Angela Wolff threw her arms around her son and hugged him to her breast. ‘Sebastian, Sebastian, where have you been?’
‘Oh, you know, Mutti. I had a late night, that’s all. Slept at the office.’
‘There is a telephone in the hall now, so why didn’t you call me at least? You were with that tart Hexie, weren’t you?’
‘No, Mutti, I wasn’t with Hexie and she’s not a tart.’
His mother looked at him with sceptical eyes. As always, she was dressed in black. Seb had never known her to wear anything else, for she had dressed that way ever since her husband died of tuberculosis in 1904; Seb had no memories of him, only the bleak photograph on the mantelpiece in the parlour: a stiff man with a severe moustache. But perhaps the picture didn’t do him justice, perhaps that wasn’t the way he was.
‘She’s got you wrapped around her sly little finger. Hexie – it means witch. Why doesn’t she have a Christian name?’
‘She does, it’s Herta. But Hexie’s what everyone calls her and it’s the name she likes, so let’s leave it at that. And she’s not sly and nor does she wrap me around her finger. Now, where’s Jurgen?’
Even as he asked the question he knew the answer. His son was where he was every evening, out with his Hitler Youth troop, of course. He was seventeen years old and he should be studying in preparation for university, but instead he spent his time marching along country lanes doing military training, learning racial theory, testing sporting prowess and sitting around campfires singing approved songs such as ‘I had a Comrade’ or the ‘Horst Wessel Lied’. Oh, and more recently, doing his best to re-educate the recalcitrant peasants who preferred the traditional blue and white colours of Bavaria for their flagpoles to the new black and red of the swastika. Seb had heard numerous reports of Hitler Youth tearing down traditional maypoles and an equal number of reports of villagers tearing down swastikas. Truth be told, he rather sided with the old-fashioned peasants.
Seb, by contrast to his well-schooled son, had educated himself. He had joined the Bavarian police in the lowest ranks of the uniformed force, the Schutzpolizei, commonly called the Schupo. To rise from the ranks to become a plain-clothes detective with the title ‘inspector’, he had had to present himself smartly, had had to study and pass exams and prove his intellect.
He wanted a simpler faster route through the world for his son; a university education and, hopefully, a doctorate. The boy had the brain, but he was in danger of throwing it all away, wasting these precious years on the Hitler Youth.
If he thought it would do any good, Seb would give him a piece of his mind. But he had tried that before, on several occasions, and it was all just hot air. He couldn’t get through to him.
‘Well, I’ll make you supper,’ Angela Wolff said. ‘You look exhausted. Last night’s food was wasted.’
‘Some soup would be fine.’ She always had a pot of soup made from leftovers.
‘I have some veal. I will make you schnitzel with spätzle.’
‘You really don’t need to, Mutti. I have to get to sleep early.’
‘First you eat. No son of mine goes to bed hungry.’
‘Thank you then.’
They lived in a spacious though rather dark apartment on Ainmüllerstrasse in Schwabing, a northern area of the city, sometimes thought of as the artists’ quarter, but more generally known for its reasonably priced housing. There was a kitchen with a range, a sink and a big table and a walk-in larder. Also, a small parlour with a new wireless set – a large, impressive Telefunken machine – that was turned on for an hour each day, between six and seven in the evening, but no more. Anyone who happened to be at home at the time was expected to sit and listen to the latest broadcast from Herr Goebbels’s ministry and, usually, some splendid music by one of the great German composers, played by one of the great German orchestras. Or perhaps some lieder.
There were three bedrooms: one for Jurgen, the largest one for Seb and the warmest, cosiest one for his mother. It was an old building, almost certainly eighteenth century. Certainly not luxurious, but comfortable enough – cool in summer and warm in winter. Just the way you want it. Seb had fought against his mother’s desire for heavy, dark furniture, the sort of status symbol she had longed for in her impoverished childhood out in the countryside, but he had lost the argument. And so the parlour, in particular, with its oversized mahogany chest and comfortless wooden chairs, was faintly oppressive.
