The Generals (6 page)

Commander Kampenmann
: Was the accused already under your command at the time?

Roth
: Command—oh—well. Velder was in my group. He had volunteered because he was big and strong and could handle a machine-gun. In the morning at half-past five, the declaration of independence and our appeal to the United Nations for a peaceful settlement went out over our own and a lot of foreign radio stations—our own, incidentally, was extremely temporary. The militia was to be in place by then, and it was, too. But it didn’t look up to much. We probably had altogether about four hundred men, pretty well armed, they were, ten machine-guns and four or five artillery pieces which had been brought ashore during the night. I still don’t know who gave them to us, for that matter.

Colonel Pigafetta
: We know. That’s enough.

Roth
: Oh, do you? Wherever that boat came from, it had laid
a whole lot of mines too, but they weren’t much use. Not then, anyhow. But they were afterwards, of course, when they tried to blockade us and we mined the coast. Anyhow, the militia were sort of divided up amongst the three harbours, the largest lot placed in and around Ludolfsport, as it was called then. It was only a little fishing village, then, of course, but boats of up to five or six hundred tons could tie up at the quays. We had about two hundred men and two guns there—ordinary 12.5 centimetre howitzers. Two fishing trawlers, each with a machine-gun mounted on the foredeck sailed out of the harbour and anchored there as guard-ships. Oswald, that is General Oswald as he has become, was there and directed the whole thing as well as was possible. There weren’t many orders as such given, anyhow I didn’t hear any, but that didn’t matter because everyone knew what they were supposed to do. At about ten, just what we’d expected to happen happened. A tug and two big motorboats came in towards the harbour, all of them packed with uniformed police. The trawlers, which had the new national flag flying, hailed them, but they went on all the same, and so they opened fire from the trawlers with their machine-guns. One of the police-boats seized up almost at once and stopped, and then the guns began to shoot at the tug. We had a good gunner—and the second shot scored a hit in the stern. The tug began to sink at once, but thank God it swerved out of the channel and got stuck on one of the sandbanks with its stack and bridge above the water, so we could pick up most of those who’d been on board. The motor-boat that was still untouched began to pull away with the other, but it was a slow business, it was, and after a bit of chitchat, Oswald sent off one of the trawlers and took all the policemen prisoner. After an hour or so, he changed his mind and let the motor-boats go again, after we’d taken the police’s arms off them, of course. They only had pistols and tear-gas grenades, anyhow. They’d shot at the trawlers from one of the motor-boats and a fisherman had got a bullet in his shoulder, but that was all. And the police didn’t do too badly anyhow. Five or six copped it, perhaps, when we sank the tug. We got it up again, as a matter of fact, a few weeks later, and it wasn’t badly damaged.

Captain Schmidt
: And then?

Roth
: Then there wasn’t any more fighting. Their planes flew
backwards and forwards above us, but quite high up, and we didn’t shoot at them, because we’d appealed to all the international organisations and all the great powers to find a peaceful solution, as it’s called. And they didn’t shoot at us, either. After a few weeks, when they were still at the height of the jawing at the United Nations, they stopped flying over, too.

Commander Kampenmann
: To what extent did Velder take part in all these events?

Roth
: He was in my group. We lay protected behind sandbags on the pier, covering the harbour entrance. That wasn’t actually necessary any longer, as no one ever got that far. But two or three years later, he and I both got a medal. Everyone who’d been at Ludolfsport at the time got one.

Captain Schmidt
: What were the circumstances within the militia during the period that followed.

Roth
: The only important task we had was passport and immigration control. My group did mostly guard-duty, event-free mostly. The militia was also responsible for internal order and other purely police matters. That was even more uninteresting, because all that happened was an accident or two, usually in connection with the big building projects.

Captain Schmidt
: What was your opinion of Velder as a soldier?

Roth
: We didn’t regard ourselves as soldiers.

Captain Schmidt
: How did he behave? Did he obey orders? Was he reliable?

Roth
: Don’t know what to say, really. He didn’t exactly obey orders, but he would have done so if it’d been necessary. I think.

Colonel Pigafetta
: That last comment was an important addition.

Captain Schmidt
: Did Velder seem to you more undisciplined than the others in the group?

Roth
: We—ell, he was full of life. Perhaps more so than the others; than me, for instance. But he was … I mean, I thought he was a good guy.

Colonel Pigafetta
: Why did you leave the militia?

Roth
: I wanted to do something useful. More useful, I mean. At the time, it looked as if the militia had done its job once and for all and could be dissolved, which was what was intended in the first place—except the personnel who saw to immigration control, of
course. The development work was in full swing. Oswaldsburg and Ludolfsport were being built up into large cities by our standards, and hotels and restaurants and casinos were springing up like mushrooms out of the ground round Marbella.

Commander Kampenmann
: And the brothels. You forgot them.

Roth
: Yes … but we didn’t see anything wrong with that then. Anyhow, all labour was wanted for production, for development. I was a farmer, and liked farming too. I could be most use there, I thought. At that time, the population was increasing at a rate of between eighty and a hundred people a day.

Colonel Orbal
: Were you the person who caught Velder naked on the ground with a naked woman when he should have been on guard-duty.

Roth
: Yes … but how …

Colonel Orbal
: What do you mean … how?

Roth
: I mean, I’ve never told anyone about that …

Colonel Orbal
: What were Velder and that woman up to?

Captain Schmidt
: Answer the colonel’s question.

Roth
: Well, you know … the usual.

Colonel Pigafetta
: Have you ever been in prison yourself?

