Assignment Gestapo (27 page)

Lt. Ohlsen made to interrupt, but Bielert held up a hand.

‘One moment before you speak. You shall be given all the time in the world very shordy. Let me first tell you some of the more salient facts as I have them. We know, to begin with, that you have frequently spoken to your men of treason and of sabotage and of desertion. You’ve treated the Führer’s name with disrespect and you’ve read and discussed prohibited literature –in particular, “All Quiet on the Western Front”, from which you’ve often quoted long passages. All this in direct violation of Paragraph 91. In addition, your wife is ready to make depositions as to other treasonable acts of yours . . . We have far too much against you, Lieutenant, there’s no point in trying to fight us. Why not take up your pen and make a full confession, and we can be done with the whole unfortunate business within the hour. You can cool off in the cells for a week or two, and then I imagine your sentence will be six to eight weeks in Torgau. After that, as I said, a disciplinary regiment. Stripped of your rank, of course, but at least a very much wiser man.’ He smiled. ‘You’ll know better than to open your mouth too wide in the future.’

‘It all sounds eminently reasonable,’ murmured Ohlsen. ‘Only one thing worries me: what guarantee do I have that everything will take place just as you’ve promised? I have heard of people being shot for lesser crimes than I’m supposed to have committed.’

‘One hears so many tales,’ said Bielert, carelessly. ‘Just as one should guard against talking too much, so, perhaps, one should guard against listening too much . . . As for a guarantee, of course, I’m afraid that’s not possible, As you will appreciate, I am not the person who will ultimately sit in judgement upon you . . . However, you can rest assured that I have had a great deal of experience in cases such as yours, and I do know what I’m talking about. Whatever sentence is passed has to come through to me for confirmation, and I am able to modify it as I see fit. If I find a judge has been too lenient, it is in my power to have both him and the accused put in a security camp. Equally, I can, if I wish, tear up an order for execution and have the prisoner released immediately. It all comes back to this question of willingness to co-operate. We are constantly on the look out for new talent, and to this end we are always interested in those who wish to co-operate with us. You, for instance, could do both of us a good turn if you chose to come and work for me. I should be particularly interested to learn certain details regarding your commanding officer, Colonel Hinka. Also, you have a cavalry captain by the name of Brockmann in your regiment. I have a very special interest in Captain Brockmann. I will be honest with you, Lieutenant: it would give me positive pleasure to see Captain Brockmann’s head severed from his shoulders . . . Still—’ He sat up very straight and squared his narrow shoulders – ‘let us get your affairs in order to begin with. Make your confession, serve your time in Torgau, and I can promise you that within three weeks I shall send an order for your immediate reinstatement in your company, with your present rank of lieutenant. It will all be made to appear perfectly normal to your colleagues, and once back you can quickly prove to me that you have regretted any past errors . . . Not, of course, that we ever force men to collaborate with us against their will. It is your own decision entirely.’

Lt Ohlsen gave a cynical smile.

‘It’s all very well,’ he said, ‘but there’s one flaw in it . . . You see, in the first place, I categorically deny all the charges made against me—’

Bielert sighed.

‘Ah, Lieutenant, I thought you had more intelligence than to start running your head against brick walls! Whether you deny the charges or whether you admit them is totally irrelevant. You yourself are irrelevant, if it comes to that. I have nothing against you in particular – it was more chance than anything which made me pick on you. It could have been any member of your family. I could, if I’d wished, have arrested the whole lot of them while I was about it, but I don’t require the whole lot of them, I require only one . . . One member of each family in Germany. That’s what I must have.’

Lt. Ohlsen stiffened.

‘I’m afraid I don’t follow you. What does my alleged behaviour have to do with my family?’

Bielert tossed the butt of his cigar negligently through the open window and shuffled a few papers on his desk.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Nothing at all. The point I am trying to make is that it might just as well have been your father or your sister or your brother as you . . . It was there chance that you happened to be the one who was chosen.’ He looked across at Ohlsen with a cordial smile. ‘We could just as well have arrested your father.’

‘On what grounds?’ demanded Ohlsen, coldly.

Bielert glanced down at the papers before him.

