Brandenburg (49 page)

Hanah Richter was tall, with a face that was more handsome than pretty, her graying hair tied back, emphasizing her high forehead. But her eyes were bright Nordic blue and they sparkled with enthusiasm.

She excused herself, disappearing into the kitchen for a few moments, before she reappeared carrying a tray with three steaming cups.

“Hot chocolate,” Hanah Richter explained. “It’s my nightly ritual. I thought it might warm you both before your journey back.”

She sipped her chocolate and looked at both of them, her keen eyes searching their faces. “So what’s so special about this photograph, Herr Volkmann?”

“It’s of a young woman, taken on July 11, 1931—”

Hanah Richter interrupted gently, “Perhaps you can show it to me?”

He removed his wallet and handed the picture across: the photograph of the blond young woman smiling out at the camera, the mountains behind her, the sun in her eyes, the unseen hand linking hers. Hanah Richter put down her cup and took the picture in both hands. She stared down at the image, and after a brief moment, she looked up.

“You said it was taken on July 11, 1931?”

“That’s what was written on the back of the original. But I’m afraid we’ve no way of knowing for certain if the date is correct.” Volkmann paused. “Why?”

Hanah Richter shook her head as if dismissively, then squinted down at the image once more as she reached into her pocket and removed a pair of reading glasses, then placed them carefully on her nose.

Her face showed a blank expression as she stared at the photograph for a long time. The wind gusted and whistled outside, lightly shook the clapboarded windows, but the historian didn’t look up.

Volkmann said finally, “Do you recognize the woman in the photograph?”

When she looked up, Hanah Richter said, “Yes.”

PART FIVE

44

BERLIN. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22

“Her name was Angela Raubal.”

Hanah Richter looked down at the photograph again as a gust of wind rattled the clapboarded windows.

“She was Adolf Hitler’s niece. The daughter of Hitler’s half sister, also named Angela Raubal. But the young woman was called Geli, to distinguish her from her mother.”

Volkmann stared at the historian. “There’s no doubt in your mind that it’s the same person?”

Hanah Richter shook her head. “Absolutely none whatsoever. During my academic career, I wrote several papers on the period from 1929 to 1931, describing how it influenced Hitler’s personal life. Geli Raubal figured largely in that period. I researched her background as thoroughly as possible. It was a very difficult time for Hitler. He was plagued by all sorts of problems, personal and otherwise. And this young woman was one of them.” She looked at Volkmann. “May I ask where you got this photograph? I’ve never seen it before.”

“From South America.”

She raised her eyebrows for a moment. He thought she was going to question him further, but then she seemed to change her mind.

“You don’t look very convinced, Herr Volkmann. About the identity of the young woman, I mean.”

Volkmann glanced at Erica. She looked at him silently, then over at the photograph. He turned back to Hanah Richter. “It’s a question of certainty. We need to be absolutely sure.”

“If you won’t take my word for it, I can show you several other photographs of the same young woman. Would that help?”

“That would help greatly, Frau Richter.”

She crossed to a bookcase, where she searched along a shelf and finally selected two books, then came back. She laid the books side by side, then moved one under the reading lamp. Slips of yellow paper, reference markers, stuck out between the covers.

“These are fairly standard books dealing with the period. This first is Toland’s biography of Adolf Hitler. The man’s an absolute expert on the subject. This second book I wrote myself.” She smiled. “My one brief moment of literary glory.”

She opened the first volume, leafed through the plates of black-and-white photographs inside, and finally found what she was looking for. Her finger pointed to a snapshot of a young, dark-haired woman standing against a black Daimler. From the look of the car, Volkmann guessed it was a mid-1920s model. The woman stood with one foot on the running board, one hand on her hip. She wore a pale, sleeveless summer blouse and a darker skirt to knee length.

“This particular photograph was taken sometime in the summer of 1930.”

Volkmann and Erica examined the image closely. The woman was dark-haired and pretty, her face square-jawed but attractive. A lighthearted young woman but trying to look serious for the camera. There was only a faint likeness to her in Volkmann’s photograph.

