A Man Without Breath

There was of course an opposite side to this coin, though Goebbels was too clever to draw it to my attention right away, not while he was still trying to seduce me. On the whole I prefer to do the seducing myself, but it was increasingly clear to me that there wasn’t going to be room for me to refuse a man who only had to pick up the telephone again and instead of ordering coffee instruct one of his lackeys to have the Gestapo turn up at the door on Wilhelmplatz to give me a lift to Prinz Albrechtstrasse. So I listened, and after a while I started to nod my compliance, and when he asked me straight out, yes or no, if I would take the job, I said I would.

He smiled and nodded his appreciation. ‘Good, good. I appreciate it. Look, I’ve not made that journey myself but I know it’s a brutal one, so I’ll have my own plane fly you down there. Shall we say tomorrow? You can have whatever you need.’

‘Yes, Herr Reich minister.’

‘I’ll speak to Von Kluge himself and make sure you have his full cooperation as well as the best accommodation that’s available. And of course I’ll draw up some letters patent explaining your powers as my plenipotentiary.’

I didn’t much like the idea of representing Goebbels in Smolensk. It was one thing taking charge of the Katyn Wood investigation and an international commission; but I hardly wanted soldiers looking at me and seeing the cut-out of a man with a club foot and a sharp line in suits and phrase-making.

‘These things have a habit of not remaining secret for very long,’ I said, carefully. ‘Especially in the field. For form’s sake it would be best if the powers granted to me in your letter made it quite clear that I am acting as a member of the War Crimes Bureau and not the ministry of propaganda. It wouldn’t look good if one of those journalists or perhaps someone from the International Red Cross gained the impression that we were trying to stage-manage the situation. That would discredit everything.’

‘Yes, yes, you’re right, of course. For the same reason you had better go down there wearing a different uniform. An army uniform, perhaps. It’s best we keep the SS and the SD as far away from the scene as possible.’

‘That most of all, sir.’

He stood up and ushered me to the door of his office.

‘While you’re down there I shall expect regular reports on the teletype. And don’t worry about Judge Goldsche, I shall telephone him immediately and explain the situation. I shall simply say that all of this was my idea, not yours. Which of course he’ll believe.’ He grinned. ‘I flatter myself that I can be very persuasive.’

He opened the door and walked me down the magnificent staircase so quickly I hardly noticed the limp, which was, I suppose, the general idea.

‘For a while after your time in Kripo you were a private detective, weren’t you?’

‘Yes, I was.’

‘When you get back we’ll talk again. About another service you might be able to do for me this summer. And which you’ll certainly find is considerably to your advantage.’

‘Yes, sir. Thank you.’

The sun was shining, and as I walked out of the ministry onto Wilhelmplatz it seemed to me that my own shadow had more substance and character than I did, as if the body occluding the light behind it had been cursed into spineless insignificance by some evil troll, and for no good reason I stopped and spat onto the black contour as if I had been spitting onto my own body. It didn’t make me feel any better. In lieu of bending my own ear with accusations of cowardice and craven cooperation with a man and a government I loathed, it was nothing more – or less – than an expression of the dislike I now felt for my own person. Sure, I told myself, I had said yes to Goebbels because I wanted to do something to help restore Germany’s reputation abroad, but I knew this was only partly true. Mostly I agreed with the diabolic doctor because I was afraid of him. Fear. It’s a problem I often have with the Nazis. It’s a problem every German has with the Nazis. At least those Germans who are still alive.

PART TWO CHAPTER 1

Friday, March 26th 1943