Winter, page 37
‘I wouldn’t feel right about that, Peter. Thanks all the same.’
‘Then what will you do?’
Pauli toyed with his wine glass before answering. ‘I’ve been thinking about all the people I’ve got to know at the top of the tree.’
‘Yes, go and see the Führer.’
‘No I couldn’t….’
‘It was a joke, Pauli.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘But how long will it all last, Pauli? These scandals will bring Hitler down. You must have seen those letters from Röhm that the Münchner Post published in March. Are you going to tell me that they were forgeries?’
‘No, Röhm is an unrepentant homosexual. He makes no great secret of it.’
‘And now Vorwärts has a story about a murder plot against Röhm. It sounds like a madhouse. It sounds as if the SA is run by murderers, lunatics and homosexuals. You don’t belong among such people.’
‘You mustn’t believe everything you read in the papers, Peter.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Well, I know one old soldier in Munich who is said to wield influence with Röhm and some other top SA people. I know him well. I’m taking the train tomorrow.’
‘Would I know his name?’
‘No,’ said Pauli and felt guilty, for Peter would have known his name only too well.
‘Him and many more like him’
Pauli Winter had regained contact with Captain Graf when a letter arrived at Berlin Party HQ enclosing a list of books and asking to have them sent to his address in Munich. The clerk who authorized payment for such things queried the order, because the books were so different from the usual official demands by party and SA units. Captain Graf wanted old textbooks issued by the Kaiser’s army. His list included such manuals as Forage and Shelter for Cavalry Horses and Transport Animals Under Active Service Conditions, The Construction and Maintenance of Field Latrines, Parade Orders for Infantry Officers, and Divisional Operations: Test Papers for Staff Officers Under Training.
News about the curious Captain Graf – his old army comrade and Freikorps commander – was always of interest to Pauli Winter. And he couldn’t help noticing that the clerk’s query was answered by an official letter from the SA chief of staff’s office. It said that Captain Graf was engaged on work of great importance and was to be provided with any books and any other materials that he wanted. Even more remarkably, the letter was signed not only by Röhm’s secretary; the chief of staff had scrawled his own signature on it, too.
Pauli had noted the address and, telling Inge only that he had to go to Munich ‘on business’ he caught the sleeper which arrived in Munich’s Hauptbahnhof at eight in the morning.
Pauli was not usually a worrier, but the pressure that he’d been under for the last few months had caused him to add about six kilos to his weight. Pauli was one of those people who nibbled between meals, and ate more and more when under stress. It was this extra weight that made Pauli wear his Tracht: his green loden breeches and decorated jacket had always been too large for him.
Tracht was exactly right for his visit to Bavaria. A man dressed in such local costume was sure of a welcome anywhere in the South. It was the right dress for any activity, for work to wedding. And Pauli – born in Vienna – had an incontestable right to wear it.
When he came out of the Munich railway station, it was a bright, clear morning, with the chilly wind from the Alps that made the Bavarian capital’s weather so unpredictable. Pauli would normally have reported to the Brown House – the former Barlow Palace now used as Party HQ – but news of that would have got back to Brand. Pauli didn’t want that; this was to be a purely private visit; not even Inge knew where he was going. He took a taxicab to Captain Graf’s address. It was in the district of Giesing, one of the former villages that make up the town. At the end of the street were a small bridge and a stream and a couple of old farmhouses, enshadowed now by the big blocks of nineteenth-century apartment buildings. Pauli opened the street door of one such grimy tenement and entered a dark lobby, its walls covered with scratched green tiles. He squeezed past a dozen or more bicycles, which seemed inextricably locked together, and opened doors that gave onto a dimly lit staircase.
He found Graf’s name on one of the two dozen postboxes and then climbed the stairs. He was out of breath when he got to the top – badly out of condition, not as in his army days, when he could run five kilometres before breakfast and enjoy every minute of it. He rang the doorbell and waited. On the other side of the door were voices. There was a long delay. Pauli looked out of the dirty window. From here he could see down into the yard: a row of overfilled rubbish bins and a restless dog.
