Germania: A Novel of Nazi Berlin Read online

  “Can I touch her?”

  “Do whatever you consider necessary,” Vogler answered.

  Oppenheimer carefully manipulated the jaw. It barely moved. However, the muscles of the hands were relatively loose.

  “Rigor mortis is not very pronounced. It has only set in partially in the lower half of the body. The murder is therefore probably quite recent; I am guessing around six hours ago. But I could be wrong, as the cold slows down the rigor. The doctors will be able to determine this more precisely. Her wrists are chafed, so she was probably tied up.”

  Oppenheimer stood and looked at the body in its entirety. The young woman’s lower body was precisely aligned with the stone stump of the monument, her legs spread as if in the act of love. The position of the body appeared to have been specifically selected. The perpetrator had spent a lot of time arranging the dead body in this obscene way in front of the monument.

  Oppenheimer suddenly noticed a small, crusted smudge of blood on the inside of one of her legs. He bent down next to the body to see where the blood had come from. The SD man who had brought him here turned away with a shudder. Did he not want to watch a Jew looking up a murder victim’s skirt? Oppenheimer knew that the dead were not sensitive, and he lifted the hem.

  The sight he was faced with instinctively made him jerk back. He instantly understood the SD man’s reaction.

  “Is something wrong?”

  Oppenheimer tried not to vomit. He drew a sharp breath and then reacted as he had used to in similar situations. He pushed his revulsion aside and concentrated on approaching the matter methodically.

  The woman was not wearing any underwear. Her pelvic area was a single massive wound.

  “There is a large injury here. Her genitals have been mutilated, maybe even removed.”

  When Oppenheimer felt he had seen enough, he got up, aware of his surroundings again. Leaves rustled somewhere over his head. While he could just see the outline of the surrounding houses, the body was still enveloped by darkness. Oppenheimer’s mind sorted the facts, while life slowly began to awaken around him.

  Although he couldn’t see any of this through the darkened windows, Oppenheimer sensed some of the residents getting up at this early hour as usual, although they didn’t need to go to work today, shuffling to the bathroom or getting breakfast ready. Others, unaware that something terrible had happened nearby, were still in a blissful slumber, which for once had not been disturbed by an air raid. It was like any other Sunday. The first vehicle clattered past nearby, but the noise faded between the houses’ façades. Not much longer and the churchgoers would arrive for morning prayers. To get to church, they would be heading straight for this square.

  “And what is your conclusion?”

  Vogler’s voice tore Oppenheimer from his thoughts. Two more men had appeared with a stretcher to remove the body. The others shuffled their feet restlessly. Only Vogler stood quite still, staring at Oppenheimer, who cleared his throat in embarrassment. His years of experience helped him to not make a complete fool of himself and to outline his observations in a few brief words.

  “At first glance, I would say that she wasn’t killed here. There is hardly any blood. There are a few little spots underneath her skirt, and some close to the wound, but that’s it. No blood on the ground, no traces of blood in the surrounding area; no, she was killed somewhere else and then brought here. I have never seen a body presented this way. I consider it unlikely that this is a coincidence. This is a public square. The danger of being caught is high. No, gentlemen, the man responsible for this planned it in advance. And he carried out that plan to the letter. Successfully so—otherwise, someone would have noticed him. The only conclusion that can be drawn from this is that we are dealing with an incredibly cold-blooded person here. Only someone with a bestial disposition can mutilate a body as brutally as that and then go on to present it. I don’t hold out much hope of catching the perpetrator. It won’t be easy.”

  * * *

  The siren sounded its protracted howl. That meant full alarm. Oppenheimer automatically started moving, but he was not really bothered by the enemy bombers flying toward the city.

  After he had given his evaluation of the murder case in Oberschöneweide, he was driven back to the city center. Nobody had made the slightest effort to explain the situation he had suddenly found himself in. As soon as the pre-alarm had gone off, the SD man had dropped him off at the Hansa Bridge and had raced off in the car. That didn’t matter, as the Jewish House was just a few hundred meters away.

  Oppenheimer should have been tired after this long night, but his mind was in overdrive. The impressions wouldn’t leave his head.

