Not long after my supper with Ohlendorf, I had received an invitation from Dr. Mandelbrod to come spend the weekend at a country estate belonging to one of the directors of IG Farben, in the north of Brandenburg. The letter made it clear that there would be a hunting party and an informal dinner. Massacring fowl didn’t tempt me much, but I didn’t have to shoot, I could just walk in the woods. The weather was rainy: Berlin was sinking into fall, the beautiful October days had come to an end, the trees were all stripped bare now; sometimes, though, the sky cleared and you could go out and enjoy the already cool air. On November 18, at dinnertime, the sirens wailed and the flak began to thunder, for the first time since the end of August. I was at a restaurant with some friends, including Thomas—we had just left our fencing session. We had to go down into the basement without even eating; the alert lasted for two hours, but they had wine served to us, and the time passed in pleasantries. The raid caused serious damage to the center of town; the English had sent more than four hundred aircraft: they had decided to brave our new tactics. That took place on the Thursday evening; on the Saturday morning, I had Piontek drive me toward Prenzlau, to the village mentioned by Mandelbrod. The house was a few kilometers outside of town, at the end of a long lane bordered with ancient oaks, many of which were missing, however, decimated by disease or storms; it was an old manor house, bought by the director, next to a forest dominated by pine trees mixed in with beech and maple trees, and surrounded by a handsome, open park, and then, farther away, big, empty, muddy fields. It had drizzled during the journey, but the sky, whipped by a bracing little north wind, had cleared up. On the gravel in front of the steps, several sedans had parked side by side, and a uniformed chauffeur was washing the mud from the bumpers. I was welcomed on the steps by Herr Leland; that day he looked very soldierly, despite his brown woollen knit cardigan: the owner was away, he explained, but he had lent them the house; Mandelbrod wouldn’t arrive till evening, after the hunting party. On his advice, I sent Piontek back to Berlin: the guests would return together, there would certainly be room for me in one of the cars. A black-uniformed servant girl wearing a lace apron showed me my room. A fire was roaring in the chimney; outside it had begun to rain again gently. As the invitation had suggested, I wasn’t wearing my uniform but a country outfit, woollen trousers with boots and a collarless Austrian jacket with bone buttons, made to be water-resistant; for the evening, I had brought a suit that I unfolded, brushed, and hung in the closet before going downstairs. In the living room, several guests were drinking tea or talking with Leland; Speer, sitting in front of a casement window, recognized me right away and got up with a friendly smile to come shake my hand. “Sturmbannführer, what a pleasure to see you again. Herr Leland told me you’d be coming. Come, I’ll introduce you to my wife.” Margret Speer was sitting near the fireplace with another woman, a certain Frau von Wrede, the wife of a general who was going to join us; standing in front of them, I clicked my heels and gave a German salute that Frau von Wrede returned; Frau Speer just held out an elegant little gloved hand to me: “Pleased to meet you, Sturmbannführer. I’ve heard about you: my husband tells me you’ve been a great help to him, in the SS.”—“I do what I can, meine Dame.” She was a thin, blond woman of a decidedly Nordic beauty, with a strong, square jaw and very light blue eyes under blond eyebrows; but she seemed tired and that gave her skin a slightly sallow cast. I was served tea, and chatted a little with her while her husband joined Leland. “Your children didn’t come?” I asked politely.—“Oh! If I had brought them, it wouldn’t have been a vacation. They stayed in Berlin. It’s already so hard for me to tear Albert away from his ministry, once he accepts, I don’t want him to be disturbed. He so needs rest.” The conversation turned to Stalingrad, for Frau Speer knew I had been there; Frau von Wrede had lost a cousin there, a Generalmajor who was commanding a division and was probably in the hands of the Russians: “It must have been terrible!” Yes, I confirmed, it had been terrible, but I didn’t add, out of courtesy, that it had surely been less so for a divisional general than for an ordinary trooper like Speer’s brother, who, if by some miracle he was still alive, would not be benefiting from the preferential treatment that the Bolsheviks, hardly egalitarian for once, gave superior officers, according to our information. “Albert was very affected by the loss of his brother,” Margret Speer said dreamily. “He doesn’t show it, but I know. He gave his name to our last-born child.”
