Authors: Robert Harris
The case was of the sort that doctors carry, with brass- reinforced corners and a stout brass lock, dull with age. The brown leather was scratched and faded, the heavy stitching dark, the hand grip worn smooth like a brown pebble by years of carrying until it felt like an extension of the hand. It proclaimed reliability and reassurance; professionalism; quiet wealth. It was certainly prewar, maybe even pre-Great War—built to last a generation or two. Solid. Worth a lot.
All this March absorbed on the walk back to the Volkswagen. The route avoided the Zollgrenzschutz—another favor from Friedman.
Charlie fell upon it like a child upon a birthday present and swore with disappointment when she found it locked. As March drove out of the airport perimeter she fished in her own bag and retrieved a pair of nail scissors. She picked desperately at the lock, the blades scrabbling ineffectively on the brass.
March said, "You're wasting your time. I'll have to break it open. Wait till we get there."
She shook the bag with frustration. "Get where?"
He ran a hand through his hair.
A good question.
Every room in the city was booked. The Eden with its roof-garden café, the Bristol on Unter den Linden, the Kaiserhof in Mohren-Strasse—all had stopped taking reservations months ago. The monster hotels with a thousand bedrooms and the little rooming houses dotted around the railway termini were filled with uniforms. Not just the SA and the SS, the Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht, the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls, but all the others besides: the National Socialist Empire War Association, the German Falconry Order, the National Socialist Leadership Schools . . .
Outside the most famous and luxurious of all Berlin's hotels—the Adlon, on the corner of Pariser-Platz and Wilhelm-Strasse—the crowds were straining at the metal barriers for a glimpse of a celebrity: a film star, a footballer, a Party satrap in town for the
Führertag
. As March and Charlie passed it, a Mercedes was drawing up, its black-uniformed passengers bathed in the light of a score of flashguns.
March drove straight over the Platz into Unter den Linden, turned left and then right into Dorotheen-Strasse. He parked among the dustbins at the back of the Prinz Friedrich Karl Hotel. It was here, over breakfast with Rudi Halder, that this business had really begun. When had that been? He could not remember.
The manager of the Friedrich Karl was habitually clad in an old-fashioned black jacket and a pair of striped pants, and he bore a striking resemblance to the late President von Hindenburg. He came bustling out to the front desk, smoothing a large pair of white whiskers as if they were pets.
"Sturmbannführer March, what a pleasure! What a pleasure, indeed! And dressed for relaxation!"
"Good afternoon, Herr Brecker. A difficult request. I must have a room."
Brecker threw up his hands in distress. "It's impossible! Even for so distinguished a customer as yourself."
"Come, Herr Brecker. You must have something. An attic would do, a broom closet. You would be rendering the Reichskriminalpolizei the greatest assistance . . ."
Brecker's elderly eye traveled over the luggage and came to rest on Charlie, at which point a gleam entered it. "And this is Frau March?"
"Unfortunately, no." March put his hand on Brecker's sleeve and guided him into a corner, where they were watched with suspicion by the elderly receptionist. "This young lady has information of a crucial character, but we wish to interrogate her . . . how shall I put it?"
"In an informal setting?" suggested the old man.
"Precisely!" March pulled out what was left of his life savings and began peeling off notes. "For this 'informal setting' the Kriminalpolizei naturally would wish to reimburse you handsomely."
"I see." Brecker looked at the money and licked his lips. "And since this is a matter of security, no doubt you would prefer it if certain formalities—registration, for example—were dispensed with?"
March stopped counting, pressed the entire roll of notes into the manager's moist hand and closed his fingers around it.
In return for bankrupting himself March was given a kitchen maid's room in the roof, reached from the third floor by a rickety back staircase. They had to wait in the reception for five minutes while the girl was turned out of her home and fresh linen was put on the bed. Herr Brecker's repeated offers to help with their luggage were turned down by March, who also ignored the lascivious looks the old man kept giving Charlie. He did, however, ask for some food—some bread, cheese, ham, fruit, a flask
of black coffee—which the manager promised to bring up personally. March told him to leave it in the corridor.
"It's not the Adlon," said March when he and Charlie were alone. The little room was stifling. All the heat in the hotel seemed to have risen and become trapped beneath the tiles. He climbed on a chair to tug open the attic window and jumped down in a shower of dust.
"Who cares about the Adlon?" She flung her arms around him, kissed him hard on the mouth.
The manager set down the tray of food as instructed outside the door. Climbing the stairs had almost done him in. Through three centimeters of wood, March listened to his ragged breathing and then to his footsteps retreating along the passage. He waited until he was sure the old man had gone before retrieving the tray and setting it on the flimsy dressing table. There was no look on the bedroom door, so he wedged a chair under the handle.
March laid Luther's case on the hard wooden bed and took out his pocket knife.
The lock had been fashioned to withstand exactly this sort of assault. It took five minutes of hacking and twisting, during which he snapped one short blade, before the fastener broke free. He pulled the bag open.
That papery smell again—the odor of a long-sealed filing cabinet or desk drawer, a whiff of typewriter oil. And behind that, something else: something antiseptic, medicinal. . .
Charlie was at his shoulder. He could feel her warm breath on his cheek. "Don't tell me. It's empty."
"No. It's not empty. It's full."
He pulled out his handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his hands. Then he turned the case upside down and shook the contents out onto the bedspread.
