‘You know what these old cops are like’
The Geheimes Staatspolizeiamt – the Gestapa, or what people called the Gestapo – had taken over the huge art school in Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, and Pauli Winter had been assigned an office on the third floor, overlooking the magnificent gardens they shared with the adjoining little palace Heydrich had taken over for his SD.
Now that the Nazis had consolidated their political control of the nation, fundamental changes were made to police forces, too. Pauli Winter – aided by six clerks and the two young lawyers who worked under him – had spent long working weeks, over many months, tackling the organization plan for the Security Police (Sipo). At one time this authority had included the whole police organization, from traffic police to Gendarmerie. But now that all the German police forces had come under the command of SS-Reichsführer Himmler, a new sort of Sipo was being formed from just the most powerful units – the Criminal Police (Kripo) and the Political Police.
This newly created Sipo, under the direction of Heydrich’s Hauptamt Sicherheitspolizei, ranked as a ministerial authority and came directly under the Reich’s Ministry of the Interior.
It made the Sipo potentially one of the most powerful instruments of repression ever seen in modern society. But it was Pauli Winter’s report, based upon the legal restrictions of Paragraph 42 of the Reich Criminal Code, that enabled Himmler’s policemen to be their own judge and jury.
Paragraph 42 authorized law courts throughout Germany to order the ‘preventive arrest’ of habitual criminals and other potential troublemakers. But it was the legal work of Dr Pauli Winter that provided the notion that, under the völkisch concept of German law, people and police must work together to maintain law and order. So, argued Winter’s long and carefully worded report, in the case of a preventive arrest, the Sipo represented the police and the arrested person the ‘people’. Thus it was lawful for the Hauptamt Sicherheitspolizei to order preventive arrest without going to the law courts. This was a triumph for Himmler, the SS-Reichsführer – a triumph of bureaucracy.
To avoid too much discussion about guilt or innocence, the arrested persons were usually categorized as Volksschädling (antisocial malefactors), a description that included prostitutes, beggars, homosexuals, traffic offenders, psychopaths, grumblers, the tellers of anti-Nazi jokes, and anyone who’d ‘refused without adequate reason employment offered to them on two occasions’.
The difficulties that would have come from delivering prisoners to prisons without the necessary court documents were avoided by delivering the arrested people to concentration camps, which also came under the SS-Reichsführer’s command. ‘The Ministry of Justice objected to this, but the objections were ignored.
So, by 1937 in Nazi Germany, or what the Goebbels propaganda machine preferred to call the Third Reich, the courts and the whole legal system had been short-circuited. The powers of arrest, judgement and punishment – terrible punishment, torture and death – could be instantly used against anyone the Nazis didn’t like.
It was March 9, 1937, when the new powers were first put into effect. From the Berlin Police Headquarters in Alexanderplatz, Kripo offices throughout Germany were instructed to take into preventive arrest two thousand people who might commit a crime, might offend against morality, or might otherwise act against the Nazi regime. They were delivered by the police to the nearest concentration camp. It was only the beginning.
For Pauli Winter, March 1937 marked the end of a lot of thankless and tedious administrative work. Up on the third floor he missed the excitement of real police work, and it was years since he’d pitted his wits against some lawyer in the rough and tumble of the local courts.
He missed Lothar Koch, too. Lothar could have come up here to where the decisions were made, and there would have been more pay, too. But Lothar was smart: he chose to remain downstairs and deal with people every day. Up here was just a corridor of cramped offices where self-important bureaucrats dictated long documents that were sent to policemen who would manage better without them.
‘Pauli?’ It was the end of a long day, and Pauli was putting a few things into a briefcase before going home to dinner. The offices, hastily converted to provide extra accommodation, were small and ill-lit, and his visitor was in the shadow, out of range of his desktop light.
‘Lothar. What are you doing up here? Want some coffee?’ He was always pleased to see Lothar, and the more downcast he looked, with his big mournful eyes and shaggy eyebrows, the more Pauli wanted to laugh at him. ‘Come in, come in.’
‘I had to see you. It’s urgent.’
‘What is it? Who have you got out there?’ Pauli peered. The offices all had glass panels through which people could be seen walking down the corridor.
‘Can I bring him in? It’s one of my detectives.’
‘If you wish,’ said Pauli, disappointed that he was not going to have the pleasure of a chat.
The detective came in. He was deferential. Everyone knew Pauli Winter by reputation. Pauli was a minor celebrity: Pauli was the man who knew Fritz Esser, Pauli had cracked Para 42, Pauli was the man who lunched with Heydrich, Pauli had a house on the Obersalzberg.
