Fatherland

here. But by using the information bureau at Alexander-Platz and the obituaries of the Völkischer Beobachter (published annually as The Roll Call of the Fallen ) March was able to fill in the gaps. He tracked down every name. It took him two hours.
    The first man on the list was Dr. Alfred Meyer of the East Ministry. According to his Kripo file, Meyer had committed suicide in 1960 after undergoing treatment for various mental illnesses.
    The second name: Dr. Georg Leibrandt, also of the East Ministry. He had died in an automobile accident in 1959, his car crushed by a truck on the autobahn between Stuttgart and Augsburg. The driver of the truck had never been found.
    Erich Neumann, State Secretary in the Office of the Four-Year Plan, had shot himself in 1957.
    Dr. Roland Freisler, State Secretary from the Justice Ministry: hacked to death by a maniac with a knife on the steps of the Berlin People's Court in the winter of 1954. An investigation into how his security guards had managed to let a criminal lunatic come so close had concluded that nobody was to blame. The assassin had been shot seconds after the attack on Freisler.
    At this point, March had gone into the corridor for a cigarette. He drew the smoke deep into his lungs, tilted back his head and let it out slowly, as if taking a cure.
    He returned to find a fresh heap of files on his desk.
    SS-Oberführer Gerhard Klopfer, deputy head of the Party Chancellery, had been reported missing by his wife in May 1963; his body had been found by building site workers in southern Berlin, stuffed into a cement mixer.
    Friedrich Kritzinger. That name was familiar. Of course. March remembered the scenes from the television news: the familiar taped-off street, the wrecked car, the widow supported by her sons. Kritzinger, the former Ministerial-direktor from the Reich Chancellery, had been blown up outside his home in Munich just over a month ago, on March 7. No terrorist group had yet claimed responsibility.
    Two men were recorded by the Völkischer Beobachter as having died of natural causes. SS-Standartenführer Adolf Eichmann of the Reich Main Security Office had succumbed to a heart attack in 1961. SS-Sturmbannführer Dr. Rudolf Lange of KdS Latvia had died of a brain tumor in 1955.
    Heinrich Müller. Here was another name March knew. The Bavarian policeman Müller, the former head of the Gestapo, had been on board Himmler's plane when it had crashed in 1962, killing everyone on board.
    SS-Oberführer Dr. Karl Schöngarth, representing the security services of the General Government, had fallen beneath the wheels of a U-bahn train pulling into Zoo Station on April 9, 1964—barely more than a week ago. There had been no witnesses.
    SS-Obergruppenführer Otto Hoffman of the Reich Security Office had been found hanging from a length of clothesline in his Spandau apartment on December 26, 1963.
    That was all. Of the fourteen men who had attended the conference at Heydrich's invitation, thirteen were dead. The fourteenth—Luther—was missing.
    As part of its campaign to raise public awareness about terrorism, the Propaganda Ministry had produced a series of children's cartoons. Someone had pinned one up on the notice board on the second floor. A little girl receives a parcel and begins opening it. In each succeeding picture she removes more layers of wrapping paper, until she is left holding an alarm clock with two sticks of dynamite attached to it. The last picture is of an explosion, with the caption "Warning! Do not open a parcel unless you know its contents!"
    A good joke. A maxim for every German policemen. Do not open a parcel unless you know its contents. Do not ask a question unless you know the answer.
    Endlösung : final solution. Endlösung . Endlösung . The word tolled in March's head as he half walked, half ran along the corridor and into his office.
    Endlösung.
    He wrenched open the drawers of Max Jaeger's desk and searched through the clutter. Max was notoriously inefficient about administrative matters, had often been reprimanded for his laxity. March prayed he had not taken the warnings to heart.
    He had not.
    Bless you, Max, you dumbhead.
    He slammed the drawers shut.
    Only then did he notice it. Someone had attached a yellow message slip to March's telephone: "Urgent. Contact the Duty Office immediately."

5

    In the marshaling yards of the Gotenland railway station, arc lights had been set up around the body. From a distance the scene looked oddly