The Kindly Ones

What could he have meant by that? In any case, Eichmann couldn’t decide on his own, and he knew it. “Listen, send it to us in writing,” he ended up saying grudgingly. I decided to write directly to Müller, but Müller told me the same thing: they couldn’t make any exceptions. I was hesitant to ask the Reichsführer; I decided to contact Speer again, to see how much he really needed these Jews. But at the ministry they told me he was on sick leave. I made inquiries: he had been hospitalized in Hohenlychen, the SS hospital where I had been treated after Stalingrad. I found a bouquet of flowers and went to see him. He had requisitioned an entire suite in the private wing and had installed his personal secretary and some assistants there. The secretary told me that an old inflammation of the knee had flared up after a Christmas trip to Lapland; his condition was worsening, Dr. Gebhardt, the famous knee specialist, thought it was a rheumatoid inflammation. I found Speer in a wretched mood: “Obersturmbannführer, it’s you. Happy New Year. So?” I explained to him that the RSHA was maintaining its position; possibly, I suggested, if he saw the Reichsführer, he could have a word with him about it. “I think the Reichsführer has other fish to fry,” he replied abruptly. “So do I. I have to run my ministry from here, as you can see. If you can’t resolve the matter yourself, drop it.” I stayed a few more minutes, then withdrew: I could feel I was in the way.

His condition did in fact deteriorate rapidly; when I called back a few days later to ask after him, his secretary informed me that he wasn’t taking any phone calls. I made a few calls: apparently he was in a coma, close to death. I found it strange that an inflammation of the knee, even a rheumatoid one, could reach that point. Hohenegg, to whom I talked about it, had no opinion. “But if he passes away,” he added, “and if they let me do an autopsy, I’ll tell you what he had.” I too had other fish to fry. The night of January 30, the English inflicted on us their worst air raid since November; I lost my windows again, and part of my balcony collapsed. The next day, Brandt summoned me and informed me, amiably, that the SS-Gericht

had asked the Reichsführer for permission to investigate me in connection with my mother’s murder. I reddened and leaped out of my seat: “Standartenführer! That business is a disgrace born from the sick minds of careerist policemen. I’m willing to accept an investigation to clear my name of all suspicion. But in that case, I ask to be put on leave until I’m found innocent. It would be inappropriate for the Reichsführer to keep a man suspected of such a horror in his personal staff.”—“Calm down, Obersturmbannführer. No decision has been made yet. Tell me what happened instead.” I sat down and recounted the events, sticking to the version I had given the policemen. “It’s my visit to Antibes that’s made them crazy. It’s true that my mother and I had been on bad terms for a long time. But you know what kind of wound I received in Stalingrad. Being so close to death makes you think: I said to myself that we had to settle things between us once and for all. Unfortunately she’s the one who died, in a horrible, unexpected way.”—“And how do you think it happened?”—“I have no idea, Standartenführer. I began working for the Reichsführer soon afterward, and I haven’t returned there. My sister, who went to the funeral, mentioned terrorists, a settling of accounts; my stepfather supplied a number of items to the Wehrmacht.”—“That’s unfortunately entirely possible. This sort of thing is happening more and more often, in France.” He pinched his lips and tilted his head, making the light play on his glasses. “Listen, I think the Reichsführer will want to talk with you before he makes a decision. In the meantime, allow me to suggest that you visit the judge who wrote the request. It’s Judge Baumann, of the Berlin SS and Police Court. He’s a perfectly honorable man: if you really are the victim of special malice, maybe you can convince him of that yourself.”