Perhaps that is a good thing for the moment, thought Ive, as he paced anxiously up and down. Even in prison Claus Heim would serve the cause, better, at any rate, than as though he took to flight. The flag in Neumünster, the free farmer offered as a sacrifice to the System, imprisoned as a martyr of the country-people’s war; that might be a perpetual incentive to the farmers not to give way, at least not to give way. If the method of Heim was right, because it was ruled by the laws of hazard, the method of Hamkens’ was equally right because it followed the laws of experience. What now? thought Ive. In the most fortunate circumstances it would be months before he was free again. He could not foresee what changes might have occurred in the Movement by that time, but, in any case, he would have to rush, into the ranks again, to renew the conflict and to introduce the Heimian line of attack. For, even if it had come to pass that every single farmer in the province was concerned not only in safeguarding the position but in revolution—and actually the safeguarding of the position in the form desired by the farmers was not conceivable without revolution—Ive’s concern went further in requiring that the revolution must be initiated by the farmers, and by no one else. Revolution had been attempted by workers and by soldiers without success, and yet it was the hope of almost half the nation and the aim of every active group. But the farmers, with their securist position at stake, so thought Ive, would of all revolutionary groups not only have the best prospects of success, but would also be able to strike the strongest blow. For whatever power was to be won by the farmers, even in the event of victory, undoubtedly could not—and this was not to be said of any other group—cause any great disturbance in any other revolutionary field however extensive. It must, therefore, be possible, thought Ive, for the first time to recapture the dissipated energies, to unite and direct the forces with a common aim, to organise them into an allied army, and to launch the attack. The first task must be to make preparations for this, and form the alliance, and the best co-operator in this was time. Ive had for a long time been making preliminary investigations, putting out feelers in all directions; Claus Heim had been to the capital and had knocked at many doors and found ready listeners (if the response was non-committal), and the admirable Hinnerk, who was ready for anything, kept in continual contact. But this was not enough. Ive, accustomed to suck honey from any blossom, suddenly found hope and resolution in the fact that he was to be arrested on the following day.
He went up to the table and looked meditatively at the chaotic mass of papers. I must write the article about our arrest, he thought. No, it would not suffice to be an outpost of the farmers’ front. What had to be done, could, as things were turning out, only be done by himself. Perhaps it was all madness; but at least there should be method in the madness. Heim wanted to conquer the town. But was the town to be conquered except from within? This was an original idea:—from within. He must go into the town. In the interest of the farmers, in Heim’s interest, in his own interest. The machinery of administration, he thought grimly, will give me free transit. He took the typed page out of the machine and put in a fresh sheet of paper. Let us see what importance the town has, he thought. He examined himself and was filled with great happiness. He wrote until the officers of the law arrived on the following morning.
IV
Police-Commissioner Müllschippe of Division I. A. had been given very wide powers. He was a young man with small, alert, dark eyes and a fresh complexion, and did not hesitate to make full use of the great opportunity which his task offered him. His interviews with the Under-Prefect of Police and with the representatives of the Ministry of the Interior had made clear to him what the State expected of him, and smoothed the way for the exercise of his talents. It was not petty ambition which fired this admirable officer, but the delightful prospect of for once being able to give full play to the many-sided brilliance of his intellect. At one blow—a blow which resounded with a thunderclap of sensation and the echoes of which reverberated in the newspapers for weeks to come—he arrested anyone who was in the least degree suspicious, or who, in his opinion, might be considered in the least capable of throwing a bomb: in all, one hundred and twenty men. He made short shrift of the old prejudice that one should make enquiries before arresting; he arrested before making enquiries. The room which he occupied in his official capacity was no longer an ordinary office of the political police, but a headquarters. Day and night he was on duty in the barely furnished room, with its air of Spartan militariness. He stood in his shirt-sleeves, sweating, his nerves vibrating under the strain, the telephone receiver at his ear—the untiring central figure. In the passages and ante-rooms newspaper reporters and photographers thronged, anxious to catch a momentary glimpse of the important man, to snatch up the morsels of news he hastily threw to them. The officers of his staff hurried hither and thither following his agitated directions, telephones buzzed, typewriters rattled, the dust rose in clouds and settled on the bundles of documents. He stood there in the dim light of the flickering lamps, in the dawning gleam of the morning sun rising over the dark courtyards; he stood, with his tie unloosened, in the fierce midday heat, and in the cooling shadows of the evening sunlight when a day of unceasing activity was sinking into a night crowded with work. He was never seen to slacken, and if he himself had not once, between two dramatic examinations, expressed a humorous and kindly concern for his anxiously waiting wife and his dinner most certainly long since stone cold, it would have occurred to no one that this inflexible machine of duty, this noble example of sacrifice in the service of his office, had any connection with human weaknesses.
As a trained criminal psychologist, he could adopt any attitude, from the tyrannical severity of the man of iron upholding the law to the benevolent friendliness of the man who understands and forgives all. He never failed to offer a cigarette to the accused, nor to rebuff him with cold calculation. He was always ready to refute the crafty tissue of lies of the notorious lawbreaker with just as much ingenuity as it had been fabricated, the depth of his design veiled by deliberately ambiguous phraseology. His arm reached far, but still farther the rays from his indefatigable intellect.
