“I told you there was no point, Friede,” he said resignedly to Mrs. Becker. She began to sob quietly.
“I’m not interested in you,” Oppenheimer said as calmly as possible. “I just care about the witness statement. When I leave, you’ll never see me again. No one will find out about this from me. I give you my word of honor. But I ask you to now give me a genuine report of what you saw at the cemetery that night.”
Mrs. Becker turned toward Oppenheimer in surprise. The young man’s eyes also held renewed hope.
“What shall I call you? Just your first name so that I can address you.”
“Ernst,” the young man said.
“So, Ernst, were you there when Mrs. Becker made the observation at the cemetery in Steglitz?”
“We’d only met a few days before,” it suddenly burst out of Mrs. Becker. “We saw each other for the first time during an air raid. We were in the same bunker, and, well, we liked each other straightaway.”
“I accompanied her home that night,” Ernst added.
“Right. I don’t need any further details. So you were walking along the wall of the cemetery. Now to the important question: Which one of you actually made the observation? Let’s start with you, Ernst.”
The man named Ernst swallowed and thought hard. “It was like this: I saw someone tampering with the gate.”
“A man?”
“I would say so, yes. He moved like a man. I could not really make out what he was wearing.”
“Hair color?”
“I would say brown or black. Definitely not light. But he could have been wearing a hat.”
“What did you do after you’d seen the man?”
“It seemed quite strange. The man was pushing a handcart. But who has any business in a cemetery at night? I told Friede—I mean, Mrs. Becker—what I’d seen.”
“You didn’t see anything else after that? Did the man vanish? He can’t have disappeared into thin air.”
Ernst looked down in embarrassment. “Well, I quickly looked around for a spot where I might hide. I didn’t know who it was. You understand, in my situation, I have to be careful.”
By and large, his description corresponded with the first witness statement given by Mrs. Becker. “Now to you, Mrs. Becker. Ernst pointed the man in the cemetery out to you. What did you see?”
“The moon was just coming out from behind a cloud when I looked. Usually, you can’t see anything because of the blackout. Everything was light, very briefly, and the first thing I saw was a head of platinum-blond hair.”
“Platinum blond, just as you described him.”
“Yes, I know it sounds crazy because it was a man. I don’t know any men who dye their hair. But anyway, he ran across the street really quickly, and then he disappeared into the darkness.”
“And the handcart?”
“I heard something but couldn’t see what it was.”
“Which one of you noticed that the gate had been broken open?”
“That was me,” Mrs. Becker said. “Someone had broken in. I wanted to report it to the police immediately, but it was too dangerous. I had to tell someone; I couldn’t just slink off. With hindsight, that wasn’t very clever of me.” She smiled grimly. “Ernst says it’s my Prussian blood. Anyway, I told the cemetery caretaker. That seemed the best compromise.”
“But he sent you straight to the police.”
In response, Mrs. Becker shrugged.
“And at the police station, you were worried about getting more involved because of Ernst and therefore gave a false address?” Oppenheimer asked.
“It wasn’t wrong. Just not up to date. It was a snap decision. It might have been easier to give a different name, but then I would have had to lie. The situation with Ernst and everything else—I couldn’t think straight anymore.”
“Why didn’t you just stick to the first version of your witness statement?”
“Initially, I only repeated what Ernst had told me. He was completely convinced that the man had looked like that.”
“But then you began to doubt, and when I questioned you, you described the scene as you yourself had seen it,” Oppenheimer finished.
Mrs. Becker sat before him on the edge of the bed, clearly contrite.
“I’m a silly idiot. But I couldn’t lie. I’d seen the man with my own eyes. But he looked different to me.”
Oppenheimer thought about it. Her description seemed credible. There was a very simple solution for the discrepancy between their two statements. “Is it possible that you saw two different men?”
“I asked myself that too,” said Ernst. “We can’t rule it out entirely.”
“Thank you very much,” Oppenheimer finally said. “I think you’ve answered all my questions.”
He went to the front door and turned once more. Mrs. Becker and Ernst looked at him uncertainly.
“That’s it from my side,” Oppenheimer said, his hand on the door handle. “Take care of yourselves, you two.” When he closed the door behind himself, the two lovers were already embracing. Mrs. Becker held on tightly to Ernst, who was doing his best to calm her.
“Friede, it’s all right,” he said and gently stroked her hair.
Friede. Peace. Ernst had given his lover a beautiful nickname. And somehow it fitted his situation as a deserter.
As Oppenheimer headed for the subway, he went through the information that Mrs. Becker and her lover had given him.
Inevitably, his thoughts wandered back to his unsuccessful interrogation of Karl Ziegler. He had assumed that Gormless Kalle had wanted to extract himself from the situation and had therefore invented an imaginary partner, giving him the blame. Oppenheimer had to admit that he might have formed a hasty judgment. Ziegler having recordings of the torture only implied that he was involved in the crime. No more and no less.
An important aspect was the fact that in the Gestapo office he’d only seen Ziegler seated. The suspect whom he’d followed across the city center of Berlin had had a limp. But Oppenheimer hadn’t taken the time to check whether Ziegler had a limp.
