I thereupon suggested that, in view of the grave issues involved, it would be appropriate, from a legal point of view, to have the Fuhrer Order placed in writing. Obergruppenfuhrer 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 Fuhrer personally. Obergruppenfuhrer 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 4 June 1942, Berlin
WITNESSED, Josef Buhler (attorney)
FIVE
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 in along the Avenue of Victory and the East-West Axis. The afternoon crowds melted, dissolved, re-formed as night-time 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, 13 June 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 enjoyed 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 clamour 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, 18 October 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 Fuhrer.
“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, 31 MARCH 1943
Your letter of 24 March 1943 [Excerpt]
In reply to your letter, the three airtight towers are to be built in accordance with the order of 18 January 1943, for Bw 30B and 3e, in the same dimensions and in the same manner as the towers already delivered.
We take this occasion to refer to another order of 6 March 1943, for the delivery of a gas door 100/192 for corpse cellar I of crematory uI, Bw 30a, which is to be built in the manner and according to the same measure as the cellar door of the opposite crematory u, with peep-hole of double 8 millimetre 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 Rumanians — 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.
They left and walked two blocks to the Friedrich Strasse station where they caught the south-bound U-bahn train. The carriage was packed with the usual Saturday night crowd — lovers holding hands, families off to the illuminations, young men on a drinking spree — and nobody, as far as March could tell, paid them the slightest attention. Nevertheless, he waited until the doors were about to slide shut before he dragged her out on to the platform of the Tempelhof station. A ten-minute journey on a number thirty-five tram brought them to the airport.
Throughout all this they sat in silence.
KRAKAU
18.7.43
[Handwritten]
My dear Kritzinger, Here is the list.
Auschwitz 50.02N 19.11E
Kulmhof 53.20N 18.25E
Blezec 50.12N 23.28E
Treblinka 52.48N 22.20E
Majdanek 51.18N 22.31E
Sobibor 51.33N 23.13E
Heil Hitler!
[Signed]
Buhler [?]
TEMPELHOF was older than the Flughafen Hermann Goering — shabbier, more primitive. The departures terminal had been built before the war and was decorated with pictures of the pioneering days of passenger flight- old Lufthansa Junkers with corrugated fuselages, dashing pilots with goggles and scarves, intrepid women travellers with stout ankles and cloche hats. Innocent days”. March took up a position by the entrance to the terminal and pretended to study the photographs as Charlie approached the car rentals desk.
Suddenly, she was smiling, making apologetic gestures with her hands — playing to perfection the lady in distress.
She had missed the flight, her family was waiting …The rental agent was charmed, and consulted a typed sheet. For a moment, the issue hung in the balance- and then, yes, as it happened, Fraulein, he did have something. Something for someone with eyes as pretty as yours, of course …Your driving licence, please …
She handed it over. It had been issued the previous year in the name of Voss, Magda, aged twenty-four, of Mariendorf, Berlin. It was the licence of the girl murdered on her wedding day five days ago — the licence Max Jaeger had left in his desk, along with all the other papers from the Spandau shootings.
March looked away, forcing himself to study an old aerial photograph of the Tempelhof airfield. BERLIN was painted in huge white letters along the runway. When he glanced back, the agent was entering details of the licence on the rental form, laughing at some witticism of his own.
As a strategy it was not without risk. In the morning, a copy of the rental agreement would be forwarded automatically to the Polizei, and even the Orpo would wonder why a murdered woman was hiring a car. But tomorrow was Sunday, Monday was the Fuhrertag, and by Tuesday -the earliest the Orpo were likely to pull their fingers out of their backsides — March reckoned he and Charlie would either be safe or arrested, or dead.
Ten minutes later, with a final exchange of smiles, she was given the keys to a four-door black Opel, with ten thousand kilometres on the clock. Five minutes after that, March joined her in the parking lot. He navigated while she drove. It was the first time he had seen her behind the wheeclass="underline" another side of her. In the busy traffic she displayed an exaggerated caution which he felt did not come naturally.