The detective was named Theodor Steiner, a beer-bellied old-timer who’d got into the plainclothes force after many years on the street. A red-faced man with a big rosy nose and circular-shaped horn-rimmed glasses that he had to wear when reading from his notebook.
‘Steiner is going to pull in that forgery ring who’ve been doing the travel documents. Do you know about that?’
‘No,’ said Pauli. ‘Should I know about it?’ He indicated two little caneback chairs, but his visitors remained standing.
‘It’s been on the sheets for months. They’ve been leading us a merry dance.’
‘Travel documents?’ said Pauli. He was puzzled.
‘Even American passports. One of our undercover agents at the Hamburg-Amerika Line offices picked up the first one. He wasn’t suspicious: he just started talking to this “American” and found he couldn’t speak a word of English.’
‘He was an illegal?’
‘You bet he was. It’s neat, isn’t it? With a U.S. passport he doesn’t need a U.S. visa or a letter of invitation or any of the papers to authorize the export of jewellery, currency or other valuables. He’s an American tourist, going home. You can see the beauty of it, can’t you?’
‘Yes, I can,’ said Pauli.
‘Well, Steiner here has busted them. He’s found the printshop. A printer named Geschke – not even a Jew – in Dietrich-Eckart-Strasse, near the Wittenau station. They’re there now, working away: we’ve got men outside. This will be a big bust, Pauli. Steiner here might get a promotion.’
‘Congratulations, Steiner. How did you do it?’
‘I have an inside man: a Jew, of course.’
‘That’s probably the only way,’ said Pauli.
‘It is with this crowd,’ said Steiner. Steiner had a thin, chirruping voice that was unexpected from such a big-framed fellow. ‘They’re very cautious, and very skilled.’ He offered Pauli a passport and other papers.
‘This is one of their forgeries?’
‘It is.’
‘Take a look,’ Koch told him, and Pauli moved his briefcase in order to spread the papers across his desk, under the light of the green-shaded lamp. There was the forged blank U.S. passport, a sheet of clear rubber-stamp marks photographed on line film, and photos of a genuine passport, page by page.
‘What do you think?’ Koch asked.
Pauli glanced up at him. Koch’s face was set in an inscrutable grimace: the sort of face he always pulled when telling one of his jokes. Now that Koch was nearer to the desk light, his face could be seen more clearly. How strange that, while his hair was growing greyer and greyer, his big eyebrows remained coal-black.
Pauli looked down again. It was Lottie Winter staring at him from the photograph in the genuine passport. And there was her name: Charlotte Sarah Winter. Born 1902, Los Angeles, California. Pauli looked up. ‘They are there now? At the printing shop in Tegel?’
‘Yes,’ said Koch. ‘The owner, Geschke, and his son, four other men, and this woman.’ He indicated the photo of Lottie.
‘What has the woman to do with it?’ Pauli asked Steiner.
‘She’s one of them. Also, she tells the people who use the passports how to pretend they are American.’
‘How do you know that?’ asked Pauli sharply.
‘My inside man,’ said Steiner.
‘Your inside man, yes, of course.’
‘Steiner has a preventive-arrest order. He was on his way over there when I met him. I said you might want to talk to him.’
‘I don’t want this done by preventive-arrest order,’ said Pauli. ‘This is too important for that. These people are enemies of the state. They must be arrested by the police. I’ll talk to the Kripo desk right away.’
‘I don’t think that’s the way to do it,’ said Steiner. His rank was nothing, but he spoke with the assurance of a lifetime of police work. ‘If the Kripo handle it, they’ll take the credit. And it will have to go through the courts.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’ said Pauli.
The merest trace of a smile passed over Steiner’s big, round, inscrutable face. ‘Nothing, except that my boys will have to type out all the reports and spend a lot of time in the courtroom giving evidence.’
‘This is an American citizen,’ said Pauli. He tapped the forged passport with his fingertips.
‘German resident,’ said Steiner doggedly. ‘She’s not a tourist, she’s a German resident. When a resident commits a crime, it doesn’t matter what colour her passport is.’
‘Technically,’ interjected Koch, ‘technically, Detective Constable Steiner has the right to decide.’
