevertheless, when Gürtner looked at Glaser his nose filled with the stench of the railway yard which had permeated the shabby two-room Sozialwohnung he had grown up in. The Public Prosecutor attempted an affable smile; the Minister’s barriers went up: The snob was patronising him.

  ‘Herr Minister,’ the Public Prosecutor began, aiming at brisk clarity. ‘I wish to make an application for a post-mortem examination on the body of the late Fräulein Raubal.’

  ‘Her mother wishes the body returned to Vienna,’ said the Minister. ‘She wishes it returned intact. They are Catholics.’

  Gürtner did not move a muscle as he spoke, a tendency which always made the Prosecutor wish to fidget.

  ‘The police pathologist Frau Bandl is prepared to act upon immediate authorisation,’ Glaser said. ‘The body of the deceased could be in Vienna by this evening, if a post-mortem is carried out immediately.’

  The Minister raised an eyebrow. His mouth twitched down. He was signalling that he had received the implication that Glaser had contacted the pathologist and did not particularly like it. ‘I have no doubt that Dr Bandl is prepared to carry out her duties,’ he intoned. ‘Nevertheless, there is no need for a post-mortem in a clear case of suicide. Dr Müller has established a cause of death. What more do we want?’

  ‘A post-mortem would help us to establish a time of death more precisely, Herr Minister.’

  Gürtner made a faint movement of his stiff shoulders, as if suffering from rheumatism. ‘Up to a point, but only up to a point. And where would that get us, exactly?’

  Glaser was only too aware that he could not use any of the knowledge he had gained from Katherina Bandl’s unofficial examination of the body without ending the pathologist’s career and probably his own with it.

  ‘It would enable us to establish the background facts of the case.’ Glaser hesitated. He took another route. ‘And act as a check on the information given in the witness statements.’

  ‘Do you have any reason to doubt the veracity of the witness statements?’

  Glaser had expected this. His doubts were not evidence, not to a stickler like Gürtner.

  ‘Not at this stage, Herr Minister. But that is precisely why I need further information from a post-mortem.’

  The Minister blinked. ‘Dr Glaser, I do not know if you have looked at the Suicide Register recently, but we are encountering a significant increase in numbers. We do not possess the resources to have a post-mortem for every Munich case, let alone those of foreigners. It is not possible, regrettably.’

  The Minister looked down at the papers on his desk, signalling that the interview was over.

  ‘I think Fräulein Raubal may have been murdered,’ Glaser said.

  The Minister looked up. ‘Do you have any evidence for that?’

  ‘The circumstances are suspicious. Certain alibis are suspect.’

  ‘Any facts?’

  ‘Not without a post-mortem. No.’

  ‘A supposition, then? On your part.’ Gürtner was scenting blood; Glaser was sounding woolly.

  ‘One witness testified that the pistol was found on the sofa. You would expect it to be with the body. Dr Müller’s report says the burn marks were on the deceased’s skin, not on her dress, which is odd.’

  ‘A post-mortem is irrelevant to the first of those points and is unlikely to clarify the second. Is that it?’
>
  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then your request is declined. I’m afraid I have a rather heavy schedule today, Dr Glaser.’

  Glaser rose. ‘Thank you for your time, Herr Minister.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  As Glaser made his way laboriously to the door, Dr Franz Gürtner, Minister of Justice for the Free State of Bavaria, returned to the papers on his desk.

  *

  Glaser made his way to the rickety lift but stopped at the second floor. Most lawyers summoned a clerk when they wanted material, and had it brought to their desks. But Glaser frequently fetched files and the like himself – he regarded such behaviour as egalitarian. For this reason, plus his larger reputation for decency, Glaser was greeted with genuine warmth when he entered the Clerks’ Office.

  The Suicide Register was kept on a shelf near the Senior Clerk’s desk. Glaser took it down, as the clerks either got on with their work or pretended to and watched him. Small talk had ceased as he came in. These were cautious times.

