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“What I’m thinking is that I can dazzle him with my DCI credentials. What I’m hoping is that the word will pass down to his men imprisoned here that an officer from the White House has been to see him. And then I’m going to talk to every last one of them, until I find who I can turn.”
“Turning people is very difficult.”
“I seem to have a flair for doing it. I turned NKGB Polkovnik Sergei Likharev.”
“So General Greene told me,” Cohen said, and stood up. “Why don’t we go have a chat with former SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei und Waffen-SS Kaltenbrunner? He always hates to see this lowly gottverdammten Juden Oberst who has him in a cell and that pleases me. And on the way—this is General Greene’s suggestion—I will start your cram course on how really dangerous these people are. He thinks I might be able to enlist you two in my secret army of the righteously indignant.”
What the hell is he talking about? Secret army of the righteously indignant?
—
Colonel Cohen began the cram course just as soon as they left the XXIst CIC Kaserne and started to walk to the prison.
“Kaltenbrunner was born in a little Dorf in Austria. His father was a lawyer, and Ernst earned a doctorate degree in law at Graz University in 1926. The story he put out was that the scars on his face came from a duel at Graz, part of the initiation ritual to gain entrance into a fraternity, a Brüderschaft. Actually, the scars, of which he was—still is—quite proud, were caused when he got drunk and got into an automobile accident.
“Kaltenbrunner joined the Nazi Party on October 18th, 1930. He was not, in other words, one of the originals. He became a Nazi because he thought it was no longer dangerous to become a Nazi—by then three hundred thousand people had signed up—and he thought membership might be good for him, personally. He went on to join the SS in August 1931.
“From mid-1935, Kaltenbrunner was considered a leader of the Austrian SS. His role in the Anschluss in 1933 got him promoted to SS-Brigadeführer, and he parlayed that into getting himself elected to the Reichstag.”
Jesus, this is a classroom lecture.
Colonel Cohen’s another Freddy Hessinger!
Take notes! There will be a quiz!
“In January 1934, Kaltenbrunner got married to thirty-year-old Elisabeth Eder of Linz, who was a Nazi Party member. They had three children. But he had a wandering eye and had a long affair with Gräfin—Countess—Gisela von Westarp. They had two children, a boy and a girl, twins.
“In September 1938, Kaltenbrunner, while still Führer of SS-Oberabschnitt Österreich, was promoted to the rank of SS-Gruppenführer—lieutenant general—in the army. He was also appointed Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer for Donau, which was the primary SS command in Austria.
“In June 1940, he was named Police President of Vienna, and in July 1940, he got a commission as SS-Untersturmführer in the Waffen-SS Reserve, and later to Generalleutnant of the police. On January 30, 1943, Kaltenbrunner was appointed chief of the RSHA, which was the Sicherheitspolizei—the combined forces of the Gestapo and the Criminal Police—the Kripo—plus the Sicherheitsdienst: Security Service.
“When Reinhard Heydrich was assassinated in Prague in June 1942, Kaltenbrunner got his job and was promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei.”
“Colonel,” Augie Ziegler said, “are you going to take a break anytime soon? You’re throwing a lot at us.”
“With that in mind, Mr. Ziegler, as we speak, Sergeant Major Feldman is hammering away at his typewriter preparing, with one carbon copy, what I suppose could be called lecture notes for you and Mr. Cronley to study at your leisure. There will be a quiz.”
A quiz? Christ, is he reading my mind?
“May I continue?”
“Yes, sir,” Ziegler said, chuckling.
“As an illustration of what kind of people we’re dealing with, let me tell you what happened in the summer of 1943 at the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. When the camp commander heard that our Ernst was about to make an inspection of the camp, they set up what the U.S. Army would call a ‘dog and pony show.’
“Prisoners at Mauthausen were exterminated in one of three ways—by gunshot to the neck, by hanging from a gallows, and by gassing them. For Kaltenbrunner’s edification, and to solicit his professional advice, a demonstration was arranged.”
“What kind of a demonstration? Dog and pony show?” Ziegler asked.
“Fifteen prisoners were selected to demonstrate for Kaltenbrunner the three methods of killing then in use. Five categories of prisoners—Healthy, Not Healthy, Young, Aged, and Average. A special gallows was erected for the hanging, and a truck with a sealable body brought in to demonstrate the efficiency of Zyklon-B, a pesticide, in ending human life.
“They were exterminated one by one so that Kaltenbrunner could witness the efficacy of the different procedures. After the dog and pony show, Kaltenbrunner inspected the crematorium and later the quarry, where prisoners were worked to death moving hundred-pound rocks from one pile to another and then back.”
“Colonel, I heard about really nasty shit like this, but until now, coming from you, I guess I just didn’t want to believe it.”
“Mr. Ziegler, you ain’t heard nothing yet,” Colonel Cohen said.
[TWO]
