Jonathan Littell - The Kindly Ones

The day of our departure, at the end of the afternoon, I went to the Prinz-Albrecht-Palais. Brandt had invited me to attend a speech of Speer’s before joining Dr. Mandelbrod in the special train for the bigwigs. In the lobby, I was welcomed by Ohlendorf, whom I hadn’t seen since he left the Crimea. “Dr. Aue! How nice to see you again. I hear you’ve been in Berlin for months. Why didn’t you call me? I would have been happy to see you.”—“I’m sorry, Brigadeführer. I was terribly busy. You too, I imagine.” He seemed to be radiating intensity, a dark, concentrated energy. “Brandt sent you for our conference, isn’t that right? As I understood it, you’re looking into questions of productivity.”—“Yes, but only in matters concerning concentration camp inmates.”—“I see. Tonight we’re going to introduce a new cooperation agreement between the SD and the Armaments Ministry. But the subject is much vaster; it will also cover the treatment of foreign workers, among other things.”—“You’re in the Ministry of Economics now, Brigadeführer, isn’t that so?”—“That’s right. I’m wearing several hats these days. It’s too bad you’re not an economist: with these agreements, a whole new field will open up for the SD, I hope. Well then, let’s go up, it’s going to start soon.”

The conference took place in one of the great oak-paneled halls of the palace, where National Socialist decorations clashed somewhat with the eighteenth-century woodwork and gilt candelabra. More than a hundred SD officers were present, among them a number of my former colleagues or superiors: Siebert, with whom I had served in the Crimea, Regierungsrat Neifend, who had worked in Amt II but had since been appointed Gruppenleiter in Amt III, and others. Ohlendorf had his seat near the rostrum, next to a man in an SS-Obergruppenführer’s uniform, with a broad, bare forehead and firm, set features: Karl Hanke, the Gauleiter from Lower Silesia, who was representing the Reichsführer at this ceremony. Reichsminister Speer arrived a little late. He struck me as surprisingly young, even though his hair was starting to recede, slim, vigorous; he wore a simple twill suit, with the Gold Badge of the Party as sole decoration. Some civilians accompanied him, and took their seats on chairs lined up behind Ohlendorf and Hanke, while he stepped up to the podium and began his speech. He spoke, in the beginning, in an almost gentle voice, precise and polished, which emphasized rather than masked an authority that Speer seemed to draw more from himself than from his position. His dark, keen eyes remained fixed on us and left our faces only occasionally, to look at his notes; when they were lowered, they almost disappeared under his thick, bushy eyebrows. The notes were just there to serve as pointers for his speech; he hardly consulted them at all, and seemed to take all the figures he ticked off directly from his head, as he needed them, as if they were constantly stored there, ready for use. His statements were brutally and, to my way of thinking, refreshingly frank: if total military production was not rapidly implemented, the war was lost. These weren’t Cassandra warnings; Speer compared our present production with the estimates we had of Soviet and especially American production; at this pace, he demonstrated, we wouldn’t hold out for a year. But our industrial resources were far from being fully exploited; and one of the major obstacles, aside from the problems of manual labor, was the obstruction, at a regional level, by private interests: it was especially for that reason that he counted on the support of the SD, and that was one of the main subjects of the agreements he was going to conclude with the SS. He had just signed an important agreement with the French Economics Minister, Bichelonne, to transfer the majority of our production of consumer goods to France. That would certainly give a considerable commercial advantage to postwar France, but we didn’t have a choice: if we wanted victory, it was up to us to make sacrifices. This measure would allow us to transfer an additional million and a half workers to armaments. But we could expect a number of Gauleiters to oppose the necessary closures of firms; and this was one particular area where the SD could intervene. After this speech, Ohlendorf got up, thanked Speer, and swiftly presented the terms of the agreement: the SD would be authorized to examine the conditions of recruitment and the treatment of foreign workers; similarly, any refusal by the Gauleiters to follow the minister’s instructions would be subject to an SD investigation. On a table set up for this purpose the agreement was ceremoniously signed, by Hanke, Ohlendorf, and Speer; then everyone exchanged a German salute, Speer shook their hands, and left. I looked at my watch: I had less than forty-five minutes, but I had brought my travel bag. In all the milling around, I slipped next to Ohlendorf, who was talking to Hanke: “Brigadeführer, excuse me. I’m taking the same train as the Reichsminister; I have to go.” Ohlendorf, a little surprised, raised his eyebrows: “Call me when you get back,” he said.

