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The Odessa File 3

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WHILE PETER MILLER and Sigi were asleep in each other's arms in Hamburg, a giant Argentine Coronado airliner swung over the darkened hills of Castile and entered final approach for a landing at Barajas Airport, Madrid.
Sitting in a window seat in the third row of the firstclass passenger section was a man in his early sixties with iron-gray hair and a trim mustache.

Only one photograph had ever existed of the man, in his early forties, showing him with close-cropped hair, no mustache to cover the rattrap mouth, and a razor-straight parting along the left side of his head. Hardly any one of the small group of men who had ever seen that photograph would recognize the man in the airliner, his hair now growing thickly back from the forehead, without a parting. The photograph in his passport matched his new appearance.
The name in that same passport identified himas Sefior Ricardo Suertes, citizen of Argentina, and the name itself was his own grim joke against the world.
For suerte in Spanish means "luck," and "luck" in German is Gluck. The airline passenger that January night had been bom Richard Glucks, later to become full general of the SS, head of the Reich Economic Ad ministration Main Office, and Hitler's Inspector General of Concentration Camps. On the wanted lists of West Germany and Israel, he was number three after Martin Bormann and the former chief of the Gestapo, Heinrich Muller. He ranked higher even than Dr. Josef Mengele, the Devil Doctor of Auschwitz. In the Odessa he ranked number two--direct deputy of Martin Bormann, or o, whom the mantle of the Fuhrer had fallen after 1945.
The role Richard Glucks; had played in the crimes of the SS was unique and matched only by the manner in which he managed to effect his own complete disappearance in May 1945. Glucks had surpassed even Adolf Eichmann as one of the master minds of the holocaust, and yet he had never pulled a trigger.
 
Had an uninformed passenger been told who the man sitting next to him was, he might well have wondered why the former bead of an economic administration office should be so high on the wanted list.
 
Had he asked, he would have learned that of the crimes against humanity committed on the German side between 1933 and 1945, probably 95 per cent can accurately be laid at the door of the SS. Of these, probably 80 to 90 per cent can be attributed to two departments within the SS. These were the Reich Security Main Office and the Reich Economic Administration Main Office.
If the idea of an economic bureau being involved in mass murder strikes a strange note, one must understand how it was intended that the job should be done. Not only was it intended to exterminate every Jew on the face of Europe, and most of the Slavic races also, but it was intended that the victims should pay for the privilege. Before the gas chambers opened, the SS had already carried out the biggest robbery in history.
 
In the case of the Jews, the payment was in three stages. First they were robbed of their businesses, houses, factories, bank accounts, furniture, cars, and clothes. They were shipped eastward to the slave-labor camps and the death camps, assured they were destined for resettlement and mainly believing it, with what they could carry, usually two suitcases. On the camp square these were also taken from them, along with the clothes they wore.
 
Out of this baggage of six million people millions of dollars' worth of booty was extracted, for the European Jews of the time habitually traveled with their wealth upon them, particularly those from Poland and the eastern lands. From the camps entire trainloads of gold trinkets, diamonds, sapphires, rubies, silver ingots, louis Wor, gold dollars, and banknotes of every kind and description were shipped back to the SS headquarters inside Germany. Throughout its history the SS made a profit on its operations. A part of this profit, in the form of gold bars stamped with the eagle of the Reich and the twin-lightning symbol of the SS, was deposited toward the end of the war in the banks of Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Tangier, and Beirut to form the fortune on which the Odessa was later based. Much of this gold still lies beneath the streets of Zurich, guarded by the complacent and self-righteous bankers of that city.
 
The second stage of the exploitation lay in the living bodies of the victims. They had calories of energy in them, and these could profitably be used. At this point the Jews came onto the same level as the Russians and the Poles, who had been captured penniless in the first place. Those in all categories unfit for work were exterminated as useless. Those able to work were hired out, either to the SS's own factories or to German industrial concerns such as Krupp, Thyssen, von Opel, and others at three marks a day for unskilled workers, four marks for artisans. The phrase "per day" meant as much work as could be extracted from the living body for as little food as possible during a twenty-four-hour period. Hundreds of thousands died at their places of work in this manner.
 
The SS was a state within a state. It had its own factories, workshops, engineering division, construction section, repair and maintenance shops, and clothing department. It made for itself almost everything it could ever need, and used the slave laborers, which by Hitler's decree were the property of the SS, to do the work.
The third stage of the exploitation lay in the corpses of the dead. These went naked to death, leaving behind wagonloads of shoes, socks, shaving brushes, spectacles, jackets, and trousers. They also left their hair, which was shipped back to the Reich to be turned into felt boots for the winter fighting, and their gold teeth-fillings, which were yanked out of the corpses with pliers and later melted down to be deposited as gold bars in Zurich. Attempts were made to use the bones for fertilizer and render the body fats down for soap, but these were found to be uneconomical.
 
In charge of the entire economic or profit-making side of the extermination of fourteen million people was the Reich Economic Administration Main Office of the SS, headed by the man in seat 3-B on the airliner that night.
Gliicks was one who preferred not to risk his neck, or his life-long liberty, by returning to Germany after his escape. He had no need to.
 
Handsomely provided for out of the secret funds, he could live out his days comfortably in South America, and still does. His dedication to the Nazi ideal remained unshaken by the events of 1945, and this, coupled with his former eminence, secured him a high and honored place among the fugitive Nazis of Argentina, from whence the Odessa was ruled.
 
The plane landed uneventfully, and the passengers cleared customs with no problems. The fluent Spanish of the first-class passenger from row 3 had long enabled him to pass for a South American.
Outside the terminal building be took a cab and from long habit gave an address a block away from the Zurburin Hotel. After paying off the cab in the center of Madrid, he took his grip and walked the remaining two hundred yards to the hotel.
 
