The Forger

by Cay Rademacher

  ‘So what exactly is happening?’

  ‘Brauer said the Allies will be distributing new banknotes. “Deutschmarks”. We’ll have to get used to the name. All across the city on Sunday there’ll be exchange offices set up. Every German will get forty marks per head, and another twenty in August.’

  ‘Doesn’t exactly sound like a fortune.’

  ‘Have you saved up a lot of money? Put aside a few notes or more?’

  Over the previous few years the chief inspector had spent most of his meagre income on coffee or cigarettes to swap down at the station for any news of his son who had gone missing in Russia. Ever since Karl had come back home he had been helping him out in one way or another. ‘I’m as good as bust,’ he admitted.

  ‘Congratulations. The right strategy. Money in the bank will be converted at the rate of ten to one. The outlook is even grimmer for cash held at home. A one hundred Reichsmark note will get you five Deutschmarks. One thing's for sure: you’re not going to get rich at that rate.’

  Stave closed his eyes and thought of Toni Weber. The artist had been paid 3,000 Reichsmarks for his work up at Travemünde. Work he had spent several weeks on. And the day after tomorrow it would be worth just 150 Deutschmarks. How many people would be in a similar situation? How many will find out their work has been worth next to nothing. How many black marketeers, fences and smugglers will be panicking? They never paid their money into the bank. They had crates full of banknotes that would now be worth only one twentieth the value printed on them. And no way of spending them or exchanging them anywhere before Sunday.

  ‘Business on the black market will be hectic today and tomorrow,’ he muttered.

  ‘Maybe, maybe not,’ Bahr responded. ‘Nobody has any idea what's going to happen after X-day. Just because you’ve got new money doesn’t mean you can buy anything with it. It could be that the black market will take off again on Monday. If you ask me, the Allies are behaving like rash gamblers at a roulette table, wagering everything on a single number. If it works, then we can all sit back. If not, we have a problem.’

  Something occurred to Stave: ‘Will there be notes issued in pfennigs?’

  ‘Fives and tens, but I have really no idea what they might look like.’

  ‘Blue and green with a diamond pattern,’ Stave replied, suddenly impatient. ‘I need to talk to the British straight away.’

  He left the CID headquarters along with dozens of other colleagues. Busy bees swarming out of the hive after the death of the queen, the chief inspector mused. He squeezed into a crammed tram. The pavements were crowded with office workers, housewives, children, war-wounded, bustling in all directions with small speedy steps. An organ grinder playing the tune to which a sea of people danced like waves. Empty shop windows, the doors locked and bolted. Handwritten notices in sheets of rain: ‘Closed for renovation’; ‘Stocktaking’. Stave wondered if any of these shops would open up again on Monday. Or whether X-day would be a colossal mistake, a bullet in the head of a reeling economy.

  It took him nearly a quarter of an hour to cross the station. Crowds on the platforms, in the passageways, on the iron walkways above the tracks. Piles of suitcases. Shouts, crying children. Loud whistles from old locomotives. The nervous tension of thousands crackled beneath the high vaulted roof.

  Just behind Wandbek market, barely two kilometres from his destination, uniformed police were blocking Ahrensburger Strasse. The chief inspector showed them his ID card.

  ‘Sorry,’ said a sweaty young corporal. ‘An unexploded bomb found next to the pavement. Nobody gets through until the fireworks guys have done their stuff. You can get around the area using the side streets.’ He nodded towards the villas down Marienthal and began giving him directions. But Stave waved a hand dismissively. ‘I live locally.’

  The chief inspector set off. Trees, well-tended front gardens, two Opels parked on the kerb. But even here, behind the curtained villa windows, twitching even though the rain was falling straight down, the CID man felt a hint of unrest. As if a revolution were about to erupt. Angst about the money that from Sunday on would simply vanish, to be replaced by another.

  Stave reached the railway lines, and walked along the tracks away from the city centre until eventually he got where he wanted to be. Jenfelder Strasse crossed the tracks via a level-crossing barely 300 metres from his apartment, though he hardly ever came this way. Why would he? There was a dilapidated white shed next to the rails, the remnants of a long since vanished factory. Next to it was a square with a wall around it, waist-high bright green grass and trees with widely spread branches, an iron gate. The CID man was about to hurry on his way when he suddenly came to a halt. Gravestones, most of them half-sunk into the soft earth. He took a closer look. Hebrew characters. An ancient Jewish cemetery.

