Len Deighton - Funeral in Berlin

The great challenge I faced when asked to produce the covers for new editions of Len Deighton’s books was the existence of the brilliant designs conceived by Ray Hawkey for the original editions.

However, having arrived at a concept, part of the joy I derived in approaching this challenge was the quest to locate the various props which the author had so beautifully detailed in his texts. Deighton has likened a spy story to a game of chess, which led me to transpose the pieces on a chessboard with some of the relevant objects specified in each book. I carried this notion throughout the entire quartet of books.

Since smoking was so much part of our culture during the Cold War era, I also set about gathering tobacco-related paraphernalia.

On reading a reference in the text to a Cinzano ashtray, I instantly recognized a visual analogy in its unique triangular shape to the triumvirate of the Allied occupying forces and their zones in Berlin. The three lit cigarettes point at each other like the loaded barrels of guns. I then incorporated a spectrum of smokers’ accessories, including a packet of British Woodbine cigarettes and an American Camel Zippo cigarette lighter. To represent the Soviets, I included a KGB lighter and an identity pass, both of which I located in the Ukraine.

The ever-present pack of Gauloises cigarettes, belonging to the nameless protagonist of the book, along with a red pawn, is positioned behind the Iron Curtain on a map of Berlin.

A fallen bust of a German soldier lies over a list of names of concentration camp inmates, headed by that of Paul Louis Broum, the book’s ‘person of interest’.

The back of the jacket shows a US Army Berlin District patch, a DMR 5 Mark coin, a vintage Hotel Adlon baggage label, and a couple of story-related cigarette cards, the significance of all of which will become evident as you read this fine book.

I photographed the jacket set-up using natural daylight, with my Canon OS 5D digital camera.

Arnold Schwartzman OBE RDI

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape 1964

Copyright © Pluriform Publishing Company BV 1964

Introduction copyright © Pluriform Publishing Company BV 2009

Len Deighton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Source ISBN 9780586045800

Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2009 ISBN 9780007343003

Version: 2017-08-10

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

ALLEN W. DULLES (then director CIA):

‘You, Mr Chairman, may have seen some of my intelligence reports from time to time.’

MR KHRUSHCHEV:

‘I believe we get the same reports – and probably from the same people.’

MR DULLES:

‘Maybe we should pool our efforts.’

MR KHRUSHCHEV:

‘Yes. We should buy our intelligence data together and save money. We’d have to pay the people only once.’

News Item, September 1959

‘But what good came of it at last?’

Quoth little Peterkin,

‘Why, that I cannot tell,’ said he:–

‘But ’twas a famous victory.’

SOUTHEY, After Blenheim

‘If I am right the Germans will say I was a German and the French will say I was a Jew; if I am wrong the Germans will say I was a Jew and the French will say I was a German.’

ALBERT EINSTEIN

Most of the people who engaged in this unsavoury work had very little interest in the cause which they were paid to promote. They did not take their parts too seriously, and one or the other would occasionally go over to the opposite side, for espionage is an international and artistic profession, in which opinions matter less than the art of perfidy.

DR R. LEWINSOHN,

The Career of Sir Basil Zaharoff

Cover

Cover Designer’s Note

Title Page

Copyright

Epigraph

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Appendix 1: Poisonous insecticides

Appendix 2: Gehlen organization

Appendix 3: The Abwehr

Appendix 4: Soviet security systems

Appendix 5: French Security System

Appendix 6: Official Secrets Act 1911 (as amended by the OS Acts of 1920 and 1939)

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

Standing at the bar of the National Film Theatre there was a plump balding man of about fifty. He was unmistakably German and despite his fluent command of the English language he was having some difficulty with the barman. I went to sort it out and found it was no more than a shortage of change in the till.

The man was Kurt Jung-Alsen and it was a film he had directed – The Vengeance of Private Pooley – that was showing that evening as part of a festival of films from communist East Germany. I had no idea of what a warm friendship would develop from this chance meeting and what a tremendous change in my life this mutual trust would bring.

It was rewarding to show Kurt around London because he was so knowledgeable and so appreciative. Like any self-respecting German he was prepared for everything and had a notebook listing the places he must see. The Sunday morning street market in Petticoat Lane was on his list. Today was Sunday and here he was. Guessing that he would arrive on time I had coffee ready. ‘ You’d better see this, Herr Jung-Alsen .’ I took him into the sitting room where I had been watching BBC TV carrying the alarming news that the communists were building a Wall right across Berlin.

Kurt went back there, of course.