us. We look forward to a great future in the Common Market with your Government's help, with the Government of Monsieur Grosjean and your other European colleagues. The past is the past.'
'Quite so,' said Herr Spiess, 'and it is of the past that we now talk. Martin B. and Herr Hitler remained for a very short time in the assembly room. They came out again after seven minutes. Herr B. expressed himself to Dr Reichardt as very well satisfied with their experience. Their car was waiting and he and Herr Hitler must proceed immediately to where they had another appointment. They left very hurriedly.'
There was a silence.
'And then?' asked Colonel Pikeaway. 'Something happened? Or had already happened?'
'The behaviour of one of our Hitler patients was unusual,' said Dr Reichardt. 'He was a man who had a particularly close resemblance to Herr Hitler, which had given him always a special confidence in his own portrayal. He insisted now more fiercely than ever that he was the Fьhrer, that he must go immediately to Berlin , that he must preside over a Council of the General Staff. In fact, he behaved with no signs of the former slight amelioration which he had shown in his condition. He seemed so unlike himself that I really could not understand this change taking place so suddenly. I was relieved, indeed, when two days later, his relations called to take him home for future private treatment there.'
'And you let him go,' said Herr Spiess.
'Naturally I let him go. They had a responsible doctor with them, he was a voluntary patient, not certified, and therefore he was within his rights. So he left.'
'I don't see –' began Sir George Packham.
'Herr Spiess has a theory –'
'It's not a theory,' said Spiess. 'What I am telling you is fact. The Russians concealed it, we've concealed it. Plenty of evidence and proof has come in. Hitler, our Fьhrer, remained in the asylum by his own consent that day and a man with the nearest resemblance to the real Hitler departed with Martin B. It was that patient's body which was subsequently found in the bunker. I will not beat about the bush. We need not go into unnecessary details.'
'We all have to know the truth,' said Lazenby. 'The real Fьhrer was smuggled by a pre-arranged underground route to the Argentine and lived there for some years. He had a son there by a beautiful Aryan girl of good family. Some say she was an English girl. Hitler's mental condition worsened, and he died insane, believing himself to be commanding his armies in the field. It was the only plan possibly by which he could ever have escaped from Germany . He accepted it.'
'And you mean that for all these years nothing has leaked out about this, nothing has been known?'
'There have been rumours, there are always rumours. If you remember, one of the Czar's daughters in Russia was said to have escaped the general massacre of her family.'
'But that was –' George Packham stopped. 'False — quite false.'
'It was proved false by one set of people. It was accepted by another set of people, both of whom had known her. That Anastasia was indeed Anastasia, or that Anastasia, Grand Duchess of Russia, was really only a peasant girl. Which story was true? Rumours! The longer they go on, the less people believe them, except for those who have romantic minds, who go on believing them. It has often been rumoured that Hitler was alive, not dead. There is no one who has ever said with certainty that they have examined his dead body. The Russians declared so. They brought no proofs, though.'
'Do you really mean to say — Dr Reinhardt, do you support this extraordinary story?'
