Page 38

“I won’t hear of it, love. You’ve earned a night off—”

A loud crash—the shattering of glass—brought Gerlich instantly to his feet. He rushed from the dining room toward the sound, the small study at the front of the bungalow. Cold air swept in through the broken window. A rock, the size of a fist, lay on the wood floor near shards of shattered glass. Gerlich went to the window, trying to avoid the glass, and looked out onto the dark street. He spotted a truck that seemed out of place on the quiet residential street but saw no men.

“Fritz!”

He turned as he heard a loud crash by the back door, the kitchen. Brownshirts stomped in, wearing their red Nazi armbands, carrying rifles. He reached Sophie before they did and stood in front of his wife. The first of the half dozen guards knocked Gerlich to the floor with the butt of his rifle.

“Leave us, woman,” the guard said, grabbing Sophie by the arm and yanking her from her chair.

“Go, Sophie, run!” Gerlich cried, just as a boot connected with his ribs. He rolled over in agony.

“Turn off that Jew music!” the guard shouted. One of the SS troopers picked up the phonograph and threw it down on the floor with a violent crash.

Another guard attacked the china cabinet, crashing through the glass doors and smashing every single porcelain plate and cup.

Before Gerlich could catch his breath, he was pulled to his feet, his glasses falling to the floor. With his impaired vision, he could only see the blurred image of a guard before he landed another punch to Gerlich’s stomach.

Gerlich struggled for oxygen, sucking in deep, wailing breaths. Though his vision was spotty, his sense of hearing was intact—the sounds of windows shattering, an axe taken to his dining room table, artwork and photographs being knocked from the walls.

He heard noise all through the downstairs, the study and the parlor room—windows smashed out, furniture torn and upended, souvenirs and antiques destroyed. He half stood, propped up by the guards, his knees not far from the floor. Then he heard another voice, an authoritative one, and all was quiet.

“Give him his glasses. The man is blind as a bat without them.” Heinrich Himmler, dressed in full black uniform and Nazi armband, waltzed into the dining room as a guard forced Gerlich’s glasses back onto his face.

“Himmler,” Gerlich managed as he caught his breath. “You rat-faced guttersnipe.”

Himmler nodded, though not to Gerlich. Another punch landed squarely in Gerlich’s gut, doubling him over.

“I like you better when you’re not talking,” said Himmler. “In here, in here. I want him to see it.”

Gerlich’s glasses had fallen from his face again. They forced his spectacles back on and held his chin up. Gerlich’s legs gave out completely, but the guards held him steady.

Slumped and woozy and barely conscious, he heard several loud thumps and saw brownshirts dumping something from large bags.

“We took the liberty of buying up as many copies of your filthy rag of a periodical as we could find,” said Himmler. “Well, I suppose we didn’t buy them. Confiscated would be a better word. Wouldn’t want your publisher turning a profit on this rubbish, would we?”

“You have no right!”

“Gerlich, you pathetic excuse for a journalist—not one more word about the Führer. The next word you write will be your last.”

Gerlich’s head dropped, but then he smelled something. Gas. Gasoline.

And then, just as the guards released their grip on him, just as he was collapsing to the floor, he saw a stripe of orange and heard the whoosh of flame, as over two hundred copies of today’s edition of Der Illustrierte Sonntag were set ablaze in his dining room.

24

September 27, 1931

Munich Police Department

Directorate 22, the Bogenhausen District

AT HIS DESK, DETECTIVE Inspector Thomas Bauer read the morning’s edition of the Munich Post. It was the day after the publication of Gerlich’s detailed, inflammatory missive in his periodical.

“You got a rise out of him, Fritz, I’ll say that much,” he mumbled. “You definitely got his attention.”

“Sir.”

Bauer flipped to the next page of the paper, continuing the article, ignoring his young kriminalassistent, Helldorff.