Dan Fesperman - The Arms Maker of Berlin

The informants’ reports almost invariably concerned episodes when Berta had complained about the way the state was treating her grandmother-a poor housing allowance, occasional harassment, frequent requests for police interviews, and so on. Maybe this explained why Berta had tried to keep her grandmother in line by reporting politically risky comments. A girl’s misguided attempt to keep small transgressions from growing into bigger ones. A stitch in time saves nine.

The last report filed against Berta was the most notable. A friend named Hans Koldow stated in September 1989 that she had made a wild accusation of government complicity in the recent death of her grandmother. Berta had apparently stated the belief that a fatal auto crash had been anything but an accident.

“Perhaps these statements were not actually so malicious, seeing as how she was suffering terribly from grief at the time,” Hans wrote charitably, or as charitably as a stool pigeon could. “I nonetheless felt it was my duty to report them.”

Had anything come of his complaint? The file didn’t say so, and Nat doubted it, because by then the East German government had been crumbling from within. Massive demonstrations in Leipzig and Berlin were on the boil. Only two months later the Wall had come down. Berta, it seemed, had been saved by history, only to succumb to it later.

Nat found one of the key items he was searching for just beneath Koldow’s report. It was a roster of everyone she had ever informed on. Only four people were listed. Three were Heinkels, and one was Hartz, just as on the summary Nat had gotten from his professor friend at the Free University.

But the summary had contained initials instead of forenames. Nat had reached his own conclusions as to what two of those initials must have stood for, and he was thrilled to see now that he had been correct:

3-Hannelore Heinkel, grandmother

4-Liesl Hartz, family friend

Their maiden names, he felt certain, had been Hannelore Nierendorf and Liesl Folkerts. That meant both of them had escaped from Plötzensee Prison, but for some reason Bauer-and, apparently, everyone else who mattered-had been convinced that Liesl was killed in a bombing raid on the morning of her release.

Nat suspected Göllner knew the truth-another little secret the Gestapo man had hoarded against Bauer, banking it for an uncertain future. That certainly would have explained why Göllner told Gordon in 1945 that only three people, not four, had died as the result of Bauer’s actions.

How much had Berta known? Well, she had almost certainly heard of her grandmother’s escape, from all the stories Hannelore must have told her down through the years about the White Rose. But judging from the contents of the file, Berta had barely been acquainted with the woman known as Liesl Hartz.

In fact, Berta’s only submission on Liesl referred to her simply as “Mrs. Hartz,” and from what she wrote it seemed clear that she had met the woman only once. The report said Berta accompanied Mrs. Hartz and her grandmother on a trip to an art gallery, and during this time Mrs. Hartz had criticized the government several times. Berta made it a point to say that her grandmother had not agreed with all of the criticisms. Nat suspected that was half the reason she had made the report. To show what a good citizen her Oma was becoming.

Berta’s reports on her grandmother were similarly mild, and always added some bit of mitigating evidence. It was enough to make Nat believe that Berta had little reason to feel so guilty. After all, she had been a girl, and a very passionate and impressionable one at that.

Then he came across an item that abruptly changed his mind.

The first part of it was dated August 21, 1989, although a key addendum had come later:

#314FZ reports conversation with family in which subject (H. Heinkel) expressed outrage over positive news coverage in Western media of prominent West German industrialist. Subject expressed intention to denounce said industrialist, claiming he was a Nazi collaborator, and then said, in critical tone, “Why doesn’t the Stasi ever do anything about people like him, instead of always bothering people like us?” (Case officer’s note: Verified that subject did contact State Security offices the following day to arrange appointment to discuss this matter. Appointment never kept, as subject was fatally struck by motor lorry on scheduled day. Item referred to official inquiry. See attached summary from Investigative Report #16LB-0989-Heinkel.)

The investigative summary, while brief, was larded with acronyms, code names, and arcane bureaucratic references that Nat could have spent weeks deciphering. But the gist of it was clear enough. Due to a security breach within the Stasi, the granddaughter’s report of the pending denunciation of the “prominent businessman” had been leaked to West German intelligence. As a result, the fatal accident that occurred one week later had been deemed “suspicious.”

As of November 9, 1989, the investigation was still active. But that was the day the Wall came down, throwing the Stasi into chaos. Meaning no one had ever followed up. Except Berta, of course. She apparently had her suspicions from the beginning, to judge from the Hans Koldow report filed against her that September. Then, a year ago, she had come in to see her own file. It was right about the time she “went off the deep end,” according to her university colleagues, and began her downward spiral of destructively obsessive behavior.

Now he knew why. Not because she had been outed by Bauer, or figured her future was doomed. Nothing that selfish. It was instead because she had learned that her own loose lips had led directly to her grandmother’s death and that Bauer himself may have helped arrange it.

It explained why she had spoken with such passion about the power of love. Nat had scoffed, foolishly so, when she later claimed she was speaking of her Oma. He had also made some crack about how her grandmother must have been her “guardian against the Stasi.” No wonder Berta had cooled so quickly.

So, yes, it was love that drove her, but also shame, grief, and a burning desire for vengeance and atonement-even after her reputation was in ruins and her bank account was empty.

In the back of the folder, agency officials had listed the names of everyone who had viewed this file to date.

Berta was the second visitor. She had come in May 2006. Nat was the fourth.

The first, only a few weeks before Berta, was a lawyer with an address on the Ku-Damm-probably the Bauer henchman who had dug up the dirt and passed it along to the Free University. He, too, hadn’t been entitled to see the material, meaning that Bauer had pulled strings just as Nat had done.

It was the third visitor’s identity that provided Nat with his most pleasant surprise.

Liesl Hartz had come here only about a month after Berta. Like most Germans who visited the Stasi files, she had been curious to find out which neighbors and friends had been spying on her all those years. It was her address that was remarkable, so much so that it raised the hair on Nat’s arms. After the Wall came down she must have moved back to the west side of the city. Perhaps she did it to be near the place where she grew up, because her apartment was in Dahlem, on a street Nat was familiar with. It was only blocks from the Krumme Lanke U-Bahn stop. No wonder he had sensed such a strange presence that day with Berta. Except Liesl was no mere spirit. She lived and breathed, and her home was his next destination.

AS HE KNOCKED at the door, Nat wondered how many times Liesl must have heard that sound and feared the worst. Not only had she endured two of history’s most oppressive and intrusive regimes, but she had dared to defy them and, somehow, had survived.