The Girl from Berlin: Gruppenführer's Mistress Read online

  Heinrich straightened out and pulled my legs even higher onto his shoulders, lifting up my hips with his hands and pushing himself in as deep as it was possible. I pressed as hard as I could against the door and arched my back, my whole body shivering in ecstasy. He loved seeing me like that, it only made him do it more and more, until I would start begging him to stop and to never stop at the same time. He was holding me by my waist now, digging his fingers into my skin and slamming his heavy body against mine.

  “Heinrich, please!” I cried out, grabbing him by the neck and pulling him closer. He didn’t let me go though, and didn’t slow down either. He would only stop when he wanted it, even if it would mean that I would be half-conscious by that point. That’s exactly what he did this time: after he finally satisfied his insatiable appetite, he crashed on top of me, burying his face in my hair, his arms still wrapped tightly around my waist. I moved my leg to the floor, but found no strength to move the other one. I just wished that the time would stop and we could stay like this forever, just him and I, just the two of us in the whole world.

  _______________

  It was a beautiful Monday morning, and I just laid out all the marked and filed correspondence on Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner’s table, when he walked in and stopped in the middle of the room, looking past by my shoulder.

  “Good morning, Herr Gruppenführer.” I smiled at my new boss.

  “What’s that?” He nodded at something behind my back.

  I turned around and saw several potted flowers on the windowsill that I brought here last Friday while he was at the Reich Chancellery at the meeting with Reichsführer, after I had seen firsthand how much the new Chief of the RSHA was smoking. I thought that opening the window every time he would leave the room was a subject that needed no discussion, but while the windows would be closed, the flowers would at least somehow filter the air.

  “That is called flowers, Herr Gruppenführer. Orchids, to be exact.”

  His brow slightly furrowed.

  “And what are they doing in my office?”

  “I brought them.”

  He looked even more confused now.

  “Why?”

  “Well, you smoke too much, and the plants are known for consuming carbon monoxide and producing oxygen from it. So this is mostly a health issue.”

  He finally smiled at me.

  “So you brought me flowers so I wouldn’t die of lung cancer in the next five years?”

  “Basically… yes. You can say that.”

  “Well, that’s very sweet of you, Frau Friedmann. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, Herr Gruppenführer.” He was still standing in the middle of the room looking at me, so I decided to ask for the further instructions. “Would you like me to make you coffee first, or you prefer to start with the mail?”

  “Coffee would be nice.”

  “Coming right up.”

  I made him coffee just the way he liked it, with cream, a lot of sugar and not too hot, because Dr. Kaltenbrunner liked drinking it fast and in one shot. He was looking through his correspondence when I placed on the table a little tray with coffee and several biscuits which Magda had made. By now I figured that whatever he would put in his mouth instead of another cigarette was a good thing, so I started sneaking in different snacks for him in the course of the day. Busy with work, he wouldn’t normally even notice my little tricks.

  I was already leaving back to my working place, when Dr. Kaltenbrunner called out my name.

  “Frau Friedmann!”

  “Yes, Herr Gruppenführer?”

  “You didn’t sort these letters.”

  He lifted up one with the marking ‘Top Secret’ on the envelope.

  “I’m not allowed to touch those.”

  “Who told you?”

  “Georg did.”

  “Is he the Chief of the RSHA?”

  “No, but… I thought it was your order.”

  Dr. Kaltenbrunner shook his head.

  “You’re my personal secretary, and I don’t have secrets from you. From now on, sort them out for me, please. You won’t believe how much nonsense there is amongst those letters, and I don’t have time to deal with it.”

  “Could you be more specific about what you consider nonsense, Herr Gruppenführer, so in the future I know how to sort them out?”

  “Why don’t we open them together so you know what I mean?”

  He motioned me to come closer, and I walked up to him, taking a place behind his shoulder while he opened the first envelope.

  “See, for example this one has several names on top, it means that it should be distributed through several offices including ours and contains general information. This one is concerning Auschwitz deportations, and I don’t want to be bothered with all that Gestapo business. It’s Müller’s sphere, let him handle his Jews.” Dr. Kaltenbrunner put the letter away and opened another one. “This one is for me personally from the mayor of Vienna asking for the working force for one of the factories, you’ll type the answer to it later. Whatever is being sent to my name personally, put in a separate stack.”

  I nodded. Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner handed me another letter and took a coffee cup in his hand.

  “Why don’t you open this one yourself now?”

  I picked up his letter opener from the table and carefully opened an envelope while he was watching me closely.

  “From Reichsführer, top secret, personally in your hands, concerning Einsatzgruppen on the territory of the Soviet Union.” I heard from Heinrich what those Einsatzgruppen or death squads were formed for – to round up and exterminate the Jewish population of the occupied territories. The Slavic Jews were considered the main carriers of the ‘Bolshevik threat’ to the Reich and were subject to immediate execution. The fact that they were just ordinary people didn’t concern anybody. I glanced at my boss. “Shall I continue reading it?”

  “Yes.”

