Fatherland

“But you must have realised that Globus killed Buhler and Stuckart?”

“Of course. I’m not an idiot. I know Globus’s reputation as well as you. But Globus was acting on Heydrich’s orders, and if Heydrich had decided to let him loose, to spare the Party a public scandal — who was I to object?”

“Who were you to object?” repeated March. “Let’s be clear, March. Are you saying their deaths had nothing to do with the fraud?”

“Nothing. The fraud was a coincidence that became a useful cover story, that’s all.”

“But it made sense. It explained why Globus was acting as state executioner, and why he was desperate to head off an investigation by the Kripo. On Wednesday night I was still cataloguing the pictures on Schwanenwerder when he called in a rage — about you. Said you’d been officially taken off the case, but you’d broken in to Stuckart’s apartment. I was to go and bring you in, which I did. And I tell you: if Globus had had his way, that would have been the end of you right there, but Nebe wouldn’t have it. Then, on Friday night, we found what we thought was Luther’s body in the railway yard, and that seemed to be the end of it.”

“When did you discover the corpse wasn’t Luther’s?”

“Around six on Saturday morning. Globus telephoned me at home. He said he had information Luther was still alive and was pla

“He knew this,” asserted March, “because of a tip-off from the American Embassy.”

Krebs snorted. “What sort of crap is that? He knew because of a wire-tap.”

“That ca

“Why can’t it be? See for yourself.” Krebs opened one of his folders and extracted a single sheet of flimsy brown paper. “It was rushed over from the wire-tappers in Charlottenburg in the middle of the night.”

March read:

Forschungsamt Geheime Reichssache

G745,275

23:51

MALE: You say: What do I want? What do you think I want? Asylum in your country.

FEMALE: Tell me where you are.

MALE: I can pay.

FEMALE: [Interrupts]

MALE: I have information. Certain facts.

FEMALE: Tell me where you are. I’ll come and fetch you. We’ll go to the Embassy.

MALE: Too soon. Not yet.

FEMALE: When?

MALE: Tomorrow morning. Listen to me. Nine o’clock. The Great Hall. Central Steps. Have you got that?

Once more he could hear her voice; smell her; touch her. In a recess of his mind, something stirred. He slid the paper back across the table to Krebs, who returned it to the folder and resumed: “What happened next, you know. Globus had Luther shot the instant he appeared — and, let me be honest, that shocked me. To do such a thing in a public place … I thought: this man is mad. Of course, I didn’t know then quite why he was so anxious Luther shouldn’t be taken alive.” He stopped abruptly, as if he had forgotten where he was, the role he was supposed to be playing. He finished quickly. “We searched the body and found nothing. Then we came after you.”

March’s hand had started to throb again. He looked down and saw crimson spots soaking through the white bandage.

“What time is it?”

“Five forty-seven.”

She had been gone almost eleven hours. God, his hand… The specks of red were spreading, touching; forming archipelagos of blood.

“THERE were four of them in it altogether,” said March. “Buhler, Stuckart, Luther and Kritzinger.”

“Kritzinger?” Krebs made a note.

“Friedrich Kritzinger, Ministerialdirektor of the Reich Chancellery. 1 wouldn’t write any of this down if I were you.”

Krebs laid aside his pencil.

“What concerned them wasn’t the extermination programme itself- these were senior Party men, remember- it was the lack of a proper Fuhrer Order. Nothing was written down. All they had were verbal assurances from Heydrich and Himmler that this was what the Fuhrer wanted. Could I have another cigarette?”

After Krebs had given him one, and he had taken a few sweet draughts, he went on: This is conjecture, you understand?” His interrogator nodded. “I assume they asked themselves: why is there no direct written link between the Fuhrer and this policy? And I assume their answer was: because it is so monstrous, the Head of State ca

Krebs murmured: “I am not sure I want to know this.”

“So they took out an insurance policy. They swore affidavits — that was easy: three of them were lawyers — and they removed documents whenever they could. And gradually they put together a documentary record. Either outcome was covered. If Germany won and action was taken against them, they could threaten to expose what they knew. If the Allies won, they could say: look, we opposed this policy and even risked our lives to collect information about it. Luther also added a touch of blackmail -embarrassing documents about the American Ambassador to London, Ke

He nodded to his notebook and to Buhler’s diary. Krebs hesitated, then slid them across the table.

It was difficult to open the notebook with only one hand. The bandage was sodden. He was smearing the pages.

The camps were organised to make sure there were no witnesses. Special prisoners ran the gas chambers, the crematoria. Eventually, those special prisoners were themselves destroyed, replaced by others, who were also destroyed. And so on. If that could happen at the lowest level, why not the highest? Look. Fourteen people at the Wa

“By “sixty-three, it had started to accelerate. In May, Klopfer dies. In December, Hoffma

March picked up the pocket diary.

“Here — you see — he marks the date of Kritzinger’s death with a cross. But after that the days go by; nothing happens; perhaps they are safe. Then, on April the ninth — another cross! Buhler’s old colleague from the General Government, Schongarth, has slipped beneath the wheels of a U-bahn train in Zoo Station. Panic on Schwanenwerder! But by then it’s too late…”

“I said: that’s enough!”

“One question puzzled me: why were there eight deaths in the first nine years, followed by six deaths in just the last six months? Why the rush? Why this terrible risk, after the exercise of so much patience? But then, we policemen seldom lift our eyes from the mud to look at the broader picture, do we? Everything was supposed to be completed by last Tuesday, ready for the visit of our good new friends, the Americans. And that raises a further question—”

“Give me those!” Krebs pulled the diary and the notebook from March’s grasp. Outside in the passage: Globus’s voice…

“—Would Heydrich have done all this on his own initiative, or was he acting on orders from a higher level? Orders, perhaps, from the same person who would not put his signature to any document…?”

Krebs had the stove open and was stuffing in the papers. For a moment they lay smouldering on the coals, then ignited into yellow flame as the key turned in the cell door.