The House by the Lake

by Thomas Harding

  Two days later, the Soviets’ official response was that they had been in possession of an atomic bomb since 1947, but that there ‘was not the slightest grounds for concern’. That same day, an article in the Tägliche Rundschau, a Soviet-controlled newspaper published in East Berlin, hailed the announcement as ‘good news for Germany’ since the Americans no longer had a monopoly on the atomic bomb, and any government that used the bomb could ‘expect an answer in kind’.

  Twelve days later, on 7 October 1949, the Soviet occupation forces handed control of the eastern part of Germany to a new council of ministers, headed by the leader of the Socialist Unity Party (SED), Otto Grotewohl, and his deputy, Walter Ulbricht. Together they declared the establishment of a new country: the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR), or the German Democratic Republic (also known as ‘East Germany’). Germany had now formally split into East and West.

  It was against the backdrop of these remarkable events that the Meisels read disturbing newspaper stories about Groß Glienicke.

  One report concerned Gerda Radtke who, on the evening of 20 September 1949, had been tidying up after her three sons had gone to bed. The family now lived in Bullenwinkel, a hamlet located one kilometre west of Groß Glienicke, having been forced out of their house by the Soviets.

  Around 10 p.m., Gerda looked out of her window and saw a Soviet soldier talking to the Tauffenbachs1, an elderly couple who owned an orchard next door. It appeared that the soldier was offering an exchange to Herr Tauffenbach: an item of jewellery for some fruit. Thinking nothing of it, Gerda returned to her household duties. An hour or so later, she heard a scream from Frau Meier who lived on the other side of the Tauffenbachs: ‘Frau Radtke, Frau Radtke, there’s a fire at the Tauffenbach house!’

  Rushing outside, Gerda saw flames leaping out of her neighbours’ windows. Then she saw the body of Carl Tauffenbach lying across the doorstep, his head split open, his face and hands slashed, his wedding ring missing. As she stared on in shock, Herr Meier leapt on his bicycle and rode into Groß Glienicke to alert the fire brigade. When Gerda moved to enter the house, Frau Meier held her back, telling her she must not enter for fear of being trapped by the flames.

  A few minutes later, the fire brigade arrived. Inside the living room they found the half-burned corpse of Carl’s wife Valerie Tauffenbach, naked and with both of her arms cut off. Close to her body they discovered an empty gas can which had been used to start the fire. Walking further into the house and down into the cellar, they found a third body, Martha Greiner – a thirty-six-year-old fruit picker who worked for the Tauffenbachs – her legs broken, her breasts cut off and her stomach sliced open. Next to the body stood an ironing board and an iron, still warm.

  It wasn’t long before the NKVD, the Soviet security police, and the German Volkspolizei arrived. The Soviets ordered the firemen out of the house and prevented the German police from documenting the scene of the crime. The house was allowed to burn. That night, Gerda was visited by the NKVD, who asked her for a statement. She had seen the Russian soldier at the Tauffenbachs’ front door, she told them, and would be able to identify him. After she had signed her name she was told that she must not tell anybody about what had taken place. Whilst it was still dark, the victims’ bodies were loaded onto a military vehicle and taken to the small red-brick building beside the church in Groß Glienicke, which served as a morgue. Soon after, they were transported to Potsdam, where the remains were cremated. Despite repeated requests, Martha Greiner’s ashes were never released to her devastated husband.

  Two weeks after the Tauffenbach murders, another crime shattered the fragile peace. Two woodsmen were driving through the Glienicke Heath when their truck stalled. Leaving his companion to mind the vehicle, one of the men walked into Groß Glienicke to ask for help. When he returned he found his colleague lying terribly injured next to the truck, barely alive and with his skull caved in by a blunt object. The dying man’s last words were that the criminals had been two men in Russian uniforms.

