____________
PART SEVEN
CONRAD DEHMEL’S STORY
as told by
JOHN WELLFLEET
In the television interview between Conrad Dehmel and my cousin Timothy Wellfleet, all of twenty-five years after the end of the Hitler War, Timothy virtually stated that Conrad had been a member of Hitler’s murder police and had been responsible for the death of Hanna Erlich “because she was a Jewess.” It was the most odious of all his performances, yet it was not so much malicious as it was irresponsible. You may remember that he had nothing to go on but the word of an ego-tripping, revolutionary student who had broken into Conrad’s office, searched his files, found what looked like incriminating information, then carefully replaced the papers so that Conrad did not know they had been tampered with. I also told you that though Mother was a very trusting person, especially of those she loved, she was also very careful. If she had known how vulnerable Conrad turned out to be, she would have implored him to avoid television interviews like the plague. So now it is clear to me that Conrad did not tell her everything about his time in Germany under Hitler.
To my astonishment, I have discovered from Conrad’s own narrative that for a time he had been enrolled in the Gestapo, though his motives were far different from what Timothy made them out to be. In the end, his position became as horrible as the Admiral’s. It was a long and twisting journey he took before he came to the end of his road.
It began a few days after Hanna’s return to Germany when he went to the Admiral for help and advice. He found Canaris more depressed than usual, and before Conrad opened his mouth, he told him that at the moment there was nothing he could do for Hanna’s father.
“You think I have influence? Yes, I do have some. But only so long as I can deal with these people. That influence I must protect at all costs to myself and even to my friends.” He sighed. “The arrest of Dr. Erlich was sure to happen sooner or later. These people who control our country are never so vindictive as when somebody touches their neuroses. That’s why they’re going to ban the psychiatric profession. That spy of theirs who posed as Dr. Erlich’s patient was sent – he was sent to do just what he did.”
“Do you know who sent him?”
“Goebbels, of course. He’s the only one of the lot with enough education to be disturbed by the insights of a man like Dr. Erlich.”
Conrad asked if the doctor’s position was hopeless.
“Nothing is hopeless until it becomes so. This at least I must continue to believe.” His blue eyes concentrated on Conrad. “Dehmel, I’m going to ask you a direct question. In comparison with your own life, how important are the lives of Hanna and her father?”
Conrad hesitated.
“Of course, I have never met Dr. Erlich.”
“Quite so,” said the Admiral and waited for him.
Conrad had the German obsession of trying to balance every side of a question. As he assessed his position, he knew that if he travelled alone he might have a chance of surviving the phantasmagoria and doing the work he felt he had been born to do. But having thought this far, he stopped thinking altogether. “The image of Hanna’s silver hair, of her dignity, of her whole mind and body in the power of the police, blotted everything else from my mind and I blushed for shame.”
Before he spoke the Admiral said, “It’s my duty to tell you something else. The odds are heavy that anything you may try to do for Hanna will be useless.”
“I can’t leave her. I can’t do such a thing.”
Watching him carefully, Canaris said, “Are you being romantic?”
“I don’t think I understand your question, sir.”
“I think you do. If you don’t, you should. To all of us our personal lives are more important than the lives of others unless they’ve been intertwined for a long time. You and Hanna have had very little time together. Without her, you might survive this insanity and have a long and useful life before you. So think carefully.”
Again Conrad shook his head.
“Are you aware,” Canaris said, still looking at him, “that Hanna at the moment places her father entirely before yourself? That family of hers is a very old family. It’s not like yours or even like mine. They argue and disagree about nearly everything, but in a crisis they draw together to protect each other. It’s their categorical imperative. At the moment, Dehmel, you stand on the outside. I think you should understand what this could mean. I think you must realize that you’d be inhuman if at times you won’t resent her bitterly for what you have involved yourself with in order to help her family.” He paused. “Be frank, Dehmel. Is what I’m telling you a shock?”
Conrad drew a deep breath. “Less of a shock than it would have been a week ago.”
“Then think very carefully about the question I’ve asked you.”
The remark hung in the air for several seconds during which the older man’s eyes never left Conrad’s.
“Will it depend upon my courage?” Conrad said.
“Ultimately, yes.”
“How can I know that I have the courage?”
The Admiral hunched forward. “Who can ever know that until he’s been tested? However, people can accustom themselves to almost anything. If a soldier isn’t trained, he’s sure to panic the first time he’s in battle. But step by step one gets used to things.” The Admiral’s voice became decisive. “If you really want to protect Hanna, the time has come for you to prepare yourself. I think you should begin by joining my service.”
“Would there be any difficulty about leaving the Institut?”
“At the beginning there might have been, but not now.”
“Would questions be asked about my loyalty?”
“Naturally. We have had a revolution in which the scum of the gutters has come to the top. They all distrust and dislike each other. Without Hitler they’d soon be at each other’s throats. I have no fear of saying this to you. If you took it into your head to report me, it would become my duty to have you disappear.”