  How could this cemetery have withstood the maelstrom? It was probably so old and hidden away that even the Nazis at the height of their rage had forgotten about it. It was undamaged, no bombs, but also, as far as he could see from the iron gate, there also hadn’t been any burials here for a long time. Nobody came to tend the graves. Nobody at all to visit this abandoned bit of land. He thought back to the new money and the nervousness about its introduction, and the dead Jews now forgotten – and felt somehow both ridiculous and guilty at the same time. He hurried on his way, only a few metres now.

  Number 49, Holstenweg, was the workshop on the left-hand side of the street, a grubby but nonetheless intact building in a part of the city that was almost totally undamaged, with warehouses, little factories, and a print works. On the parking lot stood a British lorry and two Jeeps. There was another Jeep on the hydraulic ramp. Several British soldiers covered in oil were standing under it having a genial conversation.

  ‘Welcome to Rolls-Royce army-style!’ MacDonald called out, emerging from the shadow of an awning, and carelessly flicking away a half-smoked John Players that fizzled out in a puddle. ‘We’ve just had to let our German mechanics go. They were too edgy. Now our recruits have to do the work on their own. I fear we’ll have to switch to using horses soon.’

  ‘Is that your Jeep on the ramp?’

  ‘No, I’m glad to say that belongs to a colonel. Mine is parked outside. They finished working on it just in time, before your mayor gave his speech and our mechanics’ hands began to shake.’

  ‘My hands were shaking too – but for different reasons. You knew all along that those weren’t forgeries, but genuine notes, brand new ones. They were notes from the Allies’ print house. Notes that had been delivered in crates, taken into the Landeszentralbank under strict security. I stood there and watched them myself. Notes that aren’t due to be distributed until this coming Sunday but were found in the wrong hands only hours after the last English lorries had driven off, and then suddenly turned up on the black market.’

  ‘I told my superiors you would find out where the notes really came from.’

  ‘You’ve been having fun with me!’ Stave didn’t know whether he should be angry or just laugh off the whole grotesque investigation. ‘The story about the fake notes and the forger was made up. I could have spared myself the visit to the one-legged guy's hovel just like we could have spared the effort of the trip up to Travemünde!’

  ‘The Baltic coast is pretty.’ The lieutenant held up his hands apologetically. ‘But I wasn’t allowed to say anything, not even to friends. Orders from on high. You can imagine the uproar in our HQ: here we are bringing over a new currency from America under conditions of extreme secrecy and security — and a few notes turn up on the Goldbekplatz in Hamburg while we’re still piling them high in the treasury.’

  ‘You’ve got a leak in your security.’

  ‘And very close to the source. Luckily it was only trickling out.’

  ‘In any case it's no longer that important to find the culprit. From Sunday everybody will have their hands on these bits of paper. A few pfennig notes won’t damage confidence in the new currency.’

  ‘From Sunday
on, it won’t be noticed whether our security breach led to a trickle or a flood. Every German citizen will get a pro capita handout of forty marks. What's going to happen if all of a sudden four hundred turn up on the Goldbekplatz? Or four thousand?’

  ‘The new bits of paper will be worth no more than the old bits of paper.’

  ‘I need to get this guy in custody.’

  ‘And all this time I was looking for a forger, a printer or an artist. When in fact it might be an English military policeman.’

  ‘An Englishman, even in plain clothes, would be as conspicuous on Goldbekplatz as a Sherman tank in the car park at Royal Ascot. Our man is German.’

  ‘Let's assume we’re dealing with a local. What next?’

  ‘Do you have a suspect?’

  Stave shook his head wearily. ‘No, no suspect.’

  ‘But have you a potential lead? Is there anything you can tell me?’

  ‘Afraid not. Orders from on high.’

  For a moment MacDonald gave him a puzzled look, then laughed out loud and clapped him on the back. ‘Serves me right. But keep me in the loop.’

