The Austrian: A War Criminal's Story Read online

  He didn’t react the way I expected him to. He didn’t turn crimson red with fury like my British interrogators used to, whenever I’d rub their faces in their own tactics which were not working, neither did he start to bluntly deny everything. Instead, the American looked at the folder in front of him with a faint smile, as if contemplating my words, then looked back at me, and slightly shook his head.

  “Hmm, I’d never guess that.”

  “That we invented it?”

  “No. That it’s what you were thinking this whole time.”

  Instead of confusing him, I found myself confused. “Excuse me, agent?”

  “I have nothing to do with the British SOE, doctor. I thought that you’d understand that from the fact that I asked to speak with you privately, in an untapped cell, without any witnesses, such as an interpreter. And I definitely have nothing to do with that, quite interesting I must confess, method that you have just described to me. I’m sorry that the conditions and the treatment you’re getting here are far from…”

  “Humane?” I found the right word for him.

  “We prefer to call it the third-degree treatment.” He lowered his eyes apologetically.

  “And we preferred to call death sentences ‘protective custody orders.’ We’re so alike, Germans and Americans, that it’s frightening. But only natural if you think about it. Which wave of immigration was the German one? The one that populated half of the United States. The second, I believe?”

  “I believe so, yes. It’s very pleasant to know that you take such interest in our history, doctor.”

  “To conquer your enemy you must first study it.”

  “So you were studying us?”

  His curiosity was so genuine that I seriously started liking this guy. And I don’t like liking people. I always end up being stabbed in the back when I do. Nevertheless, after being constantly yelled at and called all sorts of names, I felt the urge to finally relax and just talk to somebody, like two old friends who had decided to spend the evening sharing their memories. I’d share mine for his cigarettes.

  “I studied you and the Russians. Müller studied only the Russians. And Heydrich studied Jews. He was so obsessed with his hatred toward them that he even learned Hebrew. And do you know why he wanted to exterminate every single Jew?”

  “Why?”

  “He had Jewish roots, and with his inferiority complex he was trying to exterminate in others what he hated in himself.”

  “I thought it was just a rumor.”

  “Himmler once told me that it wasn’t. He supposedly had some papers confirming it, some great-grandparent’s birth certificate, I think… He always protected Heydrich in front of everyone, but kept the paper in some secret place to keep Heydrich in check. He knew that Heydrich was a cold-blooded murderer and could easily finish him off with a couple of his Gestapo guys, like the two of them previously did with the head of the SA, Ernst Röhm. And that little piece of paper was his security guarantee, you understand?”

  “Thank you for sharing that with me, doctor, I never knew that.” The American nodded in appreciation and offered me another cigarette. “So, what about you, Dr. Kaltenbrunner?”

  “I don’t have any Jewish roots, as far as I know.” I laughed.

  “No, that’s not what I’m asking about.” Agent Foster smiled again. “You have a very rare last name, by the way. How is it translated? ‘Kalten’ means ‘cold,’ right? And ‘brunner’?”

  “‘Water spring.’”

  “‘Cold water spring.’ That’s the most poetic last name I’ve ever heard.”

  “Only when you translate it into English and don’t pronounce it ‘Kahltenbrahner’ like your colleagues normally do.” I smirked together with the OSS agent. “I’m sorry, I interrupted you. Your question was?”

  “I wanted to ask you if you were studying Jews like Heydrich did?”

  “No. I never did.”

  “Why not?”

  “I didn’t consider them my enemies.”

  “What about the Russians?”

  “Them, yes.”

  “And us?”

  “I had to study you because you and the British were the strongest. And because I admired you a little,” I added after a pause.

  “Thank you, doctor.” Agent Foster seemed genuinely flattered. “And why didn’t you consider Jews your enemy?”

  “An enemy is one who can physically attack you, harm you, or threaten your life. Jews never attacked anyone. I personally always strongly opposed any violent action against them, leave alone the extermination program. Taking them off leading positions in 1935, that’s where we should have stopped. Relocation, even that I could live with quite fine. But herding and killing them, that’s just… it’s not what soldiers do, it’s against the code. And somehow I turned out to be the one who was signing all those orders.” I laughed again and rubbed my forehead. “How can I hate Jews if I had a Jewish mistress, for God’s sake?”

  “You didn’t tell that to anyone, did you?”

  “Of course not. I’m not going to supply the press with more dirty rumors on my account.”

  “No, it’s not just that. Technically, Annalise Friedmann and her husband Heinrich are dead. Killed during the air raid. Their bodies were found and identified by the OSS. The woman, who we flew to New York, is Emma Rosenberg, a former Jew in hiding, and you two have never met. Going back to the reason of my visit, she wants you to stay alive.”

  “We were doing so good, agent Foster.” I rubbed my eyes, all red from long hours of interrogations, long before the American came. They didn’t feed me today either. “Now we’re back to the carrot? Well, go ahead, spill it out. What is it you want from me?”

