‘What is the highest limit?’ asked Mattinger.
‘There’s no all-purpose answer to that, but in any case it must not be excessive.’
‘Thank you very much, Dr Schwan. And now we come to the real subject of these questions. Are you familiar with the Hans Meyer file?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Let’s go through it in detail. In 1944, Italian partisans detonate a bomb in a Genoese café. Two German soldiers are killed in the explosion. According to the criteria you have listed, would that be an attack?’
‘Yes.’
‘After the attack on the café, the security service tried to find the partisans responsible. They could not be tracked down. Would you say that this condition, one of those you mentioned, was met?’
‘Yes, I would.’
‘On orders from his superiors, Hans Meyer had twenty partisans shot. The ratio was one to ten. Was that too high, or was it legitimate?’
‘I can’t give you a definitive answer to that, but it would probably have to be regarded as legitimate.’
‘But,’ said Mattinger, ‘the courts forbade the shooting of women and children, am I right?’
‘Yes. That was never legitimate. In all these cases, only the perpetrators of an attack were considered guilty.’
‘In this case, according to the file, only grown men were killed in reprisal. The youngest was twenty-four years old. Did international law justify that too?’
‘Yes.’
‘To the best of your knowledge, were the men tortured before execution, in order to get information from them – which of course was also forbidden?’
‘No. There is no evidence of that in the file.’
‘Was news of the shooting of the partisans made publicly known?’ asked Mattinger.
‘The file contains reports of it from three local newspapers. That ought to satisfy the basic principles of international law.’
Mattinger turned to the court. ‘In other words, all the criteria that the witness has named were met.’ He took off his glasses and put the file in front of him aside. ‘Dr Schwan, were any legal proceedings ever taken against Hans Meyer?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes?’ Mattinger acted as if he were surprised. ‘The public prosecutor’s office actually investigated Hans Meyer?’
‘Yes, the public prosecutor’s office in Stuttgart.’
‘When was that?’
‘From 1968 to 1969.’
‘And was Hans Meyer found guilty?’
‘No.’
‘No?… Was he charged?’
‘No.’
‘Was he even questioned?’
‘No.’
‘Ah, I see.’ Mattinger half turned on his chair to the spectators’ and press benches. ‘He wasn’t even questioned… that’s interesting. So although the public prosecutor’s office in Stuttgart initiated proceedings against Hans Meyer because of these accusations, although there were investigations and a file was drawn up, he was neither charged nor condemned. We have just heard that Hans Meyer fulfilled all the criteria for a legitimate shooting of hostages. Hence my last question, Dr Schwan: what happened to the proceedings against Hans Meyer?’
‘They were discontinued.’
‘That is so, the proceedings were discontinued,’ said Mattinger. ‘On 7 July 1969 the public prosecutor’s office in Stuttgart dropped its investigations into Hans Meyer.’
‘That’s correct.’ The expert witness glanced at Leinen as if for support. Almost imperceptibly, he nodded.
‘Thank you, Dr Schwan.’ Mattinger turned to the court. ‘I have no more questions for the witness.’ He had won: Hans Meyer was no longer a murderer. Mattinger smiled.
‘We will adjourn now for lunch,’ said the presiding judge.
Leinen turned to Collini, whose head was bowed. His hands lay heavy in his lap. The big man had been shedding tears.
It had taken Mattinger only two hours to kill Collini’s father for the second time.
‘It’s not over yet,’ said Leinen. Collini did not react.
Outside the courtroom, Mattinger was answering questions from the press. Leinen passed him on his way out. There were reporters standing on the pavement, and one of them briefly pursued him, but Leinen ignored the man. He stopped in a side street, let his briefcase drop and leaned back against the wall of a building. He was having trouble getting rid of the cramp in his thigh. Then he walked past a side building of the courthouse complex, making for the little park. He saw a memorial plaque that he had never noticed before on the high brick wall in Wilsnackerstrasse: ‘Madness alone was lord of all this land.’ It was a line from the Moabit Sonnets of Albrecht Haushofer, who had written the poem in prison before the Nazis shot him in 1945. Leinen went through the entrance in the wall into a tiny park that had once been pressed into use as a cemetery. The city had put up a tall concrete memorial bearing the words: ‘They died in combat, in air raid shelters, out in search of the necessities of life, shot through the back of the neck, or by their own hand.’ He sat down on a bench. Three hundred people who had died in the final days of the war lay here, an improbable resting place in the middle of the city.
Leinen couldn’t imagine what the war had been like. His father had told him about the cold, about sickness and dirt, about soldiers with icicles clinging to them, deprivation, death and fear. He himself had seen countless films, had read books and essays. The Third Reich had been discussed at school in connection with almost every subject; many of his teachers had studied in the 1960s and wanted to do better than their parents. But ultimately it was all just a distant world. Leinen closed his eyes and tried to relax.
When everyone was back in the courtroom just after two in the afternoon, the presiding judge said, ‘The court has no questions for the expert witness. Senior public prosecutor, do you have any questions?’ Reimers shook his head. She turned to Leinen. ‘Counsel for the defence…?’
The clock on the wall above the spectators said 2.06. The spectators, the journalists, the judges, the public prosecutor, Mattinger and the expert witness were all looking at Leinen, waiting. Light fell through the tall yellow windows, and was reflected on the presiding judge’s glasses. Dust motes hovered in the air. A car horn hooted out in the street.
The presiding judge said, ‘Obviously the defence has no questions to ask either. Does anyone want to apply for the expert witness to be put on oath? No? Good. Can the expert witness be discharged?’ Reimers and Mattinger nodded. ‘Then thank you for appearing at short notice, Dr Schwan, and—’
‘Yes, I do still have a few questions,’ Leinen interrupted, raising his voice. Mattinger opened his mouth, but said nothing.
‘Rather late in the day, Herr Leinen. But go on, please.’ The presiding judge was annoyed.
Leinen’s voice had changed; there was no softness in it now. ‘Dr Schwan, can you tell us who laid charges against Hans Meyer?’
‘It was your client, Fabrizio Collini.’
One of the judges raised his head suddenly. No one had known that. Mattinger’s face paled.
‘When did the public prosecutor’s office discontinue its investigation?’ asked Leinen.
The expert witness leafed through her files. ‘On 7 July 1969. Fabrizio Collini received notice of the decision to discontinue the investigation on 21 July 1969.’
‘Just to make it perfectly clear: we are now speaking of the discontinuation of the proceedings about which Herr Mattinger was asking you before we adjourned at midday?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did the public prosecutor’s office in Stuttgart discontinue proceedings against Hans Meyer because the shooting of the partisans was legitimate?’
‘No.’
‘Really? No?’ Leinen raised his voice. It reflected the surprise of everyone in the courtroom. Everyone but him. ‘But that is what you have just told us.’