  “It says here that SS Brigadeführer Otto Ohlendorf was asking for instructions concerning the activity of Einsatzgruppe D in Southern Ukraine, specifically the village Grushevka the population of which is mostly Jewish. It’s out of his group’s way as they’re moving south-west, so he was asking Reichsführer if he should send part of his people to liquidate the village. Reichsführer approved of it and now forwards this letter for your signature since it falls under your jurisdiction as the Chief of the RSHA.”

  Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner looked at his coffee, drank it as if it was a shot of whiskey, put the cup back on the tray and reached for his cigarette case.

  “Whatever requires my signature put on a side of the table, right here.”

  I slowly put the letter where he told me to and kept looking at him, but he turned away from me and just passed another letter to me, busy with his cigarette.

  “Next one.”

  I didn’t open it though and kept looking at him instead, until he finally turned his head to me.

  “What is it, Frau Friedmann?”

  “How many people live in that village?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “They’re all going to die now?”

  “If Reichsführer approved of it, yes.”

  “But you have to sign the actual order for their execution.”

  He turned in his chair to me and looked me straight in the eye.

  “Where are you going with this, Frau Friedmann?”

  I shrugged.

  “This job is new to me, and I’m only making sure I understand everything correctly, that’s all. So the orders of the mass executions have to be signed by the Chief of the RSHA, correct?”

  Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner frowned at me, but I didn’t look away. I didn’t care if I was making him upset; if he could send all those people to death simply by putting his signature on a piece of paper, I had all the right to make him upset by at least pointing it out to him.

  “Correct, Frau Friedmann. That’s called jurisdiction and subordination.”

&nbs
p; “I thought it was called mass extermination.”

  He rose up from his chair so fast that I unwillingly stepped back.

  “What the hell do you want from me?! Do you want me not to sign it now because you feel bad for the poor people of whatever its name is, village?! Is that what you want me to do? Not to follow Reichsführer’s order and go before the tribunal for treason maybe, to save a couple of hundred of goddamn Bolshevik Jews?!”

  I’d already saw the effect his loud voice and angry face was producing at his subordinates, who would freeze in awe like rabbits in front of a cobra; I, however, wasn’t scared of him one bit, especially now.

  “No, of course not, Herr Gruppenführer,” I replied in a cold voice. “I merely made an observation. I’m sorry if that upset you, I won’t make any more observations in the future. I’ll just follow the orders, like everybody else does.”

  “You do that.” Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner sat back on his chair, took a long drag on his cigarette and handed me the rest of the ‘top secret’ mail without looking at me.

  “Take care of the rest of it. Dismissed.”

  “Jawohl, Herr Gruppenführer.”

  I left his office hardly restraining myself from slamming the door.

  Chapter 9

  Ursula gladly accepted my invitation for lunch on a Saturday afternoon since Greta, her little daughter, was now running and talking way too much for her to handle, so my best friend decided to take a long needed break from the infant. Our husbands were having lunch with some important man from the Reich Chancellery, and we were even glad it was only the two of us.

  After telling me the latest gossip about our neighbors and our husbands’ co-workers’ wives, Ursula asked me what was new at my work. I just rolled my eyes in response.

  “Ugh, don’t even ask. I thought that my theatre was a pit with snakes, but the RSHA office definitely puts it to shame.”

  “Oh, please, tell me everything!” Ursula was almost shaking from excitement. The life of an ordinary housewife was way too boring for the always bubbly blonde, and she was always looking forward to get as much gossip and news from both her husband Max and me. Too bad I couldn’t share most of the things with her.

  “There’s nothing to tell, really, it’s just a continuous power struggle between the departments, intrigues, false accusations, arrests even amongst the employees, all of it is very… overwhelming. And my new boss is the icing on the cake.”

  “Why? Is he mean? Meaner than Heydrich was?”

  “It’s not that he’s mean…” I caught myself thinking that I didn’t know how to characterize Dr. Kaltenbrunner. “He’s just… I don’t know. Confusing.”

  “Confusing?” Ursula lifted her eyebrow at me. “That’s an interesting description.”

  “Well, that’s the way he is. One minute he’s all smiles and jokes, and then something triggers him, and he turns into a completely different person. Did I tell you that one time he threw a glass at his adjutant?”

  “No! He didn’t!” Ursula opened her eyes wide in amazement. She was definitely going to tell this story to her neighbors. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. He got mad over something, and threw the glass right into poor Georg’s head. Georg ducked of course, instinctually, so he didn’t get hurt, thank God. But the fact remains.”

  “He’s not mean to you, is he?”

  “Well, let’s just say, he hasn’t thrown any glasses at me yet.”

  No, Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner didn’t throw glasses at me, but our working relationship remained very official and standoffish since that argument about Einsatzgruppen. I would bring him coffee every morning and sort out his mail. The letters that required his signature – most of them concerning concentration camps, Einsatzgruppen, forced labor and other absolutely horrible things so pedantically put on paper as if the numbers on the orders were bank statements and not living people – I put separately on a side of his table, just like he told me to.