‘Yes?’ A beautiful young blond man had opened the door in response to the bell. ‘Your name?’ The boy was wearing lederhosen and a Bavarian-style shirt. The SA uniform was now banned.
‘Winter. Oberleutnant Winter. I phoned.’ Too late, he realized that it might have been more appropriate to use his honorary SA rank, but he was still enough of a snob to prefer his army title. And so, judging by the label on the bell, was Hauptmann Graf.
‘The captain is expecting you. Third door on the right. Go in.’
Pauli had always remembered Captain Graf as a man of action, a man he’d marched with and fought alongside, a tough, ruthless and cruel commander who ruled by fear and fought mercilessly. Pauli didn’t expect to see him in this setting.
The large room was lined with books: hundreds, perhaps thousands of them, filling crudely made shelves and piled high on the floor. Graf himself was sitting at an old-fashioned carved desk, with more volumes spread round him. Some of the books were open for reference, and others had pages marked with slips of paper. Before him there was an open loose-leaf book in which he was writing in longhand. From the next room came the sound of a typewriter.
Graf looked at Winter sternly before greeting him. The Tracht that Pauli had chosen to wear was significant. Tracht was worn these days by men and women who believed that South Germany had its own destiny. The costume had become a symbol of patriotism and of traditional country life and of the Nazis who stressed these values so diligently.
‘Winter! Sit down. Move those books from the chair! It’s good to see you again. Coffee or schnapps? Or both?’ Graf was the same ferret-faced little fellow, but his weathered face was wrinkled now and his body was bent. He took off his gold-rimmed spectacles and put them on the desk. He was wearing shiny brown leather high boots and a tight-fitting tunic. After a lifetime of uniforms he felt uncomfortable in anything else.
‘Both,’ said Pauli.
‘Hans!’ Graf yelled. ‘Coffee and my bottle.’ He watched Pauli moving the heavy books in order to sit down. ‘You’re as fat as a pig, Winter. Exercise. You need exercise. Too soft. Everyone’s too damned soft these days.’
‘You’re right, Herr Hauptmann.’
‘Thirty minutes every morning. See that muscle?’ He slapped his own arm and then looked at Pauli again. ‘My God, man, you are flabby. It’s a disgrace.’
‘Yes, Herr Hauptmann. I want your advice. I know you’re a busy man.’
‘Do you? “Busy man”. What else do you know?’
‘The Chief of Staff has given instructions that you are to be sent anything you ask for.’
‘Yes, I know. I got him on the phone. I won’t have some little shit of a clerk questioning my instructions. Did you kick his ass?’
‘He doesn’t work for me,’ said Pauli. ‘I’m in the legal department.’
‘Ha!’ said Graf. ‘Yes, I phoned the boss direct; I’ve known Röhm since he was a child. I could tell you some stories – I won’t, but I could. I sentenced him to ten days in the cells. He was a cadet in those days. This is going back a long time, of course.’
The coffee and schnapps arrived on a teak tray complete with a linen traycloth and polished silver spoons and cream jug. The young man who brought it looked apprehensive and kept his eyes down. ‘Sugar, cream … Schnapps cold? Yes,’ said Graf as he checked the tray in military style. ‘Get out.’ The boy departed without having spoken.
Pauli was nervous. It was now or never. ‘Do you know an officer named Heinrich Brand? An Obersturmbannführer.’
‘Know him? Of course I know him. Insolent bastard! I know all about him. Started off a ranker in a cavalry regiment…Then some damned fool made him an officer. He’s an upstart. Blood will out, Winter. I’ve always said that.’
‘I remember.’
‘Brand. An ambitious little peasant. Of course I know him.’
‘He’s making life difficult for me, Captain Graf.’
‘A peasant! Who made him an officer? Answer me that.’
‘He’s an Obersturmbannführer now.’
‘Rank counts for nothing. It’s a matter of influence.’
‘Brand is close to the chief of staff.’
