He has left the Berlin Police Homicide Department to join the Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau. They are tasked with investigating and prosecuting crimes committed by and against German soldiers. A soldier on the Eastern Front convicted of rape and murder might be executed. The murders of hundreds of thousands of Jews by SS special action units on the Eastern Front are outside the Bureau’s jurisdiction. Thus the absurdity that an individual soldier might be prosecuted but the Holocaust is ignored.
While carrying out an investigation Bernie is present at the protests outside the Jewish Welfare Office on Rosenstrasse. Hundreds of well dressed women, the non-Jewish wives of Jewish men, are publicly protesting the arrest and planned deportation of their husbands. Nazi leadership, calculating the consequences of beating or prosecuting or killing them, take the easy way out by releasing the men. It is absurd that Nazi leaders who killed millions retreat from the protests of wives.
Invited to a Jewish family meal after the husband, Dr. Meyer, was released Bernie is injured when a British bomb destroys the apartment. I say it is ironic not absurd that Bernie is rescued from the rubble by “lads from the Gestapo”.
Bernie returns to the Eastern Front where existence is surreal. His superior, Judge Johannes Goldsche, has a delicate mission for him. Some human bones have been discovered near Smolensk in the Katyn Wood. The Germans stationed there suspect a mass grave. For two years there have been reports that the Russians conducted mass executions of captured Polish officers. Are the bones from Polish officers or are they from one of the several alternatives? There are an abundance of mass graves in Russia.
A Signals Unit of the Army is stationed next to Katyn Wood. Bernie stays with them as he quietly seeks information.
Two members of the Signals Unit are murdered. Unable, as always, to stop being a detective, he aids the investigation into their deaths.
On Bernie’s return to Berlin he is summoned to see Dr. Goebbels, the Minister of Public Enlightment and Propaganda. Goebbels sees the immense propaganda value in proving thousands of Polish officers were murdered by the U.S.S.R. He provides Bernie with “letters patent” to act as his plenitpotentiary. An independent inquiry into the deaths will be conducted. For the second time Bernie will personally represent one of the highest leaders in the Nazi Party in an investigation. Previously, in Prague Fatale it had been Reinhard Heydrich.
The Eastern Front is hell on earth. The Russian war machine is grinding down the German Army. Behind the front line Russians are treated cruelly. German soldiers constantly fear partisans. The Eastern Front brings out the worst in everyone.
Bernie is no exception. I admire Bernie’s stubborn integrity but even his fierce personality is no match for the Eastern Front. It was depressing and, all too realistic, to see Bernie reduced to expediency.
Part II of the review will examine the unfolding of the two investigations.
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I'm glad, Bill, that you pointed out the irony of prosecuting an individual soldier for, say, rape or murder, but not the Holocaust. I always felt that Kerr was effective at exploring those ironies of the Nazi regime. Kerr wasn't afraid to take an unflinching look at the Nazi rise to power, the Nazi regime, and the people that lived in it. In these books, in my opinion, the sociocultural setting for the novels is as often as interesting as the mystery itself.
ReplyDeleteMargot: Thanks for the comment. I agree with your assessment of how Kerr looks at Nazis and life under their rule. With every book I gain more understanding of how German people lived from 1933 - 1945. It was very difficult.
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