superiority of the German armed forces – were similar to those worn by Reichsfuhrer Himmler himself.
Liss had known the Eichmanns since before the war; they came from the same town. During his years at Berlin University, working at the same time first on a newspaper and then on a philosophical journal, Liss had made occasional visits to his home town and had heard what had become of his contemporaries at school. Some had been carried up on the wave of success, only to be cast down when Fame and Fortune smiled unexpectedly on others. The life of the young Eichmann, however, had been monotonously drab and uniform. The guns of Verdun, the seemingly imminent victory, the final defeat and ensuing inflation, the political struggles in the Reichstag, the whirl of leftist and extreme-leftist movements in painting, theatre and music, the dizzying changes of fashion – all these had left him untouched.
He worked as an agent for a provincial firm. He behaved with moderate rudeness and moderate attentiveness towards his family and towards people in general. He was cut off from all avenues of advancement by a noisy, gesticulating, hostile crowd. Wherever he went, he saw himself pushed aside by brisk, lively men with dark, shining eyes, men of experience and ability who looked at him with condescending smiles.
After leaving school, he had found it impossible to get work in Berlin. The owners and directors of the different firms and offices informed him that the post had already, unfortunately, been filled -and then Eichmann would hear on the grapevine that the job had been given to some putrid little man of obscure nationality, a Pole perhaps, or an Italian. He had wanted to enter Berlin University, but the same discrimination had prevented his application from being accepted. He had felt the examiners lose interest the moment they set eyes on his full face, his blond crew- cut, his short straight nose, his light-coloured eyes. They seemed interested only in people with long faces, dark eyes, narrow shoulders and hunched backs – in degenerates. Nor had he been alone in being rejected by the capital; it had been the fate of many.
The particular breed that held sway in Berlin could be met with at every level of society, but they were to be found most plentifully among the cosmopolitan intelligentsia, now bereft of any national characteristics and incapable of distinguishing between a German and an Italian, a German and a Pole. They were a strange breed, a strange race. Whoever tried to compete with them in the realms of culture and the intellect was crushed with mocking indifference. The worst thing of all was the feeling one got of their intellectual power – a lively, unaggressive power that showed in their strange tastes, in the way they respected fashion while seeming indifferent or careless towards it, in the way they loved animals yet followed a totally urban life-style, in their gift for abstract speculation that was somehow combined with a passion for everything crude and primitive in both life and art…
It was these men who were responsible for Germany 's advances in dye chemistry and the synthesis of nitrogen, who researched the properties of gamma rays and refined the production process of high-quality steel. It was to see them that foreign scientists, artists, philosophers and engineers visited Germany. And yet these were the men who were the least German of all. Their home was anywhere in the world. Their friendships were not with Germans. And their German origins were exceedingly doubtful.
So how could a mere office-worker in a provincial firm hope to make a better life for himself? He could count himself lucky not to be going hungry…
And now here he was, leaving his office after locking away papers whose existence was known only to three other men in the world -Hitler, Himmler and Kaltenbrunner. A limousine was waiting for him outside. The sentries saluted, the orderly flung open the door and Obersturmbannfuhrer Eichmann was on his way. Accelerating quickly, the powerful Gestapo limousine made its way through the streets of Berlin, passing policemen who saluted respectfully as they hurriedly changed the lights to green, and sped onto the autobahn. And then rain, mist, road- signs and the long smooth curves of the highway…
Smolevichi is full of quiet little houses with gardens; grass grows on the pavements. In the slums of Berdichev there are dirty hens running around in the dust, their yellowish legs marked with red and violet ink. In Kiev – on Vassilievskaya Avenue and in the Podol – there are tall buildings with dirty windows, staircases whose steps have been worn down by millions of children's shoes and old men's slippers.
In yards all over Odessa stand tall plane trees with peeling bark. Brightly-coloured clothes and linen are drying on the line. Pans of cherry jam are steaming on cookers. New-born babies with swarthy skin – skin that has yet to see the sun – are screaming in cradles.
On the six floors of a gaunt, narrow-shouldered building in Warsaw live seamstresses, book-binders, private tutors, cabaret-singers, students and watchmakers…
In Stalindorf people light fires in their huts in the evening. The wind blows from Perekop, smelling of salt and warm dust. Cows shake their heavy heads and moo…
In Budapest and Fastov, in Vienna, Melitopol and Amsterdam, in detached houses with sparkling windows, in hovels swathed in factory smoke, lived people belonging to the Jewish nation.
The barbed wire of the camps, the clay of the anti-tank ditches and the walls of the gas ovens brought together millions of people of different ages, professions and languages, people with different material concerns and different spiritual beliefs. All of them – fanatical believers and fanatical atheists, workers and scroungers, doctors and tradesmen, sages and idiots, thieves, contemplatives, saints and idealists – were to be exterminated.
The Gestapo limousine sped down the autumn autobahn.
30
Eichmann marched into the office, firing off questions before he'd even sat down.
'I've got very little time. I have to be in Warsaw by tomorrow at the latest.'
He had already spoken to the camp-commandant and the chief engineer.
'How are the factories getting on? What are your impressions of Voss? Do you think the chemists are up to it?' he asked rapidly.
His large white fingers – with correspondingly large pink nails – turned over the papers on the desk. From time to time he made brief notes with a fountain-pen. Liss had the feeling that to him this project was no different from any other – though it aroused a secret shiver of horror in even the most hardened hearts.
Liss had drunk a lot over these last few days. He was constantly short of breath and he could feel his heart pounding during the night. In spite of this, he felt that alcohol was less damaging to his health than the constant nervous tension that was the alternative.
He dreamed of returning to his research on important figures who had shown hostility towards National Socialism; of studying questions that, for all their complexity and cruelty, could at least be solved without the shedding of blood. Then he would smoke only two or three cigarettes a day and he would stop drinking. Not long ago, he had played a game of political chess with an old Russian Bolshevik; he had gone back home afterwards, fallen asleep without having to take any tablets and not woken up until nine in the morning.
A small surprise had been laid on for Eichmann and Liss during their tour of inspection. In the middle of the gas chamber, the engineers had laid a small table with hors-d'oeuvres and wine. Reineke invited Eichmann and Liss to sit down.
Eichmann laughed at this charming idea and said: 'With the greatest of pleasure.'
He gave his cap to his bodyguard and sat down. His large face suddenly took on a look of kindly concentration, the same look that appears on the faces of millions of men as they sit down to a good meal.
Reineke poured out the wine and they all reached for their glasses, waiting for Eichmann to propose a toast.
The tension in this concrete silence, in these full glasses, was so extreme that Liss felt his heart was about to burst. What he wanted was some ringing toast to clear the atmosphere, a toast to the glory of the German ideal. Instead, the tension grew stronger – Eichmann was chewing a sandwich.
'Well, gentlemen?' said Eichmann. 'I call that excellent ham!'
'We're waiting for the master of ceremonies to propose a toast,' said Liss.
Eichmann raised his glass.
'To the continued success of our work! Yes, that certainly deserves a toast!'
Eichmann was the only man to eat well and drink very little.
The following morning, wearing only a pair of underpants, Eichmann did his exercises in front of an open
