“It’s Fesel. Please don’t ever tell him I am telling you this, no matter what happens between us.”
“Nothing could ever come between us.” Krafft said, at the moment forgetting Elaine.
Ewa released her embrace and walked over to the door checking the hallways. “Fesel wants horrible things done to you.”
“What do you mean?” Concern came Krafft’s voice. Georg Lucht had warned him about Fesel several times, but was never specific. Krafft suspected Lucht was being blackmailed in some form or another.
“He’s using you. Of course he is using all of us, but he is using you to destroy you. He wants to take your place so he can be Germany’s great astrologer.” Ewa’s eyes began to water as she stressed the word ‘great’ with sarcasm. “He’s taken the credit for nearly all of the work you have done.”
“How do you know this?” Krafft thought for a moment. “How is he taking credit for my work?”
“I heard him speaking to Goebbels once how he found the relation between one’s career and their horoscope.”
“That was work I did years ago!”
“I know, I started reading your work.” Ewa turned to look out the door again. “I see now how all the papers he delivers to Goebbels are simply the ones you’ve done, with his name on it.
Karl Ernst began to put the odd pieces of Fesel’s behavior and actions – he became angry when he realized what all this pointed to with this additional piece of information from Ewa.
“Karl Ernst, there is something else. Fesel is blackmailing me. He is trying to force me to come between you and Elaine. He wants to ruin your marriage, then you.”
“Why, that little weasel, I’m going right now to…”
Ewa became horrified. “No!” She managed a subdued scream. “He will know I told you. If I ever ruin any part of his plan he would have me in a concentration camp… and he would.”
Karle Ernst Krafft had never seen a concentration, or a work camp for that matter, but had begin to hear about them from various acquaintances. He wondered if the horrors that were described were for real or just exaggerations.
“Then, we must ruin him first.” Krafft said after some analysis of the situation. “You mentioned him speaking to Goebbels… hmmm…” Karl Ernst began to develop a plan. “Fesel answers to who, Goebbels, or Himmler?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then that is our first step. We’ll now start to work on our own plan for Fesel.”
“Raus!”
The unfortunate Luftwaffe captain, just ordered to come in and deliver a stack of papers to the Führer’s office, froze. “Jawohl, Mein Führer!” He shouted, then turned and left the room in a state of shock.
Göring gave the captain a look that said: Don’t take it personal, son, he’s angry with all of us.
Goebbels, seated across from the portly Luftwaffe Field Marshal looked at no one, his eyes fixed on a 1929 photograph on the wall showing Hitler, Hess, Goebbels, Göring, and Alfred Rosenberg at a rally in Munich. The good old days. When they all worked together with a vision.
Hitler noticed the subject of Goebbels’ stare. The Führer then stormed over to the photograph, pulled it off the wall and smashed it to the floor. “The fool!” Hitler shouted. What on earth did he think he could accomplish?”
Everyone in the room remained silent.
“I want answers, dam it, answers!” Hitler’s eyes pierced through everyone breathing.
Goebbels, his mind on damage control, stated the first thing that came to mind. “We could say he had some kind of mental break down or mental…”
“What? Officially admit a Deputy Minister of the Third Reich is an idiot?” Hitler whirled around in a circle and switched into his ‘old lady’ voice. “Hello, London? Washington? Yes? Yes, Mr. Churchill, yes, Mr. Roosevelt. The Deputy Minister, the number three person in the Nazi party is a moron. Certainly, of course, you are absolutely right. If he is a moron, then that proves the rest of the leadership are morons as well! Great propaganda, Herr Goebbels!”
The entire room returned into a deadly silence. Hitler switched back to a wall of silence that lasted for several minutes. Then suddenly, their Führer erupted once again. “Lovely, just lovely. And you, the Minister of Propaganda, to come up with a dimwit explanation like that! You are supposed to be the master of such ideas!” Hitler’s face turned a darker shade of red while throwing the pen in his hand at Goebbels. “I need something far, far better than that, Herr Minister!”
Göring bit his lip. He had something in mind, but could not for the life express it out of fear. Goebbels noticed the Luftwaffe leader squirming in his seat, leading Hitler to notice as well. The focus of wrath was now about to shift gears.
“Have you any ideas, Herr Field Marshal…?”
Göring flashed a frown to Goebbels. Hermann Göring, the air force master, had no solutions for the propaganda or political implications of Rudolf Hess flying to England. However, after knowing Hitler for so long, he did have a gut feeling on how to appease.
“We should arrest all his astrologer friends. They are responsible for this!”
One of the reasons Göring was the number two man in the Nazi party was he and Hitler saw most circumstances in the same light, plus both reacted to certain circumstances with similar impulses – place the blame on someone else.
“Yes!” Hitler shouted to what appeared to be an imaginary audience behind his desk. “Yes! Do it now, at once! Arrest all of the astrologers in the Third Reich!” Hitler stomped over to his desk and pulled up the oversized brass phone. “Get me Himmler!”
Göring and Goebbels both took this chance of having the Führer off their backs to take a breath and down a gulp of coffee that had been sitting in front of them for almost an hour, untouched.
“Heinrich? Are you questioning all of Hess’s friends? I want everyone he ever talked to be brought in! Make this a complete action Hess, and I especially want all of this astrologer friends arrested at once. Do you hear me? Arrested! Now! At once!” Hitler took a breath, but kept the phone glued to his ear. “What? Then arrest every astrologer in the Reich! But do it now! Do you understand me? Now!” Hitler threw down the phone in a child’s tantrum. “Well, that takes care of one side of this problem. I’ll be dam if I’m going to let…” Hitler suddenly froze motionless in mid-sentence as if he was experiencing a heart attack.
Goebbels started up immediately out of his chair to assist the stricken leader but Göring waved him back. Hitler’s eyes bulged, then he started to shake, which seemed to return his consciousness to his mind. He then slowly began to head for his side office, where both his Ministers figured he would lie down for a moment. His unsteady walking indicated one who might be dizzy, or drunk.
When Hitler could be heard collapsing on the huge couch in the other room, Göring walked over to shut the door to the side office, then walked over to Goebbels.
“The mustard gas.”
Goebbels nodded. While he had never seen Hitler in such a powerless state, we was aware that three weeks before the armistice in the Argonne Forest Hitler’s company was hit with the deadly gas. Hitler was treated at a hospital in Pasewalk when the news of surrender came.