The Night of the Generals

by Hans Hellmut Kirst

  “They may be, yes, but not necessarily so—particularly with a man nice Tanz.”

  “Perhaps you underestimate von Seydlitz-Gabler’s influence. He’s still got a lot of pull, you know.”

  “I’ve taken his influence into consideration from the start. I realize that generals like von Seydlitz-Gabler are an institution in Germany. Just because they lose battles or campaigns or even wars, it doesn’t mean they forfeit their influence.”

  BRIEF NOTE: Von Seydlitz-Gabler in the intervening years

  End of July 1944, promoted to Army Commander. Invested with the oak leaves to his Knight’s Cross for exemplary conduct during the 20th July crisis and honoured with a personal citation from the Führer and Supreme Commander. Exemplary conduct maintained until the last day of the war. Preferential treatment while a prisoner of war at Schloss Beil near Stuttgart, where he writes essays on the reasons for Germany’s defeat, larding them with veiled allusions to Hitler’s incompetent generalship. 1946-49, a peaceful interlude at the Villa Friedhold near Berchtesgaden. 1950, elected one of the three honorary presidents of the Combat Veterans’ Association. 1951 onwards, essays, articles and lectures. Their general theme: the integrity of the German soldier, in particular his sense of honour. A noted spokesman for the revival of military self-reliance, currently known as defensive preparedness. Now preparing a comprehensive book of memoirs to be entitled “Every Inch a Soldier.”

  “You’re right,” said Kahlenberge. “Von Seydlitz-Gabler may be an overgrown schoolboy, but his contacts are legion. If Tanz wanted to break with the East he couldn’t turn to a better man.”

  “But to resume, mon cher. It is my habit to glance through international police reports occasionally—out of sheer boredom, if you like. Well, whether you call it coincidence or fate, on the very day when I received your letter telling me that Tanz was contemplating a change of scenery I happened to see a confidential report from East Germany. It referred to a crime of violence.”

  Kahlenberge was breathing heavily now, like a man toiling up a mountain-side. “A crime similar to the one described by Hartmann?”

  Prévert nodded. “Not only similar, but identical in almost every detail with what he told us. One more thing: the crime was committed in Dresden, and General Tanz is quartered in the Dresden area at the present time.”

  “I can promise you one thing, you won’t be bored.” Prévert snapped his fingers for the bill. “But that’s all I can guarantee.”

  Kahlenberge regarded his companion with a quizzical smile. “And what part do you envisage for me?”

  “Principally that of a friend,” Prévert said cordially. “I am operating in a somewhat unfamiliar field, you know. My experience of generals has been rather limited hitherto, and I lack the special knowledge which you, my dear friend, so abundantly possess. Your main function will be to draw my attention to any features of my plan of action which you consider faulty. I rely on you to be frank.”

  “What else do you want me to do?”

  Prévert slipped a large note under the bill which had been presented to him and gently drew Kahlenberge towards the exit. “You, mon cher, are here to give a lecture. That’s the official version, as it were. However, your lecture won’t claim all your time, so you may get a chance for a chat with one or other of your old friends—about your unforgettable times together in Warsaw and Paris, for example.”

  “Not with von Seydlitz-Gabler, surely? How are you going to entice him here?”

  Prévert raised his hands like a salesman defending the quality of his goods. “General von Seydlitz-Gabler,” he said blandly, “has been invited here by a publisher to discuss his memoirs. It wasn’t too difficult to find a potential buyer, incidentally. To cut a long story short, our former hero has already arrived—complete with lady wife, needless to say. All expenses to be paid by the publisher.”

  “That only leaves his daughter.”

  “Ulrike von Seydlitz-Gabler has been living in Berlin for some years. At the moment she is working as secretary to an industrial consultant.”

  BRIEF NOTE: Ulrike von Seydlitz-Gabler in the intervening years

  Immediately after 20th July 1944, quarrels with her parents whose efforts to make her see “reason” are entirely unavailing, and breaks away from the family fold. 1945-8, a durable affair with an American colonel, already married. Stays on in Berlin after his departure and tries her hand at modelling {dress-house and photographic) and acting—all with only moderate success. 1952, learns shorthand and typing. Has since been employed by various industrial concerns.

