by Therese Down
Marguerite had finally left Anselm to go and check on Agnette. The child was still kicking and banging on the door, but less fiercely and at longer intervals. He seemed to have fallen into a sort of terror-induced stupor. He just kicked and banged and kicked and banged.
“Shut the hell up!” Walter suddenly shouted in uncontrolled rage at his son through the door, and as he turned and lowered his face to shout at what he estimated was Anselm’s height, Walter’s grip on Hedda’s right arm loosened. In a swift, sharp movement she elbowed him full in the nose and he reeled backwards, his hands raised to his face. Hedda grabbed the door handle and opened the door, caught Anselm up in her arms and lurched with him into the hall. Seconds later, Walter was on them, and all three sprawled onto the parquet floor.
What happened next occurred in a sequence of events no one who witnessed it could recall clearly. Anselm seemed to slide across the parquet, beneath the stairwell towards Walter’s office. Walter lifted Hedda from the floor by her hair and then put his hands around her throat and began to throttle her. Marguerite emerged from Agnette’s room and cried out. Everyone remembered Anselm shouting, “Leave my mutti alone!”
Hedda sank to her knees as Walter tightened his grip around her throat and then, at some stage in the proceedings, moments before Hedda would certainly have lost consciousness, the deafening report of a gun. It obliterated thought and sense, and fractured memory as glass splinters. Cook was in any case still in the kitchen. Walter was preoccupied with Hedda. Only Marguerite and Anselm could have recounted what passed with any accuracy.
Suddenly, Hedda fell forward, gasping and choking in an effort to draw breath as Walter crashed down beside her on the parquet, felled by a close range gunshot wound to the back of his head. What Marguerite would always remember most clearly of all, was how the gun spun on the parquet when it was dropped and how the light from the trembling chandelier flashed on the spotlessly polished silver of its barrel. Walter was dead.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
When the ambulance arrived it was clear at once this was a crime scene and so no one touched the body until the Gestapo also arrived. Statements were taken, the gun was fingerprinted and removed in a plastic bag. The body was finally put into the ambulance. A paramedic treated Hedda’s injuries. Some sort of major domestic dispute had occurred – that much was clear. But who had pulled the trigger of the gun was less clear. The maid insisted vehemently it was an accident.
The wife said nothing throughout the questioning, but the maid insisted Hedda could not possibly have pulled the trigger because she was being assaulted by the victim at the time. Someone, though, had put a hole in the back of a senior SS officer’s head and killed him. There was a cook, a badly beaten wife, a semi-comatose girl in an upstairs room, a maid and a small boy who stared and shook, and was in deep shock. Until the gun had been forensically examined, there were no legitimate conclusions to come to. The Gestapo officer decided that the present occupants of the house would remain under house guard while investigations began.
The following morning at eight o’clock, an IG Farben administrative manager was waiting with a lorry driver outside a loading depot. He had a clipboard and occasionally exchanged idle talk with the driver. He looked often at his watch. They were waiting for the senior officer to arrive, who would sign for the 260-kilogramme consignment of prussic acid and vacuum-sealed packages of potassium cyanide to be transported to Mauthausen.
By eight-twenty a.m. the man from IG Farben was evidently impatient. He had a great deal to do. The lorry driver, a burly man in his sixties, was relatively unconcerned. He moved away from the tetchy official and sat on a low wall, lit a cigarette. The first morning of April was chilly but very bright. It promised even to be warm by midday, for the sky was sweet and blue. At eight-forty a.m., the lorry driver moved from the wall to the ground and, leaning against the wall, folded his arms and closed his eyes. It was almost 300 kilometres to Linz. It would take most of the day to get there in the truck, stopping at every checkpoint. He was in no hurry. He had no plans to return until the next day and no wife waiting for him. He would be paid, whatever. He dozed off.
