Bettina was aching from the lack of sleep and extreme abuse Goebbels recently had starting to show her.
“The towel! Where is my warm towel?”
Bettina sleepily walked into the enormous bathroom and took a hand towel off the rack. The telephone rang as she turned on the hot water faucet.
“Ja.” Goebbels tone was as if he were right in the middle of a mountain of paper work.
Bettina turned off the water and squeezed the saturated towel until it held the right proportion of water and cloth. Then she waited a few moments for the towel to cool to his preferred temperature while she watched the snowfall on the small window just above her.
“Ja… Ja…” Bettina could tell that Goebbels was giving approval to whatever he was hearing. She then walked back into the mountain lodge room and toweled off his entire body below the waist.
“I want to see this first…” Goebbels shouted in the phone. “…I’ll be down in five minutes!” He then slammed down the receiver without saying “good-bye”.
“If his calculations are correct, then the inclination of Lowell’s planet to the ecliptic is at least 18 degrees!”
Hess said nothing to his passenger’s comment. He merely nodded as if doing the math in his head while also trying to guide the Messerschmitt in on only one engine.
Both men over the last 15 years had worked together in many of the complicated areas of astrology. This new planet discovered in 1930 – while exciting and offering a new perspective of the solar system – was becoming a source of disagreement between them.
For one thing, Hess did not like his partner’s reference to the eccentric new heavenly body as “Lowell’s Planet”. While it is true the planet’s discovery was made possible by Dr. Percival Lowell’s research that was started in 1905, many of those in science felt it not appropriate to name a planet after an individual.
Hess, like many others in astrology and astronomical societies, felt the new planet should bear the name of an Ancient Greek god to keep a rightful tradition as well as to respect the other planets. Many, Hess included, were leaning towards the recently introduced name of “Pluto”, the Greek god of the underworld.
“How far have you calculated the planet’s positions?” Hess asked without looking up from the controls.
He did not mention the planet by his own preferred name, since the colleague next to him felt the name had a ridiculous sound; like the some found in those ridiculous American cartoons that were now being seen in Germany – “Bluto” in the Popeye series and Mickey Mouse’s pet dog – an animal who first appeared unnamed in the Disney film The Chain Gang (1930) and later appearing in The Moose Hunt (1931) where the lovable dog actually had the given name of the newly discovered planet: Pluto.
“I’ve only gone as far back as 1922.” The mysterious man said, almost ashamed. “Greifswald was working from 1910 to 1922… said he found an event with the planet’s first transit.”
“He found Pluto entered the sign of Cancer in August of 1914.” Hess stated matter of fact while still juggling with the controls of the plane.
“What?” The passenger was shocked for two reasons. First, the fact Hess already knew what Greifswald found. The man now descending in Hess’s crippled plane felt he should have known this first, since for years he and Griefwald were the closest of colleagues. Or so he thought. The second surprise was the seeming coincidence that the planet Pluto, Lowell’s planet, or Planet X (which is what Lowell himself called the newly found planet) happened to transit from one sign into another that signaled the beginning of World War I.
If two things come together at the same time and produce a result, it can be called a coincidence. If these two things come together for a second time and again produce a similar result, it is called a pattern. If it happens a third time, then it can be called a tendency.
“Is this a pattern, Rudolf?”
Rudolf Hess said nothing, however, already knew this was more than a coincidence. If the passage of Pluto from one sign into another signaled a war in 1914 and does so again in 1939, this indeed will be shown and considered a pattern. As both men were hoping to land the sputtering plane in early August of 1939, only Hess knew of Hitler’s planned invasion of Poland to be launched next month.
September 1939 – another World War will begin – coinciding with the time Pluto makes a transit out of Cancer and begins the process of entering into the sign of Leo.
Hess and others calculated Pluto took approximately 248.4 years to orbit the Sun. For this planet to enter into a new zodiac sign two different times since its discovery – and at each of these times a world war would start – would be mathematically impossible. But the impossible was about happen; another war was a month away.
Elaine walked up to Krafft and placed her lips near her husband’s ear. “Karl…! We must leave at once…!”
“Quick! Get an aspirin!” A woman’s voice screamed at the top of her lungs from the patio. Everyone within earshot looked at the 75-year-old woman in a white Russian coat holding a 38 mm Luger Special. “I’ve just shot the Baron von Spitz in the spitze!”
The entire group of guests rose to their feet and applauded. Both Kraffts sensed this personality had something to do with the reason of their coming, and this woman was now going to start her show.
The entire newly formed audience moved towards and surrounded the fragile, stick-like woman who was bundled in a white fur of a film star. This new opportunity allowed the Kraffts to speak in a semi-private setting, yet still being able to appear they were a part of the party.
“Elaine, what happened?”
“Upstairs…” Elaine could only utter one word in a shaken whisper.
Karl Ernst waited for the next set of words to come from Elaine. Instead the next sentence he heard was from Dr. Hans Frank.
“Herr Krafft?”
Krafft kept his gaze on Elaine, but acknowledged the manager of all the conquered lands in Poland.
“My staff and I will soon be in Torun, and the major in charge is a big astrology enthusiast. Would you and Elaine like to be our guests for the weekend there… perhaps you could give a lecture or lead a discussion? Your mere presence there would be very fitting… Major Rusk’s office is right across the street from the home of Copernicus.”
Dr. Frank, the current overlord of Poland and also connected to the Black Sun was also informed on how to manipulate Karl Ernst Krafft.
“Ja!”
A few years ago Goebbels would have openly shared with Bettina what news had made him so happy. A few months ago Bettina could have even been able to ask what caused a change of mood or sudden reaction. But now Bettina remained silent. Their relationship, as all master and slave relationships, had changed.
As the Minister of Propaganda pulled up his pants, Bettina retrieved his shoes, then entered alone into the adjoining room with her books, pens and paper – her work as a sex-slave and house servant being finished. For now.
“Don’t leave your room.” He said as he slammed the door behind him. Goebbels liked to slam doors and telephones – good mood or not – it didn’t matter. It was another way he revealed his power around those near him.