Prague Fatale

by Philip Kerr

  ‘And God knows how many if we include all of the SS up at the guard house.’

  I grunted.

  ‘Do you want to include them?’

  ‘How many are in the garrison?’

  ‘At least two hundred.’

  ‘I don’t want to include them, no. No. But I hardly see how I can exclude them given the possibility that Albert Kuttner may have been warm. A bit of rough trade with an enlisted man in the woods might have been just his beer. The first thing we have to do—’

  ‘You mean apart from interviewing the senior ranks.’

  I paused.

  ‘So far no one’s complained about being kept waiting by you,’ said Kahlo. ‘But it won’t be long.’

  I nodded. ‘All right. While I start with the formal interviews, the first thing you have to do is to try and speak to everyone informally and get a sense of Kuttner’s movements last night. Who was the last person to see him alive and at what time? That kind of thing. Now, I saw him at about nine o’clock when he was having a fairly heated discussion in the garden with one of the other adjutants – Captain Kluckholn, I think. Then about half an hour later, after Heydrich had made a speech, he appeared in the library with some champagne. So you might start with that in mind. I want times and places. And see if you can’t get a plan of the house. That way we can start plotting his various positions.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose that might help.’

  ‘Any suggestions of your own will be gratefully considered.’

  ‘Then a clairvoyant with a crystal ball couldn’t do any harm. Strikes me that’s the only way we’re going to find a murderer who walks through locked doors and shoots people without making a sound.’

  ‘You make me begin to wonder what I’m doing here, Kurt.’

  ‘By the way, sir, if you don’t mind me asking. What are you doing here? What I mean is: all this damned cauliflower. It’s like a market garden in this house.’

  He was referring to the oak-leaf collar patches that distinguished SS generals, brigadiers, and colonels from lesser mortals.

  ‘What’s it all about? What’s the reason for it?’

  ‘You ask some pretty good questions for a man who promised to work for me, no questions asked.’

  ‘So what’s the answer?’

  ‘I believe General Heydrich wanted a quiet weekend with friends to celebrate his appointment as the new Reichsprotector of Bohemia.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘You sound surprised. But not as surprised as I was to be asked along on this jaunt. The General and I, we’ve grown apart, you understand. Schiller once wrote a pretty good poem to his friends. When I was at school we were obliged to learn all five verses. I used to think he said all there was to say about what friendship means in Germany. Only I don’t remember a verse covering the kind of friend I have in General Heydrich. Goethe did it better, I think. You know? What happens when Mephistopheles invites you over for real coffee and American cigarettes.’

  Even as I said it Arianne came into my mind; it was she who had made the comparison between Heydrich and Mephistopheles on the train from Berlin, and ever since then I’d been wondering just how long I had to work for Heydrich before my soul was forfeit.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Kahlo. ‘Temptation. And temptation like real coffee and American cigarettes. Well that’s very tempting.’

  ‘I figure that the alternative is worse. I can’t answer for why all the cauliflower is here, but that’s why I’m on board. Because the General asked me to dance. Because he doesn’t like it when you say no.’

  ‘All right. I’ll buy that.’

  ‘Good. Now let’s see what we can do about getting a bead on the invisible man.’

  SS Obergruppenführer Richard Hildebrandt was the Higher Police Leader in Danzig and commander of a large unit of SS that was stationed in West Prussia. In the event of the citizens of Berlin rising up against Hitler, Hildebrandt would be in charge of suppressing that particular revolution.

  Born at Worms in 1897, he was an old friend of Heydrich’s. Smooth, neat, fastidious, and of only average height, he had the look and manner of a prosperous businessman. Certainly he had the best tailoring of any officer who was staying at the Lower Castle. On his left breast pocket he wore a Knight’s Cross of the War Merit Cross with Swords – a silver Nazi medal that had nothing to do with the proper Knight’s Cross, and everyone who’d seen proper combat thought of this decoration as a substitute Iron Cross; but I suppose a general has to have some kind of furniture on his tunic if ever people are going to listen to him. But the gold Party badge he wore next to the faux Knight’s Cross was the real hallmark of his sterling Nazi status and near-untouchability. That little gewgaw occupied pride of place on his uniform and was the cynosure of anyone who knew what was what in Nazi Germany.

  He sat down on the sofa opposite me, lit a cigarette and crossed his legs. ‘Will this take long, Commissar?’

  ‘Not long, sir.’

  ‘Good. Because I have some important paperwork I need to get through.’

  ‘How well did you know Captain Kuttner?’

  ‘I didn’t know him at all. Until I arrived here the day before yesterday I had perhaps spoken to him twice, and only on the telephone.’

  ‘How did you find him?’

  ‘He struck me as efficient. Well educated. Diligent. As one might expect of an officer working for a man like General Heydrich.’

