Darkness into Light Box Set

by Michael Dean

  ‘I had a riding accident.’

  ‘Do you agree that the state cannot be expected to maintain any children of yours who may be hopping around, at its expense?’

  Glaser took a deep breath. ‘As I think you know, Herr Heydrich, the children of partial amputees do not inherit any ... deficiency. Otherwise you would have to sterilise a good proportion of the troops returned from the front, including the man Hitler has put in charge of Munich, Gauleiter Wagner, who has had his lower leg amputated, as I have.’

  Heydrich looked furious. ‘Nevertheless,’ he shouted, ‘if you have any further contact with enemies of the Reich, at knifepoint or not, I will have you forcibly sterilised under the laws I have quoted.’ He paused, then went on more quietly. ‘Do you agree that that would be perfectly legal?’

  ‘Once these laws have come into force, yes, it would be.’

  ‘Thank you. Now you may hop off home.’

  ‘I have a question,’ Glaser said.

  Heydrich and Forster looked amazed. ‘Go on,’ Heydrich said.

  Glaser turned to face Forster. ‘My question is to Chief Inspector Forster,’ he said. ‘Chief Inspector, I have on several occasions sent you memoranda enquiring about the progress of the investigation into the murder of Ascher Weintraub. I have received no reply. Would you please now inform me of the progress of the search for two men seen near the scene of the crime? As I told you, I have reason to believe that the men are Julius Schreck and Georg Winter.’

  Heydrich looked at Forster, amazed. ‘What?’ he said. ‘What’s he talking about? You didn’t tell me that.’

  ‘Get out, Glaser,’ Forster yelled, all trace of his smile gone. ‘Get out while you still can.’

  ‘Very well,’ Glaser said, standing. ‘But let me formally give you notice, Chief Inspector, that if you do not interview these two suspects, I shall do so myself.’

  Glaser left the room, limping heavily, before either Forster or Heydrich could react.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Saturday after his interrogation by Heydrich and Forster, Glaser parked the Opel and crossed Prielmayerstrasse. His head ached in the fresh air. Last night, alone in his study, he had got drunk for the first time since his student days. He had swigged the best part of a bottle of Korn. Then Lotte refused to let him into bed with her. He went back to the study, finished off the bottle, and passed out. He had slept with the artificial leg on all night. His stump was sore.

  It was eight o’clock in the morning. The street was deserted, eerily silent and chilly. Glaser was casually dressed in weekend attire. Although he hated deceiving her, he had told Lotte he was taking the motorcar to the mechanic for a bit of tinkering.

  He stared up at the Ministry of Justice; the step-gables, the figure of Roland atop the south tower, the garish murals on the facade – as if seeing it for the first time. The place had become strange to him. Never having been here at the weekend before, he had no idea if he could even get in.

  As he approached, Glaser wondered if the back entrance, in Elisenstrasse, might not have been a better bet. But even as he thought that, he noticed one of the heavy wooden double-doors of the main entrance was slightly open. He pushed it and crossed the threshold.

  Across the vestibule, he could see a notice tacked to the inner door. It was handwritten in crude block capitals:

  In order to maintain the undisturbed and orderly transaction of legal business, and to protect the reputation of German justice, Jewish lawyers are forbidden, until further notice, to enter the Courts.

  In the same block capitals, the notice announced itself as being from the Administration. Glaser felt sure the caretaker, Herr Vollmer, had put it up, probably on his own initiative.

  The Ministry of Justice is built round two inner courtyards, side by side. Glaser turned left along the first of them, making his way along the outer colonnade, to the back entrance to the courts. The back door to Court One was locked, but Glaser peered in at the window. It looked the same as it had always looked. But it wasn’t. The Special Courts for political cases had virtually taken over the prosecution of justice.

  He entered the building through a side door. As he approached the stairs, the strutting figure of Herr Vollmer came toward him, in brown SA uniform, with swastika armband.

  Herr Vollmer was an Old Fighter, given this job as a sinecure reward. He had been one of Hitler’s original Hall Guard, smashing communist skulls with chair legs and clay beer mugs, under the command of Emil Maurice. His curriculum vitae also included wrecking the Münchener Post offices on the night of the Beer Hall Putsch, as one of the SA troop lead by Karl Fiehler, the man who was now Mayor of Munich.

  ‘Oy! You! Where d’you think you’re going?’

  Glaser turned. A few months ago, there would have been a cold stare, a demand to be addressed by his title, Herr Staatsanwalt, or at least as Dr Glaser. But not now.

  ‘I need a document,’ he said. ‘I’m working at home. Rush for Monday,’ he smiled, a placatory gesture he immediately regretted.

  ‘Oh yes? What’s this document, then?’

  Vollmer, a squat, damply oleaginous figure, puffed himself up like a frog. Glaser felt a rush of hot blood, but fought it down. Suppose the caretaker actually ejected him? Took him by the collar? Word would spread round the Ministry like wildfire. He would be a laughing-stock.

  ‘I’ll show it to you on the way out, Herr Vollmer,’ said Glaser jocularly. ‘Then you can make sure nothing improper is taking place.’

  The caretaker hesitated. He had already asserted his authority. Back in his room, a cosy armchair and the latest edition of the SA magazine, The Flamethrower, awaited him. Not to mention a second breakfast of buttered rolls and ham, washed down by the first schnapps of the day.

  ‘Bring the document to my room before you leave the building,’ the caretaker commanded. He knew perfectly well Glaser would do no such thing, but honour had been satisfied.

  Glaser nodded agreement, his face blank. The caretaker nodded back; one short nod, simultaneously dismissing Glaser and giving him permission to fetch the document. As soon as Glaser had turned away, the caretaker strutted back the way he had come, swinging his arms as he walked, moving his head from side to side, inspecting, as he went, for any possible breaches of order. The Guardian of the Revolution.

  The lift was not working. Glaser made his way laboriously up the stone stairs to the second floor. His stump was so sore he would have to bandage it, unless generous applications of cold cream did the trick. Fighting down pangs of self-pity, his mood improved when he found the Clerks’ Room open. It was being cleaned.

  The cleaning women continued as if he wasn’t there. There were multiple copies of the key to the cellar hanging on a board at the back of the room. Glaser took one and made his way all the way down, hoping against hope he didn’t have another run-in with Herr Vollmer. Thankfully, however, there was no sign of the caretaker.

  In the cellar, the documents were classified by year in gunmetal filing cabinets. He opened one of the drawers for the year 1931. After a short search, he found the Geli Raubal file. He looked through it. He remembered exactly where he had put the report he had written, accusing Gürtner of a cover-up and pretty much accusing Hitler of murdering Geli.

  It was not there. Somebody had removed it.

  Chapter Twelve

  Early on the following Monday morning, Glaser requested files on Georg Winter and Julius Schreck. Most of the Old Fighters had criminal records, but many files had mysteriously disappeared since the Nazis seized power, along with Hitler’s, with its details of his conviction for assault and his two-month jail sentence.

  Georg Winter’s file, he was told by a clerk, was among the missing. This was a pity because Glaser would have started with Winter, as the softer and more malleable of the two. But to do that he needed his address. Even Glaser was not prepared to turn up at Hitler’s apartment, braving a detachment of armed SD, to interview Herr Winter at work.

  Schreck’s file,
however, which Glaser had last seen in 1931, after Geli was murdered, was still available. It was dropped on his desk, as if it were electrified, by a young clerk, who then dived for the door. In the last two years nothing had been added to the pages of the chauffeur’s many convictions. All this, however, was of less interest to Glaser than where he lived.

  To his surprise, the file informed him that Schreck lived in one of the concrete-fronted, monolithic blocks of flats out at Milbertshofen. Thrown up quickly for the BMW car workers, each of these monstrosities contained over seven hundred identical flats.

  As he drove up to the block listed as containing Schreck’s flat, Glaser doubted the chauffeur would still be living there. He surely did not need to live in a place like this. But he did. At least, his name was among the hundreds handwritten next to the push-button bells in the vestibule.

  Glaser stared at his name for a long time. Then he went back to the Opel Frosch and sat at the wheel. Schreck would deny any involvement with Herr Weintraub. To mention Sepp Kunde’s statement would be to sign his death warrant – a known communist was in no position to make accusations.

  And what about his own safety? Schreck was a dangerous man. He would not be Schreck’s first murder victim. Or he could call the SS or the SD – have Glaser tortured in the cellars of the Wittelsbach Palace, or the Brown House. Or he could have him sent to Dachau. He could be pulling a heavy roller by nightfall.

  It was dusk. A pale moon rose over the looming chevrons of blocks of flats. Glaser slowly accepted that the writ of the law no longer ran. But to turn the car and drive home was to collude in this surrender to brute force. He just could not do it. So he sat there, in the driving seat, as dusk turned to dark. He felt endlessly desolate, worse than worthless. First Geli Raubal, then Ascher Weintraub – he had failed them both.

  *

  Glaser did not hear the quiet purr of the Horch, as it parked behind his car. He was unaware of the footsteps coming toward him, on the pavement. He did not even react when the door of his Opel was opened. He just stared straight ahead, through the windscreen, into the darkness.

  ‘Hello, old man. Doing a bit of sightseeing, are we? Munich by night, and all that. I say, Gerhard, are you all right?’

  Glaser sighed, not turning his head to look at Rudi.

  ‘Lotte’s just a little bit worried.’ Rudi laid a hand gently on Glaser’s shoulder, as if waking Rip van Winkel. ‘Well, actually, she’s frantic. She’s got it into her head that you might have been arrested. But don’t worry, Ello’s with her.’

  Glaser nodded. Rudi kept talking. ‘So, anyway, Ello sent me to the Palace of Fun – Prielmayerstrasse – to see if I could pick up any clues as to where you were. And, what-do-you-know, open on your desk, was the lovely Julius’s file. Complete with his address. “Pretty good clue, there, Rudi,” I thought to myself. Gumshoe manqué that I am. And so I drove here.’

  Glaser was still, immobile. But finally a smile broke from him. Rudi had always been able to make him laugh.

  ‘That’s better,’ Rudi said. ‘Gerhard, look, I think it might be best to pass on the lovely Julius. I mean, Schreck’s a terrific conversationalist. Known for it. And I hear he plays a mean game of backgammon. What better companion for a lonely evening? In a way. But all the same ... um ... I mean ...’

  It was working. Glaser shifted in his seat, as if waking up. ‘All right, Rudi. Shut up, there’s a good boy. Drive back to my place. I’ll see you there.’

  Rudi blew out his cheeks in a sigh of relief. ‘Good. Yes. See you back at Galeriestrasse then, Gerhard.’

  Part VII - Summer 1933

  Chapter One

  Ello and Hitler sat facing each other in the Prinzregentenplatz apartment.

  ‘The first building of the new Reich,’ Hitler was saying, ‘will be a temple – a temple to art.’

  ‘An art gallery?’

  ‘Yes, an art gallery. It has always been my dream to build one. I will not live to see all the buildings I shall plan for the new Reich. But I shall live to see the first one.’

  ‘Why, won’t you live ...?’

  ‘Ah, Ellochen, I do not expect to reach old age. Great men rarely do. The buildings will be my monuments.’

  Ello nodded. ‘Tell me about the art gallery,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, yes. It will be called the House of German Art. It will be near this place, which will always be my home.’ He waved a hand round the apartment.

  ‘When will it be ready?’

  ‘In October. There will be a Great Exhibition of German Art to mark the opening.’

  ‘October? So soon?’ October was five months away.

  ‘Yes, yes. Troost and I have already done the plans.’

  ‘May I see them?’

  ‘Wait there, Ellochen,’ he said playfully.

  Ello’s forced smile faded as soon as he left her alone. That evening they were going to the birthday reception for her mother, at the von Hessert villa. Before that, she was to spend the day with him. So far, she had evaded his attempts to draw her again, though the strain of doing so made her tense and tired. She felt sick the whole time, these days.

  Just after she had arrived, on the pretext of going to the bathroom, she had got away from him from a few minutes, and looked round his bedroom. It was as sparse and spare as the German people had been told: A military-style campbed, a chest of drawers, a bureau, a Regina typewriter. And a pistol on the shelf above his bed.

  It must have been the pistol he had used to kill Geli. He had killed Geli – she was more and more sure of that. She stared at the pistol, breathing hard, wondering. But she had never fired a gun in her life. Suppose she just wounded him? And even if she killed him, his guards would be there in seconds. Was she ready to die, almost certainly under torture?

