Chapter 51

February 1933

Hindenburg dissolved the Reichstag and set new elections for March 5. Our goal was to gain more than the mere majority in the Reichstag necessary to end presidential control. We wanted the two-thirds necessary to pass an Enabling Act to alter the Constitution. This would permit a Hitler cabinet to govern without the need to consult the Reichstag.

I waited for Wolf to return from a radio talk in his new office in the Chancellery. When the door opened, his face was taut with tension from speaking into a microphone in an empty room, unable to feed off a cheering audience.

“We are off to a good start,” I said. “Congratulations.”

He poured himself a glass of water before saying anything. “The old guard thought they would make me a puppet because we have only three in the cabinet. As we speak, Göring is making plans to replace the police presidents across the country. Frick is drafting legislation to remove Jews from civil service and the professions that they dominate: law and medicine. We will soon put an end to Jews taking jobs from German citizens. The new laws will be ready by April.

“Wolf?”

He held up his hand. “Don’t start in again about the Jews. That has been our program from the beginning.”

“It was never mine.”

“We both know that, but the others don’t. And they must never know . . . or else I cannot keep you by me.”

“Look, Adolf . . .”

“Stop, Friedrich.” This time he shouted. “We made an understanding more than ten years ago. You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to do . . . as long as you keep your own counsel and don’t make trouble. There’s no point in discussing this any further.”

I then asked about the dinner Hitler had with Minister of Defense General von Blomberg and the heads of the other armed forces. “How did the meeting go last night?”

“I reassured them that the cancerous growth of democracy had to be eradicated, that Germany must be rearmed, and that we will restore the lands taken from our empire.”

“What did they say?”

“Say? They stood and cheered! I explained that the army would have no role in domestic issues. Their sole job was to defend the Fatherland from possible aggression.”

“Did the role of the SA come up?” We knew the Reichswehr feared that Röhm would supplant the army.

“I made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that they had nothing to worry about. The SA would be kept separate from the army.”

I wanted to discuss strategy, but he cut me off.

“Friedrich, I have something only you can do . . . or all of this could be sabotaged.”

“You know all you need to do is ask,” I said.

“Can’t you guess?”

I shook my head.

“Pasewalk.”

“Say no more.”

I should have thought of it myself. The hospital records. Dr. Forster’s treatment notes. We now had the authority to make them vanish.

*

I arrived in Pasewalk as daylight faded and a cold wind whipped through the air. Tired and hungry, I needed to find a hotel room for a hot meal, a soaking bath, and a soft bed. But the information at Pasewalk was a time bomb that needed to be disabled as soon as possible.

Dressed in my black SS uniform, I saluted the young, pimply clerk at the hospital. “I am Obergruppenführer Richard.” I presented my card.

“Are you here to see a patient?”

Antiseptic hospital smells wafted through the halls. I reached into my travel case. “This is an order from Minister of Interior Wilhelm Frick granting me access to the hospital’s records.”

Frick knew nothing about this . . . and never would. I paid a quiet visit to his office and lifted a piece of his stationery. My SS uniform aside, I needed governmental authority for what I was about to do. Of course, an order from Hitler would have been effective, but highly counterproductive.

“Only the hospital administrator has the authority to turn over records, Herr Obergruppenführer Richard.”

“Do you see who signed that letter . . .” I noted the clerk’s nameplate posted on the counter, “. . . Herr Shäfer?”

“I would like to help you, but I can’t. Wait here while I call the administrator.”

“Make it snappy. I need to get on with my business.”

As I stood there, I tried to remember who the hospital administrator was when I was a patient. I couldn’t recall if I ever knew.

I twisted toward the clacking of shoes against the hard tiles. A man in his late fifties, thin and balding, approached. He had a trim moustache and round glasses that contributed to his professorial look. “I am Dr. Ferdinand Sauerbruch. May I help you?” He turned quizzical and added, “Do I know you?”

I ignored his question. “I am Obergruppenführer Richard. I have orders from the minister of interior.”

“Are you sure I don’t know you? You look very familiar to me.”

“I did not come here for idle chitchat, Doktor Sauerbruch. Now can we get on with the business at hand? The minister is interested in the records of a certain patient.”

“May I inquire as to the name and when that patient was here?”

“That’s privileged. I need to see the records from 1914 through 1923.”

“Records that old are kept in a separate building behind the hospital.”

“Lead the way, please.”

“There is no heat. You will be cold.”

