The whole ambience of the room was one of understated elegance. How much the more incongruent then was the farm labourer sat in the chair on the other side of the fireplace? He was in his stocking feet, wearing heavy wool trousers, a thick linen shirt and an old waistcoat which had probably seen better days before the war. Around his neck was a dirty yellow bandana. He was a man of below-average height, but of good physique. His facial features were not unpleasing, the hair beginning to recede from the temples and the nose a little crooked. He wore a beard, neatly trimmed. Maria made a mental note to warn him about that. It was the eyes, however, that defined the face: sharp, intelligent, penetrating eyes of steely blue-grey that bored deep into your inner being when he looked at you.
His documents attested to him being Klaus Gruber, age fifty-one, born in Zell am Ziller, Tyrol, Austria. Current address: Gardermann’s Farm, Lenggriesser Strasse, Bad Tölz, Bavaria.
Maria knew him better as Heinrich Müller, previously SS-Gruppenführer and Generalleutnant der Polizei, currently one of the most wanted men in Germany. She liked Müller; he was different from most of the other Nazi hierarchy. For one thing he was intelligent, a rare quality among Hitler’s henchmen … and the other thing that made him stand out was that he was not a Nazi! Oh, he was a member of the party, of course—that was a necessity. But the fact that his membership number was higher than four million suggested that he had joined very late, and then only when it had become unavoidable. One previous police superior had noted that Müller’s commitment was not to any individual party, but to the state of Germany. He had gone on to say that Müller would have been equally rigorously driven, conscientious and professional, whoever had been in government. Certainly, this was borne out in his early days as a policeman in Munich, when he had fought the Communists and the Nazis with equal enthusiasm and determination.
This previous anti-Nazi stance had made him many enemies in the hierarchy, and it was unlikely that he would have progressed very far in the state security service if it had not been for Reinhard Heydrich becoming his mentor.
Heydrich, second only to Himmler in the SS and the main architect of the ‘Final Solution’, had seen in Müller something of himself. He was intelligent, had excellent knowledge of, and experience in dealing with, subversive elements, was decisive and was not afraid to make ‘difficult’ decisions. In particular, he was fiercely loyal to his superior commanders. An excellent man to have watching your back!
Müller had progressed rapidly through the SS and had become head of the Gestapo, very soon becoming Heydrich’s second in command. After Heydrich’s assassination, he had effectively become the de-facto head of the SS, although Ernst Kaltenbrunner came in as the official head of the Reich Security Service.
Maria pondered all of this as she looked at the scruffy man sitting opposite her and contemplated the details of his current mission—a mission that had been entrusted to Müller by the Führer himself, a mission which had been dormant until now. Müller was brave and resourceful. Twice during the First World War he had won the Iron Cross as a pilot flying dangerous missions. He would need all of that resourcefulness and bravery if he were to succeed. Maria knew he would accomplish what he set out to do, or he would die trying.
“I had better get back, Frau von Sindelsdorf,” said Müller rising. They always used their respective pseudonyms, even when alone. Maria had explained that it would reduce the risk of a potentially fatal error when in public.
“No, Herr Gruber,” said Maria shaking her head. “It’s snowing again, and apart from that, if you go wandering about at this time of night, you are likely to be stopped by the civil police. They will have no hesitation in handing you over to the Americans if they are the least bit suspicious, and then who knows what will happen? I have made up a spare room upstairs, second door on the left.”
Müller rose and walked to the door. Turning to Maria, he clicked his heels and bowed his head. “I bid you good night, Frau von Sindelsdorf.”
“Good night, Herr Gruber. Oh, Herr Gruber,” said Maria as an afterthought, “please don’t trim your beard, please remember that you are a Schweinebauer—a trimmed beard doesn’t fit the character.”
“Very good, Frau von Sindelsdorf, I will allow it to become wild!” he said, nodding in agreement as he left the room.
Maria smiled to herself. The mental picture of Müller clicking his heels, military style, in his stocking feet and wearing peasant garb, amused her greatly. There had been something ludicrously pre-war about the gesture, however well intentioned.
Yes, she liked Heinrich. Not like some of the other idiots who had destroyed all that the Thule had achieved. Oh, would that there had been more like Heinrich Müller and Rudi Hess.
It had all started so well. The Thule had taken the temperature of the German people after the Great War and knew exactly what was needed, and moreover how this could be used to further their aim of a pure Aryan German state which would control Europe. Four Thule members—Gottfried Feder, Anton Drexler, Dietrich Eckart and Karl Harrer—had formed the ‘German Workers’ Party’ or DAP, as it became known. Adolf Hitler had joined later that year and, over the next few years, had effectively hijacked the party from under the noses of the Thule. If only Rudi Hess had been stronger. He had been the chosen one to lead Germany into the new dawn, but he had allowed Hitler to ride roughshod over him. Hitler was