The IG Farben employee left the truck and walked back to his office, from where he telephoned his administrative director. The director telephoned the IV Office on Voss Strasse, asking for Karl Muller and an explanation for his failure to show up. No one had seen him. So the director telephoned the T4 headquarters on Tiergarten Strasse and asked for Oberführer Gunther, as it was his signature on the order form. No one had seen him either. Eventually, in despair, the manager called an IG Farben executive director to inform him of this highly irregular situation. By ten o’clock, a substitute officer from the Hygiene Division, T4, had been allocated to accompany the consignment to Mauthausen, and the camp commandant had been notified that the delivery would be approximately two hours later than scheduled.
Emilie, Walter’s secretary, was becoming quite stressed. The telephone would not stop ringing and she had no idea where her boss was. He had not left her a message or tried to telephone to explain his absence, and no one was answering his home or his apartment telephone. By the time Reichsführer Himmler called just after lunch, to express his dissatisfaction to Walter that Karl Muller had disappeared, Emilie was frantic.
“I am so very sorry, mein Reichsführer Himmler, sir,” she pleaded, “but I have no idea where Oberführer Gunther is. People have been telephoning all morning. No one seems to know where he is, and he is not answering his phones.”
Himmler was intrigued. Both Muller and Gunther disappeared? After what Gunther had told him the day before, it was difficult not to make connections. “Telephone the Gestapo office on Albrecht Strasse,” he commanded her. “This is most suspicious. Get back to me on the following number when you have some information.” And he left her the Mauthausen number and went to have lunch with the commandant before the commencement of the afternoon’s extermination demonstration.
The scheduled high point of the day’s events was to ascertain the relative lethality of cyanide gas when produced by a reaction of hydrogen cyanic acid with potassium cyanide. Distinguished IG Farben chemist and director Ernst Schroeder would be supervising the trials. The climax of the day, though, for Himmler, was to have been his sudden request that Karl Muller remove his SS uniform and slip into prison clothes. To his annoyance, this particular entertainment was increasingly in doubt.
Emilie could not find anyone at Gestapo headquarters who would give her information on the apparent disappearance of Officer Gunther, although they told her not to expect him at work that day. She dutifully contacted the commandant’s secretary at Mauthausen and passed on the advice she had been given. Then she relaxed. A day without Gunther in the office was almost like a holiday. She would go out for lunch.
Hedda had stayed up all night after Walter’s body was removed, rocking Anselm to sleep on her knee while sitting at Agnette’s bedside. When at last the boy was fast asleep, Hedda lay him tenderly beside his sister and covered him over, then returned to the armchair beside the bed. Marguerite slept in Hedda’s room. Her sobbing eventually subsided into silence in the small hours of the morning.
Armed Gestapo officers were posted by the front and back doors, and one patrolled the perimeter of the house. At around seven a.m., a haggard looking Marguerite appeared in Agnette’s room.
“What happened, Marguerite?” Hedda whispered.
“It was an accident, Frau Gunther,” replied the maid, beginning to cry again. “Anselm found the gun. I… I went to get it from him. It went off.”
Hedda sighed, shrugged her shoulders. “Will you please prepare some breakfast for Agnette? And tell Cook to make breakfast for the rest of us. Ask those police officers too. They must be hungry.”
In Leipzig, Karl had snapped to consciousness around five a.m. He was sweating profusely and had been restless all night, surfacing repeatedly from a maelstrom of bad dreams. It was certain now that they would come for him; in just a matter
of hours. He should be in Berlin, preparing to accompany a consignment of lethal chemicals to Mauthausen. He should have been working all weekend on designs for new gas chambers. He was critically and dangerously AWOL.
He turned to watch his wife sleeping and his heart filled with tenderness but also regret for what he had been unable to do for her – and for what he was about to do. He wanted to kiss her, but dared not in case she awoke. Slipping from the bed, he grabbed his clothes, tip-toed from the room, then dressed hurriedly in the bathroom. Downstairs, there was no sound apart from the tick of the wall clock in the hallway.
Karl moved around in the gloom, the light from the rising sun blocked by blackout cloths, and found some paper and a pen. He scribbled a note to Greta telling her not to worry about him; that he loved her and would love her eternally. Leaving the note on the dining room table, he took the notepad and pen and pushed them into a pocket. A few minutes later, he was in his car and driving towards the church where he used to serve as an altar boy.
