onto the white damask bar runner. He wandered over to Doctor Drechsler, glass in hand.
‘The sultry one in the red dress over there in the corner. She’s mine. Introduce me,’ he demanded thickly. Drechsler shrugged and moved towards the tall blonde sitting on her own at a table.
Von Hei?en followed unsteadily, stumbling against a table and knocking it over, sending the wine glasses to shatter on the wooden floor.
‘May I present Miss Katrina Baumgartner,’ the doctor intoned impassively.
Katrina looked up. Her eyes were pale blue and her skin milky white.
‘Von Hei?en. Hauptsturmfuhrer Karl von Hei?en,’ the SS captain slurred, clicking his heels. ‘What are you drinking, Fraulein?’
‘I don’t drink, Hauptsturmfuhrer,’ Katrina Baumgartner replied coolly, eyeing von Hei?en with disdain.
‘Nonsense.’ Von Hei?en snapped his fingers at one of the dining-room staff. ‘ Rotwein fur das Fraulein. Where are you from?’ he asked, pulling out a chair.
‘Berlin,’ Katrina replied, her eyes glazed with boredom.
‘And what brings you here?’ Von Hei?en leered.
‘I’ve been assigned to the Lebensborn program, so I didn’t have much choice. But surely you know that, Hauptsturmfuhrer.’
‘Quite an honour,’ von Hei?en observed, ‘for a woman to be able to serve the greater Reich. I myself am about to deploy to the jungles of Guatemala, although that is top secret. Tomorrow I will meet with Reichsfuhrer Himmler, who has personally selected me for the mission. We are going to search for archaeological evidence that the Aryans were at the heart of the great Mayan civilisation.’
Katrina raised a sceptical eyebrow.
‘We will also be looking for a secret codex that’s been missing for centuries. It could be of great value to the Reich!’
‘If it’s top secret, then perhaps you shouldn’t be talking about it?’
‘You, I can trust,’ von Hei?en slurred. ‘You’re on the program, and you’re of good German stock. If you were a Jew or a gypsy, it would be quite a different matter.’
‘And if I told you I have a number of Jewish friends who are good, decent citizens?’
‘Then I would advise you to be careful, Fraulein. Very careful. Have you read The Protocols of the Elders of Zion?’
‘Should I have?’
‘Most certainly. I will arrange for a copy to be sent to you. The Fuhrer himself has endorsed it…’ Von Hei?en reached for his glass, almost toppling out of his chair. ‘Anyway, for the moment, I’m going to have to put up with a Jewish professor on my expedition, although he will have a use-by date.’ Von Hei?en’s laugh was deep and guttural. ‘But it’s very noisy in here,’ he added, standing and reaching unsteadily for Katrina’s hand. ‘Let’s go to your room.’
She looked at him, contemptuous of his highly polished knee-high boots and the immaculately tailored Hugo Boss uniform, all black save for the red-and-black Nazi swastika armband. She reluctantly rose from the table.
Von Hei?en sat on the side of the bed and wrestled with his boots. ‘I’d get into something very comfortable if I were you,’ he said lustfully.
Katrina Baumgartner let her red dress fall to the carpet of her large, comfortably furnished room. Her black lace bra and knickers contrasted with her smooth white skin.
Von Hei?en ogled her long legs and struggled out of the rest of his uniform. He stood up and lurched towards her. Katrina sidestepped his advance and von Hei?en stumbled back against the bed.
‘Not very ready, are we, Hauptsturmfuhrer?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, look at it,’ she said, laughing as she slipped into bed. ‘Any smaller and I wouldn’t be able to find it.’ It was a dangerous, albeit calculated ploy. Katrina knew well that the more pressure a man was under to get it up, the higher the failure rate, especially amongst the arrogant Officer Corps. She couldn’t have known, of course, that von Hei?en’s first girlfriend had also had a fit of the giggles, or that von Hei?en had been forced to find solace in the brothels of Berlin ever since.
‘Fick dich!’ Von Hei?en swung his fist at Katrina, but she deftly swayed to one side. He bellowed in pain as he connected with the bedhead, falling back onto the pillows.
