The Murder Farm (7 page)

Maria Sterzer, age 42, farmer’s wife in Upper Tannöd

When my husband and Alois got back to our farm, they didn’t need to tell me anything. I could see something terrible must have happened from the way they were walking, long before they arrived. And when they were back sitting in our living room, both of them so pale, I knew it. You could read it in their faces, the horror. For the first few nights my husband kept waking up. The sight of the dead wouldn’t let him rest.

To think of such a thing happening right out here. You can hardly imagine it. Not that I’m surprised to hear old Danner didn’t die in his bed.

One shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, so I don’t like to talk about those dead people. We live in a small village here, you know. Any kind of tittle-tattle gets passed on, so I’d rather not say much.

All I will say is, I didn’t like the folk at that farm.

Loners, every one of them, and the old farmer in particular wasn’t a good man. You couldn’t get close to them, and I didn’t want to either. I haven’t even spoken to them since that business with Amelie.

Amelie was a very nice girl. She was a foreign worker on the Danner farm. That was still in the war. They made the POWs and all kinds of other people do forced labor on the farms. We had one from France here, our Pierre.

The men were all away in the war, except for Danner, he somehow fixed it not to get called up. He was thick as thieves with the Party people back then.

There were strict rules about the treatment of the foreign workers. But I didn’t stick to them. Our Pierre worked on the farm. I could never have run the place all on my own with the small children and my mother-in-law, God rest her soul.

My husband was at the front, and later he was a POW; he didn’t come back until ’47. And thank God he did come back in the end!

Our Pierre liked working on the land. He came from a farm himself. Without him the place would have gone downhill fast, he worked as if the farm was his own. We all got on well. We didn’t have much ourselves, but we shared what little we had with him.

When a man works as hard as that, you have to treat him decently. I mean, he’s a human being, not a beast of burden. That’s what I said to the
mayor. I told him so to his face when he tried warning me off.

All he said was, “You’d better watch your step, Frau Sterzer, many people have been strung up for less.”

I even got an anonymous letter. They were threatening to report me. All the same, I did what I thought was right. I wasn’t letting them get me down, not them.

Amelie was in a bad way. They didn’t treat her well at Danner’s farm. The old skinflint gave her hardly anything to eat, and she had to work like an ox.

And she was a delicate little thing. She didn’t come of farming stock. She was from a city in Poland, I think it was Warsaw, but I don’t know for certain.

I felt so sorry for her, poor creature. Our Pierre said Danner was chasing after her. Pestering and molesting poor Amelie, Pierre said, he even beat her. She showed Pierre the bruises, and she cried.

Seems that Danner once even hit her with a whip in the farmyard. Just because she wouldn’t do what he wanted. She had bloody welts afterward.

And do you think Frau Danner helped her? She didn’t say a word. Far from it, she tormented and harassed poor Amelie herself the whole time.

I suppose if someone’s been knocked around all their life they’ll take the chance to knock someone else about if they get it.

Amelie couldn’t bear it at the Danner farm anymore. She couldn’t run away, so she hanged herself. Poor girl. She hanged herself in the barn. In the very same barn where they found Danner himself and his family.

That’s odd, when you come to think of it.

Old Danner hushed it all up afterward, and the mayor helped him.

Pierre liked Amelie a lot. He sometimes gave her something to eat on the sly. There wasn’t much we could spare, but maybe a piece of bread, some fruit and vegetables, and now and then a little bit of sausage. He smuggled it to her in secret. Once, when she was almost at the end of her tether, she told our Pierre about her brother. He was sure to come look for her after the war was over, she said. And then she was going to tell him all about Danner. She’d tell him how badly they’d treated her on the farm, how the old man had been chasing her all the time, pestering her. Wanting her to do things she couldn’t even mention to Pierre.

At the time I wasn’t sure whether our Pierre had gotten all that right, because he didn’t speak anything but French, and German after a fashion with me.

But I haven’t been able to get Amelie’s story out of my head, not since they found them all dead. In that very same barn. Who knows, maybe Amelie’s brother did come to find her after all and took revenge on Danner for her?

He wouldn’t be the first. There are several who’ve taken revenge on their tormentors. You keep hearing such stories, off the record. There’s plenty of skeletons in closets around here. It was a bad time, and there were many bad people around then.

Franz-Xavier Meier, age 47, Mayor

It was around five when Hansl Hauer showed up at my house. The lad was quite beside himself.

“They’ve killed everyone up at the Danner farm,” he was shouting. “Killed them all stone dead.” He kept shouting it. “They’ve killed every last one of them. They’re all dead.”

