Philip Kerr - Prussian Blue

“Because if he mixes illegally obtained funds with ones that are legally obtained, then he can’t very well be held to account,” said Gerdy. “Yes, I do see.”

“It’s the perfect cover for corruption,” said Bormann. “All Martin has to say is that the money in the Swiss account is held for the Leader and with the Leader’s full knowledge. And if the ledger was kept by Karl Flex, then my brother can deny all knowledge of it or any of the corrupt schemes he very likely masterminded himself. Yes, I’m quite sure you’re right about this, Commissar. My brother’s fingerprints are all over this loathsome scheme you describe. But sadly, I don’t think this is quite enough proof to destroy him.”

There was another possibility, of course — that Hitler knew of Martin Bormann’s corruption and tolerated it — but it wasn’t one that I was prepared to moot in front of Albert or Gerdy. That would have been asking too much of their loyalty.

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, Commissar. There’s no one in the whole of Germany who would like to see the end of my brother more than me. But there’s just not enough in what you’ve brought me to do that. I thank you for your courage in coming here tonight. I appreciate it can’t have been easy. Nor for you, Gerdy. I know you love the Leader as much as me. And for the same reason you hate my brother.”

“Yes,” she said. “I do hate him. I hate the way he’s always there. I hate his increasing influence over the Leader. But most of all I hate his brutality and contempt for people.”

Albert Bormann handed back the ledger and the passbooks. “Perhaps Himmler and Heydrich will know how best to use these. But I’m afraid I can’t help you with this, Commissar. Pity.”

I nodded dumbly and lit a cigarette. For a minute there was silence.

“I am right, aren’t I?” said Bormann. “Himmler and Heydrich would like to get rid of my brother, wouldn’t they?”

“I don’t know about Himmler. But Heydrich likes to gather information on people so he can use it against them when it suits him to do so.”

“Including me?”

“Including me, including you, including everyone, I think. Even Himmler is afraid of him. But he didn’t mention you when last we spoke. Only your brother, sir. I think he believes that you may have some secret information on Martin that prevents him from getting rid of you.”

“And he’s quite right, of course. I do. And I am now going to tell you what that secret is.”

In life there are some secrets you never want to know and this certainly felt like it was going to be one of those. I was already regretting coming back to Berchtesgaden. “Why would you do that, sir?”

“Because it may be that Heydrich can eventually achieve what I have signally failed to do, which is to destroy my brother. In my opinion, to do this he will need to assemble a wall of evidence, one brick at a time. Your ledger will help. But on its own, it is not enough.”

“If anyone can do it, he probably can,” I said. “I’ve seen him do it. Look, perhaps you need to have a meeting with him, sir. A private meeting. Just the two of you. I’ll tell him of your willingness to help when I get back to Berlin. But I’m not sure that I should be the middle man in this fraternal feud.”

“In case you hadn’t realized it, Commissar, you already are. As for meeting Heydrich, no. I dislike Heydrich and Himmler almost as much as I dislike my brother. But they are a necessary evil, I think. Now and then we have need of thumbscrews, perhaps. Their motives would be different from mine, but the result would be the same. A corrupt, venal man whose influence over the Leader is fast becoming dangerous would be removed from high office. But I need to do this silently and from behind the scenes. To be a gray eminence myself, perhaps. So here’s what I want you to tell your boss. ‘Help me to get rid of my brother. I will assist you in any way I can.’ Will you do that, Gunther? Will you give him that message?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your master will need to go carefully. Both of you will. But there is also a need for some urgency here. Because my brother’s power grows by the day. In case you hadn’t yet realized it, Commissar, he’s close to becoming Hitler’s gatekeeper. And when that finally happens it will be too late to do anything. In my opinion Heydrich needs to make this happen before there is another European war. After that happens, my brother’s position will be unassailable. You need to tell Heydrich that, too.”

Albert Bormann stood up and fetched a bottle of good Freihof from the desk drawer and poured three stemmed glasses to the brim. The glasses had little Nazi eagles etched on them like the one over the Chancellery entrance, just in case anyone stole them. I guess that happened a lot. Most Germans like a nice souvenir.

“And now I will tell you what I have known for fifteen years and what has, until now, prevented Martin Bormann from being able to get rid of me, his little brother, Albert. Now I will tell you the Bormann family secret.”

“In 1918, after briefly serving in the Fifty-fifth Field Artillery Regiment, my brother, who’d studied agriculture at high school, became the estate manager of a large farm in Mecklenburg where, as thousands like him did, he joined an anti-Semitic landowners association and the Freikorps. If you remember, food after the war was very short and many estates used to have Freikorps units stationed on them to guard the crops from pillagers. Also belonging to the local Freikorps was a man called Albert Schlageter, who — you may remember — led several sabotage operations against the French who were then occupying the Ruhr under the aegis of the Treaty of Versailles. One such operation involved the derailment of the train from Dortmund to Duisburg. Several people were killed. Following this, in April 1923, Albert Schlageter was denounced to the French and, on May 26, 1923, he was executed as a saboteur by firing squad. Of course, for this reason, he is generally regarded as a Nazi hero today; Hitler mentions Schlageter in Mein Kampf , and there’s even a memorial to him in Passau, although my own opinion is that he was an honorable but misguided figure.

“Immediately after Schlageter’s death the local Freikorps set out to discover the identity of the traitor who had denounced him. An investigation ensued and suspicion soon fell upon another member of the local Freikorps, a sixty-three-year-old local schoolteacher by the name of Walther Kadow, whose right-wing credentials were otherwise impeccable. He was also a dedicated anti-Semite. But importantly he was already known to and hated by two other members of the Freikorps — a twenty-three-year-old man called Rudolf Höss, and my twenty-four-year-old brother, Martin. Walther Kadow had taught the young Rudolf Höss at an elementary school in Baden-Baden and it’s my impression that the old man was, like many gymnasium teachers, a bit of a martinet and gave Höss a pretty hard time of it. Meanwhile, my brother was closely acquainted with Kadow’s underage daughter.

“Much too close for any father’s liking, and when my brother seduced and impregnated her, Kadow wrote several letters to the owner of the estate where Martin was employed as the manager, denouncing him as a statutory rapist and demanding his immediate dismissal. The estate owner showed the letters sent to Martin, who then alleged, quite outrageously that, thanks to the local police, he’d had sight of the letters to the French denouncing Schlageter and that the handwriting in them was identical. It seems to me, having reviewed all of the facts of the case, that my brother’s hatred and desire to get even was the one and only reason that suspicion ever fell on Kadow. But the logic of this hatred was simple: Albert Schlageter’s death had to be avenged and therefore Walther Kadow was to be killed. My brother asked Rudolf Höss and two others to help him carry out the murder and subsequently, Kadow was kidnapped, taken to a forest near Parchim, stripped, humiliated, and then beaten to death with shovels. It was not, perhaps, the most glorious moment in the history of the Freikorps.