Twilight was fast approaching as we entered the courtyard I had noticed earlier in Kaufmann’s office. The large funeral pyre was still there, unused. Except that now there was a bier next to it. We were too far away to see whose body was on it, but with every step we drew nearer.
A door beside the pyre opened and a line of young men emerged, dressed in black SS regalia. In the lead was my son. They proceeded remorselessly in our direction. Helmuth gave Kaufmann the Nazi salute. He answered with the same. Quite obviously I was in no mood to reciprocate.
“Father,” said Helmuth gravely, “I have been granted the privilege of overseeing this observance. Please approach the body.”
Such was the formality of his tone that I hesitated to intercede with a fatherly appeal. The expression on his face was blank to my humanity. I did as requested.
Not for a moment did I suspect the identity of the body. Yet as I gazed at that familiar, waxen face, I knew that it fit the Burgundian pattern. It had to be his body. Once more I stood before Adolf Hitler!
“It was an outrage,” said Kaufmann, “to preserve his body as though he were Lenin. His soul belongs in Valhalla. We intend to send it there today.” My mouth was open with a question that would not be voiced as I turned to Kaufmann. He bowed solemnly. “Yes, Herr Goebbels. You were one of his most loyal deputies. You will accompany him.”
There are times when no amount of resolve to be honorable and brave will suffice: I made to run, but many strong hands were on me in an instant. Helmuth placed his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t make it worse,” he whispered. “It has to be. Preserve your dignity. I want to be proud of you.”
There was nothing to say. Nothing to do but contemplate a horrible death. I struggled in vain, doing my best to ignore the existence of Helmuth. It was no surprise that he had been selected for this honor. It made perfect sense in the demented scheme of things.
They brought out an aluminum ramp. Two husky SS men began to carry Hitler’s body up the incline, while Helmuth remained behind, no doubt with the intention of escorting me up that unwelcome path.
“The manner of your death will remain a state secret of Burgundy,” said Kaufmann. “We were able to receive good publicity from your Ministry when we executed those two French snoopers for trespassing: Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier. This is different.” He paused, then added: “Soon publicity won’t matter anymore.”
My options were being reduced to nothing. Even facing death I could not entirely surrender. The years I had spent perfecting the art of propaganda had taught me that no situation is so hopeless that nothing may be salvaged from it. I reviewed the facts: despite their temporary agreement Kaufmann and the new Mabuse were really working at cross-purposes. If I could only exploit those differences, I could sow dissension in their ranks. Mabuse held the trump card, so I decided to direct the ploy at Kaufmann.
“I suppose I’m free to talk,” I said to Kaufmann’s back as he watched the red ball of the sun setting beyond the castle walls. The sky was streaked with orange and gold—the thin strands of cumulus clouds that seemed so reassuringly distant. There were a million other places I could have been at that moment, but for a vile twist of fate. There had to be some way of escape!
No one answered my query and I continued: “You’re not a geneticist, are you, Kaufmann? How would you know if you can trust Dietrich?” He was Dietrich to them, but to me he would always be Mabuse. “What if he is lying? What if his process can’t be made specific enough to exclude any group from the virus?”
Mabuse laughed. Kaufmann answered without turning around: “For insurance’s sake he will immunize everyone in Burgundy as well as his assistants. If something goes wrong, it will be a shame to lose all those excellent Aryan specimens elsewhere in the world.”
“Nothing will go wrong,” said Mabuse.
I wouldn’t give up that easily and struck back with: “How do you know he won’t inject you with poison when the time comes? It would be like a repetition of the Black Plague that ravaged Burgundy in 1348.”
“I applaud your inventive suggestion,” said Mabuse.
“We have faith,” was Kaufmann’s astounding reply.
“A faith I will reward,” boomed out Mabuse’s monster voice. “They are not stupid, Goebbels. Some true believers have sufficient medical training to detect an attempt at the stunt you suggest.”
In desperation I spoke again to my son: “Do you trust this?”
“I am here,” came his answer in a low voice. “I have taken the oath.”
“It’s no good,” taunted Mabuse. “Stop trying to save yourself.”
They had Hitler’s body at the top of the ramp. The SS men stood at attention. Everyone was waiting. The setting sun seemed to me at that moment to be pausing in its descent, waiting.
“Father,” said Helmuth, “Germany has become decadent. It has forgotten its ideals. That my sister Hilda is allowed to live is proof enough. Look at you. You’re not the man you were in the grand old days of the genocide.”
“Son,” I said, my voice trembling, “what is happening in Burgundy is not the same thing.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” said Dr. Mabuse.
Kaufmann strolled over to where I was standing and craned his neck to look at the men at the top of the ramp with the worldly remains of Adolf Hitler. He said, “Nazis were good killers during the war. Jews, Gypsies, and many others fell by the sword, even when it exacted a heavy price from other elements of the war program. Speer always wanting his slave labor for industrial requirements. Accountants always counting pennies. The mass murder was for its own sake, a promise of better things to come!
“After the war only Burgundy seemed to care any longer. Rulings that came out of New Berlin were despicable, loosening up the censorship laws and not strictly enforcing the racial standards. Do you know that a taint of Jewishness is considered to be sexually arousing in Germany’s more decadent cabarets of today? Even the euthanasia policy for old and unfit citizens was never more than words on paper, after the Catholics and Lutherans interfered. The Party was corrupted from within. It let the dream die.”
The kind of hatred motivating this Burgundian leader was no stranger to me. Never in my worst nightmares did it occur to me that I could be a victim of this kind of thinking.
Kaufmann gestured to men on the ramp and they placed Hitler’s body on top of the pyre. “It is time,” mourned Helmuth’s voice in my ear. Other young SS men surrounded me, Helmuth holding my arm. We began to walk.
Other SS men had appeared around the dry pyramid of kindling wood and straw. They were holding burning torches. Kaufmann gestured and they set the pyre aflame. The crackling and popping sounds plucked at my nerves as whitish smoke slowly rose. It would take a few minutes before the flame reached the apex to consume Hitler’s body… and whatever else was near. My only consolation was that they had not used lighter fluid—dreadful modern stuff—to hasten the inferno.
Somewhere in that blazing doom Odin and Thor and Freyja were waiting. I was in no hurry to greet them.
I wondered at how the SA must have felt when the SS burst in on them, barking guns ripping out their lives in bloody ruins. Perhaps I should have thought of Magda, but I did not. Instead all my whimsies were directed to miracles and last-minute salvations. How I had preached hope in the final hours of the war before our luck had turned. I had fed Hitler on stories of Frederick the Great’s diplomatic coup in the face of a military debacle. I had compared the atom bomb—when we got it—to the remarkable change in fortunes in the House of Brandenburg. Now I found myself pleading with the cruel fates for a personal victory of the same sort.