And I was to call the police at once, which naturally I did.

I drove to the Danner family’s property in my car. I found Georg Hauer there, Hansl’s father, and Johann Sterzer, along with Alois Huber, Sterzer’s future son-in-law. He works for Sterzer on his farm.

After a short conversation with the three of them, I decided not to view the scene of the crime for myself.

A little later the officers from the local police arrived, and I determined that my presence was no longer necessary. I’m afraid there’s nothing
more I can say that might help to clear up this terrible crime.

Well, of course I was shocked, what do you think? But it’s not for me to find out what happened, that’s the business of the authorities responsible, in this case the police.

And that’s just what I told the journalists from the newspaper, in almost the same words.

Oh, don’t you start on about that woman, that Polish foreign worker! I can’t tell you anything about that. I am afraid the records of the incident were lost in ’45. My predecessor as mayor could tell you more if he were still alive.

I was a prisoner in a French POW camp at the time myself.

When the Americans came here and liberated us in April ’45, I wasn’t home yet. They took over the then mayor’s house and the village hall. They commandeered those buildings as their temporary quarters. The buildings were devastated by the time they moved out.

They acted like vandals. They shot at porcelain plates in the garden with their pistols. “Tap shooting,” that’s what they called it. Just imagine. After they left, everything was laid waste or useless. Those fine gentlemen had taken what little was still of any use away with them.

So most of the files from the time before the fall of the regime had been destroyed, too. We suffered severe damage, as I am sure you will understand.

And for that reason I can’t tell you much about the events leading to the death of the Polish foreign worker.

As far as I know, the Polish worker, the one assigned to the Danner family, hanged herself. She was buried here in the village.

There were foreign workers everywhere. We prisoners of war in France were put to work ourselves.

Do you imagine we were always well treated? I for one didn’t go and hang myself.

Nor do I see what this could have to do with the dreadful crime committed against the Danner family. This is simply an attempt to revive old stories. There are some people, you know, who just can’t leave such stories alone. The war’s been over for ten years. So let’s lay those stories to rest once and for all. Times then were bad enough.

We all suffered. Everyone has his own burden to bear, but the world goes on turning. Times change. Wondering “what if?” does no good. No good at all.

Of course there were injustices, of course there were moments of despair. Every one of us went through them. But the war’s over. It’s been over almost ten years now, time we started forgetting.

I was a prisoner of war myself, and believe you me, it wasn’t easy. I was lucky. I managed to get home soon after the end of the war. Others didn’t have as much luck, but what about it? What’s over is over.

There are plenty of other problems, after all. But slowly we’re going uphill in this country. Don’t you read the paper?

I mean, look at the international situation. Right at this moment in time, since the end of the Korean War, the tension has relaxed slightly, yes, I agree. Our fears of another war are gone for the moment. But I can tell you, the communists in Russia won’t let it stop at that. You don’t suppose this man Khrushchev is any better than his predecessor, do you?

Very well, so now the last prisoners of war are coming home. At last, after almost ten years, but that doesn’t change anything; that doesn’t change the potential danger from the East. That’s why it was so important for us to sign the Paris treaties.

We have to act as an opposite pole. If only because—perhaps most of all because—the world has changed since the war.

That chapter, I would like to think, is now finally closed.

I do beg you not to go chasing after every rumor. I can guess where you heard that one.

And was that lady’s own conduct always so far above reproach that she can point the finger at others? I wouldn’t want to judge her, but one hears this and that.

I mean, there’s her husband at the front, defending his homeland, and his own wife stabs him in the back, has a relationship with a Frenchman.
He’s fighting for the Fatherland and she fraternizes with the enemy.

The enemy is always the enemy, that’s what we said at the time, and you can’t deny the truth of it even now.

So kindly listen to me. The names of honest folk are being blackened, a whole village community is dragged into it. Just because a half-Jewish Polish worker hanged herself. The girl was probably unbalanced.

In my view, drawing such conclusions so long after the event is more than distasteful. That kind of thing gets no one anywhere. So let’s stick to the facts. Speculations of any kind are not constructive.

Particularly in the case of such an abominable crime. So if you would now excuse me . . .

O King of Glory,

O Son of God, Jesus Christ,

O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world,

grant them peace!

O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world,

grant them peace!

O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world,

grant them peace everlasting!

Anna Hierl, age 24, formerly maid at the Danner farm

I saw it coming. Was I surprised? No, not me. Shaken, yes, I knew them all, I lived under the same roof with them for a while. But surprised, no, I wasn’t surprised. Somehow I’d always been expecting some such thing.