Little by little, I was introduced to the other guests: industrialists, superior officers from the Wehrmacht or the Luftwaffe, a colleague of Speer’s, other senior officials. I was the only member of the SS and also the lowest-ranking of the gathering, but no one seemed to pay that any heed, and Herr Leland introduced me as “Dr. Aue,” sometimes adding that I carried out “important functions for the Reichsführer-SS”; so I was treated quite cordially, and my nervousness, which at the outset had been rather strong, slowly diminished. Around noon we were served sandwiches, pâté, and beer. “A light snack,” Leland declared, “so we won’t get too tired.” The hunting began afterward; we were poured coffee, then everyone was given a game bag, some Swiss chocolate, and a flask of brandy. The rain had stopped and weak sunlight seemed to want to pierce the grayness; according to one general who said he knew hunting, it was perfect weather. We were going to hunt black grouse, a privilege that was apparently very rare in Germany. “This house was bought after the war by a Jew,” Leland explained to his guests. “He wanted to give himself lordly airs, and he had the grouse imported from Sweden. The woods suited them well, and the present owner puts strict limits on hunting.” I knew nothing about it, and had no intention of learning; out of politeness, I had nonetheless made up my mind to accompany the hunters rather than set off on my own. Leland gathered us on the front steps, and some servants distributed the shotguns, ammunition, and dogs. Since black grouse is hunted either singly or in pairs, we would be divided into little groups; to avoid accidents, everyone was assigned a section of the forest, and was not to stray from it; what’s more, our departures would be staggered. The hunt-loving general set off first, alone with a dog, then after him a few pairs. Margret Speer, to my surprise, had joined the group and had also taken a shotgun; she set out with her husband’s colleague, Hettlage. Leland turned to me: “Max, why don’t you accompany the Reichsminister? Go that way. I’ll go with Herr Ströhlein.” I spread out my hands: “As you wish.” Speer, his shotgun already under his arm, smiled at me: “Good idea! Come.” We went through the park toward the woods. Speer was wearing a leather Bavarian jacket with rounded lapels, and a hat; I had also borrowed a hat. At the entrance to the wood, Speer loaded his weapon, a double-barreled shotgun. I kept mine on my shoulder, unloaded. The dog they had given us fidgeted, stationed at the edge of the wood, its tongue lolling out, pointing. “Have you hunted grouse before?” Speer asked.—“Never, Herr Reichsminister. In fact, I don’t hunt at all. If it’s all right with you, I’ll just walk with you.” He looked surprised: “As you like.” He pointed to the forest: “If I understood correctly, we should walk a kilometer till we reach a stream, then cross it. Everything beyond it, to the edge of the forest, is ours. Herr Leland will stay on this side.” He set out into the undergrowth. It was quite dense; we had to go around the bushes, it was impossible to walk straight; drops of water streamed from the leaves and splattered onto our hats and hands; on the ground, the dead, wet leaves gave off a strong odor of earth and humus—beautiful, rich, and invigorating, but it brought unhappy memories to my mind. A sudden burst of bitterness invaded me: so this is what they’ve turned me into, I said to myself, a man who can’t see a forest without thinking about a mass grave. A dead branch snapped under my boot. “It’s surprising that you don’t like hunting,” Speer commented. Absorbed in my thoughts, I answered without thinking: “I don’t like killing, Herr Reichsminister.” He gave me a curious look, and I explained: “It’s sometimes necessary to kill out of duty, Herr Reichsminister. Killing for pleasure is a choice.” He smiled: “As for me, thank God, I’ve done nothing but kill for pleasure. I’ve never been to war.” We walked a little more in silence, amid the crackling of branches and the noise of water, soft and discreet. “What were you doing in Russia, Sturmbannführer?” Speer asked. “You served in the Waffen-SS?”—“No, Herr Reichsminister. I was with the SD. In charge of security matters.”—“I see.” He hesitated. Then he said in a calm, detached voice: “We hear a lot of rumors about the fate of the Jews, in the East. You must know something about it?”—“I know the rumors, Herr Reichsminister. The SD collects them and I’ve read the reports. They have many different sources.”—“You must have some idea of the truth, in your position.” Curiously, he made no allusion to the Reichsführer’s Posen speech (I was convinced at the time that he had been there, but maybe he had in fact left early). I answered courteously: “Herr Reichsminister, for a large part of my functions, I’m compelled to secrecy. I think you can understand. If you really want some explanations, might I suggest that you address the Reichsführer or Standartenführer Brandt? I’m sure they’ll be happy to send you a detailed report.” We had reached the stream: the dog, happy, capered about in the shallow water. “Here it is,” Speer said. He pointed to a zone a little farther off: “You see, there, in the hollow, the forest changes. There are evergreens, and fewer alder trees, and some bay shrubs. That’s the best place to flush grouse. If you’re not shooting, stay behind me.” We crossed the stream in long strides; over the hollow, Speer closed his shotgun, which he had been carrying open under his arm, and shouldered it. Then he began walking forward, on the lookout. The dog stayed near him, its tail pointing. After a few minutes I heard a loud noise and saw a large brown shape fly up through the trees; at the