“Yes. I could hardly forget him. No one could. Brunner was a memorable man, Herr Ganz. Him and Wisliceny and Eichmann. All driven by hatred of the Jews. But unlike Eichmann, Brunner was a real sadist. He liked inflicting pain. A couple of times I was present when Alois Brunner tortured a man at the Villa Mehmet Kapanci—that was the Gestapo headquarters on Vasilissis Olgas Avenue, in Thessaloniki. And clearly he enjoyed it. I didn’t want to be there, of course, but Brunner took out his gun and pressed it up against my eyeball and told me I could translate for him or I could bleed on the floor. Those were his exact words. Like I say, you don’t forget a man like Brunner. But I haven’t seen nor heard of him since the summer of 1943, thank God. And I wouldn’t have any idea of how to find him.”
“Brunner is back in Greece.”
“He wouldn’t dare. I don’t believe it. Says who?”
“Says me. I met him here in Athens, although I didn’t know it at the time. He’s using an assumed name.”
“Jesus. How about that? Now there’s someone who really does have a lot to answer for in this country. But for Brunner and Wisliceny, the Jews of Thessaloniki might still be alive. Almost sixty thousand of them died in Auschwitz. It was Brunner’s job to get them on the trains out of Salonika. Maybe that’s why Brunner feels it’s safe to come back. Because there’s no one around to identify him.”
“There’s you.”
“Sure. And tell Leventis I will identify him if it gets me out of here. No problem. Now all you have to do is find the bastard.”
“So what else can you tell me about Brunner?”
“Let’s see now. There was a hotel in Thessaloniki he liked, the Aegaeon. And another one where he took his Greek mistress, the Luxembourg. Her name was Tzeni, I think. Or Tonia. No, Tzeni. I’m not so sure he didn’t murder her before he left Greece. A couple of times I accompanied him to Athens and he stayed at the Xenias Melathron, on Jan Smuts. There was a restaurant he liked, too—the Kissos on Amerikis Street. I doubt he’d risk going back to Thessaloniki, but Athens would be different. He wasn’t here that often.” Meissner paused. “How did you know it was him?”
“Because Lieutenant Leventis showed me a photograph and I recognized him as the man who’d been talking to me earlier on in my hotel bar. Calls himself Fischer now, Georg Fischer, and he claims to be a tobacco salesman.”
“You say he spoke to you?”
“That’s right. He initiated a conversation when he realized I was German.”
“Was he just making conversation or did he want something? If he did, then make sure you give it to him. That man likes to kill people. And not just Jews.”
“So I hear. At first I figured it was just two Germans a long way from home—that kind of thing. But later on I realized he was looking for someone. He hoped I might lead him to the man. Because unwittingly I did, that someone is now dead.”
“Who?”
“Fellow named Siegfried Witzel.”
“Never heard of him.”
“He worked for a man named Max Merten.”
“Max Merten.” Meissner stood up and lit one of the cigarettes I’d given him. He walked around the room for a moment, nodding quietly to himself.
“That name mean something to you?”
“Oh yes.”
“What can you tell me about Max Merten?”
“Wait a minute. You said this Witzel fellow worked for Merten?”
“Yes.”
“When was that?”
“Now. This year. I think Merten’s in Greece, too.”
Meissner grinned. “Now it’s starting to make sense. Why Brunner would dare come back to Greece. Wisliceny is dead—hanged by the Czechs, I think. And Eichmann, well, he’s disappeared. In Brazil, if he knows what’s good for him. So that leaves Merten and Brunner. It figures.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
“People remember Eichmann, Wisliceny, and Brunner because they were all SD and they think all of the really bad men were in the SS because the SS were specifically tasked with killing the Jews, but the fact is Merten was in charge of the whole shooting match.”
“But he was just an army captain, wasn’t he?”
“True. Which would have made it a lot easier for him to stay beneath the radar. But Merten was the chief of military administration for the whole Salonika-Aegean theater. The Wehrmacht let him do what the fuck he wanted because they were mostly all in Athens and they didn’t give a shit about Thessaloniki. For one thing, there wasn’t a really good hotel like the GB. And for another, they preferred to keep their gentlemen’s consciences away from the SD myrmidons and what they had planned. But in Thessaloniki if you wanted a truck, a train, a ship, a building, you had to go through Merten. You wanted a hundred Jewish workers to build a road, you had to ask Merten. He was the boss of everything. Even Eichmann had to go through Max Merten. Now there’s someone who the Greeks should put on trial. The stories I could tell you about Max Merten. He lived like a king in Thessaloniki. And not just any king. Like Croesus, probably. He had a villa with a swimming pool, girls, cars, servants, the best food and wine. He even had his own cinema theater. And nobody bothered him.” Meissner shook his head bitterly. “But of course there’s only one real story about Max Merten. If you ask me that’s probably what your Greek lieutenant is really interested in. Putting Alois Brunner on trial is just a smokescreen. If Max Merten is in Greece, then there can be only one reason. And I daresay Alois Brunner knows that, too.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
–
I strolled out of the Averoff Prison door and through the main gate with some air under my blue suede Salamanders because prison always affected me that way. Whichever