  That same day, two dismembered and mutilated bodies were fished out of the sewage plant near the Soviet military base at Krampnitz, four kilometres west of Groß Glienicke. Then, on 5 October, the bodies of a married couple were found, again on the village outskirts, with their eyes cut out. Another body, the ninth, was discovered in the forest. The following day, the mutilated body of a cyclist was found two kilometres north of Groß Glienicke, towards the village of Fahrland. A few days after that, a mushroom hunter came across the bodies of two women in the woods just a few hundred metres north of the lake house. The women had been raped and their faces were so mutilated that they could not be identified.

  West Berlin newspapers – indeed West Germany as a whole – became fixated on this story, running articles under headlines such as the Tagespiegel’s ‘MURDERERS IN RUSSIAN UNIFORM – NEW VICTIMS IN GROß GLIENICKE’ and the Rhein Echo’s ‘SOVIET MILITARY ADMINISTRATION COVERS UP GLIENICKE MURDERS’. Unsurprisingly, the DDR newspapers took a very different view of the story, epitomised by the Berliner Zeitung, whose headline read ‘MULTIPLE MASS MURDER MADE UP’, and who went on to say: ‘The West German newspapers wrote articles about this event with the goal of defaming the Volkspolizei and the Soviets.’

  One intrepid West Berlin reporter decided to investigate in person. Under the byline HH for the Social Democrat newspaper, the article opened:

  It could have been a magical hike around the Groß Glienicke Lake on this mild autumn day but the magic doesn’t surface even though the sun is warm on the pale blue sky and the red, yellow and brown of the trees and bushes is very vibrant. All this beauty is not felt strongly because on the other side of Groß Glienicke there have been twelve murders in the past four weeks.

  Crossing from the British sector into the Soviet zone, HH then walked to the northern edge of the lake which ‘used to be a summer home for prominent actors, artists and businessmen’, and spoke to a few of the locals. One woman recalled that a ‘friend told me that I should stay away from this area as there is a lot going on in Groß Glienicke’, before adding that ‘we all know, even the Volkspolizei, who the murderers are, but it is better to keep your mouth shut’. Someone else told him, ‘If you are stopped by a Russian soldier or Volkspolizei then you are in trouble.’ As the journalist pointed out, despite the beauty of their surroundings, the locals were in a ‘fearful panic’.

  The residents’ theory was that the killers were encamped in the barracks established at the old Olympic Village. There were more soldiers than usual living at the Soviet base at this time2, since hundreds were taking part as extras in The Fall of Berlin, a high-budget production commissioned by Joseph Stalin that was then being shot on the heath north of Groß Glienicke. People living in the village were now too scared to leave their homes, especially at night, and when they did go out, they went in groups. ‘But’, HH concluded, ‘the people only talk about this at home, with their families behind closed doors. Their fear has taught them silence.’

  Initially, the Soviet-controlled Ministry of Interior for Brandenburg told the journalists that they hadn’t heard of the murders. Only when pushed did they acknowledge that the Tauffenbachs had been killed, but not the others. On the other side of the border, the Berliner Abend, a West Berlin evening newspaper, claimed that Soviet security officers had forbidden the Volkspolizei from investigating the murders. More specifically, the NKVD threatened to arrest both the mayor of Groß Glienicke and the head of the Potsdam Criminal Police if they failed to ensure the silence of every eyewitness. The only measure that was put in place was that the Soviet soldiers barracked near Groß Glienicke were more restricted when it came to leaving the camp3. No arrests were made in relation to the murders. This was in spite of reports that Gerda Radtke had seen the murderer clearly enough to identify him from a photograph4.

  Finally, on 19 October 1949, the chief of the Brandenburg Criminal Police, Herr Hoppe, took the unusual step of allowing a question-and-answer session with a journalist from
Neues Deutschland, the official organ of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) and largest-selling paper in the DDR. Responding to stories about the other murders, Hoppe said that they were only investigating the Tauffenbach crime, and that no other corpses had been discovered. When asked about the articles in the Western press, he said, ‘These have been written solely for the purpose of defaming the Soviet Union and the Volkspolizei. They do this to divert attention from the growing unemployment in West Berlin.’

  The East German policy was to bury the story.

