The Butchers of Berlin

by Chris Petit

  Schlegel asked about the state of the pigs they had seen. Baumgarten wasn’t responsible for the pens. His duty began once the animals started their final journey. He pointed to a ramp that led down to several doors, which accessed the tunnels known as runs, taking the animals to the last stage.

  ‘They die with their own. Let’s go this way,’ he said, gesturing towards the run. He grinned, showing his missing tooth.

  Was it a joke in bad taste? Schlegel asked.

  ‘We use it all the time. Saves having to go round.’

  Impatient with the man’s nonsense, Schlegel went down, followed by Morgen.

  They entered a long, badly lit, narrow tunnel that disappeared into the distance. If it was anything like the length of the street above, Schlegel calculated it would take them at least five minutes; a long last journey for any pig.

  A smell of death permeated the walls. The passage rose slowly. Schlegel grew attuned to all the terror experienced in that corridor.

  Baumgarten lectured them in a loud voice. ‘As the process unfolds it becomes less bloody. It is a miracle of modern efficiency that a live animal can be reduced in minutes to a carcass and butchered into the parts we are familiar with eating, and all under one roof. When my father worked here public visits were so popular special guide books were printed.’

  He carried on spouting facts and figures for the length of the passage. Broken lights sometimes made it almost too dark to see. Pervitin now seemed like a bad idea, its quickening effect indistinguishable from panic. It made Schlegel want to run back and check there still was such a thing as sky and daylight.

  He remembered a devilish trick in one Agatha Christie involving the pig-like squeal of a murdered man, and someone quoting Lady Macbeth saying who would have thought the old man had so much blood. Schlegel’s breathing grew ragged. He feared an asthma attack.

  At last Baumgarten, still droning on, said, ‘Here’s the blue door.’

  It took them through to a large hall whose walls were full of complex and infernal-looking piping.

  ‘This side of the door the animals continue in single file. Here’s the bar I told you about. Step over it carefully, please. At this point the floor usually falls away, but of course not now, ha-ha! The bar becomes the mechanical process that moves the now-helpless animal forward until it reaches Haager, who is standing there waiting to render you brain-dead with his hammer.’

  Haager was waiting on the platform above.

  Baumgarten called out, ‘Or are you using the stun gun today?’

  ‘Always the hammer.’ Haager brandished it and made a pantomime of hitting them on the head. The opaqueness of Haager’s eyes made Schlegel very much not want to pass under his waiting hammer. They were being sized up the same as any other animal awaiting extinction.

  He was spared by a service gate which Baumgarten led them through.

  ‘So, gentlemen, the killing floor.’

  Morgen looked like he wanted to hit the man. Schlegel was certain that the whole exercise had been done as a way of telling them to get lost. Or perhaps Baumgarten had grown so coarse he considered such conduct normal.

  ‘And what does Haager think of as he swings his mallet, time after time?’ muttered Morgen.

  Probably of nothing but his mother and his tea, thought Schlegel.

  Haager brandished the stun gun. ‘Perhaps one of our friends would like to do the honours.’ In his other hand was a bottle of brandy. ‘The butcher’s swig. Well, gentlemen. Aim between the eyes. Compression does the rest.’

  ‘Do your job,’ Morgen called out. ‘Or I will come and fire it in your knee.’

  Haager laughed uncertainly.

  The first sow emerged through the blue door, blinking and uncertain, refusing to play her role, visibly petrified, rooted and shitting herself. Baumgarten had to prod her until she stepped across the bar and the floor fell away, causing her to scream uncontrollably as the mechanism jerked her forward into the death stall where the hammer swung and Haager grunted and the cracking of the skull sounded like a rifle shot, and the sow fell stunned and thrashing, and her squeal transferred to the next pig, waiting unseen, whose wails of terror told them she knew exactly what lay in store.

  Schlegel saw Morgen had forgotten to smoke.

  Baumgarten said in civilised countries they believed the animal should be insensate at the moment of slaughter, unlike the Muslim and Jew whose religion demanded the throat be cut.