The special train left not from one of the main stations but from the S-Bahn station on Friedrichstrasse. The platform, cordoned off by police and Waffen-SS forces, was swarming with senior officials and Gauleiters, in SA or SS uniforms, greeting one another noisily. While a Leutnant from the Schupo checked his list and my orders, I examined the crowd: I didn’t see Dr. Mandelbrod, whom I was supposed to meet there. I asked the Leutnant to show me his compartment; he consulted his list: “Herr Doktor Mandelbrod, Mandelbrod…here it is, the special car, at the end of the train.” This car was specially built: instead of an ordinary door, there was a double door, as in a cattle car, comprising about a third of its length; and steel blinds hid all the windows. One of Mandelbrod’s amazons was standing in front of the door, in an SS uniform with an Obersturmführer’s stripes; she was wearing not the regulation skirt but masculine riding breeches, and was at least an inch taller than I. I wondered where Mandelbrod recruited his aides: he must have had a special arrangement with the Reichsführer. The woman saluted me: “Sturmbannführer, Dr. Mandelbrod is waiting for you.” She seemed to have recognized me, but I didn’t recognize her; they all looked pretty much alike. She took my bag and led me into a carpeted antechamber, from which a hallway branched out to the left. “Your cabin will be the second on the right,” she said. “I’ll put your things there. Dr. Mandelbrod is this way.” A double sliding door, opposite the hallway, opened automatically. I went in. Mandelbrod, bathed in his usual frightful odor, was sitting in his enormous platform-armchair, which could be hoisted on board thanks to the arrangement of the doors; next to him, in a little rococo armchair, his legs casually crossed, sat Minister Speer. “Ah, Max, there you are!” Mandelbrod exclaimed in his musical voice. “Come in, come in.” A cat slipped between my boots when I wanted to step forward and I almost tripped; I caught myself and saluted Speer, then Mandelbrod. He turned his head to the Minister: “My dear Speer, let me introduce you to one of my young protégés, Dr. Aue.” Speer examined me under his voluminous eyebrows and unfolded himself from his chair; to my surprise, he came forward to shake my hand: “Pleased to meet you, Sturmbannführer.”—“Dr. Aue is working for the Reichsführer,” Mandelbrod explained. “He is trying to improve the productivity of our concentration camps.”—“Ah,” Speer said, “that’s very good. Will you succeed?”—“I’ve been looking into this question for several months now, Herr Reichsminister, and my role is a minor one. But on the whole a lot of things have been accomplished. I think you’ve been able to see the results.”—“Yes, of course. It’s a subject I recently discussed with the Reichsführer. He agreed with me that it could be even better.”—“Without a doubt, Herr Reichsminister. We’re working hard on it.” There was a pause; Speer was obviously looking for something to say. His eyes fell on my medals: “You were at the front, Sturmbannführer?”—“Yes, Herr Reichsminister. In Stalingrad.” His gaze darkened, and he lowered his eyes; his jaw twitched. Then he looked at me again with his precise, searching eyes, circled, I noticed for the first time, by heavy shadows of fatigue. “My brother Ernst disappeared in Stalingrad,” he said in a calm, slightly tense voice. I bowed my head: “I’m sorry, Herr Reichsminister. My condolences. Do you know how he fell?”—“No. I don’t even know if he’s dead.” His voice seemed distant, almost detached. “Our parents received letters, he was sick, in one of the hospitals. The conditions were…horrible. In his penultimate letter, he said he couldn’t bear it anymore and he was going to rejoin his comrades at his artillery post. But he was almost an invalid.”—“Dr. Aue was seriously wounded in Stalingrad,” Mandelbrod interrupted. “But he was lucky, he was able to be evacuated.”