His reservation assured by Telex, he checked in and went up to his room to shower and shave. It was at nine o'clock on the dot that three soft knocks, followed by a pause and two more, sounded at his door. He opened it himself and stood back when he recognized the visitor.
 
The new arrival closed the door behind him, snapped to attention, and flashed up his right arm, palm downward, in the old salute.
"Seig Heil," said the man.
 
General Glijcks gave the younger man an approving nod and raised his own right hand. "Sieg Heil," he said more softly. He waved his visitor to a seat.
The man facing him was another German, a former officer of the SS and at that time the chief of the Odessa network inside West Germany. He felt very keenly the honor of being summoned to Madrid for a personal conference with a senior officer of such eminence, and suspected it had something to do with the death of President Kennedy thirty-six hours earlier. He was not wrong.
 
General GlUcks poured himself and his visitor cups of coffee from the breakfast tray on the table beside him and carefully lit a large Corona.
 
"You have probably guessed the reason for this sudden and somewhat hazardous visit by me to Europe," he said. "As I dislike remaining on this continent longer than necessary, I will get to the point and be brief." The subordinate from Germany sat forward expectantly.
"Kennedy is now dead, for us a remarkable stroke of good fortune," the general went on. "There must be no failure to extract the utmost advantage from this event. Do you follow me?" "Certainly, in principle, General," the younger man replied eagerly, "but in what specific form?" "I am referring to the secret arms deal between the rabble of traitors in Bonn and the pigs in Tel Aviv. You know about the arms deal? The tanks, guns, and other weaponry even now flowing from Germany to Israel?" "Yes, of course." "And you know also that our organization is doing everything in its power to assist the Egyptian cause so that it may one day prove completely victorious in the coming struggle?" "Certainly. We have already organized the recruiting of numerous German scientists to that end." General Glilcks nodded. "I'll return to that later. What I was referring to was out policy of keeping our
Arab friends as closely informed as possible about the details of this treacherous deal, so that they may make the strongest representations to Bonn through diplomatic channels. These Arab protests have led to the formation of a group in Germany strongly opposed to the arms deal on political grounds, because the deal upsets the Arabs. This group, mainly unwittingly, is playing our game for us, bringing pressure on the fool Erhard, even as high as cabinet level, to call off the arms deal." "Yes. I follow you, General." "Good. So far Erhard has not called off the arms shipments, but he has wavered several times. For those who wish to see the German-Israeli arms deal completed, the main argument to date has been that the deal is supported by Kennedy, and what Kennedy wants, Erhard gives him." "Yes. That's true." "But Kennedy is now dead." The younger man from Germany sat back, his eyes alight with enthusiasm, as the new state of affairs opened up its perspectives to his mind. The SS general flicked an inch of ash from the cigar into the coffee cup and jabbed the glowing tip at his subordinate.
 
"For the rest of this year, therefore, the main plank of political action within Germany that our friends and supporters must undertake will be to whip up public opinion on as wide a scale as possible against this arms deal and in favor of Germany's true and traditional friends, the Arabs." "Yes, yes, that can be done." The younger man was smiling broadly.
 
"Certain contacts we have in the government in Cairo will ensure a constant stream of diplomatic protests through their own and other embassies," the general continued. "Other Arab friends will ensure demonstrations by Arab students and German friends of the Arabs. Your job will be to coordinate press publicity through the various pamphlets and magazines we secretly support, advertisements taken in major newspapers and magazines, lobbying of civil servants close to government and politicians who must be persuaded to join the growing weight of opinion against the arms deal." The younger man's brow furrowed. "It's very difficult to promote feelings against Israel in Germany today," he murmured.
 
"There need be no question of that," said the other tartly. "The angle is simple: for practical reasons Germany must not alienate eighty million Arabs with these foolish, supposedly secret arms shipments. Many Germans will listen to that ~wgument, particularly diplomats. Known friends of ours in the Foreign Office can be enlisted. Such a practical viewpoint is wholly permissible. Funds, of course, will be made available. The main thing is, with Kennedy dead and Johnson unlikely to adopt the same internationalist, pro-Jewish outlook, Erhard must be subjected to constant pressure at every level, including his own cabinet, to shelve this arms deal. If we can show the Egyptians that we have caused foreign policy in Bonn to change course, our stock in Cairo must inevitably rise sharply." The man from Germany nodded several times, already seeing his plan of campaign taking shape before him. "It shall be done," he said.
"Excellent," replied General Glucks.
The man in front of him looked up. "General, you mentioned the German scientists now working in Egypt....
 
"Ah yes, I said I would return to them later. They represent the second prong in our plan to destroy the Jews once and for all. You know about the rockets of Helwan, of course?" "Yes, sir. At least, the broad details." "But not what they are really for?" "Well, I assumed, of course----~' "That they would be used to throw a few tons of high explosive onto Israel?" General GlOcks smiled broadly. "You could not be more wrong.
 
However, I think the time is ripe to tell you why these rockets and the men who build them are in truth so vitally important." General GlUcks leaned back, gazed at the ceiling, and told his subordinate the real story behind the rockets of Helwan.
In the aftermath of the war, when King Farouk still ruled Egypt, thousands of Nazis and former members of the SS had fled from Europe and found a sure refuge along the sands of the Nile. Among those who came were a number of scientists. Even before the coup d'itat that dislodged Farouk, two German scientists had been charged by Farouk with the first studies for the eventual setting up of a factory to manufacture rockets.
 
This was in 1952, and the two professors were Paul Gbrke and Rolf Engel.
The project went into abeyance for a few years after Naguil and then Nasser took power, but after the military defeat of the Egyptian forces in the 1956 Sinai campaign, the new dictator of Egypt swore an oath. He vowed that one day Israel would be totally destroyed.
In 1961, when he got Moscow's final "No" to his requests for heavy rockets, the Gbrke-Engel project for an Egyptian rocket factory was revitalized with a vengeance, and during this year, working against the clock and without rein on their expenditure of money, the German professors and the Egyptians built and opened Factory 333, at Helwan, north of Cairo.
 