Roth
: Yes, I was interned for three months during the war … the disturbances, I mean. Then they wanted to send me to a political rehabilitation camp, but I managed to persuade them that I only minded about my farm and could be most use there. That was true, too. Farming here certainly isn’t what it used to be, and then it was even worse. Lots of mouths to feed and with all those half-finished factories …

Colonel Orbal
: About that business on the beach …

Major von Peters
: Cool off, for God’s sake, Mateo.

Colonel Orbal
: What? Why do you sound so strange?

Captain Schmidt
: No more questions.

Lieutenant Brown
: Has the Defending Officer any questions?

Captain Endicott
: Yes. My first question is: were there any service regulations for the militia?

Roth
: No.

Captain Endicott
: Did it often happen that other militiamen behaved in the same irresponsible manner, so to speak, as the accused?

Roth
: Yes.

Captain Endicott
: Were you punished?

Roth
: No.

Captain Endicott
: No more questions.

Lieutenant Brown
: The witness may leave.

Roth
: Goodbye.

Colonel Pigafetta
: Endicott, I know you’re under orders to defend this man, but that doesn’t mean that you have to behave like some film or television hero. Be careful not to exaggerate.

Major von Peters
: Thank God we’ve got rid of that swine. Christ, what an affair! How can such people be allowed to go free? In our country? I had to keep myself well in check. Hardly dared say a thing. If he’d answered me in that insolent way, I’d have shot the wretch on the spot.

Captain Schmidt
: The question of how Velder became a soldier can now be considered to have been investigated. I am prepared to submit the first part of the case, which consists of thirty-two charges, to the court.

Colonel Orbal
: That’s all right.

Captain Schmidt
: No objections?

Commander Kampenmann
: I have no objections to this part of the case being submitted to the court, but on the other hand there is just one detail I would like cleared up.

Major von Peters
: You’re hellish on the spot today, Kampenmann. What is it now?

Commander Kampenmann
: I have gone very thoroughly into the accused’s confessions to these thirty-two offences. What I want to know is, in what way was Velder induced to give these detailed accounts of his crimes? So that we shall be able to judge the value and truthfulness of the accused’s already approved and recorded evidence during the rest of the session, we must at least know something about the methods used during the investigation. I presume torture has been used, but do not know to what extent.

Colonel Pigafetta
: Agreed. We ought to have that cleared up. It will facilitate judgement.

Captain Schmidt
: I had considered the point that the presidium would sooner or later ask for information on this point. My own knowledge of the subject is far from satisfactory. I have therefore
made an arrangement with an expert witness. If the court will adjourn for a meal, for instance, I am prepared to present this witness within an hour.

Colonel Orbal
: Eat—God, that’s the first sensible thing that’s been said today. What are your cooks like, Pigafetta?

Colonel Pigafetta
: Better than your plumbers, anyhow. And I’ve got female servants in the mess.

Colonel Orbal
: The court is adjourned for two hours.

*   *   *

Lieutenant Brown
: Is this extra-ordinary court martial prepared to continue the session?

Colonel Orbal
: Of course.

Lieutenant Brown
: The Prosecuting Officer requests to be allowed to call Max Gerthoffer, Laboratory Technologist, as witness.

Colonel Orbal
: Let him in.

Lieutenant Brown
: You are Max Gerthoffer, forty-two years old, employed in a civilian capacity at the Special Department of the Military Police. Do you swear by Almighty God to keep strictly to the truth?

Gerthoffer
: I do.

Captain Schmidt
: If I am correctly informed, you are connected with the Special Department of the Military Police in your capacity as an expert in interrogation.

Gerthoffer
: That definition is not entirely correct.

Captain Schmidt
: Anyhow, you have been in charge of the Velder case for a long time?

Gerthoffer
: Yes. Erwin Velder and I met every day over a period of fourteen months.

Commander Kampenmann
: What we wish to know is which interrogation techniques were used and to what degree torture was used to extract confessions from the accused.

Gerthoffer
: I am convinced that on no occasion was Velder tortured in connection with the interviews.

Commander Kampenmann
: In other words, you maintain that the accused quite voluntarily made these remarkably detailed and apparently exact confessions?

Gerthoffer
: Yes and no.

Commander Kampenmann
: Would you mind expressing yourself a little less cryptically?

Major von Peters
: Here, here. Who the hell could understand that?

Gerthoffer
: I do not like all these questions. In fact they irritate me intensely. If you gentlemen would stop interrupting me, I will, however, try to give you an exhaustive explanation. First of all, the definition of my assignment given by the Prosecuting Officer was incorrect. I am not an interrogation technician, at least not first and foremost. I have not, for instance, carried out a single interrogation of Velder. On the other hand, I have helped to prepare him spiritually and physically for the series of interviews which have been carried out during the last two years. This is the first time I’ve seen Velder since we parted in my office two years ago. Despite this, with almost a hundred per cent certainty, I can guarantee that Velder, in each and every one of the innumerable interviews he has undergone since then, has given truthful information. In all circumstances, he has himself been convinced that his statements have been exact and he has taken great trouble not to exclude anything of interest. The reservation I made with that ‘almost a hundred per cent certainty’ concerns a small but mostly unavoidable fault-percentage, which is due to defective memory-pictures. Not so that the memory-picture is disturbed or dimmed by later stratification in his consciousness; that type of complication we have long since overcome. No, if Velder today produces a faulty statement, or as it is popularly called, if he lies, that is only due to the fact that his own brain at the moment of occurrence made a defective registration. To correct this is not impossible in itself, as the registration of impressions occurs both in a conscious and an unconscious dimension. These can in themselves be different—but must they be or even are they that? No, by no means. Corrections can, then, be carried out in this field too, but they demand so much work and such complicated analyses, that they can still be recommended only in exceptional cases. In my view, Velder did not fall into that category.