Goebbels’ phone jingled almost every two minutes. Bettina answered the phone and wrote down the messages. Goebbels was to be notified only if a call came from the Führer himself.
A young sergeant leaned through the opening of a partly open door and then knocked.
“General Knoepp is pleased to inform you that the Fifth Army is in Metz!”
“Two days ahead of schedule!” Zangemeister cheered as he raised his glass.
The rest of the room raised their glasses in a resemblance of the Nazi salute.
“Sieg Heil!”
Goebbels was standing under his huge wall map, which was now covered with markers showing German, French, and British positions. He handed a glass to his wife, who was for the very first time in his office. While she had closely inspected all of the contents of his working environment – the paintings, the furniture and every item of display – she also shot an infrequent glance to Bettina as if she knew this was the young lady Joseph Goebbels spent most of his time with – even though they were never introduced.
“This moment I dedicate to you, my dear.”
“Thank-you.” Magda said modestly, while looking at the red triangles representing the French divisions in the southeast of France. These triangles have not moved since the operation begun. Magda looked at her husband. “We make a good team, do we not?”
“Yes, and you are the captain of the team.” Goebbels said, putting his ego aside to compliment his wife. On this day in May, 1940 at 13:20, however, would be the last time he would ever show her such humility.
“Frau Goebbels? Another?” A staff Lieutenant raised a tray with five glasses of champagne. She put her empty on the tray and took the glass with the least amount.
Joseph Goebbels used the opportunity to shoot a quick glance over at Bettina to make sure she was following orders; to answer the phone and speak to no one. Even with Magda next to him – his wife of 9 years – he could not control the urge to look at the woman, who, in his opinion, had a perfect body.
Joseph and Magda had a good working relationship when they met, but her first real attraction was to Adolf Hitler when she joined the Nazi party on September 1, 1930. Hitler was impressed by her as well, but since he wished to remain unmarried, it was suggested that she become the wife of a highly visible Nazi official so she could be seen as the “First Lady of the Third Reich” to copy the symbol that Eleanor Roosevelt had become in America.
“We will be in Paris by the middle of June!” The Lieutenant shouted, while moving the German Fifth Army maker past the city of Metz to the west.
“Maybe even before then.” Magda predicted.
The Lieutenant stepped back and viewed the map as a whole. Another staff member was moving the retreating French and English markers in the north closer to the channel.
“Perhaps you are right, Frau Goebbels! You should have been a general!”
The Lieutenant did not realize how close to the truth he was. He and many in the German High Command would never know the German armies rolling through the French country side did not have to worry about its southern flank thanks to Frau Goebbels and her manipulation of Nostradamus prophecy.
Natalia seemed pleased she had found someone who would seriously consider her suspicions concerning her respected husband.
“Other things, Herr von Wohl?”
“Yes, what other things has he done that would suggest he was a spy? Does he listen to the BBC? Does he make excessive copies of his documents?” Being a writer of an occasional spy novel, von Wohl knew at least superficially what kind of questions to ask.
Frau Hildebraudt began thinking deeply, her memory racing back over seventeen years of marriage with General Karl Joseph Hildebraudt and the activities von Wohl had described.
“Yes, he listens to the BBC, and Radio Moscow, too!”
Von Wohl realized that listening to these broadcasts does not make someone a spy, but the fact his suggestion allowed her to explore her own theory pleased him. It would at least appear to her that von Wohl was taking her suspicions seriously and could turn into more astrological work – and therefore more money from her – later. She was, after all, his best paying client.
“And, he does copy many of his documents, and…” Frau Hildebraudt stopped for a moment, but von Wohl could see that her mind was still racing. “…he has meetings with the Americans, which he tries to keep secret from everyone.”
“Tries to keep secret?”
“He doesn’t know I hired a detective to follow him… I wanted to see who he is having an affair with… but the other things I found…”
“Interesting, Frau Hildebraudt.” Von Wohl said, encouraging her to go on.
“He meets with people who the detective found to have connections to Henry Ford, the DuPont family, and one is even a representation of the Goodyear company here in Berlin. I myself over heard a conversation he had with an American banker while we were in Holland.”
“An American banker. Who? When?”
“Several years before the war, it was a man from Connecticut… Bush, Prescott Bush. Something about finances and gold… and there was someone there from the Thyssen family.”
Gold, money, steel, automobiles, tires, and chemicals with the Americans seemed to be beyond what a German general should be involved with. Maybe she is on to something. Von Wohl thought. Maybe this could be useful.
“For now, in the interest of security for us, and the Reich, let us keep this strictly between us. Understand?”
“Of course.”
“We have to collect everything we can and be one hundred per cent sure before we say or do anything. Promise?”
“Promise.”
There was excitement Natalia’s life again. In the same way her husband brought excitement to her life by elevating her in German society, now he was bringing more with his apparent secret life.
“What should I do?”
“Write down everything you can think of that has happened in the past. We both will meet weekly to compare notes with what I can come up with.”
Natalia finished her drink and immediately began writing. This conversation motivated her desire to ruin her husband and become a hero in the eyes of Adolf Hitler and Germany.
Von Wohl’s motivation was to later use this information as “something he had seen in the stars” to become an official astrologer for the Third Reich.
Local officials by those higher up in the British, German, Italian, French, and the United States government protected the pimps – thanks to the Count. Stöver, Walls, and Rafelo saw the value of the Count’s offer of a federation nearly ten years ago in Paris. This win-win idea for an international white slave trade was good business for all, and an information bonanza as well as another vehicle of influence for the Count.
Besides training the girls in the highest etiquette and make up, the Count’s associates also trained the girls in obtaining “black” information from their important clients, be it by discreet forms of questioning, blackmail, or just out right stealing. Nearly every important client from this syndicate later found that someone had somehow uncovered a dark secret that they were presently involved in or from their distant past. None of these prominent businessmen, politicians, priests and presidents ever knew it was done by the Count’s “girls” who just as skilled in espionage as any German, English or Soviet agents.