I accept that as fact. Whatever delusions Hess may have had, the
strongest correction, the only real foundation for such a peace was the
widespread belief in England that Germany represented the last and
strongest possible barrier against an expansionist-minded Russia.
Against communism.'
'That's freshman history,' said Natteirinan. 'What's your point?'
'My point is that things may not be so different now. The Soviet Union
is disintegrating, Professor. The heart of the military colossus is
economic chaos; the great warrior is starving inside his armor.
Russia's provinces and satellites seethe with resentment and sedition.
One day not so long from now, Professor, the Soviet Union could
explode.'
'And?'
'And I'm not the only fool who knows that! I'm saying
It
that some people may still believe that Germany represents the best
natural barrier against Russia, the unstable colossus.'
'Germany? As a barrier to Russia?'
Stern smiled coldly. 'Not Germany as you know it. But a Germany
reunited. Reunited and armed with nuclear weapons. Its own nuclear
weapons.'
'No,' Natterman breathed. 'That can't be true. If we Germans wanted
nuclear weapons, we could have developed them ourselves long ago. We
invented the ballistic missile, for God's sake!'
Stern snorted. 'It's no more fantastic than your fairy tale about
Rudolf Hess.'
'Hess is alive!' Natterman insisted. 'I know it!'
Stern's face hardened. 'Whether he is or he isn't, Professor, I don't
want you mentioning his name in front of anyone from this moment
forward. You understand? No one. Not friends, not family. Fantasies
like yours can produce hysterical responses in some people.'
'But not in you,' Natterman said, eyeing the Israeli closely.
'Since you think Hess is alive, Professor,' Stern said gamely, 'tell me
this. If Hess survived his mission to England, why didn't he return to
Germany? To his beloved Fuhrer?'
Natterman opened his mouth to speak, then realized that he did not have
an answer. 'I won't know that until I know what Hess's real mission
was,' he said. 'Until we find Hess himself.'
Stern swung onto the access road for Frankfurt-Main International
Airport. 'Professor,' he said, 'we are after two different things.
You're obsessed with the past, I fight in the present. But the Hess
case links us. We're on a road we cannot see, and at the end of it, I
fear, lies something as evil as human beings can devise. I believe that
the danger that exists now came out of the past. But I can't rip away
the curtain of time and see what ill-begotten proposition Rudolf Hess
carried to England forty-seven years ago.'
Stern flicked his lights and passed a slow-moving BMW. 'So you know
what I think? I think maybe having a German history professor along
with me is the next best thing. Even if he is an ambitious,
close-mouthed goyim who thinks he's Simon Wiesenthal.'
Stern swung the car into the TICKETING/CHF-CK-IN lane.
When he had parked, Natterman climbed out and looked at him across the
car's roof. 'I just hope you're not condemning my granddaughter to
death by making this stupid side nip to Israel,' he growled.
Stern bunched his coat collar higher around his neck.
'This mystery has waited half a century to be solved, Professor.
It can wait one more day.'
He turned and hurried into the terminal.
I wonder, Natterman asked himself, walking toward the huge glass doors.
I wonder if it can.
THE PLAN NAZI He is insane. He is the Dove of Peice. He is Messiah. He
is Hitler's prince.
He is the one ckan honest man they've got He is the worst assassin of
the la He has a mission to preserve mankind Hes non@ohouc. He was a
'b@' He has been dotty since the age of ten.
But all the dine was top of Hitlers men ...
'Hess, the Deputy Fuhrer'
By A.P. HERBERT, 1.941
after Hess par'huted into England
CHAPTER TWENTY
January 7, 1941, The Berghot The Bavarian Alps Rudolf Hess stood alone
before the great picture window of Adolf Hitler's Alpine headquarters
and waited for his Fuhrer. Hess was a big man, with an addete's
body-broad across the shoulders and, even at forty-seven, narrow through
the waist-yet Hitler's window dwarfed him. Like all things designed by
or for the Fuhrer, it was the largest in the world.
Silhouetted against its Olympian panorama, Hess looked like a tiny extra
in the corner of a movie screen.
Deep in the valley below him, the village of Berchtesgaden slept
peacefully. Beyond it the magnificent Untersberg rose skyward, covered
with fresh January snow. Far to the north Hess could just see the
rooftops of Salzburg. He could understand why the Fuhrer retreated to
this mountain eyrie when the pressures of the war became too onerous.
This was one of those times. As Hess stared out at the mountain, a
stabbing pain pierced his stomach. He bent double, clenching his
abdomen with his heavy-muscled forearms until the agony abated. He had
endured these attacks for three weeks now, each in stoic silence. For
he knew it was no organic toxin that caused the pain, but anxiety-a
terrible, withering apprehension. The first,attack had struck him on
December 18, less than twelve hours after Hitler issued his secret
Directive Number 21. In that order the Fuhrer had commanded that all
preparations for plan Barbarossa-the full-scale invasion of Soviet
Russia-be completed by May 15 of this year.
Hess regarded Directive 21 as insanity, and he was not alone.
Some of the Wehrmacht's most gifted generals felt the same. Hess felt
no moral qualms about betraying Stalin or attacking Russia. If a few
million Russians had to die to create new living space for Germans, so
be it. But to attempt the invasion now, while England remained unbeaten
in the west? Madness!
