The Nazi's Wife

by Peter Watson

  My pipe was being difficult. Above us we heard the boots again, moving more slowly now that they were dragging prisoners with them. The jeep barked to life and zipped off out of earshot.

  “Did you know that Margaretta once made a pass at the doctor?”

  “Of course. She told me the next day.”

  “Did you know about the Eigruber affair? At Alt Aussee.”

  “Not everything, not the things that Dr. von Zell thought it was unsafe for me to know. But I knew he used to go there, late at night. And I knew why.”

  “And what about the monk business?”

  “Of course I knew. He was away from his office for three days and three nights. Someone had to cover for him—I helped him work out his alibi, so to speak. We pretended he was looking at other mines, rivals to the Alt Aussee one. Then, when he came back, he dictated his report to me, since he thought it was too risky for Pauline.”

  I had finally persuaded my pipe to work. The tobacco was sweet, a bit too sweet for me. I preferred drier leaves, but in war we had to make do. And I was better off than most.

  It looked as though some of the other girls had their own private areas with von Zell, but Frieda Breker had apparently known his movements at all times—he was too important. So, I decided, she would certainly have known if he had a mistress. I was inclined to believe her when she said, adamantly, that he was too much in love with his wife to think of going off with anyone else, but … one could never be too sure. I tried a different tack.

  “Tell me about the end, Frieda. When everyone evacuated the office.”

  Briefly, a look of exhausted annoyance swept across Frieda’s face and I realized that she—that all the girls—were much more tired than I thought. Then I remembered that I had slept during the afternoon, whereas most of them had worked all day. I still felt fine, though my beard was beginning to show and I could feel how coarse my chin was becoming each time I took my pipe from my lips.

  “Not long, I promise,” I said. “Just tell me about the end, Frieda, please … then we can all go home and get some sleep. I know you have to be up early for work tomorrow.”

  She threw back her head and stared up at the white ceiling. Slowly, the events of a year ago were recalled.

  “Everything, I suppose, started to go crazy on the last day of April. I remember well because it was just before my birthday, May 3.… Early that morning two curators from Alt Aussee arrived, Dr. Schedelmann and Dr. Rupprecht. They seemed very anxious and they had brought with them a case of gold coins. There were about two thousand of them and the coins had originally been intended for the Führermuseum because they were rare art, or something like that. But, at that time, apparently, Hitler wanted the coins for use as a currency reserve in case he had to retreat somewhere; things were obviously going extremely badly for Germany.

  “That, as I say, was the thirtieth of April. The next day, May 1, we—the doctor and us four girls—all moved our office from Berchtesgaden to Arthurhaus. I had known about this in advance but the other secretaries didn’t. Arthurhaus was a tiny town on the other side of the Hagen Gebirge, the big mountain south of Berchtesgaden. It was always kept ready as a place of retreat—it was in Austria and in the mountains proper. Dr. von Zell was quite a good skier, and, should the worst ever happen, he felt he could … well, escape … over the snow.”

  Frieda stumbled over her words because she realized, too late, that she had talked herself into giving something—she wasn’t sure what—away. She now realized that she had no choice but to go on. As Maurice used to say, in for a penny, in for a pound.

  “The plan was for the doctor to meet up at Arthurhaus with Martin Bormann and then the two of them, later, would rendezvous with Hitler. But of course it was on that day … that terrible day”—and she pulled her coat back around her with a shiver—“that we learned Hitler had killed himself.

  “That changed everything, of course, and, for a day or two, I’m not sure the doctor knew what to do. We stayed in Arthurhaus, awaiting news, then we heard that Bormann had withdrawn into the mountains. Later that same day the doctor was driven off and even I didn’t know to where, I promise. He was gone overnight, then called the next day to say he wasn’t coming back. I talked to him. He seemed very sad and asked to speak to each of the girls, in turn, to thank them. He told us to go back to our homes, to our parents, that things would be chaotic for a while. He told us that he was going away and that he would never see us again.”

  She was no longer speaking at the ceiling but looking levelly at me.

  “I know Germany lost, Lieutenant, and that no one is really interested in how the losers feel. But it was a sad time. We had been a contented group—no one is deliriously happy in wartime are they?—doing what we felt was important work. Now it was breaking up. That, I think, is why we agreed to stay together. We all did go home to our families for a week or so, but we had decided to live together in Munich and that’s what we did. None of us had boyfriends we cared enough about to stay down south. So we set up house in the apartment where you found us tonight. And no one has heard from Dr. von Zell since.”

  On the whole I believed Frieda’s story; it was the right blend of chaos and detail.

  “Just a couple more things, Frieda, then we can all go home. First, when the office was in Berchtesgaden, where did the doctor stay? Was he in lodgings or a hotel?”

  “Lodgings. He didn’t like hotels. Not good for security, he said.”

  “And the address?”

  “Well, the road was Inzellstrasse but the number I’m less sure about … 37 or 47, I think. It was one of the few private houses in the town with a phone.”

