MONDAY, MAY 22, 1944–THURSDAY, MAY 25, 1944
On Monday, Oppenheimer asked Hoffmann to not bring him straight to Zehlendorf in the morning. Instead, he stood outside the entrance to Höcker & Sons before they opened, his hands deep in his pockets. Lost in thought, he watched the goings-on in the street and chewed on his cigarette tip. He really hoped that his old war comrade Gerd Höcker would not turn up unexpectedly and involve him in inconsequential conversation before he got the opportunity to speak to Ms. Behringer.
A delivery van with a clattering wood gasifier drove past just as he saw her. She had wrapped a scarf around the lower part of her face, but her upright gait and the chestnut-brown curls beneath the black beret were unmistakable. She, too, had already spotted Oppenheimer. When she got closer, she pulled the scarf down and smiled at him. Her bright red lipstick was the only color in the drab grayness of the Monday morning. “Good morning, Inspector,” she greeted in a friendly tone. “Have you made any progress with the investigation?”
“Some questions have been raised, which is why I am here. I’d like to ask you something.”
“Of course. Go ahead.” She looked at him expectantly, pulling out a box of matches. “D’you need a light?”
Oppenheimer hesitated. Then he remembered that he’d followed Vogler’s advice and put a cigarette into his tip. “Thanks, but I’m trying to quit.”
“Interesting,” Ms. Behringer said, unconvinced, looking at his cigarette.
“Did Ms. Friedrichsen ever go to the Hotel Adlon?”
The idea made Ms. Behringer laugh. “My dear Inspector, I don’t know what sort of notion you have of our salary. I mean, the Adlon! If I could dine there, I wouldn’t need to work in this place. Well, I can’t swear that Inge never went there, but—no, she would have told me.”
“She never spoke of it? Did she perhaps mention the Adlon in another context?”
“You can ask as often as you want. But she never mentioned the hotel and never made any references to it either.”
Oppenheimer nodded. “Thank you for your help,” he mumbled discontentedly. “If you happen to remember anything, you can always reach me through Hauptsturmführer Vogler.”
On the way to Zehlendorf, Oppenheimer didn’t even notice Hoffmann’s hazardous driving style, he was that disappointed by Ms. Behringer’s statement. There were no leads connecting Inge Friedrichsen to the Hotel Adlon. He didn’t doubt that Ms. Behringer’s statement was correct. No matter how hard Oppenheimer thought about it, he finally had to admit that he was locked in a stalemate.
In the living room of the house in Zehlendorf, Oppenheimer continued to sort the facts that had accumulated over the last few days. The sirens howled repeatedly in the distance, but he didn’t really pay attention. It took two whole days and the morning of the next day before he had more or less sorted the information and completed the chart on the living room wall. First, he added two further pieces of paper with the names Christina Gerdeler and Julie Dufour in the middle, right beneath the card with Inge Friedrichsen’s name. The doctor’s list had also come in. On it were the names of all Lebensborn employees who had known Inge Friedrichsen and who still worked in Klosterheide. There were about forty names. Oppenheimer wrote them on new pieces of paper and pinned them alongside the other suspects. Two people had been absent at the time of the crime: a midwife called Erika Möller, who could prove that she had attended a funeral, and Irmgard Hupke, a party-adhering nurse from the National Socialist Welfare Service, who had resigned her position in Klosterheide just that weekend. Although Oppenheimer thought it unlikely that the perpetrator might be a woman, he moved the two cards with their names closer to the center. Then came the suspects and witnesses from the Dufour case, whose vast numbers constantly forced Oppenheimer to go back to the files to make sure he hadn’t overlooked anyone. The number of suspects in the case of the adventuress Christina Gerdeler remained disappointing. There were no reliable leads as to who she might have taken money from. Her notebooks contained only cryptic nicknames that were impossible to decode. A cup of hot coffee in his hands, Oppenheimer stared at the chaos of cards on the wall. Maybe the victims had something other than the Adlon in common.
“I think I’m going to have to speak to Gruppenführer Reithermann,” Oppenheimer said when Vogler came by on Wednesday afternoon. “Could you arrange that for me?”
Vogler thought for a moment. “You want to interview him?”
“Well, I don’t really have a choice. In the Dufour case, we have lots of witnesses, but the details regarding her person are very limited. I need more background information. And Reithermann is the only one who can provide them.”
Vogler nodded. “We’ll do it tomorrow. On one condition: I want to be present during the interview.”
Oppenheimer was more than happy with that stipulation.
The seats in the Daimler were so comfortable that Oppenheimer fell asleep almost immediately. He had spent the early hours of the morning in the cellar together with the other tenants, as there had been another alarm during the night. Over the last few days, Oppenheimer had only managed to keep going with the help of Pervitin tablets. But when he checked the small vial this morning, he noticed that his supply had dwindled to just three tablets. He decided not to take any today, which might be reckless, as he needed to be on track for his interview with Reithermann.
Oppenheimer was rudely awakened by sirens and identified the rising howls as a pre-alarm. Streets slid past his line of vision, his body rocking gently—so he was still in the car.