To open a factory is one thing; to design and build rockets is another.
Long since, the senior supporters of Nasser, mostly with pro-Nazi backgrounds stretching back to the Second World War, had been in close contact with the Odessa representatives in Egypt. From these came the answer to the Egyptians' main problem -that of acquiring the scientists necessary to make the rockets.
 
Neither Russia, America, Britain, nor France would supply a single man to belp. But the Odessa pointed out that the kind of rockets Nasser needed were remarkably similar in size and range to the V-2 rockets that Wernher von Braun and his team had once built at Peenemiinde to pulverize London. And many of his former team were still available.
In late 1961 the recruiting of German scientists started. Many of these were employed at the West German Institute for Aerospace Research at Stuttgart. But they were frustrated because the Paris Treaty of 1954 forbade Germany to indulge in research or manufacture in certain realms, notably nuclear physics and rocketry. They were also chronically short of research funds. To many of these scientists the offer of a place in the sun, plenty of research money, and the chance to design real rockets was too tempting.
 
The Odessa appointed as chief recruiting officer in Germany a former major of the SS, Dr. Ferdinand Brandner, and he in turn employed as his legman a former SS sergeant, Heinz Krug. Together they scoured Germany, looking for men prepared to go to Egypt and build Nasser's rockets for him.
With the salaries they could offer, they were not short of choice recruits. Notable among them were Professor Wolfgang Pilz, who had been recruited from postwar Germany by the French and had later become the father of the French Wronique rocket, itself the foundation of De Gaulle's aerospace program. Professor Pilz left for Egypt in early 1962.
Dr. Eugen SUnger and his wife Irene, both formerly on the Von Braun V-2 team, also went along, as did Dr. Josef Eisig and Dr. Kirmayer, all experts in propulsion fuels and techniques.
The world saw the first results of their labors at a parade through the streets of Cairo on July 23, 1962, to mark the eighth anniversary of the Egyptian republic. Two rockets, the El Kahira and the El Zafira., re- spectively with ranges of 500 and 300 kilometers, were trundled past the screaming crowds. Although these rockets were only the casings, without warheads or fuel, they were destined to be the first of four hundred such weapons that would one day be launched against Israel.
General Glucks paused, drew on his cigar, and returned to the present.
 
"The problem is that, although we solved the matter of making the casings, the warheads, and the fuel, the key to a guided missile lies in the teleguidance system." He stabbed his cigar in the direction of the West German. "And that was what we were unable to furnish to the Egyptians," he went on.
"By ill luck, although there were scientists and experts in guidance systems working at Stuttgart and elsewhere, we could not persuade one of them of any value to emigrate to Egypt. All the experts sent out there were specialists in aerodynamics, propulsion, and the design of warheads.
"But we bad promised Egypt that she would have her rockets, and have them she will. President Nasser is determined there will one day be another war between Egypt and Israel, and war there will be. He believes his tanks and soldiers alone will win for him. Our information is not so optimistic. They might not, despite their numerical superiority. But just think what our position would be if, when all the Soviet weaponry, bought at a cost of billions of dollars, had failed, it turned out to be the rockets, provided by the scientists recruited through our network, which won the war. Our position would be unassailable. We would have achieved the double coup of ensuring an eternally grateful Middle East, a safe and sure home for our people for all time, and of achieving the final and utter destruction of the Jew-pig state, thus fulfilling the last wish of the dying FUbrer. It is a mighty challenge, and one in which we must not and will not fail." The subordinate watched his senior officer pacing the room, with awe and some puzzlement. "Forgive me, General, but will four hundred medium warheads really finish off the Jews once and for all? A massive amount of damage, yes, but total destruction?" GlUcks spun around and gazed down at the younger man with a triumphant smile.
"But what warheads!" he exclaimed. "You do not think we are going to waste mere high explosive on these swine? We have proposed to President Nasser, and he has accepted with alacrity, that these warheads on the Kahiras and Zafiras be of a different type. Some will contain concentrated cultures of bubonic plague, and the others will explode high above the ground, shower- ing the entire territory of Israel with irradiated cobaltsixty. Within hours they will all be dying of the pest or of gamma-ray sickness. That is what we have in store for them." The other gazed at him, open-mouthed. "Fantastic," he breathed. "Now I recall reading something about a trial in Switzerland last summer-just rumors, so much of the evidence was in camera. Then it's true. But, General, it's brilliant." "Brilliant, yes, and inevitable, provided we of the Odessa can equip those rockets with the teleguidance systems necessary to direct them not merely in the right direction but to the exact locations where they must explode.
 
The man who controls the entire research operation aimed at devising a teleguidance system for those rockets is now working in West Germany. His code name is Vulkan. You may recall that in Greek mythology Vulkan was the smith who made the thunderbolts of the gods." "He is a scientist?" asked the West German in bewilderment.
"No, certainly not. When he was forced to disappear In 1955 he would normally have returned to Argentina. But your predecessor was required by us to provide him immediately with a false passport to enable him to stay in Germany. He was then funded out of Zurich with one million American dollars with which to start a factory in Germany. The original purpose was to use the factory as a front for another type of research in which we were interested at the time, but which has now been shelved in favor of the guidance systems for the rockets of Helwan.
"The factory Vulkan now runs manufactures transistor radios. But this is a front. In the research department of the factory a group of scientists is even now in the process of devising the teleguidance systems that will one day be fitted to the rockets of Helwan." "Why don't they simply go to Egypt?" asked the other.
GlUcks smiled again and continued pacing. "That is the stroke of genius behind the whole operation. I told you that there were men in Germany capable of producing such rocket-guidance systems, but none could be persuaded to emigrate. The group of them who now work in the research department of Vulkan's factory actually believe they are working on a contract, in conditions of top secrecy, of course, for the Defense Min- istry in Bonn." This time the subordinate got out of his chair, his coffee spilling on the carpet. "God in Heaven. How on earth was that arranged?" "Basically quite simple. The Paris Treaty forbids Germany to do research into rockets. The men under Vulkan were sworn to secrecy by a genuine official of the Defense Ministry in Bonn, who also happens to be one of us. He was accompanied by a general whose face the scientists could recognize from the last war. They are all men prepared to work for Germany, even against the terms of the Paris Treaty, but not necessarily prepared to work for Egypt. Now they believe they are working for Germany.
 
