Alone in Berlin (Penguin Modern Classics)

44

The Fall of Inspector Zott

The letter from the precinct supervisor was correctly addressed to Inspector Zott at Gestapo Headquarters, Berlin. But that didn’t result in the letter landing in Zott’s in-tray. Instead, it was his superior, SS Obergruppenführer Prall, who was clutching it as he walked into Zott’s office.

‘What’s this all about, Inspector?’ asked Prall. ‘Here’s another one of your Hobgoblin’s cards, and this note pinned to it: “Prisoners released in accordance with phoned instructions from the Gestapo, Inspector Zott.” What prisoners might those be? Why has none of this reached my ears?’

The inspector looked up over the rims of his spectacles at his superior. ‘Oh, yes! I remember. It was yesterday, or maybe the day before. I’ve got it, it was on Sunday. Sunday evening. Sometime between six and seven, I would say, Obergruppenführer.’

And he looked up at the Obergruppenführer, proud of his excellent memory.

‘And what precisely happened on Sunday between six and seven o’clock? What prisoners are you talking about? And why were they let go? And why has none of it been reported to me? It’s profoundly comforting to hear that you know what it’s about, but I’d like to know too, Zott!’

That ‘Zott’, spat out without any form of title, sounded like the opening salvo in a barrage.

‘But it’s a perfectly trivial matter!’ The inspector made calming motions with his parchment yellow hands. ‘There was some nonsense at the station. The police, bless them, pulled in a married couple as possible writers or distributors of the postcards, complete nonsense of course – we know the man lives by himself! Ah yes, and there was another thing, too: the man was a carpenter, when we know the Hobgoblin has something to do with the trams!’

‘Are you trying to tell me, sir,’ said the barely restrained Obergruppenführer (that ‘sir’ was the second, and far more dangerous, shot in this battle), ‘are you trying to tell me that you authorized the release of these people without even having seen them, without even having questioned them, just because there were two of them rather than one, and because the man had a carpenter’s ID on him? Sir!’

‘Obergruppenführer,’ replied Inspector Zott as he got to his feet, ‘in our investigations, we detectives follow a specific plan and don’t deviate from it. I am looking for a man who lives alone and works in public transport, not a married man who is a carpenter. I’m simply not interested in the latter. I wouldn’t go a step out of my way for him.’

‘As if a carpenter couldn’t work for public transport – for instance, repairing carriages!’ Prall screamed back at him. ‘How stupid can you get!’

At first, Zott thought he should be offended, but his superior’s apt remark gave him pause. ‘You’re right,’ he said glumly, ‘that didn’t occur to me.’ He collected himself. ‘But I am still looking for a man living on his own,’ he said again. ‘And this man has a wife.’

‘Have you any idea what vile bitches women can be!’ growled Prall. But he had something else in his armoury: ‘And did it not occur to you, Inspector Zott,’ (this was the third and most lethal shot), ‘that this card was dropped on a Sunday afternoon, near Nollendorfplatz! Did that minor or meaningless circumstance escape your schooled detective’s attention?’

This time Inspector Zott was really stunned, his little goatee bobbed up and down, and it was as though a veil had been drawn over his dark, sharp eyes.

‘I’m embarrassed, Obergruppenführer! How could something like this have happened to me? I got ahead of myself. I was thinking about tram stations; I was so proud of my discovery. Too proud…’

The Obergruppenführer looked angrily at the little man, who was confessing his shortcomings, not cringingly but with evident disappointment.

‘It was a mistake on my part,’ the inspector proceeded, ‘to have taken over this inquiry in the first place. I am good for desk work, not a criminal investigation. Escherich is ten times better than I am. And now I’ve also had the misfortune that one of the men I asked to check out a house in the area, a certain Klebs, has been arrested. He is alleged to have been involved in theft, the robbing of a dipsomaniac. He has been badly beaten up. A very unpleasant story altogether. The man will not keep quiet in court, he will say that we sent him…’

Obergruppenführer Prall trembled with rage, but Inspector Zott’s dignity and utter lack of regard for his own fate held him in check.

‘Do you have any views on how we should proceed in this matter, sir?’ he asked coldly.

‘I beg you, Obergruppenführer,’ Zott beseeched him with raised hands, ‘release me! Release me from this investigation, which is completely over my head! Get Escherich back out of the basement, he will do better than me…’

‘I do hope,’ Prall said, and it was as though he hadn’t listened to a word of what Zott had just said, ‘I do hope you’ve at least kept a record of the name and address of the two detainees?’

‘I didn’t! I didn’t! I behaved with culpable negligence. I was blinded by my theory. But I will call the station, they will find the addresses, and we will see…’

‘All right, call them!’

The conversation was very short. The inspector told the Obergruppenführer, ‘No note was kept of the names and addresses.’ And, in response to a furious gesture from his superior: ‘I am to blame, only I! After calling me, they had no option but to view the incident as closed. I am completely to blame for there being nothing in writing!’

‘So we have no lead?’

‘No lead!’

‘And what do you think about your conduct?’

‘I ask that Inspector Escherich be brought up from the basement, and that I be confined in his place!’

Obergruppenführer Prall looked at the little man in silence. Then, shaking with rage, he said, ‘Do you know I’ll have you put away in a concentration camp? You dare make such a suggestion to me, to my face, without wailing and shaking with fear? It’s Communists and Bolsheviks that are made of the sort of stuff you’re made of! You confess your shortcomings, but you still appear to be proud of them!’

‘I’m not proud of my shortcomings. But I am ready to take the consequences for them. I hope I will do it without wailing and trembling!’

Obergruppenführer Prall sneered contemptuously at those words. He had seen too many illusions of dignity collapse under the punches and kicks of SS men. But he had also seen something in the eye of some victims, a look of cool, almost mocking superiority even as they were being tortured. And his memory of that look caused him not to scream and lash out, but merely to say, ‘I want you to stay here at my disposal. I must first make a report.’

Inspector Zott inclined his head in agreement, and Obergruppenführer Prall walked out.