A German Requiem

'Then you must allow me to show you something,' he said, and puffed at his cigar vigorously. He blew a large smoke ring into the air above his terrier's head and said, 'Time for a smoke, Lingo,' whereupon, and much to its owner's amusement, the brute leaped up and down, sniffing excitedly at the tobacco-enriched air like the most craven nicotine addict. 'That's a neat trick,' I smiled.

'Oh, it's no trick,' said K/nig. 'Lingo loves a good cigar almost as much as I do.' He bent down and patted the dog's head. 'Don't you, boy?' The dog barked by way of reply.

'Well, whatever you call it, it's money, not laughs I need right now. At least until I can get back to Berlin. You know it's fortunate you happened to come along. I was sitting here wondering how I might manage to broach the subject of that job with you again.'

'My dear fellow, all in good time. There's someone I want you to meet first. He is the Baron von Bolschwing and he runs a branch of the Austrian League for the United Nations here in Vienna. It's a publishing house called +sterreichischer Verlag. He's an old comrade too, and I know he would be interested to meet a man like yourself.'

I knew K/nig was referring to the SS. 'He wouldn't be associated with this research company of yours, would he?'

'Associated? Yes, associated,' he allowed. 'Accurate information is essential to a man like the Baron.'

I smiled and shook my head wryly. 'What a town this is for saying going-away party when what you really mean is a requiem mass. Your research sounds rather like my imports and exports, Herr K/nig: a fancy ribbon round a rather plain cake.'

'I can't believe that a man who served with the Abwehr could be much of a stranger to these necessary euphemisms, Herr Gunther. However, if you wish me to do so, I will, as the saying goes, uncover my batteries for you. But let us first move away from the bar.' He led me to a quiet table and we sat down.

'The organization of which I am a member is fundamentally an association of German officers, the primary aim and purpose of which is the collection of research excuse me, intelligence as to the threat that the Red Army poses to a free Europe. Although military ranks are seldom used, nevertheless we exist under military discipline and we remain officers and gentlemen. The fight against Communism is a desperate one, and there are times when we must do things we may find unpleasant. But for many old comrades struggling to adjust to civilian life, the satisfaction of continuing to serve in the creation of a new free Germany outweighs such considerations. And there are of course generous rewards.'

It sounded as if K/nig had said these words or their equivalent on a number of other occasions. I was beginning to think that there were more old comrades whose struggle to adjust to civilian life was remedied by the simple expedient of continuing under a form of military discipline than I could guess at. He spoke a lot more, most of which went in one ear and out of the other, and after a while he drained the remainder of his drink and said that if I were interested in his proposition then I should meet the Baron. When I told him that I was very much interested, he nodded satisfiedly and steered me towards the bead curtain.

We came along a corridor and then went up two flights of stairs.

'These are the premises of the hat shop next door,' explained K/nig. 'The owner is a member of our Org, and allows us to use them for recruiting.'

He stopped outside a door and knocked gently. Hearing a shout, he ushered me into a room which was lit only by a lamppost outside. But it was enough to make out the face of the man seated at a desk by the window. Tall, thin, clean-shaven, dark-haired and balding, I judged him to be about forty.

'Sit down, Herr Gunther,' he said and pointed at a chair on the other side of the desk.

I removed the stack of hat-boxes that lay on it while K/nig went over to the window behind the Baron and sat on the deep sill.

'Herr K/nig believes you might make a suitable representative for our company,' said the Baron.

'You mean an agent, don't you?' I said and lit a cigarette.

'If you like,' I saw him smile. 'But before that can happen it's up to me to learn something of your personality and circumstances. To question you in order that we might determine how best to use you.'

'Like a Fragebogen! Yes, I understand.'

'Let's start with your joining the S S,' said the Baron.

I told him all about my service with Kripo and the RSHA, and how I had automatically become an officer in the SS. I explained that I had gone to Minsk as a member of Arthur Nebe's Action Group, but, having no stomach for the murder of women and children, I had asked for a transfer to the front and how instead I had been sent to the Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau. The Baron questioned me closely but politely, and he seemed the perfect Austrian gentleman. Except that there was also about him an air of false modesty, a surreptitious aspect to his gestures and a way of speaking that seemed to indicate something of which any true gentleman might have felt less than proud.

'Tell me about your service with the War Crimes Bureau.'

'This was between January 1942 and February 1944,' I explained. 'I had the rank of Oberleutnant conducting investigations into both Russian and German atrocities.'

'And where was this, exactly?'

'I was based in Berlin, in Blumeshof, across from the War Ministry. From time to time I was required to work in the field. Specifically in the Crimea and the Ukraine. Later on, in August 1943, the OKW moved its offices to Torgau because of the bombing.'

The Baron smiled a supercilious smile and shook his head. 'Forgive me,' he said, 'it's just that I had no idea that such an institution had existed within the Wehrmacht.'

'It was no different to what happened within the Prussian Army during the Great War,' I told him. 'There have to be some accepted humanitarian values, even in wartime.'

'I suppose there do,' sighed the Baron, but he did not sound convinced of this.

'All right. Then what happened?'

'With the escalation of the war it became necessary to send all the able-bodied men to the Russian front. I joined General Schorner's northern army in White Russia in February 1944, promoted Hauptmann. I was an Intelligence officer.'

'In the Abwehr?'

'Yes. I spoke a fair bit of Russian by then. Some Polish too. The work was mostly interpreting.'

'And you were finally captured where?'

'K/nigsberg, in East Prussia. April 1945. I was sent to the copper mines in the Urals.'

'Where exactly in the Urals, if you don't mind?'

'Outside Sverdlovsk. That's where I perfected my Russian.'

'Were you questioned by the NKVD?'

'Of course. Many times. They were very interested in anyone who had been an Intelligence officer.'

'And what did you tell them?'

'Frankly, I told them everything I knew. The war was over by that stage and so it didn't seem to matter much. Naturally I left out my previous service with the S S, and my work with the OKW. The SS were taken to a separate camp where they were either shot or persuaded to work for the Soviets in the Free Germany Committee. That seems to be how most of the German People's Police were recruited. And I dare say the Staatspolizei here in Vienna.'

'Quite so.' His tone was testy. 'Do carry on, Herr Gunther.'

'One day a group of us were told that we were to be transferred to Frankfurt an der Oder. This would be in December 1946. They said they were sending us to a rest camp there. As you can imagine we thought that was pretty funny. Well, on the transport train I overheard a couple of the guards say that we were bound for a uranium mine in Saxony. I don't suppose either of them realized I could speak Russian.'

'Can you remember the name of this place?'