“One of the things I admire in you, Manfred,” Heydrich said, “is that you can get things done administratively.”
“Thank you.”
“And Erich, on the other hand, can get done whatever needs to be done without any record being kept. Do you follow me?”
“I’m not sure.”
“The confidential special fund is what I’m leading up to,” Heydrich said. “I’m sure that aroused your curiosity, Manfred?”
“Yes, it did.”
“What no longer appears on Erich’s service record is that he served with the Totenkopfverbände,” Heydrich said.
The Death’s-Head Skull Battalions were charged with the administration of concentration camps.
“I didn’t know that.”
“You told me a while ago you were having a little trouble keeping your financial head above water. A lot of us have that problem. We work hard, right? We should play hard, right? And to do that, you need the wherewithal, right?”
“Yes, sir,” von Deitzberg said smiling.
“Has the real purpose of the concentration camps ever occurred to you, Manfred?”
“You’re talking about the Final Solution?”
“In a sense. The Führer correctly believes that the Jews are a cancer on Germany, and that we have to remove that cancer. You understand that, of course?”
“Of course.”
“The important thing is to take them out of the German society. In some instances, we can make them contribute to Germany with their labor. You remember what it says over the gate at Dachau?”
" ’Arbeit macht frei’ ?”
“Yes. But if the parasites can’t work, and can’t be forced to make some repayment for all they have stolen from Germany over the years, then something else has to be done with them. Right?”
“I understand.”
“Elimination is one option,” Heydrich said. “But if you think about it, realize that the basic objective is to get these parasites out of Germany. Elimination is not the only option.”
“I don’t think I quite understand,” von Deitzberg confessed.
“Put very simply, there are Jews outside of Germany who are willing to pay generously to have their relatives and friends removed from the concentration camps,” Heydrich said.
“Really?”
“When it first came to my attention, I was tempted to dismiss this possibility out of hand,” Heydrich said. “But then I gave it some thought. For one thing, it accomplishes the Führer’s primary purpose—removing these parasitic vermin from the Fatherland. It does National Socialism no harm if vermin that cost us good money to feed and house leave Germany and never return and then cost others money to feed.”
“I can see your point.”
“And if, at the same time, it takes money from Jews outside Germany and transfers it to Germany, there is also an element of justice. They are not getting away free after sucking our blood all these years.”
“I understand.”
“In other words, if we can further the Führer’s intention to get Jews out of Germany, and at the same time bring Jewish money into Germany, and at the same time make a little money for ourselves, what’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing that I can see.”
“This has to be done in absolute secrecy, of course. A number of people would not understand; and an even larger number would feel they have a right to share in the confidential special fund. You can understand that.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Raschner will get into the details with you,” Heydrich went on. “But essentially, you will do what I’ve been doing myself. Inmates are routinely transferred from one concentration camp to another. And, routinely, while the inmates are en route, members of the Totenkopfverbände remove two, three, or four of them from the transport. For purposes of further interrogation and the like. Having been told the inmates have been removed by the Totenkopfverbände, the receiving camp has no further interest in them. The inmates who have been removed from the transport are then provided with Spanish passports and taken by Gestapo escorts to the Spanish border. Once in Spain, they make their way to Cádiz or some other port and board neutral ships. A month later, they’re in Uruguay.”
“Uruguay?” von Deitzberg blurted in surprise. It had taken him a moment to place Uruguay; and even then, all he could come up with was that it was close to Argentina, somewhere in the south of the South American continent.
“Some stay there,” Heydrich said matter-of-factly, “but many go on to Argentina. ”
“I see,” von Deitzberg said.
“Documents issued by my office are of course never questioned,” Heydrich went on, “and Raschner will tell you what documents are necessary. You will also administer dispersals from the confidential special fund. Raschner will tell you how much, to whom, and when.”
“I understand.”
“We have one immediate problem,” Heydrich said. “And then we’ll have another little sip of this splendid brandy and go see what we can find for dinner.”
“An immediate problem?”
“We need one more man here in Berlin,” Heydrich said. “Someone who will understand the situation and who can be trusted. I want you to recruit him yourself. Can you think of anyone?”
That had posed no problem for von Deitzberg.
“Josef Goltz,” he said immediately. “Obersturmbannführer Goltz.”
Heydrich made a Give me more sign with his hands.
“He’s the SS-SD liaison officer to the Office of the Party Chancellery.”
Heydrich laughed. “Great minds run in similar channels. That’s the answer I got when I asked Raschner for ideas. Why don’t the two of you talk to him together?”
In addition to his other duties, Gruppenführer Heydrich had been named Protector of Czechoslovakia. On 31 May 1942, he was fatally wounded when Czech agents of the British threw a bomb into his car in Prague.
Before leaving Berlin to personally supervise the retribution to be visited upon the Czechs for Heydrich’s murder, Himmler called von Deitzberg into his office to tell him how much he would have to rely on him until a suitable replacement for the martyred Heydrich could be found.
Meanwhile, von Deitzberg was faced with a serious problem. With Heydrich’s death, he had become the senior officer involved with the confidential fund and the source of its money. But von Deitzberg had never learned from Heydrich how much Himmler knew about it.
He quickly and carefully checked the records of dispersal of money; he found no record that Himmler had ever received money from it.
It was of course possible that the enormous disbursements to Heydrich had included money that Heydrich had quietly slipped to Himmler; that way there would be no record of Himmler’s involvement.
Three months later, however, after Himmler had asked neither for money nor about the status of the confidential fund, von Deitzberg was forced to conclude that Himmler not only knew nothing about it but that Heydrich had gone to great lengths to conceal it from the reichsprotektor.
It was entirely possible, therefore, that Himmler would be furious if he learned now about the confidential fund.
The reichsprotektor had a puritanical streak, and he might consider that Heydrich had actually been stealing from the Reich, and that von Deitzberg had been involved in the theft up to his neck.
When von Deitzberg brought up the subject to Raschner, Raschner advised that as far as he himself knew, Himmler either didn’t know about the fund—or didn’t want to know about it. Thus, an approach to him now might see everyone connected with it stood before a wall and shot.
They had no choice, Raschner concluded, except to go on as they had— but of course taking even greater care to make sure the ransoming operation remained secret.
Obersturmbannführer Josef Goltz had died at Samborombón Bay with Oberst Karl-Heinz Grüner. That meant only four people, all SS officers, were left who knew the details of the confidential special fund: Von Deitzberg, Raschner, Cranz, and their man in Uruguay, Sturmbannführer Werner von Tresmarck.