  ‘In any case, without you I’m up the creek without a paddle,’ the chief inspector reminded him.

  ‘Right. Now, the Harlan business. Your other case. You can interview him tomorrow. Or to be more precise, we can interview him. A British officer has to be present. Frau Söderbaum insisted.’

  ‘You mean Harlan and his wife already know I want to question him?’

  ‘It was unavoidable. But they have no idea why a chief inspector from CID is interested in them. I can imagine that's making them nervous.’

  ‘If I had Harlan's past, I’d be nervous too.’

  A few minutes later the Jeep was trundling along the roughly repaired streets towards Winterhude. For the first time Stave noticed how many of the ruins had in the meantime been patched up with flat roofs.’

  ‘It's coming on,’ MacDonald said jovially, noticing the direction of the chief inspector's gave. ‘Now there's the new money — give it ten years and you Germans will be ready for the next round.’

  ‘Maybe we’ll be fighting shoulder to shoulder on the same side instead of against one another, just for a change.’

  ‘Indeed – against Uncle Joe. The road to Moscow. I believe our comrades in the US Army are prepared to exchange some of their Indian scouts for a few of your squaddies: at least they already know the way.’

  ‘The way there, and the way back.’ Stave was thinking of his son who had wasted the best years of his youth on the Eastern Front. In ten years’ time, he thought silently to himself, Karl would just be thirty, still young enough to go through the whole bloody idiocy again. Would it never stop?

  He jolted himself out of it. ‘There's something else I want to ask you. Something personal,’ he began.

  The lieutenant was concentrating on staring through the wet windscreen as if he was driving through the hectic traffic of Piccadilly Circus, rather than the abandoned streets of a city in ruins. ‘As long as you don’t want to ask how to get Erna Berg back from me, I’ll answer any question.’

  ‘Actually, it does concern a woman. Anna von Veckinhausen.’

  The CID man held his breath after mentioning her name. He had never spoken about her to the lieutenant and didn’t even know if he knew anything about their relationship.

  ‘Your girlfriend,’ MacDonald said bluntly.

  ‘It's a complicated story.’

  ‘All proper stories about women are complicated.’

  ‘Is Anna...’ Stave searched for the right word, ‘known to the British?’

  MacDonald allowed himself a boyish smile. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘The entire garrison knows that this lady sells antiques to our officers. And even the most stupid recruit can imagine where she finds her treasures — and that it's best to leave the matter alone unless you want to get into trouble with a few art-loving captains and colonels.’

  ‘I was thinking rather of Frau von Veckinhausen's personal connections.’

  The lieutenant gave him a brief, inquisitive look. ‘Are these really personal questions – not a police investigation?’

  Stave's heart stopped beating for a moment. ‘Yes. But should I be interested, as a policeman, I mean.’

  ‘Regrettably, yes, although it's really a matter for my colleagues.’ MacDonald changed up a gear with a jerky, almost angry, movement. As though he hated what he had to do. ‘The lady we’re speaking of has reverted to her maiden name, ever since she arrived in Hamburg as a refugee from the east. Strictly speaking, that's not quite legal. To do that you have to have gone through a proper divorce in a court.’

  ‘Who's her husband?’ Stave asked, realising his voice sounded as if somebody had winded him with a blow to the stomach.

  ‘Klaus von Gudow. This is where my comrades come into play. We’d like to ask this Klaus von Gudow a few questions. Or better still put him on trial. And best of all, hang him.’

  ‘He's a war criminal?’ Stave felt faint.

  ‘He's not exactly on the first page of our list of wanted war criminals, but he's quite high up on the second. The second tier of the Nazi regime, the ones who carried out the deed.’

  ‘The deed?’

  ‘The murder of the Jews.’

  Stave closed his eyes. ‘Feel free to go ahead and tell me everything,’ he muttered.

  ‘I’m sorry, old boy. I would have spared you the whole story, but it was you that brought up the topic...’

  ‘By chance I saw Anna's old handbag, with her initials: A.v.G. It set me thinking.’ Stave refrained from mentioning the pawned wedding ring and Dönnecke's notes.