Conrad flushed, flared for an instant, then smiled tightly and said, “Compris.”
The Admiral also smiled tightly. “French is such a convenient language when one is embarrassed. I’ve often wondered why. Yes, I see you have learned a few things.”
“My question was, sir, would I be under suspicion? Your service is something different from the Institut.”
“Not seriously at the moment. I’m not thinking of the reputation for loyalty earned by your father and especially by your young brother. That would weigh very lightly with them. I mean that your record since you returned from England has made them believe that you would never have the courage to be other than subservient.”
Conrad flushed. “But you yourself …”
The Admiral brushed his pride aside. “Certainly I myself. Listen carefully, Dehmel. All intelligence services are snake pits and mine isn’t the only one in this country. Do you know anything about intelligence work?”
“Not really.”
“Much of it is routine, of course. Do you know anything about the English service?”
“Only that I’ve been told it’s the best.”
“That’s very true. It is.” He smiled enigmatically. “The English intelligence service has been directed by aristocrats or neararistocrats for several centuries. These are the only kind of people who can keep their characters intact in the work they do. Intelligence attracts some of the bravest men alive. It also attracts a swarm of unstable, mercenary, and unreliable scoundrels. At the moment I have two double agents and one triple agent working for me. I retain them because I think I may be able to use them to my own advantage.” He rubbed his long, straight nose and said with his faint lisp, “In this, of course, I may be very wrong. I presume I have been infiltrated by several British. Possibly by a few Russians. But what worries me are Nazis who are trying to undermine me in the interests of their own party service. With these, of course, I remain on the most cordial terms. Do you understan
d this kind of language?”
“I’m beginning to.”
Canaris went on in a factual tone, “It’s a poisoned cup we drink, but we do have our own perverted ethics. In this profession the most relentless enemies know they are spiritual brothers so long as they remain sane – which some of them don’t. Because of the unspeakable crudity of the rival agency I think I have lost the respect of my opposite number in England.” Another pause and another scrutiny of Conrad’s expression. “Do you still follow me?”
“I’m trying to.”
“You see, though this Englishman and I have never met personally, we’re old acquaintances. In the last war he tried to kill me.” The Admiral smiled wistfully. “Understand – there was nothing personal. It was his duty, just as it was my duty to kill him if I could. On that occasion I outwitted him. I have little hope of outwitting him again. Nor do I wish to except in small, unimportant matters. I believe I have almost, but not quite, lost hope of making him understand me. In this I may also be wrong. It’s possible that he understands my position perfectly. So now I must ask myself what I would do if I were seated where he is, and when I ask myself that question, I have little to hope for.” Canaris smiled wanly. “The Nazis will never understand these English. Sometimes I wish the English had taken the trouble to understand themselves. Their brains have already doomed Hitler, but they left it too late. They’ll keep Hitler from winning the war. They’ve almost done it already. But they will lose the war just as we will. The winners will be the Russians and the Americans.”
“But they aren’t even in the war!”
“They soon will be. Plans have been completed to attack Russia. I implored them not to do this, but I was told I’m only a naval officer and know nothing of soldiering.” Another pause. “In the end the Americans are sure to come in.”
“But why, sir? Why?”
“Hitler is making this a world war. In a world war, how can the most powerful country of all remain neutral?”
Conrad sat in silence. Then he said, “Sir, are you telling me Hitler is mad?”
“Why bother with labels, whether he is mad or not? He’s a peasant with enormous power.”
Years later Conrad wrote that it was at this instant that he realized for the first time that he was in the presence of a profound tragedy; that it was not a personal thing, but that Canaris was caught in a chain of mathematical equations from which there was no escape.
“You have been like a father to me,” he said formally, “and I thank you.”
Canaris bowed his head slightly but said nothing. His expression was so lonely that it made Conrad think of a mind trapped in the collapsing vaults of history. Finally the Admiral straightened and became practical.
“To begin with, your scholarly training qualifies you for a variety of posts in my service. It’s full of weaknesses, but it’s still an excellent professional service. Therefore, if you work for me, I will expect you to be professionally competent, and above all, professionally accurate.”
“Naturally, sir.”
“I’m thinking ahead. One year ahead. Two years. Perhaps even as long as three or four years, to the moment when the Leader will understand that he has lost this war he has made. He will never admit that he has lost it. Not even to himself will he admit it. But he will know it. That is how he is. He will know it, but he will not admit it. And when that happens, the time will come for Hanna’s father and therefore for her. Yes, it will surely come.”
Conrad shivered but he asked no questions.
“Nothing can prevent it from coming because of her devotion to her father. It is essential that you understand and accept this now. Otherwise you will be unmanned by surprise when the moment comes.”
Conrad nodded.
