by Michael Dean
A slightly flustered Elsperger was full of apologies. He sat down opposite Forster. A waitress appeared immediately; Elsperger ordered a coffee. Forster eyed him, with the same jaundiced gaze he had run over the Englischer Garten and its buildings.
The captain, he thought, was a beneficiary of Himmler’s policy of surrounding himself with the blond and the blue-eyed. This applied not only to his SS soldiery. Any dark-haired typists, filing-clerks or chauffeurs in Himmler’s ambit were being ruthlessly weeded out, in the hope of eventual replacement by blonds. The immediate impact of this boost to racial purity had been a chronic shortage of typists and filing clerks.
Forster, who, like most South Germans, was short and dark, saw himself as a professional among amateurs – albeit racially pure amateurs. He realised he was becoming disillusioned with the Nazis, but put the thought out of his mind.
‘Something came up,’ Elsperger said, still apologising for his lateness. ‘We got a tip-off about some communists.’
‘Not Kunde, by any chance?’
Elsperger shook his head. ‘Afraid not. Still no trace of him.’ His coffee arrived. He sipped at it, looking curiously at Forster.
Forster, as he tended to, came straight to the point. ‘I have just found a reference to Rüdiger von Hessert, in a report from a plain clothes officer at the Hauptbahnhof. The officer had been watching the arrival of a Moscow train, which stopped in Prague. He saw von Hessert on the concourse, just after the train arrived. He was carrying a workers’ suitcase, as well as his own travelling bag.’
‘Handover?’ Elsperger asked.
‘Probably, but our man lost von Hessert in the crowd.’
‘The idiot,’ Elsperger muttered, meaning von Hessert, not the policeman.
‘You were at school with him, weren’t you?’ Forster said. There was an edge in his voice. Farm boys from Memmingen do not attend the sort of schools the von Hesserts and Elspergers of this world go to.
‘He was a few years younger,’ Elsperger said. ‘But, yes, I knew him from school.’
Forster swigged the last of his beer. ‘We need to know what he’s up to. We need quality intelligence,’ he paused, ‘from the inside.’
Elsperger nodded again. ‘What do you want from me?’
‘I want you to get close to von Hessert.’
‘Can’t you just have him followed?’
Forster gave a thin-lipped version of his smile. ‘Cajetan von Hessert’s son? I think not. No, Captain, something more ... intimate is required.’
Elsperger’s thick-lipped face hardened. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m sure you can pick up the threads from your school days, Herr Elsperger.’
‘What? How do you ...? Oh, never mind. Is this an order?’ He glanced sceptically round the beer garden and up at the Chinese Tower.
‘Would you like your early association with von Hessert, and others, to be more widely known, Captain? We don’t want your little wife upset, now do we?’
Elsperger swore under his breath. ‘All right, I’ll do it.’
‘Damn right you will. And you’ll need these. Tell him you can get as many as he needs.’ Forster dug into his mackintosh pocket, pulled out a flat black box and passed it to Anton Elsperger.
Elsperger knew what it was, but opened the box anyway. Nestling in tiny red-plush compartments, there were a dozen clear-glass ampoules of morphine.
Chapter Five
Rüdiger von Hessert was slumped in an armchair in his room at the family villa in Karolinenplatz. The tallowy light of a single lamp-standard with a heavy flower-patterned fringed shade cast his face in half-shadow. He was staring into space. There was a bottle of vintage French champagne on the floor, half empty, and he had swallowed a few – maybe more than a few – amphetamines. And none of it was working.
He was, he reflected, two people: He was Rudi-alone and he was Rudi-in-company. Rudi-in-company was, he had to admit, damned amusing – much sought after and understandably so. Invitations rained down like confetti. He sometimes thought there was nobody in Munich, at any rate nobody in Munich society, who he did not know. Rudi-alone, however, was a pretty desperate case. How, oh how, did other people fill in all that time? It hung so heavy on him, Rudi-alone could scream.
There were those, Rudi knew, who worked in the evenings. But unfortunately he was easily bright enough to absorb gigantic amounts of material at first reading, and so didn’t really need to. The law bored him, but he had a facility for it. One could say the same for games and pastimes. He was one of the best tennis players at his club, but the game was so irksome he could hardly be bothered to turn up to play. He hadn’t read a book for pleasure since he was ten. Ennui was more than a mood; it was a state-of-being.
