Dieter Weiss, now Adam Cohen, left his rented rooms and strolled around Place Chatelet. The day was warm and sunny. Small white cumulus clouds drifted lazily across a light blue sky.
Cohen sat down at a street cafe and ordered coffee and croissant. Then, staring at the French national flag, which hung from several windows on the street, his thoughts turned to his journey out of Berlin. The passport he had made up in the name of Adam Cohen, a Parisian Jew who had slipped out of a concentration camp, had worked well. Not that he was a Nazi of course, but as a non-German he could leave the country. Cars had been easy to steal and abandon in the post war chaos as he made his way through and out of the country.
He stayed with some brethren of the Order of the Gate in Paris. Since the spectre of Nazism was gone, not only the German variety but also the home-grown type, the mood on the street was of joyous optimism.
After a few weeks in the capital Cohen had driven back to Chartres where he had lived off and on throughout the long years. The place looked the same as when he had left before the First World War, only the vehicles on the roads had changed.
As he drank his coffee and wondered what to do next, he noticed a newspaper lying on the cluttered table nearby; the headline read: Himmler arrested in Northern Germany. Cohen grabbed the paper and read the lead article. Heinrich Himmler-arrested in Bremervorde by British Forces, claiming he was a discharged Wehrmacht soldier. He was being held at a British Army camp.
Cohen jumped out of his seat, left payment on the table and ran back to his rooms. Half an hour later after two phone calls he was driving out of Chartres in his old Citroen back to Germany.
He drove into Belgium, past Liege where troops inspected his passport at the border crossing on the road to Aachen, and then waved him by. Cohen then drove four metres and pulled up in front of a white barrier pole which stretched the width of the single track at a height of a metre. Two British soldiers stood at either end of the pole rifles slung over one shoulder. A Sergeant knocked on his window and motioned for him to wind it down.
“Passport and papers please,” said the soldier.
Cohen handed them over.
“Just a minute sir,” the Sergeant said, walking toward the guard house.
After five minutes the Sergeant emerged from the building.
“Why do you want to enter Germany sir?” He asked.
“Some of my family were detained in concentration camps, and I have been told that two are still alive somewhere in Germany.” Cohen looked down, took a breath, then looked back at the man,
“Sergeant, I must look for them.”
The soldier looked at the passport then at Cohen. “Very well sir, on you go and good luck,” he said, handing back the passport and nodding to the guards.
Cohen drove through a land scarred by war; some of the roads were impassable due to bomb blast craters. The German people he passed had weary, empty expressions on their faces. A war monger had seduced them promising pride and glory, but in the end delivering misery and death.