  “Exactly what do you hope to achieve by this family reunion?”

  “To be honest, Kahlenberge, I’m not quite sure—except that it’s one way of getting Tanz to Berlin. To begin with, von Seydlitz-Gabler—and you as well, to a certain extent, provided you’re willing to make a show of burying the hatchet—will act as a draw. Later you may be able to render me valuable assistance as witnesses or advisers.”

  “That’s all very well, Prévert, but how do you hope to conduct your case without your star witness? Surely you can’t hope to get Hartmann here?”

  “I’m in the process of making the necessary arrangements.”

  They stood in the Kurfürstendamm and looked across at the Gedächtniskirche. The sombre, smoke-blackened spire dominated the long street far more effectively than any of the new buildings with their glass and chromium façades. Its tortured, shattered silhouette seemed to claw the sky in a desperate effort to retain its equilibrium. No memorial could have been more melancholy or more mutely eloquent.

  “Your hotel’s just across the street,” said Prévert. “I’ve reserved you a room with bath. You’ll find your bags already installed there, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “First-rate planning,” remarked Kahlenberge. “I congratulate you.”

  Arranging to meet in the hotel foyer at seven that evening, they shook hands grinning like a couple of old cronies indulging in a piece of youthful folly. Then Kahlenberge crossed the Kurfürstendamm to the hotel and Prévert got into his waiting car.

  “Friedrichstrasse,” said Prévert. Friedrichstrasse lay in the Eastern sector of the city, but Prévert’s driver betrayed not the slightest surprise.

  The car passed through the two check points at the Brandenburg Gate without incident, glided down the Unter den Linden and turned left into Friedrichstrasse. There, a few blocks beyond the Admiralspalast, it drew up in front of a bleak façade of grey stone broken by dim window-panes set in narrow, elongated embrasures and interspersed with unadorned but massive pillars—a piece of severely uniform architecture which had once been the lair of Prussian officialdom.

  Once inside, Prévert turned into what he was, a senior administrator of the prestigious Sûreté and an Interpol co-ordinator. In this capacity, he was admitted into the presence of Commissioner Karpfen of the East German Ministry of the Interior. These days, policemen were the only civil servants in the world with any real community of purpose, and then only where capital crimes were concerned.

  A lengthy discussion on professional matters developed between the two international police experts. They swapped information on the rapid comparison of finger-print records, moved on to possible methods of tightening up communication procedures and ended by discoursing—semi-officially, now—on narcotics and the use of lie-detectors.

  Prévert skilfully fostered an atmosphere of insidious familiarity because he was aware of Commissioner Karpfen’s weaknesses and was clever enough to interpret them as an indirect source of strength. Herr Karpfen, round as a rubber ball but endowed with the wrinkled physiognomy of a sad-faced clown, warmed to his visitor, flattered that his almost legendary colleague from Paris was treating him like an intimate friend.

  “I don’t have anything to do with politics,” Karpfen declared with spirit. Then, alarmed at his own temerity, he back-pedalled vigorously and nipped this perilous line of thought in the bud by adding: “Though I’m fundamentally a political animal,
of course, and as such I’m a staunch upholder of democratic ideals.”

  “But you’re a policeman first and foremost.”

  “True,” Karpfen conceded.

  “And if we lend each other a helping hand it’s purely for reasons of professional solidarity?”

  “What else are colleagues for?”

  “Then tell me,” said Prévert, folding his hands like a man in prayer. “You had a particularly gruesome sex murder in Dresden the other day, didn’t you?”

  Karpfen looked surprised. “Where did you hear that?”

  “Come now, Commissioner, we hardly need explain the nature of our information services to each other, need we?”

  The Commissioner made a gesture of resignation. There were certain things which had to be accepted. “It’s a fundamental principle of ours not to suppress information, but we are equally careful not to divulge it prematurely. After all, it might endanger the success of our investigations.”