He said to Hanah Richter, “She’s not blond?”

The historian smiled and glanced briefly at Erica before looking back at him.

“It was common practice then as much as now for girls to dye their hair. Peroxide may change appearances, but the facial structure remains the same. She often changed her hair color. But if you look closely, you’ll see it’s definitely the same person.”

Hanah Richter opened a drawer in the desk and took out a magnifying glass, handed it to Volkmann. “Please, be my guest.”

Volkmann held the glass over the image. The basic facial structure of the young woman in Hanah Richter’s photograph was without
doubt the same: square-faced, high cheekbones, pensive eyes, thin, wide mouth.

“You see a resemblance?”

When he nodded, Hanah Richter said, “But you’re still not convinced, are you? Perhaps it’s the color of the woman’s hair?”

“That, and her figure.”

The historian smiled. “True. In this photograph, she looks much thinner. In yours, she appears quite plump. Let me show you another, taken in the spring of 1931.”

Hanah Richter opened the second book. Midway through was a collection of photographs, and she found the one she was looking for and pointed to it.

The scene was a Bavarian restaurant. Four people sat at a table: two men, two women. Both women were blond, one young, one middle-aged. The younger of the two women definitely resembled the image in the Chaco photograph. Her features were fuller and remarkably similar, her hair blond and done in plaits in the style of young German girls. She wore a traditional Bavarian costume with lace collar. She smiled at the camera, as if someone had just made a joke.

Two of the people seated with her around the table Volkmann recognized at once. To her left, Adolf Hitler, his arms folded, a trace of a smile on his thin lips. Opposite sat the diminutive, grinning Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister. The older blond woman seated next to him had her arm linked through his.

Hanah Richter said, “The young woman with Hitler is Geli Raubal. This time with blond hair. The woman with Goebbels is his wife, Magda. And in this photograph there’s something very interesting. A clue that relates to your photograph. Pass me the magnifier, if you would be so kind.”

Volkmann did so, and Hanah Richter placed the Chaco photograph beside the one in the book.

“Now look closely, please.” She positioned the glass over the new photograph, and Volkmann held it. The focus swam and settled.
Erica leaned in closer and Hanah Richter said, “If you look at her right wrist, I think you’ll see something interesting.”

A faintly glinting bracelet. Hanah Richter shifted the glass to Volkmann’s photograph. Again, clearly visible, was a metal bracelet on the young woman’s right wrist.

Hanah Richter said, “The bracelet was a gift from Hitler to his niece, in October of 1929, when he took her to a Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg. It was made of solid white gold with rubies and sapphires. Hitler mentioned it in a letter he wrote to a close friend. A white-gold bracelet that Geli Raubal later always wore on her right wrist.” Hanah Richter looked up at them over her glasses. “Even besides all that, the facial features in your photograph are unmistakable, I assure you. It’s definitely the same person—Geli.”

Volkmann took the magnifying glass again, held it over the photograph as Erica stood beside him, comparing the two snapshots. The same cheekbones. The same eyes. The same-shaped face. He looked at Erica. She stared at him blankly before she addressed Hanah Richter.

“I realize the hour, Frau Richter, but can you tell us about her background? You said she was one of Hitler’s problems. How was she a problem?”

“Because she committed suicide.”

“When?”

“Almost two months after your photograph was taken. After a blazing row with Hitler in his Munich apartment, Geli shot herself through the heart. You see, the two had been lovers for a long time.”

When Volkmann and Erica stared at her in disbelief, Hanah Richter said, “I’m afraid you’ve aroused my curiosity. Is this very important?”

Volkmann said, “It may be.”

“Would you care to tell me why?”

“It has to do with a criminal investigation. I’m afraid I can’t tell you more than that.”

Puzzlement sparked in the historian’s face. “When you say ‘a
criminal investigation,’ what do you mean? To do with the young woman?”

