I didn’t feel bad about it until the next day when my men and I came across a former colleague from the Police Praesidium at the Alex, in Berlin. A fellow named Becker, who was in another police battalion. I found him shooting civilians in a village somewhere west of Minsk. There were about a hundred bodies in a ditch, and it seemed to me that Becker and his men had been drinking. Even then I didn’t get it. I kept on looking for explanations for what was essentially inexplicable and certainly inexcusable. And it was only when I realized that some of the people Becker and his men were about to shoot were old women that I said something.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I asked him.

“Obeying my orders,” he said.

“What? To kill old women?”

“They’re Jews,” he said, as if that was all the explanation that was needed. “I’ve been ordered to kill as many Jews as I can, and that’s what I’m doing.”

“Whose orders? Who’s your field commander and where is he?”

“Major Weis.” Becker pointed at a long wooden building behind a white picket fence about thirty yards down the road. “He’s in there. Having his lunch.”

I walked toward the building, and Becker called after me: “Don’t think I want to do this. But orders are orders, yes?”

As I reached the hut, I heard another volley of shots. One of the doors was open and an SS major was sitting on a chair with his tunic off. In one hand he held a half-eaten loaf of bread and in the other a bottle of wine and a cigarette. He heard me out with a look of weary amusement on his face.

“Look, none of this is my idea,” he said. “It’s a waste of time and ammunition, if you ask me. But I do what I’m told, right? That’s how an army works. A superior officer gives me an order and I obey. Chapter closed.” He pointed at a field telephone that was on the floor. “Take it up with headquarters if you like. They’ll just tell you what they told me. To get on with it.” He shook his head. “You’re not the only one who thinks this is madness, Captain.”

“You mean you’ve already asked for the orders to be confirmed?”

“Of course I have. Field HQ told me to take it up with Division HQ.”

“And what did they say?”

Major Weis shook his head. “Questioning an order with Division? Are you mad? I won’t stay a major for very long if I do that. They’ll have my pips and my balls, and not necessarily in that order.” He laughed. “But be my guest. Go on, call them. Just make sure you leave my name out of it.”