Thomas, on leave, confirmed this diagnosis: “I told you what you did was stupid. Anyone who is anybody is in Poland.” For now, he added, he couldn’t do much for me. Schellenberg was the star of the day, Heydrich’s protégé, and Schellenberg didn’t like me, he thought I was uptight. As for Ohlendorf, my other support, he was having enough difficulties with his own position to be able to think about me. Maybe I should go see my father’s former directors. But everyone was a little busy.
In the end, it was Thomas who started things going for me again. After Poland, he had gone to Yugoslavia and Greece, from which he returned a Hauptsturmführer, decorated many times over. He always wore a uniform now, as elegantly tailored as his suits had been before. In May 1941, he invited me to dine at Horcher’s, a famous restaurant on the Lutherstrasse. “It’s my treat,” he declared, laughing loudly. He ordered some Champagne and we drank to victory: “Sieg Heil!” Past victories and victories yet to come, he added; had I heard about Russia? “I’ve heard rumors,” I acknowledged, “but that’s all.” He smiled: “We’re attacking. Next month.” He paused to give the news all its weight. “Good God,” I finally let out. “There is no God. There’s just Adolf Hitler, our Führer, and the invincible power of the German Reich. We are in the process of amassing the largest army in the history of humanity. We will crush them in a few weeks.” We drank. “Listen,” he finally said. “The Chief is forming several Einsatzgruppen to accompany the assault troops from the Wehrmacht. Special units, as in Poland. I have reason to believe that he would positively welcome any talented young SS officer who would volunteer for this Einsatz.”—“I’ve already tried to volunteer. For France. They refused.”—“They won’t refuse this time.”—“What about you, are you going there?” He gently swirled the Champagne in his glass. “Of course. I’ve been posted to one of the Gruppenstäbe. Each Group will direct several Kommandos. I’m sure you could land a slot in one of the Kommandostäbe.”—“And what exactly is the purpose of these Groups?” He smiled: “I told you: special actions. SP and SD work, the security of the troops to the rear, intelligence, things like that. Keeping an eye on the military, too. They were a little difficult, in Poland, a little old-fashioned; we don’t want that to happen again. You want to think about it?” Does it surprise you that I didn’t even hesitate? What Thomas was suggesting seemed only reasonable to me, even exciting. Put yourself in my place. What man of sane mind could ever have imagined that they’d pick jurists to assassinate people without a trial? My ideas were clear and strong and I scarcely gave it a thought before replying: “No need. I’m bored to death here in Berlin. If you can get me in, I’ll go.” He smiled again: “I always said you were a good guy, that you could be counted on. You’ll see, we’re going to have fun.” I laughed with pleasure and we drank some more Champagne. Thus does the devil expand his kingdom.
But I couldn’t know that yet in Lemberg. Night was falling when Thomas came to pull me out of my daydreams. I could still hear some isolated gunshots, over toward the boulevard, but things seemed to have generally calmed down. “Are you coming? Or do you want to stay there gaping at the crows?”—“What’s Aktion Petliura?” I asked him.—“It’s what you saw in the street. Where did you hear about that?” I ignored his question: “Are you really the ones that started this pogrom?”—“Let’s just say we didn’t try to prevent it. We put up a few notices. But I don’t think the Ukrainians needed us to start. You haven’t seen the OUN posters? You welcomed Stalin with flowers, we will hand your heads to Hitler as a welcome. They came up with that one all by themselves.”—“I see. Are we going there on foot?”—“It’s right nearby.” The restaurant was in a narrow street behind the main boulevard. The door was locked; when Thomas knocked, it opened a little, then opened wide onto a dark, candlelit interior. “For Germans only,” Thomas smiled. “Ah, Professor, hello.” The officers from the Abwehr were already there; aside from them, there was no one else. I immediately recognized the taller of the two, the one Thomas had saluted, a distinguished man, still young, whose little brown eyes sparkled in the midst of a large oval face, relaxed, open. He wore his dark hair a little too long, curled up at the sides in a very un-military way. I shook his hand: “Professor Oberländer. It’s a pleasure to see you again.” He stared at me: “We know each other?”—“We were introduced a few years ago, after one of your lectures at the University of Berlin. By Dr. Reinhard Höhn, my professor.”