Volkmann said, “Not her. Someone else.”

“But what has Hitler’s niece got to do with it? She died such a long time ago.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t tell you any more than that.”

Hanah Richter frowned, her disappointment evident. Then she sat back and said, “Very well, what is it you wish to know?”

Volkmann said, “Everything you can tell us about Geli Raubal.”

•   •   •

Hanah Richter pushed the books aside.

Volkmann sat forward. “You said she and Hitler were lovers. Can you tell us about that?”

The historian nodded. “Certainly there was a relationship between them. One that went far deeper than a normal uncle-niece relationship. You see, she lived in the same house as Hitler for a time, and they became very close. In 1927, when Hitler moved to his berghaus in the mountains at Berchtesgaden, his stepsister moved in with him to act as his housekeeper. Hitler distrusted many of those around him, so his half sister was an obvious choice. She tended to his housekeeping needs, organized his meals, his clothes. And with her came her daughters, Friedl and Geli.”

Volkmann said, “What about their father?”

“He died when Geli was quite young. Perhaps that was part of her attraction to Hitler. Very early on, he became a kind of father figure. She was a high-spirited woman. Flighty, if one is to believe the history books.” Hanah Richter smiled. “She was born in Vienna, so perhaps it was her Viennese charm. Of course, Eva Braun took center stage as far as Hitler’s private life is concerned. She was the mistress all the history books record. But before her came Geli Raubal. She was Adolf Hitler’s first real romantic attachment—I won’t say love, because the man was incapable of human love. But let us say it was a romantic attachment. She adored her uncle, and he her.

“For a time they went everywhere together, and when Hitler moved to his apartment in Munich, Geli joined him. She was studying medicine at Munich University at the time, so the move was convenient, but close friends knew that the arrangement was more than simple convenience, that it was an excuse for them to remain together.”

“What do you mean?”

The historian shrugged. “Think about it. It was rather a strange relationship. Just the two of them, uncle and niece, living in the same apartment together. And Geli was only twenty-three when she died. Naturally, tongues wagged in the Nazi Party about the arrangement. Hitler had always had a preference for young, fresh-faced girls—the younger, the better—because he couldn’t relate to women of his own age. And besides, young women were more easily manipulated and fell easily under his spell. Of the seven women with whom we know he had intimate relationships, most of them were young. And of the seven, six committed suicide or made a serious attempt to do so. So Geli Raubal wasn’t alone in that regard.

“Hitler seemed to have had a mesmeric effect on women. The ones he was intimate with as well as the mass of German women he was to appeal to when he became führer.

“And like a lot of German women at the time, Geli Raubal found his personality magnetic. She would have done anything for him. She most certainly wanted to marry him despite their being related. And for a time, Hitler plainly acted like a suitor. He hinted to some of his close party friends that he might actually marry her.”

Hanah Richter looked at them. “Repugnant as that might seem, one must remember that this was before Hitler’s true brutality began to show. His career was on the rise. He seemed destined to lead Germany. Geli Raubal would have gladly married her uncle, despite their age difference of nineteen years and despite the near-incestuous connotations it would imply. So she flirted wildly with him, seduced him, if you like.”

The wind rattled at the clapboards again, and the fire embers
flickered. Volkmann stared at the flaring coals for a moment, then looked back as Hanah Richter started to speak again.

“It was an absurd situation, of course, and it couldn’t last. The people close to Hitler in the Nazi Party who knew what was going on were horrified: middle-aged uncle who intended on marrying his very young niece. In their public lives, most Nazis were outwardly moral, but we know that privately they were vipers. And they were against it all the more because Hitler was preparing to take part in the presidential campaign. A Nazi victory was absolutely vital. It was everything the party had struggled for. Geli Raubal was Hitler’s niece and half his age. So marriage or the hint of scandal would have been disastrous for the party. It certainly wouldn’t have helped Hitler’s image in his public life. But I think that in the end he just led the poor girl in a merry dance until he got tired of her and moved on to Eva Braun.”