Vengeance 10

‘Jumped-up chicken farmer!’ his father muttered, pacing about his cluttered office. The swastika armband he was never without seemed somewhat shabby on the sleeve of his suit jacket, Bethwig observed. As shabby as the party’s morals and mission were becoming. What happened to them? he wondered. It had all changed in such a short time. The war was to have tempered the movement; instead it seemed to be destroying it.

‘I do not understand why we must put up with such men as these. Even Goering has become a good-for-nothing drug addict. Such nonsense brings trouble in the end. Gangsters, that’s what they are. Nothing but gangsters.’

He spun and pointed a blunt finger at his son. ‘Do not let that little toad intimidate you. He is not quite as secure as he thinks. The Führer said to me not more than a week ago that perhaps it was time for the party to clean house again, and I heartily agreed. You know how he works; first the suggestions to high party members to test their opinion, then intensive planning and decisive action — swift, merciless action. That was the way it was when we got rid of Roehm. I suspect that this time he has people like Himmler and perhaps this Goebbels in mind. Never did like that little cripple. Too shrill.’ The old man sighed then. ‘Well, Franz, if you have told me everything, I doubt if you have anything to worry about. There seems to be nothing that monster can hold over your head. Be firm and remember your position and your strengths. We are Bethwigs and we are German. And the Führer knows who his supporters are.’

You would never think there was a war, Bethwig mused as he drove along the Charlottenstrasse past the well-dressed crowds. An amazing number of soldiers filled the streets, eyeing equally large numbers of girls clad in summer frocks. The mood was certainly not what one would have expected in the capital of a great nation at war. There were few signs of bomb damage visible, but air-raid shelters were conspicuously marked. Shop windows, although taped, were as full of goods as ever; and with war production in full swing, people had plenty of money to spend. Hitler’s promises were coming true, Bethwig thought, even though, by virtue of his father’s position and wealth, he tended at times to look upon the Austrian as a fool and a buffoon. Yet one had to admit that he had drawn the German people so solidly together after the disillusionment of the 1920s that the country was totally unified, and willing and able to meet the final Allied offensive against it. This time it will be different, he thought in a sudden burst of grim determination.

Opportunity enough, after the war was won, to clean out the scum that invariably worked its way to the top during periods of conflict. If only the Führer did not show so distinct a predilection for such men.

At the SS headquarters in Prinz Albrechtstrasse an elderly porter checked his credentials against a huge appointment ledger, and an unarmed corporal orderly then escorted Bethwig through quiet oak-panelled hallways to a tastefully furnished outer office where a receptionist offered him tea and telephoned through to announce his arrival.

He was made to wait less than five minutes — a gesture of high respect in Berlin these days, he realised — before an aide stepped through a side door, shook his hand, and in a flurry of meaningless small talk ushered him directly into Himmler’s office. A vast expanse of carpet stretched away to the far end of the room which, although the sun was bright outside, was shut into deep gloom by close-fitting curtains. So the rumours that Himmler expects to be killed by the British are true, he thought. Heydrich’s death must have sent him into a near panic.

A recessed ceiling lamp shone directly on to a single hard- backed chair set squarely before a large walnut desk. A smallish man bent over a single sheet of paper.

As Bethwig approached, Heinrich Himmler looked up, then removed his gold-rimmed pince-nez, and studied him.

The man does have a weak chin, Bethwig thought in surprise. Everyone said so, and it was rumoured that the Reichsführer kept it disguised by forbidding photographs from low angles. But in person there was no hiding it. Dark, nearsighted, and paunchy, Himmler was hardly the propagandist’s classic Nordic. No wonder Hitler had preferred Heydrich.

‘Ah, young man. You are the son of Johann Bethwig.’ Himmler had neither risen nor offered to shake hands. He inclined his head towards the chair, his manner making it quite clear that he was seeing Bethwig only in deference to his father — a politician storing up small favours.

But Himmler surprised him. He studied Franz from pop eyes for a moment, then flicked the sheet of paper so that it shot across the desk. Franz had to lunge forward to catch it. ‘I suppose you have come to see me about that?’ He pronounced the word that as if it contained all that was contemptible.