The Generals (7 page)

I will now proceed to answer your question about the use of what you call torture; the inexact terminology you used in itself, ‘to extract confessions’ for instance, shows to what extent old-fashioned
representations of a subject remain in circles that are occupied with war and other forms of professional extermination. Even empirical research …

Colonel Orbal
: Excuse me, but could you put things a little more simply?

Gerthoffer
: Even empirical research, as I was saying, has long ago confirmed that the method of using different forms of torture to extract information and statements is both primitive and archaic. Nowadays, such methods might possibly—please observe that I say possibly—be motivated, against prisoners of war on the battlefield, for instance, or if the person being interviewed is dying. Even in such special and urgent situations, however, the method must be regarded as unreliable. On the other hand it can of course still be used to advantage by anyone who wishes to extract a confession at any price, and,
nota bene
, if that person is indifferent to whether the confession is true or false. But that has however nothing to do with modern interrogation techniques; perhaps it appertains only to politics. In addition, the process is so simple that anyone can achieve the result intended with practically any means of assistance whatsoever. As a means of persuasion in connection with interrogation, torture has no longer any practical significance. And in my view, conventional torture, by which I mean the kind that aims to torment the victim, that is, cause the object in question unendurable physical pain, has on the whole outlived its usefulness. Naturally, this is partly due to the fact that the individual’s capacity to become inured to a sense of pain shows faster acceleration than the inventiveness of science when it comes to creating new physical sensations. So today’s interrogators do not use torture, just as little as doctrinaire torture methods are brought into use during preparations;
nota bene
, if these are carried out by skilled men. Is that quite clear?

Colonel Pigafetta
: Yes.

Gerthoffer
: Excellent. I will now proceed to answer the first part of the question, which deals with Velder in particular. Incidentally, this is one of the most instructive and thoroughly prepared cases I have hitherto had the benefit of dealing with. Velder was handed over to our department three years and two months ago. He then came from a military hospital where he had been treated for a bullet wound in his neck. By the time of his convalescence, he had already
been interrogated by personnel from some office within the security services, and in connection with that also subjected to primitive forms of conventional torture. Amongst other things, they had smashed his right knee with a sledgehammer. The treatment had not, of course, had the slightest effect on Velder, anyhow not in the direction intended. He was in every way obstinate and unreliable, both deliberately and unconsciously. His experience during recent years had simplified his thinking and after the events that took place in the military hospital, he was adjusted to becoming the object of more complicated forms of primitive physical maltreatment. This way of thinking caused him no great worry. He was well equipped to face varying kinds of physical unpleasantness. The only anxiety he showed took the form of stubbornly asking now and again during the first weeks for the date of his execution.

Our assignment with Velder at first seemed to be fairly uncomplicated. The Minister of the Interior requested that we should prepare him for a series of interviews concerning his connections with a certain Janos Edner. The aim was clearly to ascertain whether Velder had certain information on this Edner’s plans and whereabouts, information which the government at that time still had not been able to produce by any other means. Ironically enough, it turned out that on that particular point Velder was completely ignorant. However, shortly after that we received a new directive, because, I am told, the Chief of State himself was personally interested in the case. We were requested to prepare Velder for a much more comprehensive series of interviews, which aimed to account for his activities during the previous eight years of his life, from the day he joined the liberation movement. The assignment was given highest priority, which meant that I found myself called upon to deal with the matter personally.

Commander Kampenmann
: Could it not possibly be that you were given orders to deal with the case personally?

Gerthoffer
: One can, of course, express it that way, if necessary. It’s a matter of interpretation. Thus the assignment before me was first and foremost to make Velder willing to co-operate, and then to persuade him to remember practically everything he had done, seen or heard during eight years of his life and finally to convince him that one or another way of thinking or acting was wrong and
should result in legitimate punishment. Finally, he himself would have sufficient confidence to sieve out the episodes in which he himself considered he had acted criminally. The case was from the very first moment handled with the greatest possible care. The first five months were devoted to conversation. Velder was well looked after and we were soon able to break down the wall of rigidity which is common to all service personnel, and which in fact seems to be a pre-requisite for success within the profession. After that it was not long before I definitely won him over on to lines of co-operation. From that moment, we worked with a common aim in mind: to equip Velder mentally for the coming years’ interviews. We succeeded beyond all our expectations in this and when Velder was handed over to the General Staff interrogation experts, we parted the best of friends.

Commander Kampenmann
: But the torture?

Gerthoffer
: The physical features in Velder which you wrongly interpreted as signs of his having endured torture are in fact the consequences of a series of operations, all carried out under anaesthetics and perfectly adequate forms of surgical expertise at the military hospital in Oswaldsburg.

Major von Peters
: I don’t really understand this.

Gerthoffer
: To remember, gentlemen, is not quite so simple as it may seem. It was demanded of Velder that he should recall events, utterances and situations in detail, often matters lying so far back in time and which he himself, at the moment his brain registered them, judged as bagatelles and therefore unimportant. To peel away all intervening layers of memory demands a strength of will-power; surgical intervention in combination with periods of mental weakness has a certain capacity to stimulate the effort of will.

Commander Kampenmann
: How many operations of that kind did Velder undergo?

Gerthoffer
: Five amputations, one eye operation and partial castration. I personally checked that on each occasion he received the best possible attention. I was the last person Velder spoke to before the anaesthetic was administered and the first person he saw when he came round.

Commander Kampenmann
: And you parted friends?

Gerthoffer
: Of course. We had a stimulating time together and
the results were excellent. The experts who led the interviews had a very easy job.

Commander Kampenmann
: But Velder still pleads not guilty?

