The Night of the Generals

by Hans Hellmut Kirst

  The room was cold and smooth as a metal box. The predominant colour was a chalky white against which the wall-maps stood out like blemishes. Even the few pieces of furniture dotted round the room failed to alleviate its depressing monotony.

  The harsh light illuminated a bottle and two tumblers, and, just beyond the immediate radius of the lamp’s glare, the faces of Sergeant Engel and Major Grau. Engel was slumped wearily in his chair, while Grau smilingly studied the light through his glass.

  Engel grinned discreetly. “You wouldn’t put anything past those generals, would you, Major?”

  There was a rustle of silk as Major Grau leant forward slightly, but his expression betrayed no identifiable emotion. His elegance had an irritating quality. No one who saw him would have believed that he was associated with one of the dirtier aspects of war.

  “Impatience is not one of my vices, as you know, Engel,” Grau said blandly, “but I should be interested to hear if you’ve managed to verify any details.”

  “Of course, sir, as far as I was able. From all that has come out so far it really seems on the cards that a general was responsible.”

  “And why shouldn’t it have been a general?” asked Grau with a disarming smile. “After all, someone must have done it.”

  Engel played a scale on his knuckles. “All the same, Major, it’s a case of brutal murder.”

  “Experience tells us that murder is far from being a prerogative of the insane—or even of the lower classes, so why shouldn’t a general join the club for once?” Major Grau smiled pensively. “To the gaping mob, a Prussian or a German general is much the same as a national monument, but compared with some of the specimens I’ve met any village schoolmaster’s a genius and any tramp’s a gentleman.”

  “Oh yes,” said Engel, “that’s all very true. I’ve caught a general with a male tart before now on a raid. But surely, sir, the real question is—who’s going to believe us?”

  Grau’s voice took on the deliberate tones of a don delivering an important lecture. “Don’t you see, Engel? We can beat these lads at their own game: history. We can wrap their past round their necks until it chokes them. We can take it for granted that these inflated idiots who enjoy sounding off about honour and tradition whenever it serves their purpose are really poor whipped curs. We can also take it for granted that they’ve always run off with their tails between their legs whenever they’ve been treated accordingly. We can tell ourselves that they were better at their job in the days of the Great Elector. Frederick the Great made marionettes out of them. In 1848 they let themselves be cut to pieces in Berlin by a handful of comparatively harmless revolutionaries. Under William the Second they became tailor’s dummies. During the Weimar Republic their sole remaining wish was to survive. And when Adolf Hitler arrived on the scene they crawled to him on their bellies and licked his hand.”

  Engel picked up his glass and silently held it to the light.

  Major Grau passed a hand across his eyes as though dazzled, then continued in the same urbane tone. “Of course, generalizations are always absurd. Not all generals are epic figures or political time-servers. I’ve no doubt there are some worthy men among them.”

  “Some bastards too—eh, Major?” said Engel. “And one of them’s the man we’re after—eh?”

  “That’s about the size of it,” said Grau.

  INTERIM REPORT

  FURTHER DOCUMENTS

  Extracts from diaries and letters, also an excerpt from a situation report and the results of further inquiries.

  Extracts from a diary kept by Frau Wilhelmine von Seydlitz-Gabler. This journal, entitled “My Personal War Diary” and comprising several volumes, was made available only after protracted negotiations with the authoress’s relatives, in whom sole rights are vested.

  Warsaw 1942

  “How grim this city would seem if Herbert were, not here. His pure and kindly nature sheds a sort of universal radiance. Clarity of thought is his distinguishing characteristic. I need hardly say that I am proud of him, but it is pride coupled with humility.

  “How popular he is with his staff! I really believe they would go through fire for him. And how wonderful that their regard for him extends to myself. Do I deserve it? When I asked my husband he said yes—another proof of his greatness.

  “Arranged a small luncheon party today. Everything went swimmingly, as far as it ever can in this city. Quite a festive table, of which Herbert the undisputed centre of attention. On his right: General Tanz, one of the Reich’s finest soldiers and many times decorated. Touching, the well-bred gallantry with which he paid court to Ulrike, our daughter! Ulrike was deeply impressed but tried not to show it. Young people are like that, but our experience of life will guard her against making any silly mistakes.

