I began to see that these fruitless discussions could go on indefinitely, and this prospect alarmed me; so I decided to change tactics: prepare a concrete suggestion, and have it endorsed by the others, or else modify it a little, if necessary. For that, I decided to come to an agreement first with the specialists Weinrowski and Isenbeck. When I approached Weinrowski, he quickly understood my intentions and promised me his support; as for Isenbeck, he would do whatever he was told to do. But we still lacked concrete data. Weinrowski believed the IKL had already carried out research on this subject; I sent Isenbeck to Oranienburg with a mission order; triumphant, he brought back a pile of files: at the end of the 1930s, the medical department of the IKL had in fact carried out a set of experiments, at the KL Buchenwald, on minimal feeding for inmates subjected to forced labor; with punishment or the threat of punishment as the sole incentive, they had tested a large number of formulas, frequently changing the rations and weighing the subjects regularly; a whole array of statistics had been generated from this. While Isenbeck analyzed these reports, I talked with Weinrowski about what we called the “secondary factors,” such as hygiene, cold, illness, beatings. I had a copy of my Stalingrad report sent to me by the SD, which dealt with precisely these subjects; skimming through it, Weinrowski exclaimed: “Oh, but you quote Hohenegg!” At these words, the memory of that man, buried inside me like a glass bubble, detached from the depths and rose up, gathering speed by the second, before bursting at the surface: how curious that is, I said to myself, I hadn’t thought of him in a long time. “Do you know him?” I asked Weinrowski, overcome with intense emotion.—“Of course! He’s one of my colleagues from the faculty of medicine in Vienna.”—“So he’s still alive?”—“Yes, of course, why not?”
I immediately set out looking for him: he was well and truly alive, and I had no difficulty finding him; he too was working in Berlin, at the medical department of the Bendlerstrasse. Happy, I called him on the telephone without giving my name; his throaty, musical voice sounded a little annoyed when he answered: “Yes?”—“Professor Hohenegg?”—“Speaking. What’s this about?”—“I’m calling from the SS. It’s about an old debt.” His voice became a shade more irritated. “What are you talking about? Who are you?”—“I’m talking about a bottle of Cognac you promised me nine months ago.” Hohenegg let out a long burst of laughter: “Alas, alas, I have to confess something to you: I thought you were dead, and I drank it to your health.”—“Man of little faith.”—“So you are alive.”—“And promoted: Sturmbannführer.”—“Bravo! Well, I’ll just have to unearth another bottle.”—“I give you twenty-four hours: we’ll drink it tomorrow night. In exchange, dinner will be on me. At Borchardt’s, eight o’clock, does that suit you?” Hohenegg gave a long whistle: “They must have given you a raise too. But allow me to point out that it’s not quite oyster season yet.”—“That’s all right; we’ll eat wild boar pâté. Till tomorrow.”
