In Pyatigorsk, I had begun to develop tolerable relations with some officers in the Kommando. Hohenegg had left, and aside from the officers of the Abwehr, I saw almost no one except Voss. At night, I sometimes met SS officers in the Kasino. Turek of course never spoke to me; as for Dr. Müller, ever since I’d heard him publicly explain why he didn’t like the gas truck, but found execution by firing squad much more gemütlich, I had decided that we wouldn’t have much to say to each other. But among the subordinate officers there were some decent men, even if they were often boring. One night, as I was having a brandy with Voss, Obersturmführer Dr. Kern came over and I invited him to join us. I introduced him to Voss: “Oh, so you’re the linguist from the AOK,” said Kern.—“Apparently so,” Voss replied with amusement.—“That’s good,” said Kern, “I wanted to submit a case to you. They tell me you know the peoples of the Caucasus well.”—“A little,” Voss admitted.—“Professor Kern teaches in Munich,” I interrupted. “He is a specialist in Muslim history.”—“That’s an extremely interesting subject,” Voss approved.—“Yes, I spent seven years in Turkey and I know a little about it,” Kern said.—“How did you end up here, then?”—“Like everyone else, I was mobilized. I was already a member of the SS and a correspondent of the SD, and I ended up in the Einsatz.”—“I see. And your case?”—“A young woman they brought me. A redhead, very beautiful, charming. Her neighbors denounced her as Jewish. She showed me an internal Soviet passport, delivered in Derbent, where her nationality is inscribed as Tatka. I checked in our files: according to our experts, the Tats are assimilated with the Bergjuden, the Mountain Jews. But the girl told me I was mistaken and that the Tats were a Turkic people. I had her speak: she has a curious dialect, a little hard to understand, but it was indeed a Turkic language. So I let her go.”—“Do you remember the terms or expressions she used?” An entire conversation in Turkish ensued: “That can’t be it exactly,” Voss said, “are you sure?” and they started up again. Finally Voss declared: “According to what you’re describing, it does in fact more or less resemble the vernacular Turkic spoken in the Caucasus before the Bolsheviks imposed Russian. I read they still used it in Daghestan, especially in Derbent. But all the peoples there speak it. Did you take down her name?” Kern pulled a notebook out of his pocket and leafed through it: “Here it is. Tsokota, Nina Shaulovna.”—“Tsokota?” said Voss, knitting his brows. “That’s strange.”—“It’s her husband’s name,” Kern explained.—“Oh, I see. And tell me, if she is Jewish, what will you do with her?” Kern looked surprised: “Well, we…we…” He was visibly hesitating. I came to his aid: “She’ll be transported elsewhere.”—“I see,” said Voss. He thought a moment and then said to Kern: “To my knowledge, the Tats have their own language, which is an Iranian dialect and has nothing to do with Caucasian languages or with Turkish. There are Muslim Tats; in Derbent, I don’t know, but I’ll look into it.”—“Thank you,” said Kern. “You think I should have kept her?”—“Not at all. I’m sure you did the right thing.” Kern looked reassured; he had obviously not grasped the irony in Voss’s last words. We chatted a little longer and he took his leave. Voss watched him leave with a puzzled look. “Your colleagues are a little strange,” he said finally.—“How do you mean?”—“They sometimes ask disconcerting questions.” I shrugged my shoulders: “They’re doing their work.” Voss shook his head: “Your methods seem a little arbitrary to me. But it’s not my business.” He seemed displeased. “When will we go to the Lermontov Museum?” I asked to change the subject.—“Whenever you like. Sunday?”—“If the weather is nice, you can take me to see the place of the duel.”