  “At a convenient moment I said to General Tanz, in confidence: ‘I’m so glad that it’s you who are to work with my husband at this important juncture.’ And I added, spontaneously: ‘My husband thinks the world of you!’ Whereupon Tanz: The feeling is mutual!’ What more is there to say?

  “Herbert is literally wearing himself out. He works all day and even during the night. A few days ago he didn’t get to bed until dawn. How touchingly anxious he was not to wake me! I couldn’t bring myself to disillusion him. Later, when I tidied his clothes, which he had thrown down untidily in a state of utter exhaustion, I was horrified to see traces of blood on them. He must have been visiting the front, but he didn’t make the slightest fuss about it. How typical of him!”

  Situation report by Lieutenant-General Tanz, commanding Nibelungen Division.

  Written in Warsaw in 1942 and prepared in quintuplicate: one copy for the Corps Commander, one for Supreme Headquarters, Wehrmacht, one for the Reichsführer S.S. and two further copies for filing. One copy of this reposes in the “Collection of Historic Documents” in Warsaw. What follows is the fourth paragraph of the report, which originally comprised seven type-written sheets:

  “As things stand now, there is obviously no longer room for so-called subtlety and flexibility, i.e., caution. Our efforts should much rather be directed toward a radical solution. The population of Warsaw is dangerous. Nothing further can be achieved by kindness and consideration. An uprising could occur at any moment. The fact that German soldiers have been shot down from ambush is established beyond doubt. Casualties are not yet heavy—in the past week only seven men lost as against three hundred and sixty-four deaths inflicted in the course of immediate reprisals—but this figure could increase overnight. I therefore find myself compelled to urge unremitting severity.”

  Deposition by ex-Corporal Otto recorded on tape in summer 1960. All that are reproduced here are extracts which appear to have a bearing on the events in Warsaw and their sequel.

  “I’m a sensitive sort of chap—always have been. I enjoy talking, but I can’t understand why everyone harps on the Hartmann business. Hartmann was a nut-case, I tell you for a fact.

  ‘There was something odd about Hartmann. If I’d thought about it properly at the time I could have told how everything was going to turn out. Some people snuff it as easily as others catch cold. Hartmann was like that. He always used to say: ‘How can I help it? I ask you—how can a donkey help having long ears?” It wouldn’t have mattered what Hartmann did, believe me, the final result would have been the same.

  “Gentle as a lamb, he was. The women used to go gooey-eyed when they looked at him. He was a good-natured lad, too. You could have a game of cards with him and he’d never go off the deep end when he lost. He lost most of the time, I might add.”

  Deposition by ex-Sergeant Engel, also recorded eighteen years later. Like all statements made by Herr Engel (and sundry other individuals) it was subject to the express qualification: “as far as I can remember.”

  “Don’t ask me what sort of person Major Grau was. I don’t know. I worked with him for nearly two years but I never got to the bottom of him. To look at the man you’d think he was mild as milk, but he could be st
ubborn as a mule when he wanted to be. He was no respecter of persons. I once heard him tell Gauleiter Koch, the Reich Commissioner: ‘I’m not interested in what you represent here, only in what you do!’

  “He knew his job, there’s no doubt about that. He had ideas, too. I once saw a letter on his desk from Admiral Canaris. It began ‘My dear Gottfried.’ Gave me quite a turn, I can tell you. I never even knew that Major Grau’s Christian name was Gottfried.

  “Life was full of surprises when he was around. There were days when I didn’t know whether to treat him like a friend or an enemy. Once, he even said to me—referring to a general—”You can’t tame a mad dog!’ “

  4

  Major-General Kahlenberge, Chief of Staff to the Corps Commander, liked to pretend that he enjoyed choral singing. As a matter of fact, he didn’t, but as he once said to a friend: “Men who sing can’t think, and men who can’t think make congenial subordinates—so let them sing. It makes a senior officer’s job that much less complicated.”