“Very well, you will be inducted immediately.” The Admiral permitted himself a wry smile. “My friend your honored father will be delighted, I’m sure. Now everyone in the family will be in the navy except your mother.”
The next day Conrad was inducted with the rank of lieutenant and took the oath of allegiance to the Führer. In Germany he always wore the dark-blue uniform but the only time he was aboard a ship was the occasion when he and his parents were invited to visit his brother’s submarine when Siegfried was awarded the highest decoration for valor in the land. His father was proud and smiling. Siegfried, very young and blond but with tight, ruthless lines about his mouth, was proud and grave. His mother kissed Siegfried and even managed to smile, but when she pressed Conrad’s hand afterwards he knew how she felt. Both of them understood that Siegfried’s luck was sure to run out sooner or later.
Conrad found his work in Intelligence a relief after the nothingness of the Institut and at times he may even have found it exciting. Like the Admiral himself, he had to do accurate work while longing for the day when Hitler would die and the war would finally end. Because he understood several languages and had established contacts with some foreign scholars, he served at first as a courier. He appeared at various times in civilian clothes in Spain, Portugal, and France and four times in the Vatican. Often he was not told the nature of these missions. Usually he delivered disguised packages containing microfilms to men he had never met before and would never meet again. Sometimes the rendezvous was in a railway station, sometimes in a public park or an obscure restaurant. In the Vatican the techniques were probably more polished, but there is nothing in the record describing his visits to Rome. Out of the blur of this part of his life there emerged, like a knife-thrust in a dark alley, this single note: “If I’d been caught by the Gestapo en route to Lisbon with that, I’d have been tortured into confession and finally shot.”
But Conrad was surviving and so were Hanna and her father.
A full year before this mission to Lisbon, Dr. Erlich was released from Dachau with the marks of the torturer on his body. They had begun by breaking his nose, as our own police liked to do to prisoners in the time of the Second Bureaucracy. After this overture they put him through the routine of more complicated though not fatal tortures. Physically he was almost a broken man when he was released. Hanna met him at the prison gate. His hair was thin and snow-white, he was emaciated by starvation, and he walked with a limp. In her role as a member of the Swiss Red Cross she was professionally cheerful. The tears came later. And it was Hanna, not the Admiral, who told Conrad how her father’s release had been worked.
One of the highest officers in the Gestapo had deposited in a secret account in a Swiss bank a large sum of money extorted from Jews and converted into American dollars. If an ordinary person were caught transferring money outside the country he would have been sent to a concentration camp, but many higher officials did so and took it for granted that others were doing the same. What put this man into Canaris’s power was something that could only have happened in Hitler’s Germany.
He was a violently sensual man and there was a young Jewish woman he was mad for sexually. In spite of his high rank he did not dare be seen with her in Germany: his many enemies would have used it to ruin him. He therefore arranged for her to emigrate to Switzerland. Her family, including her husband, were still in Germany, so he was sure he had her under control. This officer was in the Intelligence branch of the Gestapo, the one that was making so much trouble for Canaris, and his business often took him to Switzerland, where all the belligerents had spies and listening posts. In Switzerland he could safely visit his woman. Sumptuous surroundings were an aphrodisiac to him and he insisted that she live in luxury. He opened in a Zurich bank a checking account in her name. She must have been a remarkable actress, for she made love to him with such expertise and variety that he believed she was as mad for him as he was for her.
Over a period of more than ten months, this woman had been using his money to bribe minor Nazi officials to furnish the rest of her family with emigration visas. When they were all safe in Switzerland, she had a private meeting with the Director of her bank and told him the whole story. The Director was Hanna’s Uncle Karl. One of
the lady’s own uncles had been a friend of the Erlich family for years. Within forty-eight hours Admiral Canaris had on his desk all the evidence he needed.
A brief meeting with the Gestapo officer was all that was required to have Dr. Erlich released from Dachau. Then Canaris put the screws on harder. He demanded for the doctor an exit visa to Switzerland and at this point the Gestapo man became terrified. He said it was impossible because Goebbels had a personal hatred for Dr. Erlich and would surely know if he had escaped to Switzerland. If that happened, then he – the Gestapo man – would have to implicate Canaris and both of them would be ruined.
The two operators came to a compromise. Dr. Erlich would be allowed to live with his wife in a small Alpine village near Munich, where he would be required to report weekly to the local police. He would also be given new identification papers under a different name.
During all this time, Hanna preserved her cover. Her duties were routine, mostly arranging for letters and food parcels to be delivered to prisoners of war. She always informed the police when she made one of her rare visits to her parents and the police assumed it was part of her work. Nor did she and Conrad live under the same roof, though they met from time to time until their separate apartments were destroyed by British air attacks. I can’t imagine that their love for each other was any release to them. It must have been somewhat as it was for Joanne and me in the time of the Second Bureaucracy. And, of course, they both knew that such time as they had was running out.
Voices in Time Page 34
