Garden of Beasts

step down for a Kripo detective. As it turned out, though, Jaeger excelled at his new job too and soon rose to be in charge of the Orpo precinct in north-central Berlin; ironically he seemed far happier in his banished territory than in the intrigue-mired Alex.
    “I am calling with what I hope is some help, Professor.”
    Kohl laughed. He recalled that this was how Jaeger had referred to Kohl when they were working together. “What might that be?”
    “We just received a telegram about a suspect in a case you are working on.”
    “Yes, yes, Georg. Have you found a gun shop that sold a Spanish Star Modelo A? Already?”
    “No, but I heard of some SA complaining that a man attacked them at a bookshop on Rosenthaler Street not long ago. He fit the description in your message.”
    “Ach, Georg, this is most helpful. Can you have them meet me where the assault occurred?”
    “They won’t want to cooperate but I keep the fools in line if they’re in my precinct. I’ll make sure they’re there. When?”
    “Now. Immediately.”
    “Certainly, Professor.” Jaeger gave the address on Rosenthaler Street. Then he asked, “And how is life back at the Alex?”
    “Perhaps we’ll save that conversation for another time, over schnapps and beer.”
    “Yes, of course,” the Orpo commander said knowingly. The man would be thinking that Kohl was reluctant to discuss certain matters over a telephone line.
    Which was certainly true. Kohl’s motive for ending the call, though, had less to do with intrigue than with the pitched urgency he felt to find the man in Göring’s hat.
    •   •   •
    “Ach,” the Brownshirt muttered sarcastically, “a Kripo detective has come to help us? Look, comrades, here’s an odd sight.”
    The man was over two meters tall and, like many Stormtroopers, quite solid: from day labor before he joined the SA and from the constant, mindless parading he would now do. He sat on the curb, his can-shaped, light brown hat dangling from his fingers.
    Another Brownshirt, shorter but just as stocky, leaned against the storefront of a small grocery. The sign in the window said, No butter, no beef today. Next door was a bookshop whose window was shattered. Glass and torn-up books littered the sidewalk. This man winced as he held his bandaged wrist. A third sat sullenly by himself. Dried blood stained his shirtfront.
    “What got you out of your office, Inspector?” the first Brownshirt continued. “Not us, surely. Communists could have shot us down like Horst Wessel and it wouldn’t’ve pried you away from your cake and coffee at Alexander Plaza.”
    Janssen stiffened at their offensive words but Kohl’s glance restrained him and the detective looked the men over sympathetically. A police or government official at Kohl’s level could insult most low-level Stormtroopers to their faces with no consequences. But he now needed their cooperation. “Ah, my good gentlemen, there’s no reason for words like that. The Kripo is as concerned about your well-being as everyone else’s. Please tell me about the ambush.”
    “Ach, you’re right, Inspector,” the larger man said, nodding at Kohl’s carefully chosen word. “It was an ambush. He came up from behind while we were enforcing the law against improper books.”
    “You are . . . ?”
    “Hugo Felstedt. I command the barracks at Berlin Castle.”
    This was a deserted brewery warehouse, Kohl knew. Two dozen Stormtroopers had taken it over. “Castle” could be read “flophouse.”
    “Who were they?” Kohl asked, nodding at the bookstore.
    “A couple. A husband and wife, it seemed.”
    Kohl struggled to maintain a look of concern. He looked around. “They escaped too?”
    “That’s right.”
    The third Stormtrooper finally spoke. Through missing teeth he said, “It was a plan, of course. The two distracted us and then the third came up behind. He laid into us with a truncheon.”
    “I see. And he wore a Stetson hat? Like Minister Göring wears? And a green tie?”
    “That’s right,” the larger one agreed. “A loud, Jew tie.”
    “Did you see his face?”
    “He had a huge nose and fleshy jowls.”
    “Bushy eyebrows. And bulbous lips.”
    “He was quite fat,” Felstedt contributed. “Like on last week’s The Stormer. Did you see that? He looked just like the man on the cover.”
    This was Julius Streicher’s pornographic, anti-Semitic magazine that contained fabricated articles about crimes that Jews had committed