  ‘Did you like him?’

  ‘What kind of stupid question is that?’

  ‘A fairly easy one, I’d say. Did you like him?’

  Hildebrandt shrugged. ‘I did not dislike him.’

  ‘Can you think of any reason why someone would want to kill him?’

  ‘No, and my own opinion is that a Czech must have committed the crime. There are Czechs working here, in the house and grounds. My advice, Commissar, would be to start by questioning them, not senior generals in the SS.’

  ‘My apologies, Herr General. I was led to believe by Major Ploetz that I should conduct these interviews in strict order of seniority, so as not to keep anyone important – such as yourself – hanging around.’

  Hildebrandt shrugged. ‘I see. My apologies, Commissar.’

  I shrugged back.

  ‘However, I still fail to see why senior ranks should be questioned at all. In my opinion my word should be good enough.’

  ‘And what word is that, sir?’

  ‘That I had nothing at all to do with this man’s death, of course.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it, sir. However, it is not the point of this interview to find out if you murdered Captain Kuttner. The immediate purpose of this inquiry is to build a detailed picture of the man’s last few hours. And having done so, to identify some genuine suspects. You do see the difference.’

  ‘Of course. Do you take me for an idiot?’

  I didn’t answer that. ‘You were with us all, in the library, to listen to the Leader’s speech, were you not?’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘And then to hear Heydrich’s speech.’

  Hildebrandt nodded, impatiently. He took a last puff of his cigarette and then extinguished it in a heavy glass ashtray that lay on the table between us.

  ‘Do you remember Captain Kuttner bringing in some champagne after that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you stay celebrating very long?’

  ‘Yes. I confess I drank rather too much, I think. Like everyone else I have a bit of a headache this morning.’

  ‘Yes sir. Only I have a bigger one. I have to solve this murder. That won’t be easy. You do see that, don’t you? At some stage it’s possible I’m going to have to accuse a brother officer of killing Kuttner. Perhaps even a senior officer. I think you might try to be a little more understanding of my position, sir.’

  ‘Don’t tell me my duty, Commissar Gunther.’

  ‘With the scary badge in your lapel? I wouldn’t dream of it, sir.’

  Hildebrandt glanced down at his gold Par
ty badge and smiled. ‘You mean this, don’t you? I’ve heard that’s what some people call it. Although I can’t imagine why anyone would be scared of this.’

  ‘It means that you joined the Party very early on, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. In my case it was 1922. The following year I took part in the Munich putsch. I was right behind the Leader as we left the beer hall.’

  ‘You must have been very young, sir.’

  ‘I was twenty-six.’

  ‘If you don’t mind me asking, what happened to you, sir? After the putsch failed.’

  His eyes misted over for a moment before he answered.

  ‘Things were difficult for a while. Very difficult. I don’t mind telling you. Apart from the harassment I received at the hands of the police, I was short of money and I had little choice but to go and work abroad.’

  He seemed relieved to be talking about something that was nothing to do with Kuttner; relaxed even, which, momentarily, was my intention.

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘America. There I tried my hand at farming for a while. But after that failed I became a bookseller, in New York.’

  ‘That’s quite a switch, sir. Did you fail at being a bookseller, too?’

  Hildebrandt frowned.

  ‘Or did you come back to Germany for another reason, sir?’

  ‘I came back because of the wonderful things that were happening in Germany. Because of the Leader. That was 1930.’

  ‘And you joined the SS when, may I ask?’

  ‘1931. That is when I first met Heydrich. But I don’t see what any of this has to do with the death of Captain Kuttner.’

  ‘I’m coming to that, if you’ll bear with me. I suppose you must have a high regard for the standards of the SS, having joined as early as 1931.’

  ‘Yes, I do. Of course I do. What kind of a question is that?’

  ‘Do you suppose that Captain Kuttner lived up to those standards?’

  ‘I’m sure he did.’

  ‘Are you sure he did, or do you suppose he did?’

  ‘What are you driving at, Gunther?’

  ‘If I told you that Captain Kuttner was a practising homosexual, what would your reaction be?’

  ‘Nonsense. General Heydrich would never have tolerated such a thing. I’ve known him long enough to be quite sure of that.’

  ‘What if General Heydrich didn’t know about it?’

  ‘There are no secrets from Heydrich,’ said Hildebrandt. ‘You should be aware of that. And if you’re not, you soon will be. What he doesn’t know, probably isn’t worth knowing.’

  ‘Would it surprise you if I told you that there are some things even Heydrich doesn’t know?’

  ‘Nonsense,’ he repeated. ‘This whole line of questioning is nonsense, Commissar. Kuttner was artistic, at worst. But we don’t condemn a man for enjoying good music and appreciating good paintings.’

