Jurgen was admiring himself in the mirror.
He tugged lightly at his lapels, decorated with a skull and the insignia of the SS. He never tired of looking at himself in his new uniform. Walter Heck’s design and the excellent workmanship of clothier Hugo Boss, highly celebrated in the society press, inspired reverence in everyone who saw it. When Jurgen walked down the street, children would stand to attention and raise their arm in salute. The previous week a couple of old ladies had stopped him and told him how lovely it was to see strong, healthy young men getting Germany back on track. They asked if he’d lost his eye fighting the Communists. Pleased by this, Jurgen had helped them carry their shopping bags to a nearby doorway.
At that moment there was a knock at the door.
“Come in.”
“You look good,” said his mother, coming into the large bedroom.
“I know.”
“Are you eating with us today?”
“I don’t think so, Mama. I’ve been called to a meeting at the Security Service.”
“No doubt they want to recommend you for a promotion. You’ve been an Untersturmfuhrer for too long now.”
Jurgen nodded cheerfully and picked up his cap.
“The car’s waiting for you at the door. I’ll tell the cook to prepare something for you in case you’re back early.”
“Thanks, Mama,” said Jurgen, kissing Brunhilda on the forehead. He went out into the corridor, his black boots echoing loudly on the marble steps. A maid was waiting with his overcoat in the entrance hall.
Ever since Otto and his cards had disappeared from their lives eleven years earlier, their economic situation had gradually been improving. An army of servants was once again attending to the day-to-day running of the mansion, though Jurgen was now head of the household.
“Will you be coming back for dinner, sir?”
Jurgen inhaled sharply when he heard her use that mode of address. It always happened whenever he was nervous and unsettled, as he was that morning. The most trivial of details disturbed his icy exterior and exposed the storm of conflicts that raged inside him.
“The baroness will give you instructions.”
Soon they’ll start addressing me by my proper title, he thought as he stepped out onto the street. His hands were shaking slightly. Fortunately he had folded his overcoat over his arm, so the driver did not notice when he opened the door for him.
In the past, Jurgen had been able to channel his impulses through violence; but since the Nazi Party’s election victories the previous year, the undesirable factions had become more cautious. Every day Jurgen found it harder to control himself. On the journey he tried to breathe slowly. He didn’t want to arrive agitated and nervous.
Especially if I’m going to be promoted, as Mama says.
“Frankly, my dear Schroeder, you give me grave doubts.”
“Doubts, sir?”
“Doubts concerning your loyalty.”
Jurgen noticed his hand had started to shake again and he had to squeeze his knuckles hard to get it under control.
The meeting room was completely empty apart from Reinhard Heydrich and himself. The head of the Reich Main Security Office, the intelligence organ of the Nazi Party, was a tall man with a clear brow, just a couple of months older than Jurgen. In spite of his youth, he’d become one of the most powerful men in Germany. His organization was tasked with discovering threats-real or imaginary-to the party. Jurgen had heard that on the day they interviewed him for the job,
Heinrich Himmler had asked Heydrich how he would organize a Nazi intelligence agency, and Heydrich had replied with a rehash of all the spy novels he’d ever read. The Reich Main Security Office was already feared throughout Germany, though whether this owed more to cheap fiction or innate talent was unclear.
“Why do you say that, sir?”
Heydrich put his hand on a folder in front of him, which bore Jurgen’s name.
“You started out in the SA during the early days of the movement. That’s fine, it’s interesting. Surprising, though, that someone of your… lineage should ask specifically for a place in an SA battalion. And then there are the recurring episodes of violence reported by your superiors. I’ve consulted a psychologist about you. .. and he suggests that you might have a serious personality disorder. Still, that’s not a crime in itself, though it might”-he emphasized the “might” with a half smile and the lifting of his eyebrows-“be a handicap. But now we come to the thing that most concerns me. You were called-like the rest of your Stosstrupp-to attend the special event at the Burgerbraukeller on the eighth of November, 1923. However, you never turned up.”