  ‘A cow bled to death standing can take six minutes to die, from the cut to when the eyes roll back and it starts to collapse. We have seen film of kosher butchers ripping the tracheas and oesophagi from the throats of fully conscious cattle, and animals writhing in pools of their own blood, while struggling to stand for minutes afterwards.’

  Everything happened much quicker than the time it took to tell. They had been laboriously informed how chains were attached to the animal’s hind legs so it could be lifted and worked along a pulley system. Once hanging, she was bled and then would be completely dead.

  A second man stepped forward with a long knife which he stuck in the sow’s aorta, a practised thrust, a lateral tear to the throat. The knife made a sucking noise as it was extracted. The man stepped aside as the pig gave a great sigh and steaming blood shot from the incision, splashing into a bath underneath, in huge dark, sticky bursts until the jet’s pump faded.

  The sweet smell of blood filled the air. Schlegel thought how they were all just sacks waiting to be pierced.

  The attendant pig’s screams built in a crescendo. Schlegel was almost forced to clap his hands to his ears as he had with the bombs. Morgen looked pale.

  Despite the speed of the process, it seemed to go on forever. Squelches and farts emerged from the expiring animal. Haager leaned casually against the stall, a cigarette dangling from his fingers. When the beast was quite still, the man with the knife, watched by Haager, slit the belly from ribcage to anus. The body defied the cut for a moment, then gravity did its work and steaming entrails spilled out in a hot mist.

  The second pig’s squealing was silenced with a blow more violent than the first, provoking a final angry scream of pain.

  The adjoining hall room was full of steam from an enormous vat of boiling water that had been prepared. A figure came at them out of the mist, a stunted man in a dirty apron. A thick fringe and unlined face made him appear boyish.

  ‘Here’s Sepp,’ said Baumgarten. ‘Tell these gentlemen about Metzler.’

  ‘The Jew. What he was doing here is anybody’s guess. He turned up with a chit, that’s all I know, saying he had been transferred.’

  ‘Whose chit?’

  Baumgarten said, ‘The railway’s.’

  ‘Whose chit specifically?’ asked Morgen.

  ‘The Gestapo representative in the railway office for the marshalling yards.’

  Morgen asked why Baumgarten hadn’t told them before. Because he had only just remembered, Baumgarten said insincerely.

  The first dead pig joined them, dimly visible, hanging by its heels, waiting to be lowered into the vat.

  Sepp had a strange way of staring with his mouth open.

  Morgen said to Baumgarten, ‘Come on, you can do better. Reason for the transfer?’

  ‘Generally, it was said he’d behaved like an idiot and fallen out with someone. In actual terms, it wasn’t necessary to know.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘We figured he wouldn’t be around long.’

  Morgen asked for the name of the Gestapo representative at the railway office.

  ‘Webel,’ said Baumgarten after some thought.

  ‘Weber,’ said Sepp.

  ‘Either way, don’t stand too close.’

  Baumgarten waved his hand to indicate the state of the man’s breath.

  It was as hot as a Turkish bath in the room. Schlegel felt the sweat soaking into his clothes.

  He asked what the old man’s job had involved. Scraping the epidermis, Sepp said, pointing to the vat into
which the animal was immersed to soften the skin before it was cleaned with a combination of a wooden paddle and a scraper.

  ‘Can you say anything about him?’ asked Schlegel.

  ‘There’s steam here most of the time. You don’t see the others.’

  Sepp struck Schlegel as simple. He walked away. It was like being in a real fog, except hot. Voices became muffled. He could see nothing. He supposed somewhere in the vicinity butchers had then worked on the carcasses. Baumgarten had explained the job in his grisly, pedantic manner in that endless tunnel: decapitation, cutting off hooves, severance of tail, splitting of the animal, followed by general butchery into larger sections, prior to further cuts, usually made by the purchasing retailer. Schlegel regretted the meatballs.