‘And on February 26 this year,’ said the stolid Steiner, ‘SS-Gruppenführer Heydrich issued an order that said that no future use was to be made of police arrest, “so as to avoid the necessity for subsequent examination by the courts of measures taken by the police”.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Pauli, who’d had too long with his law books to be outwitted by a mere detective. ‘But the Interior Minister’s decree of April 12, 1934, said that “preventive arrest shall not be used as a punishment for criminal offences”. This is a serious criminal offence with a foreign national involved. You must use a proper warrant.’
There was a long silence. They all knew that, although Pauli was theoretically correct, and although the Sipo came under the direct orders of Interior Minister Dr Wilhelm Frick, Frick’s authority was flouted, his 1934 decree ignored.
Pauli stared at Steiner, and Steiner, like many before him, was alarmed to recognize in Pauli a man who was entirely devoid of the restrictions that fear usually imposes upon even the bravest of men. Steiner looked into Pauli’s cold, colourless eyes and felt uneasy. Eventually Steiner said, ‘Very well. I’ll go down to the Kripo desk. Will they give me the warrant there, or do I have to go through all the business of getting an authorized signature?’
‘It’s urgent,’ said Pauli. ‘I’ll phone and arrange everything.’
Steiner sighed, picked up the photos, and went out.
‘Will he do it my way?’ Pauli asked Koch after the surly detective had departed.
‘He knew she was your sister-in-law. You realize that, don’t you?’
‘Did he? Winter – it’s a common enough name.’
‘Steiner’s no fool. He’s been on the Berlin force for over thirty years. He knows everything that happens round here.’
‘But he’ll do it?’
‘Oh, he’ll do it your way. I know Steiner well enough to be sure of that. He’s not going to make an enemy up here on the executive level. But he’ll mark it up as something you owe him. In due time he’ll come to collect a favour or two. You know what these old cops are like.’
‘No,’ said Pauli. ‘What are they like?’
‘They are like you,’ said Koch, and he laughed.
Pauli Winter phoned Inge to say he was delayed and then went to see his brother. Breaking the news of Lottie’s arrest was one of the most painful moments of his life. Peter seemed to think that Pauli could have done more. It was impossible to make Peter see that no one could have done more.
When Peter opened the door to his brother, he was dressed in a blue silk dressing gown with a red scarf tied at his throat. He looked like a prosperous actor. Pauli found it surprising that someone could take so much trouble with his appearance when he was alone in the house, but Peter had always been like that.
‘Peter. I’ve got something to tell you.’
Peter let him in, saying, ‘I’ve been looking for the coffee. I can’t find it anywhere, and Lottie is with Mama.’
‘She’s not with Mama. It’s Lottie I want to talk about.’
‘Then goodness knows where she’s got to. I do wish she’d tell me what she’s doing. The girl is not here, and the omelette I made turned out a terrible mess.’ The radio was playing ‘The Way You Look Tonight’.
‘Lottie has been arrested, Peter.’
‘Oh my God! Are you sure?’ Peter turned away to compose himself. His hands were trembling as he switched off the music.
‘You aren’t mixed up with it, are you?’ asked Pauli.
‘What is she charged with?’ Peter replied. He pushed his hands into the pockets of his dressing gown.
‘The charges are not drawn up yet.’
‘Is it something to do with passports?’ said Peter.
‘You’d better sit down, Peter.’ Peter had gone very pale.
‘I think I will.’ He sat down and took a cigarette from a box on the table.
‘Yes, forging passports.’ Pauli lit his brother’s cigarette for him.
‘I must go to her.’
‘They won’t let you see her tonight. She’s being questioned.’
‘I thought she was with Mama.’
Pauli said nothing. He’d never seen his brother so upset, and it caused him pain.
‘Are you sure they won’t let me see her tonight? Poor, darling Lottie.’
‘At the remand prison? You know what they’re like. Of course they won’t.’
‘Not even if I am her defence lawyer?’
‘Peter, be sensible.’
‘I can’t think straight.’
‘Did you know she was doing this kind of thing?’ But before Peter could answer, he held up a hand to silence him and added, ‘No, I don’t want to know the answer to that. Forget I asked.’
‘She’ll think I’ve deserted her. Only last night I scolded her about the housekeeping accounts. If only I’d known what was going to happen.’
‘Pull yourself together, Peter, for God’s sake!’ said Pauli sharply.
‘You’re right: I must. For Lottie’s sake I must.’
‘I insisted that the Criminal Police arrest her, using a warrant from a law court. That means she’ll get a fair trial, Peter. And she’s being held in the remand prison. If they’d used a protective-custody order and taken her to a concentration camp, you’d probably never see her again.’
‘They’ll give her life imprisonment,’ said Peter.
