Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Copyright
Blood Brothers is the only known novel by German social worker and journalist Ernst Haffner, of whom nearly all traces were lost during the course of World War II. Told in stark, unsparing detail, Haffner’s story delves into the illicit underworld of Berlin on the eve of Hitler’s rise to power, describing how these blood brothers move from one petty crime to the next, spending their nights in underground bars and makeshift hostels, struggling together to survive the harsh realities of gang life, and finding in one another the legitimacy denied them by society.
Ernst Haffner was a journalist and social worker. His only known novel Blood Brothers was published to wide acclaim in 1932, before it was banned by the Nazis one year later. In the 1940s, all records of Haffner disappeard. His fate during World War II remains unknown.
EIGHT BLOOD BROTHERS – tiny individual links of an exhausted human chain stretching across the factory yard and winding up two flights of stairs – stand and wait among hundreds of others to be admitted from the awful damp cold into the warm waiting rooms. Just three or four minutes to go now. Then, on the dot of eight, the heavy iron door on the second floor will be unlocked. The local welfare bureaucracy for Berlin-Mitte on Chausseestrasse jerks into life; the coiled line jerks into life. Limbs advance, feet shuffle, hands clutch the innumerable necessary papers. (In the furtherance of good order, the office has put out printed instructions that list them in endless sequence, and which twenty-four offices are responsible for issuing them.)
The queue has already reached the cash-office waiting room. There, with military precision, it splits into two smaller queues. One waits patiently to surrender its stamped cards to the hoarse-voiced office boy Paule, prior to receipt of payment. The second queue winds in front of the information counter in order to answer questions of who and where and where from, and then, with luck, to be issued with cardboard numbers. Thereafter, the individual parts will go into two other rooms to stand outside the doors of officialdom and wait with the patience of saints for their number to be called. The saints will have to be patient for five or six hours or more. The eight gang members join neither of the two queues but make straight for United Artists. Maybe they’ll be in time for a bench.
The ‘United Artists’ waiting room, where applications for urgent assistance are filled in. The initials ‘UA’ have been repurposed by cynical Berlin humour as ‘United Artists’. Half an hour after opening time, the large hall is already jam-packed. The few benches are fully occupied. Individuals who couldn’t find a seat fill the aisles or lean against the two long walls, which have acquired a nasty black stain at shoulder height from so many thousands of slumped human backs. The indescribably dreary light of the day outside mingles with the glow of the weak electric bulbs to form a chiaroscuro, in which these poor souls look even more wretched, even more starved. On the other side of the walls are bright clean offices. Though these offices are fitted with doors, in the conventional manner, beside each door there is also a four-sided hole large enough for the head of an official on a lower pay scale. To spare their vocal cords and to avoid excessive contact with the needy public, the officials don’t themselves call out the numbers through the doors. No, a flap is thrust open, a human head appears nicely framed and yells out the number. And with that the flap clacks shut. The number – in the office, it is translated back into ‘Meyer, Gustav’ or ‘Abrameit, Frieda’ – trots into the office through the door beside the hole. Each time a number is called, all the waiting heads jerk up. It can happen that two numbers are called from opposite walls simultaneously. Then all the heads jerk up and back in time.
The eight boys were able to capture a whole bench and, serenely oblivious to the numbers, they drop off to sleep. They’ve spent the whole endless winter’s night on the street. As so many times before: homeless. Always trudging on, always on the go. No chance of any shut-eye in this weather. Day-old remnants of snow, the occasional thin shower of sleet, everything nicely shaken up by a wind that makes the boys’ teeth chatter with cold. Eight boys, aged sixteen to nineteen. A few are veterans of borstals. Two have parents somewhere in Germany. The odd one perhaps still has a father or mother someplace. Their birth and early infancy coincided with the war and the years after. From the moment they undertook their first uncertain steps, they were on their own. Father was at the Front or already listed missing. Mother was turning grenades, or coughing her lungs out a few grams at a time in explosives factories. The kids with their turnip bellies – not even potato bellies – were always out for something to eat in courtyards and streets. As they grew older, gangs of them went out stealing. Stealing to fill their bellies. Malignant little beasts.