  The case quoted by Prévert—the Dresden murder—had actually caused quite a stir in the East German C.I.D. Public success in the fight against non-political crime was the breath of life to the East German C.I.D. if it was not to degenerate into a poor relation of the political police. Consequently, headquarters in Berlin had dispatched one of its ablest investigators to Dresden at the local C.I.D.’s request, so far without tangible results.

  “I may be able to help you, Commissioner,” said Prévert.

  Karpfen snapped eagerly at the bait. “We’re more than grateful for any assistance from our foreign colleagues, but what form is your help likely to take?”

  “As far as I can judge, we seem to have a similar case on our files. It happened some time ago, in Paris.”

  “Most interesting!” said Karpfen. “Could you place the necessary particulars at my disposal?”

  “Of course.” Prévert’s display of disinterested co-operation was convincing in the extreme. “Though it would eliminate any undesirable misunderstandings if I were given an opportunity to study your findings so far.”

  Karpfen shied like a nervous horse. “Is that essential?”

  “Absolutely. I don’t want to make any blunders. The results might be embarrassing, and I can’t afford mistakes in my position.”

  “Quite, quite.” Commissioner Karpfen nodded gravely, conducting a lightning review of the situation as he did so. The Dresden murder was clearly a criminal case which had nothing whatsoever to do with politics or related matters. His brow cleared.

  “My dear and esteemed colleague,” he said, “it will be a pleasure and a privilege to work with you. I shall make arrangements for you to see the full particulars—and the officer in charge of inquiries. Shall we say here in my office early tomorrow afternoon?”

  “Many thanks,” said Prévert with exaggerated cordiality. “That’s agreed, then. I have yet another favour to ask you. It’s a private matter, but I should be most grateful if it could be arranged. In fact, I shall look forward to expressing my personal thanks to you in Paris.”

  “Paris!” breathed Karpfen with scarcely suppressed enthusiasm. “Who knows when I shall have a chance to visit your delightful city again.”

  “Next month at the latest,” Prévert said firmly. “The routine matters we discussed earlier need working on as soon as possible. I intend to arrange a conference in Paris when I get back there next week.”

  “Splendid,” said the Commissioner with a sigh of satisfaction. “Now what’s this personal request of yours?”

  Prévert did not hesitate for a moment. “Please make a note of this name: Frau Constanze Hartmann, No. 14 Giebichensteinstrasse, Halle. She’s an elderly lady, the widow of a former government employee. I should be grateful if she could make a trip to Berlin, preferably at public expense. I leave the details to you.”

  “The grounds for such a visit could be either social—a medical examination, for instance—or cultural—a visit to the State Opera, say, or the Schiffbauerdamm Theatre, or the State Museums.”

  “Any excuse will do, cher collègue. The main thing Is that the old lady gets to Berlin as soon as possible. I’m asking this as a favour to a young friend of mine—her son, to be precise. He’s been living in the South of France ever since the end of the war, and it would mean so much to him to see his old mother again.”

  “A touching story,” Karpfen said, not without irony. “It also sounds comparatively innocuous. I shall be delighted to grant your request—as a personal favour.”

  “You won’t regret it,” Prévert assured him. “As long as we policemen stick together there’s still hope for mankind.”

  INTERIM REPORT

  An extract from the draft of General von Seydlitz-Gabler’s memoirs:

  “The events of July 20th moved us deeply. However, they did not accord with Prussian tradition, and any would-be comparison with the Convention of Tauroggen is absurd. There, the King sanctioned an overt proceeding by virtue of his divine right. In Hitler’s case, circumstances were quite different. However one regards him, it cannot be denied that he was elected by a majority of the people. He owed his position to what was, in essence, a democratic process, and we soldiers had no real choice but to obey the voice of the Fatherland.

  “For all that, I find myself profoundly and repeatedly moved whenever I reflect on the events of July 20th. My soldier’s heart belonged to the rebels but my soldier’s conscience owed allegiance to the Reich alone, for ever since the beginning of recorded history the axiom has always been: good is what serves the State, evil what harms it.

  “I do not mean by this that I stood aloof, but I was extraordinarily conscious of the deep conflict, the vast gulf that divided otherwise like-minded brother officers. At this period I used to pace up and down for hours on end, seeking a solution which would be acceptable to all. I confess now that I never found it. One thing, however, I could do. I refrained from victimizing anyone. On the contrary, I protected those who were venturing the impossible for maintaining an attitude of chivalrous forbearance. Not a few of them owe me their lives, but gratitude is not what the true soldier expects. He merely does his duty.

  “That, and that alone, is what I and many of my best friends did. Only this makes it possible for us to look history in the eye today.”

  Telephone conversation between Commissioner Karpfen in Berlin and Detective-Inspector Liebig in Dresden, conducted on 21st September, 1956 and recorded in writing by a member of the East German State Security Service. This man, whose name is unimportant, abandoned the German Democratic Republic in May, 1959, bringing a number of official papers with him, among them the following shorthand transcripts:

  Karpfen: “How far have you got with your inquiries?”

  Liebig: “On-the-spot investigations are complete.”

  Karpfen: “Any clue as to who did it?”

  Liebig: “No. All the leads we have are vague and obviously misleading. However, I’ve put every available man on to the case, so far without definite results.”

  Karpfen: “Is there any indication that the crime could have —hm, political connotations?”

  Liebig: “Absolutely none. It’s a straightforward murder. Revolting, though, the way the body was mutilated.”

  Karpfen: “To make myself even plainer, Liebig—is there anything to suggest that the crime was committed by someone—how shall I put it?—of a certain standing—someone who might need handling with a certain measure of discretion?”

  Liebig: “Not the slightest indication, sir.”

  Karpfen: “Monsieur Prévert, whom you probably know by name, thinks he knows of a parallel case. What’s your reaction to that?”

  Liebig: “If a parallel case did exist it would help us considerably.”

  Karpfen: “I’m glad you think so, Liebig. Kindly report to me here tomorrow and bring all the particulars with you. Well see where we go from there.”

  From a letter written to Rainer Hartmann by Ulrike von Seydlitz-Gabler. There are at least eighty such letters in existe
nce, though none of them ever reached its destination. Ulrike von Seydlitz-Gabler wrote them over a period of twelve years but never sent them because she had no idea of the addressee’s whereabouts, or even if he were still alive:

  ‘If I go on writing to you over and over again it’s because I can’t think of any more soothing and absorbing occupation. Why are women such fundamentally helpless creatures? I believe that of all the millions of men in the world there’s only one who’s right for a particular woman. Since the odds are against her ever meeting him, she has to adapt herself to another man—which she usually does with loyalty and devotion. But if you have the luck or misfortune, whichever way you look at it, to find a man—one man among millions—who stirs you to the bottom of your soul, what do you do then? There’s nothing to do but wait, even if it means waiting for a lifetime.

  “It’s hopeless—I know it is—but I refuse to think about it logically. I go on waiting and hoping. Did you know I had a photograph of you? During the day it stands on my desk and at night it lives beside my bed. It’s just an ordinary snap-shot, blurred and fingered and faded after all these years, but it shows you and me together in Warsaw, where it all began. God only knows how it will end, and when.”

  Two telegrams, both sent from Berlin on 21st September, 1956. Telegram to R. Hartmann, 13 Rue Victor Hugo, Antibes:

  “Visiting Berlin. Ideal opportunity to see you. Staying Niederschönhausen with Aunt Grete. Longing to see you. Please fly at once to your old Mother.”

  Telegram to Edouard Manessier, borough councillor and building contractor, Place de la République, Antibes.

  “Need Hartmann urgently. Have sent wire on mother’s behalf. Please eliminate difficulties advance money arrange passport personally. Will reimburse all expenses. Treat as important confidential urgent. Regards Prévert.”

  2

  Kahlenberge appeared in the lobby of the Hotel am Kurfürstendamm punctually at the appointed hour, but Prévert was not installed in any of the handsome armchairs which were scattered around for the convenience of guests. Strolling over to the reception desk, he asked for an evening paper and seated himself near the entrance, from which point of vantage he studied the hotel’s luxurious décor with a pensive eye.