Fatherland

  The eyes of the Zollgrenzschutz officer were hidden in the shade of his visor. ‘The Herr Sturmbannführer is back with three hours to spare.’ He drew a thick black line through the visa, scrawled ‘void’ across it, and handed the passport back. ‘Welcome home.’

  In the crowded customs hall March kept a look out for Charlie, but could not see her. Perhaps they had refused to let her back into the country. He almost hoped they had: it would be safer for her.

  The Zollgrenzschutz were opening every bag. Never had he seen such security. It was chaos. The passengers milling and arguing around the mounds of clothes made the hall look like an Indian bazaar. He waited his turn.

  It was after three by the time March reached the left-luggage area and retrieved his case. In the toilets he changed back into his uniform, folded his civilian clothes and packed them away. He checked his Luger and slipped it into his holster. As he left, he glanced at himself in the mirror. A familiar black figure.

  Welcome home.

  THREE

  hen the sun shone the Party called it ‘Führer weather’. They had no name for rain.

  Nevertheless, it had been decreed, drizzle or not, that this afternoon was to be the start of the three-day holiday. And so, with dogged National Socialist determination, the people set about their celebrations.

  March was in a taxi heading south through Wedding. This was workers’ Berlin, a communist stronghold of the 1920s. The factory whistles, in a festive gesture, had sounded an hour earlier than usual. Now the streets were dense with damp revellers. The Blockwarts had been active. From every second or third building, a banner hung – mostly swastikas, but also the occasional slogan, strung between the iron balconies of the fortress-tenements. WORKERS OF BERLIN SALUTE THE FÜHRER ON HIS 75TH BIRTHDAY! LONG LIVE THE GLORIOUS NATIONAL SOCIALIST REVOLUTION! LONG LIVE OUR GUIDE AND FIRST COMRADE ADOLF HITLER! The back streets were in a delirium of colour, throbbing to the oohm-pah! of the local SA bands. And this was only Friday. March wondered what the Wedding authorities had planned for the day itself.

  During the night, on the corner of Wolff Strasse, some rebellious spirit had added a piece of graffiti, in white paint: ANYONE FOUND NOT ENJOYING THEMSELVES WILL BE SHOT. A couple of anxious-looking brownshirts were trying to clean it off.

  March took the taxi as far as Fritz-Todt Platz. His Volkswagen was still outside Stuckart’s apartment, where he had parked it the night before last. He looked up at the fourth floor. Someone had drawn all the curtains.

  At Werderscher Markt, he stowed his suitcase in his office and rang the Duty Officer. Martin Luther had not been located.

  Krause said: ‘Between you and me, March, Globus is driving us all fucking mad. In here every half-hour, ranting and raving that someone will go to a KZ unless he gets results.’

  ‘The Herr Obergruppenführer is a very dedicated officer.’

  ‘Oh, he is, he is.’ Krause’s voice was suddenly panicky. ‘I didn’t mean to suggest –’

  March hung up. That would give whoever was listening to his calls something to think about.

  He lugged the typewriter across to his desk and inserted a single sheet of paper. He lit a cigarette.

  To: Artur Nebe, SS-Oberstgruppenführer, Reich Kriminalpolizei

  FROM: X. March, SS-Sturmbannführer 17.4.64

  1. I have the honour to inform you that at 10.00 this morning I attended the premises of Zaugg & Cie, Bankiers, Bahnhof Strasse, Zürich.

  2. The numbered account, whose existence we discussed yesterday, was opened by Foreign Ministry Under State Secretary Martin Luther on 8.7.42. Four keys were issued.

  3. The box was subsequently opened on three occasions: 17.12.42, 9.8.43, 13.4.64.

  4. On inspection by myself, the box was found to contain

  March leaned back in his seat and blew a pair of neat smoke rings towards the ceiling. The thought of that painting in the hands of Nebe – dumped into his collection of bombastic, syrupy Schmutzlers and Kirchners – was repugnant, even sacrilegious. Better to leave her at peace in the darkness. He let his fingers rest on the typewriter keys for a moment, then tapped:

  nothing.

  He wound the paper out of the typewriter, signed it, and sealed it in an envelope. He called Nebe’s office and was ordered to bring it up at once, personally. He hung up and stared out the window at the brickwork view.

