The Austrian: A War Criminal's Story

by Ellie Midwood

  I heard both the army psychiatrists, and the guards as well, try to persuade Ribbentrop to at least make his bed and pick up the crushed paper balls that, according to them, had evenly covered the floor of his cell, but, instead of cleaning, he’d only walk back and forth, kicking the useless paper out of his way, mumbling something quietly under his breath.

  “Mr. Ribbentrop.” I recognized Dr. Goldensohn’s mild voice. “You can’t live in such mess. Please, pick up the paper up at least.”

  “Leave me alone!” Ribbentrop screamed back with all the indignation he must have once mustered when he was the former Minister, such as when he used to scream at his adjutants, who may have had the misfortune of bothering him in the middle of something important.

  The guard, who was standing by my door and leaning on the opened window in it, turned his head to me, smiling and jerking his thumb in the direction of Ribbentrop’s cell.

  “Was he like this, too, when he was in the office?” he asked in German.

  At first, when they had just placed him by my cell as my guard, we would communicate in English, but soon he started overcoming his resentment, sensing no hostility from my side, and had asked me to speak German to him and correct him when he made mistakes. He spoke very well, even though with a strong American accent.

  “Sometimes,” I answered with a soft chuckle.

  I finished sweeping and held my hand out for the dust pan. My guard handed it to me and rested his forearm on the window again, watching me pick up the dust.

  “I heard that Hitler wanted to appoint you to his position because… well…” He motioned his head towards Ribbentrop’s cell again. “He started losing it.”

  I carried the dust pan to the toilet and emptied it there, after which I handed both the dust pan and broom back to the young man.

  “He’s not losing it. He’s just overly exhausted and irritated,” I explained mildly. “He’s a bad insomniac and would only go to sleep at three or four in the morning. Even in the Ministry everyone knew not to expect him to arrive at work earlier than eleven, or even twelve. But yes, it is true. Hitler did want me to eventually take up Ribbentrop’s position.”

  I sat by the table and busied myself with my defense paperwork, as my guard continued listening to the ongoing quarrel between Dr. Goldensohn and von Ribbentrop. After a minute he turned back to me, smiling. “I think you’d make a good Minister. At least better than that one.”

  “How do you know?” I smiled with embarrassment, without lifting my head from the papers.

  “I don’t,” he replied with typical American sincerity. “For some reason I just think you would. At least you act like a normal human being. You like jokes, you smile, you…”

  He stopped himself in the middle of the sentence, causing me to chuckle. “Go ahead, say it. Remind me how much I cry all the time.”

  I glanced at him with mock reproach and caught him smiling widely.

  “I didn’t mean it in a bad way,” the guard reassured me.

  “I know you didn’t. I’m just teasing you. You said it yourself that I like jokes.”

  “I have chocolate,” he said all of a sudden. “My family sent it to me from Alabama. Do you want it?”

  Without waiting for my reply the young guard put his hand through the window with a full chocolate bar in it, holding it out for me.

  “You don’t want it?” I asked him in disbelief. Not only hadn’t I seen chocolate for almost a year, it was an unimaginable rarity here in bombed out Nuremberg, where even ordinary potato soup was a delicacy. I didn’t dare take it from him and just sat in my chair looking at it.

  “No, I don’t like chocolate. Take it, while the other guards are busy watching ‘disputes’ over there. They’ll grab it in a second.” He made a motion with the chocolate bar for me to take it.

  I finally came back to my senses, got up and took the bar from his hand.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” He gave me another kind smile.

  For some reason I was sure that he gave it to me not because he didn’t like it but only because he was feeling sorry for me, and this was the only way he could express his sympathy without either hurting my dignity or getting in trouble with his superiors. I opened the chocolate, my mouth watering at the familiar but already forgotten smell, broke the bar in two halves, wrapped one in foil, another one in its original wrap and handed the second half back to the guard.

  “Here, take it. I know that you like chocolate. Everybody does. It means even more that you gave me something you like.”

  He looked at my offering with such gratitude as if it wasn’t him who just gave me the original bar.

  “Thank you.” He carefully took half of the bar from my hands and smiled again. We both went quiet for a moment, during which he was fondling the bar in his hands before putting it back in his pocket. He glanced at me again. “Do you want me to walk you by Speer’s cell tomorrow on the way to the courtyard? He made such beautiful drawings on his walls! We can stop by for a minute to look at them if you want.”

  “Yes, I would love that.”

  I went back to my table, broke a piece of chocolate off the bar and put it in my mouth, savoring the taste of pure human kindness. I could have never imagined that I would encounter it here, in Nuremberg.

  _______________

  Graz, March 1923

  ‘Taking care of everything’ here in Graz for the next two years proved itself to be a much more difficult task than I could ever have imagined. With my father spending almost as much time in the hospital as he did at work, he wasn’t able to send me any more money, and my monthly allowance could pay for my food and accommodation, but that was about it. For a few months I was locking myself in my room, alone in the whole fraternity house, after everyone left for another party with alcohol flowing and girls hanging on their necks, while I couldn’t afford that frivolous lifestyle, which I grew to enjoy so much, anymore. Instead, I crammed on loathed legal terminology and studied court cases, which would usually put me to sleep as soon as my father started talking about them. And those were supposed to be the best years of my life.

