Hitler Has Won Page 5

  “Eichmann, I know about. He’s responsible for delousing Germany of the Jews, carting them off to Poland and Russia, and all that. But the Special Action Groups?” Kurt shook his head.

  Hoffman propped his elbows on the table and blinked at the smoke curling up from the tip of his vertically held cigarette. He kept his voice low. “What do you think happens to the Jews who are useless as slave labor for the Reich—the old men and women, the weak and the puny, the pregnant mothers and the small brats?”

  “Kept in concentration camps, presumably?”

  “Come now, Armbrecht! Useless Judenlausen, fed at the expense of the very people they’ve been plundering all these years? You can do better than that!”

  He could, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. In fact, he didn’t want to be sitting there any longer, listening to Hoffman.

  “What would you do with them?” Hoffman went on. “We can’t ship them off to Palestine, even if we wanted to and had the means to do it, because the British won’t allow more than fifteen thousand in every year. No other country outside the Reich wants them—not even America—and who can blame them? You want to know what the Special Action Groups are doing right now, Armbrecht, in our eastern territories?”

  There was no backing out now. He gave a grunt and waited, all emotion on ice, for Hoffman to say it.

  “They’re eliminating them, my friend. Painlessly. By the hundreds of thousands. And when the healthy ones can’t work any longer, they go the same way. It’s a rotten job, but someone has to do it. When it’s finished, we shall have solved the Jewish problem in Europe and the eastern territories for all time.”

  Kurt left Hoffman spiking his coffee with another slug of schnapps, and made his way back to his office. A vulgar, unpleasant person, Hoffman, and someone who obviously wouldn’t hesitate to lie or exaggerate to hold the attention of his audience. There could be only one reason why the Fuehrer tolerated the uncouth Bavarian among his personal entourage: a sense of loyalty toward one of the Nazi “Old Guard” of the early twenties; that, and possibly the fact that it was Hoffman who had introduced Eva Braun to the Fuehrer.

  It was odd that he should feel so pleased to find Helga Gruyten in his office, tidying up the burgeoning files in one of his steel cabinets. Her silences over the past week—apart from the formal greeting every morning and the coolly polite responses to his requests—had become irritating, and he had been seriously thinking about asking Fräulein Eppler to allot him another assistant from her pool. Now, as she turned her head briefly to acknowledge his entry, he found himself smiling and in a mood to try breaking the ice.

  “Nice dress you’re wearing, Helga. My sister has one like it.”

  “That’s hardly surprising, Herr Captain,” the voice came primly over her shoulders, “these days of standardization of design.” She turned around, and added, “I don’t recall, incidentally, inviting you to use my first name.”

  “You didn’t. But I don’t intend to go on calling you Fräulein Gruyten indefinitely, like some stuffy Prussian bureaucrat. And inside these four walls, at least, you have my invitation to call me Kurt, if the idea doesn’t shock you too much.”

  “You want me to get the sack? Fräulein Eppler has just asked me if I’d like to work full-time as your secretary.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “If she ever heard me calling you—well, by your first name, that’d be the end of that.”

  “What did you tell Fräulein Eppler?”

  “I said it might be advisable to check with you first. For all I know, you might hate the idea.”

  “And if I agree?”

  She turned back to the table, not quickly enough to hide the quick flush that stained her cheekbones. Kurt’s gaze stayed low on the graceful lines of her calves as she murmured, “Then I shall offer no resistance, of course,” then it rose to her hips as she reached for an envelope from the far side of the table. It reached her eyes in time to catch the huntress flare as she swung around and stepped briskly over to the desk, placing the sealed envelope on his blotter.

  “Starting tomorrow, then, there’ll be a desk for me in here. In the meantime—” she paused to look back at him from the door—“you know where to find me.” No “Captain.” And no “Kurt.”

  He sat down at his desk and stared for a long moment at the closed door, breathing hard through slightly parted lips. He would have to do something about this soon, but not with Helga Gruyten. Shaking his head, he reached for the envelope.