  Why not?

  He stood and checked along the bookshelves until he found the Berlin area telephone directory. He took it down and looked up a number, which he dialled from the office next door, so as not to be overheard.

  A man’s voice answered: ‘Reichsarchiv.’

  TEN minutes later his boots were sinking into the soft mire of Artur Nebe’s office carpet.

  ‘Do you believe in coincidences, March?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘No,’ said Nebe. ‘Good. Neither do I.’ He put down his magnifying glass and pushed away March’s report. ‘I don’t believe two retired public servants of the same age and rank just happen to choose to commit suicide rather than be exposed as corrupt. My God’ – he gave a harsh little laugh – ‘if every government official in Berlin took that approach, the streets would be piled high with the dead. Nor do they just happen to be murdered in the week an American president announces he will grace us with a visit.’

  He pushed back his chair and hobbled across to a small bookcase lined with the sacred texts of National Socialism: Mein Kampf, Rosenberg’s Mythus der XX. Jahrhunderts, Goebbels’s Tagebücher . . . He pressed a switch and the front of the bookcase swung open to reveal a cocktail cabinet. The tomes, March saw now, were merely the spines of books, pasted on to the wood.

  Nebe helped himself to a large vodka and returned to his desk. March continued to stand before him, neither fully at attention nor fully at ease.

  ‘Globus works for Heydrich,’ said Nebe. ‘That’s simple. Globus wouldn’t wipe his own arse unless Heydrich told him it was time to do it.’

  March said nothing.

  ‘And Heydrich works for the Führer most of the time, and all of the time he works for himself . . .’

  Nebe held the heavy tumbler to his lips. His lizard’s tongue darted into the vodka, playing with it. He was silent for a while. Then he said: ‘Do you know why we’re greasing up to the Americans, March?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Because we’re in the shit. Here is something you won’t read in the little Doctor’s newspapers. Twenty million settlers in the East by 1960, that was Himmler’s plan. Ninety million by the end of the century. Fine. Well, we shipped them out all right. Trouble is, half of them want to come back. Consider that cosmic piece of irony, March: living space that no one wants to live in. Terrorism’ – he gestured with his glass, the ice clinked – ‘I don’t need to tell an officer of the Kripo how serious terrorism has become. The Americans supply money, weapons, training. They’ve kept the Reds going for twenty years. As for us: the young don’t want to fight and the old don’t want to work.’

  He shook his grey head at such follies, fished an ice cube out of his drink and sucked it noisily.

  ‘Heydrich’s mad for this American deal. He’d kill to keep it sweet. Is that what’s happening here, March? Buhler, Stuckart, Luther – were they a threat to it somehow?’

  Nebe’s eyes searched his face. March stared straight ahead.

  ‘You’re an irony yourself, March, in a way. Did you ever consider that?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘“No, sir.”’ Nebe mimicked him. ‘Well consider it now. We set out to breed a generation of supermen to rule an empire, yes? We trained them to apply hard logic – pitilessly, even cruelly. Remember what the Führer once said? “My greatest gift to the Germans is that I have taught them to think clearly.” And what happens? A few of you – perhaps the best of you – begin to turn this pitiless clear thinking on to us. I tell you, I’m glad I’m an old man. I fear the future.’ He was quiet for a minute, lost in his own thoughts.

  At
length, disappointed, the old man picked up the magnifying glass. ‘Corruption it is, then.’ He read through March’s report once more, then tore it up and dropped it into his waste bin.

  CLIO, the Muse of History, guarded the Reichsarchiv: an Amazonian nude designed by Adolf Ziegler, the ‘Reich Master of the Pubic Hair’. She frowned across the Avenue of Victory towards the Soldiers’ Hall, where a long queue of tourists waited to file past Frederick the Great’s bones. Pigeons perched on the slopes of her immense bosom, like mountaineers on the face of a glacier. Behind her, a sign had been carved above the entrance to the archive, gold leaf inlaid on polished granite. A quotation from the Führer: FOR ANY NATION, THE RIGHT HISTORY IS WORTH 100 DIVISIONS.

