The Blood Flag (21 page)

We walked along the pristine sidewalk and looked at the old buildings. I looked at the map where I had outlined the course and turned to go down toward where the old Bürgerbräukeller was. “To think of Hitler walking in there—do you know how he did it?”

“Did what?”

“Started this whole march. This
putsch
.”

“No, no idea.”

“They met in that massive beer hall often, giving speeches, inciting people, getting his brown shirts to intimidate people. All the stuff we've heard about. It wasn't a huge deal, but it was noted. So on November 8th, 1923, he decided to make his play. He had his brown shirts bar or chain the doors closed. Three thousand people in the Bürgerbräukeller. He had it ringed inside by six hundred of his storm troopers. He fired a pistol into the air and jumped onto a table to announce the time for the revolution had come. I don't know if you've ever seen any of his speeches, but he was mesmerizing. Almost didn't matter what he was saying. He got people worked up.
He
got worked up. He told them it was time to stop putting up with what had happened to them! They had been stabbed in the back! The German people had been betrayed by the immigrants, and Jews, Bolsheviks, and traitors! The conditions were because of them! And the weak government surrendered their honor in the war! He told them it was time to take action. To take things into their own hands. And within that group of three thousand people, each had something against somebody that they wrote into his speech in their own minds.

“They weren't sure what to do. They had the energy, the anger, but nowhere to go. So Ludendorff, this old timer from WWI yells, ‘We march!' And they headed for the Bavarian Defense Ministry. Two thousand men, some armed, some in Nazi uniforms, the about-to-be famous Blood Flag, and off they went.”

“Okay, here we are.” I stopped and pointed at the buildings around. “Bürgerbräukeller would have been behind us. They came down this street, two thousand strong, many armed, yelling, screaming for the overthrow of the corrupt government of Bavaria, and the beginning of a German-wide revolt.

“But one man wasn't going to have it—a German state police officer, senior lieutenant Baron Michael von Godin. He blocked the Odeonsplatz—the city square—with a hundred soldiers. The Nazis kept coming, threatening. Finally someone opened fire.”

We stopped. “Right about here.”

We surveyed the beautiful Odeonsplatz, imagining the confusion and anger that filled it ninety years ago.

“Then?” she asked, imagining the whole story. I pulled up pictures of the people involved on my iPad.

“Four state police and sixteen Nazis were killed. And several Nazis fell on the flag. Right here,” I said pointing down. “The one who bled the most on the flag was Jens Friedl. Hitler and Göring were both injured. Göring was shot in the groin. Most fled after people started falling. Pandemonium.”

We walked on another eight hundred yards and stopped. “Check this out,” I said, studying a map I'd called up on my iPad. After Hitler came to power, he made the walk from the Bürgerbräukeller to the Odeonsplatz, a holy walk. To ‘honor' the Nazi martyrs and the
putsch
. He even posted guards here, like honor guards, for years, to honor the walk where they were shot. Check this out.”

I pointed to the Feldherrenhalle, the ornate, Italian-style building at the end of the Odeonsplatz. “That building was the background for the fight. It was where Hitler put up the monument to the dead Nazi martyrs of the
putsch
. Right there at the base of the building. And posted SS guards in front of it, who had to be saluted by everyone who passed.

“But not all Germans were so deferential. Thousands walked around to the back of the building, through a small street, rather than pass in front and do the Nazi salute. Come over here. There's supposed to be a bronzed brick path.”

We turned the corner and found Viscardigasse. We stopped and looked at the stones of the narrow street. “Here,” she pointed. There was an eighteen-inch path of bronzed stones in the middle of the street representing the path people took to avoid honoring the memorial.

“They called this Drückeberger Gaßl
.
Shirker's Alley. Like they were shirking their duty to the Nazis.”

Alex looked around and studied it all. “This is amazing. It seems so long ago. Munich looks so normal, so beautiful.” She knelt down and felt the bronzed stones and contemplated. “But why not more? Why not most? If most had refused, resisted, walked around the Nazis, Hitler never would have succeeded.”