  “I want you to help yourself, that’s all. We’ve already lost Himmler to suicide in order to take on your guilt, now only Müller and Bormann are left. We know that the three of you worked tightly together at the end of the war, so it would only be natural that you know where we should look for them.”

  “Their bodies were found in Berlin, weren’t they?” I asked tiredly.

  “Some unrecognizable bodies, dressed as them, and having their papers on them, were found, Dr. Kaltenbrunner.”

  “Yes, that’s what I heard too.”

  He was staring at me without blinking for some time, looking more concerned than angry.

  “So you don’t know where they are?”

  “No.”

  Of course I did. As a matter of fact, all four of us, including my loyal best friend Otto, were supposed to be on the same submarine heading to South America. Five with Annalise. Six with our unborn baby. But Annalise stayed in Berlin with her husband, and I didn’t want to leave without her. I was sick of them all, well, except for Otto. And tired, very, very tired. So I went back to Austria and decided to die fighting. The OSS had other plans for me.

  The truth was that I was betrayed and lied to so many times, that I didn’t trust anybody anymore, not even my new American friend. Certainly, he’d promise me freedom in exchange for Bormann and Müller, but he’d never keep his word. Even if she turned me away at the last moment, what would make him different? No, I was going to save this card for the very last hand, when nothing else was left to be played.

  “No, agent Foster, I don’t,” I repeated firmly once again.

  “Dr. Kaltenbrunner, I only want justice. Why would you take other people’s – the real criminals’ – guilt on your shoulders? Why cover them now, when it’s all over with? Don’t you understand that with them in custody you will only be tried as merely an accomplice? Maybe the court will even acquit you.” Seeing that his words weren’t producing any effect on me, he tried his trump card. “Think about Annalise and your baby. Don’t you want to see them again?”

  “Stop it with Annalise. It’s her who doesn’t want to see me,” I replied angrily.

  “You know that it’s not true. She loves you very much.” Striking a nerve again and sensing my vulnerability, he started pushing deeper. “You sh
ould have only seen her cry when I told her that you had been arrested. She was desperate, inconsolable, she was worried sick for you, and you’re saying that she doesn’t love you?”

  “I think we’re done here, agent Foster.” I had to clench my jaws again not to break down in front of him. “I don’t know where those men are. I have nothing else to tell you.”

  He sighed heavily, put the papers back in the folder and slowly got up.

  “Alright, Dr. Kaltenbrunner. That’s your decision, and I respect that. But let me know if you change your mind. While I can still do something for you.”

  With those words he extended his hand to me. I shook it.

  “I didn’t want to tell you before, because you wouldn’t be able to think clearly while we spoke.” He said this very quietly, still holding my hand in his. “You have a son, doctor. He was born three weeks ago. Looks just like you. She named him Ernst, after you, and made me put your last name together with hers on his birth certificate. Think about that the next time you find yourself doubting her feelings for you. And let me know if you change your mind.”

  He quickly turned around and left. I stood motionless, still in shock from the news, until the guard handcuffed me to his wrist and took me back to my cell. I slowly walked over to my cot, curled underneath the blanket that I pulled over my head, and wept soundlessly.

  _______________

  Linz, October 1913

  “He was weeping like a little girl, I’m telling you!”

  Johannes had already gathered around himself a big circle of our classmates, who had missed the fight and couldn’t wait to hear the details of how I had put the well-known bully, Bernard Lange, in his place. Who would have known that an insignificant event like that would give me such popularity? Boys, who I didn’t know, would call me by my name and shake my hand. Older ones, who normally wouldn’t give me the time of day, would pat my back and invite me to play ball with them after class.

  I would just smile embarrassingly with a side of my mouth, trying to figure out how beating someone up had instantly gained me such respect and everybody’s friendship. My mother, for one, was absolutely horrified when she was washing my bruised hands that day, saying what a terrible thing I’d done and that she would never have expected such behavior from me.

  “Ernst, violence is never the answer,” she said sternly, cleaning my shirt. “You can always talk things over…”

  “Stop it, Therese!” my father interrupted her. “You’re raising a son, not a daughter. Boys fight, that’s a normal thing, you should encourage it, not reprimand him for it. Don’t listen to your mother, son, you did everything right, and I’m very proud of you.”

  “I don’t want him to grow up a violent man,” my mother answered quietly.

  “He’ll grow up as a man who can stand up for himself and others.”

  “There’s a very thin line between standing up for yourself and abusing your power because you are the strongest one,” she remarked almost inaudibly. I didn’t understand what she meant back then.

  I was contemplating that while Johannes kept adding more details to his excited speech. And then I saw her again, the girl who was the reason of it all. She stood with two other girls next to her not too far from us and was smiling at me. I smiled back, and after a moment’s thought walked over to her, immediately causing whispers and giggles from her girlfriends’ side.

  “Hi.”

