The Doomsday Decree Read online

  On his left side, three tables along, an elderly man in the grey uniform of a Wehrmacht Generaloberst sat at a marble-topped table, smoking a thin cheroot. His pale eyes were focused on the middle distance. He sat stiff and aloof, his face lined, the cheeks slightly gaunt. He held himself with an aristocratic nonchalance as he sipped the coffee in front of him. There were many people in the restaurant but the Generaloberst sat alone.

  Paul hesitated a moment and then walked directly to the table, dropping into a seat opposite the General. He heaved a sigh. ‘Ah, a pity the old restaurant is not as it was in the days when Otto was head waiter.’

  The elderly general’s eyes flickered and focused on him. ‘That is so,’ he said quietly.

  The proprietor came breathlessly toward them. ‘Excuse me, Herr Generaloberst, this man can be seated at some other table as … ’

  The officer stared disdainfully at the proprietor with all the contempt of his Prussian aristocratic background.

  ‘In wartime the niceties of society may sometimes be ignored. The man is welcome to sit here.’

  The proprietor bobbed and fawned. Obviously he remembered the old days when an aristocrat’s word was law. ‘Of course, Herr Generaloberst. Of course,’ he said apologetically. Paul took the opportunity to order a coffee.

  The General gazed at Paul without curiosity for a few moments and then said: ‘Number seventeen, Wiegendstrasse, in twenty minutes.’

  Without another word he stood up and left the cafe, pausing only to pay for his coffee at the counter.

  Paul left ten minutes later and stopped to get directions from a newspaper seller. Weigendstrasse was only a few minutes away. Number 17 was a tall tenement block. He entered and paused a moment, trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness of the hallway. A moment later he was aware of a figure moving forward in the darkness. He was frisked, expertly and efficiently. Before he had time to recover from his surprise the man said, ‘Upstairs. Second floor.’

  Paul climbed the creaking stairway. On the second-floor landing another man stood impassively, a hat pulled well forward over his features.

  ‘In here,’ he grunted, pushing open a door.

  Paul found himself in a small room with boarded-over windows shutting out the daylight. A candle stood flickering on an upturned packing case which served as a table. Two orange boxes served as chairs. On one of them sat the elderly Generaloberst.

  ‘Come in, young man.’

  Paul entered. The door swung to behind him. The General motioned him to be seated.

  ‘This is rather extreme cloak-and-dagger stuff, isn’t it, Herr Generaloberst?’

  The elderly man did not smile.

  ‘Without security, we are all dead. As dead as poor Goerdeler.’

  Paul’s eyes widened. Goerdeler, the former Mayor of Leipzig, had been the Widerstand’s choice for Chancellor of Germany, if the coup of 20 July had succeeded and Hitler had been deposed.

  ‘He’s dead?’

  The Generaloberst nodded sadly. ‘He was executed yesterday. Our people have just heard about it. Along with Goerdeler, Johannes Popitz and the Jesuit Father Alfred Delp were also executed.’

  Paul now regretted his flippant remark on entering the room. He knew Popitz had been Prussian Minister of Finance and the recipient of the Party’s highest decoration, the Golden Badge of Honour. An eminent economist, he had awoken to the true nature of Nazism just before the war and had been a tireless worker in the Widerstand ever since.

  ‘Ulrich sent you, I believe?’

  Paul seated himself and nodded. ‘You have been recommended by him, Doctor Paul Horder.’.

  Paul smiled thinly. ‘You seem to know who I am. Are you really a Generaloberst?’

  The elderly man chuckled as if vastly amused.

  ‘Generaloberst, now semi-retired. Fully retired until a few weeks ago, but I am now brought out of retirement to command the local brigade of the Volkssturm, the “home army” consisting of men even more elderly than myself and young boys scarcely in their teens.’

  His voice was bitter. He paused and glanced at Paul directly.

  ‘Ulrich said there was something urgent about which you wished to consult me?’

  ‘It’s difficult to know where to begin.’

  The General raised an eyebrow. ‘Begin at your beginning and we shall see.’

