The Other Side of Silence

“I understand perfectly, sir. During the Weimar Republic, when I was a cop at the Alex, I think I saw every facet of human behavior known to man. And quite a few that were unknown, too. Believe me, I’m immune to this kind of thing. Moral outrage is something only Nazis seem to suffer from these days.”

This wasn’t true, of course, but you have to say that to your clients or they’ll never open up. I have just as much moral outrage as the next man, provided that man isn’t called Adolf Hitler. According to the English Daily Mail-currently the best-selling newspaper in Berlin because it’s the only paper in which the story appears-the Fuhrer and most of the German High Command were currently exhibiting a great deal of outrage concerning the marriage of the minister of War, Field Marshal von Blomberg, to a woman of low birth and even lower morals named Erna Gruhn. Just how low was a matter of common knowledge in and around the Alex because Erna Gruhn was a prostitute and a former nude model. It was said the morals boys had a file on her that was almost as thick as von Blomberg’s skull.

“In November nineteen thirty-three,” began von Frisch, “I met a boy in the lavatories at Potsdamer Platz station. His name was Bavarian Joe and he was-well, he was-”

I nodded. “A warm boy for a cold night. I get the picture, Captain. No need to say any more about exactly what happened. Best get to the squeeze. I mean, the blackmailer.”

“Following this liaison, while I was boarding a westbound train, another man got on and told me he was a police officer. I think he said his name was Commissioner Kroger. It wasn’t. He isn’t even a police officer, let alone a commissioner. Anyway, he said he’d seen exactly what had happened and threatened to place me under arrest for being a 175er, which is to say a homosexual. Then he offered to drop the charges if I would pay him five hundred marks in cash. I had about two hundred on me at the time so I handed this over and promised to take him to my bank the next day, where I would pay him the balance. And I did.”

“Which bank was this?”

“The Dresdner Bank, on Bismarckstrasse.”

I nodded and made a note of the bank, not that it was relevant, but most clients like to see you taking a few notes.

“I thought that was the end of it. But a few days later Schmidt-that’s his true name, Otto Schmidt-returned with another man, who turned out to be a real Gestapo officer called Harold Heinz Hennig, who worked for Department II-H, which exists, I am informed, to investigate homosexuality. They asked me for more money-to be precise, another thousand marks. And once again I paid up. They said if I refused to pay they’d make sure I was sent to a concentration camp, where I’d be lucky to last the year.”

“Cash?”

“Always. Small bills, too.”

“Hmm.”

“But this was just the start, and since then I have paid this pair of scoundrels a thousand a week, which at this present moment in time amounts to almost two hundred and fifty thousand marks. I’m afraid I could ill afford the taxi that brought me here this morning.”

I whistled. Two hundred and fifty thousand marks is as attractive a figure as any you can see outside of a life class in the Berlin School of Art.

“That’s a lot of money.”

“Yes it is.”

“Look, with all due respect, sir, this horse has bolted. I fail to see how it might help for me to help you close the stable door now.”

“For the simple reason that I am now being blackmailed by the same people-or at least one of them, Captain Hennig-in an entirely different way and for an entirely different reason. Not for money. At least not for the moment. It’s my silence that seems to be required right now. If it wasn’t so tragic it might be funny. But this is where I need your help, Gunther. I assume that the Gestapo possesses a code of conduct. That corruption is frowned upon even among Nazis. Presumably this Captain Hennig has a superior, and one imagines he would hardly welcome the news of bribery in his own department.”

“What’s this man Hennig like?”

“Young, smooth, arrogant. Clever, too. Always plainclothes. Good suits. Buys his hats at Habig. Rolex wristwatch. Drives a black Opel Kapitan, which means I’ve never been able to follow him. We always meet in public places. And never the same place twice.”

I nodded slowly. I don’t mind trouble. It’s an occupational hazard, but already this case was starting to look as if it might be more than the usual amount of trouble, which, in Nazi Germany, is always dangerous.

“As far as I can remember,” I said, “II-H is run by two revolting bastards, Josef Meisinger and Eberhard Schiele. The chances are that they’re getting a large piece of everything this man Hennig’s extorting from you. I’d be very surprised if they weren’t. But Meisinger does have a superior he reports to. A man I know called Arthur Nebe, who’s not entirely without principles. It may be that he takes a dim view of these sordid activities. I suppose we might persuade him to get them to lay off.”

“I hope so.”