The German Suitcase Read Online Free

bombing raids.
    Professor Martin Gerhard strode swiftly down a corridor that connected the University Hospital to the lobby, lighting a cigarette. A surgeon’s mask hung from his neck and a red-spattered gown billowed behind him as he made his way between students and up the stairs to his office on a mezzanine that ringed the lobby. The walls of the high-ceilinged room were lined with bookcases and covered with anatomical diagrams and step-by-step illustrations of surgical procedures. Skeletal structures wired to armatures stood against one wall. A Nazi flag hung against another.
    The harried professor tossed the surgical mask on the desk, and was setting his cigarette in one of several Petri dishes that served as ashtrays when the phone rang. He slipped out of his gown, then returned to the door and closed it; but the cacophony that came from below easily penetrated its frosted glass window on which gold leaf lettering proclaimed: Department of Orthopedic Surgery Office of the Dean. A slight man in his mid-fifties, he wore bifocals that balanced on the bridge of his nose and lifted the phone with long delicate fingers that were pink from decades of pre-surgical scrubbing. “Professor Gerhard,” he said, retrieving his cigarette from the Petri dish.
    “Professor? It’s Max, Max Kleist!” the young Captain said in an urgent whisper into the telephone. The far end of the bar in Cafe Viktoria angled into the wall, forming a corner. Max had tucked himself into it and cupped his hand over the mouthpiece so those at the tables couldn’t hear him. “Thank God you’re there.”
    “Yes, and I expected you would be too,” the professor said with a slight edge, referring to his former student’s habit of trading his uniform for a surgical gown when the number of bombing casualties became overwhelming. “We need every surgeon available, Max. Even SS surgeons.”
    Last Spring, Max was conscripted by the Waffen SS—as many doctors were—and ordered to report for duty upon completing medical school. His father, a wealthy Munich industrialist, saw little sense in his son dying for a lost cause, and used his connections to keep him from being assigned to the front where surgeons were in demand. Instead, the young Captain—who would have been a Lieutenant if not for his family’s prominence—was put in charge of enforcing Nazi policy and programs at his alma mater.
    The position was created in 1942 after Dr. Kurt Huber, a Medical School professor, and several of his students formed a resistance group known as the White Rose that distributed anti-Nazi leaflets denouncing Hitler and his regime. All its members were arrested, convicted of treason at show trials, sentenced to death and guillotined. Giving this assignment to a citizen of Munich, let alone a graduate of its medical school, violated a strict SS rule that prohibited members from being posted in their home town, city or district. The dictum was Himmler’s way of insuring that the ruthless enforcement of Nazi policies wouldn’t be compromised by personal considerations; and this rare exception was testimony to the elder Kleist’s powerful influence with the Party hierarchy.
    “I’m sorry, I couldn’t be there,” Max replied, sounding shaken. “I was on my way when I was picked-up and taken to SS Headquarters for a debriefing—or so they called it.”
    “You were interrogated?!” the professor asked, sounding alarmed.
    “Yes, they kept me there all night. I’m being reassigned.”
    “Why?” the professor prompted with a nervous drag of his cigarette. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
    “They’re cracking down. You’re in danger. So are Eva and Jacob,” Max replied, referring to two other students. “You have to warn them. When I left her yesterday, Eva said she was going to the E-R to—”
    “I know,” the professor interrupted. “They’ve both been at it all night; and as soon as—”
    “The SS is on their way, now!” Max interrupted,