I nodded. “One of the great questions of history. I think we're wrong though if we assume it couldn't happen anywhere else.”

My phone buzzed. It was a text from Patrick.

“What is it?” she asked, standing.

“They found the grave.”

We agreed to meet Patrick and Florian at the graveyard at 10:00 p.m. The streets were quiet. It was a cool evening and the stars were hidden by a thin overcast. They were waiting for us when we got there. Both were wearing dark clothing; an intuitive decision by amateur grave robbers.

Florian spoke quietly, “This way.” He headed down a sidewalk then turned down an alley. The buildings came right up to the streets and some overhung the pavement. We walked in silence. I resisted the temptation to look behind us.

We went a quarter of a mile and Florian stopped when there was an area to our right with no buildings. There was no light. Florian said, “This is it. Very old graveyard.”

From the edge of the cemetery I could make out some large gravestones with crosses, casting ominous shadows from the minimal moonlight penetrating the wispy clouds. I turned on my small LED flashlight. I was ready to go look. “It's unmarked?”

Florian indicated for me to come closer and put my flashlight on a piece of paper he unfolded. It was a map of the cemetery. “Patrick thinks he knows where it is.”

Patrick leaned in and touched the paper. “There are several unmarked graves in this graveyard. They are numbered though, of course!” he said smiling.

“And you have the list?”

“Of course. We have access.”

“Let's go.”

Florian folded the paper and turned toward the graveyard. There was an iron fence with a sidewalk passing through an opening in the fence, but no gate. The fence was black iron, probably eight feet high with freshly painted ornate curved tops. The sidewalk was well maintained. As we followed Florian, I said quietly, “Is there a caretaker, a night guard?”

“No. They have weekly maintenance, mostly gardeners, but this cemetery is full. There are no open spaces. Nothing happens here; no need for security.” Alex touched my arm and pointed. There was one large gravestone that had a top that was shaped like a World War I helmet with a spike on it. I nodded and looked for other distinctive markings. There was no pattern, but there was a notable lack of religious symbols. There were a few crosses, but not many, and no Stars of David. The trees were old and thick and contributed to the darkness and the spookiness. It was probably five acres that got deeper and wider the farther in we went. I had assumed another street would be on the other side in a hundred feet or so, but that was not the case. There were no buildings at the far end of the cemetery, but rather a field or meadow.

Florian and Patrick walked on, glancing at headstones for orientation. It was hard to see in the dark, but Florian used his own flashlight to compare what he was finding to the diagram he'd brought. There were actually two cemeteries with the same name. One old, one new. Friedl's grave was supposed to be in the “new” one; new meaning less than two hundred years old. We crossed other sidewalks that led to different areas of the cemetery, which were divided into numbered sections.

Florian looked around, and shined his flashlight onto the large headstone in front of us, just on the other side of a fork in the sidewalk. We approached slowly. The headstone appeared even larger as we got closer. I put my flashlight beam on it and walked directly up to it. Patrick and I started rubbing dust and dirt off the stone, to see if there was anything readable. It was very readable. You could see four-inch tall letters that had been chiseled into the mahogany colored marble. FRIEDL. There were four names, including Jens. I stared at the lettering. I said to Patrick quietly, “I thought you said it was supposed to be unmarked.”

“It
was.
Looks like the family had a different idea.” He studied the stone. “They're all buried here,” he said. “The father, the mother, Friedl himself, and it looks like his . . . probably his sister.”

Alex came up behind me. “How will we know which skeleton is Jens's?”

Florian heard her question. “Maybe we can tell from the caskets. If not,” he said staring at the names on the marble, “we'll have to take all of them.”

“That sure complicates things,” I added.

I examined the surroundings. It was as remote as you could be in a city cemetery. There were no buildings or apartments that overlooked this area of the cemetery. We could work here at night without being seen. Whether we'd be heard was a different question. I looked at Patrick. “Any chance a police officer might walk through here at night?”