He swallowed hard when he considered the consequences. If the ominous partner did exist, and the most recent witness statements corroborated this, then the murderer was still on the loose. As he’d lost his assistant, he would change his modus operandi, but he wouldn’t stop kidnapping and killing women until someone stopped him. Although it wasn’t cold, Oppenheimer shivered. He turned up the collar of his coat and stomped grumpily down the street. After these new witness statements, the end of this nightmare seemed ever further away.
* * *
“That was damned close. The next time, you’ll have to give us more time.” Bauer looked at Oppenheimer reproachfully from the side.
“Where is Hilde?” Oppenheimer wanted to know from the back of the car, trying to catch his breath.
“We’re meeting her later,” Lüttke explained, put the car into second gear, and shot off.
“Amateurs,” Bauer swore under his breath and crossed his arms, a sign he wasn’t happy with the entire situation.
Dot and Anton had discovered Oppenheimer near the “Onkel Tom” housing project; he’d been on his way to the Kameradschaftssiedlung. Bauer had appeared out of nowhere and bundled him into the car. It had all happened so quickly that Oppenheimer was still surprised to be sitting next to the man from the resistance. Even the pedestrian who’d been walking his dog just a few meters behind him was completely taken by surprise by the move. The man had barely turned around, curious about what was going on, when Oppenheimer had already disappeared into the car. It seemed the two men from the resistance had adapted classic Gestapo methods for their own purposes. And they seemed to be quite talented in this regard.
Exasperated, Lüttke sounded his horn. Another vehicle had cut across them. “These bloody rubble heaps! Everyone just drives as they see fit!”
“Has my wife been informed?” Oppenheimer demanded.
“We haven’t been to your flat yet,” Bau
er grumbled. “Just tell me what’s new.”
With as much detail as necessary, Oppenheimer recounted the day’s events, but he decided to keep Mrs. Becker’s new statement to himself for the time being.
“Ah, right, so Vogler has found his scapegoat,” Lüttke summarized the situation. “He’s sure to make it to the top.”
“The question remains whether he contents himself with this solution to the case,” Bauer said with a gloomy look. But Oppenheimer was only half listening. At the moment, he didn’t care about Vogler. More important things were occupying his thoughts. He was relieved that he would be getting out of Germany in a few hours, but he was unable to really look forward to it. The devastating fact that there were two perpetrators could not be ignored. So he asked, as matter-of-factly as possible, “Did you get hold of the Lutzow file, by any chance?”
“That file has disappeared off the face of the earth,” Bauer was forced to admit. “Our contact went through the entire archive. There are no notes, no file memorandum, nothing.”
“Interesting,” Oppenheimer mumbled. “Either the files were lost when the police headquarters on Alexanderplatz were bombed, or someone had them removed.”
“That’s exactly why we wanted to speak to you,” Bauer interrupted. “There is something you have to do for us.”
Oppenheimer cast Bauer a questioning look—and froze. At that moment, he noticed for the first time the rows of houses they were passing. He quickly looked over his shoulder. Despite the twilight, he was able to discern the square called Führerplatz disappear into the distance. They had driven past the entrance to the Kameradschaftssiedlung. What was Lüttke doing? Didn’t he know where they were going? “We’ve gone past the entrance!” Oppenheimer protested and grabbed Lüttke’s shoulder.
“As I said, we’ve got things to talk about before we can get you to safety,” Bauer repeated.
“What’s going on? Hilde didn’t say anything about this.”
“Not so fast, my friend.” Now it was Lüttke speaking to Oppenheimer. “We have no idea what Karl Ziegler testified today or what might be pinned on him. We know that the SD works with false confessions. It is possible that they will subsequently try to denounce one of us. These murders would be a welcome excuse for Schellenberg and consorts to silence their adversaries once and for all.”
“You’ve already explained that to me at great length, but what am I supposed to do about it?”
“If we’re to help you get away tonight,” Bauer explained impassively, “then you have to go through the interrogation transcript one more time. Tonight. Because the government district is constantly being bombed, the SD is moving all its departments to the Wannsee. They have requisitioned several villas there. Vogler has also been given an office there for the duration of the investigation. He keeps all the files on the case there.”
The only noise that could be heard was the sound of the tires splashing through the puddles. Bauer waited for a reaction, but Oppenheimer sat huddled in his seat and thought morosely of how many more delays there would be. Finally, he tried to squirm his way out. “Do you really think that’s necessary?”
“We need to know what Vogler might have added to or changed in the confession. It’s too dangerous for our contact to find that out, and it would take too long. But you are familiar with the case; you know what to look for. It probably won’t take you more than twenty minutes.”
“And you think it’s that simple? I’m supposed to break into an SD building? The place will be guarded like a high-security prison.”
Bauer didn’t take no for an answer. “It’s not as complicated as it looks. There is so much going on there, what with all the departments moving right now. Our contact will be able to help us. It’s all arranged. We just need to be there at ten o’clock. We’ll smuggle you in, and you then pick out the information we need. Quite simple.”
