Blood and Honor [calibre 2.45.0]

Bormann—who was deputy only to Hitler in running the Nazi party—of course had his own bunker, as did Josef Goebbels, the diminutive, clubfooted genius of Nazi propaganda. But Bormann's staff also had their own bunker, while Goebbels's staff did not. Although bunkers were provided for servants, liaison officers, and official visitors, Goebbels's underlings privileged to be in the Fuhrer compound had to find bunker space for themselves.

Standartenf?hrer Goltz believed that Wolfsschanze—rather than Berlin— provided the best clues to judging who stood where in the pecking order. And nothing he had ever seen—here, or in Berlin or anywhere else—had caused him to question the very senior and very secure position of Mart?n Bormann. That perception had provoked an interesting decision: Where did his loyalty lie? With Heinrich Himmler, who as head of the SS was his own direct superior? Or with Mart?n Bormann, with whom he had been close since the early days?

It would have been nice if the question had never come up. But when Himmler had assigned him as SS-SD liaison officer to the Office of the Party Chancellery—in other words, to Bormann—it did.

As Goltz was aware—and Bormann was equally aware—Himmler fully expected him to study Bormann and his immediate staff for signs of anything that Himmler could report to Hitler. And Himmler trusted him to do so. Goltz went a long way back with Himmler, too.

The question for Goltz had boiled down, finally, to what would best serve the Fuhrer himself. For one thing, Goltz understood that while the F?hrer should be above politics, this was unfortunately not possible. And he understood further that while Reichsprotektor Himmler certainly could not be faulted for his untiring efforts to protect the Fuhrer, Himmler was not above using the information that came his way for his own political purposes.

Bormann was, of course, no less a political creature than Himmler, and certainly just as willing to use information that came his way for political purposes. The difference was that Mart?n Bormann had no purpose in life but to serve the Fuhrer, while Heinrich Himmler's basic purpose was to serve the State. Himmler would argue, of course, that Adolf Hitler and the German State were really one and the same thing, but in the final analysis, Goltz did not think that held water.

Thus, in a hypothetical situation, if Hitler were forced to choose between Bormann and Himmler, Goltz had no doubt that he would chose Bormann.

And so, even before he reported to Mart?n Bormann's office in the Reichs-chancellery, he had decided that his SS officer's oath required that he transfer his loyalty from Himmler to Bormann. In his mind, he had no other choice.

At the same time, he had come to believe that what had begun as a selfless act of duty—bread cast onto the water—was going to pay dividends. For one thing, Hitler had often confided in Bormann his suspicions that not all cowards and defeatists were in the Armed Forces. That the Fuhrer was referring to the SS was a not unreasonable inference.

In Goltz's professional opinion, as a security man of some experience, defeatists and traitors were indeed in the highest echelons of the Army, just waiting for a chance to seize power, depose the Fuhrer, and seek an armistice with the enemy. It was Himmler's job, the job of the SS, to ruthlessly root these men out. He had found some. But the Fuhrer was correct in suspecting that he had not found all.

It logically followed—it was a question of numerical probability—that if there were X number of defeatists and potential traitors in the Army, then there were Y number in the Navy, Z number in the Luftwaffe, and even XX number in the SS. Goltz believed that the ratio probably was geometric. If there was one traitor in the SS, there were probably two in the Luftwaffe, four in the Navy, and eight in the Army.

In Goltz's view, Hitler might well pardon Himmler for not finding all the traitors in the Army, or even those in the Navy and Luftwaffe, but the first traitor uncovered in the SS would look to the Fuhrer like proof that Himmler was incompetent... or even disloyal himself.

And it reasonably followed that if the Fuhrer decided that Himmler could no longer be trusted, then the Fuhrer would not place a good deal of trust in Himmler's immediate underlings either. If Himmler was deposed—and this was far from inconceivable, if one remembered Rohm ( On Hitler's orders, Ernst Rohm, one of his oldest friends and head of the Sturmablietung (SA). was murdered by the SS June 30, 1934, on "The Night of the Long Knives.")—so would be those immediately under him.

And who would be better qualified to replace Himmler than Standarten-f?hrer Josef Goltz, who had not only been in the SS at senior levels long enough to know how that agency should operate, but who all along—literally since the days of the Burgerbraukeller in Munich—had been the trusted intimate of the faithful Mart?n Bormann?

The Mercedes stopped at the first of the entrances to the Fuhrer compound. Obviously, the Hauptsturmf?hrer at the gate in the outer wire had telephoned ahead not only to Bormann's office, but to the SS officer in charge of Fuhrer compound security; for an Obersturmfuhrer (First Lieutenant) was waiting for him.

"Heil Hitler!" he barked. "It is good to see the Herr Standartenf?hrer again."

"Well, look who's here!" Goltz said, although he did not remember meeting the tall, good-looking Obersturmfuhrer before. "How have you been?"

"Very well, thank you," the Obersturmfuhrer said. "If you'll come with me, Sir, I will escort you to Reichsleiter Bormann's office."

"How kind of you," Goltz said, and followed him into the Fuhrer compound, this time returning the guard's salute with an equally impeccable straight-armed salute.

[THREE]

Walfsschanze

Near Rastenburg, East Prussia

2200 5 April 1943

There were, of course, no windows in Bormann's office. Behind the oak paneling was several feet of solid concrete. On one wall hung an oil portrait of the Fuhrer. Facing it on the opposite wall was a monstrous oil painting of the mountains near Garmisch-Partenkirchen. It had been a gift to the Fuhrer, and he had given it to Bormann.

"I'm really sorry I kept you waiting, Josef," Reichsleiter Mart?n Bormann said, sounding as if he meant it. As he spoke, he stepped from behind his desk to greet Standartenf?hrer Goltz. "How was the trip?"

Bormann was a short and stocky man, wearing a brown Nazi party uniform decorated only with the swastika brassard on his right sleeve and the Blood Order insignia pinned to his right breast. (The Blood Order decoration, awarded to those who participated in the—failed—1923 coup d'?tat in Munich, was of red and silver, surmounted by an eagle, showing a view within an oak-leaf wreath of the Feldherrnhalle in Munich, and bore the legend "You Were Victorious.")

"Very long, Herr Reichsleiter," Goltz replied, returning the firm handshake.

"Well, at least you won't have to drive back to Berlin. I've arranged a seat for you on the Heinkel."

A Heinkel twin-engine bomber had been converted to a transport for highspeed service between Berlin and Wolf's Lair. Only six seats were available, and they were hard to come by unless spoken for by someone very high—Keitel, Goring, Bormann, or the F?hrer himself.

"Wonderful. Thank you."

"Reichsprotektor Himmler was kind enough to tell me early this morning that he had received word from Buenos Aires that a certain highly placed Argentine met a tragic death at the hands of bandits," Bormann said, getting immediately to the point that most immediately concerned Goltz, "and that he felt you could now travel to Buenos Aires without raising any suspicions that you were personally involved."