The End of Law Read online

  THE END OF LAW

  “A powerful and compassionate book looking into the heart of human dilemma, corruption, and redemption. This is a gripping story of depth and insight.”

  – Pen Wilcock, author of The Hawk and the Dove series

  By the same author

  Only with Blood: A Novel of Ireland

  THE END OF LAW

  THÉRÈSE DOWN

  Text copyright © 2016 Thérèse Down

  This edition copyright © 2016 Lion Hudson

  The right of Thérèse Down to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published by Lion Fiction

  an imprint of

  Lion Hudson plc

  Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Road

  Oxford OX2 8DR, England

  www.lionhudson.com/fiction

  ISBN 978 1 78264 190 2

  e-ISBN 978 1 78264 191 9

  First edition 2016

  Acknowledgments

  Extract on pp. 314–16 taken from Bishop Clemens August Count von Galen’s sermon, Sunday the 3rd August 1941, given in St Lambert’s Church. Used with permission from churchinhistory.org.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Printed and bound in the UK, December 2015, LH26

  “Isn’t it true that every honest German is ashamed of his government these days? Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of shame that will befall us and our children when one day the veil has fallen from our eyes and the most horrible of crimes – crimes that infinitely outdistance every human measure – reach the light of day?”

  First leaflet of the White Rose German Resistance Movement, Alexander Schmorell, circa 1942;

  executed July 1943, age 26

  “How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause? Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?”

  Sophie Scholl, White Rose activist;

  executed February 1943, age 21

  “It’s high time that Christians made up their minds to do something…What are we going to show in the way of resistance – as compared to the Communists, for instance – when all this terror is over? We will be standing empty-handed. We will have no answer when we are asked: What did you do about it?”

  Hans Scholl, White Rose activist;

  executed February 1943, age 25

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  A HISTORICAL EPILOGUE FOR THE READER

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  Hedda Schroeder had no reason to doubt she was content and no idea that Berlin in 1933 was becoming a very dangerous place for thinking people. Her father was extremely wealthy. Her mother wafted about their magnificent nineteenth-century house in the salubrious Tiergarten district in a state of agitation, as though she just knew she’d left something somewhere. As she grew up, Hedda watched her mother’s inward preoccupation with childish resentment. By the time she was fourteen, the resentment had been replaced by a sullen indifference. At twenty, Hedda no longer regarded with the slightest curiosity her mother’s white rabbit fussing. She had learned that nothing ever really happened, nothing changed.

  Hedda’s father, Ernst, was one of the foremost chemists in Germany, with a seat on the board of the National Conglomerate Trust, IG Farben. His father, Heinrich Schroeder, had been among the earliest to revolutionize German organic chemical manufacture in the latter part of the nineteenth century and made his fortune at twenty-five by joining Bayer as a senior research chemist. Fewer than twenty-five years later, his son had followed suit. In 1933, Bayer was a merged company in the Farben Conglomerate Trust and Ernst was even more influential in the chemical research field than his father had been. He was hardly ever home and when he was, he disposed of Cook’s sumptuous meals with rapid, moustachioed jaw movements which signalled his impatience with the distraction from work that was his dinner. Hedda mutated unnoticed at the table from a braided and scrubbed fraulein in pink trying not to wolf her food, to a bobbed and painted beauty whose perfectly pencilled lips were unsullied by dining.

  Digested now by the expanding city, the Tiergarten district had begun as a rich hunting ground for Prussian kings. Though the evening air still fell upon the beautiful gardens with the gentility of chiffon, the railway tracks, roads and tramlines of industrial living hemmed, severed and zipped through its delicate finery.

  “I shall be out again this evening, Mutti.” Hedda announced her plans to the back of her mother’s head one evening just before dinner.

  “Oh? Anything amusing, dear?” Her mother’s reply was standard and the only deference to Hedda’s voice was a slight turn of the head. Otherwise, Mathilde Schroeder continued her mince across the parquet towards the dining room, one slender hand given to the other in a pose once contrived to draw attention to her expensive finger jewellery; now, it was as unconscious as anything else she did. “I shall be at the Suzmanns’, darling. Daddy will be late – as usual.” Then, as an afterthought, stopping and turning to face Hedda across the vast and spotless hallway, Mathilde added, “Do take your keys, dear. It’s not fair t…”

  “…to wake Cook. Yes, Mutti, I know.”

  Mathilde smiled and lowered her eyes for a moment. “You didn’t say, I think. What will you be doing tonight?”

  “I am seeing Walter again – Walter Gunther. You met him already. I believe we’re dining at Haus Vaterland. Paul Godwin’s orchestra. Do you know it, Mutti?”

  “Jazz, dear?” Mathilde recrossed a little of the parquet so as not to appear rude, though she was not eager to continue the conversation. Hedda remained where she was, leaned against the wall and studied her lavishly painted fingernails.

