Germania: A Novel of Nazi Berlin

by Harald Gilbers

  Just a few meters on, the dead who’d been pulled from the ruins by the emergency services had been laid out in a row in the middle of the pavement. While passing them, Oppenheimer could not stop himself from taking a hasty glance. He saw a man, dragged out from underneath tons of rubble, whose deformed skull looked like a soft-boiled egg without its shell.

  A banner hung off the skeletal ruins of the houses behind the bodies. It read: THIS AREA HAS BEEN SEARCHED FOR CASUALTIES. Like all areas where the emergency services had given up the search, the detritus of the former building had been sprayed with chlorinated lime to disinfect the terrain.

  Convicts in striped clothing were in the process of clearing the street from rubble. SS men were guarding them, hands always resting on their weapons. Oppenheimer passed women from the Fire Protection Police who were busy rolling up the water hoses again. In their dark uniforms, heavy shoes, and side caps, they were an unfamiliar, strangely masculine sight.

  “Oppenheimer!” someone to his right called out. Dr. Klein approached from a side street. Despite his corpulence, he danced nimbly around the rubble piles. “How wonderful to see you! I thought you might have been hit!”

  “Silence!” a man wearing headphones hissed from a nearby ruin. Klein flinched and stood still. The man paid no attention to his apologetic gesture but only pressed the headphones tighter onto his ears. Slowly, he squatted down next to the listening devices with which he filtered out knocking signs from within the rubble.

  “Nothing’s happened,” Klein whispered. “All good. The house is still standing. We got lucky this time; the fire almost reached our neighbor’s gas cellar. Luckily, it was extinguished in time. Old Schlesinger is suffering from smoke poisoning, but it’s not too serious.”

  Another voice called out nearby. “Richard!” Lisa came toward them.

  “Thank goodness,” Klein said. “I was just about to ask after you. Wonderful. At least all the residents of our house managed to escape.”

  Lisa’s face was red with excitement. When Oppenheimer hugged her, he noticed that she barely dared to breathe.

  “Richard, why are you still here?” she finally managed to say.

  “It’s all right,” Oppenheimer whispered into her ear. “They picked me up again this morning, but I’m not in danger. Do you understand? They need me.”

  “What do they want from you?”

  “I’m to help them with the investigation.”

  “Richard! Are you mad?”

  “They gave me no choice. If you think about it, it’s probably the best thing that could happen to us. As long as the investigation goes on, we’re safe. I’m practically under SS protection! And I don’t need to polish any machines for the time being.”

  Oppenheimer looked into Lisa’s eyes. He tried to seem positive, but Lisa was too clever for such maneuvers. He sensed an unspoken question in the air. Doubtlessly, Lisa was asking herself what would happen once the investigation was over.

  Dr. Klein approached and pointed toward another smoking ruin. “Do you see that? It hit just one house. The ones alongside it are still standing. Seems to be some new sort of bomb.” He went over to the edge of the crater and inspected it with curiosity. “I’ve never seen anything like it. The impact is much deeper than usual. The surrounding area is completely unharmed. Very strange.”

  Oppenheimer cast a distracted glance at the crater the bomb had made. His untrained eye only saw that the roof of the cellar had been bombed through. The limestone lay in the open cellar room like snow. He was not really interested in the technical finesse of warfare. Instead, Oppenheimer observed his fellow resident. Over the last few days, the doctor had been gripped by a peculiar frenzy of activity. Probably his way of dealing with the death of his wife. Oppenheimer thought about how Dr. Klein would react once he had calmed down and faced reality.

  “They were able to retrieve only burned corpses from down there,” Klein explained and pointed to the destroyed cellar. “No idea how many there were. The attack came so suddenly that they didn’t have time to make it to the bunker at the station.”

  Oppenheimer heard a murmur go through the crowd. Klein looked over his shoulder. “Ah, word has spread that the ration post is open now. They promised coffee beans. Interesting to see how quickly people can run when there is something to be had.”

