Sauer

Sauer is an SS Sturmbannführer whose pursuit of Paul von Hartmann becomes one of the novel’s recurring pressures. He first challenges Hartmann’s presence aboard Adolf Hitler’s train, then searches his belongings and follows the trail of a telephone call and an unexpected connection to Hugh Legat. His vigilance makes the journey to Munich feel less like an escape than a narrowing corridor: each time Hartmann eludes one inquiry, Sauer returns with another.

Identity and Function

Sauer is identified by his rank as a Sturmbannführer and appears among the Schutzstaffel personnel surrounding Hitler. The evidence gives him no private history or separate political programme; it defines him through his practical role as an investigator and pursuer. Near the train, he arrives with an SS adjutant and immediately questions why Hartmann has been assigned to travel with Hitler. He is not satisfied by Hartmann’s explanation that he is meant to help Dr Paul Schmidt with translation: Sauer points out that translation will only be needed in Munich and asks who authorized Hartmann’s place on the train.

That challenge establishes the terms of Sauer’s presence in the story. He watches access to Hitler closely, treating proximity as a security risk that calls for scrutiny rather than accepting the arrangements at face value. Later, when he explains his suspicion directly to Hartmann, he describes the principle behind his search: with someone so close to Hitler, he is unwilling to take chances. His pursuit is thus presented as an extension of security vigilance, though its effect is to make Hartmann’s movements increasingly difficult to conceal.

Surveillance on the Train

Sauer’s scrutiny becomes physical when he searches Hartmann’s compartment. Hartmann returns to find Sauer in his underwear, bent over the lower bunk and rummaging through the suitcase; Hartmann’s jacket has already been checked. Sauer does not pretend the intrusion is personal. He calls Hartmann a decent fellow while insisting that his closeness to Hitler makes caution necessary, then gestures to the disordered mattress for Hartmann to put everything back. The search exposes how little privacy the passenger has aboard the Führer’s train.

The timing makes the encounter especially tense. Shortly beforehand, Hartmann has concealed a pistol behind the plumbing beneath the washbasin in the train toilet. Sauer searches the suitcase and jacket, but the scene does not show him discovering the weapon. Hartmann responds to the rummaged luggage with a sarcastic offer to submit to a full body search, raising his hands. The exchange leaves the immediate danger unresolved: Sauer has searched him, but Hartmann’s concealed weapon remains outside the search described in the scene.

From Suspicion to a Pattern

At Kufstein, Sauer confronts Hartmann again over a call to Berlin. He asks Paul Schmidt whether he authorized Hartmann to telephone, and Schmidt says he did not. Hartmann replies that he did not know a simple call to the Foreign Ministry required permission. The encounter shows Sauer tracking not only Hartmann’s physical presence but also his communications. Hartmann privately casts Sauer as a terrier and himself as the rat, an image that captures the repeated pursuit without suggesting that Hartmann has found a way to end it.

Hartmann’s assessment is grounded in a series of near encounters: Sauer has nearly caught him in Wilhelmstrasse, on the train, and now at Kufstein. The sequence gives Sauer’s watchfulness a cumulative force. Each episode adds a new reason for Hartmann to expect surveillance, while Sauer’s questions connect separate actions into a possible pattern. Hartmann’s concern is no longer just that Sauer might search him again; it is that the SS officer may be working out what his movements mean.

The Case Against Hartmann

In Munich, Sauer sets out the evidence that has sharpened his suspicion. He has checked Hartmann’s employment history with the Foreign Ministry and contacted the German embassy in London. Those inquiries established that Hartmann and Legat attended the same college. Sauer says that fact alone might not be enough to persuade him, but Legat’s sudden addition to the British delegation is harder to dismiss: Legat was absent from the original list sent to Berlin the previous night, and a colleague, Syers, had been expected to travel instead.

Sauer links that change to Hartmann’s earlier behaviour. At Kufstein, Hartmann had telephoned Berlin to discover which Englishmen were coming from London; Sauer had already found the call suspicious. He now proposes a fuller explanation: Hartmann requested that Legat come to Munich and wanted to confirm that Legat would be on Chamberlain’s plane. The account is Sauer’s theory, presented as an inference from the altered delegation list, the call, and the two men’s shared history. It explains why his attention shifts from Hartmann’s access to Hitler toward Hartmann’s relationship with Legat.

The confrontation reaches Legat when Sauer asks whether he knows Hartmann. Hartmann intervenes, telling Legat that Sauer knows they are old friends and that Gestapo agents followed him to Legat’s hotel. Legat confirms their long acquaintance and asks whether there is a problem. Sauer then points to Legat’s last-minute replacement of a colleague on Chamberlain’s plane. His questions make the friendship itself part of the inquiry: what had appeared to be Hartmann’s personal history with Legat may, in Sauer’s account, be relevant to his actions in Munich.

Pursuit at Hitler’s Apartment

Later, Hartmann notices a pockmarked man in a belted brown raincoat and thinks he is Gestapo. After waiting for the man to pass out of sight, Hartmann heads toward the Führerbau, where the crowd and the building’s Nazi gathering offer little reassurance that he has escaped notice. The pockmarked figure disappears into the cloakroom; after a short wait, Sauer enters in his black uniform. The scene does not establish that the first man was Sauer. Instead, it lets Hartmann suspect one pursuer and then shows the familiar one arriving behind him.

Sauer’s next appearance carries the pursuit into Hitler’s apartment. Hartmann sees a Mercedes pull up opposite, with Joachim von Ribbentrop and Sauer getting out in a hurry before their escort car has fully stopped. As Sauer waits for a truck to pass, he looks up toward the apartment, and Hartmann instinctively draws back from the window. The scene does not state whether Sauer has seen him. It does, however, return Sauer to the centre of the danger at the moment Hartmann is alone with Hitler and touches the metal of the pistol inside his jacket before withdrawing his hand. Sauer’s recurring presence helps bind the novel’s strands of surveillance and failed action: he can keep closing in, but the evidence does not show him making the arrest or learning what Hartmann ultimately intends.