‘Twenty-sixth April 1941,’ he read out, crisply. ‘At a few minutes past eleven . . . he was discussing politics with two friends. During the course of the conversation he made the following statements: 1) that he no longer believed in the possibility of a Nazi victory, and 2) that he considered the State to be an idol with feet of clay. That may not seem to you a very grave crime, Lieutenant, but you would perhaps be surprised what we can do with it if we choose! And then, of course—’ He pulled out another sheet of paper – ‘there’s your brother Hugo. He’s serving at present with the 31st Armoured Regiment at Bamberg. We have information on him as well, you see . . . He has been known on several occasions to make some very curious remarks on the men who run the Third Reich. We could certainly issue him with an invitation to come along here for a chat . . . And then again, there is your sister.’ He selected a third sheet of paper and ran a finger down it. ‘Here we are . . . a nurse in an Air Force hospital in Italy. In September 1941 she was on a hospital ship in Naples. On the fourteenth of that month she was heard to remark that she held Herr Hitler directly responsible for . . . let me see . . .“for all this shameful and senseless slaughter” . . .’ Bielert collected his papers together and looked across at the Lieutenant. ‘And there you have it,’ he said, simply. ‘We possess similar information on virtually every citizen who has a tongue to speak with. I have here—’ He indicated a wire tray containing a bulky file – ‘a case against a top official at the Ministry of Propaganda. A man in his position, and he knows no better than to pour out his heart to his mistress! However, he was sensible enough to make a full confession and offer his services the moment I taxed him with it. He could well be very useful to me. I’ve long had my eye on Dr. Goebbels and his waste-paper Ministry! You see, Lieutenant, I believe in aiming high . . .’

He laughed, brushed a few ashes off the lapel of his jacket and tightened the knot in his tie.

‘You have an odd sense of humour,’ remarked Lt. Ohlsen, dryly.

Bielert abruptly pulled down the corners of his thin mouth. The grey eyes narrowed to slits.

‘I am not interested in having a sense of humour, Lieutenant. My work is far too serious for such frivolities. I do what has to be done and it takes up twenty-four hours of every day. The security of the entire country rests on my shoulders. Mine and my colleagues’ . . . We have a duty to perform. Anyone who is unable to fit into our society must be exterminated for the good of that society. I think you will agree it is no laughing matter.’

‘Not if you put it like that,’ murmured Ohlsen.

‘Hm.’ Bielert cracked all his knuckles one after another, then tapped a hand impatiently on the table. ‘Well, I can’t afford to waste any more time talking to you, Lieutenant. Sign the declaration and I shan’t bother with the rest of your impertinent family. They deserve to be locked up, but as I said, I can’t be doing with the whole lot of them. One from each family, that’s all I require. It was Reinhard Heydrich’s idea, and like most of his ideas it’s fundamentally sound . . . Just wait until the war is over, Lieutenant. You’ll see the day when the entire population of Europe raise their hands in salute whenever an SS officer goes by. As they do in Japan, you know. I was in Japan for several months. It was a most enlightening experience. Dutch and English officers prostrating themselves before their Japanese masters . . .’ He leaned back luxuriously in the depths of his leather chair, his small, neat hands resting lightly on the arms.

Lt. Ohlsen tried to suppress a shiver and failed. It needed only a pair of glittering black crows to transform the chair into a devil’s throne, and Bielert into a creation dragged from the depths of Grimms’ fairy tales.

He turned and looked out of the window. A steamer hooted mourfully on the Elbe. Two pigeons puffed and strutted on the ledge. From the flagpole hung the red flag with its swastika, limp in the still air. A flight of seagulls rose up, squalling in a fretful heap over a crust of bread. Lt. Ohlsen turned his eyes away. He had never been able to bear the sight of seagulls since the day in the Mediterranean when he had been on board a boat that was torpedoed. Himself, lying wounded and unable to help, he had watched in horror as a pack of ravenous birds had alighted on the dying ship’s captain and torn out his eyes. He had loathed seagulls ever since. At least the birds of prey, the crows and the vultures, even rats and hyenas, had the decency to wait until their victims were dead before tearing them to pieces. But not seagulls. Seagulls tore the eyes out of their living prey. They seemed to him to be the Gestapo of the bird kingdom.

He looked back at Bielert, little grey man hunched in his armchair, indescribably evil, with a power that was terrifying, and he suddenly saw Bielert as a seagull: crouching over a warm body, sucking out its eyes and cramming them into his mouth . . .