  Lisa and Oppenheimer looked at each other. The tempting prospect of coffee beans made them consider going as well. But for Oppenheimer, at least, it was pointless trying to ask for something—there was always someone from the neighborhood ready to sneak on him as being from the Jewish House. Only Klein remained standing firm as a rock. With his secret stash of provisions, it was easy for him to remain calm.

  * * *

  Oppenheimer woke with a start. Something was clinging to him. He hadn’t imagined it. An arm. Although the air was pleasantly cool, his brow was covered in sweat. Remnants of his dream swirled through his head. He remembered swimming through a sea of severed limbs, heading for an island that had turned out to be a bone-crunching mouth. The thought made him sit bolt upright, afraid to look around.

  In the dim shimmer of the light bulb, Oppenheimer recognized his surroundings. The pit in the cellar. So he was in the bunker, lying on the ground on his traditional spot. The arm resting on him was Lisa’s. Old Mrs. Schlesinger lay a bit farther back. He recognized her jacket that once might have been red. Her deep breathing told him she was asleep. The remaining residents of the Jewish House lay on the ground a little farther off. Now Oppenheimer vaguely remembered having heard a siren during the night. There must have been another bomb attack. But it was quiet outside. Deadly quiet.

  Oppenheimer had probably never had as little sleep as in the last few months. And yet, despite the citizens’ lack of sleep, the city functioned as usual. Everything ran its usual course: administrative offices were open, mail was delivered, and even electricity and water worked most of the time. Oppenheimer remembered that it would be full moon soon. The attacks usually relented then. For a few days, it would be possible to sleep through the night and not have to hasten down to the cellar half-dressed. Lisa squinted at him from a few inches away.

  “Awake again?” she inquired.

  Oppenheimer nodded. “Did I sleep for long?” he asked.

  “Maybe half an hour. You were very restless.”

  “Hmm,” he muttered. Then he leaned against the wall. It was strange, but he wasn’t able to remember the dream that had been so present just moments ago. Finally, he cleared his throat. “I wonder if it’s unpatriotic,” he whispered.

  Puzzled, Lisa looked at him, and he explained what had been going through his head. “I am horrified every time an air raid takes place, but on the other hand, I hope that they’ll win. It’s crazy, right? Maybe it’s down to not being part of the German people.”

  Now Lisa sat up too. “If you start thinking like that, then you’re playing into their hands. I know few people more German than you. There is no such thing as the Jewish race. There are lots of people at my workplace who also hope that the Nazis will lose. And they are Catholics and Protestants. And they ask themselves the same question. I don’t think it’s unpatriotic to wish for defeat. After all, the Nazis aren’t Germany.”

  Later that night, as Oppenheimer was lying on the ground again, staring at the ceiling, this last sentence kept going through his mind, until Lisa finally turned on her side to cuddle up to him.

  Unbidden memories welled up, the events of the last year, when the SS had arrived long before dawn in large lorries. They had driven Oppenheimer and other men onto the loading platform at gunpoint because the German race was to be free of Jews within six weeks. That morning, they had rounded up all Jews in the city who were married to Aryans and herded them into a temporary camp near Rosenstraße like cattle for the slaughter. But while they waited there, a crowd gathered outside. It was a vigil held by the wives, who did something no one in Germany would dare: they refused to remain silent but instead voiced their protest i
n public. Lisa, too, had stood outside the doors of the building and defied the cold March nights to get Oppenheimer back safe and unharmed. The crowd of women had grown ever larger, until the constant press of people outside could no longer be ignored. As a result, the Nazi state had actually caved in and without further comment let Oppenheimer and the other prisoners go free.

  And now Lisa was cuddling up close to Oppenheimer as if he were able to protect her, when really, it was exactly the other way around. Oppenheimer wondered what he had done to deserve this love, for he knew that his biggest flaw was his inability to protect Lisa from all this madness. Right now, he felt like a fraud.

  * * *

  When Oppenheimer got out of the car in the early hours of the morning, he couldn’t make sense of his surroundings. The trees in this place could definitely not be mistaken for their domesticated fellow species in the city parks. Right now, Oppenheimer stood in a deep, impenetrable, typically German forest.