  As he approached his current dwelling place, he tried to assess the men who had been waiting for him at the site where the body was found. The SS men had worn identical uniforms, so it could be assumed that they were both Hauptsturmführer. But Oppenheimer was unable to say what SS men had to do with a murder case like this.

  In contrast to the two Hauptsturmführer, his SD escorts had more of a reason to be present at a murder site. Officers from the Sicherheitsdienst were quick to arrive at the scene in the case of a serious legal offense, even though this particular organization initially had nothing to do with the criminal police. Early on, the Sicherheitsdienst of the Reich Leader SS were nothing more than the NSDAP party-internal intelligence agency, but when Hitler came to power, the borders between the German state and the National Socialist party apparatus had gotten increasingly blurred. The various NSDAP organizations received ever more responsibilities, so it was just a question of time until the security services, Gestapo, and crime squad were integrated into the newly founded Reichssicherheitshauptamt, the Reich Security Main Office. Regular crime officers no longer had any say. They were lackeys, permitted to act independently only in the case of minor offenses. Serious crimes had to be handled by party members. It was unclear what decided whether a case ended up with the SD or with the Gestapo, due to the general wrangling for responsibilities between the individual party organizations.

  Oppenheimer was so lost in thought that he didn’t even notice the ghostly silence that had settled heavily on his surroundings. He had undergone a decisive change this morning; for the first time in ages, he had felt in control again. For a brief moment, he had once again been Inspector Oppenheimer and not the former civil servant, dismissed from public service because of his Jewish lineage. Suddenly, he wasn’t a victim of Hitler’s despotism but a hunter. And so he didn’t slink through the streets with his head and gaze lowered but instead entered the Jewish House as if it were the most normal thing in the world that he lived here.

  As an air raid sounded, Oppenheimer went downstairs. The residents had converted the cellar into a makeshift bunker. There had been no alternative, as Jews were not allowed into the big high-rise shelters with their meter-thick concrete walls. On account of the head-high wooden beams that had subsequently been wedged into the cellar rooms, Oppenheimer thought it looked like a mining tunnel. Despite all the precautions that had been taken, the measly wooden ceiling would hardly have offered any resistance to an actual bomb hit. Strictly speaking, it would have made more sense to seek shelter out in the open, as there was less danger of being buried by rubble there. As potential public enemies, the Jews had not been allocated any gas masks, nor were they permitted to have a radio in the cellar, not even a wireless one, to monitor what was going on outside.

  When Oppenheimer entered the cellar bunker, the other residents of the Jewish House were already seated: the Bergmanns, the Schlesingers, and Dr. Klein, who was guarding the medicine chest as usual and had his medical bag within reach for emergencies. Old Mr. Schlesinger squinted at Oppenheimer from beneath his steel helmet, a souvenir from the First World War.

  “Is your wife in the factory today?” the old man inquired. “She didn’t come down with us.”

  Oppenheimer was surprised. “That’s news to me. She didn’t mention anything.”

  �
��I told you to check, Schlesinger,” Dr. Klein grumbled from his corner. Clumsily, he pushed his massive body up.

  “Don’t worry, Doctor,” Oppenheimer said. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Oppenheimer was just taking the last few steps up to his flat when he froze. Gas!

  Something was not right. He ran up the remaining steps and flung open the kitchen door.

  He was hit by the stench of gas. Stunned, he took a step back. Inexplicably, the kitchen window was closed. Normally, Lisa made sure it was wide open during air raids so the glass didn’t break from the blast of a detonation.

  Oppenheimer took a deep breath and dived across the room. His efforts to open the window were futile. He was too agitated. Without hesitation, he picked up a bucket of sand from the floor and used it to smash the window.

  Oppenheimer gasped for air at the opening. He had just managed to refill his lungs with oxygen when he saw that the gas was lit on the stove. The kettle was on one of the burners, but someone must have forgotten to turn the gas off underneath.

  In two strides, he reached the stove and switched off the gas. He had barely opened the door to his bedroom when he spotted Lisa. She was lying on the bed, unconscious, fully dressed. Oppenheimer rushed over to the window and wrenched it open.