As he tucked into the supper, accompanied by a half-litre glass of beer, the door opened and Jurgen entered. He was a lean and muscular lad, towering at least six centimetres over his father, who was himself tall at one metre eighty-four. The boy’s hair was fair and cut short, his bearing was athletic and he did look extraordinarily handsome in his uniform: dark shorts, long grey socks, buckled belt, shirt with armband and loosely knotted tie, and his most prized possession, the Hitler Youth dagger with its inscription Blood and Honour.
He was – and Seb hated to admit it – the ideal specimen of Aryan manhood. Slender of body, swift as the greyhound, tough as leather and hard as Krupp steel. Just as Herr Hitler wanted every German youth to be.
It was obvious to anyone who knew the family that he got his god-like looks, his bearing and his complexion from his mother, Ulrike Brandt, now far away in Berlin doing whatever it was that she did these days. The only element of the young man that he might have inherited from his father was his quick brain. At least, that was what Seb liked to think.
The boy gave a sharp Heil Hitler salute and snapped a respectful bow of the head to his grandmother, who returned the salute with a smile. Seb said, ‘Good evening to you, Jurgen. Just in time for supper,’ but was ignored.
Jurgen was deliberately looking away from him. He took a seat at the table opposite his father while his grandmother returned to the hob to prepare his food. The boy’s face was grim and hard.
‘What have you been up to this evening?’ Seb asked in what he hoped was a cheery, good-humoured tone. ‘Lovely day for marching.’
‘You can never say a decent word about the Hitler Youth, can you?’
‘Did I say something wrong?’
‘You just mock us.’
‘God in heaven, what’s brought this on?’
‘You think we just march and sing songs. You’ve no idea, have you? They teach us to sail, to ride motorbikes, to fire rifles, to hunt, build shelters, play war games and much else besides. When did you ever teach me anything?’
‘I’m sorry then. What do you want me to teach you?’
‘Damn it, that’s not what I want to talk about. Why don’t you tell me what you’ve been up to. Where were you last night, Father?’
‘I slept in the office.’
‘Really? You even lie to your own son.’
Word travelled like wildfire in Munich. He hadn’t wanted to worry his mother with the events of last night, but the news was obviously out and Jurgen had heard about it. ‘It was all a stupid misunderstanding,’ he said.
‘My father in Dachau concentration camp! How do you think that went down with the troop? Was I supposed to defend you? I was humiliated. They all laughed and sneered at me – and not just behind my back. To my face! They even asked if I was a Jew.’
‘Well, now you can tell them the truth, can’t you? It was all a mistake. The proof is in front of you – I am here, not in Dachau.’
‘What is this?’ Angela Wolff demanded. ‘What are you two men talking about?’ She had returned with a plate of bread and was hovering over Jurgen.
Seb sighed with exasperation. ‘It’s nothing, Mutti.’
‘I thought you mentioned Dachau. My old friend Hannah Fischer from Polsingen has moved there. Did I tell you, Sebastian? She loves the town and has invited me over for lunch. I thought I might take the bus out there next week.’
Jurgen slammed the palm of his hand down hard on the table. ‘If you don’t tell her, I will. You have brought shame on this family! You have tarnished our reputation.’
Seb had had enough. This was not a conversation to be continued while he was so tired. He would say things about the Nazis that would probably drive an even deeper wedge between him and his son. He put down his knife and fork on his plate, rose from the table and gave a little bow to his mother. ‘Thank you, Mutti, that was delicious. Now I must go to bed for I had little sleep last night and I must be up early.’
‘So you just walk away?’ Jurgen shouted. ‘I despise you – you’re a traitor.’
Seb stopped and turned. This was too much. He was about to say, I fought for this country, Jurgen. I risked my life and I watched my friends die. Is that treason? But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. All he could say was, ‘I have never betrayed my country.’
‘You called the Führer a murderer. That is treason.’
‘He ordered the deaths of Ernst Roehm and hundreds of others. He had them shot in cold blood, without trial or any semblance of legal process. The fact that Roehm was a despicable human being does not excuse the action. And as a murder detective, I think I know what constitutes murder.’
