The Girl from Berlin: War Criminal's Widow

by Ellie Midwood

  “They’re going to kill him, Heinrich. Whatever he says won’t matter, because they want him dead.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Don’t you see what they’re doing? They will turn all the evidence against him and will completely disregard all the good he did, as if it never happened or he had nothing to do with it. They will kill him, I know it.”

  Lost and devastated by this sudden revelation I lowered myself down to the floor and hid my face on my husband’s lap. I didn’t cry because I couldn’t even take another breath; having opened my eyes to the harsh truth, I still refused to lose the hope that somehow, someway, Ernst would find the way to save himself, to stay alive at least, because he promised me that he would, because he promised that he would never leave me… because I wouldn’t be able to live without him.

  “Annalise,” Heinrich carefully brushed my hair. “I think it’s time I go see him.”

  “Who?” I asked from my hideout of his knees and my hands, still sheltering me from the outside world and the prosecutor’s voice. With hardly masked pleasure he was reading somebody’s affidavit about how Ernst supposedly laughed and joked, witnessing different types of execution presented especially for his entertainment in Mauthausen. The person, who had given the affidavit, was conveniently dead, not forgetting to sign his ‘confession’ prior to letting out his last breath.

  “Ernst,” Heinrich answered simply. “I haven’t told you that, but I had a feeling that all this could turn this way, and unfortunately I was right. I was gathering papers witnessing in his favor while still in Berlin, thankfully as one of the OSS agents I had a mass of paperwork going through my hands. I will ask agent Foster to allow me to go to Berlin as soon as possible, with the next flight to Germany. I’ll bring all those papers to Ernst, maybe it’ll help him.”

  I raised my eyes at my husband, my saint husband, who was literally going to forgive his former worst enemy and try to save his life.

  “Heinrich.” I took his hands in mine, covering them in kisses. “Thank you, thank you, love, thank you, from the bottom of my heart! What did I do to deserve you? You’re an angel, a true angel. Nobody would do what you are doing.”

  “Less than anything I want you to suffer, and if you’re starving yourself to death now while he’s only in jail, I don’t even want to think…” He quickly stopped before another word would slip from his tongue. Heinrich took a deep breath and added, “I don’t want Ernie’s father to die because of somebody else’s sins.”

  _______________

  I closed the book I’d just finished reading, when Ernie flipped it open again.

  “Again?” I smiled at the boy because we’d read the same story three times by now.

  “Ja!” Ernie smacked his palm on the first page in confirmation and looked at me expectantly. I moved the book closer and started reading to him again; my son had the same effect on me like his father did – I couldn’t say no to him. Now, with Heinrich gone to Germany, Ernie was my only salvation from the nightmares, which would start haunting me as soon as I’d lay my head on my pillow. During the first night alone I woke up with a start, covered in cold sweat and gasping for air; in my dream I saw my dead brother, with a haggard grey face and blood still dripping from the wound on his temple, opening the door to Ernst’s cell where I was sitting with him for some reason, taking him by the hand and slowly leading him away.

  “Norbert, don’t take him, please!” I begged my ghostly brother, trying to unclasp the ice cold grip of his hand on Ernst’s warm wrist.

  “His time is up.”

  Unable to move any further I watched the black clad Norbert take Ernst away until the thick metal door slammed behind them.

  Awake, but no less terrified, I went straight to my son’s bedroom, picked him up, heavy and warm from his sleep, and brought him to my bed. Having him resting peacefully on my arm, breathing the sweet baby smell of his soft hair helped me through the rest of the night. The next night I brought him to my bed as soon as he started getting groggy; I knew that it was wrong and that I was spoiling him, and that he wouldn’t want to go back to his crib when Heinrich would come back, but I was too afraid to sleep alone.