  He turned round to see a figure creeping up on him out of the mist. It was Haager, the executioner, stun gun in hand, aimed at him. Haager quickly laughed, raised the gun and fired into the air. The fixed bolt shot out of the barrel and remained there like an obscene metal finger. He laughed again, raucously, and said, ‘I wanted to show you this.’

  He proffered the gun. ‘You develop a funny sense of humour working here.’

  If the man had intended to scare him he had succeeded. Yet the way he proudly showed off his gun was docile, demure even.

  Haager followed him back to where the others were standing.

  Schlegel asked, ‘Do you know any more about what happened to the Jewish butchers?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Sepp. ‘Shipped straight out. Put in a wagon and sent east.’

  ‘What? Last Saturday morning?’ asked Schlegel, astonished. Had Baumgarten known?

  Baumgarten replied it was a big place and no one had told him. He was obviously lying. Schlegel asked Sepp what time this had happened.

  ‘First thing. Before first thing. It was still dark.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘We were asked to form an armed escort.’

  ‘Who’s we?’

  ‘Me and some Hitler Youth.’

  ‘Who asked?’

  ‘Two men I have never seen before.’

  ‘Officials?’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘Plain clothes or uniform?’

  ‘Plain.’

  Schlegel asked for a description. No one he recognised.

  Sepp wasn’t even sure whether the butchers were taken away as part of the official roundup. They were told they were being transferred as the result of a shortage of proper butchers where they were bound.

  The usual big camp, said Sepp when Morgen asked.

  ‘Where are the changing rooms here?’ Schlegel asked.

  In the back, Baumgarten said.

  ‘Did Metzler have a locker?’

  ‘Ask Sepp,’ said Baumgarten. Sepp didn’t know.

  ‘Show us,’ said Morgen.

  The two men took them into a large tiled area with a row of lockers. Through an archway two naked men padded around after using showers hot enough to steam, a luxury these days.

  Sepp said, ‘Metzler as a Jew would have been forbidden to use the showers. Jews stink as it is, even when they wash.’

  Locker number sixteen opened with the key Schlegel had.

  Metzler’s work overall, cap and apron, gauntlets and rubber boots were still there, along with a stack of newspapers and an empty sack.

  Sepp and Baumgarten stared in suspicion as Morgen chucked everything in the sack.

  They telephoned from Baumgarten’s hut to speak to Weber, the Gestapo official responsible for Metzler’s transfer. He had gone home early, ill, so they called him there. Weber came to the telephone sounding perfectly well, but faded when Morgen said who he was.

  Yes, he told Morgen between bouts of artificial coughing, he recalled Metzler, but had no memory of having anything to do with his transfer to the slaughterhouse, apart from being surprised to find him gone because a lot of strings had been pulled to get him a job at the rail depot in the first place.

  ‘Would that be Gersten?’

  The man affected vagueness. Pressed, he thought it had something to do with Metzler having an old army pal in the police force.

  After speaking to Weber, Morgen insisted on looking around. He couldn’t decide whether Metzler’s transfer to the pig room was punishment or deliberate. Why hadn’t he been sent to work with the other Jews?

  Because he wasn’t a butcher, Schlegel suggested. Morgen conceded the point.

  ‘Usually they herd the Jews together, yet Metzler was a unique case.’

  Weber and the depot clerk had both told them Metzler was the only Jew working there.

  As usual, no one seemed to be around, until they heard distant yelling from one of the buildings. Morgen moved ahead to investigate. Schlegel thought him like a tramp in his shabby coat, carrying Metzler’s sack over his shoulder.

  The din came from a glass-roofed shed much higher than its surroundings. A lobby and double doors took them into a huge hall, stripped of features. The roof was smashed and water formed in large pools. At the far end, Schlegel saw the back of a crowd in a huddle. The raucous shouting sounded like some sort of contest.

  Whatever was going on seemed typical of the latent threat of the place.

  Brawny lads with closed-off, ecstatic faces focused on the violent spectacle, their shouts and cheers primitive and guttural. They wore shorts and singlets and their sweat suggested strenuous exercise. Some fingered their genitals in excitement at the sight of two tall youths hitting each other without gloves. One’s eye was swelling and the other had a bloody nose.