  Cool air wafted across his face. At the same moment, he heard heavy engines roaring over their house and the shrill whistle of falling bombs.

  It was as if they were caught beneath a freight train. Outside, a deafening inferno was raging. Detonation after detonation. Oppenheimer could clearly see the contours of airplanes pushing themselves in front of the gray clouds. When they were flying this low, not even the antiaircraft guns had any effect. But he had no time to worry about such things. He grabbed Lisa underneath her arms and dragged her to the window. Panicked, he slapped her cheeks.

  Suddenly, she opened her eyes and took a deep breath. Oppenheimer held her tightly, felt her body spasm as she coughed the gas out.

  2

  SUNDAY, MAY 7, 1944

  The Jewish House had emptied over the last few months. This increased the probability of the remaining tenants having to move to new, even more cramped dwellings in the near future. The former residents had disappeared one after the other: window dresser Schwartz, who had constantly sketched drawings and like Oppenheimer was married to an Aryan; the Lewinsky family with their four children; an orthodox Chassidic couple called Jacobi, who had annoyed him terribly with their constant praying; and the distinguished lawyer Dr. Kornblum, who called himself a liberal and showed no sympathy for Reform Judaism or orthodoxy and had to live next to the Jacobis. The mildly proletarian glassblower Franck, who had always had strong reservations about eastern European Jews, had also disappeared. They all left empty spaces in the building following their evacuation by the Gestapo, locked rooms one was not allowed to enter.

  Of course, the word evacuation, the official term used by the authorities for the removal, was just window dressing. This had nothing to do with protecting the Lewinskys or Jacobis from the bombs that pelted down on Berlin. On the contrary. They had been shipped farther east to concentration camps. Oppenheimer’s neighbors had heard the rumors and knew that they were as good as dead. But they refused to give up hope, down to the last minute; even when the Gestapo came to bundle them off into the railway carriages, they wanted to believe that the whispered horrors were exaggerated, that they would somehow manage to survive. The Gestapo would probably be coming to pick up Dr. Klein soon. As his Aryan wife had passed away a week ago, he was no longer under the protection of a mixed marriage. Dr. Klein hoped that, due to his age, he would be taken to Theresienstadt, which was generally considered less terrible. Soon his room would be empty too.

  And now Lisa, too, had almost left a gaping hole in the house under tragic circumstances.

  “I must have forgotten to light the gas under the kettle,” she mumbled dazedly. “All the excitement with Richard … wanted to make some ersatz coffee.”

  “It was a good thing the gas was turned off because of the air raid, Mrs. Oppenheimer; otherwise, things might have ended badly,” said Dr. Klein. He replaced his utensils in his battered medical bag. Oppenheimer looked thoughtfully at the two red Gestapo time cards fixed to the door opposite. “Unfortunately, the Lewinsky family isn’t here anymore. They would have noticed the smell of gas.”

  Dr. Klein scrutinized Lisa, who was sitting at the table. The kettle began to whistle. Oppenheimer had boiled some water on the doctor’s instruction.

  “Right, I think you really need some ersatz now. Or, wait a moment…” Furtively, Dr. Klein fumbled in his medical bag and conjured up some coffee beans. “Here, to get your circulation going again. Better than that old coffee substitute,” he remarked.

  The effect was similar to him having dropped a lump of gold on the table. For a few seconds, Lisa’s accident was forgotten; they were much too busy staring in shock at the coffee beans. Provisions such as meat, eggs, or milk were rationed and were primarily only given to purebloods. Scarce goods like tomatoes or cauliflower were forbidden for Jews. Lisa was the only one in the Jewish House to occasionally receive a few grams of Aryan coffee. It was mainly handed out as special rations after particularly heavy air raids, which was why it soon came to be known as bomb coffee. Despite their stimulating effect, the black beans were clearly an effective means of keeping the population calm.

  While Oppenheimer ground the coffee beans, he considered where the doctor might keep his secret stash. Given his considerable corpulence, there was every reason to assume that he hoarded provisions somewhere, but neither the vigilance of his fellow residents nor the Gestapo’s lootings had unearthed even a single crumb of his supplies.