  While the murders were occupying the front pages of newspapers across Berlin, these were not the only terrors troubling the residents of Groß Glienicke. On 23 August 1950, ten months after the police chief had spoken of ‘defaming the Soviet Union’, armed troops burst through the door of a house located on the southern tip of the Groß Glienicke Lake, and arrested its occupant: the Jewish politician Leopold Bauer.

  Bauer was a well-known character locally and internationally. In the early 1930s, he had been active in the Communist Party, before fleeing to Paris with the rise to power of the Nazis. Imprisoned in France following the German occupation, he had then escaped in 1940, before being imprisoned again as a communist agitator in Switzerland. After the war’s end, Bauer had returned to Germany as a hero. Quickly promoted, he became chairman of the Communist Party for the Hesse region and then, in the summer of 1949, was appointed as head of the national radio station, Deutschlandsender. This was when he had moved to Groß Glienicke, since it was close to Berlin and offered him the peace and quiet he was looking for.

  In early 1950, given the growing tensions between America and the Soviet Union following Germany’s partition, Joseph Stalin had ordered a crackdown on anybody suspected of working for the West. It was now, a year after arriving in the village, that the thirty-seven-year-old Bauer was arrested. Accused of helping American spies, Bauer was charged with treason, and incarcerated in Potsdam prison. There ‘Inmate Number 6’ – as he was called – was brutally interrogated and ordered to confess. In a seven-page handwritten note, he stated: ‘This is the last chance to tell my side of the story, to prove I am not an enemy, otherwise there is no reason to prolong my useless life.’ After providing his biography he added, ‘How should I prove that I am not an enemy if I am not an enemy? I have always fought for the working class and the party. I may have made mistakes but I am not an enemy of the people. I always had to work, sometimes I was not aware who I was working for.’

  Two years later, in the spring of 19525, and as part of a series of ‘show trials’, Bauer was convicted in a Berlin court. Initially sentenced to death, he was then given twenty-five years’ hard labour in a Siberian prison camp.

  Whenever a resident of Groß Glienicke walked past Leopold Bauer’s house, which stood empty having been confiscated by the government, they were reminded of his fate. It was another reason to be fearful. With the prospect of further, seemingly arbitrary, government oppression6, such as that experienced by Bauer, and the knowledge that the authorities were unlikely to investigate the murders, let alone catch the criminals, the villagers of Groß Glienicke hunkered down. The most common strategy was to avoid all contact with the Soviet soldiers, or their counterparts in the East German security apparatus. The village had become a site of terror, not tranquillity.

  Meanwhile, though the Soviet blockade was now over, the people of West Berlin felt more under siege than ever. They were surrounded by East Germany, whose politics and economics were looking increasingly different from their own, and threatened by the Soviets, who were building military bases closer and closer to the capital city. Unable to return to Groß Glienicke, Will Meisel focused on growing his business. In 1951, he had received his business licence, the authorities having finally relented. In celebration, Will framed the poster-sized licence and hung it on his office wall.

  Four years after the war’s end, mass migration became a problem for the newly established country of East Germany. Traumatised by the violence of the Soviet occupiers, and fearful for their economic and political future, hundreds of thousands of people were fleeing from East Germany to the West. The easiest route was through Berlin, for the border controls between East and West Berlin were more lax than between East and West Germany. People living in the Soviet-controlled parts of Germany made their way into East Berlin, crossed the still permeable border into West Berlin, and then applied for asylum. In 1949, almost 130,000 people emigrated to the west. That number climbed to almost 200,000 the following year.

  To counter this exodus, the DDR government imposed a series of ever tightening rules aimed at restricting border crossings. From this point forward, border guards were ordered to check people’s papers more carefully. Anyone who was caught smuggling – food, luxury items, money – was immediately arrested and put in prison. The DDR newspapers ran stories lambasting the inequality plaguing West Germany, and denounced its government, which they claimed was run by former Nazi Party members.