  “And can you remember the landlord’s name?”

  She shook her head. “Sorry.”

  “Did the doctor ever say where he might go after Arthurhaus? Either for the short while your office was based there or before, when you and he were discussing it in secret?”

  “Nothing specific. He was very cagey in matters like that; he kept secrets well. I think he did say once that, if he could, he would like to remain in Austria.”

  “Does the name von Haltern mean anything to you?”

  It was perverse, no doubt. But one of the satisfactions of being an interrogator was the effect one could produce in others by the insertion of the right question at the right time.

  For a brief moment I thought that Frieda had set fire to herself. As her hand had slumped, the cigarette had fallen from her fingers and it landed in her lap, shedding ash everywhere. A mare’s tail of blue smoke immediately rose from her coat, where the stub scorched the purple. She batted it out with her hand. It was the best reaction I had produced all night.

  “How … who told you about that?” It was almost a sob. “I was certain none of the other girls knew.”

  “Don’t worry, Frieda,” I said. “It wasn’t one of your girls. I found out another way. You tell me what you know.”

  But she was worried, and unconvinced by my attempt at reassurance. She bought time, dusting the ash from her coat and inspecting the burn mark. Her cigarette stub had gone out and she fussed, relighting it.

  “Frieda,” I said. “Please. It’s very late. I visited Dr. von Zell’s mother, near Worms. She told me about the von Halterns, and how close the doctor was to Eric. I even visited the Schlosshaltern in Koblenz and found that the family had moved to Hamburg after the bombing. None of the other girls so much as mentioned von Haltern’s name, please believe me. Your reaction just now proves that the name means something to you. Tell me what you know.”

  Our eyes met. Worms, Koblenz, Hamburg. Frieda knew now just how serious I was about this whole business. What she didn’t know was how well informed I was, whether or not I was already aware of everything she knew and whether I was just testing her. Even if I didn’t know, she could see that I was a formidable adversary who would not give up. She would be here all night, if need be, until I got the information I was after. I wouldn’t be put off, and how long we remaine
d in these cells was entirely up to her.

  She gave in.

  “About two years ago, a bit less, after the English and Americans invaded France, I learned that a good friend of Dr. von Zell’s had been killed in an air raid. I was with the doctor when he received the news; it was in a letter from his wife. He was upset, very upset. He didn’t do any more work that day, and he even had a drink with his lunch, something he never did normally.

  “Well, although it was sad, I didn’t pay too much heed that day since, after all, we all lost people we knew. But the doctor was no better the next day, or the day after that. In fact, for a short while he went to pieces. The man who had died, Eric von Haltern, had obviously been a special friend, almost like a brother, I suppose. They had been friends at university, and I gather their families were close.”

  She had paused. Maybe she was reluctant to go on, to tell me more. But I had been right about the cells. They were stark, forbidding. While she paused there was no other sound, either outside or from anywhere else in the building. I said nothing and let the silence work on her. Nothing I could say would make the situation more intimidating. She was alone now. All sorts of things must have been going through her mind, about betrayal, maybe. But then von Zell had looked after himself first, in Arthurhaus. She no longer owed him anything. Slowly, I offered her another cigarette. I moved at a pace intended to imply that I had all night.

  “He recovered, of course, he was a strong man, but at the same time he was never quite the same again. In fact, it was from then that he began to take precautions against Germany losing the war. Up until then he had thought nothing of it, or at least done nothing about it. But that’s the effect Eric’s death had on him. We all thought of the doctor as a good man but he was, nonetheless, a prominent Nazi. If Germany were to lose the war, it would be awkward for him.”

  I smiled at her use of the word “awkward.” That was putting it mildly.

  She pulled on her cigarette, trying to convince herself that she was calm. She was unhappy giving away so many details, but, like the others, she had never seen the inside of a jail before, not firsthand. She hated the effect it had on her more than she hated me. I had seen the reaction before—a human being, decent but unfairly cornered. I didn’t like the situation myself very much, but then the Nazis had done the same or worse with our side often enough.

  I wound my watch.

  “The doctor managed to get Eric von Haltern’s passport, and had his own picture put in it. He opened a bank account in von Haltern’s name and paid money into it. He got business cards printed.”

  “What bank?”

  “The South Bavarian Bank.”

  “And what did the business cards say?”

  “Baron Eric von Haltern, Wine Merchant.”

  “And how come you know all this, Frieda? Surely it’s the kind of thing the doctor would have kept to himself?”

  “Someone had to sign the bank references. Someone the bank knew and he trusted.”

  It was all falling into place. The hunch I had conceived that night at the Schlosshaltern looked like it was paying off. Von Zell was in the Wachau, using von Haltern’s name and working in the wine business.

