A Man Without Breath (22 page)

‘That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.’

‘And what about Sergeant Kuhr? Does he have any information pertinent to this other inquiry?’

‘No sir.’

‘But if he did have any useful information would you be recommending that the court spares his life, too?’

‘I suppose I would. Information – good information – is rather difficult to come by in any police inquiry. A lot of the time we rely on informers, but they’re thin on the ground in wartime. Over the years I’ve developed a nose for when a man has a story to tell. I think Corporal Hermichen is just such a man. I’m not saying that he doesn’t deserve to be punished – what happened was bestial, truly bestial. I just happen to believe that perhaps sparing one man might result in the apprehension of another equally bestial criminal. Amid so much death and so much killing, a murder is very easy to get away with in this part of the world. That bothers me. It bothers me a lot. I think that if we take our time here and act judiciously we can throw a stone and hit two birds instead of one.’

‘That sort of thing may pass for proper procedure at Berlin Alexanderplatz,’ said Von Kluge. ‘But the Wehrmacht High Command does not enter into negotiations with rapists and murderers. According to you we should spare the corporal because he has some important information; but we should also convict the sergeant who isn’t fortunate enough to have any such useful information – information that it ought to have been the corporal’s duty as a German soldier to share with his superiors long before now. I like Corporal Hermichen even less now that you’ve told me this, Gunther. He strikes me as a very untrustworthy sort of fellow. You surely can’t expect my court to make a deal with a man like that.’

‘I would like to solve that crime sir,’ I said.

‘I appreciate your professional zeal, captain. But surely the field police are dealing with that crime? Or the Gestapo? It’s what they’re for.’

‘Lieutenant Voss of the field police is a good man, sir. But it’s my information that there are still no suspects.’

‘Isn’t it possible that the corporal and the sergeant also murdered these two other fellows? Have you thought of that?’

Patiently I explained all of the facts, and why I thought Kuhr and Hermichen were innocent of those earlier crimes – not least the fact that both men had cast-iron alibis for the night in question – but the field marshal wasn’t having any of this.

‘The trouble with you detective fellows,’ he said, ‘is that you place too much emphasis on fancy notions like alibis. When you’ve handled as many military courts as I have you soon get to know all of the common soldier’s tricks and to understand just what they’re capable of. They’re all liars, Gunther. All of them. Alibis mean nothing in the German army. The ordinary Fritz in uniform will lie for his comrade just as soon as you or I would fart. Playing skat in the mess here until two o’ clock? No, I’m afraid it just won’t do. From what you’ve told me about the bayonet and the motorcycle, it seems perfectly obvious that you’ve already got the two most likely perpetrators for that crime, too.’

I glanced at Dyakov, but Dyakov pursed his lips and shook his head discreetly, and it was then plain to me that there was little point in arguing with Von Kluge. All the same I tried.

‘But sir …’

‘No buts, Gunther. We’ll try ’em both in the morning. And hang the bastards after lunch.’

I nodded curtly and then got up to leave.

‘Oh, and Gunther, I’d like you to prosecute, if you wouldn’t mind.’

‘I’m not a lawyer, sir. I’m not sure I know how.’

‘I’m aware of that.’

‘Couldn’t Judge Conrad do it?’

Johannes Conrad was the bureau judge that Goldsche had already dispatched to Smolensk. Since his arrival, he and Gerhard Buhtz – a professor of forensic medicine from Berlin – had been kicking their heels waiting for more evidence of a massacre.

‘Judge Conrad is going to judge the case, with me and General von Tresckow. Look, I’m not asking you to cross-examine them, or anything like that. You can leave that to me. Just lay the facts and the evidence before the court – for appearances’ sake – and we’ll do the rest. You must have done that before, when you were a police commissar.’

‘Might I ask who’s going to defend the men?’

‘This isn’t meant to be an adversarial process,’ said Von Kluge. ‘It’s a court of inquiry. Their guilt or innocence isn’t to be determined by advocacy but by the facts. Still, perhaps you’re right – under the circumstances someone ought to speak for them. I’ll appoint an officer from my own staff to give them a fair shake. Von Tresckow’s adjutant, Lieutenant von Schlabrendorff. He trained as a lawyer, I think. Interesting fellow, Von Schlabrendorff – his mother’s the great-greatgranddaughter of Wilhelm the first, the Elector of Hesse, which means that he’s related to the present king of Great Britain.’

‘I could do it more effectively, sir. Defend the men. Instead of prosecuting them. I’d feel more comfortable doing that. After all, it will give me another chance of arguing for clemency on behalf of Corporal Hermichen.’

‘No, no, no,’ he said, testily. ‘I’ve given you a job to do. Now damn well do it. That’s an order.’

Saturday, March 27th 1943

The trial of Sergeant Kuhr and Corporal Hermichen took place the following morning at the army Kommandatura in Smolensk, which was less than a kilometre north of the prison. Outside the air had turned to the colour of lead and it was obvious that snow was on the way, which most people agreed was a good thing, as it meant the temperature was starting to climb.

Judge Conrad took the role of presiding judge with Field Marshal von Kluge and General von Tresckow assisting; Lieutenant von Schlabrendorff spoke for the accused; and I presented the facts that were ranged against them. But before proceedings commenced I spoke to Hermichen briefly and urged him to tell me anything he knew about the murders of the two telephonists.

‘In return I’ll inform the court that you have given the field police some important information that might lead to the arrest of another criminal,’ I said. ‘Which might weigh well with them – enough to show you some leniency.’

‘I told you, sir. When I know I’m off the hook I’ll tell you everything.’

‘That isn’t going to happen.’

‘Then I’ll have to take my chances.’

The hearing – it was hardly a trial – took less than an hour. I knew it was within my remit to press for a verdict and a sentence, but in the event I did neither, as I had little appetite for urging upon the court the execution of a man I suspected could solve a crime. About Sergeant Kuhr I felt more ambivalent. But there was another factor, too. Before the Nazis, I had strongly believed in capital punishment. Every cop in Berlin had believed in that. In my time at the Alex I had even attended a few executions, and while I took no satisfaction in the sight of a murderer being led kicking and screaming to the guillotine, yet I felt justice had been served and the victims had been properly avenged. Since Operation Barbarossa and the invasion of the Soviet Union, I had come to think that every German had played some part in a crime greater than had ever been seen in any courtroom, and to that extent I felt less than comfortable with the whole hypocrisy of prosecuting two soldiers for doing what an SS man from any police battalion would have considered to be all in a day’s work.

To his credit, Von Schlabrendorff spoke well for the accused men, and the three judges actually seemed inclined to give his words some weight before they retired to consider their verdict. But it didn’t take the trio long before they were back in the courtroom and Judge Conrad was pronouncing a sentence of death, to be carried out at once.

As the men were led away, Hermichen turned and called to me:

‘Looks like you were right, sir.’

‘I’m sorry about that. Really I am.’

‘Are you coming to see the show?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Perhaps I’ll tell you what you want to know just before they put the noose around my neck,’ said Hermichen. ‘Perhaps.’

‘Forget it,’ I said. ‘I won’t be there.’

But I knew I would be, of course.

*

It was cold in the prison yard. Snow was falling gently from the breathless sky as if thousands of tiny Alpine paratroopers were taking part in some huge airborne invasion of the Soviet Union. It silently covered the crossbar of the gallows, turning its simple dark geometry into something almost benign, like a length of cotton wool on the Christmas crib in a quiet country church, or a layer of cream on a Black Forest cake. The two ropes that were curled underneath the icing-sugared beam might have been decorative, while below these tenantless holes in the air, the little flight of precarious wooden steps that led the way to pendulous death looked like something that had been provided by a more thoughtful soul, as if some child might have had need of them to reach a sink to wash its hands.

In spite of what was about to happen it was hard not to think of children. The prison was surrounded by Russian schools – one on Feldstrasse, one on Kiewerstrasse and one on Krasnyistrasse – and as I’d parked my car outside the prison a snowball fight had been in progress and the sound of their playing and laughter now filled the freezing air like a flight of emigrating birds. For the two men who were awaiting their fate that carefree sound must have provoked a painful memory of happier times. Even I found it depressing, reminding me as it did of someone I’d once been and wouldn’t be again.