  I couldn’t be more grateful to agent Foster, who made it possible for Heinrich to go to Nuremberg, as Hermann Rosenberg of course, the American OSS agent. I had a feeling that he knew what the outcome of Ernst’s case would be, but decided to humor us anyway, just out of his kind-hearted nature, and maybe for another reason. Agent Foster read a report sent to him by one of his subordinates concerning the details of Ernst’s detention.

  “He did an invaluable thing for the humanity, your Dr. Kaltenbrunner,” he admitted to me the day before we left to New York. “He refused to follow Hitler’s order to destroy the collection for the Führer’s museum, which the Nazis hid in the mines in upper Austria, right near Mr. Kaltenbrunner last headquarters. He ordered the miners to take the explosives out and guard the collection before our army would arrive. The partisans were trying to make everybody believe that it was due to their intervention, but the miners told my agent who really saved the priceless art objects. I guess you weren’t so wrong about him when you were calling him an honorable man.”

  How was I supposed to know that right now, as I was reading Ernie’s new favorite story by brothers Grimm, Ernst on the other side of the world was telling Heinrich that the commandant of the London prison had already told him that he would be hanged anyway, no matter what arguments to his defense he put before the judges.

  Heinrich didn’t tell me that on his return though, he only handed me a small note with familiar handwriting on it: ‘To Emma Rosenberg, personally.’ Using the need to shower as an excuse, he left me alone to read it.

  “Thank you for seeing the good in me that even I thought didn’t exist anymore. You are the only woman who knew the real me, and for that I will be forever grateful to you.

  To Emma, the only woman I’ve truly loved.”

  Tears filled my eyes as I read it hearing his voice inside my head, his distinguishable manner of speech, that slightly purring accent forever imprinted in my memory. I brought the paper closer to my face, greedily inhaling the faint remnants of Nuremberg’s air, of the cold, damp cell where Ernst was locked in, of the wood of his table he was working on his defense for the following day in court, of his fingertips covered with a thin coat of ink from all the typewritten transcripts he was going through for hours…

  It was so precious to me, the simple piece of paper which he held in his hands just hours ago. Maybe he kissed it goodbye too, only if I knew where… I exhaled, more bitter tears falling off my lashes as I was covering every part of the note with kisses, hoping to find the spot where his lips touched the paper and kiss him at least one more time, no matter how petty my effort was.

  _______________

  “Do you hear your Papa’s voice, Ernie? Yes, that’s your Papa talking. Do you understand what he’s saying?”

  With a finger in his rosy little mouth, my son turned with a puzzled look from me to the radio and back.

  “Papa?” Ernie repeated after me, putting both hands on the radio and trying to look inside.

  “No, he’s not in the box, silly.” Laughing, I brushed the boy’s bangs, which I had to cut recently because his hair was getting too long. “Papa’s in Germany, far, far away from here. But at least we can hear him, ja?”

  Ernie’s brow furrowed, and I wished once again that he was older to at least remember his father’s voice. Only God knew now if he’d even have a chance to meet him. But he was only a month shy of being a one year old and couldn’t understand what was going on and why his mommy was so sad all the time and why she’d keep him up at night by that strange box with people hidden inside.

  “Papa,” Ernie said firmly as the prosecutor stopped talking and Ernst started giving his answer to the last question.

  “Ja, das ist Papa!” I excitedly kissed my smart baby’s face who understood, after I pointed it out so man
y times, that the man who was speaking German was Papa. Ernie gave me his adorable little giggles, pressed his wet baby mouth to my cheek in return and ran out of the room.

  It was just another fun game for him, I sighed. But at least I taught him to recognize Ernst’s voice, even though he’d mostly likely forget it by tomorrow. I concentrated on what was going on in the court room again.

  “The Prosecution holds you responsible for the commitment of politically and racially undesirable persons into concentration camps.” Dr. Kauffmann addressed Ernst. “How many concentration camps became known to you after your appointment as the Chief of the RSHA?”

  “At the time of my appointment I knew three concentration camps. At the end of my official activity there were twelve in the entire Reich.”

  “How can you explain the chart, which you saw here with the many red dots which were alleged to be concentration camps?”

