‘Sit down,’ said the reporter. ‘Not at the desk, there in the armchair where I can see you. And keep your hands on the arm-rests. Don’t give me an excuse to shoot, because, believe me, I’d dearly love to.’
Roschmann sat in the armchair, his eyes on the gun. Miller perched on the edge of the desk facing him.
‘So now we talk,’ he said.
‘About what?’
‘About Riga. About eighty thousand people, men, women and children, whom you had slaughtered up there.’
Seeing he did not intend to use the gun, Roschmann began to regain his confidence. Some of the colour returned to his face. He switched his gaze to the face of the younger man in front of him.
‘That’s a lie. There were never eighty thousand disposed of in Riga.’
‘Seventy thousand? Sixty?’ asked Miller. ‘Do you really think it matters precisely how many thousand you killed.’
‘That’s the point,’ said Roschmann eagerly. ‘It doesn’t matter, not now, not then. Look, young man, I don’t know why you’ve come after me. But I can guess. Someone’s been filling your head with a lot of sentimental clap-trap about so-called war crimes and suchlike. It’s all nonsense. Absolute nonsense. How old are you?’
‘Twenty-nine.’
‘Then you were in the Army for military service?’
‘Yes. One of the first national servicemen of the post-war army. Two years in uniform.’
‘Well then, you know what the Army is like. A man’s given orders, he obeys those orders. He doesn’t ask whether they are right or wrong. You know that as well as I do. All I did was to obey my orders.’
‘Firstly, you weren’t a soldier,’ said Miller quietly. ‘You were an executioner. Put more bluntly, a murderer, and a mass-murderer. So don’t compare yourself with a soldier.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Roschmann earnestly. ‘It’s all nonsense. We were soldiers just like the rest. We obeyed our orders just like the rest. You young Germans are all the same. You don’t want to understand what it was like then.’
‘So tell me, what was it like?’
Roschmann, who had leaned forward to make his point, leaned back in the chair, almost at ease, the immediate danger past.
‘What was it like? It was like ruling the world. Because we did rule the world, we Germans. We had beaten every army they could throw at us. For years they had done us down, we poor Germans, and we had shown them, yes, all of them, that we were a great people. You youngsters today don’t realise what it is to be proud of being a German.
‘It lights a fire inside you. When the drums beat and the bands played, when the flags were waving and the whole nation was united behind one man, we could have marched to the ends of the world. That is greatness, young Miller, greatness your generation has never known and never will know. And we of the SS were the élite, still are the élite. Of course they hunt us down now, first the Allies and then the wishy-washy old women of Bonn. Of course they want to crush us. Because they want to crush the greatness of Germany, which we represented and still do.
‘They say a lot of stupid things about what happened then in a few camps a sensible world would long since have forgotten about. They make a big cry because we had to clean up Europe from the pollution of this Jewish filth that impregnated every facet of German life and kept us down in the mud with them. We had to do it, I tell you. It was a mere sideshow in the great design of a Germany and a German people, pure in blood and ideals, ruling the world as is their right, our right, Miller, our right and our destiny, if those hell-damned Britishers and the eternally stupid Americans had not stuck their prissy noses in. For make no bones about it, you may point that thing at me, but we are on the same side, young man, a generation between us, but still on the same side. For we are Germans, the greatest people in the world. And you would let your judgement of all this, of the greatness that once was Germany’s, and will be again one day, of the essential unity of us, all of us, the German people, you will let your judgement of all this be affected by what happened to a few miserable Jews? Can’t you see, you poor misled young fool, that we are on the same side, you and me, the sam
e side, the same people, the same destiny?’
Despite the gun, he rose from his chair and paced the carpet between the desk and the window.
‘You want proof of our greatness? Look at Germany today. Smashed to rubble in 1945, utterly destroyed and at the prey of the barbarians from the east and the fools in the west. And now? Germany is rising again, slowly and surely, still lacking the essential discipline that we were able to give her, but increasing each year in her industrial and economic power. Yes and military power, one day, when the last vestiges of the influence of the Allies of 1945 have been shaken off, we will be as mighty again as we ever were. It will take time, and a new leader, but the ideals will be the same, and the glory, yes that will be the same too.
‘And you know what brings this about? I will tell you, yes I will tell you, young man. It’s discipline and management. Harsh discipline, the harsher the better, and management, our management, the most brilliant quality after courage that we possess. For we can manage things, we have shown that. Look at all this, you see all this? This house, this estate, the factory down in the Ruhr, mine and thousands like it, tens, hundreds, of thousands, churning out power and strength each day, with each turn of the wheel another ounce of might to make Germany mighty once again.
‘And who do you think did all this? You think people prepared to spend time mouthing platitudes over a few miserable Yids did all this? You think cowards and traitors trying to persecute good, honest patriotic German soldiers did all this? We did this, we brought this prosperity back to Germany, the same men as we had twenty, thirty years ago.’
He turned from the window and faced Miller, his eyes alight. But he also measured the distance from the furthest point of his pacing along the carpet to the heavy iron poker by the fire. Miller had noticed the glances.
‘Now, you come here, a representative of the young generation, full of your idealism and your concern, and point a gun at me. Why not be idealistic for Germany, your own country, your own people? You think you represent the people, coming to hunt me down? You think that’s what they want, the people of Germany?’
Miller shook his head.
‘No, I don’t,’ he said shortly.
‘Well, there you are then. If you call the police and turn me in to them, they might make a trial out of it, I say only “might” because even that is not certain, so long afterwards, with all the witnesses scattered or dead. So put your gun away and go home. Go home and read the true history of those days, learn that Germany’s greatness then and her prosperity today stem from patriotic Germans like me.’