  It bore the usual outside inscription: “Bormann-Vermerke,” in bold red characters, and below this the date: “30 June, 1942.” Kurt removed the contents, a sheaf of typed pages in double spacing, and unclipped the slip of paper from the top. This read: “Notes from the Fuehrer’s Conversation: 30 June, 1942, Midday. Recorded by Dr. Picker and edited by Reichsleiter Bormann. To be returned by 6 p.m., Thursday 2 July, 1942.” This left ample time—more than three hours—for Kurt to read the transcript, make his own notes, and return the envelope to Bormann’s office.

  His eyes went straight to the underlined entry at the top of the first page.

  “Special Guests: Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop and Feldmarschall Kesselring.”

  There followed an introductory note, presumably part of Bormann’s editing:

  Foreign Minister Ribbentrop had read aloud part of a report he had just received from his Charge d’Affaires in Washington on the reaction of the American public to Germany’s invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece and Feldmarschall Rommel’s new thrust toward Cairo and the Suez Canal. The Fuehrer speaks:

  “Of course they are split down the center. On the one hand there is American Jewry, led by its lackey Roosevelt, screaming blue murder at the prospect of losing Palestine and a so-called National Home. On the other hand there are the saner influences prevailing throughout the nation, typified by the America First Committee, who strenuously oppose the spending of American blood and treasure on pulling the old imperialists’ chestnuts out of the fire. Additionally, we can count ourselves fortunate that the powerful clique of warmongering Jews is counterbalanced by the influence of that earthy and pragmatic prince of the Roman Church, Cardinal Spellman.

  “Our National Socialist solution to the Jewish problem may not be exactly to Spellman’s liking, but I beg leave to doubt that the fate of these gentry keeps the good Cardinal awake at night. The Church of Rome has survived these two thousand years of vicissitudes by securing its own temporal interests first and leaving the Sermon on the Mount to take care of itself. The Catholics of America far outnumber the Jews and there’s not one of them who would lift a finger to save the Soviet Union from the fate I have ordained for it. Roosevelt can rant and rave till he is blue in the face. Let him go on sending England his ships, food and war materials—most of which end up on the bed of the Atlantic, in any case. So long as I refuse to be provoked, he will never succeed in dragging America into the war against the Reich.”

  Foreign Minister Ribbentrop intervened. History would record, he remarked, that the Fuehrer’s success in restraining Japan from attacking the Philippines and other spheres of American interest in the Pacific was the rock upon which all the hopes of the warmonger Roosevelt had foundered. It was a strategic master stroke, a policy born of geopolitical genius. The Fuehrer replied:

  “It would be true to say that, but for my strenuous personal warnings to that hothead General Tojo in October 1941, the new government in Tokyo might well have taken the fateful step that winter of launching a full-scale offensive against the Americans in the Pacific. Indeed, I was under constant pressure at that time from some of our own people—notably Grand Admiral Raeder, as Bormann here will confirm—to encourage the Japanese in this act of folly. Raeder is a good fellow, but he is totally lacking in that broad strategical vision, coupled with an infallible instinct for timing, that has won me, deservedly or not, my reputation as a military genius. All he could see was the immediate advantage of having the American fleet diverted from the Atlan
tic to the Pacific.”

  At this point, Foreign Minister Ribbentrop commented, in a lighthearted manner, on a BBC report from India that Mahatma Gandhi had called on his followers to offer passive resistance in the event of a Japanese invasion. Did the Mahatma seriously believe that the Japanese commanders would hesitate for a moment to drive their tanks over a million prostrate Gandhiites? The Fuehrer replied:

  “We must not underestimate the effect of passive resistance on an occupying army. As a former front-line soldier myself, I am aware of the difference between the excitement of confronting and killing the enemy in military combat and the depression that often comes over a soldier when circumstances oblige him to kill unresisting civilians.