"Of course, the cost is stupendous. Normally, research of this nature can only be undertaken by a major power. This entire program has made enormous inroads into our secret funds. Now do you understand the im- portance of Vulkan?" "Of course," replied the Odessa chief from Germany.
"But if anything happened to him, could not the program go on?" "No. The factory and the company are owned and run by him alone. He is chairman and managing director, sole shareholder and paymaster. He alone can continue to pay the salaries of the scientists and the enormous research costs involved. None of the scientists ever has anything to do with anyone else in the firm, and no one else in the firm knows the true nature of the overlarge research section. The other workers believe the men in the closed-off section are working on microwave circuits with a view to making a breakthrough in the transistor market. The secrecy is explained as a precaution against industrial espionage. The only link man between the two sections is Vulkan. If he went, the entire project would collapse." "Can you tell me the name of the factory?" General GlUcks considered for a moment, then mentioned a name.
The other man stared at him in astonishment. "But I know those radios," he protested.
"Of course. It's a bona fide firm and makes bona fide radios." "And the managing director-he is... T' "Yes. He is Vulkan. Now you see the importance of this man and what he is doing. For that reason there is one other instruction to you. Here." General Gliicks took a photograph from his breast pocket and handed it to the man from Germany.
 
After a long, perplexed gaze at the face, he turned it over and read the name on the back. "Good God, I thought he was in South America." GlUcks shook his head. "On the contrary. He is Vulkan. At the present time his work has reached a most crucial stage. If by any chance, therefore, you should get a whisper of anyone asking inconvenient questions about this man, that person should be--discouraged. One warning, and then a permanent solution. Do you follow me, Kamerad? No one, repeat, no one is to get anywhere near exposing Vulkan for who he really is." The SS general rose. His visitor did likewise.
 
"That will be all," said Gliicks. "You have your instructions." BUT You don't even know if  he's alive." Peter Miller and Karl Brandt were sitting side by side in Miller's car outside the house of the detective inspector, where Miller had found him over Sunday lunch on his day off.
 
"No, I don't. So that's the first thing I have to find out. If Roschmann's dead, obviously that's the end of it. Can you help me?" Brandt considered the request, then slowly shook his head. "No, sorry, I can't." "Why not?" "Look, I gave you that diary as a favor. Just between us. Because it shocked me, because I thought it might make a story for you. But I never thought you were going to try and track Roschmann down. Why can't you just make a story out of the finding of the diary?" "Because there's no story in it," said Miller. "What am I supposed to say? 'Surprise, surprise, I've found a looseleaf folder in which an old man who just gassed himself describes what he went through during the war'? You think any editor's going to buy that? I happen to think it's a horrifying document, but that's just my opinion. There have been hundreds of memoirs written since the war. The world's getting tired of them. Just the diary alone won't sell to any editor in Germany." "So what are you going on about?" asked Brandt.
"Simply this. Get a major police hunt started for Roschmann on the basis of the diary, and I've got a story." Brandt tapped his ash slowly into the dashboard tray. "There won't be a major police hunt," he said. "Look, Peter, you may know journalism, but I know the Ham- burg police. Our job is to keep Hamburg crime-free now, in nineteen sixty-three. Nobody's going to start detaching overworked detectives to hunt a man for what he did in Riga twenty years ago. It's not going to happen." "But you could at least raise the matter?" asked Miller.
 
Brandt shook his head. "No. Not me." "Why not? What's the matter?" "Because I don't want to get involved. You're all right. You're single, unattached. You can go off chasing will-o'-the-wisps if you want to. I've got a wife and two kids and a good career, and I don't intend to jeopardize that career." "Why should this jeopardize your career with the police? Roschmann's a criminal, isn't he? Police forces are supposed to hunt criminals. Where's the problem?" Brandt crushed out his stub. "It's difficult to put your finger on. But there's a sort of attitude in the police, nothing concrete, just a feeling. And that feeling is that to start probing too energetically into the war crimes of the SS can do a young policeman's career no good.
 
Nothing comes of it anyway. The request would simply be denied. But the fact that it was made goes into a file. Then bang goes your chance of promotion. Nobody mentions it, but everyone knows it. So if you want to make a big issue out of this, you're on your own. Count me out." Miller sat and stared through the windshield. "All right. If that's the way it is," he said at length. "But I've got to start somewhere. Did Tauber leave anything else behind when he died?" "Well, there was a brief note. I bad to take it and include it in my report on the suicide. By now it will have been filed away. And the file's closed." "What did he say in it?" asked Miller.
"Not much," said Brandt. "He just said he was committing suicide. Oh, there was one thing; he said he left his effects to a friend of his, a Herr Marx."
 
"Well, that's a start. Where's this Marx?" "How the hell should I know?" said Brandt.
"You mean to say that's all the note said? Just Herr Marx? No address?" "Nothing," said Brandt. "Just Marx. No indication where he lives." "Well, he must be around somewhere. Didn't you look for him?" Brandt sighed. "Will you get this through your head? We are very busy in the police force. Have you any idea how many Marxes there are in Hamburg?
 