  Kahlenberge often sat and listened to the G.H.Q. choir going through its paces. This choir—a male voice ensemble, needless to say—was drawn from every branch of the Corps Commander’s staff. The sergeant cook was a member, as was the chief of the map-making section; clerks sang beside technicians, the leading tenor was a signaller and the mightiest bass belonged to a medical orderly. The choir-master’s duties were performed by a dentist who enjoyed a great reputation as a festival conductor in his home town. He conducted with verve and endurance but wasted no time on musical subtleties.

  “Westerwald!” General Kahlenberge called encouragingly.

  The choir, which had just been allowed a short break for throat-clearing and nose-blowing, set to again with a will. Kahlenberge leant back comfortably in his chair and stretched his legs. The other ranks’ mess hall in the cellar of the Liechnowski Palace, which provided the venue for this prodigal outpouring of emotion, seemed to quake.

  Without warning, the singers’ fervour suddenly redoubled in intensity. Kahlenberge was at a loss to explain this phenomenon until he swivelled round in his seat and beheld the G.O.C. He rose to his feet with decorum and came to attention. The choir continued to sing lustily of the wind that blew so cold in the Westerwald.

  The G.O.C. took his Chief of Staff by the arm and led him out into the cellar passage. When von Seydlitz-Gabler treated one of his subordinates with this degree of intimacy his motives were bound to be interesting. Kahlenberge’s eyes began to gleam like those of a cat scenting a plump mouse.

  “A splendid choir,” declared von Seydlitz-Gabler.

  Kahlenberge nodded. “Practice makes perfect.”

  The G.O.C. cleared his throat. “We Germans have an inexhaustible repertoire of choral music. I’m particularly fond of Lützows wilde, verwegene Jagd.”

  “We’ll practise it,” Kahlenberge assured him. His curiosity mounted.

  “Choral singing is an embodiment of the purest German traditions. It’s not surprising that all our most characteristic virtues can be found in it—profound romanticism, for instance, and boundless love of nature, especially the German forests. Unquestioning loyalty, too.”

  Kahlenberge smiled. Digressions of this sort meant that something quite extraordinary was in the offing, but the G.O.C. was finding it patently difficult to steer the conversation round to it. “Let’s go into the inner courtyard,” said von Seydlitz-Gabler eventually.

  The inner courtyard boasted a fountain, a stretch of lawn and some comparatively unobjectionable early baroque cloisters. Here the G.O.C. liked to pace up and down in peace and seclusion, lost in thought processes which he deemed creative, and here, once he and Kahlenberge were safely within its precincts, he turned on his Chief of Staff with the air of a man about to impart a revelation. “Imagine it, Kahlenberge! That man Grau is sitting in my outer office!”

  “Not for the first time, sir, surely?” inquired Kahlenberge drily.

  “No, no, but he’s sent a message asking permission to put some questions to me—in an official capacity! What do you think of that?”

  Kahlenberge could not find the right words at first—he was so surprised and delighted. With relish, he mentally reconstructed the sequence of events. Grau had turned up in the outer office and announced that he proposed to ask the G.O.C. some official questions—and the G.O.C. had promptly raced out of the back door and gone to find his Chief of Staff. “What a remarkable thing,” he commented ambiguously.

  “Something must be done—and quickly!”

  “But why, sir?” Kahlenberge’s tone was innocent.

  “Now see here, my dear chap!” The G.O.C. drew himself up imperiously as though inspecting a whole division on the eve of battle. “This is an alarming state of affairs. We must map out a course of action at once. We can’t just lie down and let the Abwehr ride rough-shod over us.”

  “Has Grau given any hint as to what questions he intends asking?”

  “Oh, that’s clear as daylight. The man’s obviously trying to provoke me. Yesterday I thought he was just having his little joke, and since it was a joke in doubtful taste I treated it as such. In my innocence, I thought he would come to his senses if he were given a chance to do so—but what happens? He has the effrontery to waltz in here and try to ask me questions—me!”

  “And you really think it has something to do with the story he told us yesterday? May I ask what makes you so sure?”