Ludwig from Dortmund has jerked awake at the sound of a number being called. Now he’s sitting there, feet out, fists in his pockets, empty cigarette holder in the corner of his mouth. The lantern-jawed face with the alert brown eyes looks with interest in the direction of the entrance. His friends are all asleep, slumped forward, collapsed, or leaning inertly against their neighbours. Jonny, their leader, their boss, has summoned them for nine o’clock. As so often before, he has promised to get hold of money from somewhere. He hasn’t said how. At ten last night he said goodbye – at this point, Ludwig sees Jonny walking into the room, and he waves animatedly. ‘Here, Jonny, over here!’ Jonny is a young man of twenty-one. His physiognomy, with square chin and prominent cheekbones, looks a little brutal, and testifies to his willpower. He speaks with fluency and decisiveness, almost without dialect, and this proves that he stands above the rest of the gang in terms of education and intellect. Superior strength is taken for granted; he wouldn’t be their boss otherwise. ‘Hey, Ludwig!’ He hands him a big box of cigarettes. Ludwig helps himself and chews on the smoke with delight. The others are still sleeping. Ludwig takes a long drag and blows smoke in their faces. They gulp, splutter, wake up. Nothing could have woken them so effectively. Cigarettes? Jonny? Here! Quickly all help themselves. And now they know too that Jonny’s in the money, and that they’re going to get something to eat. So what are they waiting for? As ever, they move in three troops. Nine boys in a gaggle attracts too much unfavourable attention. They turn off Chaussee- into Invalidenstrasse. That’s where they buy breakfast. Forty-five rolls in three mighty bags, and two entire liver sausages with onion. That has to do for the nine of them.
Rosenthaler Platz, Mulackstrasse, then down Rückerstrasse. Into the bar used by all the gangs around the Alexanderplatz, the Rückerklause. You can stand outside and watch the cooks frying batches of potato pancakes. The greasy scraps of smoke drift into the furthest recesses of the unlit, sinister, and unsavoury bar. In spite of the early hour, it’s already full. The Klause is more than just a bar. It’s a kind of home from home for those who don’t have a home. Noisy loudspeaker music, noisy customers. The unappetising buffet, the beer-sodden tables, the smoke-blackened graffitied walls – all this doesn’t bother anyone. The gang occupy the space to the right of the door. The waiter brings them some broth – well, at least it’s hot. Then they set about scoffing their rolls and liver sausage. There’s not much conversation. Only dark, barbarous sounds: the grunts with which the stomach expresses its satisfaction. The boys are transformed. They sink their teeth into the sausage ends, they work their jaws. They look at each other, their expressions seeming to say: Don’t it feel good to be eating, and knowing there’s more to come . . . And other expressions, of gratitude and pride, are for Jonny, who once more has saved their bacon.
In one of the booths at the back, a young gang member is sitting on the lap of a passed-out customer. Two of his mates are walking up and down in front of the niche, gesturing to their chum: ‘Go on, mate!’ Pull the wallet out of his pocket, and give it to us . . .
Standing at the bar between two gang bosses is a girl, a child of fifteen or sixteen. Cheekily she’s put on the leather jacket of one of the young men, who doesn’t need it, and his peaked cap, and is now tossing back one schnapps after another with the two of them. The sickly pale face with its blue veins at the temples convulses with disgust, but then the dirty little paw reaches for the glass to drink to one of the leather jackets. The girl’s mouth opens: almost no teeth, just isolated blackened stumps. She’s not even sixteen . . .