Old Danner liked to hire drifters to help with the harvest, you know.

Why? Well, he paid them less. Simple. You can pay a man less if he has a record and don’t fancy being reported to the police.

A fellow like that, there’s times he’s glad to have a roof over his head and a hot meal. And Danner was glad, too, on account of he didn’t have to pay them much. That was old Danner for you. Sly as a fox, and a skinflint.

I remember the old man showing one of those good-for-nothing deadbeats all over the farm. Now that’s something I can’t understand. Gave him a guided tour. Strutting around proud as a
cockerel, chest swelling, backbone straight like he’d swallowed a poker.

He’d take those vagabonds all around the house and the farmyard.

Showed them all the machinery, so no wonder if one of them happens to vanish a couple of days later, together with some of the household goods.

I always locked the door of my room when one of those gallows birds was around on the farm.

There was one of them at the place once. Karl, that was his name, I think. Yes, I’m sure it was Karl. None of that lot liked giving a surname.

Easy to see why.

This Karl helped the old man get timber in from the woods.

It was right after the big storm in June last year.

They were getting in the trees that had keeled over in the storm. That’s not easy work. It’s been known for a man to be killed by a tree, or lose a leg. After a storm like that the trees are lying around all over the place. Sometimes stretched so taut, they spring right back when they’re felled.

Well, after less than a week, off went Karl. Disappeared without trace, and a couple of chickens along with him, not to mention some clothes and shoes.

And when someone tried breaking into the farm late last year I’d had enough. I looked around for a new job.

What happened then? I wasn’t at the farm myself, it was Barbara, Danner’s daughter, told me next day. I was visiting my auntie in Endlfeld, she was sick.

It was a Sunday, imagine that, a Sunday. While God-fearing folk are at church. I went to see my auntie straight after going to church. Barbara Spangler and her family, they went out into the graveyard after the service and then home.

When they got close to the front door, they saw that someone had tried forcing it. You could see the marks on the wood of the door, scratches everywhere. Like they were made by a chisel. It’s a wonder the burglar didn’t break the door right down.

Seems he’d been disturbed and ran for it. Just took to his heels and scarpered.

A thing like that didn’t surprise me, I mean any of the deadbeats that worked at the farm knew very well there was plenty to be had at Danner’s place.

Not just chickens neither. He always had plenty of cash stashed away in the house. That was an open secret. Anyone who ever worked at the farm knew it.

So well, like I said before, after that I didn’t fancy staying on at the farm anymore.

I was afraid the housebreaker might try it again, maybe at night next time. You hear about such things every day.

I mean, the farm’s very isolated. Ever so lonely.

So I didn’t want to be out there with them when winter came, not on your life. Twilight starts falling at three-thirty then, and by four o’clock it’s dark. You can’t see or hear a thing. So I packed up my belongings and went off. I found a new place right away.

If I hadn’t left the farm then, who knows, I might well be dead now too. No thanks. I fancy living a little longer, I like life far too much.

Otherwise I could have got on all right with old Danner and his family. I know the rumors. He was odd, so folk say. Him and his whole family.

Maybe that’s true, but I got along well enough with them. I did my work, and on my days off I went dancing or I visited my family.

Work’s work. You always have to work. No one’s going to pay you for idling around. A maid has to be able to work hard, and I like the work, too. Then on my free days I make sure I go out and have a good time.

No, I was never pestered by old Danner. But I’d have known how to deal with that, believe you me. I don’t let anyone take liberties with me.

What was the relationship like between Danner and his daughter Barbara Spangler?

Ah, I see what you’re getting at.

Well, I can’t really say, I didn’t let it bother me, and anyway I wasn’t at the farm all that long, just from spring to autumn.

Did Barbara Spangler sleep in the same bedroom as her father, like some people say? I can’t swear to anything of that kind.

People talk a lot. I can only say what I saw. And it was only once I saw the two of them together, in the barn. I’m not even quite certain of that.

I went in and there was the two of them lying in the hay. Barbara jumped up just as I came into the barn. If she hadn’t jumped up I wouldn’t have seen her.

I acted like I hadn’t noticed anything, and I didn’t either. Nothing precise anyway.

None of my business, you see. Am I the priest or a judge? What’s it got to do with me?

Barbara was ever so embarrassed by the whole thing, she said if she’d known I was going to go into the barn again she wouldn’t have gone out.

Do I think those children are her father’s? Well, what a question to ask!