So everything had been arranged. Oppenheimer needed more time to decide. “I am sure you’ll understand that I cannot make this decision alone. I need to speak to my wife first.”
Bauer snorted, dissatisfied. “Mr. Oppenheimer, there is no alternative.”
“Mr. Bauer,” Lüttke intervened, “give him a bit of time to think things over. You’ve already been a great help, Mr. Oppenheimer. We have our reasons for asking you for this last favor. It’s a matter of life or death for some of our colleagues. I can assure you that we haven’t taken this decision lightly. If you agree, you can save our men from worse fates.”
After these words, he drove back to the Kameradschaftssiedlung, and they didn’t speak for the remainder of the drive.
Bauer’s usually brusque manner had morphed into a huffy sulk. Oppenheimer could guess the differences of opinion between the two of them. Bauer had clearly wanted to present him with a fait accompli, while Lüttke thought it would suffice to appeal to Oppenheimer’s decency. Sometimes these two seemed to him like an old married couple who were always at each other’s throats but couldn’t be one without the other.
When they entered the Kameradschaftssiedlung, Lüttke switched off the headlights. The narrow band of light that had lit up the road ahead of them disappeared. Barely visible to the naked eye, the black vehicle glided the last few meters and slowly approached the turning loop to park there.
Lüttke didn’t switch off the engine, ready to roar off again instantly should their plan go wrong. Oppenheimer also felt uneasy. He cleared his throat.
“How are we going to proceed?”
Bauer spoke again. “Is there anyone in the house at this time?”
“Not usually. Possibly the radio operator. He sometimes holds the fort in the cellar.”
“Then be on your guard. Come out with your wife and the luggage and get in the car immediately. The quicker we get out of here, the better. We can discuss the rest during the drive.”
Oppenheimer slowly got out of the car. He hesitated, crouched beside the car door to check the surroundings, but then realized how suspicious he must look. So he put his hands in his coat pockets and tried to walk toward the front door as casually as possible.
He could already discern from the outside that no lights were on in the house. Oppenheimer was a little surprised. Had Lisa already gone to bed? She normally managed to get by without much sleep and had slept in late this morning.
He stepped into the hallway. Fearful that the hinges on the door would squeak, he moved the door very slowly. The door fell shut behind him with a muffled click. He stepped toward the door that led down to the cellar and carefully pushed down the door handle. Locked.
He was hugely relieved. This could only mean that the radio operator had already gone home. To make sure, he let his eyes wander through the living room that contained his office. Nobody to be seen here.
He felt reassured by this discovery. Everything was going according to plan. Secretly, Oppenheimer had suspected that Lüttke’s escape plan was too good to be true. He had constantly feared it wouldn’t work out. And yet he’d played along simply to not give up hope. Oppenheimer told himself that he couldn’t always be dogged by bad luck. He had to get lucky at some point.
Holding on to this thought, he went up to the second floor. But what he saw there made his half-hearted optimism fade again.
The bed was still unmade. Their packed suitcases stood in the corner of the room. But something was missing: Lisa.
27
SATURDAY, JUNE 24, 1944
“Over here! I saw him over here!” More excited shouts followed. He’d jumped onto the loading area at the last second and immediately pulled the tarpaulin over himself. His heart beating madly, he tried to lie still and cover the unconscious prostitute at the same time.
His pursuers had taken up the trail, were close on his heels. He knew that the feeling of being protected by the tarpaulin was deceptive. The cover that shielded him from the SS men consisted solely of a thin sheet of plastic. He racked his brains, but he couldn’t see what mistake he had made. One thing was clear—something
had gone terribly wrong this time.
The tarpaulin was torn, just a few centimeters from his face. He could see the men’s arms and legs through the opening. He couldn’t make out how many there were. His view was additionally obscured by the fact that he was staring through his gas mask.
More men arrived and formed a group. Right next to his vehicle.
“The alleyways are clear!” someone called. “He can’t have disappeared!”
“He has to be here,” a cutting voice said. “Somewhere very close.”
Then silence. The men turned in circles, searching the surroundings.
When he heard heavy steps, he pressed himself as close as possible to the prostitute’s limp body. Again, he heard the voice of the man who’d spoken last. Although he was whispering, it was clear that he was used to giving orders. “I tell you he’s here somewhere!”
More and more uniformed men arrived, until the commander rebuked them harshly. “Stand still. And be quiet, for heaven’s sake!”
The men’s murmuring stopped. His breath came in bursts. They were listening attentively. He knew that the slightest movement would blow his cover. A low harrumph sounded outside.
“I said quiet!”
“But, Obersturmbannführer, we can’t—”
“Didn’t you hear that? There was a noise! It sounded like a hissing.”
He flinched in shock. At first, he didn’t understand what the Obersturmbannführer meant, but then he understood. The filter! They could hear the filter of his mask! Of course. With each breath, he made a noise.
His mind raced. He must not draw attention to himself. And yet he had to breathe somehow. Doggedly, he tried to come up with a solution for escaping this trap.
Slowly, very slowly, he let the air out of his lungs. The filter rustled just a little. But even this barely perceptible noise was still too loud.
Germania: A Novel of Nazi Berlin Page 35