  They were also sad and fearful times. As the Minister had indicated, the suicide rates were soaring. The Suicide Register was a blue-green hardbacked legal ledger. Hand ruled lines spread across its double pages.

  Glaser immediately found what he feared he would find. The last entry, numbered 193, was Fräulein Raubal. The spidery black handwriting in immaculate Gothic script was that of Minister Gürtner himself. The entry was dated Monday, 21 September. Geli had immediately been registered as a suicide to pre-empt any need for a post-mortem.

  Glaser’s face was a practised mask as he closed and replaced the book, wished the clerks a courteous ‘Goodbye’ as he left the room, and made his way back to the lift. He made one more call before returning to his own cubicle on the ground floor.

  Katherina Bandl was at her desk. The dog, Mitzi, was at her habitual place at Bandl’s feet. Glaser neutrally gave the information that Fräulein Raubal’s death had been entered as a suicide. Frau Bandl equally neutrally added the information that, at the authorisation of the Minister of Justice, the body had already been returned to Vienna.

  *

  Glaser sat at his desk, staring at the near wall of his claustrophobic cupboard of an office. His body was rigid with rage; the white mist was clouding his mind. He never let his rages cloud his judgement; he kept telling Lotte that. He never let the anger affect his work. Not until now.

  For a second he thought of summoning a clerk to dictate this report, but rejected the idea as soon as it formed. He took the cover off the little used Adler typewriter, put paper in and started furiously banging away.

  His report was headed ‘The So-called Suicide of Fräulein Raubal, September 1931’.

  In furiously bashed-out letters, words, sentences, Glaser outlined the suspicious circumstances of Geli Raubal’s death. He stopped short of directly accusing Hitler of murdering her, but only just.

  As a coda, he complained of the investigative procedures followed, criticising Chief Inspector Sauer, Dr Müller and for good measure the Minister of Justice for Bavaria, Dr Franz Gürtner.

  Hardly pausing to read the finished document through, Glaser ripped it from the typewriter, fastened the pages together and made his laborious way to the cellar, where files on closed cases were stored.

  There, he placed his report on file, with the other papers pertaining to the closed Raubal case. And there his report stayed, a secret he shared with nobody, not even Lotte, certainly not Lotte.

  Now and again, not often, he thought about the report as the weeks and months went by, as the forces of democracy and decency grew weaker, as the Nazis grew stronger. Now and again, he even thought about the danger he had put himself in. But he always put the thought out of his mind.

  So the report just stayed there, latent, like a quietly ticking bomb.

  Part II - Winter 1933

  Chapter One

  Inspector Forster, newly transferred from the Criminal to the Political Police, was waiting in a doorway in a particularly run-down area of Milbertshofen – the most decayed and dilapidated section of Munich. With him, studiously avoiding his gaze and that terrifying smile, was a young detective constable, leaning against the door jamb.

  Two more men were at the back door of the building. Even through the driving rain, in the stygian darkness, Forster had a good view of the place, almost directly opposite them. It used to be called The Milbertshofen Red Gymnastics Club, as a smashed sign above the door still testified. The word ‘Red’ had a hole in it, caused by a rifle butt.

  The police watchers had only just arrived. They knew precisely what time the communists were coming – it wasn’t necessary to get there early. And there they were! Forster’s smile widened.

  There were four of them. Pathetic! Four of them risking capture to deliver one bundle of newspapers. They had even forgotten to cover the bundle, which was getting soaked, despite their leader’s attempts to tuck it under his jerkin. No coats, of course. Communists couldn’t afford coats.

  The leader was Franz-Xaver Schwarzmüller. They knew all about him. They could, of course, pull him in. But the point of operations like this one wasn’t to catch the communists. They could take them any time. It was the highly placed fellow-travellers who needed flushing out.

  The young detective looked questioningly at Forster, straightening up off the wall, ready for action. Forster made an economical motion with his arm, waving him to watch and wait. Only Schwarzmüller went into the gloomily lit building – Schwarzmüller the whey-faced mummy’s boy. He was almost beneath Forster’s notice at all. No, the one the Inspector was watching, the only communist worthy of his enmity, was Sepp Kunde.

  Even as he thought that, Kunde left the shelter of the doorway, peered round for a minute, then looked in the window of the building. Then he waited, out in the rain, small and compact, standing apart from the others.

  Forster’s hatred for him intensified, as his smile grew broader. He understood, now, why he hated Sepp Kunde so much: That sense of apartness, that aura of otherness. Unable to stand with the group, even for a few moments. Kunde always – always – appeared to be thinking.

  One of the other communists was scratching at something in the doorway of the building. Forster remembered a Social Democrat poster, stuck up there. The Inspector had seen it just after they parked the car. It was typical of the Social Democrats, a childish and pathetic insult to the Führer. As Forster recalled, it said something like ‘Hitler has a house, a villa, two Mercedes cars and a rhino whip.’

  As the communist – a lanky shit-Prussian called Paul Jahnke – clawed at the poster, Kunde stood watching him. You could read Kunde’s derision all over his stiff little body.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Forster murmured aloud, his gaze never leaving Kunde.

  ‘Sorry, sir?’

  ‘Nothing, Constable. Nothing for you to trouble yourself about.’ Forster paused for a moment. ‘What makes a Special Man, Constable. Eh? What do you think?’

  The young policeman’s face contorted with the effort of working out what was required of him. ‘Er ... Special ability, sir?’

  Forster shook his head. ‘No. Wrong my boy. The Special Ones are born not made. And to clear the way for this country to be great again, you know what we do, my boy? You know what our task is?’ Forster did not wait for an answer. ‘We eliminate the enemy’s Special Men.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  I will get Kunde, Forster thought. I will have him. But not tonight. Not yet.

  A pool of light briefly spilling onto the pavement showed Franz-Xaver Schwarzmüller emerging from the sometime Red Gymnastics Club. The fourth communist left the doorway and walked toward them, halfway across the road. He looked right at the vestibule where the two police were hiding. The light from the building showed his wall-eye.

  ‘Idiot,’ Forster said under his breath. He made a movement with his forearm, just as ‘wall-eye’ turned to leave with the others.

  As the communists scurried off into the night, there wa
s another questioning look from the young policeman.

  ‘Watch and wait, my boy. Watch and wait.’

  Two men emerged from the building, both in overalls. ‘Don’t bother,’ Forster said.

  Five minutes later a plump man in an expensive overcoat and homburg hat came out, a newspaper half under his coat. Forster grinned. ‘That’s more like it.’

  They followed him to the end of the road, then Forster called out ‘Stop, police.’ The man actually screamed – a high-pitched noise, like a girl. Forster burst out laughing.

  ‘What’s that you’ve got there, chummy?’ he said, reaching into the man’s coat and pulling out a newspaper. Forster glanced at it. ‘My my, subversive literature. O dear! O dear!’

  The plump man shut his eyes. ‘No ... no please. I just ... I wanted to hand it in ...’

  Forster laughed again. The young policeman looked at him, holding the plump man’s arm.

  ‘What ...?’ the man said. ‘What happens now?’

  ‘Little trip to Ettstrasse,’ Forster said.

  The man whimpered. The street’s name had a resonance far beyond the bland title of Main Police Station. They said there was blood soaked into the marble floors at Ettstrasse. Himmler himself had cut his teeth as Chief of Police there.

  Forster spoke into his radio. Within minutes, the two policemen who had been at the back of the former Red Gymnastics Club drove up, with a prisoner in the back. Forster pushed his own prisoner in next to him, then he and the young constable walked away.

  As the car with the prisoners reached the top of the street, Sepp Kunde watched it pass by from a shop doorway he had ducked into. He was alone. He had told the others to go on without him.

  He thought back to the events of the night. They had delivered newspapers it had taken weeks to produce, to an address known to the Gestapo and the Political Police. One of the Comrades had scratched and defaced a Social Democrat poster, which the Sozis had stuck on one of their buildings.