Graf became agitated. ‘Is he? Who told you that? Do you know what I’m doing here, Winter? Let me show you.’ Graf went across to a cupboard and took a rolled sheet of paper from it. He waved the roll at Pauli. ‘As soon as we gain power, the SA will be merged into the army. Every one of our men will become a soldier. The chief of staff has appointed me to draw up the plans for that great day.’ He unrolled the large sheet of paper. He spread it on the desk and weighted the corners with books so they could see it. It was a complicated diagram showing the units of the German army, down to company level, and their present regional disposition, Wehrkreis by Wehrkreis.
Upon the drawing in coloured inks, were the names and numbers of SA units: SA Standarten had always been numbered to correspond with the old Imperial Army regiments. Now Graf’s diagram showed how every army regiment would have a large brownshirt component to guarantee its loyalty to the Nazi regime.
Graf snapped his glasses on over his large ears and proudly stabbed a finger at his diagram. ‘The Reichsheer will be expanded so that each regiment will have one ordinary battalion – allgemeines Bataillon – and one brownshirt battalion.’ He moved his finger across the paper. ‘The staff arrangements are somewhat more complex. Eventually brownshirt officers will be represented in all arms, but for the time being the technical branches – engineers, artillery and panzer – will have to remain the monopoly of the Reichsheer’s trained officers.’
‘Has the Führer agreed to all this? I thought he had promised the generals that they would be the “sole bearer of arms”.’
‘The Führer? Come alive, boy. Wake up! The SA is more than four times the size of the Reichswehr, nearly half a million men. We don’t have to bow and scrape to the soldiers, or to the Führer, either. We are the new army of National Socialism. When the little Austrian gets into power, it will be because we’ve put him there.’
Pauli suppressed a shudder. He’d heard such ideas before, and even though Ernst Röhm was a fearless soldier and a capable staff officer, the idea of that plump homosexual with his scarred face and coarse manners taking over the German army was unthinkable. ‘Does Röhm say this?’ Pauli asked.
‘You’re not some damned spy, are you, Winter?’
‘No, of course not, Captain Graf. But this is all a big surprise for me.’
‘And it will be a big surprise for some of those other fellows in Berlin, too, eh?’ He winked.
‘And Brand?’
He looked at Pauli for a moment before deciding he could confide in him. ‘Brand will be taken care of. Don’t worry about our friend Brand. His name is on the list.’
‘The list?’
‘The list of enemies, boy. You don’t make an omelette without cracking eggs. Ever heard that expression? Yes, Brand is one of them. The chief of staff keeps Brand there in order to keep an eye on him. We know Brand reports to his damned Führer everything he sees and hears.’ Graf was still studying his diagram with great pride and interest.
‘Killed? He’ll be killed?’
Graf looked up. ‘There’s no other way. It’s been decided at top level. Him and many more like him.’
‘When?’
‘When?’
‘When will this happen?’ said Pauli.
‘When we assume power,’ said Graf, releasing the diagram from the weights and rolling it up again.
‘This year?’
Graf shrugged. ‘I’m not a politician. You’d better ask your friend Esser. He’s one of the high-ups nowadays.’
‘Do you see Fritz?’ Pauli asked. It was a question that really meant, Does Fritz Esser know about Röhm’s plans to take over the army no matter what anyone else says or does?
‘Esser? Haven’t seen him for years.’ Graf scratched his head pensively. ‘He owes me a favour or two. I hope he’ll remember that.’
‘Fritz never forgets a friend.’
‘I’m not a friend,’ said Graf with pedantic precision. ‘But he owes me favours.’
‘Brand is making my life unbearable,’ said Pauli.
‘I could talk to Röhm, but he hates complaints of that sort.’
‘No, don’t say anything to anyone. I wanted your advice.’
‘Stick it out. That’s my advice. Brand and all his cronies will be gone out of your life forever within a month of our achieving power. Stick it out, boy.’
