The Crooked Cross  (Quaestor2000)

 

Prologue  - 1931

 

1

There was no door between the cavernous dining-room of Hitler's apartment and the vast,  sepulchral lounge.  Geli Raubal walked through,  with a glass of wine.  She settled in one of the low,  Gerdy Troost designed armchairs near the fireplace.  In the dingy light from a red-fringed lamp-standard she stared at an art book,  open on the occasional table in front of her - The History of Erotic Art,  by Edouard Fuchs.  She knew what it was the prelude to. 

    On the wall,  to her right,  were two heavily varnished Romantic landscapes of the Bavarian Alps,  by Loewith and Heinrich Zügel.  To her left, was a brown Grüzner oil,  showing monks tasting wine in a cellar.  One monk,  who looked like Falstaff,  beamingly held out a  glass of white wine to the viewer.  Geli hated the false hospitality of the painting.  It was a trap - like this apartment,  where she lived with her Uncle Alf.  With an  ironic smile,  she raised her glass,  toasting the painted monk who was toasting her.  She sipped her wine.

    Hitler made his way toward her,  along the massive oak table that dominated the dining-room.  Watching him draw nearer,  she felt contempt for him - contempt laced with physical revulsion. 

    'I want to draw you,' he said,  stopping in front of her.  He had drawn her, naked, three times before.  His eye dropped down to the History of Erotic Art.

    Geli looked up at him from the armchair.  'I don't want you to do that any more.' 

    'I want to draw you,'  he said again,  in exactly the same tone.

    'No!' 

    'Get ready.'  He meant get undressed.  It was as if she hadn't spoken.   

    'I'm never going to let you draw me again.  I'm leaving here.'  She was pleased it had come to a head;  she could not have waited much longer.

    'Leaving?  So you are leaving!  You tell me just like that. Why didn't I know about this?'

    'Because you would try to stop me.'

    'And where do you intend to go, pray?'

    She was silent,  still.  The armchair was cutting into her legs.  She felt heavy, lumpen.  She pulled her beige dress down,  as she felt him looking at her.

    'You are in league with that deceiver,'  he shouted.  'The one who betrayed me!'

    She stood and walked off.  'I'm going to my room to pack,'  she called over her shoulder.  Her voice faltered,  belying the confident words.  She had made no plans with Emil. How would he receive her?  How would he react to her wonderful news?  She hurried to her room and locked the door.

  Hitler followed her, his eyes fixed on her back all the way through the dining-room.  He went to his bedroom,  separated from hers only by a bathroom and utility room.  The pistol was on a shelf,  above his bed.  He picked it up,  pausing with it in his hand.  Facing him,  on the wall,  was a Dürer copper engraving:  Knight, Death and Devil.  It showed an armoured knight riding through a forest,  with a dog jumping up at his horse.  A devil,  a grinning death figure,  threatened to pull the knight off,  but he did not deviate from his goal. 

    With the pistol resting lightly in his hand,  he walked out onto the balcony.  The courtyard below was a blur in the wind and rain.  Wind-driven spray hit him in the face. He made his way round to Geli's room,  and in through the unlocked French windows.  Her suitcase was open on the bed;  she was folding a dress into it.  She looked up,  slightly startled but no more than that,  before resuming her packing. 

  He pointed the pistol at his head. 'If you leave, I will kill myself.'

  She sighed,  her eyes rolling in weariness at yet another of his threats of suicide.  A reply was beneath her;  she smoothed a blouse into the case.

  'I will kill myself!'  he said again.

  She muttered under her breath,  but it was audible to him.  'Du lächerlicher Zwerg.' - You ridiculous gnome. 

  He blinked,  furiously.  Rain-water dripped off his nose.  The person of the Führer could not survive being called that.  The Führer would no longer exist;  there would be only Adolf Hitler.  And that was intolerable to him.  He pulled the trigger,  to end his life.  But somehow it was Geli who lay dead on the floor.

                                 

2

 

Inspector Forster was not a member of the Nazi Party,  but its activities had given him a great deal of pleasure.  His local branch,  in the suburb of Schwabing,  threw its  social programme open to everyone.  There were regular German Evenings.  There was a fancy-dress parade,  on Carnival Tuesday.  There was a party for Hitler's birthday.  Christa Forster hadn't joined any of the ladies groups,  as she liked to spend her time with her husband.  But the Forsters were in the choir,  trained by Sepp Summer,  the eminent composer and musician.         

    Only last week,  the Schwabing Nazis put on a theatre performance entitled Schlageter's Hero's Death.  In vivid tableaux,  SA-men acted out the death of the martyr,  Leo Schlageter,  killed by French troops during their wicked occupation of the Ruhr.  The Forsters had taken the children along.  Little Helga,  aged nine,  and little Erwin,  six,  had been saucer-eyed. 

    After the performance,  the branch leader - the tall,  scholarly-looking Karl Fiehler -  took the Forsters aside.  He invited Helga and Erwin to use the one-thousand-book SA library,  behind a cigar shop in Arcis Strasse,  to help them with their schoolwork. 

    Herr Fiehler laid on fortnightly talks about the Jews,  too,  at the Blüte Inn.  The last one,  Forster recalled,  was on why women giving birth should refuse to have Jewish medical students present.  But dry subjects like that were not Karl-Heinz Forster's idea of an evening's entertainment.  He and Christa didn't go.