  Nevertheless, the mass migration continued. In 1951, more than 160,000 made their way from East Germany to West Berlin and – via train, bus and plane – on into the Federal Republic of Germany. Meanwhile, scores of Groß Glienicke residents continued to commute from the village into West Berlin, where the salaries were higher, and paid in the more valuable western currency. At the same time, many of the West Berliners who owned weekend houses in Groß Glienicke sporadically visited the village, though scared of the violence and intimidated by having to cross into the Eastern bloc, if only to check on their properties.

  The situation dramatically changed on 26 May 1952. While reading the morning newspapers, Will Meisel discovered that the DDR was closing the border between East Berlin and West Germany, with immediate effect. Even more significantly, the government had announced that if anyone wished to own property in the DDR they would have to live there permanently.

  Given the impossibility of visiting the lake house, Will Meisel now contacted Ella Fuhrmann, Lother’s mother, who was still living at Professor Munk’s house. Will and Ella had met a few times, often exchanging pleasantries and catching up on the village gossip across the garden fence. During one such conversation, Will had gathered that Frau Fuhrmann was looking for new accommodation. She had been informed by the local council that her family must leave the Munks’ house to make way for a teacher, a Herr Wißgott. Will wrote to ask if she might be interested in moving next door, at least until things became politically clearer. By return of post, Ella agreed.

  Will Meisel was pleased. In Berlin he could attempt to recover his business sure in the knowledge that, for now at least, someone would be taking care of the lake house.

  PART III

  HOME

  December 2013

  I have returned to Berlin, hoping to find one of Will Meisel’s family members. After a few days I locate Sven Meisel, Will’s grandson, who now runs the Edition Meisel music publishing company in Berlin.

  Sven and I meet on the steps of a white-stone building on Köthener Straße in the city centre. At the end of the street, where a tall office building now stands, once ran the graffiti-splattered Berlin Wall, blocking access to the eastern part of the capital. Two blocks away lies the Potsdamer Platz, one of Berlin’s main squares. After exchanging greetings, Sven gives me a tour of his music studios.

  ‘This is where David Bowie recorded his Berlin Trilogy in the 1970s,’ he tells me in perfect English as we walk through the Meistersaal, a wood-panelled hall with a small stage and a high ceiling. I follow Sven to the room next door where he points at a window. ‘And that’s where Bowie saw his producer kissing one of the backing singers,’ he says. ‘Do you know the song “Heroes”?’ I nod. ‘The line about kissing next to the wall, hearing guns overhead, thinking that nothing would fall? That all happened here.’

  Back in his office, having explained more about who I am, and why I had sought him out, I ask Sven about the lake house. He suddenly becomes circumspect. ‘What is your intention here?’ he asks me. ‘
Are you trying to get the house back?’

  I tell him that my objective is to gather information about the house so that I can save it from demolition. The question over who owns the house has already been settled, I add, it is the city of Potsdam.

  More comfortable with my motives, Sven picks up the phone and asks for the file on the house to be brought up from his company archive, along with any relevant materials. A few minutes later we are looking at pictures from the war years, newspaper articles, court documents and old letters.

  One of the photographs is of his grandfather, wearing white shirt and black trousers as he leans against a doorway. The doorway has a diamond-shaped window in it. It is the lake house. The man looks relaxed, happy, at home. The image shocks me. This is the first time I have seen evidence of other people living at the house, of others including it in their family histories. I find the picture disconcerting, as if it somehow undermines my own family’s story.

  Sven tells me that he never knew his grandfather, who died before he was born. I ask whether his grandfather was connected to the Nazis, and I am surprised by Sven’s honesty. It is possible, he tells me, that his grandfather may have taken advantage of the situation. ‘He was a complex character,’ he says.

  A few days after my return to England, I receive an email from my father. He asks how my research is going in Berlin and says that he has been doing a bit of digging himself. He has found documents relating to a second claim, he says, made four decades after that of Henny Alexander.

  I double-click on the attachment and find a number files relating to a claim made by the Jewish Claims Conference on 11 November 1992. According to the documents1, this claim was submitted on behalf of the Alexanders, but without the family’s knowledge. This was not uncommon. The JCC made thousands of claims in the years after Germany’s reunification in the early 1990s, their worry being that Jewish families might otherwise incorrectly submit a claim.