Behind the bar stands the watchful landlord. In a good blue suit and spic-and-span collar, the only one in the whole bar. Music blares out without a break. Incessant comings and goings. Everyone here is either young or underage. Many turn up with rucksacks and parcels. They go directly to the bathroom, the hideously dirty toilets. Brief exchange, unpacking, packing, money changes hands. A schnapps at the bar. Gone. Police raids are not infrequent.
The girl, legless by now, goes reeling from table to table, offering herself. Oh, Friedel, showing off again, they say, otherwise unmoved by the sorry spectacle of a drunken child offering her scrawny charms. Rückerklause, a kind of home from home for those who don’t have a home. The forever-hungry boys have demolished the rolls and the liver sausage, and two potato pancakes each. They lean back contentedly, draw on their ciggies, sip their beer, and hum along to the tunes on the loudspeaker. ‘. . . Auf die Dauer, lieber Schatz, ist mein Herz kein Ankerplatz . . .’ They’re full, the bar feels warm. They’re starting to feel drowsy. Their heads sink. Only Jonny is sitting up, smoking, watchful. He pays the tab for them all. Then he counts up what he’s got left. All of eight marks. Where will they go tonight? The very cheapest hostel takes fifty pfennigs for the use of a bug-ridden mattress. That comes to four-fifty, which would mean almost nothing left for tomorrow. Jonny racks his brains for a cheaper option. Lets them sleep. He leaves word with the waiter to tell them to meet him at Schmidt’s at eight.
THE NIGHT-TIME equivalent to the Rückerklause is Schmidt’s on Linienstrasse. Of course it’s busy and there’s a din of brass band music all day here as well. But, after dark, the bustling little bar becomes a thronging teeming scene. The beer tap isn’t idle for a minute, and every chair is occupied twice over. And whoever hasn’t got one at all leans against the stage or just stands anywhere he can, beer glass in hand. The inevitable paper chains, essential for producing a festive atmosphere, are permanently shrouded in thick tobacco fumes, even though a ventilator is doing its best to restore law and order to the air. The band plays energetically and without a break. Generous rounds of beer and shorts sustain them. Sustain them to the point that the alcohol starts to affect the tunefulness of their playing. That’s when Schmidt’s really comes into its own. Then the whole bar becomes one roaring foot-stamping chorus.
Jonny needs to dig up his eight fellows from various nooks and crannies to tell them he’s scoped out a cheap billet for the night. Two marks for the whole lot of them. It’s in a warehouse on Brunnenstrasse. For two marks the nightwatchman will let them in at ten. But at six o’clock tomorrow morning they’ll have to be on their way again. Straw and large crates they can curl up inside are provided. At half past nine the gang set off.
On the stroke of ten, they’re all close to the billet. Three of them are at the gate. The others are waiting nearby in the passage, to nip in the second the nightwatchman opens the door. Before they even hear him, there’s a furious growling and yapping behind the door: the guard dog. Then the door is unlocked, and one by one they sneak inside. The watchman locks the door after them. The bitch howls with rage and disappointment. She doesn’t understand her master. Normally she is under orders to go for anyone’s legs, and just now, with this collection of deeply suspicious individuals, she is kept on a short leash. The nightwatchman slopes on ahead with the snarling dog. The Blood Brothers bring up the rear after a respectful interval. The door of the low storehouse is unbolted, and Jonny has to put down his two marks. Then the old man goes through all their pockets. He’s looking for matches or lighters in case one of the scapegraces should get it into his head to smoke in there . . . With all that straw and dry wood around. That would be a right old firework. The guard dog tries a parting snap at the boys. But the studded collar reminds her that only non-paying guests are to be shredded. The boys are just finding their way round the dark windowless space when the old man locks them in. The freed dog sniffs crossly at the crack between the floor and the bottom of the door. Just let them try and get out . . .
The boys grope around in the dark. They catch themselves on nails, and as soon as someone thinks he’s found a good spot, a few piled-up crates come crashing down about his ears. By the time everyone has found a place in a crate or on a bale of straw, it’s striking eleven. In a few more minutes, they’re all asleep. Only the mice are upset about the intrusion.
