Sometimes I found more understanding column leaders, who accepted the logic and necessity of what I explained to them. But the resources they were given were limited, and they were commanding narrow-minded, frightened men, hardened by years in the camps, incapable of changing their methods, and, with the relaxation of discipline that resulted from the chaos of the evacuation, returning to all their old failings and habits. Everyone, I imagined, had his reasons for his violent behavior; Darius had no doubt wanted to demonstrate his firmness and resolution in front of these men, most of whom were much older than he. But I had other things to do than analyze motivations, I was just seeking, with the greatest difficulty, to have my orders carried out. Most of the column leaders were simply indifferent—they just had one idea in their heads, getting away from the Russians as quickly as possible with the livestock that had been entrusted to them, without complicating their lives.

During these four days, I slept where I could, in inns, at the village town halls, in local houses. On January 25, a light wind had cleared the clouds, the sky was clean and pure, brilliant, I went back to Auschwitz to see what was going on. At the station, I found an antiaircraft battery unit, most of them Hitlerjugend assigned to the Luftwaffe, children, getting ready to evacuate; their Feldwebel, rolling his eyes, informed me in a monotone that the Russians were on the other side of the Vistula and that there was fighting in the IG Farben factory. I took the road that led to Birkenau and came across a long column of inmates climbing the slope, surrounded by SS men who were firing at them pretty much randomly; behind them, all the way to the camp, the road was strewn with bodies. I stopped and hailed their leader, one of Kraus’s men. “What are you doing?”—“The Sturmbannführer ordered us to empty Sectors IIe and IIf and to transfer the inmates to the Stammlager.”—“And why are you shooting at them like that?” He made a face: “Otherwise they won’t move.”—“Where is Sturmbannführer Kraus?”—“At the Stammlager.” I thought for a minute: “You might as well drop it. The Russians will be here in a few hours.” He hesitated, then made up his mind; he gave a signal to his men and the group left at a trot for Auschwitz I, leaving the Häftlinge there. I looked at them: they weren’t moving, some were looking at me too, others were sitting down. I contemplated Birkenau, whose whole extent I could see from the top of this hill: the Kanada sector, in the back, was burning, sending a thick column of black smoke to the sky, next to which the little plume emerging from the chimney of Krema IV, still in operation, could scarcely be noticed. The snow on the barracks roofs sparkled in the sun; the camp looked deserted, I couldn’t make out a human form, aside from spots scattered in the lanes that must have been bodies; the watchtowers stood empty, nothing moved. I got back into my car and made a U-turn, abandoning the inmates to their fate. At the Stammlager, where I arrived before the Kommando I had encountered, other members of the Kattowitz SD or Gestapo were running all over the place, agitated and worried. The camp’s lanes were full of corpses already covered with snow, garbage, piles of dirty clothing; here and there I glimpsed a Häftling searching the bodies or slipping furtively from one building to another; when he saw me he promptly bolted. I found Kraus at the Kommandantur, its empty hallways strewn with papers and files; he was finishing off a bottle of schnapps and smoking a cigarette. I sat down and imitated him. “You hear it?” he said calmly. In the north, in the east, the hollow, monotonous booming of the Russian artillery resounded dully. “Your men don’t know what they’re doing anymore,” I declared as I poured myself some schnapps.—“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’m leaving soon. And you?”—“Me too, probably. Is the Haus still open?”—“No. They left yesterday.”—“And your men?”—“I’ll leave a few to finish the dynamiting tonight or tomorrow. Our troops will hold till then. I’m taking the others to Kattowitz. Did you know the Reichsführer was appointed commander of an Army Group?”—“No,” I said, surprised, “I didn’t know.”—“Yesterday. It was named Army Group Vistula, even though the front is already almost on the Oder, or even past it. The Reds also reached the Baltic. East Prussia is cut off from the Reich.”—“Yes,” I said, “that’s not good news. Maybe the Reichsführer can do something.”—“That would surprise me. In my opinion, we’re done for. But we’ll fight to the end.” He emptied the bottle into his glass. “I’m sorry,” I said, “I finished the Armagnac.”—“That’s all right.” He drank a little and then looked at me: “Why are you so determined? For your workers, I mean. Do you really think a few Häftlinge are going to change anything in our situation?” I shrugged and finished my drink. “I have orders,” I said. “And you? Why are you so determined to liquidate these people?”—“I also have my orders. They are enemies of the Reich, there’s no reason they should get away while our nation is perishing. That said, I’m dropping it. We’ve run out of time.”—“Anyway,” I commented, looking at my empty glass, “most of them will only hold out for a few days. You saw the state they’re in.” He emptied his glass in turn and got up: “Let’s go.” Outside, he gave a few more orders to his men, then turned to me and saluted: “Goodbye, Obersturmbannführer. Good luck.”—“You too.” I got into my car and ordered Piontek to drive me to Gleiwitz.