—“Oh, you were a student of Höhn’s! Wonderful.”—“My friend Dr. Aue is one of the rising stars of the SD,” Thomas slipped in maliciously.—“If he’s a student of Höhn’s, that doesn’t surprise me. It sometimes seems as if the entire SD has passed through his hands.” He turned to his colleague: “But I haven’t introduced you yet to Hauptmann Weber, my adjunct.” Both of them, I noticed, wore the badge embossed with a nightingale that I had seen that afternoon on the arms of certain soldiers. “Excuse my ignorance,” I asked while we sat down, “but what is that insignia?”—“It’s the symbol of the Nachtigall,” Weber replied, “a special battalion of the Abwehr, recruited from the Ukrainian nationalists of western Galicia.”—“Professor Oberländer commands the Nachtigall. So we’re rivals,” Thomas interrupted.—“You exaggerate, Hauptsturmführer.”—“Not really. You came with Bandera in tow, we brought Melnyk and the Berlin committee.” The discussion suddenly became lively. We were served some wine. “Bandera might be useful to us,” Oberländer affirmed.—“In what way?” Thomas retorted. “His men are uncontrollable, they make proclamations all over the place, without consulting anyone.” He raised his arms: “
Independence! That’s a nice one.”—“You think Melnyk would do better?”—“Melnyk is a reasonable man. He wants the support of Europe, not terror. He’s a politician, he’s ready to work with us on the long term, and that leaves us more options.”—“Maybe, but the street doesn’t listen to him.”—“Rabid idiots! If they don’t calm down, we’ll bring them to heel.” We drank. The wine was good, a little rough but rich. “Where does it come from?” Weber asked, tapping his glass.—“That? The Carpathians, I think,” Thomas replied.—“You know,” Oberländer went on blithely, “the OUN successfully resisted the Soviets for two full years. It wouldn’t be so easy to eliminate them. It’s better to try to co-opt them and channel their energy. Bandera, at least, they’ll listen to. He saw Stetsko today and it went very well.”—“Who is Stetsko?” I asked. Thomas answered ironically: “Jaroslav Stetsko is the new prime minister of a so-called independent Ukraine that we haven’t authorized.”—“If we play our cards right,” Oberländer went on, “they’ll quickly back down.” Thomas reacted sharply: “Who? Bandera? He’s a terrorist, and he’ll always be a terrorist. He has the soul of a terrorist. That’s why all those maniacs adore him, too.” He turned to me: “You know where the Abwehr found this Bandera? In prison!”—“In Warsaw,” Oberländer added, smiling. “He was actually serving a sentence for assassinating a Polish government minister, in 1934. But I don’t see any harm in that.” Thomas turned back to him: “I’m simply saying he’s uncontrollable. You’ll see. He’s a fanatic, he dreams of a Great Ukraine from the Carpathians to the Don River. He takes himself for the reincarnation of Dmitri Donskoy. At least Melnyk is a realist. And he also has a lot of support. All the old-time militants look up to him.”—“Yes, but that’s just the trouble: not the young. And you’ll have to admit that on the Jewish question he isn’t very motivated.” Thomas shrugged: “We can take care of that without him. In any case, historically, the OUN has never been anti-Semitic. It’s only thanks to Stalin that they’ve moved somewhat in that direction.”—“That may be true,” Weber quietly acknowledged. “But still there is a basis, in the historical link between the Jews and the Polish landowners.” The dishes arrived: roast duck stuffed with apples, with mashed potatoes and braised beets. Thomas served us. “Capital,” Weber said.—“Yes, excellent,” Oberländer approved. “Is this a specialty of the region?”—“Yes,” Thomas explained between mouthfuls. “The duck is prepared with marjoram and garlic. Usually it’s served with a soup made with duck blood as an appetizer, but today they couldn’t.”—“Excuse me,” I interrupted. “Your Nachtigall men, where do they fit in all this?” Oberländer finished chewing and wiped his lips before responding: “With them it’s another thing entirely. It’s the Ruthenian spirit, if you like. Ideologically—and even personally for the oldest of them—they come from a national unit of the old Imperial army that was called the Ukrainski Sichovi Striltsi, the Ukrainian Sich Rifles, you could say, a Cossack reference. After the war, they stayed here and a lot of them fought under Petliura against the Reds, and a little against us, too, in 1918. The OUN don’t like them much. In a way they’re more autonomists than separatists.”—“Like the Bulbovitsi, too,” Weber added. He looked at me: “They haven’t shown their faces yet, in Lutsk?”—“Not to my knowledge. More Ukrainians?”