The Führer Must Die Read online

  He was panicking, which was perfectly fine so long as he was the first one to do so. He would, of course, have to convince Brandt and Nolte that they were in no danger; that would be the only way to remain above suspicion. That could be a problem though because Nolte wasn’t stupid. Nebe peered out the window at the moon. It wasn’t there.

  “Almost full, what is it. … Two days past?”

  Brandt reached for a pocket calendar but Nebe stopped him.

  “No, you keep digging.”

  Nolte got up and went to check the wall calendar.

  “It’s November 10th.”

  Nolte tore off two sheets and squinted at the phases of the moon in the upper right hand corner.

  “No. A week past, full moon was on the third.”

  “Shame. Less to explain if it had happened on a full moon,” Nebe said.

  Nolte’s face was indignant, which gave him a dowager’s prissiness …

  “This wasn’t a loon.”

  Nebe murmured evasively …

  “Even so, there was that attempt last year, that Swiss theology student.”

  The Gestapo had asked him his name and then cut off his head. No one had needed any theories about it. Nebe expounded.

  “No one had been interested because he was just another ditsy amateur who had waded into a crowd with a little shit pistol. This attempt however is too good, too scary to live with. So, there must be some ironic trick interpretation that says that in some sense it doesn’t really count.”

  “You read too much.”

  Nolte was pushing, but Nebe was feeling philosophical.

  “Those might be the truest words you’ve ever said.”

  Brandt had no idea what they were talking about. Nolte, though, always felt the need to flaunt. …

  “Was that… Hegel?”

  Nebe shook his head. …

  “Kierkegaard’s The Concept of Irony.”

  Nolte conceded.

  “So, why are you a cop?”

  Nebe smiled,

  “Because I’m a sadist.”

  At least that part was true. He had all of the classic German books on flagellation: thousands and thousands of pages just classifying different kinds of asses. It was the most boring shit imaginable. Nebe turned to watch Brandt playing hammer and chisel. He’d keep at it until he hemorrhaged or someone told him to stop.

  “How’re you doing?”

  “My knees hurt. …”

  There was a childlike whine in Brant’s voice, brought on by the childish game. The man was pathetic. Nebe smiled at him.

  “Good.”

  Brandt continued to dig away at the empty air then asked hopefully:

  “Can I try this sitting down?”

  Nebe was magnanimous.

  “Of course you can.”

  Brandt’s face lifted.

  “May I?”

  Nebe nodded. …

  “Yes, actually it’s an order.”

  Brandt sat down and began to claw the air double time.

  “Much more comfortable; I’d have done it this way.”

  “Shit! He wouldn’t have!”

  Nolte said and he stood up and paced the center of the room intent on imposing his deductive superiority.

  “Yeah? Why not?”

  Brandt breathed out heavily. Nolte elaborated. …

  “He would’ve had to hold his arms out straight, and they’d have tired far more quickly. If he had worked on his knees, he’d have been able to use some of the strength of his legs. We are talking about long, hard work, even for a strong man. Days, weeks … He could only work a few hours a night while the place was closed.”

  Nebe gave Nolte a paternal smile he had theretofore been unable to find a use for. He flicked his eyes to Brandt. The man was still hammering at the air; teeth gritted and sweat dribbling off the end of his nose.

  “You can stop now.”

  Brandt got up, brushing himself off and looking peeved. Nebe inspected his two assistants.

  “Either of you ever seen a scrubwoman’s knees?”

  “No, thank God!” Nolte said.

  “What if he had used a pillow?” Brandt asked.

  Nebe pulled up Brandt’s pant leg demonstratively; Nolte raised an eyebrow noting the redness even after such a short time. Nebe smiled.

  “They’d still be calloused, and if not, they’d be scarred. Come on gentlemen, maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  And they set off for the holding pens in the second subbasement.