  Early for his appointment,  Forster sauntered along the elegant boulevard of Brienner Strasse.  As the Brown House,  the Nazi Party headquarters,  appeared on his right,  he glanced up at the Blood Flag on the roof,  flapping stiffly over Munich in the autumn breeze.  Opposite the house of the Papal Nuncio,  the massive bronze doors came into view,  topped by the Nazi slogan,  Germany Awaken.  Forster's permanent smile widened. 

    He had been told to go in the west entrance,  by the cafeteria.  At the window of the guard station,  he presented the pass he had been sent through the post. 

    'Heil Hitler!'  he said.  Forster did not know himself why he said that.  He usually said Grüss Gott.  It just came out.

    'Heil Hitler!'  The brown-shirted guard studied the pass.  He was armed with a gas pistol.  The SA were not allowed weapons;  yet another temporary ban by the Bavarian Parliament.  Forster regarded them all as absurd.

    'Inspector Forster to see Herr Hess.' 

    The guard nodded and waved him through.  Forster smiled. 

    He made his way into the vast rectangular Flag Hall.  There,  under four-man guard,  lit from above,  stood the holy relic of the tattered Blood Flag from the Beer Hall Putsch -  Hitler's failed attempt to take Munich by force,  eight years ago.  The flag was said to be stained with the blood of  Nazi martyrs,  killed at the Putsch,  and riddled with police machine-gun bullets.  Forster could see neither blood nor bullet holes,  but his belief was undimmed. 

    Eventually,  the inspector mounted the Grand Staircase and climbed to the second floor.  The double-doors of the Meeting Chamber were open.  Forster peered inside.  The domed cavern was done out in rich red,  with red leather armchairs at the front,  like a Doge's Palace. 

    He walked on,  finding himself treading gingerly on the gleaming parquet floor,  along the apparently endless corridor.  The heavy doors had brass nameplates engraved in Gothic script.  The corner office was inscribed simply Adolf Hitler.  Forster stopped,  suddenly breathless.  An ecstatic feeling came over him,  like taking communion in Memmingen church,  as an altar boy.  He felt purified and safe,  deeply content.   

                                      ***************************

This call to the Brown House,  Forster thought,  must have something to do with the Raubal case.  Ribald rumours about Hitler and the delectable Geli Raubal,  his half-niece,  half his age,  had entertained Munich for years.  Hardly surprising,  as Fräulein Raubal not only lived in the Führer's apartment,  her bedroom was next to his. 

  Last Saturday morning,  a message had been delivered at Forster's home,  from Chief Inspector Sauer.  Forster was to meet Sauer at Hitler's apartment,  immediately.  Fräulein Raubal had been shot dead;  it was supposed to be suicide.  Forster's smile broadened at the thought,  as he was shown into Hess's inner office,  by his secretary. 

  Behind his desk,  Rudolf Hess was in full-dress SA uniform.  His right leg was curled awkwardly round the leg of his chair.  'Sit down,  inspector,'  he said,  absently,  frowning as the policeman walked the length of the office, an intentionally enormous distance,  to the chair drawn-up facing him.                       

  Forster sat.  He waited. 

  Hess stapled his fingers.  'An opportunity has arisen,  inspector ...'  Hess tailed off into a silence so long Forster was apprehensive by the time he resumed.  '... an opportunity to serve the Party.' 

  Forster found himself feeling pleased by that.  He cleared his throat,  hoping to bring Hess to the point.  'May I make notes?'

  'Of course not!' Hess shouted. 'Suppose the Munich Post got hold of them?  Have you not read those scurrilous articles?'

  Forster's mouth turned up at the corners,  as it always did before he lied.  'No, Herr Hess,' he said. 'I have not.'  As Forster recalled,  the latest article accused the head of the SA,  Ernst Röhm,  of enjoying the company of young boys,  whether the young boys liked it or not.

  Hess's eyes glowed.  'Another sex scandal and we're finished,'  he blurted out, uncurling his leg from the chair,  momentarily throwing his right arm at the back of his head,  to regain balance.     

  There was a long silence.  Hess stared at Forster. 

  'What would you like me to do?' Forster asked.

  'Inspector,  when your superior,  Chief Inspector Sauer,  was in the Führer's apartment,  investigating the suicide of Fräulein Raubal,  certain items were removed.'

  Forster was amused,  but not surprised.

  'We need someone to keep an eye on Sauer.'  Hess paused again. 'We've put him on the payroll,  but we must be sure he does not dispose of the items  It is vital we do not lose track of them.  Do you understand?'

  'My task would be easier if I knew what these items were.'

  'They are drawings.  That is all you need to know.  If Sauer tries to sell them,  you get in touch with one man and one man only.'

  'Who?'

  'You contact Georg Winter.  He will contact me.  You interviewed Herr Winter,  did you not,  over this unfortunate business with Fräulein Raubal?'

  Forster nodded.  'Yes, indeed. I took a statement from him.' 

  Georg Winter was Hitler's butler-cum-valet.  Forster had also questioned  Winter's wife,  Anni - Hitler's housekeeper;  and the chauffeur,  Julius Shreck.  All three had obviously co-ordinated what they told him;  all three were obviously lying.  Sauer, as the senior officer,  had interviewed Hitler.

  'On no account,'  Hess continued,  'are you to contact me,  ever again.  And you are not to mention this discussion to anyone.  You hear me?'          

  Forster nodded.  'Please do not concern yourself,  Herr Hess.  I will be proud to serve.  I ...will have Sauer watched.  I will inform Herr Winter if he sells the drawings.'

  'Good.'

  The day after his talk with Hess,  Karl-Heinz Forster joined the Nazi Party.  Christa Forster was delighted.  So were little Helga and little Erwin.