Marx speaks of awareness, not of ideals. It is exactly the blindness of man's conscious thought which prevents him from being aware of his true human needs, and of ideals which are rooted in them. Only if false consciousness is transformed into true consciousness, that is, only if we are aware of reality, rather than distorting it by rationalizations and fictions, can we also become aware of our real and true human needs.
~ Erich Fromm,
Marx's Concept of Man
Johann never thought he would return to this place willingly. The time he had spent in the prison had been a moment of torment in his life, held captive alongside so many comrades after the surprise attack on what had then been Bulowplatz at the start of the civil war. He had spent his time there cold and starving, one of thousands held in makeshift squalor to accommodate the sudden inflation in capacity which had come with the mass round-up of Red Front fighters in the city. It had only been a few days but it had been a time spent awaiting death and dwelling on the failure of the cause he had devoted his life to. He had spent the rest of his time throughout the civil war fighting to ensure he would never end up in such a place ever again. In his new Luftstreitkrafte uniform he stood now in opposition to all those fears but he came here for answers all the same.
He was not alone in being confused, or in being frightened. The assassination attempt on the Chancellor and the President had resulted in the pair being rushed to hospital with the entire capital being put on a heightened state of alert by the People’s Guard forces throughout the city. Many areas had been cordoned off to the general public, leading to some ugly scenes between soldiers and workers who had bad memories of the last time a military force had taken over the city.
It was handy for Johann's purposes however, for he was able to use the authority his position gave him to navigate through the city with ease and to find out that a suspect had been apprehended. The alleged shooter was being held at Plötzensee and so he was headed there now to see if his old comrades in the People’s Guard security forces might shed some more light on the situation. Whilst others waited outside St Hedwig for some news of those who had been shot, Johann opted to keep himself busy with the shooter.
The scene around the imposing structure was also crowded though Johann felt it loomed over him most of all, the prison cast an ominous shadow amidst the setting sun. Had the day gone as it was supposed to, he had been planning to meet up with his friend Lars for a drink after the formal celebrations. They had first met when the Social Democratic militia Lars had been a part of had saved him from execution after Johann had been taken from this place. Lars wasn’t here however and Johann made his own way past more junior officers into the prison complex.
When he did finally spot a familiar face it was that of Eric Mielke, a former Red Front comrade who had been luckier in evading capture. He looked at home here all the same, now the shoe was on the other foot.
“Glad you could drop in, Comrade.” Mielke said, regarding Johann’s uniform. He didn’t seem too pleased to see him, as if embarrassed by the memory of his street fighting days.
“Has he been talking?” Johann asked in anguish.
“I doubt that’s a concern for the Luftstreitkrafte, there isn’t much chance of him escaping by glider.”
Mielke’s eyes narrowed but he seemed to relent.
“Still, it would be remiss of me not to do a favour for an old Comrade. I suppose you’ll want to see him.
From the main offices of the complex Mielke began down a long corridor and beckoned for Johann to follow. Their footsteps echoed in the deathly silent rows of cells, as if the inmates were aware of the gravity of the situation in the outside world. Mielke didn’t seem to care either way as he told Johann what he wanted to know.
“Dirlewangler, Oskar. Age: 38. Occupation: Professional vagrant, by all accounts. Convictions for assault, embezzlement, drug dealing, solicitation, theft, and far worse which I won’t go into. He was apprehended drunk whilst brandishing a pistol at onlookers in the Tiergarten shortly after the assassination attempt. We haven’t had the full analysis back as to whether the bullets match but the gun had recently been fired.”
Berlin was second to none in forensic research as any person with a passing interest in crime stories knew but a random drunk making such a move didn’t make any sense.
“Politics?”
“The worst possible; Freikorps in Poland, the Ruhr, Saxony, then the Volkisch Bund, then the Blackshirts. Apparently he had an especially messy civil war but nothing conclusive stuck so he got out in ‘31.”
“That has to be our man, surely? Are we aware of any connections he might have that could be behind this?”
“
We aren’t.” Mielke replied scoldingly before continuing.
“The reason I can tell you all this is that he seems unable to do anything without incriminating himself. Since the civil war he has been bouncing around from one drunk tank or prison to the next throughout the country, there have been reports of him causing disturbances at DVFP meetings when the free beer ran out but that’s about it. To be honest I’m surprised he’s managed to avoid being institutionalised so far. The way he was gibbering and grinning when brought in, it’s like he didn’t know what planet he was on.”
The couple paused in front the only cell with two guards posted in front of it, Mielke went to draw the viewing slot before inviting Johann to come and see.
“We brought him down to earth.”
There was a bloodied carcass lying on the floor and Johann wasn’t entirely sure if Dirlewangler was still alive until he heard a rasping hiss coincide with his humped back moving up and down. The walls of the cell were covered in red marks where he’d apparently been slammed into them, several other dark blotches stained the floor around him.
It looked as if Dirlewangler had had a grenade thrown into his cell.
“In fairness he wasn’t much to look at before the lads got a hold of him and he’s much more sober now than he was before.”
A head-like appendage emerged from the body within the cell and looked around itself before turning to the door. Johann caught a glimpse of two swollen eyelids staring back at him and closed the slot.
“So,” he coughed in an effort to compose himself, “he could have been acting alone?”
“I suspect he’ll be more willing to answer questions properly next time we talk to him but it’s possible. At any rate we need to stay vigilant, and if the boss survives…”
Mielke left Johann to draw his own conclusions before a rasping giggle began to emanate from the cell.
Rather than ponder the suspect any further, the two comrades walked back down the corridor.
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The still is from Fritz Lang's
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