‘Roehm was a traitor. He was plotting against Hitler. They all were. They had to be put down like swine.’
‘So what will you do? Denounce me?’
‘I should do. Maybe I will. I know what you think of the Führer so, yes, I have more than enough dirt on you.’
Seb gritted his teeth. He was about to spit vitriol back at his son, but instead managed to hold his tongue. ‘Goodnight, Jurgen. We will talk when we’ve both calmed down.’
*
He was sure he would go straight to sleep, but instead he twisted and turned in his narrow bed. His body seemed to itch everywhere and his shoulders still ached. Most of all he could not stop thinking about Jurgen. How could a son speak to a father like that? Had he raised him badly – been too soft, too slow to use the back of his hand when he stepped out of line? The Englishmen he had met aboard ship and in British ports had acquainted him with one of their time-honoured aphorisms – spare the rod and spoil the child. Perhaps there was some truth in that.
Or perhaps the problem simply stemmed from those four years when he was away at sea and the boy had no male presence in his life.
But none of that really made any sense. He knew that other people struggled to come to terms with the new ideology and that some young people had indeed denounced their parents, teachers and priests. One old man he knew had ended up in Dachau concentration camp for three months for a careless joke at the expense of Hitler, spoken in front of his granddaughter, a member of the League of German Girls.
This conflict within the home was not so unusual. Somehow the National Socialist machine had gained a more powerful hold on Germany’s children than their own parents.
The NS claws went deep, and didn’t let go.
And then there was something else that rankled. He, Seb, had been the one who had had to undergo the rigours of the concentration camp, and yet his son had made no enquiries about his welfare; he just assumed the worst – that he was some kind of traitor.
Perhaps he just had to accept that he had lost the boy.
*
Seb woke later than he intended, seven thirty, which left little time to get to the Police Presidium for his 8 a.m. meeting with Winter. Jurgen didn’t have school on a Sunday, but he had already gone out, probably to the local Hitler Youth hut – the heim as they liked to call it – so at least he didn’t have to endure an early morning confrontation. It would come later, of course, couldn’t be avoided forever. God in heaven, he couldn’t be the only man in Germany who felt constantly hemmed in, both at work and at home.
He had been to Jurgen’s heim once and was appalled. It was just an old youth club place, but it had been turned into a temple to Hitler. Pictures of the Führer and all the top men – especially Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach – adorned the walls. There were ceiling-to-floor swastika pennants and a dangerous array of armaments – old swords, daggers, even Great War rifles and pistols.
But the most alarming things of all were the quotes from Hitler, painted in large letters on any available space, like Holy Writ: Anti-Jew, anti-Communist, anti-French, pure German above all.
Seb kissed his mother goodbye and could see she was upset.
‘It’s all right, Mutti. We’ll be fine.’
‘Please don’t fight. I can’t bear it.’
He kissed her again. ‘I know. It’s his age.’
‘You were like that, Sebastian. Nothing I could say made any difference when you were seventeen. You couldn’t wait to go off to the war, couldn’t wait to get a girl. All that stuff with Ulrike’s pregnancy. I aged twenty years overnight.’
He gripped her gnarled working-woman’s hands in his. Then hugged her tight before leaving without another word. In the hallway, he was about to take the steps down, but instead he stopped beside the telephone and made a quick call to the Hoffmann studio. Hexie answered.
‘Seb, what’s going on? I heard that ghastly little BPP worm had you sent to the KZ and so I went to Weber. I hope I did the right thing. It’s all the talk.’
‘Fuss about nothing, but thank you for your help. I’m out and back at work. I’ve got a busy day, so perhaps we can meet up this evening.’
‘The Schelling-Salon at eight? I still have a birthday present waiting for you.’
He was pretty sure he knew what it would be. ‘I’ll do my best,’ he said. But he wasn’t overly hopeful. He had a case to solve, and it had to be done with thoroughness and speed.