| HOME Go to  Homepage
GENERAL |
| Erik
Jan Hanussen (Herman Steinschneider)
LATE
IN April, 1933, the
farmworker Mathias Hummel had the unpleasant experience of finding a corpse in
a small wood about fifteen miles from Berlin. The body, riddled with bullets,
had been hastily buried in a shallow grave; but the spring rains had washed
the topsoil away and a well-shod, large foot was sticking out of the mud. Hummel
ran to tell the police. Seven hours later Kriminalrat Mölders faced a
slim, fair-haired young man in his office at police headquarters in the
Alexanderplatz. The
young man's name was Dzino Ismet, a Bosnian of German origin. "I
need your help," Mölders told him. "It might be unpleasant... but I
can't spare you the trouble. We've found a corpse. We have reason to think
that it might be Hanussen." Dzino,
his face haggard, nodded silently. A few minutes later, in the basement morgue
of the huge red-brick building, a uniformed policeman lifted a coarse sheet
from the body. Dzino gave it a quick glance, then turned away. "Give
me a cigarette," he asked the Kriminalrat. "That's him." "Are
you sure?" "Yes.
I recognize his teeth." |
