The Generals by Per Wahlöö Read Free Book Online Page A

what way was Velder induced to give these detailed accounts of his crimes? So that we shall be able to judge the value and truthfulness of the accused’s already approved and recorded evidence during the rest of the session, we must at least know something about the methods used during the investigation. I presume torture has been used, but do not know to what extent.
    Colonel Pigafetta
: Agreed. We ought to have that cleared up. It will facilitate judgement.
    Captain Schmidt
: I had considered the point that the presidium would sooner or later ask for information on this point. My own knowledge of the subject is far from satisfactory. I have thereforemade an arrangement with an expert witness. If the court will adjourn for a meal, for instance, I am prepared to present this witness within an hour.
    Colonel Orbal
: Eat—God, that’s the first sensible thing that’s been said today. What are your cooks like, Pigafetta?
    Colonel Pigafetta
: Better than your plumbers, anyhow. And I’ve got female servants in the mess.
    Colonel Orbal
: The court is adjourned for two hours.
    *   *   *
    Lieutenant Brown
: Is this extra-ordinary court martial prepared to continue the session?
    Colonel Orbal
: Of course.
    Lieutenant Brown
: The Prosecuting Officer requests to be allowed to call Max Gerthoffer, Laboratory Technologist, as witness.
    Colonel Orbal
: Let him in.
    Lieutenant Brown
: You are Max Gerthoffer, forty-two years old, employed in a civilian capacity at the Special Department of the Military Police. Do you swear by Almighty God to keep strictly to the truth?
    Gerthoffer
: I do.
    Captain Schmidt
: If I am correctly informed, you are connected with the Special Department of the Military Police in your capacity as an expert in interrogation.
    Gerthoffer
: That definition is not entirely correct.
    Captain Schmidt
: Anyhow, you have been in charge of the Velder case for a long time?
    Gerthoffer
: Yes. Erwin Velder and I met every day over a period of fourteen months.
    Commander Kampenmann
: What we wish to know is which interrogation techniques were used and to what degree torture was used to extract confessions from the accused.
    Gerthoffer
: I am convinced that on no occasion was Velder tortured in connection with the interviews.
    Commander Kampenmann
: In other words, you maintain that the accused quite voluntarily made these remarkably detailed and apparently exact confessions?
    Gerthoffer
: Yes and no.
    Commander Kampenmann
: Would you mind expressing yourself a little less cryptically?
    Major von Peters
: Here, here. Who the hell could understand that?
    Gerthoffer
: I do not like all these questions. In fact they irritate me intensely. If you gentlemen would stop interrupting me, I will, however, try to give you an exhaustive explanation. First of all, the definition of my assignment given by the Prosecuting Officer was incorrect. I am not an interrogation technician, at least not first and foremost. I have not, for instance, carried out a single interrogation of Velder. On the other hand, I have helped to prepare him spiritually and physically for the series of interviews which have been carried out during the last two years. This is the first time I’ve seen Velder since we parted in my office two years ago. Despite this, with almost a hundred per cent certainty, I can guarantee that Velder, in each and every one of the innumerable interviews he has undergone since then, has given truthful information. In all circumstances, he has himself been convinced that his statements have been exact and he has taken great trouble not to exclude anything of interest. The reservation I made with that ‘almost a hundred per cent certainty’ concerns a small but mostly unavoidable fault-percentage, which is due to defective memory-pictures. Not so that the memory-picture is disturbed or dimmed by later stratification in his consciousness; that type of complication we have long since overcome. No, if Velder today produces a faulty