  It was pretty much all I came up with, taking into consideration that I was growing up with two brothers and no sisters, and had no idea of what to talk to girls about. When you’re ten, you don’t really talk to girls, because that’s just the way it is. Boys stick with boys, and girls stick with girls, and secretly my friends and I made a pact that we’d never get married.

  “Girls are stupid,” Hannes would say after throwing a glance over his shoulder in the direction of our female fellow students from a neighboring school, sitting in a tight circle in the backyard that both schools shared, and giggling over something. “All they do is gossip and laugh all the time.”

  “And they have those stupid questionnaires they give to each other with stupid pictures in them,” Bruno, another friend of ours, would add.

  “Yes, and they sing those stupid songs too, and rhymes!” Peter, who suffered more than any of us from those teasing rhymes, because he was the heavy kid, made a face in the direction of the girls.

  “Can you imagine, when we grow up we’ll have to get married to one of them and live with them in one house!” Hannes would whisper loudly, making his eyes huge, as if it was the worst thing that could happen to anybody.

  “I’m not going to live with a girl in one house!” Peter exclaimed.

  “Not only will you have to live with her in one house, you’ll have to sleep with her in the same bed too!” Bruno teased his friend, and all of us giggled.

  “Eww! I’m not going to put some girl in my bed! She can sleep wherever she wants, on the floor if I care, but not in my bed!”

  “Too much trouble with them girls,” Peter concluded. “I say, let’s not marry at all!”

  “I’m in!” Hannes shrugged.

  “Me too,” Bruno chimed in, and they all turned to me.

  “Sure.” I shrugged, following Hannes’s example.

  And now I was standing in front of an older girl and waiting for her reply.

  “Hi,” she finally answered, whilst her girlfriends exchanged winks and smiles behind her back. “You’re Ernst, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I’m Dalia.”

  Dalia… Never before had I heard a name like that and I had definitely never seen a girl who I’d call ‘pretty.’ However, Dalia was very pretty, even though there was something very different about her beauty. Her almond shaped eyes were almost black, just like her hair that she wore in a thick braid, tied in a bun above her neck. She was wearing a long black skirt, and a white blouse with ruffles around her shoulders, demurely buttoned up to the neck; which only intensified the olive tone of her smooth skin, still very tan from summer. Dalia tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and smiled again.

  “Thank you for helping me. I’m sorry that I didn’t thank you right away, but I just wanted to get away from Barney and his friends. They always harass me. I hope you didn’t get into any trouble because of me?”

  “No, not at all,” I lied, instinctively looking at my bruised knuckles.

  Dalia noticed them too, before I had a chance to hide my hands in my pockets.

  “You’re very strong for your age. Even Barney’s classmates fear him, but you…” She nodded appreciatively. “Thank you.”

  “Anytime,” I answered, feeling very proud of myself, even more than when Hannes was praising me before our friends. “Do you want me to walk you home perhaps?”

  After I ‘saved’ her, Dalia somehow became my responsibility, or at least that’s what I thought of it back then, so I felt obliged to keep protecting her. The fact that I might like the girl was something I dismissed as being impossible.

  “Why, yes, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  Under my friends’ astonished looks and hearing more giggles behind our backs, we walked out of the school yard next to each other. We walked quietly for some time, not saying a word, until I finally decided to ask Dalia a question that had been bothering me since yesterday.

  “You said that those boys harass you all the time. Why?”

  “Ah, they came up with that stupid idea that I carry gold on me.”

  “Yes, I remember them saying that. What did they mean though? Jewelry?”

  “No, not jewelry. Jewish gold. You know, that stupid stereotype that all Jews carry hidden gold on them?”

  “I’ve never heard anything like that,” I confessed.

  “You’re not from here, are you?”

  “No, we only moved here not that long ago.”

  “I see. You’ll hear more things in the future. Try to stay away from boys like Barney. They’re no good.”r />
  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  We crossed the street in silence. I was hoping that Dalia didn’t live too far because I didn’t want to be late home; it was my birthday, and I was looking forward to my mother’s apple pie that she had promised to make for me.

  “Where do you live?” she asked me, as if reading my mind. “I hope I’m not troubling you with escorting me. Even though I’m pretty certain that Barney and his friends will finally leave me alone now.”

  “Over there, not too far from the University.” I pointed in the direction of where my house was, invisible for us at this point.

  “Really? My father’s office is near there.”

  “Mine too,” I grinned at her. “What does your father do?”

  “He’s a lawyer.”

  “Mine too!”

  “No! You’re just teasing me!”

  “I swear! It has a big white sign on top of his office saying ‘Legal representation’ and under it is my father’s name – Hugo Kaltenbrunner, doctor of law,” I answered proudly.

  “I know that office!” Dalia exclaimed excitedly. “It’s right across the street from my father’s! Franz Katzman his name is.”

  We both laughed at the coincidence that not only were our fathers both lawyers, but they also worked across the street from each other.

  “I wonder how come they’re not friends yet,” I said. “My father knows almost all the lawyers in Linz.”