  They got the political prisoners out of the tank and into a ragged formation in the corridor; lining them up against the bars of the cages. These were faces out of a political cartoon: Lenin beards and Bakunin haircuts, watery pleading eyes and chinless quivering mouths. There were a surprising number of round-lensed spectacles with gold-wire frames. These were men who knew what they were and they were trying hard to look like it. Nebe smiled at them; he liked stupid people. There was one demented character in a WWI cavalry uniform. He was standing stiffly erect, which couldn’t have been easy; the heels of his boots were so worn they were almost perpendicular to the floor. There were also several normal-looking people, either pros or there by mistake. Nebe held up his hands.

  “Everybody drop your pants. Yeah, I think I’m in love. Drop your pants!”

  He said that doing his best Jimmy Cagney imitation. He loved American gangster movies.

  They all dropped their trousers, shuffling and humiliated as his eyes ran along the line of knees. Knees like eggs, knees like goat skulls, knees scalloped with knobs of tendon. There was one without a kneecap. The leg was stiff. That let him off. Then Nebe’s eyes stopped on a set of knees that were heavily scabbed. He looked up slowly to meet the wonderful smile of Georg Elser. Nebe found himself smiling too.

  “Nothing personal …”

  After having said that he wondered what he had meant by it.

  “Alright … Solitary, suicide watch, continuous surveillance.”

  Two turnkeys shooed the other prisoners back into the pens and then lifted Georg by the elbows and carried him away.

  “Don’t you want to question him now?”

  Brandt suggested, tactfully. How could he possibly realise that, no, obviously Nebe did not want to question him at that moment.

  “Let the day crew get the background. They need the experience.”

  “But if he confesses, they’ll take the credit.”

  Brandt was trying too hard to be helpful. Nebe would have loved nothing more than for someone else to come along and take the glory! He could even protest over the head of the Gruppenführer and, maybe, be forced into early retirement. That would be beautiful. He didn’t say any of that, of course.

  “We caught him, it’s our case. At ease. You’re dismissed, momentarily. We’ll meet you upstairs.”

  Then Nebe and Nolte went up the narrow backstairs to the property room. It had a window like a post office, facing the corridor, and the clerk was as nondescript as any postal employee. Nebe was feeling his oats.

  “What did he have on him?”

  “Who?”

  The clerk’s question was stoically non-judgmental and Nebe suddenly realized he had forgotten to get the name, but Nolte magically produced the identification. The property clerk handed over a large manila envelope with Georg’s belongings inside. They dumped them on the ledge in front of the window and Nebe poked through them, scowling professionally. There were some lovingly machined little metal parts, one that looked very much like a trigger; the inevitable family pictures, too retouched and faded even to be used as identification, nothing more than the echo of a life trying valiantly to be forgotten. Nolte picked up the dog-eared play with a haughty scoff.

  “What do you bet he’s a communist?”

  But Nebe’s attention was drawn to the postcard of Hitler orating at the BürgerBräuKeller. In the picture, there were the two pillars behind the podium, almost obscured by a huge Nazi flag. The pillars went up through both floors, though the b
alcony to the roof. On the right-hand pillar, just above the floor of the balcony, a circle had been drawn in pencil. The pencil mark had faded; it had been drawn months, maybe years before. He showed it to Nolte and they both smirked. It was over. Extracting the names of accomplices was simply a matter of technique and it was a technique that always worked.

  “And that is that …”

  Nebe said it with almost with post-coital languor and turned to begin a triumphant saunter back to the squad room. Nolte hadn’t moved. Nebe noticed and took it as an invitation for a lecture.

  “Just routine police work,”

  Nebe was waving the postcard.

  “Not like the movies. Filmmakers love ingenuity because they want to believe that there is an easier way to solve a problem than hard work.”

  Nolte was looking embarrassed and patient, so Nebe stopped talking.

  “Von Eberstein will be delighted.”

  Nolte was suggesting, with the low cunning that defined him, that they call the Munich Polizei Prasident immediately. Nolte was playing the same role as Brandt: trying to wheedle him away from making obvious mistakes. Clearly they had no idea just how useful such obvious mistakes could be when manipulated properly. Normally, they were never that interested. They both must have been very scared.