  Just as arranged with Vogler, the driver had shown up at seven o’clock to pick him up. Oppenheimer assumed that his companion, who had only introduced himself by his last name, Hoffmann, was also going to keep him under surveillance. But what with the happy prospect of being able to move throughout the city in far more comfort than before, he didn’t really care. Hoffmann had been instructed to bring Oppenheimer to their headquarters, from where Vogler coordinated his efforts to arrest the killer, first thing every morning. But now, Oppenheimer stood in the midst of a fairy tale instead.

  He couldn’t tell whether the noise in the air was the city traffic or the rustling of the forest. His surroundings smelled of moss and pine needles, and the light got lost in the tops of the high trees so that a pleasant twilight prevailed in the forest, only pierced by the occasional beam of light. Memories of his childhood were awakened, of his mother reading him the story of Hansel and Gretel and the witch’s cottage. He spotted witches’ cottages here, too, not just one like in the story by the Brothers Grimm but several, lined up one next to the other in solid bourgeois style. The houses were in no way luxurious or particularly large, the saddle roofs covered with tiles, the dormers clad in dark wood, the lattice windows flanked by large shutters.

  Hoffmann had turned off directly behind the entrance to Argentinische Allee and parked the car in a cul-de-sac, Am Vierling. It seemed almost absurd to Oppenheimer that the narrow streets in this wild area of beauty should carry names at all.

  He filled his lungs with the tangy air and gazed up into the branches. He could imagine that someone might not shy away from murder to own a house in this exclusive location. After all, they were in the southwest of Berlin, close to the Grunewald forest. At this moment, Oppenheimer could not possibly know how prophetic this thought was.

  Hoffmann pointed to the nearest doorway and said, “There. Just ring the bell.”

  Before Oppenheimer reached the door, it was opened from within. Vogler waited for him on the doorstep in his uniform and waved him inside.

  The building looked like a normal residence, just like it did on the outside. Although the rooms were not particularly big, they seemed enormous to Oppenheimer, compared to his current residence.

  “Take off your coat. What can I offer you? Coffee? Cognac? Champagne?” Vogler mentioned these delicacies with a casualness that Oppenheimer had not heard for a long time when it came to food or even spirits. He took off his hat and only managed to utter, “Coffee.”

  “Take a seat,” the Hauptsturmführer said and pointed toward the sitting room. The house was completely furnished, but at a closer look, it seemed to be a hollow shell. The glass cabinet and shelves in the sitting room were empty, and there were no personal items anywhere. Only the sonorous ticking of the wall clock structured the silence into seconds. Vogler reappeared, a cup of coffee in his hand.

  “Who lives here?” Oppenheimer asked.

  “We do,” Vogler answered and lit a cigarette. “At least until the case is solved. This room is yours to use as an office. Telephone and radio set are in the cellar. A radio technician will be on constant standby when I’m not here.”

  Oppenheimer just nodded and sat down in the next-best chair. He suddenly felt that Vogler in his uniform and upright stance formed a strange contrast to the sitting room’s flowery wallpaper. Oppenheimer sipped the dark brew to check whether it was proper coffee. Of course it was. His nose had not deceived him.

  “Have you made any progress in identifying the body?”

  “I’m afraid not. My people are still working on it. What do you think we should do?”

  “As long as we don’t know who the deceased is, there’s not much to go on. At best, we can check whether the perpetrator was a necrophiliac. It would be preferable if you could contact the corpse identification command centers. They aren’t likely to give me any information. Ask them for corpses that have disappeared or similar irregularities. I will check out the cemeteries.”

  Vogler looked at him in surprise. “Are you really planning on canvassing all of Berlin’s cemeteries?”

  “At least as long as we don’t have any proper leads. I will work my way from Oberschöneweide toward the city center. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  “Very good, then that’s how we’ll do it,” Vogler said and put his hands on his hips. “We’ll meet here every morning at eight to discuss the situation. Any other questions?”

  “No,” said Oppenheimer, although numerous questions were going through his mind.