Were one able to see them, the huddled bodies of the boys in the crates and the straw, in their so-called beds, there would probably be only a voice of pity. Sixteen-year-old Walter, with his pigeon chest bulging out the front of his shirt and his Basedow pop-eyes . . . And Erwin, also sixteen, a beanpole, whose stringy arms show not the merest trace of muscle. Or quiet, dreamy Heinz: he is using his jacket as a pillow, his shirt is a filthy rag. Ludwig, the eighteen-year-old from Dortmund who fled from the institution a year ago, has tunnelled so deeply into the straw that there’s nothing of him to be seen, and the mice scamper across his body. The boys all look wretched. Only Jonny retains an expression of bold resoluteness, even in sleep.
In the pre-dawn dark of six, they’re all standing out on Brunnenstrasse again. The cold they couldn’t shake from their bones during the night now hurts like an acute pain. Frail Walter is gibbering so badly that they take him in their midst and make him jog-trot a ways to get him a little warmed up. Broken up into their usual sub-groups, they are heading for Alexanderplatz. To the Mexiko. That opens at six. A cup of hot broth, no matter how thin and stale, will do them the power of good.
Hands cupped round the mugs, the Blood Brothers sit in a corner, tanking warmth . . . PA music at a volume that would have gratified a symphony orchestra, from 6 a.m. till three o’clock the next morning. Pimps, prostitutes, gang members, wrestling associations, casual criminals and vagrants, bourgeois slumming it, and detectives looking for someone. That’s the Mexiko. A few years ago, it was a small pub that failed for lack of custom. Now it proudly advertises as Europe’s most prominent restaurant. The new owner clipped a few pictures of Indians from Moritz’s picture book, and plastered the four walls of his premises with cheap and cheerful copies. Set out some artificial palm trees, painted over the windows so no one could see in or out, and called his work a Mexican cantina.
The Blood Brothers are sitting quietly at their table. Another day ahead of them. They face it without a plan. A man walks into the pub, a stranger, not a regular. Looks about him inquiringly, and makes for their table. The eighteen-year-old Fred, Jonny’s lieutenant, leaps up, knocks a few of the others out of his way, and crashes out on to the street with the stranger in hot pursuit. Excitement in the establishment. What was that about? Police? But none of the customers has ever seen the man before. And they know all the local rozzers. The gang is puzzled. It feels inadvisable to stay any longer in this place. Jonny divides up the rest of the money equally, splits the gang up into four pairs, and sets them to look for Fred in all the usual places − with allied gangs, in hidey-holes. Even if he manages to get away from the stranger, Fred won’t risk going back to the Mexiko. So he’ll need to find out where the gang have got to. The rendezvous is eight o’clock at the homosexual bar the Alte Post on Lothringer Strasse. The four pairs head off in four different directions.
IN THE INSTITUTION, the atmosphere has been mutinous for several days now. A small group, headed by the twenty-year-old Willi Kludas, have fixed on a kind of passive resistance. It was discussed at night in the dorm, and traitors and blacklegs were threatened with extreme measures: the sanctions were beating, beating and more beating. The director and educators were powerless in the face of the consequences of this passive resistance, up to and including acts of sabotage. Half the work gangs called in sick, suddenly people came down with the most obscure conditions. And the rest, while seeming to work, actually did more harm than good. The overseers were livid, threatened physical punishment or putting on report, but they were not able to prove any malicious intent. The youths smirked at each other as they put their heads down and went on ‘working’. They were starting to enjoy themselves.
In the buildings, dozens of windowpanes inexplicably broke. Locks stuck. Workmen had to be hired to extract sand and grit from the works. In the bathrooms, toilets were blocked, electric lights and fuses burned out en masse. Documents and entire files disappeared, or blue ink was spilled over them. The boys couldn’t wipe the grins off their faces. This was some campaign that Willi had come up with, this was something else. The educators went round with pale faces and gritted teeth. They no longer had the nerve to approach the director. Woe betide any boy they caught red-handed. But the system of lookouts worked, and everything the authorities tried was ineffectual or only made matters worse.