‘Yes,’ said Pauli, and resolved to do so. He respected Graf’s advice. Pauli needed someone to turn to: at cadet school, when Peter couldn’t help, he’d turned to Alex Horner. In party matters he used to go to Fritz Esser. In this case, when Esser was in no position to help, he went to Graf. He admired men who were confident and decisive. He wished he were such a person, but it was such a strain being decisive, and decisive men made too many enemies. Pauli preferred to go along with the tide. Life was too short to be taken seriously. What was that joke he’d heard from his soldiers during the terrible fighting of 1918? ‘If you take life seriously you won’t get out of it alive.’ He knew why rankers refused promotion. It was easier to be a private soldier, to take each day as it came, to comply with orders, and not to have all the problems that came with decision-making. Yes, damn it, he’d stick it out.
‘Drink your coffee, Winter.’
‘I can see you’re busy, Captain Graf.’
‘Never too busy to chat with an old comrade. Drink your coffee.’
‘After that I must go and leave you to your work.’
The two men sat in awkward silence for a few minutes; then Captain Graf said, ‘That fellow who got hurt that night …?’
‘Hauser. My father’s valet.’
‘Is he well?’
‘Very well. He still works for my father.’
‘I’d had too much to drink, Winter.’
‘It’s all forgotten, Captain Graf.’
‘Thanks to you, it all blew over, I think,’ said Graf.
‘It’s all forgotten,’ said Pauli again, embarrassed at the mention of the stabbing at his party so long ago. He finished his coffee, swigged back his schnapps, and got up to go.
When Pauli got to the door Graf said, ‘I never forget a favour, Winter. You leave Brand to me. I’ll speak to the chief of staff.’
‘Thank you Captain Graf,’ said Pauli.
It was still early, and Munich was one of Europe’s most beautiful medieval towns. Pauli strolled back across the river and into the centre of the city. There was a Nazi demonstration assembling behind Marienplatz – big banners, slogans, and dozens of swastika flags. On one side of the open square the brownshirts, complete with brass band, were getting into their formations, and behind them were dozens of men and women in the elaborate lacy national costumes of Upper Bavaria. It was usual for the Nazis to combine their new authoritarian urban creed with sentimental evidence of their love of things natural, traditional, and rural.
Pauli turned aside lest he meet someone he knew. He walked down as far as the Viktualienmarkt: he liked to smell the fresh fruit and vegetables, and there were open-air eating places selling beer and an array of fine sausages. It was almost lunchtime, and there was enough sun to warm the air. He sat down at an iron table and ordered Maibock – the dark Munich beer that is brewed in May – and Munich-style white sausages with rye bread.
He was eating contentedly, and idly watching the girls strolling in the market place, when a voice behind him said, ‘In Munich you skin the weisswurst before you eat them, Winter, old comrade.’
‘Koch!’ said Pauli. It was Lothar Koch, his Feldwebel from the storm company, now dressed in an expensive black leather overcoat and a Tirolean hat, complete with leather band and badger brush. He was no longer that pimply youth; he’d become a mournful-looking man in his early thirties with a large bulbous nose, bushy black eyebrows, and dark rings under his eyes.
The two men shook hands, and Koch’s face lit up with a smile to reveal a gold molar amongst his sound, white, even teeth. ‘What are you doing in Munich? I thought you lived in Berlin.’
‘A business trip. I’m catching the afternoon train back. And you?’
‘I’ve lived here for over five years now. I work for the party,’ he said, avoiding the word Nazi, as so many did at that time. He sat down uninvited. Koch was not a stickler for etiquette.
‘So do I,’ said Pauli, relieved at not having to surmount a hurdle that sometimes made social difficulties.
‘I know. I’ve heard about you. I am with the “Sicherheitsdienst Reichsführer-SS.” He smiled as if this was an inappropriate job for him. The SD was the official name for the Nazi party’s private security service.
‘What do you do, Lothar?’ The waitress came and Pauli ordered beer and weisswurst for his friend.
‘I work for a young fencing champion named Reinhard Heydrich. Know him? Too young for the war … One of these young lunatics who thinks they missed something good. You must know the type – Germany’s full of them.’
‘And now?’ Pauli asked. The white sausages arrived, complete with beer, bread and the special sweet, dark mustard that goes with them.
‘My boss is on the staff of Reichsführer Himmler. We have a little office at Türkenstrasse 23, here in Munich. Officially, since the government banned Nazi organizations, we are called the Presse und Informationsdienst.’