  Some of the boys started to stare at them suspiciously. The man refereeing noticed too. He was an athletic type with a closed face, a boxer’s nose, cropped hair and he wore a tracksuit. Schlegel had seen the look before: always mean and very hostile.

  The youth with the upper hand unleashed a flurry of punches to the head of his opponent, and Schlegel found he could not help but be excited. At least the spectacle was human, however primitive, compared to what they had just seen. The lad punched was hit so hard Schlegel thought his head might come off. The light went out of his eyes and his legs turned rubbery. Morgen watched impassive, smoking, as the boy hit the deck, to be counted out by the referee, who then walked over and demanded to know what Schlegel was doing. The crowd closed in, anticipating its next thrill. The herd mentality was different from anything he had come across before; boys who had grown up with nothing but war. He was aware of Morgen watching to see how he acted under pressure. He showed his badge to the tracksuited man and said they were conducting an inquiry. The man asked if it involved them.

  The man stood, threatening, staring Schlegel down.

  Morgen said loud enough for all to hear, ‘Here is the little man in control of his space, with his little wolf pack.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ said the man, turning on Morgen.

  The next thing, he was down on the floor, clutching between his legs and whimpering. Whatever trick Morgen had performed, it was done too fast for Schlegel to comprehend and hadn’t even involved dropping Metzler’s sack.

  The crowd goggled. One or two bristled. Morgen waved them away.

  ‘Disperse.’

  He held up his badge and the recently baying unit grew surly. Morgen singled out the winning boy whose celebration had been spoiled.

  He said quietly, ‘Stand to attention when you talk to me.’

  The boy slowly did as he was told, doing his best to put on a front.

  ‘What have we here? Another young man with a prominent Adam’s apple and obedient, if insolent eyes, in thrall to male camaraderie and the competitive edge? Had I been the other lad I would have punched you in the throat. Do you have anything to say?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Then to the victor the spoils.’

  He threw him Metzler’s sack and told him to follow.

  Morgen walked ahead. The young man remained undecided. Schlegel watched his humiliation take hold as tears pricked his eyes. Morgen stopped and beckoned
. The crowd watched, morose.

  They made an unlikely trio as they returned to the car. What Morgen was up to Schlegel had no idea. Had the attack on the tracksuited man been specific, or akin to his own accumulated frustration? The fury with which the boy had gone about his business was as shocking as the sight of the last of the blood being pumped out of the sow’s failing heart.

  Morgen ordered the boy to put the sack in the boot. He inspected him again and asked his greatest wish.

  To die for the Fatherland.

  Of course, said Morgen, producing his pistol.

  ‘We can take care of that now.’

  Schlegel said, ‘You can’t do that!’

  For a second Morgen seemed barely in control – then the moment passed and the gun was back in his pocket. He became genial, telling the boy he would have a black eye tomorrow.

  Schlegel was certain had he not been there Morgen would have pulled the trigger.

  29

  Nebe had them all in for his forty-eight-hour deadline meeting. The tension was palpable because word had got out about cancelling leave and introducing consecutive twelve-hour shifts.

  Nebe marched in looking brisk, followed by Stoffel, trying not to look smug.

  ‘Well, gentlemen, what do you have for me on the subject of our Jewish maniac?’

  Stoffel stood up and said there was in fact another murder to consider.

  ‘Another murder!’ exclaimed Nebe, sounding rehearsed.

  To judge from the winks and nudges, half the room was in the know. Stoffel grew sombre as he announced a murder they had overlooked.

  ‘On 31 January, a woman was found strangled in woods near Köpenick.’

  The location was significant. It was near where the body had been found in Treptower Park. The attack was of a sexual nature.

  ‘Am I supposed to warn Dr Goebbels a Jewish maniac is working the length and breadth of the city?’ asked Nebe.

  Stoffel said the victim, like others, showed signs of postmortem sexual abuse. He looked pleased with himself.

  ‘Though why anyone should want to fuck around with her, dead or alive, is beyond me.’