Trains had been leaving Gleiwitz every day since January 19, taking inmates as they arrived from the closest camps. The first trains, I knew, had been sent to Gross-Rosen, where Bär had gone to prepare for reception, but Gross-Rosen, soon overwhelmed, had refused to take any more; the convoys were now passing through the Protektorat, then shunted either to Vienna (for the KL Mauthausen) or to Prague to then be scattered among the KLs of the Altreich. They were loading another train when I arrived at the Gleiwitz station. To my great horror, I saw that all the cars were open, already full of snow and ice before the exhausted inmates were driven into them with rifle butts; inside, no water, no provisions, no sanitary bucket. I questioned the inmates: they came from Neu Dachs and hadn’t received anything since their departure from the camp; some hadn’t eaten in four days. Alarmed, I looked at these skeletal phantoms, wrapped in soaking, frozen blankets, standing up, squeezed against each other in the car full of snow. I shouted at one of the guards: “Who’s in charge here?” He shrugged angrily: “I don’t know, Obersturmbannführer. We were just told to load them in.” I went into the main building and asked for the station chief, a tall, thin man with a toothbrush moustache and a teacher’s round glasses: “Who is responsible for these trains?” He pointed at my stripes with his red flag, which he was holding rolled up in one hand: “It isn’t you, Herr Offizier? In any case, I think it’s the SS”—“Who, exactly? Who’s organizing the convoys? Who’s allocating the cars?”—“In principle,” he replied, slipping his flag under his arm, “for the cars, it’s the Kattowitz Reichsbahndirektion. But for these Sonderzüge, they sent an Amtsrat down here.” He led me out of the station and pointed to a barracks a little lower down, alongside the tracks. “He set himself up in there.” I went over and entered without knocking. A man in civilian clothes, fat, poorly shaved, was sprawled behind a desk covered with papers. Two railroad men were warming themselves by a stove. “Are you the Amtsrat from Kattowitz?” I barked. He raised his head: “That’s me, the Amtsrat from Kattowitz. Kehrling, at your service.” An unbearable reek of schnapps emanated from his mouth. I pointed at the tracks: “Are you the one responsible for this Schweinerei?”—“Which Schweinerei are you talking about, precisely? Because at the moment there are quite a few.” I controlled myself: “The trains, the open cars for the Häftlinge from the KLs.”—“Ah, that Schweinerei. No, that’s your colleagues. I coordinate the assembling of the trains, that’s all.”—“So you’re the one who allocates the cars.” He leafed through his papers. “I’ll explain to you. Have a seat, old man. Here. These Sonderzüge are allocated by the Generalbetriebsleitung Ost, in Berlin. We have to find the cars on-site, among the available rolling stock. Now, you may have noticed”—he waved his hand at the outside—“that it’s something of a mess these days. The open cars are the only ones left. The Gauleiter requisitioned all the closed cars for the evacuation of civilians or for the Wehrmacht. If you don’t like it, just have them covered.” I had remained standing during his explanation: “And where am I supposed to find tarpaulins?”—“Not my problem.”—“You could at least have the cars cleaned out!” He sighed: “Listen, old man, at the moment, I have to organize twenty, twenty-five special trains per day. My men scarcely have the time to couple the cars together.”—“And the supplies?”