three of them walked on in silence for a few moments. “Forgive me for getting on my soapbox,” Rory said. “You wanted to know what I think and why I came over. First off, Hitler wants to build a greater Germany, which we’ve already let him do. The next thing he wants is Lebensraum in the east and he wants to create a new German Empire. He wants to dominate Europe and unite all the Germanic peoples in a Third Reich. People like Mr. Chamberlain and France’s Daladier have already given him the first of these. We went to war because of the second, but he’s not finished. He’ll want more than half of Poland, and he’ll go after the third objective soon enough. That’s why I figure we have this period of phoney war. He hasn’t decided what he’s going to do yet: finish off his plans for Lebensraum or conquer his Third Reich.”
Rory pulled his coat collar up higher around his neck. “I’m sure that Stalin hasn’t overlooked that, and we can bet that the Soviet intelligence services have read and translated a copy of Hitler’s book. As for your earlier question about coming to some kind of accommodation with the Nazis, if you think you can be safe living with a violently lunatic Nazi Empire that’s armed to the teeth and eventually extends from Moscow to the English Channel, then by all means let’s cut a deal with Hitler.”
“Very interesting,” said Thornton. “You know, Rory, you do have allies outside, people like Harris and ourselves. There are people around here who think like you do about the Nazis. More people are coming around to your line of thinking every day – people like Winston Churchill. He’s been a voice in the wilderness for ten years; it’s just that Churchill’s not running things. What do you think’s going to happen next?”
“Harris has it right. We have no choice. We dig in here in England and get ready for a long war.”
* * *
“GENTLEMEN, THE REICH’S ENEMIES are larger and physically stronger than our German army, but we are in many ways much better prepared to destroy them. So please, let us make no mistake about it: we will destroy them.”
The man droning on at the podium was Karl Dortinger, one of the National Socialist Party’s founding members. But as far as Reinhold Neumann was concerned, Dortinger’s lecture didn’t have the ring of destiny nor what the papers described as the new Nazi speaking style. Instead, the lecture sounded more like a country parson’s sermon. Nonetheless, it was still a break from the seemingly endless stream of bureaucratic directives read out by senior police officers here at the new SS Police Academy’s Führerschule.
Neumann looked about him. Most of his fellow students were men just like him. They were police volunteers recently inducted into the Schutzstaffel, more popularly known as the SS, the Nazi Party’s most privileged security organization. All the others were intently focused on the elderly party functionary. Neumann and his colleagues sat in the comfortable lecture hall on the third floor of Berlin’s Natural History Museum. The museum’s auditorium was now temporarily being used as the Third Reich’s recently created Security and Police Services Staff College. Natural history, they were told, would now have to wait for the ultimate triumph of National Socialism.
Karl Dortinger, a noncommissioned officer in the German army in the Great War, had been an early convert to the Nazi cause. Over the last three days, Neumann had become used to this sort of ideological intermission sandwiched between more practical lectures. It was the second time they had been exposed to Dortinger’s droning tirade.
The lecture hall was filled to capacity with a hundred middle-ranking police officers from across Germany and Austria. Behind Dortinger was a very large map of Europe, flanked by two swastika flags. Neumann couldn’t help but notice that every time Dortinger looked up from his notes, the stage lights reflected back from his round steel-frame glasses, making him look like one of those hapless characters in an American cartoon. He tried to suppress a laugh.
The good-natured Bavarian officer sitting next to him turned and grinned. “You find this clown as hopelessly boring as I do? That’s reassuring. Look around. Everyone’s pretending to be enthralled by this bullshit.”
Neumann immediately became mildly alarmed and whispered, “What? Herr Dortinger has interesting views on the destiny of the German people. I only hope we have time to hear him expound on them. I think the last time he spoke it was much too short.”
The officer beside him let out a long exasperated breath. “Absolutely. How could I forget?”
Neumann responded in a scolding tone, “Of course, he’s made some excellent points, especially about the nature of the threat posed by Germany’s traditional enemies.” He glanced around, but no one was paying any attention to this exchange. “No, Herr Dortinger is very good indeed. The future of the German people is not something to be taken lightly.”
At the podium, Dortinger continued. “Germany is now united in its efforts to realize the vast potential of this country. You have seen how in just a few short years National Socialism has brought the Aryan nation to life. Germany has pulled itself up from its near moribund state of unemployment, debt, and dishonour. We have united the Austrians and Sudetan Germans, and we have rescued our Prussian brothers, who were confined by the treachery and fraud of the Versailles Treaty and locked into an artificial Polish state. Can you imagine Germans having to live under the domination of Slavs!”
Reinhold Neumann looked about him. The faces of his fellow students were expressionless.
“Now,” said Dortinger, “our Führer, Adolph Hitler, has shown us that it is our destiny to take on the role that history has always demanded the Aryan peoples should rightfully assume. Our armies are ready, and in the last two years we have developed a doctrine for the occupation of hostile countries. We shall implement that doctrine in the neighbouring territories that will make up the new frontiers of the Third Reich. The army will conquer and the police and security forces will subdue and organize our new territories. You gentlemen will play an important role in that respect.”
The officer beside him shifted uncomfortably in his seat and looked over at Neumann. Dortinger went on. “So, in addition, don’t forget the part that you, the leaders of our police forces, will play in helping us solve the Jewish question. I can tell you that many solutions have been bantered about. I have heard that the Führer himself believes that all of Europe’s Jews should be deported. And I have it on good authority that Madagascar is one of the places they are considering deporting them to, although I have also heard that they may simply be removed to Russia when the time is right. For me, I say, let them colonize Siberia. Slavs and Jews deserve each other. They have polluted Europe and sapped Germany’s vitality for far too long. I could tell you stories about the Jews and the Communists.”
As Dortinger wound up his speech, fantasizing about ridding Europe of its undesirables and describing how Jews, capitalists, and Communists had desecrated Greater Germany, Neumann began to drift off into his own reverie. He kept his eyes fastened on the bespectacled old crank at the front of the room and wondered where all this was taking him. If, as they were telling him, the Reich expanded within the next two years, he would certainly have more opportunity than he could ever have dreamt was possible when he was a simple Anwärter der Schutzpolizei rounding up drunks on Vienna’s street corners. Now, the next step was to get himself onto the staff of the newly created Department D – the New Territories Police Agency. So far, things hadn’t gone badly. In the last three years, he had done incredibly well for himself. By being on this course, he was halfway to realizing his ambitions.
As for Dortinger, the old fool had some value. He was describing the official blueprint for career success in the Reich’s new police forces: crush the Fatherland’s enemies and transform the occupied territories into docile and productive colonies. These were achievable tasks, ones that he could see himself playing a useful part in. Neumann had already made up his mind, and going back to regular police work in one of the German-speaking cities was no longer an option. That would only be a ticket to a plodding, conventional career. Six weeks ago, who could have imagined him being here?
Things were quite different now. If he played his cards right, in a couple of years he might find himself head of a major department for all of the Third Reich, or better still, sent back to Vienna as a deputy chief of police. Wouldn’t