Death Zones Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Map

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Epigragh

  Note

  Steiner

  Letters

  North-east of Stützpunkt 43

  The Girl

  Tattoos

  Minsk

  Stalags

  The Yellow Man’s Friend

  The Truth

  Goga

  Questions

  Taxidermy

  The Roads

  Hare Hunt

  Belorussian Black Pied

  In the Death Zone

  Phase 3: The Concentric Attack

  Entertainment

  Gold

  Eline

  Correspondence

  Escape Plan

  The Train

  Home

  Klaus Maier

  So it Goes

  Report

  Fear Not

  The House

  Note

  Glossary of Terms

  Acknowledgements

  List of Real Persons and Events

  Copyright

  About the Book

  In the lawless killing fields of the Eastern Front, SS Oberleutnant Hoffmann is on a mission to find a murderer.

  Belorussia, July 1943. As the Battle of Kursk rages to the east and the tide turns against the Nazi offensive, large swathes of White Russia are declared death zones – and a terrifying onslaught is unleashed on the civilian population.

  German detective Oberleutnant Heinrich Hoffmann, posted to the brutal fringes of a crumbling Reich, is struggling to keep his focus, as his thoughts stray to Eline back in Hamburg. But when a visiting General and his wife are found murdered and mutilated, Heinrich is charged with finding the culprit, at whatever cost. His only witness: a six-year-old local girl.

  In the man hunt that follows, Heinrich struggles to retain his humanity in the face of shifting loyalties, violence, and deadly SS politics, in the wild bloodlands between Berlin and Moscow.

  Winner of the Danish Crime Book Award

  About the Author

  Simon Pasternak is a Danish author, screenwriter and publisher living in Copenhagen. He is the co-author of a bestselling crime series with Christian Dorph, and has co-written two feature films including the historical thriller, The Idealist. Death Zones is his first solo novel, for which he drew inspiration from his own family history and Jewish roots in Russia and Eastern Europe.

  Martin Aitken is the acclaimed translator of numerous novels from Danish, including works by Peter Høeg, Jussi Adler-Olsen and Pia Juul, and his translations of short stories and poetry have appeared in many literary journals and magazines. In 2012 he was awarded the American-Scandinavian Foundation’s Nadia Christensen Translation Prize.

  To Mikael, my maternal grandfather

  Simon Pasternak

  DEATH

  ZONES

  Translated from Danish by

  Martin Aitken

  Henceforth, in the death zones, all people are fair game.

  Curt von Gottberg

  SS- und Polizeiführer, Belorussia

  1 August 1943

  Death Zones takes place in the summer of 1943, in what is today known as Belarus, at the time most commonly Belorussia, a land whose borders during the course of the twentieth century were fluid and which carried many names. With various demarcations, it has belonged to Tsarist Russia (until 1917), the German Empire (1917–18), the Soviet Union (1918–20), Poland (1920–39), and the Soviet Union again, as the Soviet Socialist Republic of Belorussia (1939–41 and 1944–91). Under the German occupation (1941–44) it was divided into a region of civil administration, the Generalkommissariat Weissruthenien, and the Rückwärtiges Heeresgebiet Mitte, administered by the Wehrmacht. Death Zones is fiction, and many of the events described in it did not occur. Some, however, did. A number of the characters were real people (here, the reader is referred to the notes at the end of the book).

  STEINER

  Letters

  Lida, 4 July 1943

  Letter 7

  Dear Eline

  Thank you for the honey. I wonder if it might be drawn from our secret place on the heath, the abandoned beehives in the hollow, down near the banks of the Alster, the ones we found on our last night together? I like to think so. ‘And yet, how much he says who utters “night”, for from this word deep grief and meaning pour, like heavy honey from the honeycomb.’

  To think it is eleven months now since we bade each other farewell at the station and Manfred and I departed for the unknown … Belorussia …

  The jar is here on my desk, amid case files and topographic maps. It shall be our little secret, untouched by this raging war. Now and then I pick it up and unscrew the lid, allowing the fragrance of fragrant of summer the smell now and then I must breathe in its scent of balmy, luxurious summer I must take in its scent of balmy, luxurious summer. I pretend that it is your flaxen hair … fragrant …

  I put the fountain pen down on the desk and read the last lines again. The jar of honey is next to the typewriter, on top of the case files concerning the killing of the Jew, Feigl. My work, my predicament: the dogfight between SS officers Heinz Breker and Sigmund Kindler.

  I unscrew the lid of the jar, smell the solidified wax, the creamy white crust. It smells of nothing. I dip a finger, sweeping it round in an arc, then draw it out to lick. It tastes of honey, not of summer. Certainly not of Eline’s hair.

  I toss the letter into the wastepaper basket, draw the typewriter towards me once more and turn the paper bearing my official letterhead into the carriage:

  Heinrich Hoffmann

  Oberleutnant der Polizei

  GK Weissruthenien

  Case No. LZ 512–A, – GHETTO LIDA/A. Feigl, in conclusion

  cc: Hptstführer S. Kindler, Hptstführer H. Breker

  The investigation instituted by SS-Hauptsturmführer Sigmund Kindler as to the deceased individual identified as Jozef Feigl, a Jew …

  My cigarette lies smouldering in the ashtray.

  After a long moment of indecision, I continue:

  It is therefore to be concluded that the shots that killed the Jew Jozef Feigl were fired by SS-Hauptsturmführer Heinz Breker, attached to SS-Dienststelle Lida. Pursuant to regulations re. impunity within the administrative boundaries of the Reichskommissariat Ostland, the case is deemed not to be encompassed by sections 211 or 212 of the German Penal Code. Charges will not be brought.

  Case closed.

  H.H. Oberleutnant d.P., Lida District

  I remove the paper from the typewriter and furnish it with my stamp, Heinrich Hoffmann, Oberleutnant d. Polizei. I place the report in the case file, only to be struck by doubt. I have to telephone Manfred.

  Eline’s brother. He is SS, and knows the hierarchy better than I.

  No answer.

  Today is his big day. He will be strutting about, barking at his minions, peering at their buttons and boots, inspecting weapons, making sure the streets are swept clean. The Obergruppenführer is coming. Dr Hubert Steiner, Manfred’s mentor, the man who taught him his trade.

  I uncap my pen and start again, in an elaborate hand:

  Lida, 4 July 1943

  Letter 7

  My dearest E!

  Thank you for the honey. Such memories! ‘And yet, how much he says who utters “night”, for from this word deep grief and meaning pour, like heavy honey from the honeycomb.’

  Damn it! I drum my fingers on the desk, remove my spectacles and draw my hands across my face, jump to my feet and go to the window. Falkowska Street is festooned with bunting, lined with flags at this end, where the road veers off towards Minsk. Manfred has had a
grandstand erected opposite, in front of the yellow and white railway station from the Tsarist days, columns and capitals in operetta style. Three men drag cables, rigging up the loudspeaker system, while the orchestra sits perspiring in their chairs, the brass of their instruments gleaming in their laps. Perhaps Manfred hopes the Obergruppenführer’s wife, the actress, will do a turn. A truck appears and the guard of honour spill out, in black parade uniforms with red and white emblems. I open the window. The heat, the dust and the noise smother me in an instant. But Manfred is nowhere to be seen.

  I call for my adjutant. Wäspli appears immediately, his stout figure constrained by tight uniform. I wonder if his letters to his fiancée are as poorly lyrical as my own. Or perhaps he is already married? I know nothing about him. He flutters his fat, bustling hands.

  ‘Has Hauptsturmführer Breker’s transfer come through yet?’ I ask.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Think?’

  ‘My friend said—’

  ‘Find out,’ I say.

  We stand for a moment, in spite of the matter’s conclusion. I make a vague gesture and he withdraws. I return to my desk, open the bottom drawer and produce the Hungarian cognac and a small glass.

  I telephone Manfred again.

  I picture it ringing in his empty office in the hospital on the road to Vilnius.

  Still no answer.

  I curse.

  _ _ _

  Wäspli returns.

  ‘Yes?’ I demand.

  ‘He said the papers are being processed …’

  ‘But did he know?’

  He smiles nervously.

  No.

  When he closes the door behind him I remove the portrait of the Führer from the wall behind the desk and turn the combination, open the safe, take the report on the killing of Feigl from the folder, repeat the case number to myself, then place the report back, underneath Eline’s letters. I take out the bundle and smell the ribbon. It smells of musty papers.

  I close the safe and rehang the portrait.

  I type the case number, the main particulars, and assign the new report the same number as the one in the box behind me: LZ 512–A.

  I leave out Breker.

  I leave out the witness, Finckelstein.

  I conclude:

  Whether Jozef Feigl was the victim of an accident or a premeditated act cannot be ascertained. However, since no evidence has been found to indicate an internal dispute between Jews, the case is deemed not to be encompassed by sections 211 or 212 of the German Penal Code.

  Case closed.

  H.H. Oberleutnant d.P., Lida District

  My right hand trembles as I stub out my cigarette and snatch the paper from the carriage.

  I cross over to the window. The sky is full of dust, a haze.

  I curse.

  Again.

  _ _ _

  This is Belorussia, the Lida ghetto, case number LZ 512–A, – GHETTO LIDA/A. Feigl:

  SS-Hauptsturmführer Sigmund Kindler has charge of the ghetto workshops. He claims his share, though is by no means greedy: six per cent of the intake, before the entries are made in the books. He protects a Jew who makes little birds from wood shavings: Feigl. Kindler sends them to his children in Kiel as Christmas decorations. They are fine and delicate, miracles of life. Feigl looks like a bird himself. There is some measure of contact between them. He brings gifts for Feigl’s wife, small items that can be turned into capital. Feigl is accorded privileges. They make him vulnerable. He bears the mark of Kindler. SS-Hauptsturmführer Heinz Breker works outside the ghetto. He is a friend of Manfred’s. They are boisterous, fond of hunting the hare – by which they mean partisans – and throw raucous parties, with excessive amounts of champagne. Kindler gets drunk and calls Breker’s wife a Bavarian whore. Breker threatens to shoot him like a dog, a suitable end for a Holsteiner such as him. He draws his P38, bellowing and frothing from his fat mouth, exposing the gap between his front teeth. Others intervene. The two of them square off like a pair of bulls, same size, same rage, same rank: equals. Breker puts a bullet through Feigl one night when Feigl is with his birds. Kindler demands a police investigation. I am the police.

