Luke McCallin - The Man from Berlin

The first item in the file was an after-action report, typed up by one Obersturmfuhrer Gehrig, a member of Einsatzgrup D, which had been active in Ukraine during the invasion of the USSR. It was dated 3 August 1941 and concerned an action taken to liquidate Jews and other undesirables in a town near Zhytomyr. The report was typed up in dry, bureaucratic language and detailed with painful exactitude the number of people shot (278, all men), rounds of ammunition expended (443), time taken (five hours and six minutes from start to finish, including transportation to and from the execution site), and so forth. Most of the report was devoted to recommendations concerning the logistics of future operations (an improvement here, an improvement there, all humbly suggested), and a rather detailed observation into the moral state of the men who had done the executions (mostly Ukrainian collaborators, with German assistance). One of the main improvements suggested concerned tighter cooperation with the army, with Gehrig noting the lack of assistance rendered from the divisional HQ staff of the 189th Infantry garrisoned in and around Zhytomyr.

The second report, similar to the first, was written by an Untersturmfuhrer Havel. Another action, this one much bigger, a week or so later. The third report came after the fall of Kiev at the end of September. Another SS officer, a Hauptsturmfuhrer Kalb. Another major Einsatzgrup operation. Thousands of Jews killed, now including women and children. Yet more details on how and when and how long it took, and more exhaustive examinations of the mental and physical state of the troops. An analysis of the recently introduced execution method known as ‘sardine packing’, which apparently had been hard on the morale of some of the men. There was a note on several soldiers who had broken down, and one who had refused to fire, and a recommendation to transfer them to other, less strenuous, duties.

Reinhardt’s attention was distracted for a moment as an army car passed slowly in front of the restaurant. The waiter brought the food then, and Reinhardt paused, feeling cold, trying to imagine the horror these terse lines obscured. He knew horror, had seen it and experienced it in the first war, but not so far in this one. Not this butchery rendered as terse lines in poor ink on shabby paper. He imagined the officer writing it, hunched over his lists and reports by the light of a flickering lamp, probably cold, tired, hungry, wanting to be done with this so he could go to sleep, or join his friends for a drink and a game of cards, but wanting to get it done just right … He stared at the burek and could no longer stomach the idea of eating, but only sipped from the water and went back to reading.

Apart from the similarities in the actions, something else linked the three reports together. He leafed back through them to be sure. It was the army. Lack of assistance. Obstruction. Criticism. The first two reports cited the divisional staff of the 189th; the third mentioned the chief of staff of the 128th Motorised Infantry. A colonel who refused to countenance his men being involved in such an operation and who, the report cited in particular, did not provide assistance to hunt down fugitives. The same officer, in fact, who had been part of the headquarters staff of the 189th. A Colonel Paul Verhein.

Unlike the other reports, the one written by Kalb had been brought to the attention of the SD. Verhein’s actions were the subject of a shy;follow-up report, also included in the file. Verhein defended his actions as refusing to become involved in activities unworthy of an officer, in addition to which his men were needed for combat duties, not police actions. Verhein’s commanding officer defended his rather impetuous subordinate by reference to his impeccable service record, which was attached. If only half of it was true, the man was as brave as a lion. A first war veteran, in this war Verhein had citations for battlefield valour and leadership from Poland, France, Yugoslavia, Greece, Crete, and the USSR. Holder, among other decorations, of the Knight’s Cross with oak leaves of the Iron Cross, given to him by the Fuhrer himself after the invasion of France. Holder, as well, of the Pour le Merite, the Blue Max, the highest battlefield decoration of the old Imperial German Army.

The inquiry exonerated Verhein but concluded by querying his ideological convictions – noting that the Fuhrer had decreed that all activities that contributed to the destruction of world Jewry and Bolshevism were activities worthy of a German officer, and Verhein would do well to remember that – and recommending more ideological rigour.

The fifth report was an internal one from the SD regional office in Kiev, reporting on a range of comments purported to have been made by Verhein, including disparaging remarks about fellow officers and units, derogatory assessments of his superior officers, and criticism of racial policy in the occupied territories. This note had been forwarded to the SD in Berlin, to a certain Sturmbannfuhrer Varnhorst. The sixth, seventh, and eighth reports were replies received to queries sent by Varnhorst to the SD in France, Serbia, Greece, and Poland, inquiring after the conduct of Verhein during his postings there in 1940 and early 1941. Only the response from the SD in Paris offered anything out of the ordinary: details into an incident in July 1940 in a village called Chenecourt when he intervened in the treatment by an SS unit of captured French officers of Jewish origin, humiliating and injuring an Untersturmfuhrer in the process.

The ninth report was another after-action report, very detailed, but not written by anyone in the military. It dated from September 1942, concerning an incident in southern Russia, not far from the Volga, near the town of Yagodnyy. A Sonderkommando, a detachment from the main Einsatzgrup, had rounded up the region’s Jews and taken them out to an abandoned collective farm for execution. The action was getting under way when an army unit came through, moving up to provide reinforcements against a Soviet counter shy;attack. The two units became clogged up in the farm. The weather was foul, the roads mired in mud, the fields choked with unharvested wheat. Tempers frayed, cracked. Through it all the prisoners wept and wailed. Some were killed, most huddled like sheep. Some ran for their lives. A few fought back against their tormentors.

The army commander and the chief of the Sonderkommando came to blows. The Sonderkommando chief was killed. Other members of his command were shot down as they tried to respond. Jews grabbed weapons from the dead and added their own weight to the fight. It did not last long, but when it was over, all the Sonderkommando were dead. The action was in ruins, Jews were fleeing all across the steppe, and then the Red Army joined in. The day ended with the Soviets in retreat, the farm in flames. All of it was witnessed by Marija Vukic, who was travelling with the Sonderkommando and had typed it up while the memories were still fresh. The photos were hers, Reinhardt saw. Black-and-white images of dilapidated buildings on fire, bodies strewn across streets, and a grainy photo of a soldier – tall, big, a head of white hair – standing with a drawn pistol over another German. He turned the photo over. A date, and a name. Verhein.

There was an investigation, the possibility of a court martial, but Verhein was exonerated; there were no witnesses among his men, and in any case no one really cared as Stalingrad was pulling in all available troops. Verhein’s command was all but destroyed in the fighting in the city, but he survived. Wounded. Another medal. A transfer away from the front and an assignment to create a new unit – the 121st Jager.

It might have stopped there, but for chance. For one of those things that could make or break an investigation. The tenth and eleventh elements in the file were explosive. The tenth report was a sworn affidavit from one Lasse Kunzer, made shortly before his execution for forgery in April 1942. Under interrogation, Kunzer admitted to forging a variety of records over decades. He gave places, dates, what he did, and for whom. Several of the names caught the attention of the case officer, who forwarded them on to another department, who forwarded them on again until they came to the attention of Sturmbann shy;fuhrer Varnhorst, who began to put two and two together. Two of those names were of Paul and Nora Verhein. Kunzer swore Verhein had paid him to alter his, and his sister’s, birth records in November 1933.