Anyone would think that being in love would be a release from this. If you were in love, so went the common wisdom, you were lifted from the confines of the self. You were no longer alone. But Rudi-alone was in love, for the first time ever, and he was so lonely he could slit his throat.
He splashed more champagne, now warm, into a Bohemian crystal goblet, tried to shed a few tears for himself, and failed. He had had crushes on Normals before, of course, but nothing like this. Not that the love-object was a bona-fide Normal, not from the way he took him – Rudi – but he had a family he was unlikely to leave, so he might just as well be a Normal.
Rudi-alone put the goblet down and faced being in love. What it amounted to was that the other person was always inside you. He giggled at the double entendre. Sometimes that was rather pleasant. He treated himself to saying the love-object’s name aloud: ‘Anton,’ he said. It was pleasurable, but it didn’t take long, even if he said his second name, as well – ‘Anton Elsperger.’ He could hardly sit there all evening saying ‘Anton Elsperger’ to himself.
So, what now? What to do? Aaah! A thought. A happy thought. Go and see him. Just be with him. Rudi’s entire being lifted. He knew only too well where the love-object was. His family were with him, but so what? Just engineer a meeting. The love-object didn’t know he knew; a mutual friend had mentioned the arrangement for this evening. He could make it look like chance.
Happiness flooded Rudi-alone’s being. Just a moment ago, he could not imagine a Rudi, of any sort, at the end of this painful stretch of time that was the evening. But now ... He absently popped another amphetamine, showered, changed into something sporty – light flannels, linen jacket, open-necked shirt and cravat – and set off in his papa’s Horch.
*
The SS Club was at 19 Altheimer Eck, previously the site of the Social Democrat headquarters and Münchener Post editorial offices. It had been converted, using money paid out by the Sozis’ insurers, after the place had been trashed when the Nazis took over Munich. Only SS and guests were permitted, but friends fought to sign Rudi in.
The Kegelbahn was in the cellar, where the Münchener Post’s printing presses had been. The clatter of the Kegel skittles going down as the wooden balls hit them made Rudi feel cheerful again. There were three lanes, making it one of the biggest skittle-alleys in South Germany. Some tasteful pine cladding round the walls and a bar in the corner made it all nice and homely.
Barbara – Bärbel – Elsperger saw him first and waved. He had known her long before she married Anton. At the age of eighteen, they had done their Abitur exam together, then been in the same year at university. Anton was a few years older, so ahead of both of them. He and Anton had had it off a few times both at school and university, but the feeling, this overwhelming love and passion, had only come upon him when Anton had started everything up again.
Bärbel told their two boys to stop the game, as soon as she saw Rudi coming over to them. SS-Captain Anton Elsperger gave one of his fleshy-lipped smiles. Rudi thought his saxe-blue pullover and powder-blue shirt set off his blond colouring perfectly.
‘Rudi!’ Bärbel, who was gamine and pretty, in a pert sort of way, flung her arms round his neck. She was wearing a wide-skirted dress, not entirely suitable for
skittles.
‘Rüdiger!’ Anton Elsperger boomed.
To his relief, Rudi could see he did not suspect this was anything other than a chance meeting. And, naturally, Anton had no idea of the depths of his feelings. Rudi would have died rather than tell him.
‘Anton!’ Rudi was poised and suave. ‘What a surprise ...’
‘What are you doing here?’ The thick-lipped SS-Captain was smiling.
‘Oh, you know. Loose end.’
‘Papa!’ The older boy was fractious at the interruption to the game. Rudi put him at about seven, and the other one perhaps two years younger.
‘Well, I won’t disturb you any further.’
‘Nonsense.’ Bärbel said. ‘I haven’t seen you for ages. Come and join us.’
Rudi looked at the boys. He was completely at ease with children. ‘What do you two think? May I join you?’
‘Are you any good?’ said the older one.
‘Wolfgang!’ rebuked Bärbel, smiling.