  As she stood there, the sleek figure of Herr Winter came in, behind her. She had not heard him coming; he was suddenly there. His habitual servant’s pleasant half-smile was gone. He was cold and sinister. She wondered why she had not realised that before.

  ‘Oh, Herr Winter! You made me jump. I was just ... The Führer has a kind of aura, don’t you think? It’s strong in places where he is often there.’ She chattered on for a while longer with this rubbish. It was enough. Just. Herr Winter turned and wordlessly left the room, limping slightly. It would not be a good idea to be caught in Hitler’s bedroom again, though.

  However, the news of this new building was transforming her mood, offering, she thought, real hope. It was the obvious place for Sepp to plant a bomb. She could leave killing him to Sepp. It was the first time in her life she could leave anything to a man – the first time she could lean on a man. Just for once, she was not the strong one. She thought of Sepp’s skilled and practised love-making, then put it out of her mind.

  *

  Hitler came back with some sketches and an architectural drawing. He laid them all out on the massive dining-room table, weighted down with encyclopedias and books. Then he bent over them, staring down at them concentratedly, one hand cupped under his chin. Ello looked down at the plan, trying to memorise it.

  ‘The building will be 160 metres long and 60 metres wide,’ Hitler intoned. ‘With entrances from all four sides. The main entrance, at the top of Prinzregentenstrasse, is behind an eleven-metre-high colonnade. At the north side, a four-metre drop with stairs to the Englischer Garten. There, there will be restaurants, a café and a small beer tavern. The centrepiece is the Hall of Honour, twenty-four by thirty-six metres, lit by natural light through the glass roof. Eleven exhibition halls, placed symmetrically off this main hall, will celebrate Aryan creative genius. Some halls are rectangular, ten metres by sixteen. Some are square, ten by ten.’

  ‘With pillars?’ said Ello faintly.

  Sepp had told her a bomb could be built into a pillar. He had explained to her the rudiments of bomb-making, so she would know which questions to ask.

  ‘Yes, yes. Eleven metres high. Yellow. Jura marble.’

  ‘What’s that?’ she
said, pointing to a shaded section along the bottom of the plan.

  ‘The air-raid shelter,’ he said. ‘And I have planned the motto to stand in stone over the threshold: Art is an Ennobling Mission Demanding Fanaticism.’

  ‘Demanding fanaticism?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Art is far more important than politics or economics.’

  ‘I see,’ she said.

  She felt a wave of disgust at him. But at least she had no need to hide her feelings. He noticed nothing. She needed a break from his suffocating presence; from his insane, banal opinions; from the stink of his breath, and from his flatulence.

  ‘I won’t be a moment,’ she murmured, heading, again, for the bathroom next to Geli’s room. On impulse she tried Geli’s door. It was unlocked. The tall, angular figure of Anni Winter was inside, in a floral dress. Ello jumped. ‘Oh, I ...’ She stopped just inside the door.

  The housekeeper was placing the vase of red chrysanthemums, put there fresh every day, in memory of Geli. ‘That’s all right, gnädiges Fräulein,’ Anni smiled. ‘You can go where you want. If I may say so, madam, we all hope to see you as mistress of this house one day soon.’

  The shift to addressing her as ‘madam’ signalled that Anni was openly treating Ello as her employer. Ello knew Anni was her champion, so to speak. She was giving Hitler’s other girlfriend, Eva Braun, Hoffmann’s photographic assistant, an even harder time than she had given poor Geli.

  Ello was about to leave when she noticed a grave urn on the dresser. She felt sick.

  ‘What’s ...? Is that ...?’

  Anni looked worried for a second, then her brow cleared. ‘Nobody is to know, really. But, well, seeing as it’s you, madam. Best not tell Herr Hitler you know, though.’

  ‘It’s Geli?’

  ‘Yes, madam.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘The day after Fräulein Raubal’s funeral, Herr Hitler, Schreck and my husband visited the cemetery, in Vienna. That night, Herr Hitler instructed Schreck and my husband to exhume the deceased. The empty grave was closed again. Schreck arranged the cremation. They brought the ashes back with them.’ Anni Winter crossed herself. ‘It was kept secret.’ Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Nobody knows. Except us.’