A Man Without Breath

‘I didn’t tell them anything.’ I shrugged. ‘I don’t know about a currency racket. The Gestapo mentioned a few names, but I certainly hadn’t heard of them. Anyway, the commissar who came to see me – I know him. He’s not bad as Gestapo officers go. Fellow by the name of Werner Sachse. I’m not sure if he’s a Party member but I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t.’

‘I don’t like the Gestapo involving themselves with our inquiries,’ said Goldsche. ‘I don’t like it at all. Our judicial independence is always under threat from Himmler and his thugs.’

I shook my head. ‘The Gestapo are like dogs. You have to let them lick the bone for a while or they become savage. Take my word for it. This was a routine inquiry. The commissar licked the bone, let me fold his ears and then he slunk away. Simple as that. And there’s no need for alarm. I don’t see anyone winding up this department because seven Jews went skiing in Switzerland without permission.’

Von Dohnanyi shrugged. ‘Captain Gunther is probably right,’ he said. ‘This commissar was just going through the motions, that’s all.’

I smiled patiently, sipped my coffee, checked my own natural curiosity about exactly how it was that Von Dohnanyi had known Meyer was in the Jewish Hospital, and tried to bring the meeting to order. ‘What did you want to see me about, sir?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Goldsche nodded. ‘You’re sure you’re fit, now?’

I nodded.

‘Good.’ Goldsche looked at his aristocratic friend. ‘Hans? Would you care to enlighten the captain?’

‘Certainly.’ Von Dohnanyi put down his cigarette holder, removed his spectacles and then a neatly folded handkerchief, and started to clean the lenses.

I stubbed out my cigarette, opened my notebook, and prepared to take some notes.

Von Dohnanyi shook his head. ‘Please, just listen for now if you would, captain,’ he said. ‘When I’m finished you’ll perhaps understand my request that no notes are taken of this meeting.’

I closed the notebook and waited.

‘Following the Gleiwitz incident, German forces invaded Poland on the first of September 1939, and sixteen days later the Red Army invaded from the East, in accordance with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed between our two countries on the 23rd of August 1939. Germany annexed western Poland and the Soviet Union incorporated the eastern half into its Ukrainian and Belarussian republics. Some four hundred thousand Polish troops were taken prisoner by the Wehrmacht, while at least another quarter of a million Poles were captured by the Red Army. It is the fate of those Polish men taken prisoner by the Russians with which we are concerned here. Ever since the Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union-’

‘Germany’s always been unlucky that way,’ I said. ‘With her friends I mean.’

Ignoring my sarcasm, Von Dohnanyi put his glasses back on his face and continued: ‘Possibly even as soon as August 1941, the Abwehr has been receiving reports of a mass murder of Polish officers that took place in the spring or early summer of 1940. But where this took place was anyone’s guess. Until now, perhaps.

‘There’s a signals regiment, the 537th, commanded by a Lieutenant Colonel Friedrich Ahrens, stationed in a place called Gnezdovo near Smolensk – I understand from Judge Goldsche that you’ve been to Smolensk, Captain Gunther?’

‘Yes sir. I was there in the summer of 1941.’

He nodded. ‘That’s good. Then you’ll know the sort of country I’m talking about.’

‘It’s a dump,’ I said. ‘I can’t see why we thought it worth capturing at all.’

‘Er, yes.’ Von Dohnanyi smiled patiently. ‘Apparently Gnezdovo is an area of thick forest to the west of the city, with wolves and other wild animals, and right now, as you might expect, the whole area is under a thick blanket of snow. The 537th is stationed in a castle or villa in the forest that was formerly used by the Russian secret police – the NKVD. They employ a number of Hiwis – Russian POWS like those glaziers in the corridor – and several weeks ago some of those Hiwis reported that a wolf had dug up some human remains in the forest. Having investigated the site for himself, Ahrens reported finding not one but several human bones. The report was passed on to us in the Abwehr and we then set about evaluating this intelligence. A number of possibilities have presented themselves.

‘One: that the bones are from a mass grave of political prisoners murdered by the NKVD during the so-called Great Purge of 1937 to 1938 following the first and second Moscow trials. We estimate as many as a million Soviet citizens were killed and that they are buried in mass graves all over an area west of Moscow hundreds of square kilometres in size.