You want me to be honest, yes, I do, but of course I can’t know for sure. I mean, I wasn’t there, was I? But I did hear Danner telling that deadbeat Karl how his daughter didn’t need any husband. She had him, he said. I heard that with my own ears.

It was because that Karl asked about Barbara Spangler’s husband. Where was he, he asked? Maybe he had his eye on Barbara. Well, he’d have gotten nowhere with her.

Neat and smart, Barbara looked, but she was a proud one, too. Took after her father.

As for Barbara Spangler’s mother, she never said much.

Grumpy, some called her. That’s not right, though. Worn out by troubles, disappointed by life, that’s what she was.

She just looked after her grandchildren and did the cooking. In the evening she always sat holding her prayer book. It was a very old prayer book, all shabby and worn. She always sat there holding that book and muttering to herself.

But once old Frau Danner did tell me her daughter’s husband was a terrible scoundrel and had emigrated to America.

He got the money for it from old Danner. I still remember how surprised I was the old lady told me that, because she hardly ever said anything at all.

There she sat, and she started talking. At first I didn’t even realize she was talking to me. She spoke so softly I thought, oh, she’s praying, and she couldn’t look you in the eye when she spoke to you.

Except with her grandchildren. She was a really loving grandma to those kids. I guess they were her only joy. Marianne and little Josef.

She can’t have had a good life with that husband of hers, that’s for sure.

He was a bit younger than her, and I’m sure he just married her for the farm. It belonged to the old woman, you see, and Danner married into it. I think she was sometimes afraid of him, because otherwise a person can’t keep her mouth shut all her life, can she? She must have been afraid of her husband, bad-tempered as he
was. There was many a day when he didn’t have a kind word for his wife. He snapped at her, and she always took it lying down. I never heard her raise her voice to him once, not once. Not even the time when he threw the food all over the floor just because he said her “eternal praying” was getting on his nerves. He swept the dish off the table with his arm, and the food splashed all over the room. Old Frau Danner stood there and then cleaned it all up without saying anything. Just stood there like a beaten dog. And Barbara watched as she mopped it up. Me, I wouldn’t have put up with that.

And now I guess you want to hear the story about Hauer, too, am I right? Yes, I thought I knew what you were after straight away.

Well, Hauer, he’s their nearest neighbor. You can see his farm from the attic window. Yes, from the Danner farm they can look right across to Hauer’s property. It lies on the other side of the meadows. A fine place it is.

Ten minutes on foot, I should say, if you walk fast. I never timed it.

Like I said, from the attic window you can see it, but only from there, that’s the only place.

Hauer was chasing after Barbara. Very keen on her, he was. The little boy’s supposed to be his. At least, he claimed to be the father.

Well, what I mean is he had himself entered as Josef’s father at the registry office, in the register of births.

Barbara Spangler’s husband left right after their wedding, you see. Marianne wasn’t born yet. That’s what Hauer told me. Said he disappeared overnight. Here one day, gone the next.

Anyway, that’s what Hauer said, but no one at the farm ever mentioned it.

Hauer’s wife died three years back. She’d been ill for quite a long time. He told me so himself, and I heard it from people in the village, too.

She had cancer, it seems, and she lingered on for a long time.

Just as soon as his wife was dead, Hauer started his affair with Barbara Spangler. She was in love with him to start with, mad for him, she positively pressed herself on him soon after his wife died, he said.

Whether that’s true I don’t know. I don’t get the impression that Hauer would be much of a ladies’ man.

I’m only telling you what he told me himself. Hauer can get quite talkative when he’s had a beer too many.

Barbara must have fallen pregnant right after they got together. Then, once the little boy was born—little Josef, that was—she suddenly didn’t want anything to do with him anymore. He just had to register that he was the father, and after that she gave him the brush-off, or leastways that’s what he told me. He wanted to report Barbara and her father, so as their relationship would be brought out into the light of day. Because it’s a
mortal sin, he said, it’s against nature, and so on and so forth.

But then Hauer had had one too many when he told me the story. At the church dedication festival, it was. He told me all the ins and outs of it.

I wasn’t really listening to the whole palaver, and I didn’t understand most of it either, he was so drunk.

I just happen to have seen for myself how once old Danner wouldn’t let Hauer see Barbara, you could say he hid her from him. He said she wasn’t at home. Although she was sitting in the little room next to the kitchen all the time.

If you want more details you’ll have to talk to Hauer himself. I’m not saying any more about it, you just get involved in tittle-tattle that way.

Well, if there’s no more questions you want to ask, I’ll go back to my work now, Like I said, no one gets paid for idling around.