  Frieda did not look well. The war had been over for a year, but she had liked her wartime boss and tonight she had, just possibly, betrayed him. It hadn’t taken too much trickery on my part, and it hadn’t taken long. Interrogations went like that sometimes, often in fact. People usually give away more than they expect to. People who have never been interrogated invariably imagine that, short of torture, they would give nothing away. But it is amazing what a bit of discomfort, a little isolation and a few seeds of doubt will do. If you smoke, the craving for a cigarette in such circumstances can be very nearly overwhelming. And the reaction is always the same: people don’t know why but they feel bruised, as if they had been in a bad road accident and were the only one to have survived; they feel winded, shaky and—yes—guilty. They feel empty, barren.

  I said no more but got up and opened the door. Leaving it wide, I opened all the others. The girls appeared, weary from the late hour, jaded with the confinement. Frieda Breker was the last, and the others immediately noticed the change in her and glanced suspiciously at me. I smiled, trying to reassure them, but they were cowed, afraid to question Frieda in public. The gaiety of the earlier part of the evening was quite gone.

  We went upstairs, where there was no sign of the redheaded captain, and out into the cold night. No laughter as the girls fitted themselves into the car, a more difficult task now than before, because the cold meant that we had to put up the top. No one spoke as we covered the distance back to the apartment block. Frieda, who got out first, led the way into the darkened lobby area without looking back. I was rewarded with a thin smile from Margaretta and Delia made a weak joke, saying she hoped I would take her somewhere with better music on our next date. But it was a painful moment after such fun earlier on.

  I saluted and said nothing. Upstairs, the dinner things remained for them to clear away. After Frieda had talked to them, they would not want to see or think of me again.

  4

  I’LL say this for the Bayerischerhof: considering the fact that the war had been over barely a year, and that many foodstuffs were still rationed throughout Europe, the hotel kitchen managed to come up with some damn good coffee. Really strong. I remember because when I surfaced, around midmorning the next day, I was still feeling very guilty about the effect I had produced on Frieda Breker. I tried telling myself that I was only doing my job, that such things must be expected after great wars … but it didn’t work, and as I winced with each gulp of the black, bitter coffee, I imagined how she must be feeling in the bright light of daytime.

  I took a quick look at the newspaper—Kaltenbrunner’s trial was in full swing at Nuremberg—and then put a call through to Hartt.

  “Flowers?” he gasped, when I told him my request. “Why on earth do you need flowers?”

  “To send to a lady. You can’t get them here, not at the moment. Not at this time of year.”

  “No can do, friend. Sorry, but your heart is your own affair. And don’t let Hobel find out you’re enjoying yourself on his time—he’ll butcher you.”

  I explained about Frieda Breker. “So you see, Sammy, I did treat her badly. And we may need her again. A bunch of flowers—daffodils even—would help.”

  “Hmmmn … I see your point, I think. But I don’t dare put ‘flowers’ in the log, eh? Let’s just say ‘bribe’; it sounds more … underhanded.”

  “Thanks, Sammy. Now, am I a rich man today, or a poor one?”

  “Aaah.” He sounded a bit embarrassed and my insides subsided. “I did warn you, Walter, that shares go down as well as up.”

  “How much, Sammy, how much?”

  “I put a thousand on for you, like you asked. Two hundred and twenty-two shares at four dollars and fifty cents. And at the close of business last night they were worth … let’s see, I just have to work it out.”

  He was delaying. “Sammy!” I could just imagine him, pushing those gold-rimmed spectacles back up his nose. “Sammy!”

  “Nine hundred and fifty-two dollars and thirty-eight cents. A drop of twenty-one cents a share, I’m afraid.”

  “Down forty-eight! In a day?”

  “Yeah … a lot, eh? I lost five times that, remember.”

  “Why so much?”

  “Not certain, but I’m hoping to find out some time today.”

  I felt sick. In those days $48 was nearly a week’s pay. I had just given it away. “What do you advise?”

  “Hold on, at least until we know the full score. If there’s that much movement, something must be going on and we might just stand to win if the early indications have it wrong and we hold our nerve.”

  I dared hardly ask the next question. “What about Confederate Paper? Did you manage to get Maurice onto that?”

  “Oh yes, no problem. Two hundred shares at a round five dollars each.”<
br />
  He was playing with me, goddamn it. “And, Sammy? And?”

  “Sure you want to hear?”

  “Sure.” That word had at least six s’s the way I hissed it.

  “Up seven cents. Your friend is today worth one thousand dollars plus two hundred times seven cents. Making a grand total of one thousand and fourteen dollars.”

  Shit! I had learned to swear in the war as well as to drink. I wished now I had never listened to Maurice or put through the call to Sammy. His news, coming on top of my guilt feelings about Frieda Breker, got the day off to a lousy start.

  “All right, Sammy,” I bleated. “Do what you think is best. I’ll try to call tonight.”

  Next I spoke to Maurice in Vienna. He depressed me too. Not only was it his superior airs at being $60 ahead of me already but, it turned out, he hadn’t even started to look for von Zell.