“If your people have been efficient, it should only take minutes to find the chart.”

“I am sure you will find all is in order,” said Dr. Sauerbruch. “Follow me.”

Anxious to be done, I walked so closely behind him that when he snapped his fingers and halted abruptly, my knee hit the back of his leg. He staggered; I caught him. “I’m sorry. I did not expect you to stop.”

“I know who you are. Dr. Joseph treated you at Charité Hospital. I was on the surgical team that put you back together.” Then he reached for my face and turned my head one way and then the other. “You have healed remarkably well. I see that you remembered your name.”

I cursed under my breath. What were the chances that a doctor from Joseph’s team would be in Pasewalk? “Yes, I am no longer Patient X.”

“That must be reassuring.”

I could no longer push this doctor around in my SS role, but I needed to get on with it. “I appreciate what you did for me back then, but I am on a time-sensitive mission. The minister expects my report on his desk first thing in the morning.”

Dr. Sauerbruch left me to my own devices in the record storage room. A lone ceiling light cast shadows on the stacks of boxes piled from floor to ceiling. The records were posted by year. I found 1918, freed it from the pile, brought it closer to the light, and lifted the cover. The patient files were alphabetical. In no time I found Hitler, Adolf and also Patient X, shoving both files in my case. Replacing the cover, I was about to return the box when it occurred to me to take Friedrich Richard’s file as well. Except it wasn’t there. I retrieved the boxes from 1917 and 1919 in case it was misfiled. No Friedrich Richard or Richard, Friedrich in either.

Had Dr. Forster made up his name? Fabricated the entire story? That couldn’t be. Friedrich Richard was recorded in the minister of Defense’s records. I replaced the boxes and searched the room. Then I stumbled across boxes labeled “Deceased.” The names were filed by date of death. In no time, I came across Friedrich Richard’s file in the box labeled 1918 and added it to the other two in my case.

*

I found a hotel room, luxuriated in a long, hot bath, and then brought Friedrich Richard’s file closer to a lamp. Had he lived, he would now be thirty-seven, which I estimated was within a couple years of my own age—give or take. He was much shorter than me. We had the same color eyes: gray. Beyond that, I could find nothing useful. He had been a mechanic before the war, enlisted at the outbreak, and was wounded twice: once in the leg and once in the head. His head trauma led to seizures. Soon after, he became delusional. He was sent to Pasewalk for psychiatric treatment.

One entry caught my eye. The man had a wife, named Ingrid, who was notified of his death.

“That sonofabitch,” I said under my breath. Forster had lied to me when he told me that the man had no family, compounding his first lie years before that Friedrich Richard’s death was not reported to the Army.

I turned to my file: Patient X. There was no personal or familial history, but reams of entries that chronicled the numerous surgeries at Charité Hospital. The admitting notes for Pasewalk listed my initial diagnosis as “Amnesia.”

Dr. Forster’s early notes were hostile. Forster questioned whether I was shamming my condition to avoid returning to the trenches. Over time, his entries reflected a shift in tone as Dr. Forster credited my story and began treatment. Closing my eyes I remembered the books, pictures, and music he used, hoping to trigger a past image.

I tossed my file aside and took Wolf’s. It wasn’t as thick as mine. I grabbed the back and front covers, turned it over so the pages faced the floor, and jiggled it. Nothing fell out. Should I bring the file to Hitler or destroy it? How could I decide unless I read it first? But what was there to think about? I knew he would want the goddamned thing destroyed. He had no need of this as a memento. On the other hand, the notes of his psychiatrist might help explain the man. It might be useful in dealing with his obsession on the Jewish question.

I switched the file from hand to hand, weighing my options, the file growing ever heavier with indecision. I decided to read it. However, the moment I turned the cover page and saw his name, I slammed it shut. Wolf was my friend. There was only one right thing to do. I found a match on the mantelpiece, bent down, and lit the crumpled newspapers nesting under the dry logs. In seconds, a fire blazed. As the flames leapt higher, I tossed Wolf’s file onto the burning wood. I waited until there was no hope of retrieval before adding Friedrich Richard’s. Then, with one final look at “Patient X,” I tossed him into the now roaring inferno.

I grabbed the bottle of cognac from my opened traveling case, found a glass in the W.C., wiped it clean with my handkerchief, made a generous pour, and downed it in one swallow. I poured another, held it up to the guttering flames, and saluted the charred ashes of three men: one now chancellor of Germany . . . the other two who were—and now are—me.