—“Not my job. But if you’re interested in that, there’s an Obersturmführer somewhere who’s supposed to take care of all that.” I went out, slamming the door. Near the trains, I found an Oberwachtmeister from the Schupo: “Ah, yes, I saw an Obersturmführer who was giving orders. He’s probably at the SP.” In the offices, I was told there was in fact an Obersturmführer from Auschwitz who was coordinating the evacuation of inmates, but that he had gone out to eat. I sent for him. When he arrived, scowling, I showed him Schmauser’s orders and began assailing him with reprimands about the state of the convoys. He listened to me, standing at attention, red as a poppy; when I had finished, he answered, stammering: “Obersturmbannführer, Obersturmbannführer, it’s not my fault. I have nothing, no provisions at all. The Reichsbahn refuses to give me closed cars, there are no supplies, nothing. I keep getting phone calls asking me why the trains aren’t leaving faster. I’m doing what I can.”—“You mean that in all of Gleiwitz there’s no food stock you can requisition? Tarps? Shovels to clean out the cars? These Häftlinge are a resource of the Reich, Obersturmführer! Aren’t SS officers taught to show initiative anymore?”—“Obersturmbannführer, I don’t know. I can find out.” I raised my eyebrows: “Then go find out. I want suitable convoys for tomorrow. Understood?”—“Zu Befehl, Obersturmbannführer.” He saluted me and went out. I sat down and had some tea brought to me by an orderly. As I was blowing on it, a Spiess came to find me: “Excuse me, Obersturmbannführer. Are you from the Reichsführer’s staff?”—“Yes.”—“There are two gentlemen from the Kripo who are looking for an Obersturmbannführer from the Persönlicher Stab. That must be you?” I followed him and he showed me into an office: Clemens was resting both his elbows on a table; Weser was perched on a chair, hands in his pockets, leaning back against the wall. I smiled and leaned on the doorframe, my cup of tea still steaming in my hand. “Look at this,” I said, “old friends. What fair wind brings you here?” Clemens aimed a thick finger at me: “You, Aue. We’re looking for you.” Still smiling, I tapped my epaulettes: “Are you forgetting I have a rank, Kriminalkommissar?”—“We couldn’t care less about your rank,” Clemens muttered. “You don’t deserve it.” Weser spoke for the first time: “You must have said to yourself, when you got Judge von Rabingen’s decision: That’s it, it’s over, right?”—“Indeed, I took it that way. If I’m not mistaken, your case was deemed extremely open to criticism.” Clemens shrugged: “No one knows what judges want. But that doesn’t mean they’re right.”—“Unfortunately for you,” I said pleasantly, “you’re in the service of the law.”—“Precisely,” Clemens grunted, “we serve the law. We sure are the only ones.”—“And you came all the way here just to tell me that? I’m flattered.”—“Not entirely,” said Weser, bringing his chair back to the ground. “You see, we had an idea.”—“That’s novel,” I said, bringing the teacup to my lips.—“I’m going to tell you about it, Aue. Your sister told us she had gone to Berlin, not long before the murder, and that she had seen you. That she had stayed at the Kaiserhof. So we went to the Kaiserhof. They know Freiherr von Üxküll very well at the Kaiserhof, he’s an old customer who has his habits. At the front desk, one of the employees remembered that a few days after his departure, an SS officer had come by to send a telegram to Frau von Üxküll. And you see, when you send a telegram from a hotel, it’s noted down in a register. There’s a number for every telegram. And at the post office, they keep a copy of telegrams. Three years, that’s the law.” He pulled a piece of paper from the inside pocket of his coat and unfolded it. “You recognize this, Aue?” I was still smiling. “The investigation is closed, meine Herren.”—“You lied to us, Aue!” Clemens thundered.—“Yes, it’s not good to lie to the police,” Weser said. I calmly finished my tea, motioned politely to them with my head, wished them a good afternoon, and closed the door on them.