‘Back in 1907 a brilliant young German anthropologist, Eugen Fischer, arrived in the desolate, diamond-rich German colony of Sud West Afrika, now Namibia. He was following in the footsteps of his hero, the great British scientist – and founder of modern eugenics – Francis Galton.
‘What Fischer found amazed him. By studying the khoisan – the “Bushmen” of the Kalahari, and their close cousins, the Basters, a crossbreed between Bushmen and Dutch settlers, Fischer discovered that in the very recent past mankind had…possibly speciated.’
Amy said nothing. David said nothing. Angus was wearing a distant smile. Simon continued:
‘The process of speciation – the dividing of one species into new species – is of course crucial to evolution. Yet the process is itself ill defined. When does a new breed or strain of an organism become a subspecies, and when can it be termed a truly separate species? Geneticists, zoologists and taxonomists still argue this point; but no one denies that speciation occurs.’
Simon turned a page.
‘But hitherto nobody had expected that speciation might have happened to Homo sapiens within the last few thousand years. As Angus says, some experts believe a small form of human might have evolved fairly recently in Asia – Homo floresiensis. Hominids like this might even explain those Biblical myths of non-Adamite humans, implied in the first verses of Genesis. A genuine folk memory of small, dwarvish, almost-men.
‘But that is still ten thousand years back. And yet, as Fischer investigated the Khoisan and the Basters he became convinced that something akin to speciation was right now taking place in Africa: either the Bushmen were a new species, or they were close to becoming so.
‘This discovery affirmed the racism already present in Fischer’s thinking. Like many scientists of his time, Fischer believed without embarrassment in a hierarchy of human races, with whites at the top, and aborigines and black Africans at the bottom. He now put the Bushman even lower than that, beyond the family of man.’
David changed gear to overtake a big red lorry with Intereuropa written on the side. He asked: ‘Yet this guy Eugen Fischer liked Jews? The Kellermans?’
‘Yes,’ Simon answered. ‘Fischer was, ironically, no anti-Semite. He appreciated the friendship of other clever men, especially if they were wealthy and glamorous. He became friends with the Kellerman dynasty, German-Jewish diamond merchants making millions from the mineral-rich sands of the Namibian desert. This friendship was to prove crucial in the following decades.’
Another page was turned.
‘Then, in 1933, Adolf Hitler came to power. He had avidly devoured Fischer’s books during his imprisonment as a young man. Now, as Der Führer, Hitler had the means to employ Fischer properly. First, Hitler made Fischer a rector of Berlin University. Then, in 1940, he despatched Fischer to a new German concentration camp at Gurs, near the genetically fascinating Basque corner of France.
‘Adolf Hitler had a job in mind for the great scientist. To validate Nazi race science. And so, in Gurs, Fischer was told to gather the most interesting human genetic specimens in one place, for intense medical testing: gypsies and Jews, French and Basques, Spanish and Cagots.
‘By comparing the data derived from these subjects, with the data already derived from Fischer’s Namibia research, the Führer hoped that his prize scientist would provide a definitive, authoritative and genetically provable racial hierarchy: final evidence that Germans were at the top, and Jews were at the bottom.
‘Fischer was gratifyingly successful in these endeavours. In the first year, ably assisted by some brilliant German doctors, he discovered DNA. The basis of all modern genetics.’
Simon closed his notebook.
Amy said: ‘But what did Fischer discover then? In his second year at Gurs? The frightening and terrible discovery? What was that?’
Angus was no longer smiling, he was frowning.
‘Well…that’s the motherlode, the ultimate question. And that is what we are about to find out.’ He scanned the rainy road ahead. ‘If we don’t die first.’
46
Twenty minutes down the Czech motorway, they found the turning for Zbiroh. It curved between the hills and the woods and the scrappy Czech farms. David buzzed down his car window, feeling the need for cold wet air on his anxious face. Anything to drive away the deeper worries. He actively wanted some kind of physical pain – to mask the mental pain.
‘Take a left here.’
They exited the motorway, swept around a final wooded turning: and they saw: Zbiroh Castle.
It was enormous. A vast, ugly, yellow, neo-classical palace, haughty and angular, sitting atop a rocky rise. The village of Zbiroh was sprawled