  * * *

  Morosely, Oppenheimer trotted across the gravel path. The cemetery caretaker had to be around here somewhere, but in the office, they hadn’t been able to be any more specific. The pale gray sky hurt his eyes; he felt as if his head was going to burst. Maybe he was coming down with a cold. Oppenheimer’s hand instinctively slipped into his inside pocket. He wanted to take a Pervitin tablet to get through the day, but after long consideration decided against it, as there were only about a dozen left in the vial. These were his last ones, and he had no idea how to get his hands on more. It was not easy to procure Pervitin. It was impossible without a prescription, and he didn’t want to bother Hilde with it. Maybe Dr. Klein had a solution.

  Hoffmann stayed a few steps behind him, his motorbike goggles dangling rakishly from his cap. They had switched to a motorbike, the ideal way to get around the city, even if Oppenheimer did have to wedge himself awkwardly into the sidecar each time. The vehicle was versatile enough to navigate around the piles of rubble and bomb craters, which tended to appear out of nowhere. Despite all that, Oppenheimer would occasionally have preferred a car or at least a different driver. He was beginning to suspect that Hoffmann had misinterpreted his instructions of wanting to go to the cemetery, as he was driving along the road at such breakneck speed that more than once, Oppenheimer’s heart almost stopped while he desperately held on to his hat with one hand and used his other to cling to the vehicle.

  The cemetery on Baumschulenweg was adjacent to the woodlands of Königsheide and just a few kilometers away from where the body had been found. The vast area was quite confusing, as it was sectioned into two halves by the access road. Oppenheimer thought it quite possible for a body to disappear from here.

  As he strode along the rows of graves, he spotted a man gesticulating wildly to two gravediggers not far from the crematorium.

  “I don’t care when you take your break,” the man ranted. “These bodies have to be put in the ground today, and that’s that!”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier if we dug one large pit?” one of the men armed with a spade asked. “The three of us can’t dig a dozen graves in a few hours.”

  “No chance. Mass graves are forbidden. Instructions from the führer himself.” At the mention of the führer, the gravedigger instinctively ducked his head.

  “We’ve barely got any ice left. Are we just going to let the bodies rot? No, I don’t want any trouble with the ministry. Even if it means shoveling around the clock. The foreign workers haven’t arrived yet, but I can’t
help that!”

  The other gravedigger bashfully tugged his cap. “Well, we just wanted to say, it’s not fair,” he demurred.

  “Life is not fair, and neither is death. I’ll try to find some new workers as quickly as possible. But until then, we have no choice. So get on with it!”

  “We can’t split ourselves into four,” the first gravedigger grumbled querulously and jumped into the half-dug grave. His colleague also reached for his shovel and whispered, “There’s just no justice in the world.”

  That seemed to put an end to the conversation, and Oppenheimer cleared his throat loudly to make the officials aware of him. “I presume that you’re the cemetery administrator?”

  “Yes, that’s right,” the man answered, already marching on. Oppenheimer had no choice but to trot alongside him. “Have you found a relative? Then please register with the caretaker. Together with the death certificate, you’ll receive a coffin certificate. You’ll have to bring this back here, and we’ll take care of the rest. You’ll have to inquire about a date for the burial. Bringing clothes for the dead person to be buried in is prohibited. Clothing material stipulation—you will have heard of it. The body will be buried in the clothes it was found in. I hope that explains everything?”

  “I’m not here about a burial,” Oppenheimer replied. “It’s about a criminal case.”

  The administrator stopped in surprise and gave Oppenheimer a scrutinizing look. Then he noticed the Star of David.

  “Wait a minute, what’s going on here?” he asked skeptically. He turned to Hoffmann. “Has the Jew got any authority?”

  Hoffmann pulled out his SD identification and discreetly took the administrator aside. While the men chatted quietly, Oppenheimer thought that it would be a difficult investigation if every person he talked to first had to question his status as an external advisor. The administrator turned back to Oppenheimer.

  “I’m sorry, I had no idea. Name’s Krüger.” He wanted to shake Oppenheimer’s hand, but after a sideways glance at Hoffmann, he changed his mind and rubbed his hands together, embarrassed. “What’s up? Are you looking for a dead person?”