Chapters (50)
- Praise
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- EPILOGUE
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- Teaser chapter
I nodded politely. It was my second lecture in as many weeks. But this one was easier to understand. Baron von Starnberg didn’t like the communists. That much was plain from our surroundings. If I’d lived there I wouldn’t have liked the communists either. Not that I did like the communists. But having very little myself, I had more in common with them than with the baron, who had so much. And who wasn’t about to put his hand in his pocket and help win America’s war on communism as long as America treated his son like some common criminal.
“Has he been tried yet?” I asked.
“Yes,” said the Baron. “He was sentenced to death, in April 1948. But following a petition to General Clay, that sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.”
“Then I really don’t see what I can do,” I said politely, neglecting to add that, as far as I was concerned, the baron’s “black sheep” had already been luckier than he could ever have reasonably expected. “After all, it’s not as if he denies doing what he did. Does he?”
“No, not at all,” said the baron. “As I have explained, his defense was based on force majeure. That he could not act but as he did act. We now wish to draw the governor’s attention to the fact that Vincenz had nothing personal against the Jews. You see, after graduating, Vincenz became a reader in law at the University of Heidelberg. And in 1934, he saw to it that measures taken by the Gestapo against a student who had been sheltering Jews at his home were brought to a halt. His name was Wolfgang Stumpff, and I want you to find him, Herr Gunther. You must find him so that we might attach his testimonial regarding the Heidelberg Jewish affair to a petition for Vincenz’s early release.” The baron sighed. “My son is only thirty-seven, Herr Gunther. He still has his whole life in front of him.”
I helped myself to some more of the baron’s excellent schnapps to take away the taste in my mouth. It also helped to prevent me from making the tactless remark that at least Vincenz still had a life to have in front of him, unlike the many Lithuanian Jews whose deaths he had overseen, albeit only out of respect for his oath as an SS officer. By now I had little doubt that Erich Kaufmann was the author of this new client relationship.
“You say this happened in 1934, Baron?” I asked. He nodded. “That’s a lot of water under the bridge. How do you know this fellow Stumpff is still alive?”
“Because a couple of weeks ago my daughter, Helene Elisabeth, saw Wolfgang Stumpff on a tram in Munich.”
I tried my best to eliminate a note of surprise from my voice. “Your daughter was on a tram?”