Philip Kerr - Berlin Noir

‘Meanwhile he married Lisa Voegler, a former State Actress in the Berlin State Theatre. They had one child, Grete, born in 1911. Lisa died of tuberculosis in 1934, and Six married Lise Rudel, the actress.’ Inge Lorenz stood up and started to walk about the room as she spoke. Watching her made it difficult to concentrate: when she turned away my eyes were on her behind; and when she turned to face me they were on her belly.

‘I said that Six doesn’t care for the Party. That’s true. He is equally opposed, however, to the trade-union cause, and appreciated the way in which the Party set about neutralizing it when it first came to power. But it’s the so-called Socialism of the Party that really sticks in his throat. And the Party’s economic policy. Six was one of several leading businessmen present at a secret meeting in early 1933 held in the Presidential Palace, at which future National Socialist economic policy was explained by Hitler and Goering. Anyway, these businessmen responded by contributing several million marks to Party coffers on the strength of Hitler’s promise to eliminate the Bolsheviks and restore the army. It was a courtship that did not last long. Like a lot of Germany’s industrialists, Six favours expanding trade and increased commerce. Specifically, with regard to the steel industry he prefers to buy his raw materials abroad, because it’s cheaper. Goering does not agree, however, and believes that Germany should be self-sufficient in iron ore, as in everything else. He believes in a controlled level of consumption and exports. It’s easy to see why.’ She paused, waiting for me to furnish her with the explanation that was so easy to see.

‘Is it?’ I said.

She tutted and sighed and shook her head all at once. ‘Well, of course it is. The simple fact of the matter is that Germany is preparing for war, and so conventional economic policy is of little or no relevance.’

I nodded intelligently. ‘Yes, I see what you mean.’ She sat down on the arm of her chair, and folded her arms.

‘I was speaking to someone who still works on the D A Z,’ she said, ‘and he says that there’s a rumour that in a couple of months, Goering will assume control over the second four-year economic plan. Given his declared interest in the setting up of state-owned raw material plants to guarantee the supply of strategic resources, such as iron ore, one can imagine that Six is less than happy about that possibility. You see, the steel industry suffered from considerable over-capacity during the depression. Six is reluctant to sanction the investment that is required for Germany to become self-sufficient in iron ore because he knows that as soon as the rearmament boom finishes, he’ll find himself massively over-capitalized, producing expensive iron and steel, itself the result of the high cost of producing and using domestic iron ore. He’ll be unable to sell German steel abroad because of the high price. Of course, it goes without saying that Six wants business to keep the initiative in the German economy. And my guess is that he’ll be doing his best to persuade the other leading businessmen to join him in opposing Goering. If they fail to back him, there’s no telling what he’s capable of. He’s not above fighting dirty. It’s my suspicion, and it’s only a suspicion, mind, that he has contacts in the underworld.’

The stuff on German economic policy was of marginal consequence, I thought; but Six and the underworld, well that really got me interested.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Well, first there was the strike-breaking that occurred during the steel strikes,’ she said. ‘Some of the men who beat up workers had gangland connections. Many of them were ex-convicts, members of a ring, you know, one of those criminal rehabilitation societies.’

‘Can you remember the name of this ring?’ She shook her head.

‘It wasn’t German Strength, was it?’

‘I don’t remember.’ She thought some more. ‘I could probably dig up the names of the people involved, if that would help.’

‘If you can,’ I said, ‘and anything else you can produce on that strike-breaking episode, if you wouldn’t mind.’

There was a lot more, but I already had my seventy-five-marks worth. Knowing more about my private, secretive client, I felt that I was properly in the driving seat. And now that I’d heard her out, it occurred to me that I could make use of her.

‘How would you like to come and work for me? I need someone to be my assistant, someone to do the digging around in public records and to be here now and then. I think it would suit you. I could pay you, say, sixty marks a week. Cash, so we wouldn’t have to inform the labour people. Maybe more if things work out. What do you say?’

‘Well if you’re sure…’ She shrugged. ‘I could certainly use the money.’

‘That’s settled then.’ I thought for a minute. ‘Presumably, you still have a few contacts on papers, in government departments?’ She nodded. ‘Do you happen to know anyone in the D A F, the German Labour Service?’

She thought for a minute, and fiddled with the buttons on her jacket. ‘There was someone,’ she said, ruminatively. ‘An ex-boyfriend, an S A man. Why do you ask?’

‘Give him a call, and ask him to take you out this evening.’

‘But I haven’t seen or spoken to him in months,’ she said. ‘And it was bad enough getting him to leave me alone the last time. He’s a real leech.’ Her blue eyes glanced anxiously at me.

‘I want you to find out anything you can about what Six’s son-in-law, Paul Pfarr, was so interested in that he was there several times a week. He had a mistress, too, so anything you can find out about her as well. And I mean anything.’

‘I’d better wear an extra pair of knickers, then,’ she said. ‘The man has hands like he thinks he should have been a midwife.’ For the briefest of moments I allowed myself a small pang of jealousy, as I imagined him making a pass at her. Perhaps in time I might do the same.

‘I’ll ask him to take me to see a show,’ she said, summoning me from my erotic reverie. ‘Maybe even get him a little drunk.’

‘That’s the idea,’ I said. ‘And if that fails, offer the bastard money.’

Tegal Prison lies to the northwest of Berlin and borders a small lake and the Borsig Locomotive Company housing-estate. As I drove onto Seidelstrasse, its red-brick walls heaved into sight like the muddy flanks of some horny-skinned dinosaur; and when the heavy wooden door banged shut behind me, and the blue sky vanished as though it had been switched off like an electric light, I began to feel a certain amount of sympathy for the inmates of what is one of Germany’s toughest prisons.

A menagerie of warders lounged around the main entrance hall, and one of these, a pug-faced man smelling strongly of carbolic soap and carrying a bunch of keys that was about the size of the average car tyre, led me through a Cretan labyrinth of yellowing, toilet-bricked corridors and into a small cobbled courtyard in the centre of which stood the guillotine. It’s a fearsome-looking object, and always sends a chill down my spine when I see it again. Since the Party had come to power, it had seen quite a bit of action, and even now it was being tested, no doubt in preparation for the several executions that were posted on the gate as scheduled for dawn the next morning.

The warder led me through an oak door and up a carpeted stairway, to a corridor. At the end of the corridor, the warder stood outside a polished mahogany door and knocked. He paused for a second or two and then ushered me inside. The prison governor, Dr Konrad Spiedel, rose from behind his desk to greet me. It was several years since I had first made his acquaintance, when he’d been governor of Brauweiler Prison, near Köln, but he had not forgotten the occasion: