Free The Auslander by Paul Dowswell Page A

to rule the world. Heil Hitler!’
    They all rose to salute in response and then began to applaud as Kaltenbach stood back from the stand.
    â€˜Thank you, comrades,’ he said. ‘Do we have any questions?’
    A student in a black uniform asked how long it would be before research into racial diagnosis would offer irrefutable evidence of Jewishness. Kaltenbach assured them such a breakthrough would come within a decade.
    â€˜We are making great strides in this area,’ he said. ‘For example, we know that some races – Ashkenazi Jews for one – are more resistant to the tuberculosis virus than others, such as West African bushmen. The answer lies in the presence, or lack of, certain defence enzymes in the blood, and these characteristics, when fully understood, will aid such a diagnosis.’
    Another of the young men in the black uniforms said that he had recently returned from the fighting in the Ukraine where he had been serving in the medical corps. When supplies ran low, he reported, it was common practice to use the local population as involuntary blood donors. Could the Professor see any danger in that?
    Kaltenbach was noncommittal. ‘On this point Racial Science is undecided. For myself, I would say it would be a last resort. Almost like taking blood from a farm animal.’
    The audience sniggered.
    Another student – one of the young women in white coats who looked very young – wanted to know why it was so necessary to develop these diagnostic tools. ‘Surely, if a subject looks Aryan, they are essentially Aryan?’
    The audience prickled with hostility. The woman looked flustered.
    Peter thought Kaltenbach was gallant in resisting the temptation to humiliate her further. ‘A brave question, fräulein. You are plainly new to the subject. Appearance is but one aspect of race. Let me refer you to Baur, Fischer and Lenz’s Foundation of Human Genetics and Racial Hygiene . Let me also refer you to the words of my late Swiss associate, Professor August Forel. “The law of heredity winds like a red thread through the family of every criminal, epileptic, eccentric and insane person.”
    â€˜And as with the criminal or feeble-minded person so it is with race. A German tainted with the genetic inheritance of lesser racial elements will pass on unfavourable characteristics to their offspring. A half or quarter Jew will be scheming and untrustworthy, a Slav will be lazy, and so forth. The Mendelian laws of inheritance that bequeath blond hair or blue eyes to a son or daughter also applies to the characteristics of the lesser races. The sooner our nation’s blood is cleansed of these elements the better.’
    Frau Kaltenbach applauded resolutely. It was the first time Peter had seen her look on her husband with anything other than a jaundiced eye.

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    CHAPTER 10
    Berlin
    October 12, 1941
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    Anna Reiter looked at herself in the long mirror. She was quite pleased with what she saw. She was always turning heads in the street, always fending off male attention. Sometimes it was flattering, when she liked the young man who was making eyes at her. Sometimes it was irritating, like when spotty HJ youths leered at her. She was tall – taller than most boys her age – and slim too. She wished she was shorter. She stood out too much. Her face was too angular, she was convinced, too sharp and pointy. She wished her face was a little more rounded, like Greta Garbo or that German actress who had gone off to America and everyone said was a Jew-loving traitor – Marlene Dietrich. She’d like a fuller figure too, like Bette Davis. But at least she had a good complexion.
    The Bund Deutscher Mädel – League of German Maidens – uniform fitted her well, the short fawn Kletterjacke climbing jacket tight around her small waist, the blue-black woollen skirt hanging neatly to her knees. She fussed with her neckerchief, adjusting the toggle so it