A Man Without Breath

Goebbels did not look satisfied with this answer. ‘No, with respect, that won’t do at all. We’re talking about the crime of the century here, not a tomb in the Valley of the Kings.’

He flicked open a cigarette box on the desk and invited us to help ourselves. Goldsche declined in order to continue his line of argument, but I took one: the box was made of white enamel with a handsome gold eagle on the lid and the cigarettes were Trummers, which I hadn’t seen – or more importantly smoked – since before the war. I was tempted to take two and put one behind my ear for later.

‘If the evidence is to sustain the investigation, we must proceed with caution, sir,’ said the judge. ‘I’ve never seen an investigation that was improved by haste. It contributes to error of interpretation. When we rush things we leave ourselves vulnerable to criticism by enemy propaganda: that we faked something, perhaps.’

But Goebbels was hardly listening. ‘This goes beyond all normal protocols,’ he said, trying to stifle a yawn. ‘I thought I made that clear already. Look, the leader himself has taken an interest in this case. Our intelligence sources in London inform us that relations between the Soviets and the Polish government in exile are already under considerable strain. It’s my estimation that this would certainly break those relations altogether. No, my dear judge, we cannot allow the evidence to lead us, as you say. That is much too passive a response to an opportunity like this. If you’ll forgive me for saying so, your approach, while being very proper as you say, lacks imagination.’

For once I couldn’t help but agree with the minister, but I kept my own counsel. Goldsche was my boss after all, and I had no wish to embarrass the man by disagreeing with him in front of Dr Goebbels. But perhaps Goebbels sensed something like this, and when our meeting was apparently over and the judge and I were being ushered to the door, the minister asked me to wait behind.

‘There’s something else I wish to discuss with you, captain,’ he said. ‘If you’ll forgive us, Johannes, it’s a private matter.’

‘Yes, of course, Herr Reich minister,’ said Goldsche, and looking a little nonplussed was led out of the building by one of the minister’s younger lackeys.

Goebbels closed the door and politely ushered me over to a sitting area – a yellow sofa and some armchairs – under a window as tall as a hop-picker’s wooden legs in what passed for a cosy corner of his office. Outside was the Wilhelmplatz and the underground railway station, which is where I could have wished to be – anywhere but the place in which I was now sitting down for a quiet tete-a-tete with a man I thought I despised. But the greater discomfort I was feeling came from the realization that – in person at least – Goebbels was courteous and intelligent, even charming. It was hard to connect the man I was talking to with the malignant demagogue I’d heard on the radio ranting at the Sports Palace for ‘total war’.

‘Is there really a private matter you want to discuss with me?’ I asked. ‘Or was that just a way of getting rid of the judge?’

But the Minister of Enlightenment and Propaganda was not a man to be hurried by a nobody like me.

‘When my ministry first moved into this beautiful house, back in 1933, I had some builders from the SA come in during the night to knock off all the stucco and wainscoting. Well, what else were those thugs good for except to smash things? Believe me, this place was like something in aspic jelly, and badly in need of some modernization. After the Great War, the building had been occupied by some of those old Prussian farts from the Foreign Office, and when they turned up the next day to take away their papers – you can’t imagine how much dust there was on those – they were absolutely horror-struck at what had been done to their precious building. It was actually quite amusing. They walked around with their mouths open, gasping like fish in a trawlerman’s net, and protesting loudly to me in their posh High German accents about what had happened in here. One of them even said: “Herr Reich minister, do you know that you might be put in prison for this?” Can you imagine it? Some of these old Prussians belong in a damned museum.

‘And these judges in the War Crimes Bureau, they’re not much more than relics themselves, captain. Their attitudes, their working methods, their accents are positively antediluvian. Even the way they dress. You would think it was 1903 and not 1943. How can a man feel comfortable in a stiff collar? It’s criminal to ask a man to dress like that just because he happens to be a lawyer. I’m afraid every time I look at Judge Goldsche I see the previous British prime minister – that old fool Neville Chamberlain with his ridiculous umbrella.’

‘An umbrella is only ridiculous if it’s not raining, Herr Reich minister. But really, the judge is not the fool he looks. If he sounds ridiculous and slow, that’s just how law is. However, I think I get the picture.’