same instant, Speer pulled the trigger, but he must have missed the mark, since I could still hear the sound of wings through the echo. Thick smoke and the acrid smell of cordite filled the undergrowth. Speer hadn’t lowered his shotgun, but everything was quiet now. Once again, there was the noise of wings among the wet branches, but Speer didn’t shoot; I hadn’t seen anything, either. The third bird took off right under our noses, I saw it very clearly, it had rather broad wings and a collar of feathers, and twisted through the trees with an agility surprising for its mass, accelerating as it turned; Speer pulled the trigger but the bird was too quick, he hadn’t had time to traverse and the shot went wide. He opened the gun, ejected the casings, blew on it to get rid of the smoke, and pulled two cartridges out of his jacket pocket. “Grouse are very difficult to hunt,” he commented. “That’s why it’s interesting. You have to choose your weapon well. This one is balanced, but a little too long for my taste.” He looked at me, smiling: “In the spring, it’s very beautiful, during the mating season. The cocks clack their beaks, they gather together in clearings to strut and sing, displaying their colors. The females are very dull, as is often the case.” He finished loading his shotgun, then raised it before starting off again. In dense places, he cleared a path for himself between the branches with the barrel of the gun, without ever lowering it. When he flushed another bird, he pulled the trigger right away, a little in front of him; I heard the bird falling and at the same time the dog leaping and disappearing into the brush. It reappeared a few seconds later, the bird in its mouth, the head hanging down. It set it down at Speer’s feet, and he put it away in his bag. A little farther on, we came out into a clearing in the wood covered with yellowing tufts of grass and opening out onto the fields. Speer took out his chocolate bar: “Would you like some?”—“No, thanks. Do you mind if I take the time to smoke a cigarette?”—“Not at all. It’s a good place to rest.” He opened his gun, put it down, and sat down at the foot of a tree, nibbling on his chocolate. I drank a swig of brandy, handed him the flask, and lit a cigarette. The grass I was sitting on was wetting my pants, but I didn’t mind: hat on my knees, I rested my head against the rough bark of the pine tree I was leaning against and contemplated the calm stretch of grass and the silent woods. “You know,” Speer said, “I entirely understand the requirements of security. But more and more they are in conflict with the needs of the war industry. Too many potential workers are not deployed.” I exhaled the smoke before replying: “That’s possible, Herr Reichsminister. But in this situation, with our difficulties, I think priority conflicts are inevitable.”—“But they should be resolved.”—“Indeed. But in the end, Herr Reichsminister, it’s up to the Führer to decide, isn’t it? The Reichsführer is only obeying his orders.” He bit into his chocolate bar again: “You don’t think that the priority, for the Führer, as well as for us, is to win the war?”—“Certainly, Herr Reichsminister.”—“Then why deprive us of precious resources? Every week, the Wehrmacht comes and complains to me that Jewish workers are being taken away from them. And they’re not being redeployed elsewhere, otherwise I’d know it. It’s ridiculous! In Germany, the Jewish question is resolved, and elsewhere, what importance does it have for now? Let’s win the war first; afterward there will always be time to resolve the other problems.” I chose my words carefully: “Perhaps, Herr Reichsminister, some people believe that since the war is taking so long to be won, some problems ought to be resolved right away…” He turned his head to me and stared at me with his keen eyes: “You think so?”—“I don’t know. It’s a possibility. Can I ask you what the Führer says about it when you talk to him?” He bit his lip pensively: “The Führer never talks about these things. Not with me, at least.” He got up and brushed off his pants. “Shall we go on?” I threw away my cigarette, then drank a little more brandy and put the flask away: “Which way?”—“That’s a good question. I’m afraid, if we cross to the other side, we might come across one of our friends.” He looked toward the back of the opening, at the right: “If we go that way, we should come back toward the stream. Then we can go back the way we came.” We started off, walking alongside the edge of the wood; the dog followed us a few steps away, in the wet grass of the meadow. “Actually,” Speer said, “I haven’t thanked you yet for your help. I appreciate it a lot.”—“It’s a pleasure, Herr Reichsminister. I hope it’s useful. Are you satisfied with your new cooperation with the Reichsführer?”—“To tell the truth, Sturmbannführer, I expected more from him. I have already sent him several reports on Gauleiters who refuse to close down useless companies for the sake of war production. But from what I can see, the Reichsführer is content to forward these reports to Reichsleiter Bormann. And Bormann of course always sides with the Gauleiters. The Reichsführer seems to accept it quite passively.” We had reached the end of the clearing and were entering the wood. It began to rain again, a fine, light rain that soaked