One quick jigger of scotch roared down Von Epp’s throat, and a second followed, and a third was poured. Then he turned and faced Funk and began to laugh ironically. Funk’s face quivered as his expression changed from anger to puzzlement.
“ ‘With reasonable men, I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter ...’ ”
“What in the name of hell are you babbling about, Horst?”
“As a good propagandist, I studied the art of another good propagandist. We should all study our predecessors, don’t you think?”
“I don’t recall the phrase, nor do I see the occasion for your laughter.”
“I give you William Lloyd Garrison, master American propagandist.”
The muscles in Funk’s face knotted with anger. “Perhaps it would be more fitting if you quoted Nietzsche.”
“Ah yes. That great humanitarian, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. To enter into a higher civilization, a super-race must ruthlessly destroy the existing inferior civilizations. We must divest, purge, cleanse ourselves of Judeo-Christian perversions in order to achieve this ultimate form of life. Now, how’s that for Nietzsche, Alfred?”
“It is men like you, who compromise with sub-human forms of life, who will keep the German people from reaching their goals.”
Horst flopped his hands. “Here we go, underestimating the Americans again. A chronic, incurable illness of ours, underestimating Americans.” Horst settled opposite Funk’s chair, tilting the bottle of scotch once more. “I paraphrase an underestimated American. Reasonable men reason. Compassionate men show mercy. Tyrants destroy. We destroy because we must destroy because we must destroy.”
“You are playing dangerous games with this radical thinking, Horst. Take my advice. Change your tune. Berlin is not so happy over some of your attitudes.”
“Save it, Alfred. You will need apologists around like me after the Third Reich is crushed to expound the theories of apologetics. What shall I say? Ah yes, there was no one here but us anti-Nazis. What could we do? Orders were orders.”
“You speak treason against the Fatherland,” Funk said menacingly.
Horst jumped up from his seat and slammed the bottle on the desk. It was the first show of temper Alfred Funk had ever seen him make, and he was clearly startled into silence.
“Damn you!” Horst cried. “I am neither damned fool nor coward enough to keep smiling and pretending and clicking my heels and bowing from the waist in the face of absolute disaster. Say it, Alfred! Germany has lost the war!”
Funk’s eyes bulged with disbelief.
“We have lost the war! We have lost the war! We have lost the war!” Horst bellowed.
Funk paled and sat down.
“Now we have the opportunity to soften the blows of defeat if we have the intelligence to recognize defeat and prepare for it carefully. So, what do we do? Step up the murders at Auschwitz. Five thousand more Poles and Slavs a day ... We respond to the reality of defeat by throwing open the doors for our own destruction.”
Funk mopped his brow and smiled weakly. He thought he had better change the subject. Von Epp always tied him in knots when they argued. He was like the devil himself! One lovely day Himmler would tell him to get rid of Von Epp. What a pleasure that would be.
Alfred Funk cleared his throat. “One of the things I discussed with Goebbels concerns you. Next week we are to meet in Lublin and design a campaign to minimize the unpleasantness in Poland. We start by understating the numbers of Jews involved in the final solution. Then we deny the special-treatment camps have facilities for other than labor. Bone-crushing machines are being installed in all special-treatment centers to eliminate the evidence. In fact, those given special treatment by firing squads are being exhumed for cremation. Eichmann has full-time staffs at 4B making a duplicate set of records—court trials, epidemics, and such—which can account for a good part of the deaths. In Czechoslovakia, at Theresienstadt, we have established a model camp for Jews and invited the Red Cross to inspect it ...”
“Shut up, Alfred! We scratch like dogs to cover dung piles while we proceed to drown ourselves in our own vomit.”
Alfred Funk had that queasy feeling in his stomach again. He tested his words carefully. “The world has a short memory.”
“I think this time they are not going to forget. Jews have a long memory. They weep for temples lost two thousand years and they repeat old wives’ stories of liberations and rituals from the dawn of time. Do you know what an old Jew rabbi told me once when I asked him about Jewish memory?”
“What?”
“The words ‘I believe’ mean ‘I remember.’ Even Nietzsche is puzzled over their ability to outlive everyone who has tried to destroy them. I believe ... I remember. So you see, Alfred, a thousand years from now old Jews will wail in remembrance of the Nazi pharaoh who held them in bondage in Warsaw.”
Terrifying thoughts ran through Alfred Funk’s mind. Damn Eichmann and his mania for rounding up Jews. Damn Globocnik! Damn Himmler! Damn Hitler! They had all gone too far with this Jewish business. But what could he say? What could he do? He looked at the map on the desk. In a few days his army would be assembled. Perhaps ... perhaps when he destroyed the last of the Jews he could enter into the higher form of life the Nazis promised. He restored his calm. To hell with Horst von Epp!
“Shall I tell you something, Alfred?” Horst said, bleary from a rapid emptying of the bottle. “You are a man who understands the mathematics of checks and balances. We Germans respect mathematics. The punishment always balances the crime. We have only eighty million Germans. It is not a sufficient number to bear our guilt. To balance the scale, we pass on our sentences to be served by a hundred unborn generations.”
Alfred Funk began to shake visibly. Words he dared not speak but thoughts he could not squelch were being hammered at him.
“Our names will be synonymous with the brotherhoods of evil. We shall be scorned and abused with no more and no less an intensity than the scorn and abuse we have heaped upon the Jews.”
Alfred Funk pushed away from his desk. He was perspiring badly. He had to take a bath.
Chapter Twelve
ANDREI SAT IN THE back row of the small church of a village on the northern fringe of the Lublin Uplands.
Gabriela Rak knelt before the altar, whispering prayers before a crudely hewn image of a bleeding Christ on the crucifix. She stood, lit a candle on the right side of the altar, knelt at the aisle, crossed herself, and retreated back to Andrei just as Father Kornelli entered.
“The children were exhausted,” Father Kornelli said. “The two girls fell right to sleep. The boy is waiting for you,” he said to Andrei.
“When will they leave?” Gabriela asked.
“In the morning Gajnow and his wife will come and fetch them. It is about ten miles into the forest to their home. Gajnow is a good man. The children will be safe with him. You must of course tell them that they have to learn Catholicism for their own protection.”
“I have told the girls,” Gabriela said. “They are bright children. They understand.”
“I’ll talk to the boy now,” Andrei said.
“You will find him in my room,” Father Kornelli said.
Andrei crossed a dirt courtyard filled with flitting geese and wallowing pigs. He entered the priest’s home. The door to the bedroom was ajar. He opened it a bit wider and looked at the two sleeping girls. One child had only a name they had invented for her. She did not know her name when they had found her. The other was a twelve-year-old daughter of one of the members of the Civil Authority. Deborah had been right. Children were children. This one deserved to have the second chance for life. Andrei shut the door and walked down the short hall to the sitting room and entered. A bed had been made on the couch, but his nephew Stephan was still dressed.