Walter Rauff’s concept of a mobile van for killing did not end with the defeat of Nazism in 1945. Over the last fifteen years it has become the preferred method of execution in the People’s Republic of China. Amnesty International has highlighted the use of ‘execution vans … like specially outfitted ambulances to … carry out its exceedingly large number of executions. The method of killing in these vans is lethal injection, which has slowly but surely been replacing the firing squad as China’s preferred means of execution, and both lethal injection and the vans are believed to faciliatate the widespread practice of harvesting organs of the executed prisoners.’
The Irish Times has reported that Jinguan Auto in Chongquing – a manufacturer of ambulances, police trucks and armour-plated limousines – has spotted a gap in the market, and is now selling execution vans to the Chinese government. Jinguan Auto’s spokesman said ‘each van was a refitted 17-seat passenger minibus, about seven metres long … the criminal is tied hand and foot to a stretcher, and a cocktail of lethal toxins is injected. There is a video monitoring system to ensure the execution complies with state rules.’ The spokesman added, ‘We have not sold our execution (vans) to foreign countries yet. But if they need one, they could contact our company directly.’
7
Interlude in Which We Meet a Figure We Will be Returning To … The Architect in London; First Trip
Falling through the cracks of history, the details that would tell us so much. The thirty-one-year-old man flying to London, his first time in Britain, another commission from the government in Berlin. Looking out of the window, and seeing, beneath the propellers, the fields of Kent almost ready for harvest, knots of woodland, clustered towns. Flying lower now, his architect’s eyes noticing every detail of the church spires and even how the roof constructions differ from what he’s known in Germany. July 1936. He sits back into his seat as the plane begins its descent, thinks back over the last four years, which have seemed unreal. Just four summers ago, his career drifting, almost no work, he and Margret about to leave for a month’s canoeing in the East Prussian lakes. All packed and ready to go, the canoes already at the railway station. Then the phone call from Karl Hanke. The invitation to do the Gau Berlin HQ in Voss-strasse, but so rushed, weeks only to complete the refurbishment. Working eighteen-hour days, getting it finished on time, on budget. A sense of satisfaction but no more than that. Yet, in retrospect, that was the turning point … The following year, a week after the March elections, being invited to Berlin again by Hanke, again the urgency in his voice. So driving through the night from Mannheim with Margret. The next day, meeting Hanke, being told that Goebbels wanted him to convert his new ministry building on Wilhelmsplatz. Within a few minutes, meeting Goebbels and being driven to the old Leopold Palace, walking through those rooms with him, as if in a dream. ‘Light, that’s what’s needed here! Light and clear lines – you can get rid of all the stucco, all the heaviness …’ Again, working through the night, again finished within weeks.
The embassy car waiting as Albert steps down from the plane, and soon they’re heading for Carlton House Terrace, London, only known from newsreels and photographs until now; he looks intently as the car sweeps along streets lined by plane trees, overtaking trams and the famous red buses. He asks the driver what the imposing buildings on the left are. Ah yes, of course – the Museum of Victoria and Albert, and there the Museum of Natural History. Large national flags decking the front – ah, the pure brilliance of flags! He smiles, remembering the famous Tempelhof Rally of May 1933, and all the fuss that had been made of him after that. But the idea was so simple! Just the platform, those three, huge flags behind Hitler and some clever lighting. The extraordinary reaction that followed – apart from his mentor Heinrich Tessenow, who, Albert flinches at the memory, thought it was ‘showy, that’s all’. Then being asked to design for the even bigger rally at Nuremberg. Completing the initial drawings and then being taken to Hitler’s private apartment on Prinzregentstrasse in Munich for him to approve the designs. The first time he’d ever met the Führer. Hands shaking as he put the drawings down on the table. No eye contact. The pistol on the table. The curt ‘Agreed’, and then being ushered out. All over in a few minutes. The moments that change the course of a life, many lives … Now sweeping through Hyde Park Corner and along Piccadilly, Albert’s mind replays the past.
The next promotion – being appointed to work as Paul Troost’s liaison man in Berlin on the rebuilding of the Reich Chancellery – the most prestigious architectural project in Germany. Showing Hitler round the site on some days, but he was only one of several architects there, and very much the junior party. So the astonishment that day as Hitler turns to him and says: ‘Come up and have lunch.’ The next moments more like a dream. Protesting that his suit had got plaster on the sleeve, Hitler waving his concern away, ‘We’ll fix that upstairs.’ Being taken into his private suite and given Hitler’s own dark blue jacket, with the unique, golden party badge. Floating on air, walking into the dining room behind the most powerful man in the world, wearing his jacket. Goebbels appalled, asking what on earth he was up to. Hitler interceding with a smile, ‘He’s wearing my jacket.’ And then sitting down next to this man admired more than any other in Germany, who had chosen him, the unknown young architect, as his sole conversational partner that day! The beginning of a kind of love … And only a year before, feeling like a nobody, barely employed in a provincial town, riddled with doubts about the career he’d chosen, diffident, still under the thumb of his father.
And now here he is – the famous young architect Speer, pulling up at the pillared London embassy in a limousine, being greeted by Ambassador Ribbentrop and his wife. Here to oversee the extension and refurbishment of the building in time for the coronation of the new King George VI. Germany starting an intensive diplomatic push with Britain, and the embassy must play its role, must impress.
During those summer days in London, Albert has more contact with Ribbentrop’s wife than the ambassador, who’s in a foul mood much of the time, furious with Foreign Minister Neurath back in Berlin interfering with what he sees as his role – diplomatic responsibilities in Britain. The architect’s work is less than onerous, in part because Ribbentrop’s wife already has employed an interior designer from Munich. Albert designs the central staircase, makes some other drawings to improve the windows, but he is more concerned at this time with messages coming from Berlin that Hitler is threatening to cancel the opening of the Olympic Games because of his anger over the ‘modernist’ design of part of the stadium – too much glass and concrete. There are daily phone calls, he makes suggestions about removing the glass and facing the concrete with stone; this could be done before the Olympics are due to open, as long as Hitler and the original architect approve the changes. A sense of the world now turning its eyes to Germany in a few weeks’ time. A chance to demonstrate a vital country moving forwards. Albert feeling himself absolutely at one with the zeitgeist, and sensing that his star is still ascending …