It was some surprise to Himmler that Walter Gunther was dead. Irritated by the message from Gunther’s secretary that she could discover nothing of her boss’s whereabouts, he had contacted Gestapo headquarters himself and spoken to a friend there: a senior Gestapo officer.
“Get Muller,” he had instructed. “Even if he is not involved in Gunther’s death, he is a traitor. When you find him, put him in Tegel prison straight away. I shall deal with him personally when I get back. Oh, and Fritz,” Himmler had added, “someone ought to tell Gunther’s secretary that he’s dead – poor woman doesn’t know whether she’s coming or going.”
It didn’t take long to discover that Karl’s Berlin apartment was empty and had not been used for some time. His personal files revealed that his family were in Leipzig. A phone call to the Leipzig Gestapo set in motion the search for Karl, which began at his parents’ house that Monday afternoon and soon relocated to the house of his parents-in-law. There they discovered a very distressed Frau Erlach, who handed them a note apparently written to her daughter that morning and which indicated Karl did not envisage returning. No one had any idea where he might be.
When Emilie got back to the office after a leisurely lunch in a nice little café on Friedrich Strasse, she discovered an envelope on her desk, addressed to the secretary of Oberführer Walter Gunther. Terrified Gunther had returned, found her absent from her desk and sacked her, Emilie opened the envelope with trembling hands. A short note read: “Regrettably, Oberführer Walter Gunther is dead. Please inform callers and await further instructions. The Reich Office has been informed and you will be reassigned in due course. In the meantime, report for duty as usual.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Emilie aloud, and then, “What a relief!” She sat down with an abandoned flop in her office chair. A grin crept like sunrise across her face.
Karl sat for more than two hours in St Mary’s Church, contemplating the shortening shadows across the chancel as the sun rose higher in the sky and lit up the stained-glass windows in its north-easterly facing wall. Karl remained in the shadows, immune to the chill, coming to terms with what was undoubtedly the end of his life. Then he wrote a letter to his father and mother, designed to make peace with them, but mainly to give them peace. He admitted he had sinned in his work as an SS officer, and that he deeply regretted his part in the affliction of human suffering for which the Reich was responsible. He begged his parents’ forgiveness and asked them to pray for his soul. He told them he had recently been to Confession.
At around nine a.m., the priest emerged from the sacristy. He genuflected before the altar, then turned around and proceeded arthritically down the aisle. Karl rose and waited for him to come close before calling to him gently. The old priest narrowed his eyes behind his glasses in an attempt to focus on and recognize the man who had called him. When that failed, he approached Karl, removing his glasses, finally peering into Karl’s eyes. Recognition dawned. “Are you young Muller?” he asked. “Erich’s boy?”
“I am, Father. Though not so young, perhaps.”
“Young to me, my boy; young to me,” Father Friedmann responded, smiling. “What brings you here, my son? I thought you were up in Berlin now?” He replaced his glasses, stepped back, folded his arms and contemplated his erstwhile altar boy. “You look peaky. Don’t they feed you in the SS?”
“I’m a little tired; that’s all.” Karl extended the letter he had written. “Would you give this to my father when you next see him, please?”
“He was here yesterday, at Mass,” responded Father Friedmann, accepting the letter. “Have you not seen him? I thought you might be home on leave.” He nodded at Karl’s chest and legs as if to indicate his civilian clothing.
“I have been with my wife. It’s a little complicated.”
“Ah,” nodded the priest, “yes. Life is more complicated than it used to be, eh?” He looked sadly into Karl’s troubled eyes, his own kindly face creasing into a warm smile. “I will give him your letter, my boy,” he said quietly. His expression became serious. “It is good to see you, Karl. Very good to see you, dear boy.” And the priest put out a hand to shake Karl’s, briefly covering their joined hands with his free one before pulling gently away and continuing down the aisle and eventually disappearing into the street.
