Philip Kerr - The Lady from Zagreb

“What’s he got to do with Yugoslavia?”

“There are lots of Muslims in Yugoslavia. Himmler’s made Haj Amin a general in the SS, so that he can organize the establishment of a Bosnian Islamic Waffen-SS division. There’s a whole bunch of them undergoing training right now in France and Brandenburg. And Goebbels has had him give several radio broadcasts in Arab countries calling on Muslims to kill Jews.”

“From Radio House? On Masurenallee?”

“No, he’s got his own transmitter in the house. It all sounds insane, I know.”

“I sometimes wonder just how insane things are going to get before it all ends.”

“More insane than I hope you can know. But as far as Yugoslavia is concerned, you’d probably do better to get an appraisal of the situation in the country at large from my man on the ground down there, a fellow named Koob. Sturmbannführer Emil Koob. He’s more of a Bulgarian expert, really, but good on the Balkans in general. I want you to take some American dollars to him, that’s all. We’re in the process of setting up a wireless communication system in Zagreb: called I-Netz, it can communicate with the Wannsee Institute. In the event of the Balkans being overrun by the Allies, we want some people who will be able to function behind enemy lines. I’ll send Koob a signal to expect you. You’ll find him at the Esplanade Hotel. It’s the only decent place to stay in Zagreb. Now, that’s some foreign intelligence which is really worth having. Think you can handle that?”

“No problem. And thanks for the tip about the hotel.”

“Look, come and speak to me when you’re back in Berlin. I’d like an appraisal of the latest situation in Croatia myself. Will you do that?”

“Certainly, sir.”

Before I left, Schellenberg gave me a briefcase in which was a small parcel he informed me was full of money. And then I was on my way again.

At the Bendlerblock I went to find Eugen Dorfmüller, a judge who, like me, was one of the temporaries recruited to the War Crimes Bureau. Dorfmüller had considerable experience investigating war crimes in Yugoslavia. He was about the same age as me and perhaps just as cynical.

“It’s a simple missing persons inquiry,” I told him. “With any luck, I can be there and back in no time at all. I just want some advice on how far I’m sticking my neck out by going there. I don’t like sticking it out unless I have to. On account of the fact that my head’s attached to it. Which is important when I nod.”

“Advice? My advice is this. If you go to Croatia, try and keep away from the Ustaše. Nasty lot. Cruel.”

“I’m looking for a priest, so hopefully I won’t need to have too much contact with them.”

“A priest, eh? You’ll find plenty of those in Croatia. It’s a very Catholic country.” He shook his head. “I don’t know much about Banja Luka. But it’s mostly SS who are down there now. A volunteer Waffen-SS division called the Prinz Eugen commanded by a highly decorated Romanian-German general called Artur Phleps. He’s a bit of a bastard, quite frankly, even by the standards of the SS. You’d do well to stay away from them, too. But I don’t have to tell you about that, of course. You were in Smolensk, weren’t you? The Katyn Forest massacre, wasn’t it? Christ, investigating a Russian mass murder down there — well, that was like the donkey calling the ass ‘big ears.’”

“It was kind of ridiculous.”

“Actually, it’s good you’re going down there to Croatia,” he said. “I want you to confirm a decision the bureau made at the beginning of the year, which is to stop investigating war crimes in Yugoslavia.”

“Why did we stop?”

“Because there were so many it hardly seemed to matter. By the way, here’s an interesting thing I discovered only just the other day. All the bureau’s files on war crimes in Yugoslavia have gone missing. All the depositions I took, all my case notes, all my observations, everything. Hundreds of pages of documents, all gone. It’s like I was never there. Be careful. It’s not just files that can go missing in Yugoslavia, Bernie. It’s men, too. Especially men like you. My advice to you when you’re down there is this: to say nothing at all about the fact that you are currently on attachment to the War Crimes Bureau. Do this job for the Ministry of Truth — whatever it is — and get yourself back here as quickly as possible and then forget you even heard the name of Croatia.”

My last port of call was the ministry, to return Joey’s magnificent car and to make a bid to hang on to it for the evening. I liked having a car again. Having a car makes it so easy to get around. You just turn the engine over and then aim the sights at the end of the bonnet where you want to go.

At the Ministry of Truth a secretary told me that Joey had gone to his city mansion, at the corner of Hermann-Göring-Strasse. It was a short drive away from Wilhelmplatz and anyone from Berlin could have found the place with his eyes closed: formerly the palace of the marshals of the Prussian royal court, the old building had been demolished and replaced with an expensive new house designed by Albert Speer. I was thinking of having Speer around myself to see what he could do with my place on Fasanenstrasse. Goebbels had the whole of the Tiergarten round his town house and quite a bit of it on the walls; I’ve never seen so much oak paneling. A butler with a face like a melted elephant led me to a cozy little room with a tapestry as big as a battlefield and an uninterrupted view of prelapsarian Berlin; just grass and above the trees in the distance, the golden lady on top of the Victory Column. A lot of people said she was the only girl in Berlin who Goebbels hadn’t been able to get his leg over.

He was on the telephone and in a bad mood. From what I could gather, Hitler had decided to award a posthumous Knight’s Cross with Oak-Leaf Cluster and Swords to the chief of the Japanese Navy; the only trouble was that it seemed the Japanese emperor had raised some objections to the idea of a Japanese officer being decorated by “barbarians,” by which I assume he meant us.

“But it’s a great honor,” Goebbels said. “The first time a foreign military officer has been awarded this decoration. Please impress upon Tojo and his Imperial Majesty that the leader merely wishes to acknowledge the respect in which the admiral was held by him and that this is in no way intended as a way of trumping your own Order of the Chrysanthemum. Yes. I understand. Thank you.”

Goebbels banged down the telephone receiver and stared at me balefully.

“Well? What do you want?”

“I can come back if you like, Herr Doctor,” I said.

Goebbels shook his head. “No, no. Tell me what you think.” He pointed to a chair and I sat down.

Finally he smiled. “Beautiful, isn’t she?”

“Yes, I suppose she is,” I said with teasing skepticism; and then: “Astonishingly so. She’s beautiful in a fantastic, unearthly, in-your-dreams sort of way.”

“That’s right. And her face. Did you notice how it has a very luminous quality? Like it has its own key light.” Seeing me look baffled, Goebbels added, “That’s a technical, film-lighting name for a stage light that shines only on one person. Usually the star of the picture.”

“Yes, I did.” Under the circumstances I thought it best not to say anything more about how attractive I thought Dalia Dresner was. I’d already said too much. “I can go to Yugoslavia as soon as you like, provided I can get into the Esplanade Hotel,” I said. “But first I’d like to take a run out to Brandenburg and speak to a detachment of Bosnian Muslim SS about the situation in their country. If I’m going to travel to Banja Luka, I want to make sure that I’m fully aware of the local situation. Which, by all accounts I’ve had so far, is uncertain, to say the least. From what I’ve heard, I’m going to earn every pfennig of what you’ve paid me, Herr Doctor.”