  One day, having finished shaving, I looked in the mirror at my unhealthy pale skin color and black half-moons under my eyes, due to spending all my free time in the classrooms and libraries, and decided that it couldn’t go on like this anymore. Later that day I asked my oldest brothers if they could find any kind of job for me.

  “You realize that the job situation is not so good nowadays, don’t you?” one of my elders asked me sympathetically.

  “Tell me something I didn’t know for the past few years,” I smirked kind-heartedly in reply.

  “I just mean to say that if we do find you one, it’s not going to be an office position or anything even closely resembling it.”

  “Anything that pays for my liquor and three girlfriends, will do.”

  “Why do you need three?” they both laughed.

  “I don’t.” I shrugged and gave them one of my disarming smiles. “But ladies like me, and I can’t say no. I’m just trying to make all of them happy. Luckily, they don’t give a second thought to my financial situation as long as I keep them happy the other way, but it would still be nice to take them out once in a while. And to be truthful, I’m just sick and tired of counting every krone. I need money.”

  “Well, get ready to get your hands dirty then.”

  I was ready, but I never thought that he meant literally getting my hands dirty. The following week I started my first night shift in a coal mine, and that was as dirty as it gets. It was extremely hard for the first few months, and it was my pride that suffered the most, when every morning I would climb out of that hell, freezing and suffocating at the same time, and walk all the way back to my fraternity house, because no one would allow me on the tram trolley or any other public transportation. I understood; I left the mine covered in black smudges from coal dust all over, and a quick wash-up in the showers installed next to it didn�
��t help a bit. It would take me about forty minutes every single morning to scrub myself off before going to classes, and even then my hands were still a permanent grayish color. I preferred not to even look at my nails – it was a lost case from day one.

  My fraternity brothers were very supportive though, and would always lend me money if it was getting tight before the salaries were given. My brother, Werner, who started his studies at the same faculty, also never refused me. But he was very industrious, unlike the no-good me, as my father started pointing out more and more often in his letters.

  “I can’t sleep at night thinking that you’ll be taking up my office!” he wrote in one of those letters. “After what I’m hearing from Werner, you’re stripping the poor boy naked to spend all the little money we’re sending him, on women and your never-ending parties! When will you get serious?! You have responsibilities, you know! Your mother certainly keeps protecting you, saying that you’ll outgrow your debauchery phase you’re currently in, together with your fraternity friends, but I don’t see it happening any time soon! Stop it with your behavior and take your future seriously, otherwise you won’t see a krone from me anymore!”

  I crushed that letter in my hands and with hatred threw it to the opposite wall of my bedroom. How dare he accuse me of seeking solace in those little pleasures I was paying for myself, after taking everything I had dreamt of away from me? It was because of him that I had to give up my hopes, dreams and sacrifice my whole future to secure his and my mother’s. And all I got in return were reproaches about not being hardworking enough to suit his taste! Not a single ‘thank you’ he ever said to me.

  My mother later tried to explain his bitterness and his accusative tone with him being sick and taking it out on everyone around him, and that I shouldn’t have taken it seriously. ‘He was like that after he came back from the war. He doesn’t like being sick and helpless, and behind that façade he is actually very proud of you and grateful for what you are doing for him…’ My sweet mother, she refused to admit anybody’s flaws and preferred to live her life according to the Bible she cherished so much. She loved all people. Too bad I wasn’t even half as good as her. That letter was the first one in a number of following events which caused an inevitable discord between me and my father, which we never overcame till the very day on which he died.

  That letter and the mood it put me into led into another fateful event, which was probably the first step on my personal way to the hell I later found myself in. I used to sleep for several hours after my classes were over, prior to going to the night shift in the mine. But those few hours of blissful rest – the only few hours I could find in my tight schedule – didn’t happen that day. I was too angry and instead of sleeping, was pacing my room looking for something to break. I could hardly restrain myself from tearing my law textbooks apart, and only because they cost me too much money.

  I went to work without any sleep, and would have to go to class the next day after having been up for over thirty hours. I was angry at my father, at the coal dirt around me, at the country, at the war, at the allies, at the treaty they made us sign, at the whole world, which at that very moment seemed to be against me, when I did nothing wrong to anger whatever higher power that seemed to be amusing itself with torturing me just to see how long it would take to make me break.

  By the morning I didn’t feel any better, only more exhausted and even angrier because of that. I was walking back to my fraternity house in the wee hours, when the whole city of Graz was still sleeping peacefully, when the loud screeching of tires and the blinding lights of the approaching car from around the corner startled me. It stopped within hardly a foot away from me, while I still stood in front of its shining red front, not able to move.

