“Isn’t it obvious? Everything was coming down upon our heads, and upon the heads of our families. We were doing all we could to secure our futures.”
“Kurt’s future seemed to end up a little brighter than yours.”
“Because he is wealthier, you mean? That is not everything, you know. Even the Nazis didn’t believe that.”
“Not just wealth. Power, influence. Stature. Kurt Bauer can go out in public under his own name and everyone is fine with that. A Stuckart, on the other hand-”
“You’d be surprised how much of that so-called stature is because of the money. And he is part Jew, you know, which is an advantage nowadays. Not that it shouldn’t be, of course.”
“Bauer is Jewish?”
“Not Jewish. But he has Jewish blood. There was that whole thing with his sister’s marriage.”
Nat had never heard a word of this, and he suspected Berta hadn’t either. The odd thing was the way Stuckart seemed to revel in the information, as if he had just brought the man down a few pegs. The two men’s relationship seemed complex, to say the least, and Nat wondered what lay at the heart of it.
“His sister’s marriage? I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that.”
“She was supposed to marry an SS man. But it was called off after the background check by the Racial Office. Some ancestor turned up, ages earlier, a great-great-grandmother or something, who turned out to be a Jew. So, naturally-”
“Were there other consequences?”
“Not any real ones. There was never any question of that. His family was far too valuable to the war effort. There must have been thousands of those marriage background checks, and I never heard of a single one that led to anything beyond a few broken hearts. But of course Kurt’s father didn’t know that. The poor man panicked, nearly had a breakdown. And once you let certain people in the Gestapo see this sort of fear, well, I’m sure you can imagine how they might choose to take advantage.”
“Bribes?”
Stuckart shrugged, but a sly grin said he knew better. Maybe Gollner also knew better.
“Was that why the family left for Switzerland?”
Stuckart shrugged again, and this time he didn’t smile. He took another long drag from his cigarette before speaking.
“As I said, Kurt and I hardly saw each other in Bern. I never had a chance to ask.”
“This news about the Jewish ancestor, then-you heard that from other people?”
“I may have seen Kurt in Berlin just before he left. We were both still too young for the draft, so we had time for socializing, such as it was, with the blackout and all. They even closed the beer gardens, you know. Worst decision the Cripple ever made.”
“Did your father know about this problem with the Bauers’ ancestry?”
“Of course.”
“And he didn’t order you to stop seeing him?”
“You know, people always assume that any German in those days would have simply been appalled to find out that a friend had even a drop of Jewish blood.”
“Can’t imagine why they’d think that.”
“See? You are the same. And in my case, it is only because of my father, and some meeting he supposedly attended, and a single law that bears his signature. Say what you will, but I am not at all ashamed of my father. He was a legal technician, nothing more. They asked him to draft laws and he did so, just as he was obligated to do. Not by the German Reich, but by his professional code of conduct. The same way that any lawyer would defend some criminal, some murderer, to his very last breath if that was his duty. Does that mean the lawyer is complicit in the murder? Of course not.”
“Yes, I see your point.” The last thing Nat wanted to encourage was further lecturing. “So his Jewishness didn’t bother anybody, then-is that what you’re saying?”
“It was merely some old blood, a mistake made long ago by a distant relative. Or not a mistake, but you know what I mean. I suppose there was some reaction among a few people. But no one of importance. His girlfriend, for example. If anything, she was probably pleased by it. Not because she was a Jew, of course. More because of her politics. I always suspected that deep down she was a little Bolshevik.”
Stuckart laughed, the smoke issuing in bursts.
“What makes you say that? Because of this little group they were mixed up in, the White Rose?”
Stuckart’s smile disappeared.
“I don’t know a thing about any of that.”
“Nothing?”
“Quite right.”
“But wasn’t Bauer arrested? Surely you heard about that. He was interrogated by the Gestapo, even put into prison for a while.”
“I don’t know.”
“Your best friend goes to jail for five months and you don’t know about it?”
“We were friends, not
“I see.” Lying son of a bitch. But why cover for Bauer on a matter that, presumably, would make the man look good, even noble? “What else do you remember about Bauer’s girlfriend?”
“Not so much. It was a poor match. My father detested her. But all the same he was fine with letting her dine in his house, because that is the kind of man he was.”
“Tolerant.”
“Of course. His duties and his work he kept to one side, his friendships and his hospitality he kept to another. As is only proper.”
“Of course.” Nat wished he had all this on tape, if only for the circuitous marvel of Stuckart’s rationalizations. He had heard some splendid examples over the years from Germans of that era, but this was a virtuoso performance.
The discussion of Bauer’s girlfriend, however, had jarred loose his memory of Berta’s findings on the deaths at Plotzensee Prison, plus all those photos of the elderly Bauer arriving at the site on the fourth day of every month, flowers in hand.
“This girlfriend. I suppose you’re referring to Liesl Folkerts?”
Stuckart tilted his head and gave Nat a long, silent look, as if reappraising his questioner. His next words emerged with great deliberation.
“How much, exactly, have you dug up on old Kurt?”
Was it Nat’s imagination, or had Stuckart’s tone contained a hint of gleeful malice? Yes, this was a complicated friendship.
“Bits and pieces. She died, didn’t she? Some misadventure at Plotzensee Prison?”
“She was killed in a bombing raid. There was a big one that night, and the prison took a direct hit. A few people even managed to escape as a result, but Liesl was buried under a collapsed wall. Kurt was inconsolable.”
“I thought you didn’t see him any then?”
“This was all secondhand, of course. From mutual friends. As for myself, I, uh, didn’t see him again until-”
“Switzerland?”
“Of course.”
“Let’s go back there for a second.”
Stuckart shrugged and reached again for his cigarettes. He stubbed out the first one even though it was only half finished.
“As I told you, we hardly saw each other in Bern. I recall running into him once on the Kornhaus Bridge, but that was about it.”
