A Man Without Breath (58 page)

‘Yes sir. That’s exactly what I was thinking.
Ivanov
, I should say.’

I walked over to Krivyenko’s motionless body and pushed it with the toecap of my boot. The man was without breath and there was so much blood on the floor that I hardly needed to bend down and look for a pulse, although it would have been easy enough to have taken hold of his wrist. It was curious the way he had fallen on his face, with one of his hands slightly behind his back, almost as if it had been tied there. Death had been caused by a single shot in the head. The bullet had struck the man just above the nape of his neck, piercing the occipital bone, close to the lower part of the skull; the point of exit was in the lower part of the forehead. The shot had been fired from a German-made pistol with a capacity of less than eight millimetres. The shot in the victim’s head looked as if it had been the work of an experienced man. I thought it much more than likely that the body would end up in a shallow grave – unmarked and unmourned.

‘Curious, but it seems as if you’re not to have your witness to the Katyn massacre after all, Bernie,’ said Von Gersdorff.

‘No,’ I said. ‘No, I’m not. But perhaps, in a very small way, the dead have had some justice.’

The International Medical Commission delivered its report on the Katyn Wood Massacre in Berlin in early May 1943. The work of the members of the commission was honorary; no one was paid or given any other form of compensation. The commission concluded that the Polish officers found in Katyn had indeed been murdered by Soviet forces.

The Soviet Union continued to deny responsibility for the Katyn murders until 1991, when the Russian Federation confirmed Soviet responsibility for the massacre of more than 14,500 men. However the Communist Party of the Russian Federation continues to deny Soviet guilt in the face of what is by now overwhelming evidence.

Following its defeat at the battle of Kursk in July 1943, the German army fell back on Smolensk; the second battle for Smolensk lasted two months (August–October 1943) and Germany was defeated there, too.

The liquidation of the Vitebsk ghetto took place as described in the novel.

The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau continued to exist until 1945. Anyone who wishes to know more about its work should consult the excellent book of the same name by Alfred M. de Zayas published by the University of Nebraska Press in 1979.

Hans von Dohnanyi was sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1944; on Hitler’s orders he was executed on or after 6 April 1945, at the same time and place as Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Sack.

Colonel Rudolf Freiherr von Gersdorff supplied Claus von Stauffenberg with the explosives to use in an unsuccessful attempt on Hitler’s life in July 1944. He survived the war and dedicated his exemplary life to charity. A riding accident in 1967 left him paraplegic for the last twelve years of his life. He died in Munich in 1980 at the age of seventy-four.

Like several other senior members of the Wehrmacht, including Hindenburg himself, Field Marshal Günther von Kluge’s loyalty to Hitler was secured by large bribes. Nevertheless he continued to flirt with conspiracy. He committed suicide in Metz in August 1944 believing that the SS intended arresting him following the failure of the 20 July Stauffenberg plot.

Professor Gerhard Buhtz was – according to the official version – run over and killed by a train while making his escape from Minsk in June 1944. Others have suggested he was murdered by the SS around the same time for desertion.

General Henning von Tresckow was a key conspirator in the Stauffenberg plot. He committed suicide near Bialystok on 21 July 1944.

Fabian von Schlabrendorff was arrested on 20 July 1944 following the failure of the plot to kill Hitler and was brought before the infamous People’s Court of Roland Freisler. He was tortured but refused to talk and was sent to a concentration camp; he survived the war and died in 1980.

Admiral Wilhelm Canaris was an active conspirator against Hitler and was involved in as many as ten to fifteen plots to
kill him. He was arrested after the July plot and executed on 9 April 1945 at Flossenburg concentration camp just a few weeks before the end of the war in Europe.

Philip von Boeselager was one of the few 20 July conspirators to survive the war. His role went undetected and he died in 2008.

The chief executioner at Katyn, one Major Vasili Mikhailovich Blokhin, died insane and alcoholic in 1955.

The fates of Judge Goldsche, Lieutenant Voss and Gregor Sloventzik are unknown to the author.

There really was a demonstration in Rosenstrasse organized by the wives of the last Jews in Berlin in March 1943. There is a Litfass column there today that commemorates the event, and a piece of sculpture named
Block der Frauen
in a park not far from the site of the protest.

Medical experiments on communists really were carried out by fascist doctors in Spain following the republican defeat in 1939 at a clinic in Ciempozuelos, which was headed by another criminal called Dr Antonio Vallejo Nágera. Those who are interested should read Paul Preston’s excellent book
The Spanish Holocaust
for more information.

The Jewish Hospital in Berlin was liberated by the Russians in 1945 and 800 Jews were found alive. I am indebted to Daniel Silver’s book
Refuge in Hell: How Berlin’s Jewish Hospital Outlasted the Nazis
, for my information on this.