—“Volhynians,” Oberländer corrected. “A self-defense group that started up against the Poles. Since ’thirty-nine they’ve been fighting against the Soviets, and it could be interesting if we came to an agreement with them. But I think they keep more toward Rovno, and farther up, in the Pripet marshes.” Everyone had started eating again. “What I don’t understand,” Oberländer at last went on, pointing his fork at us, “is why the Bolsheviks repressed the Poles but not the Jews. As Weber said, they’ve always been closely associated.”—“I think the answer is obvious,” Thomas said. “Stalinist power is dominated by the Jews in any case. When the Bolsheviks occupied the region, they took the place of the Polish gentry, but maintained the same configuration—that is, they continued to depend on the Jews to exploit the Ukrainian peasantry. Hence the legitimate anger of the people, as you could witness today.” Weber hiccupped into his glass; Oberländer chuckled dryly. “The legitimate anger of the people. That’s going a bit far, Hauptsturmführer.” He had settled back in his chair and was tapping the table edge with his knife. “That’s good for the onlookers. For our allies, for the Americans maybe. But you know as well as I do how that justified anger is organized.” Thomas smiled amiably: “At least, Professor, it has the merit of involving the population psychologically. Afterward, they can only applaud the introduction of our measures.”—“That’s true, I have to admit.” The waitress cleared the table. “Coffee?” Thomas asked.—“With pleasure. But quickly, we still have work to do tonight.” Thomas offered cigarettes around while the coffee was served. “Whatever the case,” Oberländer commented, leaning toward the lighter Thomas held out, “I’ll be very curious about what we find when we cross the Sbruch.”—“And why is that?” asked Thomas, lighting Weber’s cigarette.—“You’ve read my book? On rural overpopulation in Poland.”—“Unfortunately not, sorry.” Oberländer turned to me: “But I imagine you have, with Höhn.”—“Of course.”—“Good. Well, if my theories are correct, I think that once we arrive in Ukraine proper we’ll find a rich peasantry there.”—“How’s that?” Thomas asked.—“Thanks precisely to Stalin’s policies. In a dozen years, twenty-five million smallholdings have become two hundred fifty thousand large-scale farms. The de-kulakization, I believe, especially the planned famine of 1932, was an attempt to find the point of equilibrium between the space available for the extraction of edible resources and the consumer population. I have reason to believe that they succeeded.”—“And what if they failed?”—“Then it would be up to us to succeed.” Weber made a sign to him and he finished his coffee. “Gentlemen,” he said, getting up and clicking his heels, “thank you for the pleasant evening. What do we owe?”—“Don’t bother,” Thomas said as he too got up, “it’s a pleasure.”—“It’s our treat next time, then.”—“Fine. In Kiev or Moscow?” Everyone laughed and shook hands. “My greetings to Dr. Rasch,” Oberländer said. “We used to see a lot of each other, in Königsberg. I hope he’ll have time to join us, one of these evenings.” The two men went out and Thomas sat back down: “You’ll have a Cognac? It’s on the Group.”—“With pleasure.” Thomas ordered. “Say, you speak good Ukrainian,” I said to him.—“Oh. In Poland, I learned some Polish; it’s almost the same thing.” The Cognacs came and we clinked glasses. “Tell me—what was he insinuating, about the pogrom?” Thomas took a while to answer. Finally he made up his mind: “But,” he said carefully, “you keep this to yourself. You know that in Poland we had quite a few problems with the military. Especially about our special methods. Those gentlemen had objections of a moral kind. They thought you can make omelettes without breaking eggs. This time around, we took measures to avoid misunderstandings: the Chief and Schellenberg negotiated precise agreements with the Wehrmacht; they explained that to you, in Pretzsch.” I nodded and he continued: “But still, we want to keep them from changing their minds. And for that, the pogroms have a huge advantage: they show the Wehrmacht that if the SS and the Sicherheitspolizei have their hands tied, there’ll be chaos in their rear zone. And if there is one thing a soldier fears more than ‘dishonor,’ as they say, it’s disorder. Three more days like this and they’ll come begging us to do our work: clean, discreet, efficient, no fuss.”—“And Oberländer suspects as much.”—“Oh, that doesn’t disturb him at all. He simply wants to be sure that we’ll let him continue his little political intrigues. But,” he added smiling, “we will control him too when the time comes.”