  “I am obliged, against my better instincts, to concede General Tojo a free hand in the subcontinent of India as part of the price for his diversionary attack on Russia. But I would derive no satisfaction from the colonization of India by our Japanese friends, with whom we have no cultural affinities whatsoever. To be frank with you, gentlemen, I would rather the white race, in the shape of the British, retained their hold over the 350 millions of India, leaving Japan to digest its enormous gains in Burma and Southeast Asia. A day might come, once the British have accepted final defeat, when their unique talents as colonial administrators—something we Germans have never possessed—could be employed in the service of the New Order, to our mutual advantage. In the meantime, it is my hope and belief that Premier Tojo will be content with his blockade of India.”

  The conversation reverted to America and to Franklin Roosevelt’s various stratagems for bringing his country into the war. Field Marshal Kesselring asked the Fuehrer what, in his opinion, America could now hope to gain by abandoning neutrality. The Fuehrer speaks:

  “Apart from enriching its Jewish profiteers, nothing. The Japanese fleet is more than a match for them in the Pacific and Indian oceans. Fortress Europe can never be breached, least of all from the besieged base of the British Isles. The Mediterranean is now closed to them, and any attempts to land on the West Coast of Africa would be smashed by our Atlantic U-boat packs. It is important, in this connection, to realize that Roosevelt is a paranoiac. He and I came to power in the same year, 1933, and it has driven him insane to see how, in nine short years, Adolf Hitler has achieved everything he was predestined to achieve, while he, Roosevelt, has achieved precisely nothing. Roosevelt, gentlemen, is an historical irrelevance. As for me, I can only repeat what I said in March 1936, after I marched into the Rhineland and occupied it without a shot being fired (against all the dire warnings of my military and diplomatic experts): ‘I go the way that Providence dictates with the assurance of a sleepwalker.’ ”

  II

  HELGA GRUYTEN had offered to stay on, taking his dictation from the shorthand notes he had made during his second session with Hitler. But he needed an hour or so to himself, as he explained to her, taking care not to ruffle her feelings.

  “It will probably work out fine, doing it that way in the future. But right now my head’s buzzing with the things he told me, things I couldn’t jot down at the time. I’ll have to set them out now, Helga, in my own way while they’re still fresh in my mind. Thanks for the offer, though. I certainly appreciate it.”

  She lingered on, straightening the cover on her typewriter for the second time, rearranging the neat array of colored pencils on her desk. Then she said, “You’re the boss. I was only concerned about the fact that tomorrow’s Saturday and I have the day off. Unless, of course, you have special need of me.”

  He didn’t have to look up from his notes to check; it was there in her voice, the innuendo and the invitation he would find in her small eyes. But he looked up all the same, teased by those two words, “special need.” Making an effort to keep his voice steady he said, “It wouldn’t work, Helga, you must know that. Everything’s against it.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” Her eyes, languorously focused on his empty left sleeve, gave the lie to her words. “I’m just a simple uncomplicated girl, offering her services. If you’ve no need of them . . .” There it was again, the one word she had found, or stumbled upon, that had the power to grip him low, causing his blood to race.

  He could find nothing to say. He watched her pick up her handbag, take a last slow look around the office and walk toward the door.

  “Helga.”

  She turned around, smiling. “Yes, Kurt?” It was the first time she had used his Christian name.

  “We could have dinner together later, if you’re free.”

  “At my place. Call me when you’re ready to leave and I’ll give you the directions.”

  When the door closed he sat quite still for a few minutes, breathing deeply. Then he drew the large writing pad closer, frowned hard over his shorthand notes, and in a little while began to transcribe in swift longhand.

  Helga Gruyten’s apartment was on the second floor of a modern block in the smartest part of the Kurfuerstendamm, within sight of the Gedaechtniskirche. Significantly, it was located directly above the private apartment of an official of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, as Kurt discovered to his acute discomfiture within a few minutes of paying off the taxi driver.

  A beefy plainclothes detective blocked his path as he entered the lobby. The man said nothing. His slightly raised eyebrows in an otherwise wooden face said it all.

  “I’m calling on Fräulein Gruyten.”

  “Name, please?”

