The Odessa File

‘No, sir.’

‘Good. Are you circumcised?’

Miller stared back blankly.

‘No, I’m not,’ he said dumbly.

‘Show me,’ said the lawyer calmly. Miller just sat in his chair and stared at him.

‘Show me, Staff Sergeant,’ snapped the lawyer.

Miller shot out of his chair, ramrodding to attention.

‘Zu Befehl,’ he responded, quivering at attention.

He held the attention position, thumbs down the seams of his trousers, for three seconds, then unzipped his fly. The lawyer glanced at him briefly, then nodded for him to do himself up again.

‘Well, at least you’re not Jewish,’ he said amiably.

Back in his chair Miller goggled at him, open-mouthed.

‘Of course I’m not Jewish,’ he blurted.

The lawyer smiled.

‘Nevertheless, there have been cases of Jews trying to pass themselves off as one of the Kameraden. They don’t last long. Now you’d better tell me your story, and I’m going to shoot questions at you. Just checking up, you understand. Where were you born?’

‘Bremen, sir.’

‘Right, place of birth is in your SS records. I just checked. Were you in the Hitler Youth?’

‘Yes, sir. Entered at the age of ten in 1935, sir.’

‘Your parents were good National Socialists?’

‘Yes, sir, both of them.’

‘What happened to them?’

‘They were killed in the great bombing of Bremen.’

‘When were you inducted into the SS?’

‘Spring 1944, sir. Age eighteen.’

‘Where did you train?’

‘Dachau SS training camp, sir.’

‘You had your blood group tattooed under your right armpit?’

‘No, sir. And it would have been the left armpit.’

‘Why weren’t you tattooed?’

‘Well, sir, we were due to pass out of training camp in August 1944 and go to our first posting in a unit of the Waffen-SS. Then in July a large group of army officers involved in the plot against the Fuehrer were sent down to Flossenburg camp. Flossenburg asked for immediate draftings from Dachau training camp to increase the staff at Flossenburg. Me and about a dozen others were singled out as cases of special aptitude and posted straight there. We missed our tattooing and the formal passing-out parade of our draft. The commandant said the blood group was not necessary, as we would never get a posting to the front, sir.’

The lawyer nodded. No doubt the commandant had also been aware in July 1944 that with the Allies well into France the war was drawing to a close.