Heydrich paused, allowing his last words to float in the air. Jurgen began to sweat. After the election victories, the Nazis had begun, slowly and systematically, to take vengeance on anyone who’d obstructed the 1923 uprising, thus delaying Hitler’s rise to power by a year. For years Jurgen had lived in fear that someone would point the finger at him, and it was finally happening.
Heydrich continued, his tone now menacing.
“According to your superior, you did not report to the location of the meeting as you were required to do. However, it would seem that-and I quote-‘Storm Trooper Jurgen von Schroeder was with a squadron of 10th Company on the night of November twenty-third. His shirt was soaked in blood and he claimed to have been attacked by a number of Communists, and that the blood was from one of them, a man he had stabbed. He requested to join the squadron, which was controlled by a police commissioner from the Schwabing district, until the coup was over.’ Is this correct?”
“Down to the last comma, sir.”
“Right. That must be what the investigating commission thought, since they awarded you the party’s gold insignia and the medal of the Blood Order,” said Heydrich, pointing to Jurgen’s chest.
The party’s gold insignia was one of the most sought-after decorations in Germany. It was made up of a Nazi flag shaped into a circle surrounded by a laurel wreath in gold. It distinguished those members of the party who had signed up before Hitler’s victory in 1933. Until that day, the Nazis had had to recruit people to join their ranks. From that day on, endless queues formed at the party’s headquarters. Not everybody was granted the privilege.
As for the Blood Order, it was the most valuable medal in the Reich. The only people to wear it were those who had taken part in the 1923 coup d’etat, which had come to a tragic end with the death of sixteen Nazis at the hands of the police. It was a decoration even Heydrich didn’t wear.
“I do wonder,” continued the head of the Reich Main Security Office, tapping his lips with the edge of the file, “whether we oughtn’t open a commission of inquiry into you, my friend.”
“That wouldn’t be necessary, sir,” said Jurgen in a whisper, knowing just how brief and decisive commissions of inquiry tended to be these days.
“No? The most recent reports, started when the SA was absorbed by the SS, say you have been somewhat ‘cool in the carrying out of your duty,’ that there’s ‘a lack of involvement’… Shall I go on?”
“That’s because I’ve been kept off the streets, sir!”
“It’s possible, then, that other people are concerned about you?”
“I assure you, sir, my commitment is absolute.”
“Well, then, there is one way you can regain the trust of this office.”
Finally the penny was about to drop. Heydrich had summoned Jurgen with a proposition in mind. He wanted something from him, and that was why he’d piled on such pressure from the start. He probably had no idea what Jurgen had been doing that night in 1923, but what Heydrich did or didn’t know didn’t matter: his word was law.
“I’ll do anything, sir,” Jurgen said, already a little calmer.
“Well, then, Jurgen. I can call you Jurgen, can’t I?”
“Of course, sir,” he said, swallowing his anger that the other man was not returning the courtesy.
“Have you heard about Freemasonry, Jurgen?”
“Of course. My father was a member of a lodge when he was young. I think he soon tired of it.”
Heydrich nodded. It didn’t come as a surprise to him, and Jurgen deduced that he’d already known.
“Since we took power, the Masons have been… actively discouraged.”
“I know, sir,” said Jurgen, smiling at the euphemism. In Mein Kampf, a book every German had read-and had on display at home, if they knew what was good for them-Hitler had pronounced his visceral hatred of Masonry.
“A good number of the lodges have dissolved voluntarily or reorganized. Those particular lodges were of little significance to us, as they were all Prussian, with Aryan members and nationalist tendencies. Having dissolved voluntarily and handed over their member lists, no measures have been taken against them… for the moment.”
“I gather, then, that some lodges are still troubling you, sir?”