  “My instinct tells me—instinct coupled with experience. Believe you me, Kahlenberge, this man Grau wouldn’t shrink from following up the most preposterous red herrings. He’s the sort who’d send his own mother to the gallows if it helped him to wrap up a case. We must put a stop to his game at all costs.”

  Kahlenberge’s luminous cat’s eyes narrowed. “Grau is not without influence,” he said slowly. “It would be unwise to ignore the fact.”

  “I don’t want any unnecessary complications,” replied von Seydlitz-Gabler, “but I refuse point blank to overestimate this fellow’s importance. He must be put in his place.”

  “Nothing could be easier,” Kahlenberge said, watching von Seydlitz-Gabler’s face keenly. “You’ve only got to answer his questions and he’ll be forced to see how pointless it was to put them in the first place.”

  The G.O.C. folded his handkerchief into a pad and mopped his brow. His forehead was a high one and it took some time to pat it dry. “You’re right as usual, my dear Kahlenberge— at least in principle. Under normal circumstances what you suggest would certainly be the simplest solution. Unfortunately, circumstances are anything but normal in this instance.”

  Kahlenberge paused near one of the cloister pillars. “Does that mean, sir,” he asked gleefully, “that you wouldn’t be in a position to answer Grau’s questions fully?”

  “You might put it that way,” von Seydlitz-Gabler conceded with an effort. “Not, of course, that I feel in the least bit guilty about anything. However, I’ll frankly admit to you in confidence that such an interrogation might prove embarrassing to me.”

  “That,” said Kahlenberge, barely able to conceal his delight, “changes everything, of course.”

  “On the evening when the appalling incident Grau told us about took place I was, shall we say, in transit. I assure you that I have nothing whatsoever to hide, but it was—so to speak—a masculine excursion. You follow me?”

  Kahlenberge nodded. He had every sympathy with masculine excursions.

  “If you mean,” he said, “that Grau should be choked off because he’s being a nuisance, I’d agree. He urgently needs a change of air, somewhere as far away from Warsaw as possible.”

  Now it was von Seydlitz-Gabler’s turn to prick up his ears. He could read between the lines. If Kahlenberge was so ready to commit himself on the subject it meant that he had reasons of his own, possibly of an equally intimate nature.

  “Let’s assume,” the G.O.C. said, not without curiosity, “that I simply passed Grau on—to you, for instance, my dear Kahlenberge. Le
t’s assume that I told Grau: put your questions to Kahlenberge first and then come and see me. How would that strike you?”

  “Most unfavourably.” Kahlenberge’s reaction was unambiguous. “I have a private life too, and I’m just as anxious to avoid sharing it with strangers. With all due respect, we’re in much the same boat.”

  “There you are!” von Seydlitz-Gabler exclaimed jubilantly. “We’re both in the same boat, Kahlenberge, but we’re an experienced team. What do you think we ought to do under the circumstances?”

  “What everyone does when there’s no other alternative-declare war,” replied Kahlenberge with quiet irony. “If Grau refuses to be choked off we’ll just send him to General Tanz. I can’t think of anyone better equipped to deal with him. Tanz has an uncomplicated way of handling people—he just ups his horns and tosses everyone who crosses his path.”

  “Agreed,” said von Seydlitz-Gabler with relief. Then, cautious as ever, he added: “You really think Tanz is the right man for the job?”

  “The only man,” said Kahlenberge.

  General Tanz seemed to be magically attracted by one particular street intersection in the western half of central Warsaw. There was nothing noticeably different about it. It was just an intersection like a hundred others, a drab expanse of cobbles, trees, groups of houses—alternately grey and green— and dirty window-panes like dull, sightless eyes.

  On the ordnance survey map in General Tanz’s hands, however, this intersection bore the legend “P1”, pencilled in bold, vigorous characters as red as fire. P1 stood for Point One—the place chosen as the jumping-off point for General Tanz’s proposed mopping-up operation.

  “So the G.O.C. hasn’t rejected our plan,” Tanz said thoughtfully.

  Major Sandauer stood a pace or two behind his General in an attitude of alert and respectful attention. “We haven’t received official confirmation yet,” he replied cautiously.