Rudi looked the boy in the eye, his face a picture of earnestness. ‘Wolfgang, I have the official designation of Kegelmeister. Do you know what that means? It means I am one of Germany’s leading experts at skittles.’
‘Good. You can be on my team,’ Wolfgang said. He blinked owlishly behind his spectacles. ‘It’s me and Mama against Papa and my brother, here. His name is Gero. But we’re losing.’
‘Not for much longer, you’re not,’ said Rudi.
With Bärbel’s fond laughter ringing in his ears, and feeling Anton’s smile washing over him, Rudi-in-company loudly demanded paper and pencil. Wolfgang produced one of his school exercise books from a leather satchel. To screams of glee from the children, Rudi proceeded to tear a blank page from the back. Checking that Anton and Bärbel were laughing, too – they were – Rudi sketched two diagrams:
He was good at drawing – it would be difficult to come up with anything he wasn’t good at. The first diagram showed what happened if you threw straight down the lane and hit the head-skittle head on. Five, possibly six, of the nine skittles would go over. Rudi showed the direction of force by means of skilfully sketched arrows.
A second diagram showed what happened if you threw slightly to the right, catching the vee of the lead and right-hand skittle – all nine would go down. Rudi then gave a demonstration, hitting the skittles head on, standing the prophesied five felled skittles, then throwing all nine over with a consummate throw into the vee.
The boys hooted with laughter. It was like being one of the family. Rudi-in-company was exhilarated. It was one of the happiest evenings of his life. When the Kegel game was over, Anton casually asked him to keep an eye on Gerhard Glaser, in case he did something stupid. It would be in Glaser’s own interest, the SS-Captain said, putting a hand on Rudi’s shoulder, to keep the foolish old boy out of trouble.
Rudi agreed immediately, unhesitatingly. He suggested a meeting with Anton, somewhere private, the very next day, so they could talk about it. He said he would tell Anton all about Glaser then.
He would be counting the hours. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for the love-object.
Chapter Six
Karl-Heinz Forster, newly promoted to Chief Inspector, had been put in charge of an expanded Political Police, transferred from Ettstrasse to the former Wittelsbach Palace, just down the road from the Brown House. He reported to Reinhard Heydrich, who reported directly to Himmler.
His new chief, Heydrich, had been the most spectacular gainer from Himmler’s policy of promoting blonds. He was a disgraced naval Signals officer, not even a Party member, originally, and not yet thirty. He had been chosen to head the Political Police solely because of his lank dark-blond hair. This after a ten-minute interview at Himmler’s chicken farm, set up by his mother’s personal contacts.
Heydrich sat, stiff and blond, behind his massive desk, in his full-dress, black SS uniform – swastika armband over the left sleeve, yellow braid on both shoulders, oak leaf cluster on the lapel. On the index finger of his right hand he wore a Death’s Head Ring, a gift from Heinrich Himmler.
He was sitting beneath a portrait of himself as a fencer – perhaps considered more virile than his other hobby, playing the violin. The painter was Josef Vietz. Vietz had copied the portrait from the porcelain figurine of Heydrich, mass-produced by the Allach company in Dachau, and now widely available.
Heydrich was chairing a meeting. Present were Chief Inspector Forster and the wall-eyed Max Troll, code-named Theo by the communists.
Forster was still in his mac from outside. At the age of thirty-nine, the Chief Inspector was at the height of his powers, and he knew it. His demeanour, while never less than respectful, was far more secure than the edgy figure overawed in Hess’s office, just over eighteen months ago. He sat on one of the red plush gilt chairs lined up along the wall, not bothering to move it opposite Heydrich’s desk. His leonine face bore a pasted-on smile. He was here to give advice, not commands, but advice based on considerable expertise. Advice likely to be listened to, and then followed.
Max Troll, by contrast, was perched on the edge of a chair, set an awkward angle. His bearing was tense and defensive.
Heydrich leaned back and stapled his fingers. ‘How,’ he asked, in his high-pitched voice, ‘did the Schwarzmüller Group manage to base themselves at the Asam Church?’
Troll answered eagerly. ‘One of the group, Georg Limmer, the one code-named Hugo, was a congregationalist at the church, Herr Oberführer. He was once a stage-manager for a theatre company, which put on plays for the congregation at the church. They let the company use a room in the Asam House to rehearse. The Asam House is next to the church ...’