Hundreds in the telephone directory alone. We can't spend weeks looking for this particular Marx. Anyway, what the old man left wasn't worth ten pfennigs." "That's all, then?" asked Miller. "Nothing else?" "Not a thing. If you want to find Marx, you're welcome to try." "Thanks. I will," said Miller. The two men shook hands, and Brandt returned to his family lunch table.
Miller started the next morning by visiting the house where Tauber had lived. The door was opened by a middle-aged man wearing a pair of stained trousers supported by string, a collarless shirt open at the neck, and three days' stubble around his chin.
 
"Morning. Are you the landlord?" The man looked Miller up and down and nodded. He smelled of cabbage.
 
"There was a man gassed himself here a few nights back," said Miller. 
"Are you from the police?" "No. The press." Miller showed the man his press card.
"I ain't got nothing to say." Miller eased a ten-mark note without too much trouble into the man's hand.
"I only want to look at his room." "I've rented it." "What did you do with his stuff?"
"It's in the back yard. Nothing else I could do with it.5~ The pile of junk was lying in a heap under the thin rain. It still smelled of gas. There were a battered old typewriter, two scuffed pairs of shoes, an assortment of clothes, a pile of books, and a fringed white silk scarf that Miller assumed must be something to do with the Jewish religion. He went through everything in the pile, but there was no indication of an address book and nothing addressed to Marx.
"Is that all?" he asked.
"That's all," said the man, regarding him sourly from the shelter of the back door.
 
"Do you have any tenant by the name of Marx?" "Nope.
"Do you know of any Marx?" "Nope." "Did old Tauber have any friends?" "Not that I knew of. Kept himself to himself. Came and went at all hours, shuffling about up there. Crazy, if you ask me. But he paid his rent regular. Didn't cause no trouble." "Ever see him with anybody? Out in the street, I mean." "No, never. Didn't seem to have any friends. Not surprised, the way he kept mumbling to himself. Crazy." Miller left and started asking up and down the street. Most people remembered seeing the old man shuffling along, head down, wrapped in an ankle-length overcoat, head covered by a woolen cap, bands in woolen gloves, from which the fingertips protruded.
For three days he quartered the area of streets where Tauber lived, checking through the dairy, the grocer, the butcher, the hardware.store, the bar, the tobacconist, intercepting the milkman and the postman. It was Wednesday afternoon when he found the group of urchins playing football up against the warehouse wall.
"What, that old Jew? Mad Solly?" said the leader of the group in answer to his question. The rest gathered around.
 
"That's the one," said Miller. "Mad Solly." "He was crazy," said one of the crowd. "He used to walk like this." The boy hunched his head into his shoulders, harlds clutching his jacket around him, and shuffled forward a few paces, muttering to himself and casting his eyes about. The others dissolved in laughter, and one gave the impersonator a hefty shove which sent him sprawling.
"Anyone ever see him with anyone else?" asked Miller. "Talking with anyone else? Another man?" "Whatcher want to know for?" asked the leader suspiciously. "We didn't do him no harm." Miller flicked a five-mark coin idly up and down in one band. Eight pairs of eyes watched the silver glitter of the spinning coin. Eight heads shook slowly. Miller turned and walked away.
"Mister." He stopped and turned around. The smallest of the group had caught up with him.
"I seen him once with a man. Talking, they was. Sittipg and talking." "Where was that?" "Down by the river. On the grass bank along the river. There are some benches there. They was sitting on a bench, talking." "How old was he, the other one?" "Very old. Lot of white hair." Miller tossed him the coin, convinced it had been a wasted gesture. But he walked to the river and stared down the length of the grass bank in both directions. There were a dozen benches along the bank, all of them empty.
In summer there would be plenty of people sitting along the Elbe Chaussee watching the great liners come in and out, but not at the end of November.
To his left along the near bank lay the fishing port, with half a dozen North Sea trawlers drawn up at the wharfs, discharging their loads of fresh-caught herring and mackerel or preparing for the sea again.
As a boy, Peter had returned to the shattered city from a farm in the country where he had been evacuated during the bombing, and had grown up amid the rubble and the ruins. His favorite playing place had been this fishing port along the river at Altona.
He liked the fishermen, gruff, kindly men who smelled of tar and salt and shag tobacco. He thought of Eduard Roschmann in Riga and wondered how the same country could have produced them both.
 
His mind came back to Tauber and went over the problem again. Where could he possibly have met his friend Marx? Miller knew there was something missing but could not put his finger on it. It was not until he was back in his car and had stopped for gas close to Altona railway station that the answer came. As so often, it was a chance remark. The pump attendant pointed out there had been a price increase in topgrade gasoline and added, just to make conversation with his customer, that money went less and less far these days. He went to get the change and left Miller staring at the open wallet in Ws hand.
Money. Where did Tauber get his money? He didn't work. He refused to accept any compensation from the German state. Yet he paid his rent regularly and must have bad something left over with which to eat. He was fifty-six years old, so he could not have had an old-age pension, but he could well have had a disability pension. Probably did.
 
Miller pocketed his change, gunned the Jaguar to life, and drove to the Altona post office. He approached the window marked PENSIONS.
"Can you tell me when the pensioners collect their money?" he asked the fat lady behind the grille.
"Last day of the month, of course," she said.
"That will be Saturday, then?" "Except on weekends. This month it will be Friday, the day after tomorrow."
"Does that include those with disability pensions?" he asked.
 
"Everyone who's entitled to a pension collects it on the last day of the month." "Here, at this window?" "If the person lives in Altona, yes," replied the woman.
"At what time?" "From opening time onward" "Thank you."
 
Miller was back on Friday morning, watching the queue of old men and women begin to filter through the doors of the post office when it opened. He positioned himself against the wall opposite, watching the directions they took as they departed. Many had white hair, but most wore bats against the cold. The weather had turned dry again, sunny but chill.
Just before eleven an old man with a shock of white hair like candy floss came out of the post office, counted his money to make sure it was all there, put it in his inside pocket, and looked around as if searching for someone. After a few minutes he turned and began to walk slowly away. At the comer he looked up and down again, then turned down Museum Street in the direction of the riverbank. Miller eased himself off the wall and followed him.
 
