69
Munich Police Department
THOMAS BAUER, RUNNING LATE from his dishwashing shift at the Osteria Bavaria, threw on his patrol uniform. “Where is everyone?” he asked.
“Some special assignment,” he was told.
Bauer didn’t dare let his imagination run wild. The city was essentially under martial law, Hitler’s armed SA and SS thugs having at least as much authority as the police.
He began his shift as always, responding to purse snatchings and robberies and various acts of violence.
The city was on edge since the Reichstag Fire Decree, as it was called, which had suspended all civil liberties throughout the country.
Violence against immigrants and Jews, already high, was on a grand upswing.
Jewish rabbis and community leaders were disappearing by the day.
As Bauer turned the corner in a small neighborhood in northeast Bogenhausen, he saw a mob down the block and a number of uniformed officers as well. He heard chants of “Communists, leave! Communists, leave!”—a common refrain over the last several days.
He saw the police chief, Heinrich Müller, in full dress uniform, standing with a bullhorn outside the Munich branch of the KPD, the Communist Party of Germany.
“All members of the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands shall voluntarily remove themselves from the premises and submit to protective custody,” he called out.
“You will be taken by force if necessary.”
The crowd continued its chant—“Communists, leave!”—as members of the Munich Police Department thrust men onto the cobblestone street, even those surrendering peacefully, slapping them into handcuffs and loading the detainees onto large trucks.
“What’s going on?” Bauer asked a fellow patrol officer as Chief Müller repeated his orders via megaphone.
SA troopers, in their brown uniforms and swastika armbands, rifles slung over their shoulders, started kicking the detainees lying prone on the ground. “Traitors!” they shouted. “Bolshevik sympathizers!”
“Hey! Stop!” Bauer forced his way through the throng of officers and onlookers. “These people work for a political party. They aren’t resisting! They aren’t traitors!”
“Arrest that man!” one of the SA troopers shouted, pointing at Bauer. “Those who defend traitors are traitors themselves!”
Two detectives—men Bauer knew well, had worked with for years—did not hesitate to grab him by each arm. Bauer lashed back, knocking one of them off-balance, before turning to the second detective and raising his fist.
“Stop! That is a direct order!”
Bauer turned and saw Kriminalinspektor Peter Helldorff rushing to intervene. “I will handle this man. Return to your affairs, detectives.”
Helldorff turned Bauer away from the crowd. “Bauer, get out of here right now!” the young man hissed. “Before they arrest you!”
“They can’t arrest me.” Bauer whipped his arm free.
“They can and they will. They can place anyone they want in protective custody. Haven’t you been paying attention?”
As they stood looking back at the headquarters, a member of the local KPD came out denouncing the aggression of the “fascist regime.” SA storm troopers beat him with the butts of their rifles, leaving him stumbling and bloody before he lost his footing and, to the cheers of the mob, face-planted on the cobblestone street.
“They’re going to kill that man,” Bauer said, stunned. “Right in front of half of our police force. And we’re doing nothing!”
More brownshirts came from the KPD offices, carrying pamphlets and various papers, throwing them into a pile in the middle of the street. With the exuberant encouragement of the crowd, they set fire to the papers, a blaze of orange flame.
Helldorff grabbed Bauer by the shirt. “You were right,” he said in a harsh whisper. “You were right, and I was wrong. I made a grave mistake. If I could go back and change what I did, I would. But I can’t now.”
The KPD leader lying bloody on the street tried to crawl forward. The SA troopers kicked him, spat on him, tore his shirt. One guard went so far as to urinate on the man’s back.
All the while, the crowd pumped their fists and cried out in wild celebration as the Munich police officers stood by silently.
“What’s happening to this country?” Bauer mumbled.
“It’s already happened,” said Helldorff. “There’s no turning back now.”