—“Yes…,” Speer said. He looked dreamy now, almost lost. “Yes…you were lucky. His entire unit disappeared during the January Russian offensive. He is certainly dead. Without a doubt. My parents still can’t quite get over it.” His eyes met mine again. “He was my father’s favorite son.” Embarrassed, I muttered another polite phrase. Behind Speer, Mandelbrod said: “Our race is suffering, my dear friend. We must ensure its future.” Speer nodded and looked at his watch. “We’re about to leave. I’ll go back to my compartment.” He held out his hand to me again: “Goodbye, Sturmbannführer.” I clicked my heels and saluted him, but he was already shaking hands with Mandelbrod, who pulled him toward him and said something softly that I didn’t hear. Speer listened attentively, nodded, and went out. Mandelbrod pointed to the armchair he had left: “Have a seat, have a seat. Have you eaten? Are you hungry?” A second double door, in the back of the sitting room, opened silently, and in came a young woman in an SS uniform who looked just like the first one, but must have been a different one—unless the one who had welcomed me had gone round the car from the outside. “Would you like anything, Sturmbannführer?” she asked. The train had slowly started off and was leaving the station. Curtains hid the windows, the room was lit by the warm, golden light of many little lamps; on a curve, one of the curtains gaped open, and I could see the metal shutters beyond the glass and thought the whole car must have been armored. The young woman reappeared and set down a tray of sandwiches and beer on a folding table that she unfolded adroitly next to me with one hand. As I ate, Mandelbrod asked me about my work; he had much appreciated my August report, and was waiting with pleasure for the project I was about to finish; he seemed already to know about most of the details. Herr Leland in particular, he added, was interested in questions of individual output. “Is Herr Leland traveling with us, Herr Doktor?” I asked.—“He will join us in Posen,” Mandelbrod replied. He was already in the East, in Silesia, in some places I had visited and where they both had considerable interests. “It’s very good that you’ve met Reichsminister Speer,” he said almost offhandedly. “He is a man with whom it is important to get along. The SS and he should grow even closer.” We talked a little more as I finished eating and drank my beer; Mandelbrod stroked a cat that had slipped onto his knees. Then he allowed me to withdraw. I went back through the antechamber and found my cabin. It was roomy, with a comfortable couchette already made up, a little work table, and a sink with a mirror over it. I opened the curtain: there too, steel shutters closed the window, and there seemed no way to open them. I abandoned the idea of smoking and took off my tunic and shirt to wash. I had scarcely washed my face, with a pretty little cake of perfumed soap placed next to the faucet—there was even hot water—when someone knocked on my door. “Just a minute!” I toweled off, put my shirt back on, put on my tunic without buttoning it, and then opened the door. One of the assistants was standing in the hallway and staring at me with her light-colored eyes, with the shadow of a smile on her lips, delicate as her perfume, which I could just make out. “Good evening, Sturmbannführer,” she said. “Do you find your cabin satisfactory?”—“Yes, very.” She looked at me, barely blinking. “If you like,” she went on, “I could keep you company for the night.” This unexpected offer, uttered in the same indifferent tone with which they had asked me if I wanted anything to eat, caught me a little unawares, I have to admit: I felt myself blush and searched hesitatingly for a reply. “I don’t think Dr. Mandelbrod would approve,” I said finally.—“On the contrary,” she answered in the same friendly, calm tone, “Dr. Mandelbrod would be very happy. He is firmly convinced that all occasions to perpetuate our race must be taken advantage of. Of course, if I happened to become pregnant, your work wouldn’t be disturbed: the SS has institutions for this purpose.”—“Yes, I know,” I said. I wondered what she would do if I accepted: I had the impression she would come in, get undressed without comment, and would wait, naked, on the bed, until I finished washing up. “That’s a very tempting proposition,” I said finally, “and I’m truly sorry I have to refuse. But I’m very tired and tomorrow will be a busy day. Another time, with a little luck.” Her expression didn’t show any change; perhaps she barely blinked. “As you like, Sturmbannführer,” she replied. “If you need anything at all, you can ring. I’ll be next door. Good night.”—“Good night,” I said, forcing myself to smile. I closed the door. Once I had finished washing, I put the light out and went to bed. The train sailed into the invisible night, swaying slightly when it passed over the switches. It took me a long time to fall asleep.