March and Jaeger break into Stuckart's apartment and escape

March and Jaeger break into Stuckart's apartment and escape when SS troops arrive, turning a search for evidence into a race through the building's basement. The decisive object is a blue envelope bearing the name of Zaugg & Cie.: March takes it from the safe and passes it to Charlie, preserving a lead even as the group must abandon the apartment.

The safe and its contents

The break-in depends on Stiefel, a former bank robber who has recently served nine years in Spandau and now runs a watch-repair business in Wedding. Because another arrest would leave him with little choice but to cooperate with the police, he is working as a safe-breaker. He listens to the tumblers through a stethoscope, turning the dial a digit at a time while March waits anxiously and Jaeger questions whether March knows what he is doing.

Stiefel opens the small safe with the combination March has found in Stuckart's professional entry. He notes that people commonly choose an owner's birthday, Adolf Hitler's birthday, or the Day of National Reawakening. The safe contains papers rather than cash or jewelry: deeds to what appears to be a family home in Wiesbaden, substantial investments in Hoesch, Siemens, and Thyssen, insurance documents, and a photograph of Maria Dymarski. The papers suggest that the apartment's contents may connect Stuckart's private life and financial holdings to the inquiry, but the raid leaves March only moments to examine them.

The raid and escape route

Jaeger spots an unmarked gray BMW circling the square at speed, followed by an army truck. The vehicles stop outside, and SS troops carrying automatic rifles begin getting out. As Jaeger pushes Charlie and Stiefel toward the door, March continues rifling through the papers. He finds an open blue envelope containing something heavy; its visible letterhead reads Zaugg & Cie., Bankiers. He puts it in his pocket rather than leave it behind.

With the entrance buzzer sounding urgently downstairs, March orders the others to the basement and the elevator. He stays long enough to return the papers to the safe, close it, turn the dial, and replace the mirror, but there is no time to repair the broken seal on the apartment door. The elevator passes the ground floor and opens onto an empty basement while the pursuers are above. March leads the group into the bomb shelter, where the air-vent grating is still leaning against the wall.

Stiefel throws his bag into the air shaft and climbs after it. When he cannot get a grip on the smooth wall, March and Jaeger lift him by the legs until he can get through. Jaeger then recognizes that he is too large to follow. He offers to stay behind so the others can escape, but March refuses to leave him and changes the plan: he gives Charlie the envelope in case they are searched, tells her to wait for word and tell nobody, and lifts her into the shaft. He replaces the grating and kicks away the chair as the SS enter the basement passage.

What the envelope carries forward

The envelope's banking letterhead gives the escape a consequence beyond simply getting away. March has secured an identifiable lead from Stuckart's papers, and Charlie now carries it beyond the immediate danger. Later evidence in the investigation explains why a Swiss bank connection matters: after 1939, Swiss banks devised numbered deposit accounts that could be accessed with a box, a number, a key, and an authorization letter, allowing assets to be claimed without the bank handling the transaction directly. The evidence from the apartment establishes the Zaugg & Cie. connection, while the later explanation clarifies the wider mechanism; the scene itself does not disclose the envelope's full contents.

Significance of the sequence

The escape is built around competing obligations under surveillance: preserve evidence, protect the people present, and avoid capture. March risks remaining in the apartment to retrieve a single envelope, but then places it in Charlie's hands rather than keep it on himself. Jaeger's offer to remain behind and March's refusal expose how quickly the investigation becomes a test of loyalty as well as nerve. The basement shelter and air shaft provide a narrow physical route out, while the envelope carries the investigation onward into the financial trail surrounding Stuckart.