On the afternoon of the fourth day the director called the staff together. What’s going on here? Yes, what is going on? They were baffled. Under the pretext of getting him to water some of the plants, they called in a boy − their boy, Georg Blaustein − to the director’s room. ‘Come on, Georg, you’re a sensible boy, tell us what’s going on. You’ve always kept us informed.’ Georg Blaustein was haunted by an apparition four nights ago. He was lying there awake, same as everyone else. Suddenly a face loomed over his from the darkness. ‘If you breathe a word, I’ll break your neck . . .’ With that the face disappeared beneath Georg’s bed, beneath several other beds, back to its own. ‘I . . . I don’t . . . I really don’t know . . . sir, what . . .’ Of course, the director and all the teachers could tell that Georg knew everything, and that fear was keeping his lips sealed. ‘All right, Georg, do the plants.’ Outcome: we don’t know, but we know! Strict ban on smoking for all boys, no time off, exemplary punishments for all transgressions. Till the return of normality. Report to the supervising authority with a request for instructions.
And what was going on? What had caused the quiet uprising? An almost daily occurrence. Willi Kludas, the twenty-year-old charge, had been given a slap for some infraction by Herr Friedrich, the loathed trainer. It was Willi’s birthday. He had taken it apparently without a murmur. But then in the night he had summoned up the quiet protest. As immediate retaliation. He wanted to get his own back on Herr Friedrich. For the repayment of the slap with interest, Willi had thought of a particular plan, in which he initiated only his six closest friends, whom he needed to put it into effect.
Two evenings later. Between ten and eleven o’clock. The whole dorm can sense that something is about to happen. But only seven boys, Willi and his six friends, know what it is. Half an hour earlier, the face had loomed up beside Georg Blaustein’s bed again, and had uttered terrible warnings . . . Willi knows that if there’s a commotion now, his friend Friedrich will come. And that’s good. Very good. The seven boys, according to plan, embark on a noisy conversation, which gets louder and louder. Again according to plan, there’s a knock on the door: ‘Quiet in there!’ Herr Friedrich’s voice. Okay. Quiet. For a little while. Not too long. Suddenly the conspirators make a hellish row, the whole of the dorm sits up. Two of Willi’s friends grab a sheet and trot off to the door barefoot. And here comes Herr Friedrich. The door flies open. A light switch clicks. No light. Two forms holding a sheet jump on Friedrich, who is standing in the doorway of the darkened room. Throw the sheet round his body. Four other boys hold the man by the hands and feet, a barely audible gurgling sound emerges from the sheet. Then Willi hurls himself at the white bundle. The whole room is silent, everyone hears the slapping sound of the blows. Then the boys whip the sheet off, and Herr Friedrich is deposited in the corridor. The door falls shut, and the avengers flit back to bed.
Half an hour passes – the sheets are all pressed nice and flat again – then in walk the director and several half-dressed but armed teachers. There is still no light. Two boys have to be roused from deep sleep. They are to fetch ladders and screw in new bulbs. Then at last there is light, and, surprise surprise, everyone is awake, staring at the pyjama-ed staff. The fact is that Herr Friedrich was beaten by several figures in nightshirts, not too badly. But which figures? The whole dorm says with one voice: ‘I was asleep. The noise woke me.’ Georg Blaustein outdoes everyone though. Not only was he not woken by the noise, no, he is so petrified he is still asleep. The investigation is suspended without result. Every one of the boys knows they are in for a collective punishment.
In the morning there are no work gangs. Everyone is confined to quarters for questioning. Notorious evildoers and teachers’ pets are interviewed individually. The rest in small groups. The result of the inquiry is kept secret. Punishments have not yet been announced. It remains a grave case. The supervisory authority is being asked to send a commission of inquiry. Herr Friedrich has called in sick.
