23
Including the walk and the number nine autobus, Wilhelm Böhm needed approximately twenty minutes to get from Alexanderplatz to the Prussian Interior Ministry on Unter den Linden, just by the Brandenburger Tor. Who did these upstarts think they were? God knows he had better things to do than justify his methods to the new heads. All this time being passed from pillar to post meant his work was left undone, which was no doubt what they wanted, and how would Rath and Gräf manage without him?
At least he had been allowed to make his way to the Interior Ministry without brown-shirted accompaniment. In the corridors of the Castle he had felt like a prisoner. He remembered Grzesinski, the former police commissioner, who had been frogmarched out of his office by Reichswehr soldiers last year. Back then the protests had been vocal, but all he had received, sandwiched between two SA auxiliary officers, was the odd sympathetic glance. He felt like a pariah and perhaps that’s what he had become. Certainly the new police commissioner had done nothing to dispel him of this notion.
‘You do understand that the police can ill afford such headlines,’ Magnus von Levetzow had barked in the brisk tones of a one-time naval officer. The Berlin police chief tapped the pile of newspapers on his desk, everything from the Kreuzzeitung to Der Tag, the latter having upped the ante again this morning.
‘With respect, Sir, I’m not responsible for the headlines. I don’t know how these muckrakers got hold of my name.’
‘But you are responsible for the methods which are making our police force a laughing stock! We have an important role to play in the new Germany, where we must fight in the national revolution alongside our national forces, and against the enemies of the Fatherland!’
Levetzow banged his fist on the table, but Böhm refused to be intimidated. He had encountered worse drill sergeants during the war. ‘With respect, Sir, I have a different view of police work.’
‘Your view of police work is detailed right here in Der Tag. Do you know how many complaints there have been about the methods employed at Nollendorfplatz? Rightly I might add! You, Detective Chief Inspector Böhm, are making a comedy troupe of the Berlin Police, and the whole city is in stitches. Worse, you are wasting valuable resources. Men who are needed to fight the enemies of the new Germany stand guard over canvasses covered in pigeon dung!’
‘There is a perfectly good reason, Sir. The death of…’
‘The death of an urban vagrant should have been shelved long ago. We have other priorities, or did I not make myself clear?’
Böhm stopped listening. However he might respond the outcome was fixed. The commissioner didn’t want any arguments. All he wanted was to give a troublesome officer a good bawling-out. The surprise came at the end, when Levetzow packed him off to the Interior Ministry. They weren’t finished with him yet. ‘The Daluege Bureau would like to see you.’
So it was that Detective Chief Inspector Wilhelm Böhm sat wasting his time in an outer office of the Prussian Interior Ministry with his bowler hat in his hands, waiting to be called. He had heard of the Daluege Bureau. Once they had your number the odds were stacked against you. A few months earlier, Kurt Daluege, then working for the Berlin Refuse Department, was appointed by Göring himself to ‘Special Commissar’, tasked with purging the Berlin Police of its politically unreliable elements. So, that was the name given these days to a distinguished officer such as Wilhelm Böhm, who had neither belonged to a party nor politicised on duty in his life. A politically unreliable element.
At last the door opened and a man emerged with sweaty hair clinging to his forehead. He didn’t appear to see Böhm or the secretary sitting behind her desk, and left the room without a word.
‘You can go in now,’ the secretary said.
Kurt Daluege, a flashy greenhorn with a high forehead and arrogantly curved lips, barely over thirty, sat behind a desk stacked with files. Personnel records, Böhm thought, and inside every one is a poor sod whose career with the Berlin Police is going to hell in a handbasket. The new regime was determined to create as many faits accomplis as possible before the vote on Sunday. Daluege was probably taking these files home at night, scouring officers’ biographies for weak points. Böhm couldn’t believe it. A binman was to pronounce judgement on him.
‘Take a seat, Detective Chief Inspector.’
Daluege spoke without looking up from the file he was writing in. Böhm sat on an uncomfortable visitors’ chair that might have come from the interrogation rooms at headquarters. At length Daluege snapped the file shut, set it to one side and reached for the next.
‘Detective Chief Inspector Wilhelm Böhm, A Division?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re a Social Democrat?’
‘No.’
Daluege made a tick in the file.
‘Nevertheless, you are interested in their election programme. Why else would you attend a Social Democrat hustings?’
‘Pardon me?’
‘You’ve been seen at Social Democrat conventions.’
Böhm wondered who had seen him at the rally on Sunday and deemed it cause for denunciation. A colleague? An ex-con out for revenge?
‘I am a responsible citizen of this Republic, and democrats have a duty to keep themselves informed. Since when do I have to justify attending a campaign rally?’
‘You call yourself a democrat – but claim not to be a Social Democrat.’ Daluege furrowed his brow and threw Böhm a disapproving glance. ‘No doubt you are one of those who hasn’t understood the significance of the national uprising. Wake up, Detective Chief Inspector, the Republic is history! The new age begins now. Germany is on the up!’
The former waste engineer’s triumphalism was starting to get on Böhm’s nerves, but he checked himself and pretended to listen.
‘In times like these there are two types of German,’ Daluege continued. ‘Those who help build the new Germany and those who don’t. The question is: which type are you?’
‘The old Germany will do me just fine, I don’t need a new one. As a police officer I work to make things better, or at least ensure they don’t get worse.’
Daluege wrote a few sentences in Böhm’s file. ‘If you desire a better Germany, your priority should be to thwart the Communist pillagers who burned down the Reichstag and are laying waste to our country. Instead you are withholding your cooperation…’
‘I wouldn’t say that. All I did was explain to the commissioner that I am a homicide detective, and murder investigations take precedence over arson attacks in which there are no fatalities. I was only too glad to have Cadet Steinke transferred to the Reichstag task force.’
‘You make it sound like an act of mercy.’ Daluege shook his head. ‘Do you know why you are here, Detective Chief Inspector?’
‘Evidently because I attended a campaign hustings.’
‘You are here because the German Police must ensure it can rely on its officers to play their part in the construction of the new Germany. As matters stand, Detective Chief Inspector, I’m uncertain whether you are playing yours.’
‘Meaning?’
‘That you’re in luck. For the time being I will refrain from suspending you. Instead you will have the opportunity to prove yourself.’
Daluege seemed to expect gratitude, but Böhm refused to play ball. He held the binman’s gaze and waited for him to continue. ‘Your case has been reassigned, and you will no longer be working at Alexanderplatz.’