He snapped his fingers, and two SS orderlies walked in with a heavy object draped with a white cloth. “A gift for the Fuhrer. From the Monastery of the Taborian Light in Meteora.”
The orderlies snapped the canvas away to reveal the great golden Templar Globe.
Hitler stood back, surprised and awed. He walked over and closely examined it, a bit fearful. “Striking,” said the Fuhrer. “This was taken from the Zu den drei Weltkugeln?”
“From the Lodge of the Three Globes, yes,” the Baron replied. “But it is far older than old Prussian Freemasonry. The monks in Greece believe it is one of three globes that once graced King Solomon’s Temple. Would you like it kept here or stored with the other icons?”
Hitler didn’t answer; he simply stared at the globe. “This is what I saw in my dreams. I am sure of it. Another sign, Reichsfuhrer.”
Von Berg was wary of whatever bizarre new tangent the Fuhrer was embarking on. Hitler’s physician, Dr. Karl Brandt, attributed his constant fatigue to stress. Von Berg would not have been so generous with his diagnosis. It was at Brandt’s urgings that Hitler set up his headquarters at Obersalzberg in March in the first place, allegedly for a three-month vacation. Now overwork and isolation had made him more exhausted and irritable than ever. This, more than anything, thought von Berg, would explain the fascination with miracle texts and a search for some divine deliverance.
“A sign?” von Berg repeated. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“Come, I’ll tell you as we stroll to the Eagle’s Nest,” Hitler told him. “I have a surprise waiting for you there-Professor Xaptz.”
“Professor Xaptz?”
“A specialist in ancient Greek literature that the Reichsfuhrer has found. He has solved the riddle of the Maranatha text.”
17
P rofessor Xaptz was a small man with round spectacles and dubious credentials. He had been recommended to Himmler by one of Hitler’s most despicable and corrupt supporters from the old days, a fanatical Jew-hater named Julius Streicher. The professor’s high-pitched, nervous laugh rose above the clatter of teacups, coffee, and assorted cakes now being served in Hitler’s teahouse, a twenty-minute walk from the Berghof and perched on one of Hitler’s favorite lookout points over the Berchtesgaden Valley.
A few minutes later, after Hitler, Himmler, and Baron von Berg had settled into their easy chairs around the coffee table, Professor Xaptz began:
“As you know, I have been charged by the Reichsfuhrer with unearthing and protecting the ancient history of our Aryan civilization. This mission has taken me to the ends of the earth, even Antarctica, where General von Berg established a submarine ice base for the Reich.”
Von Berg flinched at the mention of Antarctica, seething once again at the memory of the ridiculous expedition that had cost him two crew members and several months of his life.
Professor Xaptz was part of a team of archaeologists and “scholars” that Himmler had sent to Antarctica to prove Hitler’s master race theory, specifically the fantastical idea that the Nazis descended from the First Race-the mythological Atlanteans. They and their doomed city were first described in the fourth century B.C. by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, who himself allegedly relied on source material dating well before the ancient Egyptians.
It was all pure fiction, of course, but the money, manpower, and military support that were being diverted from the war were not.
Yet, despite the Nazi occupation of Greece and access to all the pre-Greek Minoan ruins he could ask for, Professor Xaptz had not been able to show any hard evidence to support his wild speculations. So it didn’t surprise von Berg that Xaptz would resort to turning the Fuhrer’s attention to Antarctica, where any ruins would be impossible to find, much less unearthed two miles beneath the ice, but which was as fertile ground as any for wild speculation and pseudoscience.
Von Berg had been forced to lay claim to the entire ice continent for the Reich by establishing a secret submarine base in East Antarctica, from which Xaptz and his ilk “worked” for three weeks. The only good that came of it for von Berg was an ideal locale to stash some of the army’s unstable biotoxins so that they could not infect and destroy Germany before the Allies even landed.
Meanwhile, Xaptz had creatively established the idea of a “chain of knowledge” from the Atlanteans to the Nazi SS. This chain started with the Atlanteans and moved on to the Minoans, Egyptians, Greeks, Knights Templar, and Freemasons-all of them clay vessels to hold the enlightened knowledge of Atlantis. At the end of this line-beyond the 33rd Degree of the Masons-lay the knowledge of “First Time,” which in turn contained secrets of the “end times” upon which rested Hitler’s vision of a Thousand-Year Reich.
Again, a huge distraction from the war and impending Allied invasion with real ships, guns, and tanks. And now once again they were entertaining this charlatan with their attention.
“For the past few weeks I have had the honor of serving under the Reichsfuhrer to examine the Maranatha text as represented by a captured enemy microfilm. The text claims the apostolic authority of Paul and predicts the end of the world. As there is no papyrus for me to date, I have had to rely on content alone to determine the text’s authenticity. Nevertheless, I have completed a preliminary analysis and made some remarkable discoveries.”
He produced a marked-up enlargement of the microfilm. “The Book of Revelation tells us that the celestial armies of Christ will gather in the Valley of Megiddo. That’s in present-day Palestine, now occupied by the Allies. The Maranatha text says as much and implies that the most likely point of entry into Fortress Europe from these invasion forces will be Greece, repeating the spread of Christianity two thousand years ago.”
“I told you, Reichsfuhrer!” Hitler said to Himmler. “I was sure of it!”
Von Berg looked at Himmler and then eyed Xaptz incredulously. “How on earth did you arrive at such a convenient deduction?”
“I’ll show you.” Xaptz pointed to letters he had circled in the text. “By skipping certain letters, we see certain words appear-”
“Excuse me,” interrupted von Berg, turning to Hitler. “Why should the good professor be searching for encoded words in an ancient document? What sort of scholarship is this?”
“Explain it to him, Herr Professor,” Hitler said, waving his hand.
Xaptz frowned at von Berg. “Down through the centuries, there has been considerable debate in the Judeo-Christian tradition as to whether the Bible is literally inspired by God, word for word, letter for letter. Some Orthodox Jewish researchers, most notably Dr. David Stein, have gone so far as to search for encoded messages throughout Scripture that defy human explanation. By skipping letters in the Book of Genesis, for example, the Hebrew name for God, Elohim, appears 147 times. Because the probability of that happening by chance is about one in two million, the premise is that the Book of Genesis is divinely inspired.”
“Do you personally believe this?” von Berg asked Xaptz.
“The consensus among many biblical scholars is that an editor pieced together the Book of Genesis from several ancient sources, known as the D, P, E, and J documents,” Xaptz told von Berg, then turned to Hitler. “Of course, my Fuhrer, this documentary hypothesis collapses if the present findings hold up.”
“This is all very interesting, Herr Professor,” said von Berg, “but what bearing could it possibly have upon the course of the war?”
Professor Xaptz’s response was defiant. “The ninth chapter of the Book of Esther refers to the hanging of the ten sons of Haman. They were enemies of the Jews. Hidden among their names is the Hebrew date for 1946: Judgment Day, if you will. I would think any reference to the twentieth century is quite relevant.”