It took the old man twenty minutes to get the halfmile to the Elbe Cbaussee; then he turned up the bank, crossed the grass, and settled himself on a bench. Miller approached slowly from behind.
 
 
"Herr Marx?" The old man turned as Miller came around the end of the bench. He showed no surprise, as though he were often recognized by complete strangers.
"Yes," he said gravely, "I am Marx." "My name is Miller." Marx inclined his head gravely in acceptance of this news.
"Are you--er-waiting for Herr Tauber?"
 
"Yes, I am," said the old man without surprise.
"May I sit down?" "Please." Miller sat beside him, so they both faced toward the Elbe River. A giant dry-cargo ship, the Kota Maru out of Yokohama, was easing downriver on the tide.
"I'm afraid Herr Tauber is dead." The old man stared at the passing ship. He showed neither grief nor surprise, as if such news was brought frequently. Perhaps it was.
 
"I see," he said.
Miller told him briefly about the events of the previous Friday night. "You don't seem surprised. That he killed himself." "No," said Marx, "he was a very unhappy man." "He left a diary, you know." "Yes, he told me once about that." "Did you ever read it?" asked Miller.
"No, he never let anybody read it. But he told me about it." "It described the time he spent in Riga during the war." "Yes, he told me be was in Riga." "Were you in Riga too?" The man turned and looked at him with sad old eyes. "No, I was in Dachau." "Look, Herr Marx, I need your help. In his diary your friend mentioned a man, an SS officer, called Roschmann. Captain Eduard Roschmann. Did he ever mention him to you?" "Oh, yes. He told me about Roschmann. That was really what kept him alive.
Hoping one day to give evidence against Roschmann." "That's what he said in his diary. I read it after his death. I'm a press reporter. I want to try and lind Roschmann. Bring him to trial. Do you understand?" "Yes." "But there's no point if Roschmarm is already dead.
Can you remember if Herr Tauber ever learned whether Roscbmann was still alive and free?" Marx stared out at the disappearing stem of the Kola Maru for several minutes.
 
"Captain Roschmann is alive," he said simply, "and free." Miller leaned forward earnestly. "How do you know?" "Because Tauber saw him." "Yes I read that. It was in early April nineteen forty-five." Marx shook his head slowly. "No, it was last month." For several more minutes there was silence as Miller stared at the old man and Marx stared out at the water.
"Last month?" repeated Miller at length. "Did he say how he saw him?" Marx sighed, then turned to Miller. "Yes. He was walking late at night, as be often used to do when he could not sleep. He was walking back home past the State Opera House just as a crowd of people started to come out.
He stopped as they came to the pavement. He said they were wealthy people, the men in dinner jackets, the women in furs and jewels. There were three taxis lined up at the curb waiting for them. The doorman held the passers-by back so they could climb in. And then he saw Roschmann." "In the crowd of opera-goers?" "Yes. He climbed into a taxi with two others, and they drove off." "Now listen, Herr Marx, this is very important. Was he absolutely sure it was Roschmann?" "Yes, he said he was." "But it was almost nineteen years since he last saw him. He must have changed a lot. How could he be so sure?" "He said he smiled." "He what?" "He smiled. Roschmann sniffed." "That is significant?"
 
Marx nodded several times. "He said once you had seen Roscbmann smile that way, you never forgot it. He could not describe the smile but just said he would recognize it among a million others, anywhere in the world." "I see. Do you believe him?" "Yes. Yes, I believe he saw Roschmann." "AR right. Let's accept that I do too. Did he get the number of the taxi?" "No. He said his mind was so stunned he just watched it drive away." "Damn," said Miller. "It probably drove to a hotel. If I had the number I could ask the driver where he took that party. When did Herr Tauber tell you all this?" "Last month, when we picked up our pensions. Here, on this bench." Miller stood up and sighed. "You must realize that nobody would ever believe his story?" Marx shifted his gaze off the river and looked up at the reporter. "Oh yes," he said softly. "He knew that. You,see, that was why he killed himself."
That evening Peter Miller paid his usual weekend visit to his mother, and as usual she fussed over whether he was eating enough, the number of cigarettes he smoked in a day, and the state of his laundry. She was a short, plump, matronly person in her early fifties who had never quite resigned herself to the idea that all her only son wanted to be was a reporter.
During the course of the evening she asked him what be was doing at the moment. Briefly he told her, mentioning his intention to try to track down the missing Eduard Roschmann. She was aghast.
Peter ate away stolidly, letting the tide of reproach and recrimination flow over his head.
 
"It's bad enough that you always have to go around covering the doings of those nasty criminals and people," she was saying, "without going and getting mixed up with those Nazi people. I don't know what your dear father would have thought, I really don't." A thought struck him. "Mother." "Yes, dear?" "During the war-those things that the SS did to people... in the camps.
Did you ever suspect--did you ever think that it was going on?" She busied herself furiously, tidying up the table. After a few seconds she spoke. "Horrible things. Terrible things. The British made us look at the films after the war. I don't want to hear any more about it." She bustled out. Peter rose and followed her into the kitchen. "You remember in nineteen fifty when I was sixteen and I went to Paris with a school party?" She paused, filling the sink for the dishwashing. "Yes, I remember." "And we were taken to see a church called the Sacr6 Coeur. And there was a service just finishing, a memorial service for a man called Jean Moulin.
Some people came out, and they heard me speaking German to another boy. One of the group turned and spat at me. I remember the spittle running down my jacket. I remember I came home later and told you about it. Do you remember what you said?" Mrs. Miller was furiously scouring a dinner plate.
"You said the French were like that. Dirty habits, you said." "Well, they have. I never did like them." "Look, Mother, do you know what we did to Jean Moulin before he died? Not you, not Father, not me. But us, the Germans, or rather the Gestapo, which for millions of foreigners seems to be the same thing." "I don't want to hear. Now, that's enough of that." "Well, I can't tell you, because I don't know. Doubtless it's recorded somewhere. But the point is, I was spat on not because I was in the Gestapo, but because I'm a German." "And you should be proud of it." "Oh, I am, believe me, I am. But that doesn't mean
 