  “That representation is definitely misleading. All the armaments centers, factories, et cetera, in which internees from the concentration camps were used for labor must have been characterized as concentration camps. I can’t explain in any other way the deluge of red dots.”

  “Do you differentiate between the smaller camps and the regular concentration camps, and if so, why?”

  “The difference is very obvious for the following reasons: any worker who worked in armament industries – that is; each internee worked in the same enterprise, in the same factory, as every other German or foreign worker. The difference was merely that the German worker at the end of his working hours would return to his family, whereas the internee of the labor camp had to return to the camp.”

  “You are accused of establishing the concentration camp Mauthausen, that you visited this camp repeatedly. There is an affidavit of Zutter, who has already been mentioned today and who claims to have seen you at the concentration camp Mauthausen. He also claims to have seen you inspecting the gas chambers while they were in operation. From this the prosecution conclude that you, too, must have known exactly about these conditions which were beneath human dignity. I am asking you now, is this evidence correct or wrong?”

  “The testimony is wrong. I did not establish any concentration camps in Austria where I was until 1943. I did not establish a single concentration camp in the Reich from 1943 onwards. Every concentration camp in the Reich as I know today, and as has been proved here with certainty, was established on orders of Himmler to Pohl. This applies also, and I wish to emphasize this, to the Mauthausen camp. Not only were Austrian authorities excluded from establishing the Mauthausen camp, but they were unpleasantly surprised, because neither was the conception of a concentration camp in that sense known in Austria, nor was there a necessity for establishing concentration camps anywhere in Austria.”

  “Papa!” Ernie’s voice distracted me from the case hearing, and I turned in my chair to find my son holding his father’s picture in his hands and smiling.

  “Ernie! You’re such a smart little boy! How did you get it from the table?”

  “Here,” he said instead of the explanation, handed me the photograph and tried to climb onto my lap.

  I picked him up from the floor and wrapped my arms around him. He reached for Ernst’s photo again and placed it on his lap, thoughtfully tracing his little index finger on the military insignia.

  “Do you like Papa’s uniform?”

  “Ja,” Ernie replied, even though he probably had no idea what a ‘uniform’ was, and shifted his hand to his Papa’s face.

  Meanwhile the Prosecution invited a witness to the defense, Neubacher, to take the stand. I let out a sigh of relief; I knew him from the RSHA and knew he had a good relationship with Ernst, and always spoke highly of him.

  “Do you know whether Kaltenbrunner was glad to take this position?” Dr. Kauffmann started the interrogation.

  “Kaltenbrunner told me, I believe at the end of 1943, that he did not wish to take that position, that he had declined three times, but then had received a military order to accept. He added that he had requested and had been given a promise to be relieved of this office after the war.”

  Not able to contain my emotions, I exclaimed, “Oh, thank God! Thank you, God!” Neubacher was saying exactly what I would have been saying if I was given a chance to testify in Ernst’s defense. Maybe it would give him a slight chance to overturn this whole case? Or at least to get a milder sentence? A lifetime instead of the execution, I thought with horror, and clasped my hands together in prayer, listening to every word the men were exchanging.

  “Have you made any observations from which may be deduced how the defendant looked upon his task as the Chief of the RSHA?” Dr. Kauffmann proceeded.

  “I had a number of conversations with Kaltenbrunner during my official visits to the Main Office from time to time, but they all dealt with foreign intelligence and foreign policy.”

  “The RSHA was in control of the Gestapo; are you familiar with that fact?”

  “Yes.”

  “According to your knowledge of the defendant’s character can you tell whether he had the prerequisites and the qualifications necessary for taking over the police executive?”

  “Kaltenbrunner, as far as I was acquainted with him, had no knowledge of the police work when he assumed his office. Besides, in the year 1941 he wanted to abandon his police career.”

  “What proofs do you have for this?”