“Not likely,” he replied.

I walked around behind the large stone, then to the sides. I knelt down and felt the dirt. Not too hard. I stood. “Let's go find somewhere to talk about how we're going to get this done.”

We started walking out of the cemetery. Alex walked beside me and said quietly, “I still don't understand what exactly you have in mind.”

“You'll see.”

The four of us sat at a table in a busy restaurant with red-checkered tablecloths. Patrick ordered a pitcher of beer and some French fries. The restaurant was full and loud with people laughing and drinking all around us. No one was paying any attention to us.

Alex asked, “Okay. Let's hear it. How do we do this?”

I drank my beer deeply. “If we can get blood off the flag, and dig up Friedl, we can compare the DNA. But the trick is to make this all look like Jedediah's idea. Because the person we're trying to persuade is Eidhalt. If we bring Jedediah over here with the flag, we can get the testing done. But how do we get Jedediah to dig up Friedl so Eidhalt knows what is happening? If he just gives him DNA samples, Eidhalt will think the whole thing is fake. Anybody can phony up DNA test results. Anybody can make it look real, but it has to
be
real. The funny thing is, we're not even
trying
to fake it. We have the real stuff.”

I looked up at Florian. A thought had just occurred to me. “You said that somebody from the Verfassungsschutz was asking around.” I said softly, “Any chance we can make him believe
we're
on the other side? His side?”

Alex said, “That would mean that Jedediah would have to tell this guy what he has right now.”

I nodded. “We're there already. Jedediah has to dig up this grave. It's time to make our play. We just have to make sure our plan is thought through. We have more moving parts than I had expected.” I looked at the others. “I think we have Jedediah tell Eidhalt he has the flag, and he's going to authenticate it. And he wants Eidhalt involved in the entire thing, so he
knows
. So he
sees.
”

Alex got it. “We can get Jedediah to say whatever we want him to say. Give him a good backstory. I'm still adding background to your new existence, and by now I don't think anyone could find any flaws.”

“Good.”

Alex said, “You'll have to get an iron cross tattooed on your throat though.”

“Very funny. I don't think so. I just don't know if we'll be able to sell it.” I said to Florian, “What do you think? If your Verfassungsschutz guy is with them, can you make him believe you're sympathetic? That you're ready to help the neos penetrate the BKA?”

Florian looked at Patrick and frowned. “I doubt it. I don't have any history like that. He wouldn't believe me. I've done my own checking on him. It will be quite a game of what I think you call cat and mouse. He will wonder where my sympathies are, and I will try to feel him out. I don't know if he's actually involved with them. I just know some in his organization are. He may be where we are, trying to root them out. And if he thinks we're sympathetic, he may do what he can to have us arrested. I'm not sure how to go about this.”

“Refer him to me,” I said. “He can't have me arrested. I'll tell him what I'm thinking, and feel him out.”

Patrick, who had been mostly quiet, looked at Florian and then said, “Not too sure about that. I think we should leave him out of it.”

I could feel his hesitancy. I said, “What if we assume he is with them, but that he's interested in us from an official position? We pretend like his interest is appropriate and we then proceed to tell him what we want him to know.”

“Which is what? What do we tell him about you? What about Jedediah?” Florian asked.

I said, “You tell him that you've been following Jedediah, that you've heard about this meeting with Eidhalt, and that Jedediah not only has the Blood Flag but has money. That he's being funded by a reclusive American rancher who has picked the Southern Volk as the neo-Nazi group to back. That he's giving them millions of dollars and is building their following all over the country. That he's thinking big, and they now have the Blood Flag. That he's ready to pay to have the best DNA testing in the world done to prove this flag is authentic, and is ready to unite their energy with other groups from around the world, and Germany is their first public step.”

Florian smiled, “And you are the rancher?”

I nodded and smiled back. “That's me.”

Patrick put up his hand. “Wait, if we don't know you, if you're his financier, how do we know what we know. What is our role?”