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The file shows that these classified briefing papers originate from a Major Kunyn at MGB headquarters in Berlin-Lichtenberg and state that immediately after the war Strauss was interned by the Soviets at Bornholm Camp in Rossenthin, south-east of Berlin, in the verdant Brandenburg Spreewald. The vast majority of detained Germans spent years waiting to get out and another decade coming to terms with the collapse of their splintered nation. Strauss, however, was released after only four months at Bornholm and was then allotted a villa at Pankow. This is the villa in Heinrich-Mann-Platz that we are heading towards.

Many Germans secured their freedom by declaring allegiance to the Communist Party. The MGB briefing paper stated that Strauss told his Soviet interrogators that he had been a Communist since 193 2. He claimed only to have joined the Brown Shirts and the NSDAP on the orders of the Communist Party that instructed him to go to any lengths to conceal his real political affiliations.4 What should we believe? We do not know.

We enter Pankow's Gothic-style Rathaus, with its gargoyles and faded yellow Bayreuth sandstone, practically the only thing that evokes the kind of Germany to which this suburb once belonged. 'Heinrich-Mann-Platz 4,' the counter clerk says, running a finger down the electoral role. 'Professor Dr Gerhard Strauss, this is the person now living at Heinrich-Mann-Platz 4. Here is a telephone number. I'll call it right away.' The old man is still alive. We have not contemplated this eventuality. We have hoped at best for relatives or a forwarding address, perhaps a quick glimpse of the house in which he lived. No, we say, no thanks, and walk back on to the street.

We try to settle ourselves. We want to be as natural as we can when we knock on the door. Around us through the snow we can see the outlines of large, foreboding chalets, each in its own mute private grounds, the low-slung roofs insulated by thick ice. We stand before No. 4. The gate is locked, although through a downstairs window we can see the lights of a Christmas tree. We gently rub the frosted brass plate: 'STRAUSS'. What shall we say? Something low-key and neutral. We are researching a Russian curator's life and have discovered that he had a pen pal in East Germany. We press the buzzer.

A face appears at an upstairs window. Possibly a man. 'Dr Strauss?' we call. 'Sprechen sie Englisch, bitte?' The front door rattles. Chains are unwound. A bolt is drawn back and it opens to an archer's slit. 'Dr Strauss?' we ask.

A dark-haired man dressed in black jeans and a sweater makes his way cautiously to the gate, slipping along the frosted path, inspecting us with eyes like iced water. We shout an explanation in German so broken that we can only be English. This man is about fifty. He cannot possibly have met Anatoly Kuchumov in Kaliningrad in 1949. And yet he is opening the gate and we are following him back to the house.

Inside, there is not a mark on the new stripped-pine floors except for the large black prints left by our slush-filled boots. On the whitewashed walls are moody oils and organ pipes, pieces that give the space a chaste air. The man motions us to sit beside the tree whose hand-carved ornaments are volkisch. We try and clarify who he is and what we are doing in his living room. But he will not hear it. Not just yet. We must wait. A woman's voice floats through from the hall, 'KaffeeV she calls. After ten silent minutes, listening to the percolator bubble on the hob, amaretti biscuits placed on a tray, the woman has joined the man in their living room. They serve us even though none of us know who the other is.

'Zo?' the woman says, as we drain our cups.

'So,' we say. 'Do you know Dr G. Strauss?'

'Ja, of course,' the man answers in broken English, loosening the neck of his jumper, gasping a little, as if the air is now rarer. 'Gerhard Strauss was my Vater. Warum?

'Oh, Stephan,' the woman interrupts. 'How funny you sound.' She turns to us. I teach English and Russian at the