  After some hesitation Paul began with his conversation with Gottfried Klaus. He went on to speak of the mysterious patient, of Gottfried’s and his patient’s disappearance, the arrest of Anna and her children, the disappearance of the hospital records, the name of SS Sturmann Stenzel, the mention of a Geiger counter and of Project Wotan.

  The General sat in total silence as Paul recited the story. When Paul had finished he sat for a few more moments in silence and examined the young doctor before he spoke.

  ‘And what do you make of it, my boy? What do you suspect?’

  Paul shrugged in perplexity. ‘I simply don’t know what to make of it, sir. The only thing I can think of is that poor Gottfried stumbled onto something connected with the SS corporal and Project Wotan. What it is, I just don’t know. But it is certainly something very important. So important that the Gestapo are going to extreme lengths to cover it up.’

  ‘The Gestapo always go to extreme lengths,’ murmured the General. ‘Tell me, what is this Geiger-Müller Counter you mentioned?’

  ‘An instrument for measuring radioactive particles.’

  ‘Forgive an ignorant old soldier, my boy … but what are those?’

  ‘There is a school of thought in medicine which holds that a person can be damaged by too much radioactivity in the air. Radiation, it is called. I read a paper on it once. It claimed that Marie Curie, the scientist who did the most work on the subject, actually died of leukaemia — that’s a blood disorder, Herr Generaloberst — caused by exposure to the radiation she was testing in her laboratory. That’s about all I know. Apparently science hasn’t made much progress in this field since then.’

  The General frowned thoughtfully as he considered Paul’s information. ‘Your story is very interesting. First we must find out the nature of this Project Wotan. Perhaps our people in Berlin can help us. As regards Klaus and his family, we shall ask our contacts to check and find out if, and where, they have been sent to a camp.’

  Paul felt a sense of relief. Something at last, was being done. ‘I appreciate this, Herr Generaloberst.’

  ‘We will be in touch, either through Ulrich or directly.’

  ‘Thank you, Herr Generaloberst.’

  Paul stood up and held out his hand. The General took it. ‘Good luck, my boy.’

  It took Paul three hours to get back to Münster.

  *

  It was Friday evening when Paul next encountered Magda Kelter from the hospital Records Department. They fell in step along the stone-flagged corridor leading to his office.

  ‘Have you discovered anything yet?’ she greeted him.

  Paul shook his head. ‘Have you discovered anything in Records?’

  ‘No. I searched very carefully. Even Doctor Klaus’ employment record is gone.’

  At the door of his office something prompted Paul to ask the girl if she was going off duty. When she replied that she was, he asked her to share a coffee with him. He wondered why he suddenly felt so happy when she smiled and accepted.

  ‘There’s a little place on the Königstrasse, behind the ruins of the old Apollo Theatre, where you can still get pastries without coupons,’ she said almost conspiratorially.

  ‘Then let’s go there by all means,’ Paul said with a grin, trying to suppress a sudden feeling of guilt associated with the thought of Ilse.

  They walked through the city in the dimming twilight. Here and there the youthful Luftwaffe flak units were manning their guns and peering anxiously skywards. The clouds were high this evening, good flying weather in spite of the cold. Perhaps the Tommies would be over. Since the New Year they had been over almost daily, although not e
very time were their attentions devoted to Münster. Every major city and town had been bombed. New Year’s Day itself had seen a sustained attack on the Dortmund-Ems Canal which passed through the city and which had become a major supply line through the Reich.

  Well, Paul thought, at least Münster had not been subject to saturation bombing like Nuremberg. The reports of the attack there on 2 January, and the similar attack on Frankfurt on 9 January, had been horrific, almost unbelievable. But casualties in Münster were also rising. Paul had never thought, in his days of medical practice before the war, that death could come to so many people in so many different ways. He had seen many corpses. Too many. Burnt, torn and crushed to death. Some had faces twisted with pain; others seemed to be sleeping peacefully. Some victims were merely shapeless messes while others were simply piles of ashes. Sometimes, after a raid, the unmistakable stench of decaying flesh wafted through the streets. Paul’s experience of the war had left him totally convinced that the only moral response was to attempt to overthrow the regime which had created such appalling suffering.

