Chapter 4 - The power of the press

The phone rang on his desk, he looked at the number it was from the switchboard.

  'Yes, Hahn here' he announced in his usual brusque manner as he continued to view the screen in front of him.

  I have a caller on hold who wishes to speak to you!' He won't tell me about what, but mentioned he had a story in your area, you might be interested in, shall I put him through?'  Hahn thought briefly, not another crank. He had just about had his fill of them. He worked mainly on what would be called special interest stories. Two years ago, a similar unannounced call had come through. An intellectual had found while performing research some hitherto unknown papers dating back to the Nazi regime. How they had avoided the censor or destruction was not known, perhaps in the last two years of the war, things had become so disjointed. But at least German efficiency continued. Every meeting had been fully documented.

  What was a revelation, in these documents was not the content of them. Worse things had come to light most of the documents discovered were pure speculation, created by a Nazi think tank at the time, trying in the last throws of the war to come up with planning to create an ultimate victory. There was only one box file of notes left but the contents was enough for the German Government to try and gain a high court injunction on the publication of the material. To any journalist this fires up their writing ability, and to a newspaper, this signals an increase in its printed circulation possibly in the hundreds of thousands.

  Since those days he had been constantly dogged by cranks. Who was it now he thought.

  'Put him though, I suppose he has the diaries of Blondi!'

  'Blondi?' the receptionist asked puzzled.

  'Hitler's dog.' he laughed

  'I don't find your humour very entertaining Mr. Hahn, putting your caller through.' The phone clicked, there was a small pause.

  'Hahn here.' there was a small pause Hahn was just about to say his name again when the other party spoke.

  'Mr Hahn, my name is Schmidt.' the name was too unoriginal to be false. The voice was hesitant but mature.

  'I understand you have a story for me, you think might be of interest?' He tucked the phone receiver under his chin and continued to type. It wouldn't take a minute to get to the bottom of his caller, then he could get on with his latest masterpiece, some human interest piece.

  'I'm a builder Mr Hahn, I have been for twenty years now. I've worked all round the country abroad too. But for the last several years, I've been working mainly in Berlin, well since unification really, there has been so much work, I haven't had to look elsewhere.' He paused he had set the scene, Hahn liked this ploy, he seemed to be a working man a worker, they usually had their feet on the ground. Hopefully, the story would be worth hearing. It was often the case that the more humdrum the individual, the more understated they would find a story, and therefore more unsure of its value.

  He now continued. 'I've been working on a property I bought in a Berlin suburb, one of the old suburbs in the east, the building was constructed in the 1930s. It’s by no means a pretty building. The price was very good though.' Hahn, was beginning to get bored with the conversation. Any moment now, the builder would announce he had found some letters or diaries under the floorboards.

  'When I went into the basement I found,' yes thought Hahn trying not to laugh, here comes the old shoe box. To move him on slightly faster, he spoke in his most enthusiastic voice down the receiver.

  'What did you find Mr Schmidt?' As he said this he noticed two of his colleagues leaving the office, they waved at him to attract his attention and pointed at their watches. It was lunch time. He held up his hand, palm to them with his fingers outstretched, mouthing the words five minutes followed by waving his fingers in a circular motion at the side of his head to indicate that he had the usual crank on the phone. They laughed, waved and left. The phone had gone silent for a moment Hahn reiterated his question.

  'What did you find Mr Schmidt?'

  'There was a vault behind the wall.' This was different to a shoe box!

  'A vault, you mean like in a bank?'

  'Yes, Mr Hahn, just like that, with a metal door bigger than a man.'

  'But this is a residential area is it not?'

  'It is now, but that was only after the war with the acute shortage of housing.' Well at least it was not a shoe box, his thoughts turned away from his lunch.'

  'Well I suppose we will have to get it opened, before we know what's in there?'

  'I've opened it, Yesterday.'  The pride in his achievement was evident in his voice. He was now on a roll and forgot his previous nervousness.

  'There was an eagle and swastika motif on the door. As soon as I saw that, I knew I had to be the one to open it.' He drew breath. 'I hoped it would be full of gold, but when I opened it I saw that there was a small ante-room with a desk and chairs and a door leading to a bigger room; much bigger!' Kristian was changing the story as he talked, the last thing he wanted was to get Aziz mixed up in this, in case it went wrong.

  'And all I could see was filing cabinets, it was dark, I shone my torch round and saw a barred cabinet. I thought how strange, maybe this is where the gold is kept.' The reporters instinct was keen he wanted to ask questions, he wanted the story and the details. It would be better to let the story teller do it in his own time. Nethertheless, it seemed an opportune time to intercede with the briefest of comments.

  'What did you do next?'

  'Well I had to force the lock. I could not see anything of worth, ' he stopped briefly either to gather his thoughts or to keep the reporter on tenterhooks as to what the office revealed. Either way the reporter could not hold his enthusiasm.

  'And - and. What was in the cabinet?'

  'There were many folders, they were bound and had Most Secret stamped in Red on them and each one was sealed with a Reich's chancellery wax stamp. And a notice affixed to each that they were only to be opened with the authorisation of the Fuhrer or the Propaganda Minister.' This was starting to sound more like it. A shoe box would have only brought the reporter a small story, if that. But a vault full of secret documents, this would have the conspiracy theorists working for years, and might give him that break for an international reputation.

  ‘We must meet Mr Schmidt give me an address, I will come immediately and don't tell anyone else.’ He took the address and hung up, lunch could wait.