  “Yes, though he doesn’t just do jazz – quite a variety of styles, really.” Hedda’s tone was already in neutral; the concessionary modulation in deference to manners, but she was as eager as her mother for the conversation to end. A sudden pique caused her to raise her head and look directly at Mathilde just before a customary number of seconds had passed and her mother could politely extricate herself from the exchange. How elegant and insubstantial Mathilde appeared as she raised an eyebrow in mild alarm at her daughter’s sudden interest. “Actually,” Hedda began, a note of contrived confidence in her voice, “they say he’s… disappeared – you know?”

  Mathilde frowned briefly and looked towards the Ming as though its exquisiteness could be restorative following such indelicacy. “Really?” she managed. “Well, perhaps that nice Mr Ginsburg will be on somewhere.” Finally releasing herself, raising one hand in departure, Mathilde turned and retraced her steps across the parquet. “Not too late, Hedda.”

  Later, in the taxi, bumper to bumper along the Bellevuestrasse towards Potsdamer Platz and an eight-fifteen table at Haus Vaterland, Hedda wondered what it was that had made her risk a social faux pas with her mother. No one ever mentioned “das Judische problem” i
n the Schroeder household. Ernst never discussed current affairs with his wife or his daughter and indeed, such an indelicate discussion would have been most unwelcome. Domestic conversation was never more or less than polite. Mathilde had learned to accept that whatever it was she had lost would not be found, and thought given to its absence or anything which might disturb equanimity was fruitless and emotionally expensive.

  Hedda’s arrival had served to increase Mathilde’s impression of displacement. She hadn’t a clue how to deal with her and mainly left her to Cook, whose kindly nature and anxiety to secure her position in times of high unemployment made her only too willing to move into the Schroeders’ house and minister to Hedda. The child grew to have, it seemed to Mathilde, a vexingly obdurate manner, as though she had spied the lost thing and was keeping its location secret. Still, there were the parties in the early days as Ernst climbed the executive ladder at Bayer as a senior research chemist and everyone said what a perfect couple they made. If she had been given to reflection, after twenty-five years of marriage to Ernst, Mathilde would perhaps have concluded that it wasn’t really that she had lost anything so much as almost found it.

  Hedda was not unaware that there was a growing dislike of Jewish people in Berlin. On occasions when someone took her to the cinema, she saw newsreels in which Hitler presented impassioned National Socialist cant, but it seemed to Hedda that all he did was shout. This in itself was anathema to her. No one shouted in the Schroeder family. Even Cook admonished her in whispers when she was naughty for fear of disturbing the strained silence which lay across the house like dust sheets. And though Hedda dated officers of Hitler’s new Schutzstaffel, none seemed eager to do more than flatter her and ply her with fine Rhenish in the hope of more than a kiss. Certainly, none was eager to discuss his work. However, it was impossible not to overhear things when out on the crowded streets of the Potsdamer Platz or queuing for a film.

  It was surprising how animated and angry people could be. Once, she had even witnessed a fight; an SS officer and a dark-haired young man hurled obscenities at each other while Orchester James Kok played swing in the smoky jazz club, Moka Efti, in the Friedrichstrasse. Tables were overturned and people had leapt from their places to avoid being caught up in the brawl. Hedda was mesmerized. She had turned quickly to her beau, whose arm had slipped protectively around her waist and drawn her to him. When the dark haired man finished the fight by rendering his opponent unconscious with a well-placed upper cut, Hedda had clapped spontaneously. Later, when the tables had been righted, the brawlers removed by police officers, she had blamed the wine for her excitement. The young man she was with, an engineering graduate and son of a doctor, had asked her if she fully understood the nature of the exchange between the two men. Hedda had frowned in irritation and shrugged. “A little – there was lots of shouting about being Jewish – obviously!”

  “He will probably be thrown in prison – or worse, you understand?” the student had continued. Karl had been his name.

  “Who will? Why?”

  “The Jew, of course. He will…disappear, I think.” When Hedda did not respond, Karl sought her face in the street-lit taxi. She turned to him and met his gaze, her eyebrows rising to quizzical arches.

  “What?” she had prompted, when he didn’t speak.

  “I thought…for a moment…”

  “You thought what?”

  “Well, when you clapped like that and then, just now – I thought, perhaps…”

  “Goodness me, Karl – please say what you thought! What a puzzle you are making of things!”

  How serious he is – and tiresome, Hedda had thought to herself as the strange young man beside her became sullen.

  “No, forgive me. It’s nothing. Please, don’t let me spoil things. It has been a splendid evening.”

  It has been short of splendid, thought Hedda. Still, there had been a welcome and rare element of excitement, at least. Then, as they entered Tiergarten, Hedda was struck by an interesting thought.

  “Do you care if the Jew is put in prison?”

  Karl brushed away imaginary dirt from his trousers. “No – no, of course not. Why would I care about that?”

  When the taxi stopped, both were hugely relieved that Hedda could get out and leave Karl to his solo journey home. He opened the taxi door for her, saw her to the majestic portal of her family home and then bade her goodnight with a curt bow. She responded in kind and stepped with relief into the light of the immaculate parquet hallway. Karl was aware that the taxi driver eyed him suspiciously in the rear view mirror on many occasions during the drive back to his apartment.