  “When we’re ready; when we can actually answer the questions obvious enough even for him to have thought of.”

  Insulting a mutual superior was supposed to imply camaraderie, but Nolte still looked worried in a motherly way. Nebe turned and started walking with Nolte one step to the right and two steps behind.

  Von Eberstein was a political appointee, always undesirable. Worse, the man was married to a Jewess, but being of the nobility he was absolutely untouchable. It was in the worst possible bad taste to even mention it. Still, it did indicate a chronic other-worldliness. The man could not be relied upon for anything, except of course that he wouldn’t take responsibility for the case unless he was convinced that it had already been solved. Perhaps that was the answer: convince him that the case was solved, have him take full credit, and then watch it blow up in his face. Entertaining!

  NOVEMBER 11TH, 1939

  THEY ASSEMBLED IN NEBE’S OFFICE. Nebe sat down behind his desk and began to reorganize his paperwork, reassuring himself with a familiar ritual. Brandt was standing at attention again and Nolte was playing with his brass knuckles. As with all such tools, the Nazis had made improvements. These were made of aluminum so your pocket wouldn’t sag and had spiked teeth like a cross-cut saw. Nolte fondled them with his fingertips. He looked back and forth between the Führer’s portrait and a mug shot of Georg Elser that had been tacked to the corkboard. His intentions were easy to recognize. Nebe actually considered slapping his hands with the ruler.

  “I know how you feel; but I don’t care,” Nebe said. “I want to see some self-control around here.”

  Nolte slipped the brass knuckles into his pocket with a practiced gesture, screwed up his mouth, and squeezed it shut. He lowered his chin to look up at Nebe from under his eyebrows, as sad and vulnerable as a woman who had just made a sexual decision. The man wasn’t homosexual, at least not exactly, just narcissistic to the point of insanity. Clearly he had had an idea that he was impressed with. Nebe sighed and looked bored.

  “It’s a British conspiracy,” said Nolte. Nebe started to ask a question but Nolte was still talking. “On the radio … just this morning … the attempt was exposed as a British conspiracy. The problem is that we have no information on that. Even if he could give us precise descriptions of British agents we wouldn’t be able to recognize them. We can’t ask him to identify faces from photographs in a file because we don’t have any. This case must be given to the Gestapo!” It made perfect sense. As usual, Nolte was showing off his intelligence in a situation where the only real defense was to act stupid. “Unless, of course, the Führer believes the Gestapo is somehow involved.”

  Nebe nodded slightly, very slightly. It was a viable attempt to maintain plausible deniability. He meant agreement but could insist that it was just acknowledgment that he had understood what had been said. “Why don’t you use that imagination in trying to do your job instead of trying to get out of it?”

  Nolte nodded back, his face closed; he was mentally consulting train schedules to Switzerland. Nebe wasn’t the only one trying to discover a way out while it was still a possibility.

  Brandt began to read aloud from a small manual the size of a pocket date book. It was titled Physical Methods of Interrogation. “If you are going to gouge an eye, do it slowly, taking care not to damage the optic nerve. Then you can leave the eyeball dangling down the cheek still functioning. The brain will be unable to make sense out of the contradictory images.”

  “It’s a common problem,” said Nebe. “In fact, you may have just described the human condition.” He reached for a manual of his own, its authority only slightly impaired by having his place marked with a beer coaster. He flapped it open and began to read: “The interrogation of the guilty party is of great importance for the uncovering of wide spread conspiracies.” He closed the book gently. “I don’t want to have to call Berlin to tell them that we killed our only source of information in an excess of enthusiasm. Heil Hitler!” He had spoken slowly and carefully as though he were testing the mental clarity of a man suffering from a nasty head wound.

  “Heil Hitler, Herr OberStürmbannFüher.” Nolte had used Nebe’s SS rank, even more bad taste.

  Nebe pointed an accusatory finger. “If I believe that you are endangering the prisoner’s life, I will personally put a bullet through your head. Are there any questions?”