Gerthoffer
: Only on one point, on which he finds himself in a kind of state of conscience. He considers he had been given permission to act as he did, but realises all the same that it was wrong. Unfortunately it is indeed a very important point.

Major von Peters
: I’ve been sitting here thinking about a certain matter. Weren’t we neighbours in Marbella two summers ago?

Gerthoffer
: Yes, that’s correct.

Major von Peters
: Then it was your kids who kept hitting shuttlecocks over into my garden all day?

Gerthoffer
: That’s possible. They were only five and seven years old at the time, and hadn’t yet really learnt the game. I hope that they didn’t cause you any trouble.

Major von Peters
: Not at all. Damned fine kids, anyhow.

Lieutenant Brown
: Has the Prosecuting Officer anything to add?

Captain Schmidt
: No questions.

Lieutenant Brown
: And the Defending Officer?

Captain Endicott
: No questions.

Gerthoffer
: Goodbye.

Colonel Orbal
: Odd profession.

Major von Peters
: Seemed to be a good chap. But he wasn’t easy to understand until the end, when he eventually came to the point.

Colonel Orbal
: Odd witnesses you keep bringing in, Schmidt.

Major von Peters
: I still haven’t got over that dunderhead of this morning. What a picture of the national liberation.

Colonel Orbal
: You look pale. And I’ve got a sore throat. Did you poison the beef, Pigafetta?

Major von Peters
: The television broadcast of the final of the football cup is in fifteen minutes.

Colonel Orbal
: Hell, yes, so it is. The Army versus the Air Force. The parties may leave. Session adjourned until eleven o’clock tomorrow.

Lieutenant Brown
: Present Colonel Orbal, Major von Peters, Colonel Pigafetta, Commander Kampenmann. Officer presenting the case, Lieutenant Brown.

Major von Peters
: Isn’t Haller here today either?

Lieutenant Brown
: No, sir. Justice Haller is prevented from appearing.

Major von Peters
: And who is Prosecuting Officer.

Lieutenant Brown
: Captain Schmidt, sir.

Major von Peters
: This really is damned bad. What’s the general thinking about.

Colonel Orbal
: Well, Pigafetta, how’s the Air Force today? Ha, ha, after yesterday, I mean. You won’t forget such a clobbering in a hurry, will you?

Colonel Pigafetta
: As serving Chief of the Air Force, I’ve really got other things to think about besides football.

Major von Peters
: What for instance?

Colonel Orbal
: Did you hear that, Carl? He’s a bad loser, too.

Colonel Pigafetta
: How dare you sit there and discuss me with one of your subordinates? In the presence of one my own subalterns?

Commander Kampenmann
: Calm down, now. Don’t get excited.

Colonel Pigafetta
: I’m tired of insults. There must be some limit even to boorishness.

Major von Peters
: What the hell do you mean? Just say that again!

Colonel Pigafetta
: The word was boorishness. An art developed by boors. And army officers.

Colonel Orbal
: No, now that’s bloody well enough, Pigafetta. If
you can’t face being clobbered at football, then you’ll have to get your men taught the harp instead. The men, incidentally … what are they doing now? Standing around on jankers in some hangar or other?

Major von Peters
: They haven’t got the discipline for that.

Commander Kampenmann
: Shut up.

Major von Peters
: What the hell did you say? By God, what’s this all about, for that matter? Are you sitting there trying to give me orders, Kampenmann? Anyway, you’ve been sitting there making yourself important for several days now. You shouldn’t interfere with this, anyhow.

Commander Kampenmann
: As an officer in the Navy, I refuse to …

Major von Peters
: Oh, you and your shitty Navy.

Colonel Pigafetta
: Spare me your vulgarity, please. Ever since this session was opened, I’ve had to put up with far too much to make the odds even. As if it weren’t enough with your platitudes and Kampenmann’s officiousness, I also have to find myself daily being by-passed by a person of subordinate rank.

Coloner Orbal
: When, for God’s sake?

Colonel Pigafetta
: At the daily enumeration of those present, for instance. Every time, I repeat—every time, von Peters’ name is read out before mine.

Colonel Orbal
: Listen to the man.

Colonel Pigafetta
: The worst thing is that you’ve induced one of my own officers into this astonishing offence against decency and good tone.

Major von Peters
: It would be the absolute limit if representatives of the Army, rank apart, were to be read out after those of the Air Force, wouldn’t it?

Commander Kampenmann
: I demand an apology from you, von Peters.

Major von Peters
: What for? Because I said shitty Navy? Not on your life.

Colonel Orbal
: Don’t shout so damned loudly, Carl. They’ll hear you all over the bloody Air Force Headquarters.

Commander Kampenmann
: And from you, too, Colonel Pigafetta. I haven’t come here to be insulted …

Colonel Pigafetta
: I refuse to stay a minute longer in this company. I’m leaving before I’m tempted to degrade myself with the type of argument which is evidently considered to part of good tone at Army Headquarters.

Commander Kampenmann
: I demand an apology.

Major von Peters
: Shut up.

Colonel Orbal
: Demand and demand.

Colonel Pigafetta
: Good-morning, gentlemen.

Commander Kampenmann
: I still demand redress and I wish to have it here and now.

Colonel Orbal
: Calm down, Kampenmann. Just because that lunatic from the Air Force is suffering from megalomania, there’s no need for you to act like a bloody prima donna.

Commander Kampenmann
: I really must request respect for my service. My honour as an officer …

Major von Peters
: Shut up, I said.

Colonel Orbal
: This I’ll have to stop. You’ll have to settle this dispute between the two of you.

Major von Peters
: It’ll be a pleasure.