I've got to be proud of the Nazis and the SS and the Gestapo." "Well, nobody is, but there's no point in keeping talking about it." She was flustered, as always when he argued with her, drying her hands on the dishtowel before bustling back into the living room. He trailed after her.
"Look, Mother, try to understand. Until I read that diary I never even asked precisely what it was we were all supposed to have done. Now at least I'm beginning to understand. That's why I want to find this man, this monster, if he's still around. It's right that he should be brought to trial." She sat on the settee, close to tears. "Please, Peterkin, leave them alone.
Just don't keep probing into the past. It won't do any good. It's over now, over and done with. It's best forgotten." Peter Miller was facing the mantelpiece, which was dominated by the clock and the photograph of his dead father, who was wearing his Army captain's uniform, staring out of the frame with the kind, rather sad smile that Miller remembered. It was taken before he returned to the front after his last leave.
 
Peter remembered his father with startling clarity, looking at his photograph nineteen years later as his mother asked him to drop the Roschmann inquiry. He could remember before the war, when he was five years old, and his father had taken him to Hagenbeck's zoo and pointed out all the animals to him, one by one, patiently reading the details off the little tin plaques in front of each cage to reply to the endless flow of questions from the boy.
 
He could remember bow his father came home after enlisting in 1940, and how his mother had cried and how he had thought bow stupid women are to cry over such a wonderful thing as having a father in uniform. He recalled the day in 1944 when be was ten years old, and an Army officer had come to the door to tell his mother that her war-hero husband had been killed on the Eastern Front.
"Besides, nobody wants these awful expos6s any more. Nor these terrible trials that we keep having, with everything dragged out into the open again. Nobody's going to thank you for it, even if you do find him. They'll just point to you in the street; I mean, they don't want any more trials.
Not now, it's too late. Just drop it, Peter, please, for my sake." He remembered the black-edged column of names in the newspaper, the same length as every day, but different that day in late October, for halfway down was the entry: "Fallen for Fiihrer and Fatherland. Miller, Erwin, Captain, on October 11. In Ostland." And that was it. Nothing else. No hint of where, or when, or why. Just one of tens of thousands of names pouring back from the east to fill the ever-lengthening black-edged columns, until the government had ceased to print them because they destroyed morale.
 
"I mean," said his mother behind him, "you might at least think of your father's memory. You think he'd want his son digging around into the past, trying to drag up another war-crimes trial? Do you think that's what he'd want?" Miller spun around and walked across the room to his mother, placed both hands on her shoulders, and looked down into her frightened china-blue eyes. He stooped and kissed her lightly on the forehead.
"Yes, Mutti," he said. "I think that's exactly what he'd want." He let himself out, climbed into his car, and headed back into Hamburg, his anger seething inside him.
 
Everyone who knew him and many who did not agreed Hans Hoffmann looked the part. He was in his late forties, boyishly handsome with carefully styled graying hair cut in the latest trendy fashion, and manicured fingers. His medium-gray suit was from Savile Row, his heavy silk tie was from Cardin.
There was an air of expensive good taste of the kind money can buy about him.
If looks bad been his only asset be would not have been one of West Germany's wealthiest and most successful magazine-publishers. Starting after the war with a hand-operated press, turning out handbills for the British Occupation authorities, he had founded in 1949 one of the first weekly picture magazines. His formula was simple--tell it in words and make it shocking, then back it up with pictures that make all competitors look like novices with their first box brownies. It worked. His chain of eight magazines ranging from love stories for teenagers to the glossy chronicle of the doings of the rich and sexy had made him a multimillionaire. But Komet, the news and current-affairs magazine, was still his favorite, his baby.
The money had brought him a luxurious ranch-style house at Othmarschen, a chalet in the mountains, a villa by the sea, a Rolls-Royce, and a Ferrari.
Along the way he bad picked up a beautiful wife, whom he dressed from Paris, and two handsome children he seldom saw. The only millionaire in Germany whose succession of young mistresses, discreetly maintained and frequently exchanged, were never photographed in his gossip magaZine was Hans Hoffmann. He waF also very astute.
That Wednesday afternoon be closed the Cover of the diary of Salomon Tauber after reading the beginning, leantd back, and looked at the young repoi:ter opposiie.
 
"All right. I can guess the rest. What do you want?" "I think that's a great document," said Miller. "There's a man mentioned throughout the diary called Eduard Roschmann. Captain in the SS. Commandant of Riga ghetto throughout. Killed eighty thousand men, women, and children.
I believe he's alive and here in West Germany. I want to find him." "How do you know he's alive?" Miller told him briefly.
 
Hoffmann pursed his lips. "Pretty thin evidence."
"True. But worth a second look. I've brought home stories that started on less." Hoffmann grinned, recalling Miller's talent for ferreting out stories that hurt the Establishment. Hoffmann had been happy to print them, once they were checked out as accurate. They sent circulation soaring.
 
"Then presumably this man-what do you call him, Roschmann? Presumably he's already on the wanted list. If the police can't find him, what makes you think you can?" "Are the police really looking?" asked Miller.
 