Ohlsen stretched out a hand for the pen. He signed the declaration without even looking at it. He no longer cared. And besides, it was true. He had said far harsher words about the Führer than Bielert had accused him of. Perhaps, after all, he would be dying for a good cause . . . But he wished to know who it was that had denounced him. He wished there were some way of getting word to Porta and the Legionnaire. They would take his revenge for him, no matter who it was, and revenge would be sweet even by proxy.

Paul Bielert leaned forward with a slight grunt and took the declaration. He looked at the signature and nodded, then offered the box of big cigars to Ohlsen.

‘There! It’s done . . . and it wasn’t really so difficult, was it?’

Ohlsen said nothing. There was really nothing to be said. He knew he could have prolonged the matter, denied all the charges, refused to sign, but he knew also that it would have been futile. The Gestapo had all the power and there was nothing the individual could do.

Ten minutes later, two SD Unterscharführer entered the room. One laid a heavy hand upon Ohlsen’s shoulder.

‘We’re just going for a spin in the car, Lieutenant. We’ve come to take you with us. You’ll enjoy the outing.’

They laughed uproariously. Unterscharführer Bock was reputed to be something of a joker.

Lt. Ohlsen left the room in silence, continued in silence through the building and out to the car. Unterscharführer Bock sat in front, next to the driver, and kept up a running commentary as they passed through the city. Down Mönckebergstrasse, across Adolf Hitler Square; détour on account of the bomb damage, along the Alster, past the hotel ‘Vier Jahreszeiten’, across the Gänsemarkt; down the Zeughausalle and into the Reeperbahn. The Reeperbahn was crowded. It seemed to be full of people who had nothing better to do than drift from one bar to another growing progressively and squalidly drunk as they did so.

‘Pity we’re in such a hurry,’ said Bock. ‘We could have stopped for a beer.’

Along the length of Kleine Maria Strasse stretched a long queue of people.

‘They’re waiting to try out the new whores,’ explained Bock, hanging over the back of the seat and addressing Lt. Ohlsen, who made no attempt to show any interest. ‘We’ve just installed another twenty of ’em. There’s service for you! Don’t never let me hear anyone say the Third Reich isn’t well organized . . . Tell me, Lieutenant, have you ever stopped to think exactly what National Socialism really is?’ Ohlsen kept his head turned away, staring bleakly through the window. ‘Well, I’ll tell you,’ said Bock. ‘It’s the one and only workable form of Communism.’

Ohlsen turned slowly to look at the man.

‘How do you make that out?’ he asked, wearily.

Bock laughed, flattered that he should at last have gained Ohlsen’s attention.

‘Well, now, the way I see it is, over here we’re what I call
national
communists. We want to make Germans out of the whole world. Anyone got the wrong shape nose, the wrong type of hair, the wrong colour skin, he’s out. And that’s as it should be, because they’re not Germanic . . . Right? Now, the Russians, they’re not nearly so choosy. They don’t care what you look like, it’s enough for them just to tap you on the shoulder and say, from now on you’re a Bolshevik and you’ve got to think like a Bolshevik. And that’s all they care. No feeling of nationality at all . . . Mind you, I’ve got to admit it, in some respects the Russians know what they’re doing a damn sight better than we do. Take priests, for example. Over here, we let ’em walk about quite freely, don’t even make ’em wear a swastika . . . Over there, they hang the bastards. Hang ’em and be done with it. And I say that’s the way we should treat ’em. Because otherwise we’re just storing up a parcel of trouble for ourselves, you mark my words. A parcel of trouble . . . It doesn’t pay to be too soft, and they’re stronger than what you probably think they are. People are suckers for that sort of thing, all the jiggery pokery and the bowing and the scraping and the going to confession and all the rest of it. For myself I wouldn’t have nothing to do with any of it. Catch me going anywhere near a bleeding priest!’

He laughed, and the driver laughed with him.

‘Why is that?’ asked Ohlsen, mildly. ‘Do you have so much on your conscience?’

Bock looked out at the Königin Allee, with its church lying in ruins.

‘I’ve not got nothing on my conscience, don’t you worry. All I’ve ever done is carry out orders. Done what I been told to do. It’s no concern of mine what the orders are, nor who gives ’em, so don’t you try blaming me for anything.’