This unpleasant business of the bombs had long been enveloped in a paralysing silence, but with his intervention blow after blow fell, striking with ever-increasing violence, and with repeatedly demonstrated justification. He stepped up to Ive threateningly, accumulated energy in his expression.
‘Do you know Claus Heim?’ he asked, and the officers in the room stopped working and held their breath.
‘I am his best friend,’ said Ive, astonished.
A murmur arose in room, expressive glances were exchanged, and rested expectantly and in silent admiration on Müllschippe’s face, stood upright. He went close to Ive, who was sitting humped up on his stool. The Police-Commissioner raised his voice again, every one of his words disclosing the result of a concentrated and intricate calculation, the absolute certainty of victory, the tension of a cunningly laid trap.
‘Have you taken part in the Farmers’ Movement?’ he asked, fixing Ive with a penetrating glance.
‘For the past year I have been accepting responsibility for it in the farmers’ paper,’ said Ive in astonishment.
A whisper went round the room.
‘Good,’ said Müllschippe, and he seemed to increase in stature. ‘Very good,’ he said hoarsely, and left the room with rapid strides.
The door was ajar and Ive could hear what the Commissioner was reporting over the telephone to the Press Bureau of the Ministry of the Interior.
‘Double confession of the bomb-thrower Iversen. After an exhaustive examination by Police-Commissioner Müllschippe, the accused Iversen broke down and made a double confession.’
Ive listened in silent admiration. He had always been attracted by demagogic talents and he understood the art of creating atmosphere. He could scarcely feel indignant, and so when Müllschippe returned to him, mopping the sweat from his crimson forehead, he merely said that he would prefer to b
e examined by a legal official. He did not make this request because the Commissioner struck him as dangerous, or even because he expected impartiality from a lawyer; he understood that the significance of justice was no more than a moral fiction. But he wanted his request to be incorporated in the evidence, so that from the outset there should be a little point of friction between the Police and the Court.
Police-Commissioner Müllschippe was not to be put off so easily, however. He proved to be an affable man, socially inclined, and Ive spent a pleasant hour in conversation with him.
‘This isn’t meant to be an examination,’ said the friendly Commissioner, and in fact Ive had no difficulty in parrying all questions which seemed to him too personal by making even more personal disclosures.
‘But you must have heard that!’ said Müllschippe, referring to a remark of Heim’s disclosing complicity in a bombing plot.
‘I am a man, who uses his eyes more than his ears,’ explained Ive, and expatiated for half an hour on his theory about this.
He knew that there were no set rules for a defence, every one had his own. The important point was to stick to the method you had chosen through thick and thin. Ive decided to talk, to talk a lot, to talk so much that in the end no one would be able to remember or question anything he had said. In such an indulgent atmosphere he thought he might well ask to dictate his own statement. He dictated half a page and ruled a thick diagonal line across the space left between the statement and his signature, politely asking for a ruler in order to do so. Herr Müllschippe seemed a little hurt by this lack of confidence. He dismissed Ive to his cell, and called for Claus Heim.
The two men met in the doorway. Claus Heim srniled faintly and gave Ive his hand. Müllschippe looked curiously at the big man who stood there, three heads taller than himself. Side doors opened, official spectacles gleamed, and heads were lifted from musty documents. So this was Claus Heim. (On the table lay the documents in the Grafenstolz case.)
‘What is your name?’ asked Police-Commissioner Müllschippe, with hesitating severity. Claus Heim took a chair and sat down. He laid his enormous hands on the table and said nothing.
‘You are Claus Heim?’ asked Herr Müllschippe; he repeated it; he tried gentleness, he gave his voice a metallic sharpness; Claus Heim sat immobile, looking scornfully at the excited little man and saying nothing.
‘So you refuse to speak?’ said the Commissioner.
The Commissioner said a lot more. Claus Heim said nothing. He had not prepared any defence, and had never even thought about methods of defence. But he had declared a boycott of the System. He did not speak to representatives of the System and would be silent for the rest of his life, if necessary. All this buzz around him did not interest him. He looked straight in front of him, but in his eyes gleamed implacable, cold, eternal hatred.
‘I have never had anyone like Heim before,’ said Warder Scholz II that evening to his wife ‘He squats at the table all day without moving. He does not go out for recreation, he never answers when spoken to, he doesn’t touch his hot dinner, just eats the bread. You could almost think he didn’t see you go into his cell. He’s a strange fellow and no mistake. I have never had one like him before.’
Police-Commissioner Müllschippe reported to the Press Bureau of the Ministry of the Interior:
‘Claus Heim convicted. The enquiries of Police-Commissioner Müllschippe have proved without doubt that Claus Heim must be regarded as the instigator of the bomb outrages.’