The most divergent information, and sometimes the most contradictory, flowed in concerning the new military administration. General Köstring was setting up his offices in Voroshilovsk. He was an already elderly officer, called back from retirement, but my informants at the Abwehr claimed that he was still vigorous, and called him the Wise Marabu. He had been born in Moscow, had led the German military mission to Hetman Skoropadsky in Kiev in 1918, and had served twice as military attaché to our embassy in Moscow: he was seen as one of the best German experts on Russia. Oberst von Gilsa arranged an interview for me with the new representative of the Ostministerium to Köstring’s office, a former consul in Tiflis, Dr. Otto Bräutigam. With his round wire-rimmed glasses, his starched collar, and his light brown uniform displaying the Party’s Gold Badge, I found him a bit stiff; he remained distant, almost cold, but gave me a better impression than most of the Goldfasanen. Gilsa had explained to me that he had an important position at the political department in the ministry. “I’m pleased to meet you,” I said to him as I shook his hand. “Perhaps you can finally bring us some clarifications.”—“I met Brigadeführer Korsemann in Voroshilovsk and I had a long conversation with him. Was the Einsatzgruppe not informed?”—“Oh, of course! But if you have a few minutes, I’d be delighted to speak with you, since these questions interest me greatly.” I led Bräutigam to my office and offered him a drink; he politely refused. “The Ostministerium must have been disappointed by the Führer’s decision to suspend the establishment of the Reichskommissariat, I imagine?” I began.—“Not at all. On the contrary, we think the Führer’s decision is a unique opportunity to correct the disastrous policies we are carrying out in this country.”—“How do you mean?”—“You must realize that the two Reichskommissars now in place were appointed without Minister Rosenberg’s being consulted, and that the Ostministerium exercises almost no control over them. So it’s not our fault if Gauleiters Koch and Lohse do exactly as they please; responsibility falls on those who support them. It’s their thoughtless and aberrant policies that have earned the ministry its reputation as the Chaostministerium.” I smiled; but he remained serious.—“In fact,” I said, “I spent a year in the Ukraine, and Reichskommissar Koch’s policies caused quite a few problems for us. You could say that he was a very good recruiter for the partisans.”—“Just like Gauleiter Sauckel and his slave-hunters. That’s what we want to avoid here. Don’t you see, if we treat the Caucasian tribes as we treated the Ukrainians, they’ll rise and take to the mountains. Then we’ll never be finished with them. Last century, the Russians spent thirty years trying to make the imam Shamil submit. There were only a few thousand rebels; to crush them, the Russians had to deploy up to three hundred and fifty thousand soldiers!” He paused and went on: “Minister Rosenberg, along with the political department of the ministry, has since the beginning of the campaign argued in favor of a clear political stance: only an alliance with the peoples of the East oppressed by the Bolsheviks will allow Germany to crush the Stalin system once and for all. Until now, this strategy, this Ostpolitik if you like, hasn’t been accepted; the Führer has always supported the people who think Germany can carry out this task all by itself, repressing the peoples it should be liberating. The Reichskommissar-designate Schickendanz, despite his old friendship with the minister, also seems to be going along with this. But there are cool heads in the Wehrmacht, especially Generalquartiermeister Wagner, who wanted to avoid a repetition in the Caucasus of the Ukrainian disaster. Their solution, to keep the region under military control, seems good to us, all the more so since General Wagner expressly insisted on involving the most clearsighted elements of the ministry, as my presence here proves. For us as for the Wehrmacht, it’s a unique opportunity to demonstrate that the Ostpolitik is the only valid one; if we succeed here, we might have the possibility of repairing the harm done in the Ukraine and in Ostland.”—“So the stakes are considerable,” I noted.—“Yes.”—“And hasn’t the Reichskommissar-designate Schickedanz been upset at finding himself sidelined in this way? He too has some support.” Bräutigam made a scornful gesture with his hand; his eyes were gleaming behind his glasses: “No one asked his opinion. In any case, the Reichskommissar-designate Schickedanz is much too busy studying the sketches of his future palace in Tiflis, and discussing the number of gates with his deputies, to worry about practical matters in the way we must.”—“I see.” I thought for an instant: “One more question. How do you see the role of the SS and the SP in this arrangement?”—“The Sicherheitspolizei of course has important tasks to carry out. But they should be coordinated with the Army Group and the military administration in order not to interfere with the positive initiatives. In plain language, as I suggested to Brigadeführer Korsemann, we’ll have to show a certain delicacy in our relations with the mountain and Cossack minorities. There are elements among them, in fact, who collaborated with the Communists, but out of nationalism rather than out of Bolshevist conviction, to defend the interests of their people. It’s not a question of automatically treating them like Commissars or Stalinist functionaries.”—“And what do you think of the Jewish problem?” He raised his hand: “That’s another thing entirely. It’s clear that the Jewish population remains one of the main supports of the Bolshevist system.” He got up to take his leave. “Thank you for taking the time to speak with me,” I said as I shook his hand on the steps.—“Not at all. I think it’s very important that we keep up good relations with the SS as well as with the Wehrmacht. The better you understand what we want to do here, the better things will go.”—“You can be sure that I’ll make that clear in my report to my superiors.”—“Very good! Here’s my card. Heil Hitler!”