  Rudolf Halder led March inside, and up to the third floor. He pushed at the double-doors and stood aside to let him walk through. A corridor with stone walls and a stone floor seemed to stretch for ever.

  ‘Impressive, yes?’ In his place of work, Halder spoke in the tone of a professional historian, conveying pride and sarcasm simultaneously. ‘We call the style mock-Teutonic. This, you will not be surprised to hear, is the largest archive building in the world. Above us: two floors of administration. On this floor: researchers’ offices and reading rooms. Beneath us: six floors of documents. You are treading, my friend, on the history of the Fatherland. For my part, I tend Clio’s lamp in here.’

  It was a monkish cell: small, windowless, the walls made of blocks of granite. Papers were stacked in piles half a metre high on the table; they spilled over on to the floor. Books were everywhere – several hundred of them – each sprouting a thicket of markers: multi-coloured bits of paper, tram tickets, pieces of cigarette carton, spent matches.

  ‘The historian’s mission. To bring out of chaos – more chaos.’ Halder lifted a stack of old army signals off the solitary chair, knocked the dust off it, and gestured to March to sit.

  ‘I need your help, Rudi – again.’

  Halder perched on the edge of his desk. ‘I don’t hear from you for months, then suddenly it’s twice in a week. I presume this also has to do with the Buhler business? I saw the obituary.’

  March nodded. ‘I should say now that you are talking to a pariah. You may be endangering yourself merely by meeting me.’

  ‘That only makes it sound more fascinating.’ Halder put his long fingers together and cracked the joints. ‘Go on.’

  ‘This is a real challenge for you.’ March paused, took a breath. ‘Three men: Buhler, Wilhelm Stuckart and Martin Luther. The first two dead; the last, a fugitive. All three senior civil servants, as you know. In the summer of 1942, they opened a bank account in Zürich. At first I assumed they put away a hoard of money or art treasures – as you suspected, Buhler was up to his armpits in corruption – but now I think it is more likely to have been documents.’

  ‘What sort of documents?’

  ‘Not sure.’

  ‘Sensitive?’

  ‘Presumably.’

  ‘You’ve got one problem straight away. You’re talking about three different ministries – Foreign, Interior and General Government, which isn’t really a ministry at all. That’s tons of documents. I mean it, Zavi, literally – tons.’

  ‘Do you have their records here?’

  ‘Foreign and Interior, yes. General Government is in Krakau.’

  ‘Do you have access to them?’

  ‘Officially – no. Unofficially . . .’ He wobbled a bony hand. ‘. . . Perhaps, if I’m lucky. But, Zavi, it would take a lifetime simply to look through them. What are you suggesting we do?’

  ‘There must be some clue in there: Perhaps there are papers missing.’

  ‘But this is an impossible task.’

  ‘I told you it was a challenge.’

  ‘And how soon does this “clue” need to be discovered?’

  ‘I need to find it tonight.’

  Halder made an explosive sound, of mingled incredulity, anger, scorn. March said quietly: ‘Rudi, in three days’ time, they’re threatening to put me in front of an SS Honour Court. You know what that means. I have to find it now.’

  Halder looked at him for a moment, unwilling to believe what he was hearing, then turned away, muttering: ‘Let me think . . .’

  March said: ‘Can I have a cigarette?’

  ‘In the corridor. Not in here – this stuff is irreplaceable.’

  As March smoked he could hear Halder, in his office, pacing up and down. He looked at his watch. Six o’clock. The long corridor was deserted. Most of the staff must have gone home, to begin the holiday weekend. March tried a couple of office doors, but both were locked. The third was open. He picked up the telephone, listened to the tone, and dialled nine. The tone changed: an outside line. He rang Charlie’s number. She answered at once.

  ‘It’s me. Are you all right?’

  She said: ‘I’m fine. I’ve discovered something – just a tiny thing.’

  ‘Don’t tell me over an open line. I’ll talk to you later.’ He tried to think of something else to say, but she had replaced the receiver.

  Now Halder was on the telephone, his cheerful voice echoing down the flagstone corridor. ‘Eberhard? Good evening to you . . . Indeed, no rest for some of us. A quick question, if I may. The Interior Ministry series . . . Oh, they have been? Good. On an office basis? . . . I see. Excellent. And all that is done? . . .’