  One day when I brought Dr. Kaltenbrunner his coffee, he was just taking the first letter from that stack I put for him. As I was pouring coffee into his cup, he signed the letter without looking and put it away, took another one, quickly signed it again and put it on top of the first one; the rest of the letters and orders were handled in the same manner in the matter of less than a minute. I stood still in my place watching him do it and not believing my eyes. He didn’t even care about the contents of those orders.

  “Don’t you want to read them first?” I finally couldn’t contain myself anymore; unlike him I knew too well what was inside those orders.

  “Are you telling me how to do my job now?” Dr. Kaltenbrunner asked me harshly.

  “No, but you might want to be curious what you’re signing at least, Herr Gruppenführer.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to know what I’m signing. Have you thought of that, Frau Friedmann?”

  I didn’t say anything and just frowned at him more. He got up from his place, lit up a cigarette, and started pacing around the office. I remained where I was, watching him from the side of my eye. Suddenly he walked up very close to me.

  “Look at me.” I lifted my head to him to meet his eyes. “Do you think I like that? Do you think I enjoy it, signing all this shit every single day?! Do you think I want all this Gestapo dirt going through my hands?! Do you think I wake up every morning thinking, oh great, I have a day filled with joy of signing orders for ‘special treatment’ ahead of me, let me get to work as soon as possible so Reichsführer Himmler can send another several thousands of people to death by my hands. Is that what you think?!”

  “I don’t think that my opinion matters, Herr Gruppenführer. I’m merely an ordinary secretary.”

  “No, you’re not!” He almost screamed at me. “You’re everything but an ordinary secretary. Ordinary secretaries don’t walk around all day giving their chiefs those accusing looks. I know exactly what you think, Frau Friedmann. You think that I’m a murderer, that’s what you think. And you think that I like what I’m doing.”

  “Maybe you don’t like it, but you agree with it, and no matter how much you try to justify yourself, Herr Gruppenführer, the result is still the same.”

  “Maybe I don’t agree with it. What choice do I have? Not to sign Reichsführer’s orders?”

  “If you didn’t agree with Reichsführer’s policy concerning the RSHA, you probably shouldn’t have accepted the position of its Chief.”

  “I didn’t accept it!!!” He shouted so loud that I held my breath for a moment. And only then I comprehended what he said. For a moment silence filled the room, and it was even louder than his words. I blinked several times trying to understand what he meant by it.

  “If you didn’t accept it, how come we’re having this conversation right now?”

  Dr. Kaltenbrunner made another step towards me and said very quietly but still with anger in his voice, “I refused to take over the office three times, Frau Friedmann. I refused to be a replacement for Heydrich. As a matter of fact, I asked Reichsführer Himmler for a position in the Eastern front instead. But he rejected my request, and sent me a military order to summon me to Berlin immediately. And you know what a military order is: you don’t follow it, you get executed for treason, and your immediate family members get sent to the labor camps. Now you can go ahead and keep despising me, just don’t forget to send out these signed by your terrible chief orders to whoever they’re for. You can go now.”

  All of a sudden I felt extremely ashamed of myself and the way I acted around him this whole time. Naturally, I had no idea that Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner was ordered to take over the position of the Chief of the RSHA, just like my late brother was ordered to transfer into SS-Totenkopf and become one of the guards in Auschwitz instead being sent to the Eastern front.

  “I’m very sorry, Herr Gruppenführer,” I finally said. “I didn’t know that.”

  He remained silent, looking through his papers. Still feeling guilty, I asked, “Is there anythin
g I can do for you?”

  Dr. Kaltenbrunner rubbed his forehead and finally looked at me. All of a sudden he seemed very tired.

  “Your job. That’s what we’re here for after all.”

  I nodded and picked up the signed orders from his table.

  “I apologize again, Herr Gruppenführer.”

  “No need to, Frau Friedmann. You can go.”

  I nodded again, and left his office feeling absolutely terrible. I made a mistake by jumping to conclusions when in reality I had no idea what was going on. But at the same time for some reason I was extremely happy that Dr. Kaltenbrunner didn’t turn out to be a heartless monster as I had already started to portray him in my mind. He didn’t like all that police activity, he didn’t want to be a part of it and was signing all those orders without looking not because he didn’t care, but because he didn’t want to know what’s inside.

  After another week Dr. Kaltenbrunner told me to hand all the orders concerning the Gestapo matters and coming from Reichsführer that required his, Chief of the RSHA’s signature, to Georg so the latter would stamp them with the facsimile. It seemed that he didn’t even want them on his table anymore. I didn’t blame him; I loathed even reading those orders. But very soon, however, I had to face those orders way closer than I ever wanted to.

  One afternoon, when Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner and his adjutant left to the Reich Chancellery, Gruppenführer Müller walked in asking for the Chief.

  “He’s left for the meeting with Reichsführer, Herr Gruppenführer.” I apologetically smiled at the Chief of the Gestapo. “Is there anything I can help you with?”