  “At that time I was a special representative for economic questions in Romania. Kaltenbrunner told me that he did not like a police career, that he did not understand anything about police work and furthermore, had no interest for it. He was interested, however, in foreign political affairs.”

  I started smiling and said another prayer for Neubacher the Savior, but then the President of the court ruined it all once again. “The Tribunal does not think that this is really the evidence which ought to be given. It cannot affect his official position, the fact he didn’t like it.”

  “Of course it does, you stupid moron!” I never cursed in front of my son but this time I felt outraged by yet another dismissal of something positive that could somewhat testify in Ernst’s innocence. “Didn’t you hear what he said?! He was ordered to take up that position!!! He didn’t want to, Himmler made him! He never liked it!”

  Ernie looked at me in confusion about my anger fit and I rushed to stroke his hair and kiss the top of his head. “It’s not you, baby, mommy is angry with that bad man in the box who’s saying bad things about your Papa.”

  Dr. Kauffmann cleared his throat. “The Prosecution speaks in a disdainful way that Kaltenbrunner was the successor of the ill-famed Heydrich. The witness knows them both, therefore I believe—”

  “The witness has already admitted that he was a successor of Heydrich,” the President stated sternly, completely twisting Neubacher’s words. The latter merely said that Ernst took up a position after Heydrich’s death, and the President equaled the two such different men to each other, once again calling Ernst the second Heydrich, hungry for power and cruel like his predecessor was. I couldn’t believe my ears. “The Tribunal thinks that the witness’s opinion is incompetent in this matter.”

  Dr. Kauffmann could do nothing but skip to another question. “Do you have any knowledge of the fact that soon after Kaltenbrunner assumed office, he assiduously tried to establish contact abroad, because he considered the military situation at that time as hopeless?”

  “Kaltenbrunner was, as far as I know from many conversations, always striving for a so-called ‘talk with the enemy.’ He was convinced that we could not come out of this war favorably without the use of some large scale diplomacy. I did not discuss further details with him concerning the war. In Germany everyone was sentenced to death who, even to the other person, expressed a doubt about the victory of Germany.”

  “Do you know the basic attitude of Kaltenbrunner towards the Jewish question?”

  “Once, I spoke very briefly with Kaltenbrunner about this subject. Whe
n rumors of a systematic action swelled up, I asked Kaltenbrunner, ‘Is there any truth in this?’ Kaltenbrunner briefly told me that that was a special action which was not under his command. He kept aloof from the action, as far as I could observe, and later – I believe it was at the end of 1944 – he told me briefly that a new course had been adopted in the treatment of the Jews. His voice sounded the pride of his success.”

  “Kaltenbrunner is characterized as ‘hungry for power.’ Do you know what kind of a life he led?”

  “Kaltenbrunner led a simple life. He never acquired a fortune—”

  “The Prosecution has not called him ‘hungry for power,’” the President quite obviously forgot his own words spoken not that long ago; however, as it came back to him, he quickly corrected himself. “There is not charge against him as being ‘hungry for power.’”

  “The indictment contains both this terms: ‘hungry for power’ and ‘cruel.’” Dr. Kauffmann argued and went on quoting the indictment. “‘As all other Nazis, Kaltenbrunner was hungry for power. In order to assure himself of power, he signed his name in blood – a name which will remain in memory as a symbol for cruelty, for—”

  I turned the radio off and leaned back onto my chair, my hands laying limp on top of my son’s lap and Ernst’s picture. No matter what Ernst would say, what his witnesses would say, it will all be disregarded as ‘irrelevant,’ ‘insufficient’ and simply as of no interest to the Tribunal. No wonder, I thought bitterly, the Tribunal only wants to hear the accusations against him.

  They had already created the image of the arch-criminal Kaltenbrunner, the second Heydrich Kaltenbrunner, a monster and a despot who had to be hanged, and nobody’s testimonies would make them change their minds. I quickly wiped the tears off my eyes so Ernie wouldn’t see them, gently picked up the boy who already started to nod off and went to put him in his crib.