‘I know where the Asam House is,’ Heydrich said petulantly, his voice rising to a squeak. As one of only a handful of non-Bavarians in the Nazi hierarchy, he was sensitive to any imputed lack of local knowledge.
Troll licked his lips. ‘Anyway, Limmer kept the key. Later he told the priest he wanted to write ... a play or something. So they made a room in the Asam House available to him. The communists brought in a typewriter quite openly.’
‘What do we know about Limmer?’ Heydrich asked.
‘Age nineteen. Parents are communists of the old school,’ Forster supplied. ‘Limmer used to live with them. Walked to Austria on the first day of the revolution. The Austrians threw him out – no papers – so he walked back to Munich.’
‘Why haven’t we picked him up?’
Forster shrugged, keeping his voice even, not letting his low opinion of Heydrich show. ‘We could if we wanted to, but it would take time. He sleeps on the floor of a different Marxist sympathiser every night. He never goes back to his parents’ place. Known address.’
‘And is he involved with this subversive newspaper they produce?’
‘Sometimes. But only in the distribution. Paul Jahnke and Schwarzmüller put it together in the Asam House. Then the spirit masters are smuggled out to the banda machine in Rottenbucherstrasse. The newspaper is copied and distributed from there. They also possess a printing press. But it doesn’t work.’
‘So what are we doing about it?’
Forster waited a moment before answering. ‘We traced the serial number of their banda machine, and closed the company that sold it to them. Kunde is patching the machine up. When he can longer do that ...’ Forster shrugged, ‘... they’re finished.’
‘We haven’t moved against them?’ Heydrich asked.
‘No. Except for Kunde, who’s a real danger to the Reich. He was released from Dachau by Glaser, before I could stop it. I’ve issued an arrest warrant. We’re looking for him.’
‘Why not the others?’
Forster raised his eyes heavenwards, but Heydrich missed it. ‘They are quite useful to us,’ he began carefully. ‘We seize the newspapers after they distribute them. In that way, we flush out sympathisers we may not know about. We’ve caught some pretty big fish that way, in the past.’
‘I see,’ Heydrich said. ‘But you h
aven’t managed to apprehend this Kunde yet?’
‘No,’ said Forster. ‘But we will. We’ll give it priority. This link with the Social Democrats changes everything.’ The Chief Inspector nodded approvingly at Troll. ‘I mean Troll’s information that Rinner is still in Munich and will be at this meeting.’
Heydrich nodded. ‘Certainly. Our main priority is Rinner. But what about Glaser? This lawyer who was at the meeting with Schwarzmüller and the rest of them. And you say he’s the one who had Kunde released?’
Forster started to speak, but Troll, anxious to make an impression, cut across him.
‘Glaser was brought there by force,’ Troll said. ‘Paul Jahnke brought him at knifepoint.’
Forster noted the point in his notebook. ‘Glaser’s an obsessive,’ he said to Heydrich. ‘He keeps sending me memos about the murder of a Jew art dealer called Weintraub. Kunde was accused of the murder. Glaser keeps asking for a progress report.’
Heydrich knew enough about the Weintraub case to avoid the subject – the word was, the Party Bonzen were involved, perhaps even Hitler himself. He ignored the remark.
‘Two things,’ Heydrich said. ‘Is this Glaser against the revolution? And is he dangerous?’
‘Against the revolution, certainly,’ said Forster ‘He opposes the Third Reich and all we stand for. Dangerous? A one-legged idealist?’ Forster’s old smile reappeared. ‘I think not.’
Heydrich tilted his chair back. ‘So ...’ he said, ‘do we find Rinner and pull him in, or ...?’
Troll shook his head. ‘Pull him in now and they’ll call off the meeting. I’ve got the date, the time and the place. Just turn up in force.’ He enumerated on his fingers. ‘You get Rinner. You get Kunde. You get Schwarzmüller, Limmer and Jahnke. You get Glaser, if you want him. And – now here’s something – you get people from the Social Democrat side we don’t even know about. I know they’re bringing more people. A delegation. But I don’t know who.’
