Matzke declared it was pure nonsense to maintain, as people had done right up to the present, that in a fight between wolves the weaker will openly expose its throat to the stronger in a gesture that inhibits the latter from biting it. He wrote that he did not know what original observation underpinned this assertion, but by now it had almost attained the status of an article of faith among experts, and in a strange turn of phrase he went on to say that from his own wide experience, at least, the inhibition against biting among canines was just wishful thinking on the part of gullible, peace-loving zoologists. At any rate, word had not yet got around among the parties concerned, he concluded smugly, exposing one of Kaltenburg’s most cherished maxims to ridicule. I remember how my temples throbbed as I thought, I hope the professor did no more than skim through the essay this morning, I hope the ducks distracted him from reading it, that while feeding the drakes he overlooked the tone of his “colleague Matzke” and the effrontery of his pronouncements.
A committee was restructured — Matzke took over the chair, although Kaltenburg had done much preliminary spadework behind the scenes. There was a post to be filled — by Matzke’s candidate. A congress in the Soviet Union — the deputation consisted entirely of Matzke’s people. Kaltenburg shook his head; the man was rather overreaching himself, after having failed for so many years in Leipzig to make any real impact — but we, hearing the disappointing news during the morning meeting, looked at the professor and could see he was thinking of Leningrad.
Somebody once claimed to have heard that Ludwig Kaltenburg stomped up and down behind his closed study door shouting repeatedly, “The Party, the Party.” To this day I regard this as an invention, some assistant wanting to impress his colleagues, and in any case everybody knew that Eberhard Matzke was not a member of the Party. No, on the contrary, Kaltenburg took every opportunity to warn against jumping to conclusions, took on the role of self-assured intermediary. When the first German students of zoology graduated in the Soviet Union, everyone was afraid that their return would mean our subject would soon be dominated by Party loyalists — but Kaltenburg praised these intrepid young people, stressing the quality of Russian zoology, and “After all, gentlemen, we’re all ornithologists together.”
He was convinced that even Professor Matzke would calm down eventually. Reinhold in Berlin, getting to know his new colleague at close quarters, thought otherwise, but Reinhold, the grand old man, had often been fearful of his successors, especially when they were keen to strike out in new directions. Reinhold’s visits to Dresden became more frequent, he still had relations in his home city, but it looked as though he was visiting his family mainly so that he could also call in at Loschwitz. The phone rang. “Ah, my dear Professor”—Kaltenburg looked across at me—“it goes without saying that you’re welcome at any time”; Kaltenburg was making sure he showed the proper respect that, according to Reinhold, was lacking in Matzke; “I’ll send my driver,” Kaltenburg was nodding in the semidarkness next to the hall stand, yes, Krause still knew the address.
He tried to cheer Reinhold up, to take his mind off things. One day, as the limousine drew up outside the villa, he told Krause to keep the engine running, greeted Reinhold through the open passenger window, pushed me onto the rear seat, and followed me in: “We’re going to Strehlen.”
The professor made Krause stop at Tiergartenstrasse, he invited us to take a little stroll through the Great Garden, for one thing ideas came most easily when you were walking, he said, and for another I knew that he didn’t want anyone overhearing his discussion with Reinhold. They must find an additional sphere of activity for “the young man”—Matzke was all of seven years younger than Kaltenburg. No, not a posting abroad, far away where you couldn’t keep an eye on him, but a newly created framework that would satisfy his desire to be the first to break new ground for once in his life. Naturally, it must be a framework within which Eberhard Matzke was kept under careful control. A great undertaking, with a great new title to match for the Herr Professor Doktor — and all, be it noted, under the constant supervision of a worldly-wise international expert, a legendary figure among ornithologists: Reinhold himself.
We walked around Lake Carola, in less than twenty minutes a plan had been hatched, and we went back to the road. The chauffeur got out of the car, held the door open, but Kaltenburg signaled to him that we were going to walk on a bit further, pointing in the direction of the embankment.
“No need to worry. I’ll explore the mood among the colleagues, take soundings in the Academy of Sciences and find out what can be done there. You’ll see, everybody will support you.”
And now it comes back to me clearly, it was the year of Hungary, we had reached the Wasaplatz, I can see the black limousine, Krause driving along beside us at a walking pace as we turned into August Bebel Strasse. Reinhold waving his stick, Kaltenburg gesticulating wildly, as soon as we had set off downhill from the Institute the two had started a debate on the history of ornithology. By now they were on to Georg Marcgraf and Carl Illiger, dropping names like Bernstein, Kuhl, and Boie, not one of them survived into old age, consumption, tropical fever, my eyes were fixed on the barrack gates at the other end of the street. Every step we took was being watched from there, we were moving around the edge of the military security zone, I wouldn’t like to know what went on behind those walls at that time, nor what measures might have been taken if Ludwig Kaltenburg had not stopped suddenly and pointed to one of the fairly unremarkable villas: “This is where he grew up.”
We were standing in front of the house where Reinhold spent his childhood and youth. I think he was genuinely quite moved, Reinhold in his loose linen suit under a light coat, up there in that attic room was where he had spent his afternoons with grass snakes and lizards he had caught, here in a large enclosure alongside the stable was where the cross-bred offspring of goldfinches and redpolls had first seen the light of day. And as a boy he too used to observe the crows on the Wasaplatz. Ludwig Kaltenburg’s surprise for him had succeeded completely. But for my part I was taken right back to the days of our excursions, how long ago was that, all that “induction by personal inspection,” only a few years, I was still a boy, collecting signatures for world peace, didn’t even know that one day I would be working with Kaltenburg at the Institute, wasn’t even sure I wanted to stay in Dresden, didn’t even know Klara Hagemann yet, while she was living only a few hundred meters from this spot.
4
IN JUNE 1956 a truck drove through Dresden carrying prisoners liberated from the camps. People crowded the pavements, law enforcement officers kept the road clear. In order to give as many townspeople as possible the chance to study these figures, the open truck transported its cargo at walking pace through the city along the following route: from Dr. Kurt Fischer Platz down the Königsbrücker Strasse to the Platz der Einheit. From Bautzner Strasse into Hoyerswerdaer Strasse. Across the Einheitsbrücke to Güntzplatz. From Güntzstrasse, a right turn into Grunaer Strasse. The truck followed Thälmannstrasse as far as the Postplatz, the procession ending at the Theaterplatz.