  “We’ve had numerous departures since I’ve lived here,” Dr. Klein remarked. “This is particularly painful to me as a doctor. You understand, the Hippocratic oath and all that. On the other hand, I can understand someone in our situation taking death into their own hands. But it shouldn’t happen by accident.”

  He winked meaningfully at Lisa. Was he trying to imply that she had turned the gas on intentionally to kill herself? Oppenheimer was not sure.

  Lisa ignored the doctor’s insinuations and sipped from the steaming cup that Oppenheimer had placed in front of her.

  “I’m much better,” she mumbled. “We need new sand for the firebombs; Richard poured it out. And Schlesinger has to do something about the broken windowpane.”

  When she made a move to get up, Klein placed his hand on her shoulder. “You must rest now, Mrs. Oppenheimer. I’ll inform Old Schlesinger. You’d best stay here, Mr. Oppenheimer.”

  A telltale glimmer appeared in his eyes. Oppenheimer understood. “Do you need to”—he searched for the right words—“report the incident?”

  “If our caretaker doesn’t ask, then I won’t have to lie. But don’t be surprised by your next gas bill. If I were you, I wouldn’t question it.”

  After the doctor had taken his leave, Oppenheimer awkwardly placed his arm around Lisa. He felt guilty toward her; it was only because of him that she was in this situation. But Oppenheimer was not only plagued by guilt. Fear had crept into their love over the last few years. Oppenheimer knew that this situation wasn’t new to Lisa; she had always worried about him. After all, during his time with the police, he had often dealt with dubious characters. But ever since the first bombings began and put Lisa’s life in constant danger, too, Oppenheimer could appreciate what she had gone through all those years. When they weren’t together, there was always the fear that something might have happened to the other one.

  “Where were you?” she asked.

  “It was nothing. A murder investigation, routine stuff,” Oppenheimer reassured her.

  “But you’re not with the crime squad anymore.”

  “I don’t really know what they want. Me, of all people. It’s completely mad, but it seems like the SS needs me as an advisor.”

  The mention of the SS made Lisa shudder. Panic
flared up in her eyes.

  “It could have been worse.” Oppenheimer tried to allay her fears. “They let me go again after all.”

  “You’ve got to go to ground,” Lisa urged him, “immediately. You can’t stay here tonight; otherwise, they’ll catch you.”

  “They won’t come again.”

  “You can’t be sure of that. Go to Hilde. I have to go and see the Hinrichs later anyway. I promised Eva I would come by.”

  “You heard what Dr. Klein said,” Oppenheimer reasoned. “You shouldn’t go to the Hinrichs’; you need to rest. I can’t leave you alone now. After all, I don’t need to visit Hilde every Sunday.”

  Lisa shook her head. “You don’t understand. She’s helped us before. She should do something for you. You said she has connections. She knows people underground. It’s too dangerous if the SS is already turning up. You have to disappear!”

  At first, Oppenheimer was reluctant, but he had to admit that Lisa was right. Hilde was his only hope. “All right, maybe it is possible to organize something. But it’s not necessary.”

  “Richard, promise me you’ll disappear?”

  Oppenheimer mumbled something incomprehensible. He hated when Lisa made him promise something. It was her way of giving orders.

  It felt good to escape the Jewish House at the weekend. Although Oppenheimer and Lisa had a harmonious marriage, being confined to their accommodations was a test of their resilience. This was the reason why over time they had each gotten into the habit of doing their own thing on Sunday afternoons. Lisa rarely accompanied Oppenheimer when he visited Hilde. He knew that a different wife would probably not have allowed him to meet, unobserved, with another woman every Sunday. Even though Lisa had never been the jealous type, it was striking how relaxed she was about it all. Oppenheimer could only speculate about the reasons. Maybe it was because Hilde was a good ten years older than he, and Lisa didn’t see her as a rival. Maybe the fact that she could be certain he was safe also played a role. Hilde had repeatedly proved that she could be counted on.