“It is quite clear to us that many lodges have remained active, the so-called humanitarian lodges. The bulk of their members are of a liberal bent, Jews, that sort of thing…”
“Why don’t you simply ban them, sir?”
“Jurgen, Jurgen,” said Heydrich in a patronizing tone, “that would only hinder their activity, at best. As long as they retain a scrap of hope, they will continue to meet and talk about their compasses and squares and all that Judaic rubbish. What I want is each of their names on a little fourteen-by-seven card.”
Heydrich’s little cards were famous throughout the party. A vast room next to his office in Berlin stored information on those considered “undesirable” by the party: Communists, homosexuals, Jews, Masons, and generally anyone inclined to comment that the Fuhrer seemed a little tired in his speech today. Whenever someone was denounced, a new card would join the other tens of thousands. The fate of those who appeared on the cards was as yet unknown.
“If Masonry were banned, they’d simply go underground like rats.”
“Precisely!” said Heydrich, smacking his hand down on the desk. He leaned in toward Jurgen and said in a confidential tone: “Tell me, do you know why we want the names of this rabble?”
“Because Masonry is a puppet of the international Jewish conspiracy. It’s well known that bankers like Rothschild and-”
A huge guffaw interrupted Jurgen’s impassioned speech. Seeing the face of the baron’s son fall, the head of State Security restrained himself.
“Don’t parrot the Volkischer Beobachter editorials back to me, Jurgen. I helped write them myself.”
“But, sir, the Fuhrer says-”
“I have to wonder how far the dagger that took your eye went in, my friend,” said Heydrich, studying his features.
“Sir, there’s no need to be offensive,” said Jurgen, furious and confused.
Heydrich flashed an ominous smile.
“You’re full of spirit, Jurgen. But that passion must be governed by reason. Do me a favor, don’t become one of those sheep bleating at demonstrations. Allow me to give you a little lesson in our history.” Heydrich stood up and began to walk around the large table. “In 1917, the Bolsheviks dissolved all the lodges in Russia. In 1919, Bela Kun got rid of all the Masons in Hungary. In 1925, Primo de Rivera banned lodges in Spain. That year Mussolini did the same in Italy. His Blackshirts dragged the Masons out of bed in the middle of the night and beat them to death in the streets. An instructive example, don’t you think?”
Jurgen nodded, surprised. He knew nothing about this.
“As you can see,” Heydrich continued, “the first act of any strong government that intends to remain in power is to get rid of-among others-the Masons. And not because they’re following orders about some hypothetical Jewish conspiracy: they do it because people who think for themselves cause a great deal of trouble.”
“What exactly do you want from me, sir?”
“I want you to infiltrate the Masons. I’ll give you good enough contacts. You’re an aristocrat, and your father belonged to a lodge some years back, so they’ll accept you without too much fuss. Your aim will be to get hold of the list of members. I want the name of every Mason in Bavaria.”
“Will I have carte blanche, sir?”
“Unless you hear anything to the contrary, yes. Wait here a moment.”
Heydrich walked to the door, opened it, and barked a couple of instructions to an adjutant sitting on a bench in the corridor. The subordinate clicked his heels and returned a few moments later with another young man dressed in outdoor clothes.
“Come in, Adolf, come in. My dear Jurgen, allow me to introduce you to Adolf Eichmann. He’s a very promising young man who’s working at our Dachau camp. He specializes in, shall we say… extrajudicial affairs.”
“A pleasure,” said Jurgen, extending his hand. “So you’re the man who finds his way around the law, eh?”
“Likewise. And yes, sometimes we have to bend the rules a little, if we’re ever to hand Germany back to its rightful owners,” Eichmann said, smiling.
“Adolf has requested to join my office, and I’m inclined to make the move easy for him, but first I’d like him to work alongside you for a few months. All the information you obtain you’ll deliver to him, and he will be responsible for making sense of it. And when you complete this task, I believe I will be able to send you to Berlin, on a mission of greater magnitude.”