Ava leaned out of the car window. She was still smiling, yet at the same time she looked confused. ‘Why?’
Johann returned her smile. He could feel his face beaming as he said, ‘Because if you had taken your bicycle today I might never have met you!’ He waved as the car sped off, and knowing that she was now too distant to hear him, he added, ‘And I’m very glad I did.’
Chapter Five
Present Day.
All at once, Johann Langner’s voice broke off and the ECG monitor he was wired to went into a state of alarm. It began to beep and flash, and Langner began to convulse as if he were having a seizure. Ingrid Keller was on her feet in an instant.
‘Out! Now!’
However caught up in Langner’s reminiscences Tayte and Jean were, they both did as they were told. They jumped to their feet and Tayte grabbed his briefcase while Jean gathered from the bed the documents they had previously shown to Langner. They were at the door, and Tayte was about to open it when Langner’s voice stopped them.
First he coughed, and then in a hoarse whisper he said, ‘Where are you going? I haven’t finished my story.’
Keller gave a loud sigh. ‘If you don’t rest, your story will finish you!’
Tayte didn’t know what to do. ‘Maybe we can come back later, when you’ve had some sleep and are feeling better.’
‘And what if I don’t wake up?’
Tayte glanced at Jean and she gave him a look that said it was his call. ‘Are you sure you’re up to it?’ he asked, concern in his voice.
Keller answered. ‘No, he’s not up to it.’ She pressed a few buttons on the ECG machine and the beeping stopped. ‘You should leave.’
‘I won’t hear of it,’ Langner said. ‘These little episodes come and go. Sit down again, please.’
Tayte and Jean went back to their seats and Keller shook her head at them. She made Tayte feel uncomfortable, and she was arguably right to want them to leave, but he wanted to hear what Langner had to say, and Langner, it seemed, was keen to tell them.
‘Take your time,’ Jean said. ‘We’re in no hurry.’
Langner smiled weakly. ‘You’re very sweet, my dear.’
Keller helped him to sit up again, and she made him drink some more water before he was allowed to continue.
‘Just weeks before the terrible events that came to be known as Kristallnacht, Volker and I were invited to attend the Reichsparteitag Grossdeutschland—the Rally of Greater Germany, which was the last Nuremberg rally to be held in peacetime. We were having fun, like two of your boy scouts, with little notion of what was ultimately to come. It was held in September, and we’d been given the honour of marching into the city stadium as an eighty thousand strong army of Hitlerjugend members to spell out Hitler’s name.’
Langner was smiling at the memory by the time he’d finished speaking. Then his expression soured. ‘Ah, but those days before the war soon faded. Before long I would be fighting alongside many of those same boys, who were to become my Kameraden in the Waffen-SS.’
Jean tapped at her tablet PC, calling up some of her prior research. ‘It was because of your association with the SS that you faced trial for war crimes after the war ended.’
‘Yes. The entire Schutzstaffel was declared a criminal organisation, including the combat units of the Waffen-SS. Every German soldier who wore the Sieg runes of the SS on their tunic was subject to trial at Nuremberg for crimes against humanity—and we were all considered guilty unless proved innocent.’
‘I read about your trial,’ Jean said. ‘You were charged with inciting your troops to give no quarter to surrendering soldiers, and the deaths of seventeen prisoners.’
‘Those were the charges, yes, to which I pleaded not guilty. But while I was acquitted of directly ordering the deaths of those soldiers, I was found guilty of allowing their murders. In truth—and at my age I have nothing to gain from lies—I had not known about the murders until it was too late to prevent them.’ Langner paused to sip some more water. ‘The death sentence was passed and I accepted my fate. It was as I waited to die that I was encouraged to appeal, and then after a good deal of discussion by the prosecuting committee, the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, of which, as I’m sure you are aware, I served ten years. I later learned that a key consideration for this clemency was due to one of the officers for the prosecution stating that there wasn’t a commander on the Allied side, that he knew of, who had not told his troops that this time they did not want to take any prisoners.’
‘So you had no involvement with the rounding up or extermination of Jews?’ Tayte asked.