Karl knelt in prayer for a little longer, then rose, crossed himself, and when he reached the end of his pew he genuflected before turning his back on the altar and following in the direction taken by the priest. Soon, he was in his car and on his journey back to Berlin. He was not surprised to find two Gestapo officers outside his apartment as he approached the door some hours later. He did not slow his pace, but lifted his arms and walked until the muzzle of a rifle prevented his walking any further.
At around the time Karl was speaking with Father Friedmann, replacement Gestapo guards were relieving those who had been on duty at Hedda’s house overnight. The changeover was good-humoured, the first guard having been well fed with ham, cheese and fresh bread, as well as refreshed by the excellent coffee Walter always kept in plentiful supply at home.
Hedda had finally risen from the chair she occupied beside Agnette’s bed and carried the still sleeping Anselm to his own bed, tucked him in and kissed his head before going into her own room, removing her clothes, wrapping herself in a dressing gown, then going to the bathroom for a shower. Everywhere ached. Her mouth and left eye were agonizingly painful and she could barely open her mouth. She wondered if her jaw could be broken; was too tired to care much. However, she was not prepared for the sight that met her eyes when she looked into the bathroom mirror. Her face was grotesquely swollen, and her left eye had blackened overnight, as had the flesh around her mouth. Dried blood still caked the corners of her mouth and when she opened it, fresh blood trickled in a ready rivulet over her lower lip and down her chin. Her neck was impossibly stiff and she could only walk in a poker-like fashion, so that turning right or left could only be done by a full military-style swivel of her whole body. There were dark marks on her throat where Walter had tried to throttle her. She had a terrible headache. Every now and then, a sob rose involuntarily around the region of her heart like a bird making a bid for freedom, but somewhere near her throat it died and sank heavily to her chest once more.
Hedda was numb to all feeling but pain. She simply stood under the cascade of hot water from the showerhead, experiencing the soothing warmth of the water.
By mid afternoon, the April sunshine was warm. It poured itself over Berlin, flooding the Tiergarten lawns and flirting with the bronze eagles of the new Reich chancellery on Wilhelmsplatz, lavishing itself on the golden cross of Kaiser Wilhelm’s memorial church spire.
“Frau Gunther?” Marguerite, still tearful, her face strained by anxiety, dark circles beneath her eyes, stood beside Hedda’s bed, compulsively twisting and untwisting her apron in and out of tight spirals. Hedda, who had been dozing lightly, opened her eyes with difficulty. “It is such a beautiful day. I wondered… might
I please ask the guards if I may take the children into the garden?”
Hedda seemed to consider the request, frowned, closed her eyes again. “Children?”
“Yes, Frau Gunther. I would very much like to carry Agnette into the sunshine – if you agree. I can put her on a blanket. It has been so long since she saw the sunshine. Anselm, also, would like it. I think it might do us good…”
Hedda seemed to consider for a moment, then moved her shoulders in a shrugging movement. “Sure. Go ahead. Why not?”
Within an hour of Marguerite’s request, two events of import occurred. One was wholly expected, given the circumstances, and the other was entirely unexpected. First, Marguerite screamed repeatedly for Hedda to come outside, the pitch and excitement in her voice jolting Hedda to a most unwelcome state of immediate terror and alerting the Gestapo officers to stand to attention and present their rifles in readiness for action. No sooner had the intense excitement following this outburst subsided than there was new consternation of a very different nature. A very large, very official, very shiny black car turned into the driveway and came to a dignified halt before the house. A chauffeur in a peaked cap alighted and held open a rear passenger door to enable a tall man in full SS uniform to step from the car onto the gravelled driveway. It has to be said, though, that if Hitler himself had emerged from the Mercedes, Hedda would not have cared, because ten minutes previously, Agnette had begun to speak.
What a strange commotion greeted the Reich officer as he walked, hands behind his back, towards the front lawn of the Gunthers’ residence. Two Gestapo officers stood to attention, rifles gripped in their right hands, their left hands appended to their foreheads in rigid salutes. Behind them, a third was unsure whether to drop his rifle from the attitude he maintained as he followed the chaotic antics before him with his bayonet, as though he were somehow causing the women to move.