Affidavit sworn by Wilhelm Stuckart, State Secretary, Interior Ministry:
[4 pages; typewritten]
On Sunday, December 21, 1941, the Interior Ministry's Adviser on Jewish Affairs, Dr. Bernhard Losener, made an urgent request to see me in private. Dr. Losener arrived at my home in a state of extreme agitation. He informed me that his subordinate, the Assistant Adviser on Racial Affairs, Dr. Werner Feldscher, had heard "from a fully reliable source, a friend" that the one thousand Jews recently evacuated from Berlin had been massacred in the Rumbuli Forest in Poland. He further informed me that his feelings of outrage were sufficient to prevent him from continuing his present employment in the Ministry, and he therefore requested to be transferred to other duties. I replied that I would seek clarification on this matter.
The following day, at my request, I visited Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich in his office in Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. The Obergruppenführer confirmed that Dr. Feldscher's information was correct and pressed me to discover its source, as such breaches of security could not be tolerated. He then dismissed his adjutant from the room and said that he wished to speak to me on a private basis.
He informed me that in July he had been summoned to the Führer's headquarters in East Prussia. The Führer had spoken to him frankly in the following terms: He had decided to resolve the Jewish Question once and for all. The hour had arrived. He could not rely upon his successors having the necessary will or the military power he now commanded. He was not afraid of the consequences. People presently revered the French Revolution, but who now remembered the thousands of innocents who had died? Revolutionary times were governed by their own laws. When Germany had won the war, nobody would ask afterward how we did it. Should Germany lose the mortal struggle, at least those who had hoped to profit from the defeat of National Socialism would be wiped out. It was necessary to remove the biological bases of Judaism once and for all. Otherwise the problem would erupt to plague future generations. That was the lesson of history.
Obergruppenführer Heydrich stated further that the necessary powers to enable him to implement this Führer Order had been granted to him by Reichsmarschall Göring on 31.7.41. These matters would be discussed at the forthcoming interdepartmental conference. In the meantime, he urged me to use whatever means I considered necessary to discover the identity of Dr. Feldscher's source. This was a matter of the highest security classification.
I thereupon suggested that, in view of the grave issues involved, it would be appropriate, from a legal point of view, to have the Führer Order placed in writing. Obergruppenführer Heydrich stated that such a course was impossible, due to political considerations, but that if I had any reservations I should take them up with the Führer personally. Obergruppenführer Heydrich concluded our meeting by remarking in a jocular manner that we should have no cause for concern on legalistic grounds, considering that I was the Reich's chief legal draftsman and he was the Reich's chief policeman.
I hereby swear that this is a true record of our conversation, based upon notes taken by myself that same evening.
Signed, Wilhelm Stuckart (attorney)
Dated June 4, 1942, Berlin
Witnessed, Josef Buhler (attorney)
Across the city the day died. The sun dropped behind the dome of the Great Hall, gilding it like the cupola of a giant mosque. With a hum, the floodlights cut on along the Avenue of Victory and the East-West Axis. The afternoon crowds melted, dissolved, re-formed as nighttime queues outside the cinemas and restaurants, while above the Tiergarten, lost in the gloom, an airship droned.
Reich Ministry for Foreign Affairs Secret State Document
Dispatch from German Ambassador in London, Herbert von Dirksen
Account of conversations with Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, United States Ambassador to Great Britain
[Extracts; two pages, printed]
Received Berlin, June 13, 1938
Although he did not know Germany, [Ambassador Kennedy] had learned from the most varied sources that the present government had done great things for Germany and that the Germans were satisfied and enjoying good living conditions.
The ambassador then touched upon the Jewish question and stated that it was naturally of great importance to German-American relations. In this connection it was not so much the fact that we wanted to get rid of the Jews that was harmful to us, but rather the loud clamor with which we accompanied this purpose. He himself understood our Jewish policy completely; he was from Boston, and there, in one golf club and in other clubs, no Jews had been admitted for the past fifty years.
Received Berlin, October 18, 1938
Today, too, as during former conversations, Kennedy mentioned that very strong anti-Semitic tendencies existed in the United States and that a large portion of the population had an understanding of the German attitude toward the Jews. From his whole personality, I believe he would get on very well with the Führer.
"We can't do this alone."
"We must."
"Please. Let me take them to the embassy. They could smuggle them out through the diplomatic bag."
"No!"
"You can't be certain he betrayed us—"
"Who else could it be? And look at this. Do you really think American diplomats would want to touch it?"
"But if we're caught with it... it's a death warrant!"
"I have a plan."
"A good one?"
"It had better be."
Central Construction Office, Auschwitz, to German Equipment Works, Auschwitz, March 31, 1943
Re your letter of March 24, 1943
[Excerpt]
In reply to your letter, the three airtight towers are to be built in accordance with the order of January 18, 1943, for Bw 30B and 3C, in the same dimensions and in the same manner as the towers already delivered.
We take this occasion to refer to another order of March 6, 1943, for the delivery of a gas door 100/192 for corpse cellar I of crematory III, Bw 30A, which is to be built in the manner and according to the same measure as the cellar door of the opposite crematory II, with peephole of double 8-millimeter glass encased in rubber. This order is to be viewed as especially urgent. . .
Not far from the hotel, north of Unter den Linden, was an all-night pharmacy. It was owned, as all businesses were, by Germans, but it was run by Romanians—the only people poor enough and willing enough to work such hours. It was stocked like a bazaar, with cooking pans, paraffin heaters, stockings, baby food, greeting cards, stationery, toys, film... Among Berlin's swollen population of guest workers it did a brisk trade.
They entered separately. At one counter Charlie spoke to the elderly woman assistant, who promptly disappeared into a back room and returned with an assortment of bottles. At another March bought a school exercise book, two sheets of thick brown paper, two sheets of gift wrap paper and a roll of clear tape.