  “Captain Kurt Armbrecht.”

  “Identification, please.”

  Kurt hesitated a second. Military or Chancellery credentials? He chose the latter and handed the card with its gold-embossed eagle to the detective. The man flipped it open, glanced at the inside photograph and handed it smartly back, with a heel click.

  “Second floor, Herr Captain. Fräulein Gruyten is expecting you.”

  She opened the door to him and, pushing quickly past her, without a word, he marched on across the hall and into the sitting-room. Turning, tight-lipped, he faced her as she joined him after double-locking the front door.

  “For Heaven’s sake, Kurt, what’s the matter?” She had unplaited and brushed out her pale-blond hair so that it looped and flowed over her bare shoulders. The halter-neck gown of moss-green taffeta crackled softly about her thighs as she stopped a few paces short of where he was standing.

  “I must have been mad to come here! Why didn’t you tell me you were under police protection?”

  “What difference does it make? We all are—all of us girls who work for the Fuehrer.”

  “Wonderful! So now the gossips can really go to work!”

  “You’ve got it all wrong, Kurt. They’re not spying on me, they’re protecting me. That’s why I was given this place, over the apartment belonging to an R.S.H.A. man. Automatic protection, don’t you see?”

  “Let’s not be naïve, Helga. This will go straight to Fräulein Eppler, and from her to Reichsleiter Bormann, and before I’ve even—”

  “Kurt, Kurt!” Laughing, she took his arm and urged him firmly toward the nearest armchair. “Fräulein Eppler knows all about it! How else do you think I could have invited you?”

  He could only stare at her in open surprise as she settled the cushions behind him and glided across the room toward the crystalline glitter of the sideboard, leaving an aural wake of whispering taffeta.

  “I suppose it’s up to me to put you in the picture, since no one else has. Do you like vodka?”

  “I’ve never had it, but—”

  “It’s the best. Here.” She glided back, handed him a small glassful of the liquor and perched herself on the arm of a fat, velvet-covered sofa. “Prosit!”

  He had always understood one had to down the drink in one gulp, but Helga was sipping at hers and he followed suit, shuddering slightly at the first assault on his palate.

  “It improves on closer acquaintance.” She smiled, lowering her glass to her lap. “Anyway, back to Fräulein Eppler. You’ve nothing to worry about, I
promise you. The Chancellery encourages social relaxation, outside office hours, between members of its staff, and Fräulein Eppler absolutely insists on it so far as the Fuehrer’s female staff is concerned.”

  Although he was beginning to untense himself, the picture was still murky. “If she’s all that broad-minded, why were you so nervous when I suggested dropping our surnames?”

  “Not inside the Chancellery, silly! Fräulein Eppler’s a stickler for formality, rank and all that. But you know what she said when I told her you had invited me for dinner?”

  He winced and took another sip at his glass.

  “Be kind and generous to Captain Armbrecht,” she told me. “He didn’t win that medal sitting in an office chair, like some under the roof I could mention.”

  She had been kind, bringing her head down to him and whispering assurances between kisses, quieting his moans of remorse as he spent himself, almost on entry. She had been generous, padding back from the bathroom, freshly scented, and readying him with unhurrying lips and knowing hands for their second and deliciously more protracted coupling. She had been inventive—more than any German had the right to expect from his woman—when they made love again, abandoning the bed to explore standing and sitting positions to which his missing arm and hand would have contributed little. And, finally she had been—well—kinky . . .

  She was standing before the full-length mirror of the wardrobe when he came back from the kitchen, sipping a cold beer. He moved in behind her and they smiled at their reflection, at the way his tallness and breadth made a bronzed frame for her pale body.

  “My Paros Apollo,” she murmured. “It has haunted me, that one-armed statue, ever since I first saw it in the Louvre.” And then, “Make it move for me again, darling.”

  He did it now without resentment, flexing the deltoid muscle of his shoulder to raise the short wasted stub of his upper arm, exposing the fair floss of his armpit to her probing tongue. She leaned back, looking up at him with slackened lips.