‘What the devil are you up to, Sergeant Gruber?’ It was unusual for one of his detective sergeants to be gallivanting around the city the way Gruber had been, and Captain Robert Wendt wanted to know the reason for it. The latest case-closure figures were out, and once again Gruber’s squad was at the bottom of the standings.
‘I’m working on a priority case, Captain,’ said Gruber.
Wendt pulled furiously on his mustache, a sign Gruber understood all too well. ‘Damn it, man, it’s not for you to decide whether a case is a priority or not,’ he said. ‘If you’re not up to the task of running a squad, I can put Bergemann or somebody else in charge …’
‘It’s Geismeier, sir,’ said Gruber.
‘Geismeier? What about Geismeier?’
‘He’s been spotted,’ said Gruber. This was a lie.
‘What? When?’ said Wendt.
‘A short while ago,’ said Gruber.
Wendt looked at his hapless sergeant for a long minute. He looked at the case board. There were six open cases on it, some dating back to the beginning of the year and even earlier. Wendt rapped the board hard with his knuckles. ‘Take care of these cases, Sergeant. I don’t want to hear another word about Geismeier. Leave Geismeier to the Gestapo.’
The easiest case on the board, a robbery, had all the earmarks of a gang of well-known villains. They often hung out at a pool hall on the outskirts of the city, a place where, unfortunately, Willi Geismeier had never been seen or been known to have any business. It was a cool April evening; a warm breeze was blowing from the south. Gruber, along with another detective and two uniforms, drove out to roust the robbers.
The pool hall was on the second floor of what had once been a newspaper printing plant. They parked a block from the building. Gruber and the detective walked toward the building’s front entrance while the two uniforms went through an alley to get to the back entrance. As Gruber and the detective were about to enter the building, a bicycle approached from a side street. Willi and Gruber recognized one another at the same moment. Willi tried to swerve out of the way, but Gruber leapt and grabbed the handlebars, pulling the bike down on top of himself. Gruber hit Willi hard, then hit him again and again until he lay still. The other detective put the cuffs on Willi, and that was that. Dumb luck, thought Gruber. But that’s just how it works sometimes.
PART TWO
Dachau
The clouds were low and leaden. It was raining. Puddles formed here and there, turning the Appelplatz, the Roll Call Square, to mud. The weather, the cold rain, which outside Dachau was merely a nuisance, inside was a lethal menace. You had no protection from it. Your inadequate clothes soaked through and chilled your body and made you sick. Your broken-down shoes, which had already been worn out by someone else, collapsed into mush in the mud and rain, and scraped your heels raw so you walked in agony.
When you were not in Dachau you couldn’t imagine what life in there was like. Willi certainly hadn’t. And once you were in Dachau you could no longer remember what life was like out in the real world. These were two worlds apart. Eating, sleeping, walking, defecating, conversing, remaining silent, these were the banal and forgettable aspects of daily life out there. In Dachau nothing was banal or forgettable, and every aspect of daily life could mean the end.
The men had been awakened at four and had gotten their breakfast of thin gruel with a chunk of stale bread and coffee. They had straightened their beds, such as they were: a sack of straw, a threadbare sheet or light blanket, if you were lucky, laid out on wooden platforms stacked three high. There were about fifty men to a room, five rooms to a barracks, thirteen barracks altogether. More were being built by the current prisoners for all the new prisoners who would soon be arriving.
The men had cleaned their rooms, and now they marched in the rain down the alley between the barracks on the camp road that led to the Appelplatz. They were led by their kapo, a prisoner selected by the SS to oversee them. The kapos usually came from the criminal population who were all too eager to have advantages over the other prisoners. Their collaboration with the SS was rewarded with alcohol, drugs, even visits to the Dachau camp brothel, but, most of all, with being allowed to go on living.
The prisoners were required to sing while marching – folk songs, or Nazi songs, or anything else you could march to. You would be punished for not singing. Even music was a means of abuse and humiliation in Dachau. The kapo in charge decided what you sang. Today it was the Horst Wessel Song.
Raise high the flag! Our ranks are tightly closed!
The SA marches with a calm and steady step.
Our comrades, killed by red reactionaries,
March on in spirit with us in our ranks.
Make way the streets for all our brown battalions,
Make way the streets for all our SA men!
Millions look to the swastika with hope,
The day of liberty and bread is dawning now!
When they reached the Appelplatz, they stood at attention. Suddenly there was shouting and screaming behind them. Someone had fallen out of formation or looked around when he wasn’t supposed to. He was being battered and kicked to the ground. If you turned to look, the same thing might happen to you. You marched with your eyes on the neck of the man in front of you. You stared straight ahead while the roll was called. It could take hours, and you stood as long as you had to. You saw nothing, you heard nothing, except when a command was issued