‘I wouldn’t try that again, if I were you, Hauptsturmfuhrer,’ she warned, picking up the buzzer from the bedside table. ‘I might have been forced on to this program, but this alarm is connected to the Security Office, and unless you behave, I will call them. Now,’ she said, raising one eyebrow, ‘are you going to get that thing up? Perhaps you’d like another whisky before you try?’
Von Hei?en sat back against the pillows and nursed his hand, his bloodshot eyes blazing with anger. Katrina got out of bed and walked over to the sideboard. ‘Down this,’ she said, returning with a large tumbler of Chivas, ‘it’ll put you in the mood.’
Von Hei?en glared at her, drained the tumbler in one gulp and handed it back. Katrina refilled it and wandered over to the gramophone player. She took her time sorting through the records, finally choosing some soft music. She turned to find von Hei?en lolling against the pillows, his eyes half closed.
The next morning, Katrina eased herself out of bed, dressed quietly and went for a long walk. Depressed and trapped, she followed the narrow path up into hills shrouded in mist.
It was getting on towards midmorning when von Hei?en’s driver reached Kassel, where the Brothers Grimm had lived and written their fairytales. They turned east towards the Alme Valley, but von Hei?en didn’t notice. He was still seething over the night before, the details of which he recorded meticulously in his diary. Less than an hour later, the big Mercedes came to a halt in the stone courtyard of Wewelsburg Castle. Von Hei?en alighted and stretched. From the hillside above the village of Wewelsburg, the castle had views over the Westphalian forests and the rolling farmland dotted with small stone cottages. Von Hei?en stared up at the castle’s massive stone walls. It had been built on a rare, triangular footprint and three towers commanded each apex.
‘Heil Hitler, Herr Hauptsturmfuhrer!’ The young SS lieutenant snapped to attention and gave the Nazi salute. ‘I am Untersturmfuhrer Bosch. Welcome to Wewelsburg.’ Leutnant Bosch was a centimetre taller than von Hei?en, and his light-brown hair was thick and wavy, brushed straight back off his broad forehead. His deep-blue eyes held an intensity of purpose.
‘I’ve been assigned to look after you while you’re here, Herr Hauptsturmfuhrer,’ Bosch said. ‘Professor Weizman is already in his room and will join you and the Reichsfuhrer for lunch. Please follow me and I’ll take you down to the hall where Reichsfuhrer Himmler is addressing the officers.’
Bosch led the way across a cobblestone bridge. The stone arch spanned the castle’s protective moat. Von Hei?en followed him through the huge arched wooden doors and down a flight of heavy stone steps. Wrought-iron lamps threw an eerie glow against the solid rock walls.
‘This is the Grail room,’ Bosch explained, as they passed a chamber containing a huge, illuminated rock crystal representing the Holy Grail. ‘And in here,’ he said, lowering his voice, ‘is the Obergruppen-fuhrer Hall.’ Bosch eased the heavy wooden door open and led the way to the rear of a hall that was decorated with ancient runes. The inner walls and arches were supported by stone columns and a large black iron wheel hung from the ceiling. It supported seven lamps, and a mirror image of the wheel had been reproduced on the marble floor. About fifty SS officers, all dressed in their black uniforms, were listening intently to their Reichsfuhrer.
‘Breeding will be the basis of our success, gentlemen. In animal breeding one has known it for a long time. If anyone wants to buy a horse, he will sensibly take advice from someone who is a horse expert.’ Himmler had a high-pitched voice, but, like Hitler, his oratory was charged with a hypnotic power. ‘The best bloodlines will always produce champions, but centuries of Christian education have caused us to lose sight of this,’ he said, looking over his gold-rimmed glasses. ‘The Christians regard a shapely human body in a bathing suit as somehow sinful!’ Raucous laughter echoed off the stone walls.
‘It is your duty to breed from sound, shapely Nordic stock. We will have fought in vain if political victory is not followed by births of good blood. The question of multiplicity of children is not the private affair of the individual, but his duty towards his ancestors and our people. The existence of a sound marriage is futile if it does not result in the creation of numerous descendants. The minimum number of children for a good marriage is four. That doesn’t mean I want you or your officers to marry the first girl who might appear to meet our requirements. Without being tactless, you should get the girl to tell you a little about her family. If she discloses that her father shot himself, or
