End of Spies by Alex Gerlis (best free ereader txt) 📗

‘Where’s that?’

‘Here in Berlin – in Lichtenberg, to the east of Mitte. We’ve constructed a large prison camp there where we process prisoners before they’re sent to the Soviet Union. It also acts as a prison for people convicted here. Schweitzer faced a People’s Tribunal last month and was found guilty of being a Nazi agent in occupied France and of pursuing a campaign of vengeance against comrades from the French Communist Party and their families. He was sentenced to death.’

‘And did he plead guilty?’

‘Our People’s Tribunals perhaps work in a different way from your courts, my friend. He made a statement, and from what I understand, he said he was forced to work for the Gestapo. He claims he helped people, but… we had evidence, including that of the woman you mentioned.’

‘Irène?’

‘That’s right. Look, I only know this from a telephone conversation. We will go now to Hohenschönhausen.’

They drove north through Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg and then along Landsberger Allee into Lichtenberg. It was a slow journey: whereas Mitte was largely deserted and the roads were more or less clear, it was a very different matter once they left the centre. From then on the roads and pavements were still littered with rubble and dotted with potholes and bomb craters, and at times it was impossible to get through and they had to try another route. They were both shocked, not so much by the devastation around them but more by the atmosphere and the way the population moved around.

Despite the warm weather, most people were wearing coats and hats, many with blankets round their shoulders as they shuffled along. They looked nervous, doing their best to avoid the ubiquitous Red Army troops as they carried battered cases or bags, many pulling carts or pushing prams loaded with possessions. From almost every ruined building – and most of the buildings were damaged in one way or another – plumes of smokes rose high into the sky. On the pavement, people were cooking on piles of rubble, while others waited in long queues at what appeared to be makeshift shops selling a few vegetables with the odd tin here and there – usually little more than planks of wood balanced on chairs serving as a counter.

At one stage Hanne wound down the window, but she soon put it back up: the smell was overpowering. Each time the car stopped, people would gather around it, the frightened eyes of emaciated children gazing at them as they pleaded for food. At one point a boy reached up to tap on the glass, and for a moment Prince thought it was his son Henry.

‘They did this to themselves,’ said the commissar, indicating a group of people fighting over something in a gutter. ‘Save your sympathy for their victims.’

‘I don’t have any sympathy for them,’ said Hanne.

‘Not even for the children?’

She shrugged and took her husband’s hand.

Gurevich pointed ahead of them to an enormous complex rising to their left high above the ruined landscape: Hohenschönhausen. Their progress was halted by a cart being pulled along the road in front of them. The driver sounded his horn, but it didn’t move out of the way. Gurevich said something to him in Russian and he edged forward, knocking the cart over. The two old ladies who’d been pulling it stood with their heads bowed as the car drove on.

Inside the prison they were directed to one of the few brick buildings and escorted to an upper-floor office where two uniformed men were nervously waiting for them. There was a long conversation, the two men seeming to defer to Gurevich, who eventually spoke in German to Hanne and Prince, gesturing at the men.

Comrade Orlov was the governor in charge of Hohenschönhausen, he said. Orlov looked old and tired, his head completely bald and his eyes red as if through lack of sleep.

‘And this is Comrade Kiselyov; he is in charge of the block where Schweitzer is held. Comrade Kiselyov speaks German. Maybe if we all sit down, he can tell us about the prisoner. I’ve told him you need information from him about a German fugitive.’

Kiselyov’s hands trembled as he spoke, all the time looking at a sheet of paper on the desk in front of him. His voice was surprisingly high-pitched.

‘Prisoner Schweitzer was arrested in May in Colmar in France, formerly an annexed zone of the Nazi Reich. He was arrested by a unit of French communists and eventually handed over to the Soviet Union. Under the special wartime provisions of section 117, subsection 48 of the Penal Code, he was eligible to be tried in Germany as someone who committed war crimes on German territory during the war against fascism.’

He paused to cough and gratefully sipped from a glass of water the governor passed to him. He glanced anxiously at the commissar to check all was in order before continuing.

‘The specific charges against Prisoner Schweitzer are that in the period from June 1940 to June 1944 he was an active agent of the Nazi Gestapo organisation, in which capacity he assisted the Nazis in carrying out war crimes and conducted war crimes himself, specifically but not exclusively a vendetta against members of the Communist Party of France and their relatives and associates. In terms of—’

‘Maybe get on to what happened when the prisoner arrived here, Comrade?’

‘Of course, Comrade sir, my sincere apologies. Prisoner Schweitzer arrived at Special Camp Number 3 Hohenschönhausen on Wednesday the first of August and appeared before a People’s Tribunal on… Apologies, Comrade, I need to find the date…’

‘Don’t worry, Kiselyov, you’re not on trial here!’

Kiselyov looked up, shocked, before continuing. ‘Here we are: Thursday the ninth of August was the date of the tribunal. Prisoner Schweitzer was found guilty of all charges. In a statement he said he was forced to do the work, but of course, all the evidence…’

‘Of course, Comrade. Perhaps you’d now tell us about his sentence and when it is due to