'Ach,' said Dr Reinhardt. 'You ask me, but I have told you my part. It was certainly Martin B. who came to my sanatorium. It was Martin B. who brought with him the Fьhrer. It was Martin B. who treated him as the Fьhrer, who spoke to him with the deference with which one speaks to the Fьhrer. As for me, I lived already with some hundreds of Fьhrers, of Napoleons, of Julius Caesars. You must understand that the Hitlers who lived in my sanatorium, they looked alike, they could have been, nearly all of them could have been, Adolf Hitler. They themselves could never have believed in themselves with the passion, the vehemence with which they knew that they were Hitler, unless they had had a basic resemblance, with make-up, clothing, continuing acting, and playing of the part. I had had no personal meeting with Herr Adolf Hitler at any previous time. One saw pictures of him in the papers, one knew roughly what our great genius looked like, but one knew only the pictures that he wished shown. So he came, he was the Fьhrer, Martin B. the man best to be believed on that subject said he was the Fьhrer. No, I had no doubts. I obeyed orders. Herr Hitler wished to go alone into a room to meet a selection of his — what shall one say? — his plaster copies. He went in. He came out. An exchange of clothing could have been made, not very different clothing in any case. Was it he himself or one of the self-appointed Hitlers who came out? Rushed out quickly by Martin B. and driven away while the real man could have stayed behind, could have enjoyed playing his part, could have known that in this way and in this way only could he manage to escape from the country which at any moment might surrender. He was already disturbed in mind, mentally affected by rage and anger that the orders he gave, the wild fantastic messages sent to his staff, what they were to do, what they were to say, the impossible things they were to attempt, were not, as of old, immediately obeyed. He could feel already that he was no longer in supreme command. But he had a small faithful two or three and they had a plan for him, to get him out of this country, out of Europe , to a place where he could rally round him in a different continent his Nazi followers, the young ones who believed so passionately in him. The swastika would rise again there. He played his part. No doubt, he enjoyed it. Yes, that would be in keeping with a man whose reason was already tottering. He would show these others that he could play the part of Adolf Hitler better than they did. He laughed to himself occasionally, and my doctors, my nurses, they would look in, they would see some slight change. One patient who seemed unusually mentally disturbed, perhaps. Pah, there was nothing in that. It was always happening. With the Napoleons, with the Julius Caesars, with all of them. Some days, as one would say if one was a layman, they are madder than usual. That is the only way I can put it. So now it is for Herr Spiess to speak.'
'Fantastic!' said the Home Secretary.
'Yes, fantastic,' said Herr Spiess patiently, 'but fantastic things can happen, you know. In history, in real life, no matter how fantastic.'
'And nobody suspected, nobody knew?'
'It was very well planned. It was well planned, well thought out. The escape route was ready, the exact details of it are not clearly known, but one can make a pretty good recapitulation of them. Some of the people who were concerned, who passed a certain personage on from place to place under different disguises, under different names, some of those people, on our looking back and making their inquiries, we find did not live as long as they might have done.'
'You mean in case they should give the secret away or should talk too much?'
'The SS saw to that. Rich rewards, praise, promises high positions in the future and then — death is a much easier answer. And the SS were used to death. They knew the different ways of it, they knew means of disposing of bodies — Oh yes, I will tell you that, this has been inquired into for some time now. The knowledge has come little by little to us, and we have made inquiries, documents have been acquired and the truth has come out. Adolf Hitler certainly reached South America . It is said that a marriage ceremony was performed — that a child was born. The child was branded in the foot with the mark of the swastika. Branded as a baby. I have seen trusted agents whom I can believe. They have seen that branded foot in South America . There that child was brought up, carefully prepared — prepared as the Dalai Lama must have been prepared for his great destiny. Because that was the idea pf thes fanatics. An idea greater than what they had begun. It wasn't only the rebirth of the new Nazis, the new German Super-race. It started like this, but there were many other things going on. It was young people from almost every country in Europe , together, together in the ranks of anarchy, to destroy the old world, the materialistic world, gathering in an orchestration of violence and death their murdering, violent brothers. Bent first on destruction and then on rising to power. And they had now their leader. A leader with the right blood in his veins and a leader who, though he grew up with no great likeness to his dead father, was — no, is a golden-haired fair Nordic boy, taking presumably after the looks of his mother. A golden boy. A boy whom the whole world could accept. The Germans and the Austrians first because it was the great article of their faith, of their music, the Young Siegfried. So he grew up as the Young Siegfried who would command them all, who would lead into the promised land. Not the promised land of the Jews, whom they despised, where Moses led his followers. The Jews were dead under the ground, killed or murdered in the gas chambers. This was to be a land of their own, a land gained by their own prowess. The countries of Europe were to be banded together with the countries of South America . There already they had their spearhead, their anarchists, their prophets, their Guevaras, the Castros, the Guerillas, their