Police-Commissioner Müllschippe was indefatigable. Day after day he hurled the results of his enquiries into the office. The reverberations of his activities penetrated to the prison cells. They were Ive’s first impression of the town. Crouched on his narrow bed he listened for the sound of rapid, shuffling footsteps, for the rattle of the key, for the muffled cries: ‘To the Court.’
The whole place was full of political prisoners. In September there were still Communists there, left over from the May disturbances, who had not yet been finally examined. Every day National Socialists were brought in. At exercise-time some called out ‘Red Front’ and others ‘Heil,’ looking furiously at each other, while the warders, armed with pistols, swords, and rifles, stood about quite indifferent. There were very few criminal prisoners in the building, and most of them were working at the furnaces. One of them came up to Ive and whispered to him eagerly, offering to carry clandestine notes. Ive prepared notes for all his comrades, which he gave to the prisoner, and which contained only two words:
‘Beware—Müll-spy.’
Late into the night the activities in the building continued —Müllschippe was conducting examinations. Only the distant murmur of the town penetrated to the cells, the multitudinous cries of the pavements, which mingled together in one dull, vibrating roar, containing all the excitement and danger of life. It seemed impossible that the prison walls could stand against the perpetual tumult of the thousands of agitations which the town was continually spewing out. Every night Ive stood on the end of his bed clinging to the iron bars of the window, all his senses riveted on the distant world, the life, the danger surging in bondage down there outside, colouring the dirty sky with greyish-red tints, sending up their exhalations to penetrate even the miserable isolation of his cell. Leavened by the metallic breath of the town he went in the morning to his examination. The gigantic red building of the Police Court vibrated with activity, the long, echoing corridors teemed with important people, who, even as they waited, snorted like machines on the brake, the uninterrupted rhythm of perpetual, driving activity swept him into the grey room with its dirty carpets, its stained, scratched tables, its dark cupboards and the zealous, sweating Herr Müllschippe.
‘How long do you imagine you’re going to keep this up?’ asked Ive after a fruitless exchange of questions and answers.
‘What?’ asked the Commissioner sharply.
‘All this business,’ said Ive, and he continued reflectively, ‘I suppose that from this room life looks quite different.’
Müllschippe started. —‘What do you mean?’ he asked, and then said curtly: ‘I am doing my duty.’
‘Of course,’ said Ive, and once more requested that a legal officer. . . He was removed to the big house of detention in the Moabit district.
The Judge of the County Court, Dr. Fuchs, was none of your shirt-sleeved hail-fellow-well-mets. He was a serious official in a high position, an elegant man of the world, worthy of becoming a judge of the Supreme Court.
‘You know,’ he said deliberately, in a sonorous, courteous voice, ‘I entirely understand your action.’
He held up his hand reassuringly.
‘But I consider it a point of honour to accept the consequences of one’s actions. I too am a nationalist,’ he said.
‘I am not,’ said Ive, paused a moment, and then continued: ‘I don’t particularly want to be landed in gaol, even with the help of Herr Müllschippe.’
Dr. Fuchs frowned and turned over the pages of the documents, then handed them to the Assessor, Matz, a young man who did not appear to be quite grown up, which was the more astonishing as he was unusually tall. When Ive entered the room he folded up in a polite bow. Ive was more and more disappointed every time he went to be examined. Instead of opponents, the machinery of administration was facing him with bombastic upstarts, causeurs, and young puppies, and there must have been plenty of evidence to make the situation dangerous for him. The evidence was clear enough, but these people did not know how to handle it.
‘Only a confession can improve your position,’ said Judge Fuchs.
‘Where are your proofs?’ asked Ive, and continued, ‘you want to put the burden of proof on me? Good, all three of the incriminating statements are contradictory. Each one contains contradictions within itself. The only statement you can use as a basis for the proceedings is the one which contains no contradictions, and that is my own.’
‘The witness Luck,’ said the Judge, ‘saw you.’
‘The wit
ness Luck,’ said Ive, ‘saw me at the time of the act in the vicinity of the scene of action, with a package, which, only after the act, of course, he thought suspicious, and he identified me again after three weeks. What does the witness Luck say in his statement? “I identify Iversen as the perpetrator.” His statement contains circumstantial evidence, not facts.’
Ive played with the disjointed pieces of a bomb, which had been found on Grafenstolz, and were now lying on the table as an exhibit in the case. He fitted them together absent-mindedly.
‘You know how to deal with bombs,’ said the Judge.
‘Is this a bomb?’ asked Ive. ‘I thought it was a wireless set.’
And he said: ‘You know as well as I do how much reliance can be placed on the statements of witnesses. You know just as well as I do that every witness can be corrupted. Why do you want a confession from me? Because you know as well as I do that you have no evidence beyond what I can give you; I shall give you no evidence.’
‘You have, just as I have,’ said Dr. Fuchs, ‘an interest in having the case settled. As matters stand I am convinced of your guilt; convince me to the contrary.’
Ive said: ‘Since you are convinced of my guilt, why do you want a confession? What do you want of me? My manly pride to be roused at the bar of Justice? But I fear I might violate your conception of justice thereby; you would be justified in considering it as presumptuous.’
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