In the meantime, the expert we needed arrived. Since the Reichsführer had left Vinnitsa with the Führer at the end of October to return to East Prussia, Korsemann had applied directly to Berlin and the RuSHA had agreed to send a woman, Dr. Weseloh, a specialist in Iranian languages. Bierkamp was extremely unhappy when he learned the news: he wanted a racial expert from Amt IV, but no one was available. I reassured him by explaining that a linguistic approach would turn out to be fruitful. Dr. Weseloh had been able to take a mail plane to Rostov, via Kiev, but from there had been forced to continue by train. I went to greet her at the Voroshilovsk station, where I found her in the company of the famous writer Ernst Jünger, with whom she was having an animated conversation. Jünger, a little tired but still spruce, wore a captain’s field uniform from the Wehrmacht; Weseloh was in civilian clothes, with a jacket and a long skirt made of thick gray wool. She introduced me to Jünger, obviously proud of her new acquaintance: she had found herself by chance in his compartment at Krapotkin, and had recognized him immediately. I shook his hand and tried to say a few words to him about the importance that his books, especially The Worker, had had for me, but already some officers from the OKHG were surrounding him and taking him away. Weseloh, visibly moved, waved as she watched him leave. She was a rather thin woman, her breasts scarcely visible, but with exaggeratedly wide hips; she had a long horselike face, blond hair drawn back in a crisp bun, and glasses that revealed slightly bewildered but eager eyes. “I’m sorry I’m not in uniform,” she said after we had exchanged a German salute. “They asked me to leave so quickly that I didn’t have time to have one made.”—“That’s fine,” I replied amiably. “But you’ll be cold. I’ll find a coat for you.” It was raining, and the streets were full of mud; on the way, she enthused about Jünger, who had come from France on an inspection mission; they had spoken about Persian inscriptions, and Jünger had congratulated her on her erudition. At the Group, I introduced her to Dr. Leetsch, who explained the object of her mission; after lunch, he entrusted her to me and asked me to put her up in Pyatigorsk, to help her in her work, and to look after her. On the road, she spoke again about Jünger, then asked me about the situation in Stalingrad: “I’ve heard a lot of rumors. What exactly is happening?” I explained to her the little that I knew. She listened attentively and finally said with conviction: “I’m sure that it’s a brilliant plan of our Führer’s, to draw the enemy forces into a trap and destroy them once and for all.”—“You must be right.” In Pyatigorsk, I found her quarters in one of the sanatoriums, then showed her my documentation and reports. “We also have a lot of Russian sources,” I explained.—“Unfortunately,” she answered curtly, “I don’t read Russian. But what you have there should be enough.”—“Fine, then. When you’ve finished, we’ll go to Nalchik together.”

Dr. Weseloh wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, but didn’t seem to pay any attention to the handsome soldiers around her. Yet despite her unprepossessing physique and her sweeping, clumsy gestures, in the next few days I received many more visits than usual: officers not only from the Abwehr but even from Operations, who usually disdained speaking with me, suddenly found urgent reasons to come see me. Not one failed to salute our specialist, who had set herself up in an office and remained plunged in her papers, scarcely greeting them, with a distracted word or a sign of her head, unless it was a superior officer whom she had to salute. She only really reacted once, when the young Leutnant von Open came and clicked his heels in front of her table and spoke a few words to her: “Allow me, Fräulein Weseloh, to bid you welcome to our Caucasus…” She raised her head and interrupted: “Fräulein Doktor Weseloh, if you please.” The Leutnant, disconcerted, blushed and mumbled his apologies; but the Fräulein Doktor had returned to her reading. I had trouble holding back my laughter before this stiff, puritanical old maid; but she wasn’t unintelligent and had her human side. I in turn had an occasion to experience her sharpness when I wanted to discuss with her the result of her reading. “I don’t see why they had me come here,” she sniffed haughtily. “The question seems clear to me.” I encouraged her to go on. “The question of language has no importance. The question of customs is a little more important, but not much. If they are Jewish, they’ll have remained so despite all their attempts at assimilation, just like the Jews in Germany who spoke German and dressed like Western bourgeoisie, but remained Jews under their starched shirtfronts and didn’t fool anyone. Open the pinstripe pants of a Jewish industrialist,” she went on crudely, “and you’ll find a circumcised penis. Here, it will be the same thing. I don’t see why they’re racking their brains about it.” I ignored her coarse language, which gave me reason to suspect, in this seemingly icy doctor, the troubled and agitated eddies of murky waters, but I did allow myself to point out to her that given Muslim practices, that particular sign, at least, would lead to little here. She regarded me with even more scorn: “I was speaking metaphorically, Hauptsturmführer. What do you take me for? What I mean is that Fremdkörper remain such whatever the context. I will show you what I mean on-site.”

The temperature was noticeably falling, and my greatcoat still wasn’t ready. Weseloh had a rather bulky but well-lined coat that Reuter had found for her; at least for field trips I had my shapka. But even that displeased her: “That outfit isn’t regulation, is it, Haupsturmführer?” she said when she saw me putting on my hat. “The regulations were written before we came to Russia,” I politely explained. “They haven’t yet been brought up to date. I should point out to you that your Wehrmacht coat is not regulation, either.” She shrugged her shoulders. While she was studying the documentation, I had tried going back to Voroshilovsk, hoping to find an opportunity to meet Jünger there; but it hadn’t been possible, and I had to be content with Weseloh’s commentaries, at night in the mess hall. Now I had to drive her to Nalchik. On the way, I mentioned Voss’s presence and his involvement in the Wehrmacht’s commission. “Dr. Voss?” she asked pensively. “He’s quite a well-known specialist, in fact. His studies are widely criticized, though, in Germany. But it will be interesting to meet him.” I too was very much looking forward to seeing Voss again, but alone, or at least not in the presence of this Nordic shrew; I wanted to continue our discussion of the other day; and my dream too, I had to admit, had troubled me, and I thought that a conversation with Voss, without of course mentioning those awful images, might help me clarify some things. In Nalchik, I went first to the offices of the Sonderkommando. Persterer was absent, but I introduced Weseloh to Wolfgang Reinholz, an officer from the Kommando who was also looking into the question of the Bergjuden. Reinholz explained that the experts from the Wehrmacht and the Ostministerium had already been by. “They met Shabaev, the old man who is more or less representing the Bergjuden; he gave them some long speeches and took them to visit the kolonka.”—“The kolonka?” Weseloh asked. “What is that?”—“The Jewish neighborhood. It’s a little south of the center of town, between the station and the river. We’ll take you there. According to my informers,” he added, turning to me, “Shabaev had all the carpets, beds, and armchairs taken out of the houses, to hide their wealth, and had shashliks served to the experts. They were completely taken in.”—“Why didn’t you intervene?” Weseloh asked.—“It’s a little complicated, Fräulein Doktor,” Reinholz replied. “There are questions of jurisdiction. For now, they’ve forbidden us to get involved in the affairs of these Jews.”—“Whatever the case,” she retorted stiffly, “I can assure you that I will not let myself be taken in by such manipulations.”