‘I can certainly vouch for that,’ he said. ‘Perhaps, under the circumstances, it would be best if this court were postponed for an hour or so, at least until you’ve had a chance to recover your composure, Reichsfuhrer. The discovery of so gross a treason within a forum that is as close to the Reichsführer’s heart as this one will doubtless have come as a profound shock to him. As indeed it has been to us all.’
There was a murmur of agreement at these remarks, and Himmler seemed to regain control of himself. Colouring a little, possibly with some embarrassment, he twitched and nodded curtly.
‘You’re quite right, Heydrich,’ he muttered. ‘A terrible shock. Yes indeed. I must apologize to you, Kommissar. As you say, you merely did your duty. Well done.’ And with that he turned on his not inconsiderable heel and marched smartly out of the room, accompanied by several of his officers.
Heydrich started to smile a slow, curling sort of smile that got no further than the corner of his mouth. Then his eyes found mine and steered me towards the other door. Arthur Nebe followed, leaving the remaining officers to talk loudly among themselves.
‘It’s not many men who live to receive a personal apology from Heinrich Himmler,’ Heydrich said when the three of us were alone in the castle library.
I rubbed my shin painfully. ‘Well, I’m sure I’ll make a note of that in my diary tonight,’ I said. ‘It’s all I’ve ever dreamed of.’
‘Incidentally, you didn’t mention what happened to Kindermann.’
‘Let’s just say that he was shot while trying to escape,’ I said. ‘I’m sure that you of all people must know what I mean.’
‘That’s unfortunate. He could still have been useful to us.’
‘He got what a murderer properly has coming to him. Someone had to. I don’t suppose any of those other bastards will ever get theirs. The SS brotherhood and all that, eh?’ I paused and lit a cigarette. ‘What will happen to them?’
‘You can depend on it that they’re finished in the SS. You heard Himmler say so himself.’
‘Well, how ghastly for them all.’ I turned to Nebe. ‘Come on, Arthur. Will Weisthor get anywhere near a courtroom or a guillotine?’
‘I don’t like it any more than you do,’ he said grimly. ‘But Weisthor is too close to Himmler. He knows too much.’
Heydrich pursed his lips. ‘Otto Rahn, on the other hand, is merely an NCO. I don’t think the Reichsführer would mind if some sort of accident were to befall him.’
I shook my head bitterly.
‘Well, at least there’s an end to their dirty little plot. At least we’ll be spared another pogrom, for a while anyway.’
Heydrich looked uncomfortable now. Nebe got up and looked out of the library window.
‘For Christ’s sake,’ I yelled, ‘you don’t mean to say that it’s going to go ahead?’ Heydrich winced visibly. ‘Look, we all know that the Jews had nothing to do with the murders.’
‘Oh yes,’ he said brightly, ‘that’s certain. And they won’t be blamed, you have my word on it. I can assure you that–’
‘Tell him,’ said Nebe. ‘He deserves to know.’
Heydrich thought for a moment, and then stood up. He pulled a book from off the shelf and examined it negligently.
‘Yes, you’re right, Nebe. I believe he probably does.’
‘Tell me what?’
‘We received a telex before the Court convened this morning,’ said Heydrich. ‘By sheer coincidence, a young Jewish fanatic has made an attempt on the life of a German diplomat in Paris. Apparently he wished to protest against the treatment of Polish Jews in Germany. The Fuhrer has sent his own personal physician to France, but it is not expected that our man will live.
‘As a result, Goebbels is already lobbying the Führer that if this diplomat should die then certain spontaneous expressions of German public outrage be permitted against Jews throughout the Reich.’
‘And you’ll all look the other way, is that it?’
‘I don’t approve of lawlessness,’ said Heydrich.
‘Weisthor gets his pogrom after all. You bastards.’
‘Not a pogrom,’ Heydrich insisted. ‘Looting will not be permitted. Jewish property will merely be destroyed. The police will ensure that there is no plunder. And nothing will be permitted which in any way endangers the security of German life or property.’
‘How can you control a mob?’
‘Directives will be issued. Offenders will be apprehended and dealt with.’
‘Directives?’ I flung my cigarettes against the bookcase. ‘For a mob? That’s a good one.’
‘Every police chief in Germany will receive a telex with guidelines.’
Suddenly I felt very tired. I wanted to go home, to be taken away from all of this. Just talking about such a thing made me feel dirty and dishonest. I had failed. But what was infinitely worse, it didn’t seem as if I’d ever been meant to succeed.
A coincidence, Heydrich had called it. But a meaningful coincidence, according to Jung’s idea? No. It couldn’t be. There was no meaning in anything, anymore.
24
Thursday, 10 November
‘Spontaneous expressions of the German people’s anger’: that was how the radio put it.
I was angry all right, but there was nothing spontaneous about it. I’d had all night to get worked up. A night in which I’d heard windows breaking, and obscene shouts echoing up the street, and smelt the smoke of burning buildings. Shame kept me indoors. But in the morning which came bright and sunny through my curtains I felt I had to go out and take a look for myself.
I don’t suppose I shall ever forget it.
Ever since 1933, a broken window had been something of an occupational hazard for any Jewish business, as synonymous with Nazism as a jackboot, or a swastika. This time, however, it was something altogether different, something much more systematic than the occasional vandalism of a few drunken SA thugs. On this occasion there had occurred a veritable Walpurgisnacht of destruction.
Glass lay everywhere, like the pieces of a huge, icy jigsaw cast down to the earth in a fit of pique by some ill-tempered prince of crystal.
Only a few metres from the front door to my building were a couple of dress shops where I saw a snail’s long, silvery trail rising high above a tailor’s dummy, while a giant spider’s web threatened to envelope another in razor-sharp gossamer.
Further on, at the corner of Kurfurstendamm, I came across an enormous mirror that lay in a hundred pieces, presenting shattered images of myself that ground and cracked underfoot as I picked my way along the street.
For those like Weisthor and Rahn, who believed in some symbolic connection between crystal and some ancient Germanic Christ from which it derived its name, this sight must have seemed exciting enough. But for a glazier it must have looked like a licence to print money, and there were lots of people out sightseeing who said as much.
At the northern end of Fasanenstrasse the synagogue close to the S-Bahn railway was still smouldering, a gutted, blackened ruin of charred beams and burned-out walls. I’m no clairvoyant but I can say that every honest man who saw it was thinking the same thing I was. How many more buildings would end up the same way before Hitler was finished with us?
There were storm-troopers – a couple of truck-loads of them in the next street — and they were testing some more window-panes with their boots. Cautiously deciding to go another way, I was just about to turn back when I heard a voice I half-recognized.
‘Get out of here, you Jewish bastards,’ the young man yelled.
It was Bruno Stahlecker’s fourteen-year-old son Heinrich, dressed up in the uniform of the motorized Hitler Youth. I caught sight of him just as he hurled a large stone through another shop window. He laughed delightedly at his own handiwork and said: ‘Fucking Jews.’ Looking around for the approval of his young comrades he saw me instead.