  March leaned against the wall with his eyes closed, trying not to think of the ocean of paper beneath his feet. Come on, Rudi. Come on.

  He heard a bell tinkle as Halder hung up. A few seconds later Rudi appeared in the corridor, pulling on his jacket. A bunch of pen-tops jutted from his breast pocket. ‘One small piece of luck. According to my colleague, the Interior Ministry files at least have been catalogued.’ He set off down the passage at a rapid pace. March strode beside him.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means there should be a central index, showing us which papers actually crossed Stuckart’s desk, and when.’ He hammered at the buttons beside the elevator. Nothing happened. ‘Looks as if they’ve turned this thing off for the night. We’ll have to walk.’

  As they clattered down the wide spiral staircase, Halder shouted: ‘You appreciate this is completely against the rules? I’m cleared for Military, Eastern Front, not Administration, Internal. If we’re stopped, you’ll have to spin Security some yarn about Polizei business – something that’ll take them a couple of hours to check. As for me, I’m just a poor sucker, doing you a favour, right?’

  ‘I appreciate it. How much further?’

  ‘All the way to the bottom.’ Halder was shaking his head. ‘An Honour Court! Dear God, Zavi, what’s happened to you?’

  Sixty metres beneath the ground the air circulated cool and dry, the lights were dimmed, to protect the archives. ‘They say this place was built to withstand a direct hit from an American missile,’ said Halder.

  ‘What’s behind there?’

  March pointed to a steel door, covered with warning signs: ‘ATTENTION! NO ADMITTANCE TO UNAUTHORISED PERSONS!’ ‘ENTRY FORBIDDEN!’ ‘PASSES MUST BE SHOWN’.

  ‘“The right history is worth a hundred divisions”, remember? That’s the place where the wrong history goes. Shit. Look out.’

  Halder pulled March into a doorway. A security guard was coming towards them, bent like a miner in an underground shaft, pushing a metal cart. March thought he was certain to see them, but he went straight past, grunting with effort. He stopped at the metal barrier and unlocked it. There was a glimpse of a furnace, a roar of flame, before the door clanged shut behind him.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  As they walked, Halder explained the procedure. The archive worked on warehouse principles. Requisitions for files came down to a central handling area on each floor. Here, in ledgers a metre high and twenty centimetres thick, was kept the main index. Entered next to each file was a stack number. The stacks themselves were in fire-proof storerooms leading off from the handling area. The s
ecret, said Halder, was to know your way round the index. He paraded in front of the crimson leather spines, tapping each with his finger until he found the one he wanted, then lugged it over to the floor manager’s desk.

  March had once been below-decks on the aircraft carrier, Grossadmiral Raeder. The depths of the Reichsarchiv reminded him of that: low ceilings strung with lights, the sense of something vast pressing down from above. Next to the desk: a photocopier – a rare sight in Germany, where their distribution was strictly controlled, to stop subversives producing illegal literature. A dozen empty carts were drawn up by the lift-shaft. He could see fifty metres in either direction. The place was deserted.

  Halder gave a cry of triumph. ‘State Secretary: Office Files, 1939 to 1950. Oh Christ: four hundred boxes. What years do you want to look at?’

  ‘The Swiss bank account was opened in July ʼ42, so let’s say the first seven months of that year.’

  Halder turned the page, talking to himself. ‘Yes. I see what they’ve done. They’ve arranged the papers in four series: office correspondence, minutes and memoranda, statutes and decrees, ministry personnel . . .’

  ‘What I’m looking for is something that connects Stuckart with Buhler and Luther.’

  ‘In that case, we’d better start with office correspondence. That should give us a feel for what was going on at the time.’ Halder was scribbling notes. ‘D/15/M/28–34. Okay. Here we go.’

  Storeroom D was twenty metres down on the left. Stack fifteen, section M was in the dead centre of the room. Halder said: ‘Only six boxes, thank God. You take January to April, I’ll do May to August.’

  The boxes were made of cardboard, each the size of a large desk drawer. There was no table, so they sat on the floor. With his back pressed against the metal shelving, March opened the first box, pulled out a handful of papers, and began to read.