  “What the hell are you doing, you damn asshole?!” The owner of the car, obviously drunk and slurring his words, while throwing bolts at me with his bloodshot eyes, jumped out of the driver seat. My eyes adjusted to the light and I could see him clearly now, disheveled, but dressed in an obviously expensive tuxedo, with a thick golden watch chain stretching across his fat stomach; even a shining ring on his pinkie. I turned my head to the woman sitting in the passenger seat, fixing her fur throw around her diamond clad neck and looking at me with the utmost disgust. They were just returning from some party. “Who the fuck crosses the street like that?! Huh?! I’m talking to you, boy! Do you know that you would have to bend your worthless back your whole life to pay me for this car if I hit you with it?! You could have ruined my custom work, you dirty pig! Lucky you that I have fast reflexes!”

  Never being addressed in such an unnerving manner before, I was at a loss of words and kept looking at him silently.

  “Can you speak at all, or didn’t they teach you that in whatever hole you crawled out of? How about an apology?!” Getting no reaction, the driver spit on the ground dangerously close to my feet, got back into his car and shouted through an open window, “They shouldn’t let your lot walk around the streets altogether! Stupid fucking lumberjack! Almost smashed my car! Get out of my way!”

  I still stood in the same spot, while he backed up and drove around me, still motionless, and sped away, throwing more curses my way. I remembered him well, and the plates on the back of his car. My slowly accumulating hatred had just found an outlet. The first thing I did after showering that morning was pass a note to one of my brothers, whose uncle was in the police department in Graz.

  “Could you do me a favor, and find out whose car is this?” I asked him with a deadly sweetness in my voice. “It was a cherry-red Mercedes, so it will be easy to find, the body on it is custom made, or so I heard.”

  “I suppose,” he replied. “And who would be the person of interest?”

  “The owner of the car. He was driving drunk, almost hit me and disappeared after cursing me out.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Dead serious.”

  “Give me a couple of days.”

  He got back to me in one day only. He entered our room while Rudolf, my roommate, was quizzing me for an upcoming exam.

  “Piece of cake. My uncle knew the car and the owner even prior to checking his plates. He’s a famous pawn broker, got filthy rich during the war. He is the only one with that car in the whole of Graz. Zimmerman is his name.”

  “You don’t say? A Jew? What a surprise!” Rudolf burst out laughing.

  “Have an address of his business for me?” I reached under my bed and produced a bottle of good quality British whiskey, smuggled through the Weimar Republic. I knew how to bribe my fellow brothers, but this time it wasn’t needed.

  “Keep it. We’ll celebrate on it after we pay him a visit. I already spoke to the rest of the brothers, and we all agreed to teach that fucking Jew a lesson.”

  “I really should go there alone. It’s a personal thing. I don’t want any of you to get involved and get arrested if anything goes wrong.”

  “Don’t be stupid. What are the brothers for then?”

  All three of us smiled the same crooked smile, and only two days later, hidden by the darkness of the night and scarfs on the lower parts of our faces, we broke the glass with ‘Zimmerman pawn broker’ on it with stones, lit several Molotov cocktails simultaneously and threw them inside. The rest of us did the same with his house on the other side of the city. I stood in front of the quickly dispersing fire, savoring the bittersweet taste of my revenge, mesmerized by the flames that engulfed both the store and my soul inside, until Rudolf grabbed my arm and dragged me away from the scene of the crime, screaming something about getting away before the police arrived. He shouldn’t have worried about it either: the uncle of our brother was very well informed about what was going to happen that night, and took his time sending his people to Herr Zimmerman’s business. The weekend edition of the Graz observer clearly stated that the recent vandalism was the communists’ fault. They even arrested several people.

  Zimmerman himself moved away to Vienna instead of rebuilding, and I went
back to my studies, as if nothing happened. Did I feel guilty? No. Only upset, because as a matter of fact, I didn’t feel anything at all, not a single shade of shame or doubt crossed my mind, and it wasn’t a good thing.

  Chapter 10

  Nuremberg prison, February 1946

  I didn’t feel anything at all, and it wasn’t a good thing. Spending endless days and nights in the solitude of my cell, I was slowly getting used to the thought that it might very well be the last year of my life, and with the way everything was going, such a possibility was becoming more and more realistic. I loathed the courtroom even more than my cell though, with every new documentary they showed us, with every new chart they presented, with every new statistic, every new witness they brought, we were forced to finally look into the eyes of the demon we’d created ourselves.

  Crestfallen with the immense burden of shame thrown at us every day, more and more of us were hiding behind dark glasses or simply closing our eyes at what we did, pretending to be sleeping or studying our notes, just to escape meeting yet another victim’s gaze and hear the terrifying truth of what had been done to them. What we did to them. How could we face them now? Even Göring, the only one of us, who openly confronted the tribunal and spoke with dignity of a former Reichsmarschall, couldn’t bring himself to look into those people’s eyes. It was so easy to decide their fate, when they were nothing more than numbers on the sheets, presented to us for a signature by our adjutants. Now they were real people, with broken lives, torn families, and memories which would haunt them for the rest of their lives. Soon I started welcoming the thoughts of nearing death. It was indeed far too much to bear.