  He became aware that Magda Kelter was speaking to him.

  ‘You saw the news about Roland Friesler?’

  ‘No. What about him?’

  Friesler was the bogeyman of the Reich, perhaps the most sinister and bloodthirsty Party man, the President of the People’s Court who had condemmed thousands of Widerstand members to terrible suffering and death.

  ‘The official news agency reported that Friesler was killed in an air raid in Berlin on Wednesday. He was in the middle of one of those detestable trials, and a beam collapsed on his head.’

  Paul smiled grimly. ‘Maybe there is a God of justice after all.’

  They passed the ruins of the old Apollo Theatre, stark against the evening sky. It had taken a direct hit by a bomb during the first-ever air raid on the city. The cinema had been crowded, as it was Sunday afternoon and the popular film Der Nachtfalter, ‘The Moth’, was being shown. Now the Apollo stood as a grim monument to the 200 civilians who had died there.

  The cafe to which Magda led Paul was close to the Hindenburgplatz. They were just entering the door when the sirens started to wail. Paul found the girl suddenly grasping his hand so fiercely that she might almost have been trying to crush it.

  ‘Oh, God!’ She moaned softly. ‘Will they never stop?’

  Paul squeezed her hand in response. ‘Come on,’ he said gently. ‘Let’s find a shelter.’

  Long white searchlight beams were stabbing into the air, and from the southern part of the city they could hear the sharp detonations of the flak batteries.

  As Paul and Magda hurried down the street, a policeman approached them.

  ‘There’s a shelter along there, on the Aegiddi-strasse,’ he called hoarsely. ‘Be quick!’

  They hurried over the broken pavements and followed the directions of another policeman who conducted them into the cellar of a large house on the street corner. It was crowded, but they managed to find a space. The policeman was already trying to calm one elderly lady.

  ‘We’ll be all right this evening,’ he was saying. ‘It looks like the Tommies are going for the airfields at Loddenheide and Handorf.’

  Heavy anti-aircraft batteries began to thunder as the drone of the bombers approached.

  Magda pressed close to him. She was trembling.

  ‘It won’t last long,’ he whispered encouragingly.

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s just … ’

  ‘I understand,’ Paul said.

  He was trying to remember the saying — was it from the Galatians? ‘Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.’ Had not the Luftwaffe once visited death and destruction on countless European cities? Now it was Germany’s turn to endure what it had forced others to suffer.

  ‘It will soon pass,’ he said again.

  ‘Until the next time, and then the next,’ replied the girl.

  They heard the far-off rumble of bombs.

  ‘Do you come from Münster?’ he asked, trying to divert her attention. He was genuinely curious, though, for the girl always spoke Hochdeutsch, the High German of the educated classes, which made it impossible to place her origins.

  ‘No, but I am a Westphalian. My parents owned a farm near the Dutch border … near Xanten.’

  ‘Xanten? That’s west of the Rhine, isn’t it?’

  The girl nodded.

  ‘Did you grow up there?’ Paul pressed as he felt her shiver in response to the thunder of another barrage.

  ‘Yes. My brother and sister and I all grew up on the farm. My sister and her husband still run it.’

  ‘What about your parents?’

  ‘Dead. My father died some years back, a heart attack. My mother died six months ago.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ It sounded inadequate.

  There was a pause and then he asked, ‘What made you become a nurse?’

  ‘I think I wanted to get away from the idea of working on a farm for the rest of my life. Father was quite wealthy. He had a prize herd of cattle before the war and bred bulls. Anyway, we were sent to a good school.’ She grimaced. ‘I suppose that it was to escape the BDM as well as the farm that I went into nursing.’

  Paul was surprised. ‘You were a member of the girls’ branch of the Hitler Youth?’

  Magda sighed. ‘That wasn’t my choice. Originally my sister, my brother and I were members of the Catholic Youth Association. Then Hitler outlawed it. I think that was in ‘Thirty-Six. Well, you know. Everyone was forced to join the Hitler Youth. I became a member of the Bund Deutscher Mädel and we had to do a year of compulsory Land Service, which wasn’t hard for me. I grew up on a farm and here we were supposed to do a year’s farm work. Apart from the politics, it was fun. Our task was to help both in the house and in the fields.