  The legalities are fiendishly complex, and yet brutally straightforward. The German Penal Code applies within both the Reich and the occupied territories. But if the perpetrator is German and the victim Jewish or local, the provisions of sections 211 and 212 concerning murder and manslaughter do not apply. If both perpetrator and victim are of the same racial value – German–German, Jew–Jew, Russian–Russian, Pole–Pole, Pole–Jew, Russian–Pole and various other combinations – then the stipulations do apply. Thus, any matter may potentially be made the object of investigation. I have a witness, Finckelstein, who saw the killing take place. He sat only a metre away, painting wings. Breker stuck his arm through the window and fired his 9mm into the room. His head was almost blown off, Finckelstein stated. Breker must have discharged a whole round into the vertebrae of the scrawny man’s neck. I have the blood-spattered birds in evidence bags. Autopsy is out of the question, but there are six bullets in the workbench and I have a reliable witness. I picked five fragments of bone, Feigl’s, from his throat and hand, tiny shards of organic shrapnel. I end up with two reports.

  The truth for Kindler. A lie for Breker.

  I don’t know who ranks highest in the real hierarchy.

  If I deliver the wrong report, it could destroy me.

  I need Manfred. He will know what to do. Kindler keeps on at me for a verdict.

  I telephone Manfred again.

  The adjutant says something has happened.

  He won’t say what.

  When I look out of the window again, people are running.

  _ _ _

  Lida, 4 July 1943

  Letter 7

  Honey, dearest!

  Thank you for the par

  Manfred flings open the door.

  He is pure energy, crackling electricity in his black uniform. He gives me a handshake, a slap on the back, a forceful embrace. When eventually he steps back I see he is fuming.

  My eyes focus on his small head, his puckered mouth.

  ‘My car’s outside,’ he says.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I ask.

  He is already at the desk, telephone receiver in hand. He pauses, stares at the letter to Eline. He sees the jar. He opens it, dabs a finger in the honey and puts it in his mouth.

  ‘Tell me what’s happened, for Christ’s sake!’ I snap at him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Manfred!’

  ‘Steiner,’ he says quietly. ‘A reconnaissance plane spotted something north-east of Stützpunkt 43 … on his route … Gisela is with him …’

  North-east of Stützpunkt 43

  Manfred’s command vehicle bumps along the dirt road. I have asked him about Breker and Kindler, but have received only monosyllables in reply. Manfred picks at his teeth with a small ivory toothpick. It is stiflingly hot. A machine gunner is positioned at the front of the vehicle, his hand on the MG’s grip. There are four trucks behind us. Abruptly, the heavens open, a downpour, lightning leaping over the landscape. Manfred has Weber with him, a former forensics officer from Cologne, now regimental clerk. He keeps a small travelling case tucked under his right arm. His instruments? Manfred must fear the worst.

  Weber’s slight frame trembles. He drops his cigarette.

  I grind it underfoot and offer him my Efkas. He says something, without taking one. It’s cold now, visibility close to zero.

  We pass Stützpunkt 43, heavily guarded by what appears to be Waffen-SS in camouflage and waterproof capes, the Leibstandarte. I thought they were further east, at the main front, Kursk. Are things moving that fast? Are the Russians already here in Belorussia, emerging from the forests in their heavy boots, with their Asiatic brains, their primitive battle cries? Our soldiers jump down from the trucks, man the flak, draw out the net. Men mill in the trenches and on the ridge, controlling the road. Hedgehog
s are positioned further out, towards the swamps, the puszcza, the void.

  Rain lashes at the tarp.

  Manfred has left us. Weber shivers with cold.

  We bide our time, waiting for it to end.

  ‘Partisans,’ Manfred says when eventually he returns and climbs back into the vehicle. ‘Several attacks today.’

  He raps his knuckles against the driver’s helmet and we set off.

  We are silent as we leave the last of the positions behind us and draw away into the terrain along an elevated gravel track. Nothing but green, broken only by white trunks as the fog rises after the rain.

  _ _ _

  Manfred jumps out.

  Squeezing through the tarp, I see the burning vehicles, the dead strewn about, stripped naked, hanging from the vehicles, sprawled on the roadsides, heads submerged in ditchwater. It must have looked like a massacre from the air; black plumes rising up from the explosions, and flesh-coloured lumps.

  Dogs sweep across a nearby field, jowls red with blood. They must come from the woods or the little village of broken-down farms a few hundred metres away. Our own dogs are in a frenzy, but will not be released. Not yet.