  “No, not really,” said Nolte.

  “Strange that he hasn’t tried to commit suicide,” said Brandt, cheerfully.

  “The investigation is still young!” said Nolte and they were all smiling, they were a team again and Nebe beamed a Christmassy approval to his apprentices.

  Several hours had passed while background info was sought out and sifted through. The men’s faces had the studied inscrutability that can only be cultivated by years of routine.

  “So now,” said Nebe, “what do we have?”

  Brandt was eager to please. “I called the Gestapo. It turns out that they do have a file on Georg Elser. He voted communist in 1933.”

  Brandt stopped talking but Nebe peered at him expectantly. “And?”

  Brandt shrugged. “And nothing … He’s a worker; a carpenter. Our contact at Gestapo said that they couldn’t have had anything interesting on him or he would have gone in the purification of 1936. They’re sending the file by telex. There are some snap shots and things, miscellaneous documents. They’re being sent by courier. They won’t get here till tomorrow around noon.”

  “Their office is ten blocks away,” Nolte said, helpfully.

  Nebe shook his head, “If they were eager to help, then I’d be worried, or at least more worried. It means there’s nothing more we can do tonight. Change of orders: No one else is to talk to him. Let him sweat, wondering how much we know.” Nebe stood up and pulled down his vest. It had a tendency to ride up.

  “You want to call von Eberstein?” Nolte persisted.

  “Yes, I suppose.” He picked up the phone and called the Munich police chief. It was late but the Polizei Prasident answered at once and listened for only a few moments before interrupting Nebe’s summary of the police work. Nebe listened in silence, not answering the Prasident’s rhetorical questions, waiting for the opportunity to offer his resignation, but there was nothing specific to object to. The Prasident claimed to know everything, but what he knew was unclear. It was almost like Nebe was hearing a playback of his own thoughts, dominant amongst them was the underlying dread—why wouldn’t the Gestapo take it out of their hands? Von Eberstein’s ranting had the tone of a proclamation, recounting events so momentous that the details were irrelevant; there was no pretext for a reply. The Prasident raved on and on; he seemed to be able to keep talking on
the inhale. There was a pause for effect before the next rhetorical question and Nebe leapt into it, offering his resignation. The Prasident ignored him.

  The Prasident was still talking; the investigation had degenerated into a romantic search for extenuating complications. Nebe was ignoring the obvious and looking for subtleties where there weren’t any in an attempt to make the obvious mean something different than it did. It was impossible to know what he was talking about; he didn’t say, but his intentions were clear: in case anything went wrong, he wanted it on record that he had objected to the conduct of the investigation from the start. Incredibly, the Prasident had paused for a breath.

  “I’m scared too,” said Nebe and it was the stupidest thing he could have said. The entire theory of interrogation was based upon the premise of keeping the man talking. It didn’t matter where you started or how many digressions were made, sooner or later he had to talk about the one thing on his mind. But now the Prasident was on guard and his language became truly evasive, relying heavily on the rhetorical device known as invited inference, as though the truth were so obvious that it would be embarrassing to state it clearly. Everything was suggested, but if anything had actually been said, Nebe had missed it. The only clear message was that when the Prasident had finally stopped talking, he hung up without waiting for a reply.

  Nebe jiggled the receiver until he got the switchboard and called Heinrich Mueller in Berlin. The line was busy. Nebe told the operator to keep trying.

  “And what do we do now?” Brandt asked. Nebe shot the phone with a forefinger but it refused to ring on cue.

  Fifteen minutes later the phone rang and the switchboard girl told him that his call was ready.

  “I was only just now talking to von Eberstein,” said Nebe into the phone, “and I agree completely. It is unthinkable that a German worker would try to kill the Führer. Obviously, it’s the English again. They planted the evidence on him, trying to embarrass us, paying us back for van der Lubbe.”

  Lubbe was the feeble-minded Dutchman who had been framed for the Reichstag fire. The voice on the phone said something that sent Nebe into a coughing fit. It was thirty seconds before he could catch his breath.