‘We don’t know what sentence she’ll get; we both know how unpredictable the courts are. But we do know she’ll serve her time in a proper, civilized prison,’ said Pauli. He couldn’t seem to make his brother understand how lucky she was.
‘Who shall I get to handle her defence?’
‘She’s guilty, Peter. You do realize that, don’t you?’
Peter nodded.
‘There’s no lawyer in the world who is going to get her released.’
‘She must have the best.’
‘I’ll find someone. But not many lawyers want to defend “enemies of the state”. It might be difficult.’
‘You mustn’t get involved, Pauli. I realize your job makes it difficult for you.’
‘I like Lottie: I’ve always liked her.’
Peter looked round at him. ‘But you think that as a foreigner, and a Jew, she should have kept out of German politics?’
‘I didn’t say that, Peter: you said it.’
‘But that’s what you think, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know what I think.’
‘How can you work for those Nazis?’ said Peter and then regretted it. He was just taking out his frustrated rage and misery on his younger brother. It was stupid and unfair.
Pauli blinked but didn’t respond to his brother’s flash of anger. He said calmly, ‘You must realize, Peter, that we are not restricting the emigration of Jews. The SD has an office that does everything it can to encourage emigration. The problem is that no country wants them. The real reason these people were forging American passports was because they can’t get entry permits on a German one.’
‘Does Inge know what’s happened?’
‘No. I must be getting along.’
‘Thanks, Pauli.’
‘Did you ever think about living abroad?’
‘Is that your advice, Pauli?’
‘I’m thinking of Helena . . . schools and so on.’
‘I will have to see what happens to Lottie.’
‘If you went now it would probably be easy. But if and when Lottie is convicted, you might find it impossible to get permission to leave, even as a tourist.’
‘I can’t think about such things at this time.’
‘This will make a difference in other ways, too, Peter. Be prepared for that.’
‘What exactly do you mean?’
‘There will be publicity, and it won’t be helpful. The company might have complaints from shareholders. I’ve seen it all happen before. A thing like this makes a lot of ripples in the pool.’
‘I’ll be ready.’
‘If I can help . . .’
‘Thanks, Pauli. You already have.’
‘And, Peter, you see Isaac Volkmann now and again, don’t you?’
‘I’m one of his patients,’ said Peter defensively.
‘I hear that he’s looking for somewhere to live.’
‘Yes, poor Isaac. Their landlord has thrown them out with only a month’s notice.’
‘I wonder if he’s ever thought of living in a lock-up shop?’
‘Why?’
‘Shopowners don’t have to register tenants with the police the way people have to with apartments and houses.’
‘Live in a shop? Like a fugitive. Is that really necessary?’
‘No, it’s precautionary. There will be more and more pressure brought on Jews. Life might become intolerable for them.’
‘Is this an instruction?’ said Peter, carefully choosing his words, ‘or just information?’
‘It’s advice,’ said Pauli unhesitatingly.
‘I’ll pass your message on.’
‘Better not say it’s from me, Peter.’
‘I can’t believe the Volkmanns will go to live in a shop.’
‘You never know,’ said Pauli.
‘Lottie is so headstrong,’ said Peter. ‘She wouldn’t listen to me.’
When Pauli finally got home he was exhausted. He let himself into the apartment and entered the drawing room. The room was dark except for a pool of light on the sofa, where Inge was lounging. Next to her sat Fritz Esser, his jacket off and necktie loosened. They were laughing: laughing in a way he’d never heard either of them laugh before. When they looked up to see him the laughter stopped, and their faces were frozen in a circle of yellow light from the parchment-shaded table lamps. He felt like a stranger, an intruder almost.
‘Pauli darling,’ said Inge. She got up hurriedly and smoothed her skirt. ‘We heard about Lottie.’
‘I’ve been with Peter,’ explained Pauli.
‘Have you eaten?’
‘I don’t want anything.’ All he needed was a stiff drink. There was an assortment of drinks on a side table, but Pauli hesitated. He’d been drinking far too much lately. It would be better to have coffee.
‘How is Peter taking it?’ Inge asked.
‘It’s a shock for him.’
‘It’s a shock for all of us,’ said Fritz Esser. He got up unsteadily. He’d been drinking.
‘Did you want me, Fritz?’ Pauli asked.
‘Fritz came to ask if he could help in any way,’ said Inge.
‘That was very kind of you, Fritz,’ said Pauli. He looked at the brandy decanter and decided to have a proper drink. After a day like this one, a man was entitled to get a little drunk.