be. Harry had done his research and knew that the
history professor had been in the Resistance
movement. Although Even Juul was retired, he was
still considered to be Norway’s foremost expert on
the history of the German Occupation and the
Nasjonal Samling.
Harry bent down to take off his shoes. On the
wall directly in front of him hung old, slightly
faded black and white photographs in small
frames. One of them showed a young lady in
nurse’s uniform. Another, a young man in a white
coat.
They went into the sitting room where a greying
Airedale stopped barking and instead dutifully
sniffed Harry’s crotch before walking over and
lying down beside Juul’s armchair.
‘I’ve been reading some of your articles about
Fascism and National Socialism in Dagsavisen,’
Harry said after they had sat down.
‘My goodness, so Dagsavisen readers do exist
then?’ Juul smiled.
‘You seem keen to warn us against today’s neo-
Nazism?’
‘Not to warn, I am merely pointing out some
historical parallels. It’s an historian’s duty to
uncover, not to judge.’ He lit his pipe. ‘Many
people believe that right and wrong are fixed
absolutes. That is incorrect, they change over time.
The job of the historian is primarily to find the
historical truth, to look at what the sources say and
present them, objectively and dispassionately. If
historians were to stand in judgment on human
folly, our work would seem to posterity like
fossils – the remnants of the orthodoxy of their
time.’
A blue column of smoke rose into the air. ‘But
this isn’t what you came here to ask, I imagine?’
‘We’re wondering if you can help us to find a
man.’
‘You mentioned that on the telephone. Who is this
man?’
‘We don’t know. But we have deduced that he has
blue eyes, he’s Norwegian and is seventy years
old. And he speaks German.’
‘And?’
‘That’s it.’
Juul laughed. ‘Well, there are a few to choose
from then.’
‘Right. There are 158,000 men in this country
over seventy, and I would guess around 100,000 of
them have blue eyes and can speak German.’
Juul raised an eyebrow. Harry gave a sheepish
smile.
‘Office for National Statistics. I checked, for fun.’
‘So how do you think I can help?’
‘I’m coming to that. This person reportedly said
that he hasn’t handled a weapon in over fifty years.
I thought, that is, my colleague thought, that over
fifty is more than fifty, but less than sixty.’
‘Logical.’
‘Yes, she’s very . . . er, logical. So, let’s assume
it was fifty-five years ago. Then we’d be smack in
the middle of the Second World War. He’s around
twenty and uses a weapon. All Norwegians
privately owning a gun had to hand them over to
the Germans. So where is he?’
Harry counted on three fingers: ‘Either he’s in the
Resistance, or he’s fled to England, or he’s at the
Eastern Front fighting alongside the Germans. He
speaks better German than English. Accordingly . .
.’
‘So this colleague of yours came to the
conclusion that he must have been fighting at the
front, did she?’ Juul asked.
‘She did.’
Juul sucked on his pipe. ‘Many of the Resistance
people had to learn German,’ he said, ‘in order to
infiltrate, monitor and so on. And you’re forgetting
the Norwegians in the Swedish police force.’
‘So the conclusion doesn’t stand up?’
‘Well, let me think aloud a bit,’ Juul said.
‘Roughly fifteen thousand Norwegians volunteered
for service at the front, of whom seven thousand
were called up and were thus allowed to use a
weapon. That’s a lot more than those who escaped
to England and joined up there. And even though
there were more men in the Resistance at the end
of the war, very few of them ever held a weapon.’
Juul smiled.
‘For the time being, let’s assume you’re right.
Now obviously these men fighting at the front are
not listed in the telephone directory as ex-Waffen
SS, but I imagine you have found out where to
search?’
Harry nodded.
‘The Traitors’ Archives. Filed according to
name, along with all the data from the court cases.
I’ve been through it in the course of the last few
days. I was hoping that enough of them would be
dead to make it a manageable total, but I was
wrong.’
‘Yes, they’re tough old birds,’ Juul laughed.
‘And so I come to why we called you. You know