  Some three months after her evening with Karl, Hedda alighted from her taxi and drew her expensive tweed scarf closer around her neck, lifted a kid-gloved hand to the tilt of her hat. Recalling how the flecked blue wool of her matching two-piece suit brought out the china blue of her eyes, Hedda smiled and forgot her brief foray into the unpleasantness of politics. And suddenly, here was Walter: tall, impossibly handsome, impeccably shaven. His full, strong mouth creased and eased with smiling. As he carved his way, right hand rigid before him, through the brightly lit crowds in the Platz and then reached her where she waited, she decided he was rather special. Who knew? Perhaps she might even be moved to offer this one more than a lipstick-preserving kiss.

  Walter Gunther beamed at her, scanned her from head to toe and whistled his appreciation. Hedda pressed her lips together and looked to one side in mock derision, but her eyes sparkled with excitement.

  “Wow! You look even more beautiful than I remember.”

  “You say that each time you see me, Walter. Soon I shall dazzle you and you won’t be able to look at me at all!”

  “Well, then I shall simply fall at your feet and worship you.”

  Hedda laughed, bending forward a little as she did so, reaching to hit his right arm playfully. “You are too silly – but you make me laugh, which is good.”

  Walter brought his feet together and lifted his right hand to his forehead in an imitation salute, then offered her his arm. “Shall we dine, my lady?” Chatting and laughing, Hedda holding his right arm with both hands, they made their way to the crowded restaurant.

  Walter’s father had been a Field Marshal in World War One and distinguished himself by service to Germany so that in 1933 the new Führer had made him a General Staff Officer, serving under Chief of Staff Officer Ludwig Beck. His grandfather had been a Prussian general. Walter, twenty-eight years old, wealthy, intelligent, on occasional social terms with Goering, was a newly created SS officer. Berlin was his playground. By the time Hedda caught his eye in a smoky club on the Bellevuestrasse, Walter Gunther was as familiar with the female anatomy and the tactics of seduction as he was with his weapon of choice, the PO8 Parabellum. He handled both with skill, but the gun occupied his thoughts more and held his attention for longer.

  Tonight’s dinner date at Haus Vaterland was their third meeting. Hedda found herself increasingly attracted to and interested by the handsome officer. She knew instinctively that his charm and foppish humour disguised a sharp intelligence and possibly a temper. She knew this because there was in Walter’s eyes a darkness with which Hedda was familiar and which sometimes consumed his expression like un-dammed liquor when he turned from her to put out a cigarette or follow a thought during intervals in their conversation. These unguarded reversions to a more naturally saturnine disposition did not alarm Hedda. Indeed, she saw her father in Walter’s underlying intolerance of the frivolity he politely indulged. And, although she was not consciously attracted by the connection, she was given increasingly to thoughts of stability and permanence.

  For his part, Walter considered Hedda easy company. She did not lean forward and use the heel of her right palm to thrust her mouth at him in that way women have who want to be adored. She did not seek to establish her intellect by attempting to engage him in ideological discussions about his part in Hitler’s rise or his views on “das Judische problem”. In
fact, Hedda was, he suspected, a little vacuous, but this did nothing to deter him. In fact, he welcomed it. Any woman who might hold his attention for more than a few dates or beyond seduction would necessarily be undemanding of it.

  Walter was ambitious and not insensitive to the advantage a good marriage would afford him. Certainly, his social networking could expand to include the bridge and dining engagements of his parents’ generation, had he a beautiful and well-connected wife on his arm. Hedda might do nicely. And so, just weeks after their third dinner date, Walter Gunther asked Hedda Schroeder to marry him and she accepted with a gratified shrug and a brilliant smile that enhanced her flawless complexion like a sudden glaze.

  The inevitable society wedding followed with well-oiled efficiency, and took place in the spring of 1934. Money was no object and neither were the trimmings essential to the execution of such an occasion. The sun shone, the couple were resplendent. Everyone agreed this was a perfect match. Walter’s father and friends attended in full uniform; dazzling dress sabres and immaculately polished boots snared the crisp spring light. A salute of perfectly white gloves complemented the pristine organza froth of the bride’s dress when the couple emerged onto the steps of the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedachtniskirch. Walter and Hedda honeymooned briefly in Koblenz. Too much champagne, lights splashing giddily on the sombre Rhein, and a majestic four poster bed. And then back to Berlin.

  For Walter, this was a time of consolidation. As well as serving under him, his father was a close and trusted friend of Ludwig Beck, General Chief of Staff, and stationed in Berlin. Beck’s distinguished military service during World War One had ensured influence and power as Hitler’s Reich took shape. But the Chief of Staff’s misgivings regarding Hitler’s assumption of absolute military as well as political power, following the 1933 Enabling Act, was well understood in wider military circles. Walter, striving to ensure that his alliance with Hitler and dissent from the conservative Prussian old guard was obvious, saw less and less of his father and confined his socializing to National Socialism circles. He spoke loudly and clearly to whomever might report his views in the right places.