  ‘With respect, I don’t think it is nonsense, sir. Kuttner was living with a man in Berlin. A man with convictions for male prostitution. A man who used to frequent a notorious homosexual bar called the Burger Casino, dressed in a schoolboy sailor-suit, and who used to take his clients to a nearby pier on the river in order to have sex with them.’

  ‘Rubbish. I just don’t believe it. And I think it very poor taste on your part to malign a fellow officer who is no longer in a position to defend himself from that kind of defamation.’

  ‘Let us assume for one minute that I’m right about this.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Please, sir. Indulge me for a moment.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘What would your opinion be of a man like that?’

  ‘My opinion?’

  ‘Yes, sir. What do you think of an SS captain who shares his bed with a male prostitute?’

  Hildebrandt’s smooth face darkened. The lips tightened and the jaw turned pugnacious.

  ‘I mean, sir, it’s said it was Ernst Röhm’s homosexuality that was one of the reasons the Party turned on him, why he was executed.’

  ‘That’s probably true,’ admitted Hildebrandt. ‘Röhm was a degenerate. As were some of the others. Edmund Heines. Klausener. Schneidhuber. Schragmüller. They were loathsome specimens and richly deserved their fate.’

  ‘Of course they did.’

  I wasn’t sure they had deserved their fate, not all of them. Erich Klausener had been the leader of the police department at the Prussian interior ministry in Berlin and not a bad fellow at all. But I wasn’t there to debate with Hildebrandt.

  ‘Do you think that sort of thing should be tolerated in the SS?’

  ‘Of course it shouldn’t. And it isn’t tolerated. Never has been.’

  ‘Do you think it brings dishonour to the SS? Is that why?’

  ‘Certainly it brings dishonour to the SS, Commissar Gunther. What a fucking question. It’s obvious. If the man was, as you say, homosexual – although I still don’t believe Kuttner was – then I’d go further than that. Such a man should be put in front of a firing squad. Like Röhm and those other queers. It’s the pansies and the Jews who almost destroyed Germany during the Weimar Republic.’

  ‘Oh, surely,’ I said.

  ‘Who continue to threaten the moral fibre of our country. We are cultivating increasingly healthy blood for Germany and it must be kept pure. As the father of three children myself, two of them boys, I say it quite emphatically. If such a man was under my command I should not hesitate to denounce him to the Gestapo. Not for a minute. No matter how serious the consequences.’

  ‘Well, of course,’ I said, ‘I know it’s illegal under paragraphs 174 and 175 of the Criminal Code. But I thought that homosexuals could only be sent to prison for up to ten years. So, let me get this straight. There are extra punishments that apply to such people in the SS, is that right? Like being shot, as you say. I assume you would know, sir.’

  He lit another cigarette.

  ‘As a matter of fact I do know. And in the strictest confidence I will tell you what happens. In the SS we have about one case of homosexuality a month. When they are uncovered, by order of the Reichsführer-SS himself they are degraded, expelled, and handed over to the courts; and following completion of the statutory punishment, which you mentioned, they are then sent to a concentration camp, where they are most often shot, while attempting to escape.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Personally, I can’t see the need for the camp. If it was up to me, it would be the commanding officer who would shoot such a man. Summarily.’

  ‘So, let me get this straight. If you had absolute incontrovertible proof that Captain Kuttner was a homosexual, and he’d been your junior officer, you’d have shot him yourself. Is that right?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Thank you, General. That will be all, sir. I do appreciate your candour in this matter.’

  Hildebrandt paused. ‘Are you playing games with me, Commissar?’

  ‘I was merely testing a theory, sir.’

  ‘And what theory is that?’

  ‘Only that it’s quite possible he wasn’t murdered by a Czech after all, as you insisted earlier. But by another German. I dare say you’re not the only man who thinks Kuttner was probably murdered by a Czech. It’s a common enough prejudice we Germans have: a suspicion of other lesser races. Take Berlin’s S-Bahn murderer, this summer. Paul Ogorzow. Remember him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Before he was caught everyone thought the murderer was a foreign worker. But Paul Ogorzow was a German. Not only that, but he was a Party member. Not as early a member as you, sir, but I think he joined well before Hitler became Reich Chancellor.’

  I shrugged. ‘When it comes to murder, I like to keep an open mind.’

  Hildebrandt got up to leave. He straightened his immaculate riding-breeches, which were the expensive kind – with the suede inside legs, as if he actually went riding – and moved toward the Morning Room door.

  ‘By the way, sir. How did you find liv
ing in America?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Did you enjoy living in America, sir?’

  ‘Yes. I did.’

  ‘I’d love to work in a foreign country. So far it’s been France, Bohemia and the Ukraine. And I didn’t much like the Ukraine. And I certainly didn’t like the work.’