“We’re almost there,” a voice came from the driver’s seat. Oppenheimer recognized the back of Vogler’s head, as he was driving today.
Oppenheimer sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. When he opened them again, Vogler had already parked at the side of the street. They were in Horst-Wessel-Stadt, a borough known to longtime residents of Berlin as Friedrichshain. The ruins of a villa rose up before them. The roof beams had collapsed into the inside of the house behind the destroyed façade. It had probably been a direct hit. Large pieces of debris lay next to the building, but they looked more like abstract sculptures that an art-loving owner had placed on the English lawn, which, in a bizarre twist, still looked immaculately cared for.
Vogler scratched his head. “Goddamn it,” he swore helplessly. “It must be here somewhere. Number forty-two.” He studied his map of the city center. As the course of the roads no longer complied with what was marked on the maps, it was easy to get lost.
“I’ll take a look around,” Oppenheimer said and got out of the car. A large signpost with the number forty-two hung from the wrought iron gate. As it wasn’t locked, Oppenheimer took a couple of steps onto the property and called out to make himself heard. But there was no one there.
An old man hobbled along the pavement, pushing a handcart with possessions.
“Excuse me,” Oppenheimer called. “Does Gruppenführer Reithermann live here?”
The old man stopped and replied in a thick Berlin accent, “Don’t think you’ll find him here no more. See for yerself, the place’s been blown apart.” The man’s teeth were only in a marginally better state than the ruin. “The Epsteins used to live here. The fancy gentleman had them carted off and then settled in. But that’s the way things go nowadays. Last week, the Americans dropped a gift here. I didn’t think it would ever hit a Golden Pheasant.”
Golden Pheasant was the name given to senior party members. The people begrudged them the fact that they skimmed off the cream and lived in the lap of luxury. However, the same people were utterly convinced that the führer would not put up with such excesses if he knew about them. But no one dared to put it to the test and report the profiteers.
“Did Reithermann get killed?”
“No, just bombed out. No idea where he is.”
When Vogler got out of the car, the old man touched his hat. “Take a look, if you want. I need to scamper,” he said and disappeared around the next street corner.
“Let’s have a look,” Vogler said. “Maybe Reithermann left a message as to where we might find him.”
Oppenheimer nodded and followed Vogler into the ruin. This sort of communication was common. The so-called wall papers were found everywhere on the façades of bombed houses, slips of paper from previous residents with their new address, or notices looking for missing family members. Maybe Reithermann had had the presence of mind to leave his new address behind.
Vogler examined the doorframe; only a few bits of wood were left hanging off the hinges. When Oppenheimer walked around the house, he heard a low drone. He looked up in surprise. He had completely forgotten the pre-alarm that had jerked him from his sleep. Now he realized what a deadly mistake he had made.
Although the sky was hazy, the airplane wings reflected in the sunlight, gleaming bright flecks that floated through the air directly toward Oppenheimer.
“Up above!” was the only thing he managed to shout. Vogler’s head appeared from behind a heap of stones. When he followed the line of Oppenheimer’s finger and looked up at the sky, he turned pale. “The idiots! There hasn’t been a full alarm yet!” he screamed indignantly. “Come! Into the cellar!” He stuck his hand out and pulled Oppenheimer through a gap in the wall. A staircase was visible a few meters away, leading down to the cellar. Oppenheimer thought he could see a door. They stumbled down the steps, stirring up chalk dust. The droning increased. Vogler pushed the handle down, but the door was locked.
When Oppenheimer threw himself against it with all his might, it just shook a little. Vogler also began throwing himself against the door in vain.
Oppenheimer held Vogler back. “Together!” he shouted. Together they stepped onto the lowest step of the staircase and took a run-up. When the weight of their combined bodies hit the door, the frame shuddered. Sweat was pouring across Oppenheimer’s forehead.
“Again!” Vogler’s voice cracked. The first step, then the second, and run. They rammed the door with the full force of their shoulders. Oppenheimer was barely able to raise his hands to break his fall when the door yielded. He felt his palms scrape across the rough floor. The impact forced the air from his lungs. He crashed against something with the side of his head and landed on his stomach. At the same moment, the cellar seemed to perform a little dance and pivot around itself. Objects around them took on a life of their own; wine bottles rolled in all directions, the whole universe seemed to tremble, and a fiery tinge brushed Oppenheimer’s back. He felt like he were in the center of a thunderstorm, helplessly abandoned to the force of nature, a toy for the elements fire and air, when suddenly all light around him disappeared in a deafening roar. The last thing he became aware of was a harsh whistling in his head, paired with the muffled rumble of countless falling stones.
Then everything went quiet. Oppenheimer tried to control his breathing. The whirling dust stuck in his lungs, and he felt the urge to cough. He quickly covered his mouth with the sleeve of his coat and tried to breathe through the material.
They were buried alive. Cubic meters of stone towered above their heads. Oppenheimer hadn’t envisaged dying like this. His mind resisted this realization, but finally he accepted the inevitable and prepared to die.