Tonight I’m making a break for it, Willi Kludas has decided. In a letter a boy will ‘discover’ tomorrow, Willi will claim sole responsibility. Those who helped him in the assault were press-ganged into it. He alone had beaten Herr Friedrich. The reason, sir? Because of the slap he gave me on my twentieth birthday. At lunch and dinner Willi eats everything he can lay his hands on. Who knows when he’ll next get a meal. He will walk all night to the nearest main-line railway station. Then he will try and get to Berlin with a platform ticket. A ten-hour ride. How he proposes to remain undetected on the train he can’t yet say. He takes discreet leave of his six friends. They give him some of their supper to take with him, and they hand over their spare change. Willi’s cash holdings come to ninety-five pfennigs. An hour before bedtime he takes the decisive step. In an hour’s time they will notice he’s gone; by then he must be a long way away. Now his friends have to do him one last kindness. They stage an argument with no end of shouting and yelling. The now-skittish teachers and even the director himself rush into the day room. While the friends act confused, Willi hops over the wall.
He needs to run to the nearest settlement, which is ten minutes away. And then not through it, but round it. But not too quickly, so that he doesn’t use up all his energy. Wow, does it feel good, running like that! Running and running, in a straight line. Not having to turn, like in the yard of the institution. With the grotty weather there’s no one about, thank God. Willi runs with fists pumping and elbows tucked: ‘One, two, three, four . . . one, two, three, four . . .’ Ah, it feels grand. Wonder if they’ve noticed yet? Pray to God they don’t send a teacher after him on a bike . . . One, two, three, four . . . hup, hup. Now left along the footpath, the village is on the right. Oh shit, the ground’s boggy, great clumps of it are sticking to his soles. It makes a difference. Now don’t slow. Hup, hup!
He’s left the village far behind him, he’s back on the main road. It’s easier, running here. What about a break? No, another quarter-hour first. He’s starting to get hot. Without stopping, he pulls a piece of bread out of his pocket . . . Smack, he’s lying down in the roadside ditch. A car speeds past. Luckily, going the other way. On, on. Come on, Willi, come on! But finally he is running out of puff. A five-minute break. Behind the hedge. What I’d give for a cigarette . . . Am I not near the next village yet? Maybe I’ll take a chance and buy five fags in the bar. Course I will! All right, Willi, let’s go, the sooner you’ll get your cigarette. One, two, three, four . . .
A girl’s serving in the pub, and Willi gets his cigarettes. He treats himself to a slow walk for the first of them. But as soon as the butt is in the ditch, he breaks into a sprint. A cigarette is an amazing thing, isn’t it, it gives you as much energy as a roast goose. Too bad he can’t run and smoke at the same time. But then he’d be sharing it with the wind. The skinny little thing would burn down in a flash. Hup, hup! They must be on to him by now, back home. Home? Some home! Prison is what it was. He turns off the road, and slows to a walk. Sufficiently far away from the road that he can keep an eye on it. Trotting along, the occasional smoke, thinking about what to do next. How do I get to Berlin? What if they nab me on the train? Then he’ll be back in the institution the next day, and the courts will want to punish him for what he did to old Friedrich.
Five in the morning, completely knackered, he walks into the town. Maybe they’re already waiting for you here, he thinks. As he approaches the station, he sees long lines of goods wagons in a siding. Well, the passenger express is no good to him, that’s for sure, where’s he going to lay low for ten hours? On the bog? The inspectors have got keys and all, and they’re bound to look everywhere. He’ll have to take the goods train. He scans the labels to see where it’s going. Can’t make head nor tail of it. So he up and jumps into a canvas-covered wagon. Bales of wood wool. He settles himself between two bales, arranges the makings of a pillow, and lies down. Who cares where they’re going. Just get away from here, and sleep!
FRED HAD EVERY