  The lieutenant resumed in a calm voice. ‘Klaus von Gudow is a stereotypical Junker from east of the Elbe: family pedigree going back to the Middle Ages. One or other of his great grandparents had fought Bismarck in a student duelling competition. His father was a personal friend of Hindenburg. Gudow himself is a lawyer with top qualifications and an impressive career in the diplomatic service. He was a card-carrying member of the right party.’

  ‘Before 1933?’

  ‘Long before. Anyway, his relentless climb took him to the Foreign Office in Wilhelmstrasse, as a diplomatic legate and head of Department D, known internally as the “Jews’ Office”.’

  ‘But he escaped your clutches in 1945.’

  ‘Unfortunately. Vanished during the Battle of Berlin. There have been rumours about a Klaus von Gudow in Austria, in Italy, in Argentina, in Paraguay. But never any proof. When his wife turned up in Hamburg, obviously our people found it interesting. Maybe her husband was holed up somewhere in Hamburg? We had her followed for a while. That, and the change of name, suggest that she is quite determined to forget Klaus von Gudow.’

  Stave thought once more of the ring Anna had bought back from the jeweller. That suggested the exact opposite of trying to forget him. ‘Did Anna von Veckinhausen have...’ he hesitated, ‘anything to do with her husband's “business”?’

  ‘She was never investigated. She never held any office and was not even a party member. She was the lady of the house, hostess of a very-well-thought-of salon in Berlin, if I’m not mistaken. Very cultured. You know most of the people on our wanted list are thugs and sadists. Nutcase characters who joined the SA and then later got the chance to indulge themselves in a concentration camp or a ghetto. The other half, however, come from another planet: perfect family men, loving husbands, caring fathers, songs around the Christmas tree and summer vacations on the Baltic. Men you would like to have as your neighbours, colleagues, maybe even friends. You didn’t have to be a Nazi to live happily enough alongside these people. Provided, of course, you weren’t a Jew or a communist. We’re here.’

  MacDonald braked outside the Winterhude Fährhaus. Stave hadn’t been paying attention to the road. He felt as if he had been beaten up. Clumsily, he hauled his legs from the footwell and, holding on to the bodywork, pushed himself out of his seat.

  ‘I would have pr
eferred to tell you more pleasant things. But forgive me for getting involved in things that don’t concern me. After this dreadful business,’ – with a vague gesture the lieutenant indicated the ruins all around them – ‘people have a right to have a second chance in life.’ He paused, then touched the rim of his cap with his right hand. ‘But don’t forget our appointment tomorrow with Veit Harlan.’ And with that he roared off.

  A second chance, Stave thought. He would have liked to have thought it all over, there and then. But he didn’t have enough time. He pulled up his coat collar, because raindrops were falling from the sorry-looking chestnut trees as if from a saturated sponge, took the dozen steps to the entrance of the Winterhude Fährhaus and turned the door handle. He had already spotted Philip Greiner — at the furthest table in the darkest corner of the room, with a view of the door. The former Gestapo man had seen him too and nodded nervously. Mid-thirties, slim, his blond hair combed straight back, watery blue eyes, with a persistent twitch under the left lid. The chief inspector had to suppress the urge not to stare at it.

  ‘Nice to see you’re punctual,’ Stave said to him.

  ‘It might be nice for you,’ Greiner replied, pulling a John Players out of the packet, tapping it on the table and laboriously lighting up. ‘Coming here for me is about as pleasant as a dentist's appointment,’ he muttered through the blue cloud of smoke emerging from between his thin, colourless lips. It made Stave think of the smoking ruins the morning after the nights of bombing. Pull yourself together. He noticed there was a small black briefcase next to Greiner's left foot. A good sign.

  ‘Let's eat something,’ the chief inspector suggested. ‘At least that’ll differentiate our meeting from a visit to the dentist.’ He waved the head waiter over. Given that three years after the end of the war food was still rationed, it was not easy to order a meal, even in a restaurant. At least not legally. In the meantime a new habit had evolved, one which Stave hated as he hated all the tricks that were used to get round sensible regulations. But today he was going to use it himself, because he thought the former Gestapo man might be more loquacious on a full stomach.