Hoffmann shrugged. "They're supposed to. That's what we pay them for." "It wouldn't hurt to help a little, would it? Just check out whether he's really alive, whether he was ever picked up; if so, what happened to him?" "So what do you want from me?" asked Hoffmann.
"A commission to give it a try. If nothing comes of it, I drop it." Hoffmann swung in his chair, spinning around to face the picture windows looking out over the sprawling docks, mile after mile of cranes and wharfs spread out twenty floors below and a mile away.
"It's a bit out of your line, Miller. Why the sudden interest?" Miller thought hard. Trying to sell an idea was always the hardest part. A freelance reporter has to sell the story, or the idea of the story, to the publisher or the editor first. The public comes much later.
"It's a good human-interest story. If Komet could find the man where the police forces of the country had failed, it would be a scoop. Something people want to know about." Hoffmann gazed out at the December skyline and slowly shook his head.
"You're wrong. That's why I'm not giving you a commission for it. I should think it's the last thing people want to know about." "But look, Herr Hoffmann, this is different. These people Roschmann killed-they weren't Poles and Russians. These were Germans-all right, German Jews, but they were Germans. Why wouldn't people want to know about it?" Hoffmann spun back from the window, put his elbows on the desk, and rested his chin on his knuckles. "Miller, you're a good reporter. I like the way you cover a story; you've got style. And you're a ferret. I can hire twenty, fifty, a hundred men in this city by picking up the phone, and they'll all do what they're told, cover the stories thev're sent to cover. But they can't dig out a story for 6emselves. You can. That's why you get a lot of work from me and will get a lot more in the future. But not this one." "But why? It's a good story." "Listen, you're young. I'll tell you something about journalism. Half of journalism is about writing good stories. The other half is about selling them. You can do the first bit, but I can do the second. Thaes why I'm here and you're there. You think this is a story everyone will want to read because the victims of Riga were German Jews. I'm telling you that's exactly why no one will want to read the story. It's the last story in the world theyll want to read. And until there's a law in this country forcing people to buy magazines and read what's good for them, they'll go on buying magazines to read what they want to read. And 6at's what I give them. What they want to read." "Then why not about Roschmann?" "You still don't get it? Then I'll tell you. Before the war just about everyone in Germany knew at least one Jew. The fact is, before Hitler started, nobody hated the Jews in Germany. We had the best record of treatment of our Jewish minority of any country in Europe. Better than France, better than Spain, infinitely better than Poland and Russia, where the pogroms were fiendish.
 
"Then Hitler started. Telling people the Jews were to blame for the First War, the unemployment, the poverty, and everything else that was wrong.
 
People didn't know what to believe. Almost everyone knew one Jew who was a nice guy. Or just harmless. People had Jewish friends, good friends; Jewish employers, good employers; Jewish employees, hard workers. They obeyed the laws; they didn't hurt anyone. And here was Hitler saying they were to blame for everything.
"So when the vans came and took them away, people didn't do anything. They stayed out of the way, they kept quiet. They even got to believing the voice that shouted the loudest. Because that's the way people are, particularly the Germans. We're a very obedient people. It's our greatest strength and our greatest weakness. It enables us to build an economic miracle while the British are on strike, and it enables us to follow a man like Hitler into a great big mass grave.
"For years people haven't asked what happened to the Jews of Germany. They just disappeared-nothing else. It's bad enough to read at every war-crimes trial what happened to the faceless, anonymous Jews of Warsaw, Lublin, Bialystok-nameless, unknown Jews from Poland and Russia. Now you want to tell them, chapter and verse, what happened to their next-door neighbors.
Now can you understand it? These Jews'~-he tapped the diary----:"these people they knew, they greeted them in the street, they bought in their shops, and they stood around while they were taken away for your Herr Roschmann to deal with. You think they want to read about that? You couldn't have picked a story that people in Germany want to read about less." Having finished, Hans Hoffmann leaned back, selected a fine panatela from a humidor on the desk, and lit it from a rolled-gold Dupont. Miller sat and digested what he had not been able to work out for himself.
 
"That must have been what my mother meant," he said at length.
Hoffmann grunted. "Probably." "I still want to find that bastard." "Leave it alone, Miller. Drop it. No one will thank you." "That's not the only reason, is it? The public reaction. There's another reason, isn't there?" Hoffmann eyed him keenly through the cigar smoke. "Yes," he said shortly.
"Are you afraid of them-still?" asked Miller.
 
Hoffmann shook his head. "No. I just don't go looking for trouble, that's all." "What kind of trouble?" "Have you ever heard of a man called Hans Habe?" asked Hoffmann.
 
"The novelist? Yes, what about him?" "He used to run a magazine in Munich once. Back in the early fifties. A good one too-he was a damn good reporter, like you. Echo of the Week, it was called. He hated the Nazis, so he ran a series of expos6s of former SS men living in freedom in Munich." "What happened to him?" "To him, nothing. One day he got more mail than usual. Half the letters were from his advertisers, withdrawing their custom. Another was from his bank, asking him to drop around. When he did, he was told the bank was foreclosing on the overdraft, as of that minute. Within a week the magazine was out of business. Now he writes novels, good ones too. But he doesn't run a magazine any more." "So what do the rest of us do? Keep running scared?" Hoffmann jerked his cigar out of his mouth. "I don't have to take that from you, Miller," he said, his eyes snapping. "I hated the bastards then and I hate them now. But I know my readers. And they don't want to know about Eduard Roschmann." "All right. I'm sorry. But I'm still going to cover it." "You know, Miller, if I didn't know you, I'd think there was something personal behind it. Never let journalism get personal. It's bad for reporting, and it's bad for the reporter. Anyway, how are you going to finance yourself?" "I've got some savings," Miller rose to go.
"Best of luck," said Hoffmann, rising and coming around the desk. "I tell you what I'll do. The day Roschmann is arrested and imprisoned by the West German police, I'll commission you to cover the story. That's straight news, so it's public property. If I decide not to print, I'll buy it out of my pocket. That's as far as I'll go. But while you're digging for him, you're not carrying the letterhead of my magazine around as your authority." Miller nodded. "I'll be back," he said.

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