  ‘We usually camped at the farm, or nearby, and were taken to the fields by truck. Our camps were located near the Boys’ camps. A lot of girls got pregnant that way.’

  She suddenly chuckled. ‘Do you remember the song which was popular then?

  ‘In the fields and on the heath I lose Strength through Joy!’

  Paul felt embarrassed. Magda peered up at him mischievously. ‘Do I shock you, Herr Doctor?’ she asked. ‘We were always being lectured in the BDM that it was our moral and patriotic duty to bear children for the Reich, within wedlock if possible but without if necessary.’

  Paul half nodded. He knew well the Party’s teachings.

  ‘Anyway,’ the girl went on with a slight shrug, ‘the idea of constantly have to fight off the attentions of some skinny Hitler Youth made me volunteer for something more than merely working in the fields for the greater glory of the Fatherland. That’s probably the real reason why I went into nursing.’

  The sirens wailed the All Clear.

  ‘There you are,’ Paul said, grinning down at her. ‘Let’s go and get that coffee and those ration-free pastries.’

  Outside, dust from the explosions mingled with clouds of dense smoke drifting across the city, stinging people’s eyes and clogging their throats. To the south they could see innumerable fires raging.

  The next hour, however, passed pleasantly with Paul hardly noticing the time going by. They talked of many subjects, including — and this caused Paul some surprise — his relationship with Ilse. He found it easy to talk to Magda Kelter, to talk as one might to a friend or to the sister he never had. He tried to explain his feelings for Ilse, to clinically dissect his emotions. Eventually Magda glanced at her wristwatch and said that she had to go. As they parted, Magda made him promise to keep her informed about the developing mystery of the Klaus family and the SS Sturmann.

  Walking back to his apartment, Paul was in a buoyant mood and wondered why he felt so comfortable with Magda Kelter. Then he thought of Ilse, about the way he had tried to analyse his relationship with her. He felt that he should not have spoken so freely to Magda about Ilse. A curious sense of having betrayed her came over him, then left him with a confused s
ensation of guilt.

  Chapter Eight

  The next morning, Saturday, the ward matron approached Paul as he was finishing his rounds in the men’s surgical ward.

  ‘Someone in your office to see you, Herr Doctor.’

  Paul frowned. ‘Who?’

  ‘A young Luftwaffe officer who says that his doctor in Dortmund has referred him to you.’

  Paul felt a quickening of his pulse. Was this a messenger from the General?

  The Luftwaffe Oberleutnant was, indeed, young. He lounged in the single chair in Paul’s office with the air of nonchalance that most flyers affected.

  ‘Doctor Paul Horder?’

  Paul nodded as he closed the door, then perched himself on the corner of his desk.

  ‘What can I do for you, Oberleutnant?’

  The young man smiled and reached into his jacket pocket. He took out a silver cigarette case, opened it and proffered it to Paul.

  ‘Smoke?’

  Paul was about to shake his head when he saw the small folded piece of paper. He glanced at the smiling face of the young man, then reached forward and took it. The note was curt. ‘You can trust this man. The General.’

  ‘Well?’ Paul prompted.

  The Luftwaffe pilot reached forward, took the piece of paper and replaced it in his cigarette case.

  ‘I have a message from the General, I am to tell you that there is no trace of a service record for an SS Sturmann called Stenzel. The records of the Klaus family have been traced, however. They have been sent to a place called Hadamar.’ The young pilot looked uncomfortable. ‘Their papers were marked “Nacht und Nebel”.’

  Paul frowned. ‘Night and Fog? What does that mean?’

  The young man gestured awkwardly. ‘It means that the Klaus family will have been eliminated.’

  Paul stared at him, shocked into silence. The Luftwaffe man was speaking again.

  ‘The main message that I bring you from the General concerns this Project Wotan. One of our Widerstand contacts in Berlin Central Transport Records has noticed that there is a shipment of materials being sent from some place called Peenemunde to Dortmund, addressed to Project Wotan.’