Those of us who had assembled to see the sentence carried
out – myself, Colonel Ahrens, Judge Conrad, Lieutenant von Schlabrendorff, Lieutenant Voss, several non-commissioned members of the field police, and some army prison guards – put out our cigarettes respectfully as two men approached the gallows. We relaxed a little as we realized they were only prison guards and watched as they began to push and pull at the beams as if testing the frame’s strength until, satisfied that the wooden edifice would perform its function, one of them lifted a thumb in the direction of the prison door. There was a short interval and then the two condemned men emerged with their hands tied in front of them and walked slowly towards the gallows, looking to one side and then the other in a sort of helpless, cornered way as if searching for a means of escape or some sign that they had been reprieved. They were wearing boots and breeches, but no tunics, and their white collarless shirts were almost too bright to contemplate.

Seeing me, Corporal Hermichen smiled and mouthed a greeting, and thinking he now meant to tell me what I wanted to know, I moved closer to the gallows where the guards were already urging the two men up the wooden steps. Reluctantly they complied and the steps wobbled ominously.

Sergeant Kuhr looked up at the noose as if wondering if it was equal to the business of hanging him, and now that I was nearer I could see it was a fair question, as the rope was little more than a length of striped cord, like something that might have been used to hang a Christmas decoration – it hardly looked strong enough to hang a fully-grown man.

‘Picked a nice fucking day for it,’ he said. And then: ‘All this fuss over a bit of Ivan cunt. Incredible.’ He bowed his head for a moment as the executioner lassoed it and tightened the rope under his left ear. ‘Hurry up, I’m getting cold.’

‘Be a lot warmer where you’re going,’ said the executioner, and the sergeant laughed.

‘Won’t be sorry to leave this godforsaken place,’ he said.

‘So you came after all,’ Hermichen said to me.

‘Yes.’

‘I knew you would.’ He grinned. ‘You can’t afford to risk it can you? The possibility that I might say who really killed those two telephonists. Our German friend on the motorcycle. With the razor-sharp bayonet. We saw him you know. That night.’ Hermichen opened his hands and then clasped them tightly again. ‘I’ve been thinking of him a lot. They’d hang him too if he was caught.’

‘That’s always a possibility,’ I said.

‘Aye, but the thing is, I’m not in favour of hanging anyone, for obvious reasons.’

‘There’s not much time,’ I said.

‘Talk about stating the fucking obvious,’ snarled Sergeant Kuhr.

Overcoming a powerful sense of shame, I remained where I was as the executioner pulled the noose over Hermichen’s head. Just by being there it seemed as if I was actively assisting in a degrading act of human wickedness no less cruel or violent than that meted out to the two Russian women the pair had raped and murdered. Two more deaths in this terrible place seemed hardly to matter, and yet – I asked myself – when would the killing stop? There seemed to be no end to it.

‘Please, corporal,’ I said. ‘I urge you to tell me. For the sake of those two dead comrades.’

‘More to them than met the eye, too. Least that’s what people say.’

I swallowed hard, almost as if it had been me with the
noose around my neck, drew a deep breath and pushed my chin toward my shoulder. I felt the bones and gristle of my own vertebrae crunch like a mouthful of Brazil nuts. It was good to be alive – to draw breath. Sometimes you had to be reminded of that.

‘Surely you wouldn’t want their murderer to go unpunished; or worse, to go to your own death suspected of having killed them yourself.’

‘Can’t see it matters much either way,’ said Sergeant Kuhr. ‘Not to us, eh Erich?’ He laughed.

Hermichen lifted his hands and wiped some snowflakes from his hair and face with scrupulous care. ‘He’s got a point,’ he said.

The executioner dismounted the steps, checked the knots of the ropes tied to the uprights, and contemplated the terrible sight in front of him. He looked at me and then back at the two condemned men, whereupon he placed his shiny black boot on the steps their lives were resting on. ‘Say what you want to say,’ the executioner told them roughly. ‘And hurry up about it. Haven’t got all day.’

‘I changed my mind,’ said Hermichen. ‘I’ve got nothing to say after all.’ And with that he closed his eyes and began to pray.

‘That’s the spirit,’ said Sergeant Kuhr. ‘Fuck ’em. Fuck ’em all.’

The executioner glanced over at Judge Conrad, who was nominally in charge of the execution. He was a stern-looking man who wore horn-rimmed glasses, but all the same, he’d seen enough for one day and he took them off and tucked them into the pocket of his greatcoat; then he nodded curtly. For his sake I hoped he was now seeing a blur of what was happening. He was a thoroughly decent man and I didn’t
blame him for the sentence, not in the least; he had done his duty and given his verdict on the basis of the evidence.